irlandes
11-05-2001, 12:56 AM
First try to use Drake 8.1:
I was building up a 200 MHZ machine, 32 MB RAM, of unknown ancestry, bought at Midwest Computer Brokers when I visited Cedar Rapids. I am giving it to my nearly poverty stricken son. He has been using my old 486 for Internet, which works fine unless you need Java or something.
I installed 8.1 dualboot with Win 98. It was SLOW! I mean like two or three minutes to open and close a window.
Next, I discovered Supermount was busted. While I know how to manually mount and umount, some of the package install software expected it to work, and went bananas when the CD didn't mount itself.
I went to the Net, and found that a neww initscripts was supposed to fix it. Mandrake announced the new initscripts, but it was on none of the mirrors.
So, I installed 8.0, which worked at about the speed I am used to.
I had given a set of 8.1 to my son-in-law, and he planned on having his industrial arts students install it on their computers. I told him, "DON'T DO IT! USE 8.0" So, I guess we are going to use a bunch of 8.1 CDs as coasters.
* * * *
Second attempt, sort of.
I had 8.0 on my 233 MHZ Compaq Presario 1236 laptop, with 96 MB RAM. I thought, "Hey, I can use packages on the 8.1 CDs to update Koffice, to get the latest goodies."
So, I tried to install the koffice from 8.1. I noted the dependency, a file found in kdelibs.
I tried to install kdelibs, and it gave four more dependencies. It also told me if I put in the dependencies, something I needed for my current kdebase would be missing.
I put in the 4 needed packages, then moved the reverse dependency file in /home, installed kdelibs from 8.1, then moved it back. I don't know if this is a way to solve things you need or not.
I have read libraries is a superior way to build an OS, but I have seen too many catch-22's like this to believe it. I hope libraries make things easier for the people who do the free programming on linux; for the users, they create all sorts of problems.
Anyway, I put in koffice, and it indeed has a lot of new goodies, but it was impossibly slow.
So, I reinstalled the old koffice from 8.0.
Then, I played with KDE. It seemed awfully slow.
I came up with a sort of benchmark. Shut down all other windows, except a terminal window in KDE. Then, using a stopwatch, click on the X to close the terminal window.
With Drake 8.0, and kdelibs from 8.1, it consistently took THIRTEEN SECONDS FOR THAT TERMINAL WINDOW TO CLOSE.
I reinstalled the kdelibs from Drake 8.0. Time to close the terminal window is so short I can't time it. Maybe 0.25 or 0.5 seconds.
That means on my laptop, it takes kdelibs from 8.1, 25 to 50 times longer to perform a simple task of closing a terminal window.
The amazing thing is I haven't read anyone else complain about 8.1 being that slow. Yet, on two machines, it's slow.
Note that the much hated Win 98 works fine on both machines.
I have a love/hate relationship with Mandrake. I liked 6.5; 7.2 was trash; 8.0 is cool; 8.1 is trash. If I could find another distro that doesn't wipe out Win98 stuff, and will let me update koffice with the same kernel, I'd be tempted to change distros.
I was building up a 200 MHZ machine, 32 MB RAM, of unknown ancestry, bought at Midwest Computer Brokers when I visited Cedar Rapids. I am giving it to my nearly poverty stricken son. He has been using my old 486 for Internet, which works fine unless you need Java or something.
I installed 8.1 dualboot with Win 98. It was SLOW! I mean like two or three minutes to open and close a window.
Next, I discovered Supermount was busted. While I know how to manually mount and umount, some of the package install software expected it to work, and went bananas when the CD didn't mount itself.
I went to the Net, and found that a neww initscripts was supposed to fix it. Mandrake announced the new initscripts, but it was on none of the mirrors.
So, I installed 8.0, which worked at about the speed I am used to.
I had given a set of 8.1 to my son-in-law, and he planned on having his industrial arts students install it on their computers. I told him, "DON'T DO IT! USE 8.0" So, I guess we are going to use a bunch of 8.1 CDs as coasters.
* * * *
Second attempt, sort of.
I had 8.0 on my 233 MHZ Compaq Presario 1236 laptop, with 96 MB RAM. I thought, "Hey, I can use packages on the 8.1 CDs to update Koffice, to get the latest goodies."
So, I tried to install the koffice from 8.1. I noted the dependency, a file found in kdelibs.
I tried to install kdelibs, and it gave four more dependencies. It also told me if I put in the dependencies, something I needed for my current kdebase would be missing.
I put in the 4 needed packages, then moved the reverse dependency file in /home, installed kdelibs from 8.1, then moved it back. I don't know if this is a way to solve things you need or not.
I have read libraries is a superior way to build an OS, but I have seen too many catch-22's like this to believe it. I hope libraries make things easier for the people who do the free programming on linux; for the users, they create all sorts of problems.
Anyway, I put in koffice, and it indeed has a lot of new goodies, but it was impossibly slow.
So, I reinstalled the old koffice from 8.0.
Then, I played with KDE. It seemed awfully slow.
I came up with a sort of benchmark. Shut down all other windows, except a terminal window in KDE. Then, using a stopwatch, click on the X to close the terminal window.
With Drake 8.0, and kdelibs from 8.1, it consistently took THIRTEEN SECONDS FOR THAT TERMINAL WINDOW TO CLOSE.
I reinstalled the kdelibs from Drake 8.0. Time to close the terminal window is so short I can't time it. Maybe 0.25 or 0.5 seconds.
That means on my laptop, it takes kdelibs from 8.1, 25 to 50 times longer to perform a simple task of closing a terminal window.
The amazing thing is I haven't read anyone else complain about 8.1 being that slow. Yet, on two machines, it's slow.
Note that the much hated Win 98 works fine on both machines.
I have a love/hate relationship with Mandrake. I liked 6.5; 7.2 was trash; 8.0 is cool; 8.1 is trash. If I could find another distro that doesn't wipe out Win98 stuff, and will let me update koffice with the same kernel, I'd be tempted to change distros.