pringlex Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I've just installed this distro, and all I can say is 'wow'. I've toyed with Linux in the past, but have never really 'got' it enough to switch over from Windows, so I've invariably deleted it and gone back. However, I decided to give Linux another try recently, after seeing a few screen shots and noticing how much better it looked these days. I downloaded Mandrake 9.0 and after a few unsuccessful installs (X didn't seem to like my GF4...) I managed to get a useable system up and running. While it was certainly better than my previous experiences, there wasn't really anything that grabbed my attention enough for me to stick with it as my main OS. I carried on playing around with it, but found my self choosing Windows on the boot-up menu more and more often. I'd noticed that Red Hat also looked quite nice, so I thought 'why the hell not' and downloaded all 5 CDs last night. Burnt 'em this morning, cleaned Mandrake off my hard drive, and sat down and prepared myself to go through the installation procedure at least 3 times. However, this was not to be. Put the 1st cd in, it installed everything OK, and 20 minutes later it was telling me to reboot and get started with Linux :) 'So far so good' thought I, and rebooted. After watching all the kernel gibberish scroll up the screen, I encountered my first problem: X wouldn't load. It would just sit there at the text login screen, occasionally flickering as it tried to load up X. I was just about ready to give up once and for all, when a little message box popped up: "I couldn't load X, would you like to see the log files?" I clicked ok, had a quick look through, and noticed that I was having the same problem I had with Mandrake (which eventually was solved by editing a whole bunch of files, recompiling the drivers, a whole load of other stuff that I had no idea about). Red Hat then proceded to load up some kind of X configuration program, which was actually rather nifty, and easy to use! I didn't get any of this with Mandrake, it just left me totally in the dark as to what was going on. After a brief config change, X was loaded up and ready to go! Nice! My next surprise came when I discovered that my USB mouse was actually working! Try as I might, I couldn't get Mandrake to even acknowledge it existed. So here I am, sitting in Linux, which is looking pretty damn good at the moment, and I haven't had any serious problems so far! Hats off (no pun intended) to Red Hat for making such a damn fine distro! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glockfan Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Glad you like it ! With just a few minor annoyances (see my RH network post ) it has done me well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hummer Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 welcome to the world of linux.. Think you'll switch over now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techquilla Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 i feel the same way as well, redhat8 is just the best distro i've tried up to now, even though i only tried a few... :D :p now i find myself barely booting into windowsXP, .....i only need to do so to play games and write programs, which i don't know how to do in linux yet....... but i plan to get that straight asap...^^ i'll totally ditch windowsXP ( not totally, since i need it to play games) until i can get it to properly configure the video card to at least play divx and xvid movies..... and of course get kazaa lite working....,&^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miran Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I like RH 8.0 but I still find it incredibly annoying that I can't use (and can't figure out how to) my forward and back buttons on my Intellimouse USB. Would it be that hard for X to include a simple GUI as in Windows that lets you map all buttons? Or is there a way to do this? (I searched google pretty hard) Oh and one other thing is the difficulty with setting the refresh rate.. How hard would it be to put that option on the graphic menu? But other than that I do enjoy it! Just be sure to get the Nvidia drivers if you have a Geforce card (which I am in the middle of doing :) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagal Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 you think 8.0 is great....get ready to be blown away by phoebe! I upgraded my install of 8.0 to phoebe beta 2, and it looks so amazing as well as runs really smooth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuarterSwede Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I think I may have to try Redhat since you got your Nvidia card working. I had the same problem with Mandrake 9.0 ... it just wouldn't run 3D games with the nvidia drivers. I think it was using the software drivers, which of course suck and frame rates were unplayable to say the least. My mouse (Logitech Ifeel optical) worked though. Maybe I will wait till the next version of Redhat is final. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
