[ILUG] Mandrake - it works....but why?

[Kevin Philp]

On Thursday 10 February 2005 09:39, Bryan O'Donoghue wrote:
>Barry Redmond wrote:
>> I've had USB problems on my installation of Mandrake 10.1, and lots of
>> googling around has led me to think that there's a fundamental USB
>> interrupt handling problem in there somewhere.
>>
>> I haven't seen any good explanation or solution of the problem
>> anywhere.  There are various reports of USB device communication
>> problems, sometimes with "Control timeout on ep0out" (or ep0in)
>> errors.  My particular incarnation was a USB printer problem.
>>
>> One suggested fix (can't remember where) was to use noapic at boot.
>> In my case this did indeed fix the USB problem, but then any attempt to
>> logout or shutdown via the KDE dialogue caused the machine to
>> lockup ... !!??  I removed the noapic switch, and sometime later I
>> realised that the USB printer was working.  I still get occasional
>> problems, but  usually fixed by power cycling the printer.
>>
>> Not very reassuring behaviour.  If I'd wanted this kind of thing I would
>> have stuck with Windows.
>
>That's quite surprising from where I sit. True, Linux might be _close_
>to totally perfect, but, even the best systems in the world have warts.[1]
>
>Just checking up on which kernel Mandrake uses, I think your version
>should be 2.6.8.1-12mdk... notice the -12mdk appendation denoting that
>this kernel is not a vanilla release, but a release that Mandrake
>themselves have put together and thus should not be the yardstick you
>measure ftp.kernel.org releases by. I suspect quite strongly, that if
>you take the time to go and get the latest vanilla 2.6 from
>http://ftp.kernel.org and engage with compiling your own, it is quite
>likely this problem can/may be made to go away.
>
>If you don't feel up to doing that, I would suggest you try an
>alternative distrobution, Fedora Core 3 and SuSE sprining to mind as the
>optimum alternatives.
>
>
>Bryan
>
>[1] Plug

True, but Mandrake, Fedora and Suse are touted as the best place to start as a 
newcomer. I have used Mandrake for years simply because when I started (and 
knew absolutely nothing about Linux) it was the only distro that seemed to 
work on my machine. Since then I have recommended it, given out copies to 
various people and used it in the office for both servers and workstations. 
It has served me well. However the flakey behaviour of the newer releases has 
caused some embarrassment (I thought you said it was stable.....). 

I have a Linux newbie coming to see me next week so I can help him install 
Linux. I am seriously thinking of taking a chance on using an untested (by 
me) FC3 disk rather than Mandrake. 

Newbies need a system that works without fiddling. Otherwise most will just 
pull the plug and go back to Windows. I don't mind twiddling with modules and 
recompiling kernels today but when I put my first Mandrake 7.0 disk in a 
computer several years ago if it had not just worked I would have also pulled 
the plug and dug out my Win95 disk.

Kevin.