Greetings and Salutations,

I've been searching the web and crawling through newsgroups for about
2 months doing some homework on Linux. I've read a couple of books on
Unix and Linux and tinkered with a RedHat and tinylinux setup.
Although I do intend to purchase a distro and dive right in, I'm torn
between two distros that look great as far as polish and productivity
and seem to have strong support in the community (very important).
Being fed and raised on DOS and Windows, it's the proverbial
'end-of-the-line' for the MS train on my PCs.

Two years of tweaking Windows 98 and Me down to 1 crash / 3 days has
just about strung me out. And if the biggest computer virus of all
time (windows) accuses of me any more illegal anything, i'll need to
replace my monitor - again. :-> It's a noticeable phenomenon that in
every computer i've built and configured with windows, the lifespan
seems to be 2-4 years before it becomes utterly intolerable to even
turn the power on or wake it up from it's nap. That's not
instability, that's infestation. That's a lifespan related to some
mysterious killer disease. But anywho, on to more important things.
That's some unofficial data from an unofficial OEM shop...

I have no particular attachment to windows, i think all the versions
have been the equivalent of a shiny new car that you have to bring to
the shop twice a week and wax twice a day - and that's being cordial.
So I will only dual-boot to insure that all the hardware works
appropriately before gleefully eradicating Windows with my 'P-36
explosive space-modulator'...

****

I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one
of those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one
that any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on
experience from the Linuxites in the trenches...

*****

Thanks in advance....
Matt D.


Here is my home setup, if this helps :

Gigabyte 7ixe4 m/b
AMD 1.3ghz Duron CPU
256mb SDRAM
Nvidia geforce2 mx400 64mb pci graphics card
sblive 5.1 x-gamer sound card
54x cdrom
40x20x48x samsung cdrw
10gb w.d. 7200rpm ide harddrive
20gb 7200rpm ide harddrive
56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem
(not sure which would work best)

Report this post to a moderator

mentored1@yahoo.com (Matthew) writes:

]Greetings and Salutations,

]I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
]or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
]opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one
]of those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
]weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one
]that any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on
]experience from the Linuxites in the trenches...

Mandrake works well in general. Sometimes has some problems in
particular. Mandrake 9.0 should be upgraded by installing the 2.4.20
kernel after you have installed the system.

Comes with lots of programs. Installation is reasonable straightforward.



]Gigabyte 7ixe4 m/b
]AMD 1.3ghz Duron CPU
]256mb SDRAM
]Nvidia geforce2 mx400 64mb pci graphics card
]sblive 5.1 x-gamer sound card
No idea on the above.

]54x cdrom
]40x20x48x samsung cdrw

Need to make this drive ide-scsi if Mandrake does not do it for y ou.
(Also true on SUSE) Edit /etc/lilo.conf, look for a line that starts
append= and insert
hdc=ide-scsi
into the other options on that append line.
Then after that run the command
lilo


( If the CDRW is not the first drive on the second ide bus-- hdc-- then
put in the correct one (hda= master on first bus, hdb=slave on first
bus, hdc=master on second bus, hdd=slave on second bus)


]10gb w.d. 7200rpm ide harddrive
]20gb 7200rpm ide harddrive
]56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem
](not sure which would work best)

Probably the external, but if the internal is a hardware modem (not one
which needed a driver under Windows to work), then it should be fine as
well.

Report this post to a moderator

Your problem with the MS OS is that you never graduated to a real NOS like W2K or WXP. As long as you remain in the W9.x realm, bad things will happen. This being said, I run WinMe on my gaming machine and I rarely have to reboot it. I am not sure why you have to reboot yours every 3 days. That sounds a bit excessive.

This being said, Linux is a great OS. It can be extremely frustrating, but if you stick with it, it is more flexible. If you can deal with that sort of Linux Hell then it is worth the ride.

I like Mandrake myself. I found it great as a desktop OS and as a firewall among other things. I do not have enough experience with Suse to comment.

__________________
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Tue, 10 Dec 2002 10:57 am will from hence forward be known as the day Matthew
blabbered:

[... blah blah blah - i couldnt agree more ...]

> I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
> or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
> opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one
> of those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
> weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one
> that any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on
> experience from the Linuxites in the trenches...

