Maybe time for a new distro?

[Brian H. Chabot]

brian wrote:
> Been using Redhat for years (still have my 5.0 installation CD's and
> diskette from Redhat (am on 9.0 currently)).
[snip]
> My major wants/needs are:
> 	Support for my dual-head ATI card
> 	Gnome out-of-the-box (preferred)
> 	Some degree of mutli-media support ("stereophonic beeps" are usually
> sufficient for me)
> 	Ability to function well as a server for Mysql/perl/cgi type stuff 
> 	
> Any suggestions/ideas/comments/thoughts/flames welcome...

Check out Mandrake then.  It's RedHat for people who like ease of use 
coupled with their functionality.  Mandrake9.2 was described in a review 
as "Easier to install than Windows" - and it was directed to the average 
computer user rather than typical geeks.

Gnome has always worked out of the box if I install it and the worst 
I've ever had to do to get stereo sound was choose an alternate sound 
card module and un-mute the mixer. I'm not 100% sure if the GUI will 
configure dual-head cards but I know it's got similar CLI support to RedHat.

Mandrake has a wonderful configuration utility called DrakConf which is 
easy to figure out and completely GUI-fied.  It includes X 
configuration, hardware detection/configuration, the most common 
sysadmin functions, and optionally, wizards to get you set up as a 
web/mail/DNS/NTP server.

I'm actually using it now with Enlightenment, Mozilla, Gaim, xmms, and 
Eterm.  MySQL/Apacche/perl run beautifully from the RPM install, and 
Mandrake also has urpmi, the unattended RPM installer where you indicate 
the "what provides" you want and it gives you a choice if there are more 
than one and also does a level of required packages searching and 
prompts if you want to install those.  It's also got a GUI that can be 
called from DrakConf...

I've been using Mandrake since I weaned myself away from SuSE a few 
years ago and I love it.  I've also just discovered http://plf.zarb.org

The Penguin Liberation Front is an archive of all the packages that 
aren't included in Mandrake because of copyright or export restrictions...

(The other) Brian