[TriLUG] Mandrake 8.1 installation--Part TWO--the problems! according to Lockergnome's Penguin Shell

[Sinner from the Prairy]

>From: "al johson" <alfjon at mindspring.com>

>Three nagging issues and several smaller ones have arisen since this 
>install
>on Sunday. You'll recall first that I praised the network setup in the
>install process. It was very easy and required only that I know my IP and
>DNS information. Well, that's not quite true. When I booted to the Gnome
>desktop for the first time and opened Galeon, my favorite Linux browser, I
>had no connection to the 'net. During the initial boot, eth0 (the first [0]
>[eth]ernet card) initialized just fine. I know that that's just a hardware
>issue and really has nothing to do with the connection to the Internet, but
>I usually make the assumption, anyway, that I've got a good connection. In
>other words, it doesn't explicitly fail, it must be good! Nope. I still had
>to manually configure the ethernet interface for the correct default 
>gateway
>and domain, using the tools provided by the command line tool (opened as
>root) netcfg. It was a bit of a disappointment. I did get it configured and
>restarted the network interface [as root: /etc/rc.d/init.d/network 
>restart],
>but it seemed like a glaring oversight to leave these crucial numbers out 
>of
>the initial install. If I'd been using Mandrake for the first time, I'd 
>have
>had no idea how to resolve it.

Have you tried to use "Mandrake Control Center" a.k.a. "drakconf"? It is a 
nice GUI interface, WinNT-like, to configure your network. So no CLI needed 
here, really.

You know that there is such a tool, don't you?

>But when I loaded my '70s playlist into XMMS, I had no sound. Again, I had

Did you tried to configure XMMS to use /dev/whateveryoulike as your sound 
output?

Not many people has 2 soundcards. And, usualy, the forst one is the default 
sound card. So it makes sense (to me) that the audio programs are defaulted 
to the first sound card. In your case, the Crystal on-board.

>to rely on past experience. I opened a console screen, logged in as root,
>and opened the sound card configuration using sndcfg. The program probed 
>for
>sound cards and found only the Crystal onboard card. It completely missed
>the SoundBlaster Live! PCI card. I had to "fake out" the system to 
>configure
>the SB. The sndcfg program plays a test sound of Linus Torvalds 
>prounouncing
>both his name and "Linux", then asks if you heard it. I lied. I entered 
>"no"
>and let the system roll me into the manual configuration screen. From 
>there,
>I was able to pick the SoundBlaster Live! from the device list, and
>everything went smoothly. Since then, I've had to run through the above
>configuration process at least twice more in order to have sound. I'll look
>through the HowTos to see if there's something in the autoconfiguration
>that's missing as compared to configuring manually. I'll let you know.

Did you try HardDrake to deetct and configure your sound card? A nice GUI 
front-end to smart perl scripts.

>Those issues were mere annoyances in the big picture. I was still pretty
>happy with Mandrake when the third problem reared its ugly head. When I
>reboot the machine, whether through the GUI or the console window, the
>shutdown process hangs just after the USB devices are disconnected. This
>isn't a good thing. Eventually, I'm left with no option but to hard kill 
>the
>box. I'm pursuing a remedy for this problem to share with you. I've found
>nothing in the known issues and may, today, contact MandrakeSoft directly.

Have you gone to Mandrake website?

Check this out:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/81errata.php3#usb

>So, this turns out to be a pretty mixed bag. If the shutdown problem is
>related to hardware and is resolveable, I'd still recommend Mandrake 8.1
>with a few caveats. If not, I'd have to go thumbs down despite the 
>beautiful
>and easy install. For new Linux users, that first install can seem like a
>big black void, even if it goes well. If there's no previous experience 
>with
>either troubleshooting or working the Linux newsgroups, it can be very
>lonely, as well.

And, also, to not being alone, you can always go at 
http://www.mandrakeexpert.org and ask for help there. A free service from 
the Mandrake comunity : a mixture of tech support, with ticket numbers and 
all that, combined with newsgroups and web front-end. Accessible from an 
icon on your desktop.

>Tomorrow, I'll cover the programs available in the Mandrake installs. And,
>I'll let you know if and how these problems were resolved.

>I haven't yet put my RedHat hat permanently on the shelf.

Belive me. Red Hat 7.2 is goood.

>Tony Steidler-Dennison



Salut,
Sinner (Mandrake at Home, RedHat at Work: dual love)
--
http://www.ibiblio.org/sinner/     Linux User # 89976
Running on Mandrake 8.1 - Kernel  2.4.8-26mdk     Linux Machine # 38068

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