Use Mandrake its more "free"
Pros:
- Very easy to install and works out of box.
- Has millions of little useful applications and will do whatever you want
- etc.. etc..

Cons:
- Somewhat bloated. But thats nothing a kernel recompile wont fix.

You are very well read OP considering that you made the point that using a
distro that you like the best, makes it the best for you aswell. Thank you
for doing your homework.

> Nvidia geforce2 mx400 64mb pci graphics card

Make sure you get hold of the nVidia drivers off their site once you
have mandrake up and running. They are a must for any nVidia Linux
experience.

> 40x20x48x samsung cdrw

Will require ide-scsi support for burning.
Mandrake install will set this up, do not worry.

> 56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem

I would use the external. They will always work.
Modern internals have many many problems...

--
Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.

Registered Linux User 282072
<www.volutin.net -- everything irrelevant>

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On Mon, 09 Dec 2002 13:57:20 -0200, Matthew wrote:



> I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
> or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
> opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one of
> those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
> weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one that
> any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on experience
> from the Linuxites in the trenches...

First of all, compared to many of the people on this NG I'm not too
bright. I've been using Linux for a year now and still wonder things like
"How do I set my PATH?" and "What do I do with a .src rpm!?!?". Pretty
much the archtypical end user!

I started using Linux last fall when Windows managed to screw up my hard
drive so bad I couldn't get anything going again even with my OEM's
half-XXX "restore" disk. I had been quietly reading about Linux and wanted
to try it so I took the opportunity in hand and went to a friend's place
and used his broadband connection to download the 3 Mandrake 8.0 install
discs. After using 8.0 for awhile (about 5,6 months) I drifted over to
SuSE. Well, after 6 months of SuSE, I'm going back to Mandrake!
Haha..here's the pros and cons of both, to my mind:

Hardware - I'll give SuSE a slight, slight edge on hardware detection
during the install. They seem to work really hard on making sure their
stuff works on hardware I've never heard of. That being said, checking
your hardware I don't see anything that exotic so I don't think you'll
have a problem.

System maintenance - one of the reasons I wanted to at least try SuSE was
because I kept hearing about the wonders of Yast2, which turned out to be
quite the anti-climax when I started using it. In my uninformed opinion,
Mandrake's various control centers (HardDrake, MenuDrake, et cetera) are
easier to navigate and accomplish your system tasks than the monolithic
Yast2. Yast2 probably DOES do everything Mandrake's tools do, but it's
occasionally tricky to figure out how to make it go.

RPMs! Both use rpms. I'll tell you how this goes - you'll find some
program that looks really cool, say it's arson which is a KDE burning
frontend. You'll type "arson linux SuSE rpm" in google and... nothing
useful will come up. You type "arson linux rpm mandrake" and instantly
there it is! Mandrake rpms are listed on rpmfind.net and constantly
updated while SuSE...I don't know why they aren't, they're on the SuSE
website and sometimes useful, sometimes not. I'm REALLY missing the
convenience of rpm find on my SuSE system.

Online updating - okay, with Mandrake 8.0 the online patch update just
didn't work. Yast2's online update/patching worked _sometimes_ - there's a
pretty small list of ftp servers and I found it difficult to get stuff
occasionally, but I got in at least once, which is more than I can say for
Mandrake. However, I hear Mandrake's got their act together a little
better for 9, so we'll see how that goes. Oh, and the last time I did a
Yast2 update on SuSE I found my kde network tools (stuff like the program
that runs the modem) didn't work at all! I had to uninstall the newly
downloaded "patch" and reinstall the original software! ARGHHHHHH!

How the hell are they laying out their systems - when I first got Mandrake
I found I could download source code for complex applications like mplayer
and lame and they'd pretty much work right off the bat. With SuSE I needed
a crash course in .configure -help and even then it never went smooth
(never did get mplayer working). Something I heard from someone wiser than
I is SuSE is a good, robust system as long as you stick to SuSE rpms and
such - it doesn't like you straying off the beaten path. Mandrake seemed
to be able to take a little wackiness as I recall.

> 56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem (not
> sure which would work best)

The chunkiest, sturdiest hardware modem is the way to go - use the
external. My original internal modem was a piece of crap winmodem so when
I went to replace it I asked a Linux guru what to get and he said "I've
never heard of a parallel port modem NOT working in Linux" so that's what
I got, and it's a dream (Elsa Microlink er somethin' like that). I imagine
the serialport would be right up there (but stay away from usb modems for
now, I think).

