On Sat, 2005-09-10 at 10:28 -0400, Edward Diener wrote:
> I was thinking that somebody, given the error I reported on this post, might
> know why it occurred. I understand that installers are not perfect but they
> should give error messages that might tell one what went wrong.
Sometimes they literally can't.
Anything to do with storage is one area where there are _countless_
variations, combinations and other details that are just too broad,
compounding and other issues.
Furthermore, it takes a _deep_ understanding of how 16-bit BIOS Int13h
Disk Services work, and how disk geometry, disk numbering/ ordering/
mapping, Linux device/ driver/ initrd and other things differ. It
literally took me _years_ to come up to speed on those things, and I
_still_ only know how to solve maybe 75% of all issues.
And that's me, a human. An installer, no way.
> No it is an older Via chipset, the KT333 northbridge and the VT8233A
> southbridge, using an AMD processor. The mobo is an Abit AT7. I have had this
> machine run SimpleMEPIS and FC3. I was able to upgrade to the latest 3.3.1
> version of SimpleMEPIS. I failed completely to get FC4 to install due to the
> fact that my video adapter's ( Matrox 650 ) support using VESA went bad between
> FC3 and FC4,
I can't remember if I said so here, but even Alan Cox said he's not
installing Fedora Core 4, and sticking with Fedora Core 3. But this is
nothing new, some Red Hat Linux (now Fedora Core) releases are too new
in their adoptions. But it was a little easier to know with Red Hat
Linux (".0") -- although I've starting calling it the "reverse Star
Trek."
The even are bad, the odd are good. Funny that it's Kinda opposite of
most kernel/project revisions.
> and now have experienced this problem with CentOS. It is disappointing
> to see Linux get worse, rather than better, as new distros are
> created in dealing with hardware.
Installers are _not_ Linux.
Installers are _not_ distros.
In fact, the main problem isn't Linux, but the increase in "superstore-
designed hardware." And that means cheap, poorly tested, Windows
version _specific_ drivers, and absolutely _no_ public specifications.
--
Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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