[KLUG Members] More RH8.0 impressions

[Bruce Smith]

> 1. The gdm/pam installation is seriously whacked in some gross and
> fundamental way.  Both login and gdm reference the system-auth stack,
> but login works and gdm won't let any LDAP user login with some stupid
> message like "Couldn't set acct. mgmt for adam".  Still haven't figured
> that one out.  Putting a bogus entry for myself in /etc/passwd with the
> same uid/gid as the DSA at least let me login.  And ssh into the box? 
> No way,  just sits and spins.

You mean ssh with LDAP authorization, right?
I ssh into mine (without LDAP), no problem.

> 3. GNOME puked until I removed the old .gnome2 directory.  A few
> settings lost, but I didn't much care.

I think Ximian's gnome2 snapshot is a lot different than RH's Gnome2.

> 4. What happened to RPM?  It doesn't like several of the options that
> seemed to work before.  And building a spec file to a binary is
> completely different.  Did this strike someone as a good idea?  Will
> someone near them please whack them on the back of the head for me.

Haven't tried that yet.

However I have had problems with RPM locking it's database, and having
to reboot to get it unlocked.  (on two different machines!)

> 5. I miss Galeon, and this mozilla is too old to install it.  That is
> disappointing.  I'm off to fight a small war with RPM....

Galeon doesn't install by default, but it is on the RH 8 CD's.

> 6. The applications on the menu are allot better organized and the icons
> and descriptions are VERY nice.  But alas, most of the apps I use all
> day (vncviewer, ODBCConfig, DataManager, ....) don't merit such
> treatment.  The ODBC applications once installed don't show up on any
> menu, neither does vncviewer, and that doesn't even come with an icon.

Applications need to drop a file into a directory somewhere so they show
up on the menus.  Hopefully they'll all do that in the near future.

> 9. All my devices seem to work fine.  I went for a PS/2 to a USB mouse
> with no hickups.  Wheel on mouse worked straight up.  Plugged in one of
> my external SCSI disk packs.  That worked fine. CD's mount and ejected
> from the desktop without any problems.  I haven't gotten a chance to
> play with sound,  but I saw it load cmpci, so I assume that works.

Wireless works much nicer.  On a laptop with a builtin NIC, RH 7.3 used
to hang forever during boot waiting to connect to the network.  Under RH
8.0, "starting eth0" fails with the message the cable isn't connected.

And if you plug a wireless card into the PC that's already connected to
the wired LAN, it no longer gives you two different default routes.

> Despite the UI niggles above, which are possibly just taste issues, I'm
> pretty happy.  BUT, with the one exception of the PAM/NSS issue, which
> just pisses me off.  I haven't had issues like this with logging in
> since the 7.0 beta.

The updates are already starting to roll in.  A new kernel came out a
day or two ago (security update).  Get your orders in for BSware soon!  

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
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