<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Great Distribution
Review: I like this distribution now that it is up and running on one of my two computers. However, what it took to get it up and running is a lesson in cutting your teeth on Linux.When I first tried to install it on a three year old computer with integrated video on the motherboard, it wouldn't recognize the mouse. Not at all. I found a patch to run from the boot floppy and it still wouldn't recognize the mouse. What was infuriating, about an operating system that is supposed to have fall backs, was that (apparently) only a graphical installation was available and you HAVE to have a mouse to select your partition and boot point. So I was dead in the water. I tried installing other distros on this troublesome motherboard and some worked and some didn't. All did, however, recognize the mouse. Caldera installed the most smoothly, but kept crashing (is this really Linux?). So I got a new computer at a do it yourself place. Guess what? Neither Mandrake nor Caldera would install on the new, especially selected for Linux machine! I left the machine overnight and lo and behold, the tech guy had Windows and Linux both running on it! The version he used was Mandrake. So I can't claim to have ever successfully installed Mandrake (I tried again last week on a computer at the office, but the integrated motherboard video - 810 chipset - stymied the installation.) However, from what I have seen on the new computer, Mandrake is great! It has a wide variety of windows managers to play with (not just KDE and Gnome) and the system administration tools are good). I like it - I just haven't been able to install it (on admittedly "not ready for Linux" hardware). What I am trying to say is that some distros work better than others with weird hardware. Caldera and Suse have worked well for me. Some distros are so manual you can at least get them running and tweak them later (Slacware and Debian). BUT I think all distro's should have a manual installation fall back. Caldera has this. So I give Mandrake 5 stars for being great when installed, but caution that it is not for Costco mass market boxes. Make sure you have a supported video card and real modem, and a printer that isn't a winmodem (all of which apply to the other distros as well).
Rating:
Summary: Excellant
Review: This is without a doubt the best version of Linux to use. It's as close to Windows as you can get. If you want a stable Windows alternative then get this version. It's for the beginner and the advanced person.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant
Review: This is without a doubt the best version of Linux to use. It's as close to Windows as you can get. If you want a stable Windows alternative then get this version. It's for the beginner and the advanced person.
<< 1 >>
| 
