LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Branko Bratkovic <branko@senet.com.au>
  To  : Richard Russell <richard@yellowgoanna.com>
        <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 21:21:05 +0930

Re: Debian 3.0

On Fri, 10 May 2002 16:27, Richard Russell wrote:
> gidday,
> OK, it's so close to release that it's funny... Anyone have CDs of the
> current images? I'm ready to try it, even if it's not quite released
> yet...

Richard,

I've got the April02 snapshot of Woody.  It comes on 8 CDs (yes eight!) but 
comparing this set with the 3 that came with Debian 2.2, this set has 
contrib, non-free and non-US so that would explain the apparent bloat factor.

I had been looking at the bug graph on the Debian WWW site and had 
extrapolated the slope to intersect with zero sometime between April and 
mid-year.  Then one day it jumped from 59 to 65 which threw my assumptions 
out the window.  Got sick of waiting and ordered the current snapshot from 
LSL (about $50).

In case you're thinking about borrowing my CDs, I'm way up north (just beyond 
Elizabeth).

Well now that I've admitted to a recent install of Woody, I suppose you want 
to know what I think of it....

_Highlights_
Ooooh I just luv KDE!  Normally I wouldn't be impressed by eye candy, but KDE 
can be user-configured in so many ways that one must be able to find a 
pleasing front end.  I've only had time to get to know the mail and news 
readers and the amount of settings available are a pleasure for someone 
accustomed to otherwise fiddling with control files.  A quick look at the KDE 
Office suite reveals all the features associated with that other Office 
package that I'm forced to use at work (I work for the Government, LOL ;-)

Xfree86 version 4 is great for three reasons.  1. It finally enabled me to 
take advantage of my S3 video card (Trio3D chipset). 2. It hasn't locked up 
and forced me to reboot like the v3 Xfree would do.  3. My wheel mouse works 
perfectly under v4 whereas it wouldn't do the repeat thing with gpm under v3. 
As a consequence of "1." my monitor is now running at 1024x768@85Hz (slightly 
overclocked), so I can have lotsa detail but without eye strain. I'm not sure 
which fonts are anti-aliased but they all seem nicer than v3.

Having contrib and non-free on the CD set is a big plus because I don't have 
to PPP in order to collect bits and pieces like MySQL.  (this may be good 
reason to get the latest snapshot from LSL rather than wait for the release 
which MAY strictly follow the GNU policy like 2.2 did).

Nice new LILO front end.  Uses the cursor keys to select which disk to boot!

Many packages respect the command "dpkg-reconfigure package_name" which 
enables the sysadmin to reconfigure instantly rather than poke around looking 
for the right script to call.

_Lowlights_
The install is still not ready to put into the hands of newbies.  It has a 
new feature called "Task Select" which enables the operator to grab a bunch 
of packages based on options like "games machine", "web server", 
"development" etc.  This is great.  But it has a very nasty interface: I 
accidently hit return when the cursor had jumped from the selection region to 
the finish field and ended up installing just a few trivial packages, not 
once but twice!  I was able to restart it and get back on track, but as I 
said, this is not for newbies.

When LILO was run from the install sequence, it failed to understand that my 
Linux was on hdb and that I wanted to boot from hda.  Fixed manually.  I may 
submit a bug report about this and delay 3.0 even further.

There are at least 3 ways to configure XFree86 but only one actually worked 
(dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86).

wvdial failed to live up to its promise of a quick configuration (the install 
actually recommends it). I ended going back to my chatscript.  

After following the install instructions, some very important loose ends 
remain to be tied up.  For instance: my CD burner is not ready because I 
still need to activate the SCSI emulation, my SB Live sound card is still 
quite silent for want of activating the ALSA drivers, XFree needed 
persistence to get working, my HP DeskJet 930c still doesn't have its driver 
(other than plain text) and a kernel compile will be necessary to get APM 
working (one of my reasons for the upgrade - still haven't got that power off 
problem sorted)

_Rant_
One of Debian's big selling points is stability.  That is only right if one 
is prepared to live in the past.  If you get seduced by this eye candy thing, 
KDE, then you have to go to the unstable release.  If you are a real sucker, 
install Sid and live on the bleeding edge; but then Debian is no better wrt 
stability than most other distros.

LOL, I've just run the Kmail spell checker for the first time and it didn't 
recognise the word Debian!

Regards,
-- 
Branko at SEnet.com.au

-- 
LinuxSA WWW: http://www.linuxsa.org.au/  IRC: #linuxsa on irc.linux.org.au
To unsubscribe from the LinuxSA list:
  mail linuxsa-request@linuxsa.org.au with "unsubscribe" as the subject