Re: next Beta

[Jean Francois Martinez <jfm2 club-internet fr>]

Joe Klemmer wrote:

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> On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 jfm2 club-internet fr wrote:
>
> >  Mandrake has IMHO the right answer here: if you are new to Linux you
> > get postfix, if you are not then you are given the choice between
> > sendmail and postfix (and since the Mandrake installer is GPL and is
> > leagues ahead of anaconda RedHat should take the occasion to "steal
> > back" something from Mandrake).
>
>         Hhhmmmm....  Most of the people I work with prefer the RH install
> over Mandrake by a large margin.  Mandrake's install doesn't do things
> the way I need them to and that seems to be the bigest problems others
> have.
>

And most of people I know including those who prefer RedHat think its
installer
does not compare with Mandrake's.

Lets's have a comparison:

-At the end of installation Mandrake is perfectly operational:  it connects
to youtr ISP, it has no unnecessary daemons started, it also prints.  If you
printed through SMB then it has been smart enough to install Samba.
With RedHat you still have to trim daemons and xinetd lists, you still have
to configure your Internet access, you still have to configure printing and
it is not smart enough to install Samba if you need it for printing.  It is
true
that RedHat detects and configures sound card at first boot while you have
to do it manually with Mandrake.  It is true that RedHat has configured
firewalling (I haven't investigated Mandrake's secure mode).  However I think

the round goes to Mandrake.     Mandrake 1  RedHat 0

-Mandrake makes a far better work with fonts, with default application parms
and they know there are people outside USA and thus you get a Grub who uses
your national keyboard so you don't have to type blind at boot time.  RedHat
does
not seem to pay attention to fonts: their order of preference is determined
by
time of installation,, not quality thus you get crappy looks.  It allows user
to not
install the required fonts for his language (makes Gnome crash) and doesn't
pay
attention to availability of special caracters when deciding about which font
to
use in titlebars (you get little squares).  Manyt applications don't get
sensible
defaults so they will look or act crappy until you find time to configure
them
I will pass about printer configurator and
applications who use letter by default instead of figuring that in your
country
default should be A4.  But I will mention how happy I am when I have to type
,e,=&é_; at boot time so Grub gets mem=128m.   Round goes to Mandrake.
Mandrake 2 RedHat 0

-RedHat has more flexible authentification and the recording of installation
in
a kickstart file is an outstanding idea.    Mandrake 2 RedHat 1.

-At install time RedHat does not allow user to check if mouse is working,
Redhat
does not autotune to available disk space, Redhat does not have the notion of

important and unimportant packages, RedHat does not prompt you immediately
when
you select a package without required dependencies (in RedHat you find about
dependencies
only at the end so it is difficult to go back and deselect a package who
pulls too much things
with it).  Space checking does not happen in real time.  When I upgraded one
of my boxes
I found some interesting things and added them to the list while noticing I
had enough space.
But the installer (after calculating for fifteen minutes) found it had no
space enough for
the packages AND the additional ones required by dependencies AND the RPM
database
AND the installation image.    Mandrake does not have any of those
shortcomings
Mandrake 3  RedHat 1

-RedHat does not allow to change X virtual resolution and color depth on the
fly depending
on what you want to do.  Mandrake does.   RedHat does not notify daemons when
you
have connected to your ISP.  Mandrake does.   RedHat does not handle the
notion of a class
of package where only one must be installed (eg only one MTA, only one
printer daemon).
Mandrake does and thus they content people who want leagcy software and those
who start
from a clean slate and would be better avoiding it.  RedHat lets you find
what CD contains
what you want to install, Mandrake prompts you for it.   Mandrake 4  RedHat 1




>
>         I think it's a very good option for someone who is new to unix but
> otherwise...
>
>

One thing is the distro and I have some gripes with Mandrake (bleeding edge
software, kitchen sink philosophy, the "optimized for Pentium" hoax) who made

me stick to RedHat and another one very different is the installer and
general
polishing (I didn't say finishing) where Mandrake wins hands down.

>

--
Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence http://independence.seul.org
Because Linux should be for everyone