Re: If you could design a $300 homecomputer today, what would you choose?

[Andy Cadley <ac@sys.uea.ac.uk>]

On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Stephen Shaw wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Jul 2001 17:06:18 +0100, Andy Cadley wrote:

> > I seem to recall that the Mandrake 8 graphical installer needs something
> > like 64Mb of RAM and having less is pretty much the only thing that I've
> > ever seen cause it to bomb out.
> >
> > And Red Hat sucks big time. Even the latest version.

> Andy please elucidate on _WHAT_ sucks in Red Hat?

Everything. The entire user experience from start to finish. A few notable
points:

The installer *still* complains if you try and put a boot partition above
1024 cylinders and absolutely refuses to allow you to continue (unless you
go with it's suggested partition arrangement in which case it just
suggests that you don't do that[1]) despite being perfectly capable.

The hardware detection is pathetic compared to other distros. Even simple
things like making some use of the Windows key which is on almost all
keyboards these days isn't done for you. 

The configuration tools are scattered all over the place, all work
differently and most are quite counter-inituitive. The auto-update is
rubbish compared with the Mandrake equivalent, requiring you to faff
around with their website[2] and send them all the sorts of details that
everyone was worried Microsoft would want from you when they thought up
Windows Update.

Need I continue?

AndyC

[1] And what the f*ck is the point in "recommending" a partition
arrangement if you are then going to announce that it isn't recommended.
[2] Which, stupidly enough, only seems to work properly in Internet
Explorer under Windows.