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

[Rick Gatewood]

On Wednesday 14 November 2001 11:21 am, you wrote:
I love Mandrake 8.1 and I use it on two of my four machines at home (one NT 
and Wife's 98 are the other two. 

I recently tried Redhat 7.2 at work and it was super easy to install and a 
little more polished than 7.1.

They both keep getting better and better!
> 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)