[ILUG] RedHat 6.1

[ray at phbrink.ie]

On Fri, 8 Oct 1999 mfield at altavista.net wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> I've just finished installing RH6.1 off a CD I burned from the iso image 
> on ftp.esat.net. So I can guarantee it's not coaster material....

That's not how I got my copy so I can't comment, though I'll probably buy
a boxed set soon enuf.

> The new Gnome-ish install gui was nice but there's still a bit of work to 
> be done on it.

I kinda disagree here, It's the most certainly The most "trouble-free(tm)"
Linux install I've ever done, apart from the minor probs I had with the cd
initailly (probably media related) but an nfs install works purfectly.
After Taking the "Gnome Workstation" option, the install took about about
15 minutes, this including me setting up swap & root partition
The only little niggle which I had with the custom instalation option was
the fact that I couldn't select multiple packages with some type of CTRL
click option. This is a minor thing with the only result being that it
slowed me down when installing.

> Two things, though:
> It didn't detect my graphics hardware correctly. 
I didn't have a problem there but the machines I've installed it on would
have fairly common H/W & none of them are bleeding edge boxes anymore 
(Dell Dimension D300 - R450).
The one thing that didn't seem right was that It doesn't really know what
to do with M$ intellimice, so if you have one just set it up as an std MS
mouse & not an intellimouse 

> The X config happens before everything else (like 5.x)

There are good & bad things about this and consider that I'm assuming
that the whole purpose of the new Point & drool installation is to bring
linux and red hat in particular to your average clueless windoze user.
The bad point being that if it doesn't get your hardware spot on you could
be left with an unuseable system & therefore you'll end up with a pissed
off user who can't figure out how to get this "crap" off their computer.
who may or may not end up being one of those types who posts "Linux is
shite, NT rocks! ok dude" messages on comp.os.linux

The good point to the "X first" method and it's a big one IMHO is that if
all goes ok it makes installation tolerable to people who haven't yet
learned how to use a keyboard (you know who they are). This has to be good
as it helps in getting rid of the "linux is not easy to use" FUD,
which is helped even more by the tendency towards the simple to use point
& click interfaces in kwm, enlightment & windowmaker, as opposed to the
older wm's like twm, mwm, fvwm & early versions of afterstep which took a
_huge_ amount of effort to configure to ones personal taste.

> I'm too tired (and I've had some "refreshments" while the install was going 
> on) to go into gory detail but I really like the Alan Cox icon (same one
> that's on (inux.com) next to Kernel Development in the "Select Packages"
> section.

I can't say that I noticed Alan Cox, this is probably due to me wanting to
get things installed fast and/or me still using a minimalist fvwm1 as my
interface to the Linux world.

Refreshments atm are Coffee + lodsa sugar & unwhipped cream with a
mountain of Choclate swiss roll as a side dish, soon to be washed down
with a treatment of Galway's not small pub compliment.

> Anyone else want to venture an opinion on this product?
In a nutshell it's good & if future versions continue to go in this
direction I think that the world will be a much better place :)

	Ray ...