--
"Do I look like a motherXXXXer?"
-Grant Hart
www.benalto.com
http://cdrtrades.benalto.com (boot tradin')

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Matthew wrote:

> Greetings and Salutations,
>
> I've been searching the web and crawling through newsgroups for about
> 2 months doing some homework on Linux. I've read a couple of books on
> Unix and Linux and tinkered with a RedHat and tinylinux setup.
> Although I do intend to purchase a distro and dive right in, I'm torn
> between two distros that look great as far as polish and productivity
> and seem to have strong support in the community (very important).
> Being fed and raised on DOS and Windows, it's the proverbial
> 'end-of-the-line' for the MS train on my PCs.
>
> Two years of tweaking Windows 98 and Me down to 1 crash / 3 days has
> just about strung me out. And if the biggest computer virus of all
> time (windows) accuses of me any more illegal anything, i'll need to
> replace my monitor - again. :-> It's a noticeable phenomenon that in
> every computer i've built and configured with windows, the lifespan
> seems to be 2-4 years before it becomes utterly intolerable to even
> turn the power on or wake it up from it's nap. That's not
> instability, that's infestation. That's a lifespan related to some
> mysterious killer disease. But anywho, on to more important things.
> That's some unofficial data from an unofficial OEM shop...
>
> I have no particular attachment to windows, i think all the versions
> have been the equivalent of a shiny new car that you have to bring to
> the shop twice a week and wax twice a day - and that's being cordial.
> So I will only dual-boot to insure that all the hardware works
> appropriately before gleefully eradicating Windows with my 'P-36
> explosive space-modulator'...
>
> ****
>
> I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
> or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
> opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one
> of those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
> weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one
> that any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on
> experience from the Linuxites in the trenches...
>
> *****
>
> Thanks in advance....
> Matt D.
>
>
> Here is my home setup, if this helps :
>
> Gigabyte 7ixe4 m/b
> AMD 1.3ghz Duron CPU
> 256mb SDRAM
> Nvidia geforce2 mx400 64mb pci graphics card
> sblive 5.1 x-gamer sound card
> 54x cdrom
> 40x20x48x samsung cdrw
> 10gb w.d. 7200rpm ide harddrive
> 20gb 7200rpm ide harddrive
> 56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem
> (not sure which would work best)

I'm not actually sure what to tell you. I use SuSe and I like it. I don't
know if I'd like Red Hat and Mandrake just as well, but I suppose I would.
Except for the installation program, Linux is Linux. OpenOffice.org on one
is the same as it is on the others.

I've found Linux to be much more stable than Windows. Right now I haven't
rebooted in 15 days, which to some people would be nothing. But I tend to
turn mine off quite a bit because I one time had a computer zapped by
lightning. Twice I've gone over a month. Some people report times of over a
year. But I'm a writer using a stand-alone machine, not a network. Desktop
machines tend to be more unstable because of all the different programs
running.

My main reasons to stay with Linux have to do with security, lack of onerous
licenses and that I really like some of the programs. I use it because I
prefer it, not that it just isn't Windows. Unlike a lot of people in this
group, I don't HATE Windows as a program. I just prefer Linux.

I have to confess I have some personal problems with "activating" programs.
Last year I saw a Euchre card game program in a store for $10. It was a
Windows version but I really like Euchre so I bought it, hoping to get it
to work under WINE. I started it up and a splash screen came on ordering me
to contact the company to activate it. I took it out of the CD drive and
put it back in the box. Just the thought of "activating" something I'd paid
for made me ill.

As far as your three days on Windows. That's about what I got. I started to
do pre-emptive rebooting every few hours to keep it from crashing. But
still, about every three days it would lock up solid. Some of the lockups,
I learned later, were from faulty hardware. But I still feel better off now
then before.

That's not the say that Linux can't crash, it will, but you just don't
accept it as a normal part of your work load. Actual system crashes are
rare. It's more common to have an unstable program fold up with the rest of
the system working. I avoid those programs. I didn't buy a computer to make
more problems for myself.

There are some places where Windows is better than Linux. But on the whole,
I'm glad I switched.