autodefe Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I have RH8 installed on a dual boot though I rarely use it because it hates my GF4. It won't get the refresh rate right and I can't stare at 60Hz for more than 5 minutes without getting a major headache :x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnelson Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Hey, I've got the phoebe beta sat on my hard drive, waiting for both the time and the inclination to go through the install process. My biggest question though, is what would I use it for? I dual boot xp/xp, one system dedicated to music apps, Cubase, soundforge etc. I dig the stability of XP, but I don't need such a bloated OS for these applications. With my other installation dedicated to browsing, games and internet, I dig the simplicity of XPs totally plug & play environment. So, why convert? Curiousity may well get the better of me, and I have plenty of HD space, just someone re-assure me that I may play with Redhat for longer than the 2 days I played with the longhorn alpha! :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan.Varga Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 been using redhat since like 6.0 .. love the distro ... my only problem is make xconfig is not found on my install for whatever reason and i need it to get my iPod working anyone have any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 Only thing I like RedHat 8 is....Bluecurve and icons! Sometime, I use Bluecurve theme in Gnome 2.2rc1 on FreeBSD.. Mostly, I use LighthouseBlue thought, which it's based on Bluecurve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagal Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 hey mezz...I took your advice and tried to use mplayer but I having some problems with it. First it wouldn't detect a video output, but that I fixed by using mplayer -vo x11, then the sound, but I fixed that too. The only problem I still have is the quality of the movies and the screen size. For example, I played a divx file and the quality was a bit less than in xp and then when I change the screen size, it just maximizes the screen but the size of the video stays the same (its not like that with xine). any ideas? I wanted to pm you but since you don't like that, I waited for you to come online instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan.Varga Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 pagal u might wanna try Xine i like it a lot and have had no problems with it at all Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mezz Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 pagal, What's wrong with create a new topic? "Hack" someone's topic isn't good idea. If you create a new topic, you might get some better solution than from me. Anyway, you go ahead create a new topic and I will be back this afternoon. I need to eat, shower, hunting for job and etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagal Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 I just thought since the question is for you, I should do this....my bad! sorry pringlex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudydoo Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 IMO RedHat wee's all over Mandrake :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniacid Posted January 27, 2003 Share Posted January 27, 2003 heh I guess redhat is ok.. but I hate that I cant play games, same problem as iomayho, cant get the drivers to work properly, thats why I'm giving up on linux heh, I need to play quake 3, and if I cant then I'm not going to take the time to always be rebooting back into xp for that(bios bootup takes long) anyways I tried mandrake 9 recently, and I like it much better than Redhat, setup is much better since it detects my mouse, and office keyboard :), also detects my printer, so for me it was easier and plus it comes with blackbox already installed :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pringlex Posted January 28, 2003 Author Share Posted January 28, 2003 welcome to the world of linux.. Think you'll switch over now? I might well do, I haven't installed GF4 drives yet, but assuming I can get them to work, and get Q3 + UT2k3 up and running, I'll be sorted! I can't get the damn side buttons to work on my Intellimouse USB working either!! Anyone got any ideas on how I can get it work? But yeah, so far I'm loving it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warr Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Redhat 8.0 the best linux so far. why do we call it best? "because it satisfies Windows transformers. " :laugh: :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniacid Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 Redhat 8.0 the best linux so far.why do we call it best? "because it satisfies Windows transformers. " :laugh: :laugh: doesnt satisfy me :no: only if I had 3d support then I'd be satisfied Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bararum Posted January 29, 2003 Share Posted January 29, 2003 I can't get the damn side buttons to work on my Intellimouse USB working either!! Anyone got any ideas on how I can get it work? the new version of phoenix (.5) recognizes the back and forward buttons on my usb mouse, that's about all i can say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warr Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Redhat 8.0 the best linux so far.why do we call it best? "because it satisfies Windows transformers. " :laugh: :laugh: doesnt satisfy me :no: only if I had 3d support then I'd be satisfied typical point-n-click user. :laugh: :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BTallack Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Redhat 8 seems to not like any of my computers. I am unable to install Redhat on either my desktop or laptop, both with different problems. I am able to install Mandrake on both of them without any problems at all, so I can not figure out what the problem is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techquilla Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 I would definitely switch if i at least could play movie files, which i still can't get it to work....either on my ati 9700 pro, nvidia tnt2 , or my laptop's ati IGP 340M,......:( :no: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uniacid Posted January 30, 2003 Share Posted January 30, 2003 Redhat 8.0 the best linux so far.why do we call it best? "because it satisfies Windows transformers. "?:laugh::?:laugh:h: doesnt satisfy me:no:o: only if I had 3d support then I'd be satisfied typical point-n-click user:laugh:h::laugh:h: ...... I'm not a point n click user. I can't play any games so thats why I'm dissapointed right now, until xfree 4.3 is out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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