Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: [News] Mandriva Laptops Impress (and Back on Nigeria's Agenda)

<posted & mailed>

Jerry McBride wrote:

> skydweller wrote:
> 
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> 
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>> 
>>> And the Nigerian government chose Windows [It didn't] why?
>>> 
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | That?s precisely what Nigeria did. Having used the Classmate with
>>> | Mandriva installed, I simply can?t find any flaws in the system that
>>> | would lead to such a switch. No deficiencies compared to Windows, no
>>> | performance problems, no installation problems, nothing. Mandriva just
>>> | works in this setting and works well. No wonder François Bancilhon was
>>> | angry.
>>> `----
>>> 
>>> http://education.zdnet.com/?p=1338
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Mandriva 2008 "just works" in lots of settings.  I chose it for my
>> desktop after getting tired of Gentoo updates running over 12 hours at a
>> clip;
> 
> Yes, updates for Gentoo means "compiling from sources". If your box isn't
> updated regularly, then it can run into hours, even days, if a lot of
> packges are updated in mass.

No complaints, I ran Gentoo for almost 4 years and what (little) I know of
linux I learned on Gentoo.  It had, for me, outlived its usefulness as a
combination desktop box/laboratory.  The beauty of linux is that, at that
point, it was blissfully trivial to move on.

> 
> But surely you DID KNOW that you could update your box with binaries...
> pre-compiled packages... Right????

Of course, OpenOffice and anything of Mozilla lineage being two prime
examples of things you *might* not want to compile.  But beyond a few
things like that, binaries defeat the purpose to some extent.

> 
>> and needing TLC due to many ~x86 packages.
> 
> The unstable packages "~x86" are there for those that WANT to test new
> code. If you don't or didn't want to be a tester/debugger, you had/have no
> reason to change your Gentoo box from "x86" or stable code to "~x86"
> testing code... You made the decision to change it as the default install
> of Gentoo is "x86"... for the stable codebase.
> 
> Why are you complaining about something you chose to do, in a public
> forum?
> 

Chill out, dude.  I'm explaining here why I made the move.  For other
machines I will consider gentoo again in the future, and when my kids are
old enough, I will insist that they install it themselves (if it's still
around).

>> Don't get me wrong, I love Gentoo, but the updates can be tedious on a
>> six-year old box.
> 
> Only if you sit there and watch it... I run a number of very dated DELL
> OPTIPLEX G50's as Gentoo cluster... They run 1.2Ghz celerons... I update
> regularly using "~x86" and I have no problems or complaints when/if
> something burps. I CHOSE to run unstable code and frankly I find it quite
> nice. As for the "tediousness" of it... I'm in bed while the
> updates/compiling goes on... no skin off my knuckles...

Sleep?  What's that?

> 
>> The Mandriva One
>> livecd works perfectly with all six of my family's desktops , some older,
>> some fairly recent, with eye-candy and wireless (4 different chipsets)
>> enabled out of the box sans hassle.  I'll be taking that CD along on road
>> trips from now on.
>> 
> 
> Mandriva... awesome...
> 
>> My two boys (7 and 9 years old) have their own desktops, each with
>> PCLinuxOS
> 
> PCLinuxOS... more awesome... My 14 yearold Son ABSOLUTELY loves it on his
> laptop. His desktop is Gentoo... ofcourse.
> 
>> (Mandriva derivative) and a dual-boot to Windows for the CD
>> games that
>> don't run under wine.
> 
> Would you list what games you have that run under Wine? I'm interested.
> The boy and I Quake, Nexuis, ROT, Tremulous and Doom quite regularly and
> he's really kicking my tail. We've networked with a few neighbors and
> something new would be good.

I'm not a gamer, the kids mostly run those silly CD's tied in with the
animated movie du jour; I doubt you'd be interested.

> 
>> The PCLinuxOS boxen each run squid/dansguardian
>> filtering with weekly blacklist updates, to shield them from access to
>> age-inappropriate sites.  The $70/year for weekly blacklist updates is a
>> bargain.
>> 
> 
> On the family side of the home network, I setup squid as an http proxy
> with squidGuard...the blacklist updates are free for downloading...
> 
>> Networking on the Windows side is verboten.  They've been on this setup
>> for
>> about a year, and haven't booted into Windows in months.  Timmy likes
>> sudoku, and spends a lot of time playing ksudoku when he's not online.
>> Matthew prefers SuperTux.  They don't need Windows.
>> 
>> Oh, and quality?  A recent update to PCLinuxOS upgraded 338 packages on
>> one
>> of the boxes.  This included replacement of beryl with compiz-fusion and
>> a
>> kernel upgrade.  After restarting X (when prompted; no hacking required),
>> desktop reappeared as before, no fuss, no muss.  Total time to upgrade:
>> 25
>> minutes.  The machine was later rebooted to activate the new kernel; no
>> issues there, either.  Everything worked, everything works.  On two
>> machines.
>> 
> 
> My Son said of Linux compared to Windows.... "It just works". Prior to his
> using Linux, he was battleing windows virus and stuff like a real warrior.
> He just got tired of it.
> 
> With PCLinuxOS you updated with binary packages that someone else
> compiled. I rather like the Gentoo way of doing it all myself... If I EVER
> had a question of what was being used in the home network, I could just
> browse the source myself.
> 
>> Who needs Windows?
>> 
> 
> Agreed! And it's GOOD.
> 
> 

-- 
This message brought to you by your Department of Redundancy Department

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index