Because I hear these horrid comments about Linux being hard to install, I bring you this review of my latest Linux install experience: Redhat 9: Shrike.
I bittorrent'ed the 3 install ISOs, burned them (with my USB CD-R/RW CD Burner which was autodetected by Linux and was available immediately) and popped them in the PC. The redhat installer asked me if I wanted text/graphical mode, I wanted graphical of course so I pressed enter. It asked me if I wanted to scan the media (optional, to make sure the burner didnt fk up), so I scanned the first CD. Then I went on and it started the Redhat installer (anaconda). VERY pretty. I clicked Next, chose my language, etc then got to the keyboard and mouse stuff. First of all, I didn't change the mouse stuff! It DID autodetect the mouse, it's there in case it fails! sheesh.
Then the keyboard stuff, it was set on English so I just clicked Next. It showed a nice little package selection thingy, and I chose the package series I wanted and pressed next. It asked for the administrator password and a first username and then it installed. A half an hour and two CD switches later it was installed and I rebooted. I saw a pretty Redhat bootloader (grub). I chose Redhat Linux 9 and continued. It took a few seconds, showing various messages with color coded [Ok]'s etc. I got in and it was very beautiful. GDM has a nice Redhat theme. I logged in and came upon the Desktop. The fonts and icons were very smooth and crisp. I messed around, checking internet and all. Everything worked. I popped a CD-RW into my CD burner and up popped Nautilus's CD Burner window. I put some files in there and clicked Burn. That worked (btw IOMagic says my drive isnt supported in Linux whatsoever) It burned fine. I clicked Redhat menu->System Settings->Printers and clicked Add Printer, then scrolled down to HP 712c and clicked OK. It installed that and it worked perfectly from gedit, mozilla, and kwrite. I messed around with some CDs, and each CD-rom (burner included) had an icon on the desktop, and Redhat gave me a Nautilus window when inserted. For the redhat cd's it started the Redhat CD Install helper thing too, (autorun stuff). OpenOffice, Mozilla and all worked perfect and looked right at home with BlueCurve. KDE and GNOME/GTK+1/2 apps all looked identical. The only difference I could see was in Mozilla (because the menu mouseover's wasn't blue hehe). The only complaint I have about Redhat is it's rampant want for the root pw for everything I do. The administrator settings authorization in the notification area only lasts for like a minute. Also I couldn't find an option to enable DRI (and I dont want to go inside Redhat after all this perfection).
Therefore there are very few things Redhat needs to improve on the hardware detection. (maybe more devices, I cant test them all so idk)
My hardware set up for that PC is:
(most stuff straight from HP)
- 800 mhz Pentium III
- 128 MB RAM
- Linksys Network Everywhere 10/100 ethernet
- i810 graphics chipset, onboard audio
- HP 712c printer via parallel port
- USB optical mouse with scroll wheel and 2 buttons
- HP internet keyboard
- HP MX10 monitor (detected the name and all too
)
- IOMagic ImageWriter USB CD-R/RW 4x4x6 (MegaSlow)
One thing I haven't even tried was the internet keyboard buttons. I'll get to it next time I'm downstairs
Someone *please* contradict me and I will prove you wrong (unless it's a nice valid argument).
