[100094] in RedHat Linux List
I'm dissapointed in 5.2
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Roberts)
Wed Nov 18 12:51:51 1998
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 10:50:16 -0700
From: Doug Roberts <roberts@tsasa.lanl.gov>
To: redhat-list@redhat.com, support@redhat.com
CC: roberts@tsasa.lanl.gov, barrett@tsasa.lanl.gov, eubank@tsasa.lanl.gov
Reply-to: roberts@tsasa.lanl.gov
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
I'm a long-time Linux user: I've been running Linux boxes for the past
5 years (and other Un*x boxes for the last 12 years). I recently
installed 5.2 on my Gateway 2000 9100XL to test 5.2, even though I
already had a perfectly good Slakware 3.5 distribution running on the
machine. The reason that I decided to try RedHat was that I was under
the (apparently false) impression that RH had the best-supported, most
feature-rich, easiest-to-install, most bug-free distribution of any of
them (Debian, XSuSe, Slakware, Caldera).
After 5 days of encountering bugs in 5.2, I convinced that this
distribution was released way prematurely. Here's a short list of
RedHat things that don't work as they should:
1. PCMCIA. It worked fine with the default 2.0.36-0.7 kernel. However,
the default kernel does not have apm (advanced power management)
built into it. No problem, I'll just build a kernel with apm. Fine:
apm now works, but pcmcia card_services are broken. So I built a
fresh pcmcia for the pcmcia-cs-3.0.5 source. Still no go. To get
pcmcia to work, I had to roll back to kernel version 2.0.35. This
problem was reported to RedHat as [ticket #50441] PCMCIA/RH 5.2
problem.
2. RedHat Support. I reported this problem to them, and was told that
they couldn't help me.
3. Linuxconf. The network -> PPP -> Communication portion does not
work. According to the documentation you can test the set-up by
clicking on the "connect" button to see if the modem dials. It's
broken, nothing happens.
Linuxconf. Activating the ppp0 interface via the network portion of
Linuxconf changes the mode of whatever cua /dev/modem is linked to
to root only read/write permissions, even if you have specfied via
linuxconf that any user is allowed to (de)activate the ppp0
interface.
4. PPP. After configuring pppd with proper settings for netmask, mru,
crtscts, defaultroute, modem, and detach, the ppp0 interface was
extremely slow to to numerous dropped RX packets. This could be due
to the pcmcia problems described above.
5. Numerous other little irritating facets of the installation and
configuration interfaces that don't quite work right.
I find it very disappointing that RedHat would release what I consider
to be a sub-standard distribution. I am a big proponent of Linux, and
I feel that the success of Linux over Microsoft will hinge on quality
distributions which make the installation and and maintenance of Linux
easy and trouble free. As it is, I am going to go back the Slakware
3.5 because it is solid. It might not have the "User Friendly"
gui-based installation and system maintenance "features", but it
works.
RedHat: I'm afraid you have done damage to the Linux community with
this release. New Linux users are going to try RedHat 5.2, become
frustrated, and give up. The fact that you were not even able to
provide support for the pcmcia problem that I reported indicates that
you are either in way over your head, or lack the proper business
sense to provide the level of service required for your product.
--Doug
--
==================================================================
Douglas Roberts, TSA-DO/SA |
Los Alamos National Laboratory | All good work is done in defiance
dzzr@lanl.gov | of management. -- Bob Woodward
(505)667-4569 |
==================================================================
--
PLEASE read the Red Hat FAQ, Tips, Errata and the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES!
http://www.redhat.com http://archive.redhat.com
To unsubscribe: mail redhat-list-request@redhat.com with
"unsubscribe" as the Subject.
