[TriLUG] Mandrake 8.1 out in Beta

[Daniel T. Chen]

One word: solid.

I'm a Debian user, but for ResNet "rush" I needed a laptop capable of
running the Remedy problem tracking client, so just this once I bypassed
Deb and chose the Mandrake 8.1 beta, Raklet. The setup is slick and works
quite well, offering you partioning choices between jfs, ext3, and
reiserfs journaling filesystems (I chose reiserfs for the thinkpad 
600x). This is after choosing the "expert" install with both cds. The
package selection is pretty fine-tuned in the "expert" mode but still
retains the "big" choices that the "recommended" install option
has. XFree86 4.1.0 worked great out of the box with the neomagic chipset,
and the crystal audio sound chipset was also detected properly. And unlike
Red Hat's latest 7.1.93 beta, the etherjet pcmcia nic was detected
properly after starting pcmcia services, so I actually have a working net
connection via dhcp. Tomorrow is "let's see how the cisco 350" holds up,
so I should be able to report on installing wireless soon. Oh, and apm
works properly, too: closing the laptop monitor suspends cardbus services,
and opening it back up resumes them. Nice. :) (Ya have to realize the last
time I installed a Linux distro on a laptop was circa RH 6.2)

I'd still like to get Debian running on the thinkpad 600x, but for now,
Mandrake 8.1 beta will do right nicely. Thanks again to the folks @iBiblio
for hosting a kickass mirror. =)

---
Dan Chen                 crimsun at email.unc.edu
GPG key: www.cs.unc.edu/~chenda/pubkey.gpg.asc

On Mon, 20 Aug 2001, Jon Carnes wrote:

> OOopps.  Scanning my huge hoard of mail, I can see that Sinner scooped me by a half a week!  Well, I'm still on the road with the kids, and loving every minute of it!  Anyone who has installed the Beta, let me know what you think.  I'll be back next week and ready to try it out - Mandake Junkie that I am.