Re: another success story

[jfm2@club-internet.fr]

> 
> Well, almost.
> 
> I dd'ed the two floppies, booted, and eventually got a pair of floppies
> which didn't have bad sectors. The first install I did, when I started X it
> failed to load KDE. Just a black screen with a mouse pointer that changed
> shape when I clicked it. I poked at it for a while, then decided to
> reinstall with more packages (just in case) -- all packages but the
> funny-language howto translations.
> 

The problem is that the Xconfigurator for XFree 3.3.3.1 has put you
wrongly in a color depth not supported by your card.  This is a RedHat
bug.

No relation with loading KDE.

I will take a look at it ASAP.

> I picked 'custom' resolution for X, and chose only 16 bit and 24 bit choices
> (in terms of color depth). When I started X (via startx), it complained
> that there were no 8 bit color choices, and it died. I went into the
> XF86Config file and added
> 
> DefaultColorDepth 16
> 

Odd

> to the 'screen' section, and then X booted nicely. My first impression of
> KDE is that it's the scourge of the earth, but that's because I'm one of
> those gung-ho Linux people, so I'll shut up about that. :) It would be keen
> if there were a menu somewhere so I could pick my window manager, but I can
> do it manually I suppose. (Likely not everybody can do this, though.)
> 

You can.  But only when not using KDE.  I considered KFM was THE wm to
use with KDE because after all the bigger quality of KDE is its
integration.

The real bug is the fact in this version things are too automatic: if
KDE is installed then it is used.  Period.  When you uninstall it then
you will find that the normal X interface is used.  And in this you
can switch WMs from a menu.

About the later: RedHat's default to FVWM2 with W95 looks.  Do we
change this?  Against: people will find themselves in familiar
territory.  For: I have heard beginners complaining that they were
disapointed Linux not being more different from windows.  And some of
the themes we ship for AfterStep or WindowMaker are really nice.

Another point: The clssic (not KDE) window managers default to
allowing switch desktops by pressing the mouse against the border.
This drives many people crazy.  I wanted to fix that but I hadn't
time/forgot about it.

> One slight bug: during the install, after I'd picked packages, it told me
> about a pair of packages that required some packages I hadn't selected.
> (I think WavPlugin or xwave was one of them, don't remember. Probably

This wasn't a bug.  One of the packages you had selected needed
something you hadn't.  Problem we have is that in case you select by
categories you could find something is missing because the "comps"
file is not good.  Each category should be complete: ie contain the
main packages plus everything is needed for them who is not in the
"Base" category.  But it happens some categories are not complete.
Writing and testing a 'comps' file is very heavy work and we need an
automated tool for doing this.

> everyone who's attempted to install Indy encountered this.) Anyway, I don't
> know what they required that I didn't choose. My instinct says they've got
> some false dependencies that were confusing the installer. But it worked ok
> anyway.
> 

It tells you what is needed and you can tell it to just install it and
stop bothering you.

> Another slight bug: this might not be indy's fault, but when I type
> "reboot", it does the right thing for a little while, gets to killing gpm,
> and freezes. This means I can't get a clean reboot.
> 

It is not Indy's fault.  I didn't know: I ever use CTRL-ALT-DEL.

> But other than that, it looks good. I liked the install. And I really
> liked the fact that it had heard of my monitor, so I didn't have to tell
> it the refresh/sync/etc rates. (I haven't done a redhat install since 4.2
> first came out. Guess I'm behind the times..:)
> 

RedHats 5.? scan /proc/pci and automatically choose the right X
server.

-- 
			Jean Francois Martinez

Project Independence: Linux for the Masses
http://www.independence.seul.org