[NTLUG:Discuss] Mandrake 7 -- review

[sunflower1043@juno.com]

	Hi to all --

	Maybe you all have read some favorable reviews of Mandrake 7 -- on
LinuxNewbie or elsewhere -- like I have recently.  I installed it last
weekend, and have been meaning to post this;  I am pretty impressed with
it so far, myself.  Of course, proceed at your own risk; for me, looks
like it will be my distro of choice for the time being.

	On a P II - 266 Mhz, 160 MB RAM, 2 Western Digital drives (4 G + 10 G);
Sndblstr AWE 64 sound; Diam Stealth 3D3000 video card; TEAC CDROM; Have a
HP Laserjet 6L; parallel port Iomega ZIP; no DVD, CD-R or RW, tape
drives, etc.  Whole machine appx. 2 yrs. old; a clone from IMS Computers.
 Using it as a business desktop, small ofc/home ofc.

	The install routine is really good-looking;  I suppose that sounds a
little funny.  But, it's  a really attractive blue screen (if you want,
change to brown/green, grey/white), with a series of "stoplights" down
the left side, turning green as each step completed;  you can go back up
and re-do prior steps if you wish.  It doesn't have those grainy looks,
and lines across screen, like RH 6.1 and SuSE 6.3 graphical installs had
for me.  Guess it must use a different server in the install, or
something.

	If you choose the "expert" install, it gives you 5 choices as to
security level to be installed.  (First time, I chose most strict level
-- "paranoid" -- and I was unable to get onto machine on reboot, as root
!!!)

	The package selection, configure users, passwords, seemed nice to me. 
Their disk partitioning procedure is about as easy, attractive,
simplified and user-friendly/ "dumbed-down" as I've seen it (I've tried
Corel 1; RH 6.0, 6.1; SuSE 6.1, 6.2, 6.3; Mandrake 6; Caldera 2.3;
Turbolinux 6; and, of course, DOS FDISK [!] ).

	On reboot and launch, the desktop (can choose KDE, GNOME, others and/or
all) is pre-configured (at least for GNOME & KDE), with ready-made
symlinks, on desktop, to your other automounted partitions.  It also uses
(as with, I suspect, much of the rest of Mandrake distro), the RedHat
"sndconfig" device, which is the only way (other than Corel Linux) I've
ever been able, despite much labor and RTFMs, to get a working sound card
on Linux.  It also configured my printer just fine (I haven't tried the
ZIP drive, on same port as my printer;  that's also been a chronic
problem for me on Linux).  I haven't configured/ connected it to Net yet;
nor thoroughly been thru the whole system yet;  have not yet installed
StarOfc on it, nor WordPerfect 8.

	This distro (at least on the Linux Central CD, which is where I got it),
offers a *lot* of the GNOME/ KDE apps.  Also, it does include a really
recent (I guess), graphically-enhanced version of Linuxconf, which,
compared to SuSE  YAST, others, is maybe my own favorite tool of that
type.

	This is the first distro that I've used LILO in the MBR to boot;  all
other times, I've put LILO on floppy or the Linux partition, booting with
a boot floppy;  this feels to me like, symbolically, it's another step
for me in switching over to Linux. 

	It seems like a distro that fits the classic app of a machine for your
mother/father/ sister/brother/kids, or else for an (at least somewhat)
non-Geek like yours truly, who wants/ appreciates a GUI; still have
trouble hacking scripts;  pretty easy for me to install, and, at least
for me, helping me out so far!  

	Again, your mileage may vary.  Proceed at your own risk!  Best to all --
Doug
***************************************************
  Douglas D. Darnold	  Principal/ Attorney
  LAW OFFICES OF DOUGLAS D. DARNOLD <sunflower1043 at juno.com>
  P. O. Box 12461	  Dallas  Texas 75225-0461	  Voice: 214-368-0068
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