Tips for Underwater Basket Weaving

[BurninMan921]

Just got done trying Mandrake Move. It has very few games compared to other distros and even other versions of Mandrake, it is slow booting from the CD, Graphic Frame Rates in game are terrible, and it doesn't have a driver for my WiFi card. I should have burned this POS to CD-RW before I wasted a CD-R on it, oh well. Now I remember why I don't use Linux...

I've not been impressed with the latest Mandrake releases at all. The Mandrake Move, as you said, sounds pretty stripped down. 9.2 is buggy, slow, and missing a ton of software that 9.1 has. I still 100% recommend Mandrake Linux, just version 9.1!

Installing 3-D drivers is a b**** no matter what; unless you use SuSE. SuSE will install them for you during it's (painfully slow) install.

SuSE does have a "live" cd you can download. Maybe you should try that? Although SuSE themselves does not offer ISO's for download (of the full version), you can find it if you look hard enough (just ask hoxlund or me!). I've got 9.0 on a DVD+R disc sitting here...but it freaking hates my monitor...if not for that one issue I'd be using SuSE right now!

[aviationwiz]

I'm downloading Knoppix 3.3 and Suse 9 Live which I will be burning to CD-RW and then trying out. My Suse 9 Live is RC1, is this the latest build?

I've also been thinking about building my own Mandrake 9.1 Live DVD using these instructions: http://www.slax.org/scripts_howto.php

[BurninMan921]

Hey, cool link! I need to make a Mandrake install DVD. Three CD's isn't too bad, though. I Debain DVD would be nice...7 freaking CD's! Gonna try it this weekend (how is it every weekend I end up installing an OS!?! With Windows I ended up reinstalling it alot because it crashed so much, and now it's ditro-o-rama).

I'm not sure if RC2 is the latest SuSE. The changelog on my DVD says RC5.
I'll head on over to www.linuxiso.org and check it out...

EDIT:
Wish I could use slack...it has a nasty bug which locks it up on my machine. But I have a ton of Linux Distro's, so I can pick something else!

[BurninMan921]

aviationwiz, here is another "live" distro that is supposed to be very good:
www.phlak.org

Here's a reasonably fast mirror, since there server is getting pounded:

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distrib ... ak-0.2.iso

For the curious, the mushroom cloud image is Redwing Mohawk, a 360kt thermonuclear tested on July 2, 1956.

[CDRecorder]

Thanks for the link; I'll try that one, too. I actually think that Mandrake Move seems like one of the nicer "live" distros that I've tried so far; I'm currently using to run a machine that I just built that still doesn't have a hard drive.

[aviationwiz]

Thanks burninman921! Downloading it now. Right now on my External HDD I have 5 distros which is where I'm keeping them. I have:
Mandrake Move
Suse 9 Live
Knoppix 3.3 (latest build)
Mandrake 9.1 (first 2 CD's)
Phlak

[BurninMan921]

OK, lets see what all I've got right now:

Non Linux:
QNX
FreeBSD
ReactOS 0.1.3

Linux:

Redhat 9
SuSE 9 DVD (2 DVDs) + FTP Installer
Debain Linux 3.0r2 (7 CD's!) + 3.0r1 (8 CD's!)
Knoppix
Xandros 1.1 + 2.0
Mandrake 9.1 + 9.2
College Linux
Slackware Linux
Gentoo Linux
Lindows 4
Lycoris
PHLAK - downloading now

In other words, lots & lots & lots of CD-Rs! And a couple of DVD+R's!

[aviationwiz]

So far Mandrake Move is my favorite, LOL.

Suse 9 Live wouldn't recognize my mouse so I didn't have a mouse, and with Phlak I couldn't start X (KDE, Gnome, etc.) For Knoppix I'll have to find some of my 700 MB CD-RW's, as it won't fit on my 650MB CD-RW (32x)

Thank god I burned Phlak and Suse 9 Live to CD-RW!

[CDRecorder]

I've changed my mind; I think Knoppix 3.3 is the best one yet, though a full copy of Linux on a hard drive always runs faster and has more features. I decided this because I had some problems with Mandrake Move (strange file permissions being set, samba not working, etc) that don't happen with Knoppix.

[aviationwiz]

I'm on Slax now, and I love it! Boots fine, comes with plenty of games. Not sure if it has WiFi card drivers, I bet it doesn't, I'm on wired now. It only has KOffice though, not Open Office. I'm going to try Knoppix next, then I'll try Mandrake Move again. So far I'm liking Slax.

[BurninMan921]

At least OpenOffice is only a ~70MG download...not too bad, considering how freaking huge MS Office is.

I'm using SuSE 9.0 Pro right now - at 800x600, 60hz! Still can't get the stupid thing to setup my monitor correctly - I loose the right 1/4 of my screen. Pictures not distored, though. Can't tweak the monitors controls any more, either. The stupid part: the test SuSE did during install looked fine. Argh!!

But: build in RAR support, the latest K3b w/DVD burning support, great software packages (very complete!), and a WINE that runs Agent out-of-the box. Oh, and it's an SMP kernel - which rocks w/Hyperthreading. And it's FAST, especially compared to Mandrake. Gotta fix my sig/avatar now!

Very annoying installer, though - painfully slow. Mandrakes up and running in 20 minutes. SuSE? Two hours+, counting the updater. And I had to do it all TWICE; the first time I tried to install the nVidia drivers. Opps - the X-Server wouldn't start. So, delete partition's & try again. Ah well, other than the crappy resolution+refresh rates, it works perfectly.

Can't figure out how to disable all the themes, though. With Mandrake 9.x, you can turn off all themes and just use the KDE theme-less default (which is what the first screenshot here was). I don't mind the theme I'm using now, but I like the non-themed one better...