(Think I got a little off topic.)

Anyway, Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSe should all do you a good job. You should
check your equipment against a list on their web sites. Linux doesn't
support all BRANDS of equipment, though it supports all types. I believe
you'll have to get the drivers for your graphics card from Nvidia.

The version I have is SuSe 8.0 Professional from which I use KDE 3.0 as my
desktop. Oddly, it doesn't recognize my scanner, though the SuSe 7.1
Professional did (I may have to reinstall but I've been avoiding that for
obvious reasons). I went with more expensive Professional because it came
with more programs--around 2,500--and had a longer phone support period.
SuSe has been acclaimed for the extensive printed documetation it comes
with. The newest version is 8.1.

I'm not sure I answered your questions. Hope I helped somewhat.

--Rod




--
To reply by e-mail, take the extra "o" out of my e-mail address. It's to
confuse spambots, of course.

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On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:48:10 +0000, roodwriter@core.com wrote:

[snip]

>
> The version I have is SuSe 8.0 Professional from which I use KDE 3.0 as my
> desktop. Oddly, it doesn't recognize my scanner, though the SuSe 7.1
> Professional did (I may have to reinstall but I've been avoiding that for
> obvious reasons). I went with more expensive Professional because it came


I'm just curious what scanner you use. I've had a similar issue, and was
wondering if maybe it would be recognized under a different distro.

Z

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freak <freak.ffegf@mail.examnotes.net> wrote in message news:<freak.ffegf@mail.examnotes.net>...
> Your problem with the MS OS is that you never graduated to a real NOS
> like W2K or WXP. As long as you remain in the W9.x realm, bad things
> will happen. This being said, I run WinMe on my gaming machine and I
> rarely have to reboot it. I am not sure why you have to reboot yours
> every 3 days. That sounds a bit excessive.

*******

From my previous post, I can understand where you get that assumption
from - apologies for muddying the waters. I have tried every MS OS
out thus far on either a home or work system - believe it or not, I
prefer Win98/Me. WinXP is too overkill and I cannot afford (nor
anyone I assist in computer upgrades, etc) to buy a new OS / license
and new hardware... Win XP seems to be a great improvement over 9x
types in stability, but it is the boggiest and hoggiest versions I
could have ever envisioned. I'll take performance and simplicity over
the gobs of bloatation in XP anyday.

* 1 reboot / 3 days sounds excessive? Hmmmm... Windows must like you!
I'm a bit obsessive, however, so the minute my system starts to bog
down or accuse me of illegal operations / fatal exceptions, I tend to
just restart the machine. Even people's machine I've never touched
have told me they consider errors and lock-ups a normal, casual
occurence with windows.... I think folks that experience stability and
good performance with windows are the exception and not the rule. I
guess it depends on the number of background programs running and the
number of intense applications one has... but who really knows when MS
won't show us what's behind the 'code-veil'.*

* The old stuff runs great and there's no need to upgrade something
that is running great. That was one of the great turn-ons for me
regarding Linux - it's ability to run on a greater variety of hardware
and there seems to be a distro for any type of machine out there...
My test runs with tinylinux and RedHat 7.3 on a 233mhz k6/2 and 133mhz
pentium have been surprising. I'd love to try and test performance and
stability of win98/Me or even XP on either of those... Impressive to
say the least... *

> This being said, Linux is a great OS. It can be extremely frustrating,
> but if you stick with it, it is more flexible. If you can deal with
> that sort of 'Linux Hell' (www.linuxhell.com) then it is worth the
> ride.
>
> I like Mandrake myself. I found it great as a desktop OS and as a
> firewall among other things. I do not have enough experience with Suse
> to comment.

*************

I suppose that Linuxhell can't be that much worse than MS-Hell for
somebody willing to learn and having no fear of fudging up... I
learned hardware by buying and breaking over $1,500 in second-hand
equipment. :-> Best experience money can buy.

Thanks for the comments! I appreciate the information...

> ---
> View this thread: http://www.examnotes.net/article85146.html
> freak - Moderator
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> freak's Profile: http://www.examnotes.net/forums/mem...nfo&userid=1778

Report this post to a moderator

***********

First off, I thank you folks very much for the information, you
provided exactly what I was looking for - plus some bonus setup
information I might run into... Appreciate the quick response.

Secondly, I am surprised at the higher recommendation of Mandrake over
SuSe. I have examined both and aside from user experience, it would
seem SuSe has an edge in both refinement and polish. It also seems
SuSe has a stronger company prescense (not neccessarily good for the
open source arena) than Mandrake does.

I am grateful for the input and it has made me rethink my stance, I
was leaning heavily towards SuSe, but I may have to take a second-look
at Mandrake... Unfortunately I only have dial-up so I can't download
and try anything... that is just too painful...

Again, thank you for the input...



mentored1@yahoo.com (Matthew) wrote in message news:<e81e5964.0212091557.3ee09104@posting.google.com>...
> Greetings and Salutations,
>
> I've been searching the web and crawling through newsgroups for about
> 2 months doing some homework on Linux. I've read a couple of books on
> Unix and Linux and tinkered with a RedHat and tinylinux setup.
> Although I do intend to purchase a distro and dive right in, I'm torn
> between two distros that look great as far as polish and productivity
> and seem to have strong support in the community (very important).
> Being fed and raised on DOS and Windows, it's the proverbial
> 'end-of-the-line' for the MS train on my PCs.
>
> Two years of tweaking Windows 98 and Me down to 1 crash / 3 days has
> just about strung me out. And if the biggest computer virus of all
> time (windows) accuses of me any more illegal anything, i'll need to
> replace my monitor - again. :-> It's a noticeable phenomenon that in
> every computer i've built and configured with windows, the lifespan
> seems to be 2-4 years before it becomes utterly intolerable to even
> turn the power on or wake it up from it's nap. That's not
> instability, that's infestation. That's a lifespan related to some
> mysterious killer disease. But anywho, on to more important things.
> That's some unofficial data from an unofficial OEM shop...
>
> I have no particular attachment to windows, i think all the versions
> have been the equivalent of a shiny new car that you have to bring to
> the shop twice a week and wax twice a day - and that's being cordial.
> So I will only dual-boot to insure that all the hardware works
> appropriately before gleefully eradicating Windows with my 'P-36
> explosive space-modulator'...
>
> ****
>
> I would like some feedback from people who have used either SuSe Linux
> or Mandrake Linux on their home PCs and give me an account and an
> opinion (pros and cons would be good) regarding setting up either one
> of those on a home PC. I know that all distros have strengths and
> weaknesses, and I believe the best flavor of Linux would be the one
> that any particular user likes the best - but I value hands-on
> experience from the Linuxites in the trenches...
>
> *****
>
> Thanks in advance....
> Matt D.
>
>
> Here is my home setup, if this helps :
>
> Gigabyte 7ixe4 m/b
> AMD 1.3ghz Duron CPU
> 256mb SDRAM
> Nvidia geforce2 mx400 64mb pci graphics card
> sblive 5.1 x-gamer sound card
> 54x cdrom
> 40x20x48x samsung cdrw
> 10gb w.d. 7200rpm ide harddrive
> 20gb 7200rpm ide harddrive
> 56k internal diamond supramax modem / 56k external serialport modem
> (not sure which would work best)

Report this post to a moderator

Z-Man wrote:

> On Tue, 10 Dec 2002 14:48:10 +0000, roodwriter@core.com wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>
>> The version I have is SuSe 8.0 Professional from which I use KDE 3.0 as
>> my desktop. Oddly, it doesn't recognize my scanner, though the SuSe 7.1
>> Professional did (I may have to reinstall but I've been avoiding that for
>> obvious reasons). I went with more expensive Professional because it came
>
>
> I'm just curious what scanner you use. I've had a similar issue, and was
> wondering if maybe it would be recognized under a different distro.
>
> Z

It's an Epson Perfection 1650. I scanned a grand total of two pictures with
it before I upgraded to 8.0. That works out to about $75 a picture.

I called the SuSe help desk but they had no idea what the problem was,
though they tried. I think it has something to do with the USB programs. So
far the only thing I can see to do is reinstall. I hate to do that, though,
since then I'd have to spend a lot of time resetting my preferences and
rearranging things. But I'll probably be forced to.

--Rod


--
To reply by e-mail, take the extra "o" out of my e-mail address. It's to
confuse spambots, of course.

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