Oh KRUD.

I somehow hosed X on my laptop (maybe it was that trial version Metro-X?, or perhaps having to adjust the partition sizes to make room for a research project on the puny Win2k install I had to have on there) and so decided that there was no time like the present to try KRUD on a laptop. I was already rather pleased with KRUD on servers and desktop workstations, so now time to try the laptop. I approach with much trepidation, as it took forever to get sound to work properly on the Thinkpad and I'd really hate to lose it again.

The install is a standard red hat 7.0 install, though I do like that it no longer defaults to formatting /home (hey, sometimes you forget to uncheck it!). First problem: it didn't detect the 3com PCMCIA card (then again, that took a recompile under mandrake too, so I won't worry about that yet...).

And the verdict is: Sound is dead. RRRRRRRRRRRR. However, it uses Gnome as the default, and that makes me happy. One thing that bothers me greatly about Mandrake is that it doesn't take direction real well when it comes to switching desktops managers. When I change from the default (KDE) to Gnome, it won't accept the change until I've actually logged out completely and rebooted once or twice. I don't use KDE, I use Gnome. Time for a quick recompile (KRUD uses 2.2.17 with the really good stuff from 2.4 backed into it (better USB, etc etc)).

Sigh, no luck with the audio, though all else has done fine. Now I just have to staple the DrakConf tools onto RH and I'll be quite happy. RH's update agent is comparable to DrakUpdate and works well, though when I tried to run it before registering it segfaulted instead of allowing me to register anonymously. The security features that have been incorporated into KRUD are perfect for a server, but less than ideal for a laptop as it makes you jump through some hoops to get things done that you shouldn't do except on a server. It works really well on a desktop as well, actually, as I have no complaints about it on the Penguin box (well, it didn't upgrade my monitor to a flat panel, but I assume they'll put that in a future release ;) ).

BOTTOM LINE: If you run a server, use KRUD. Plain and simple. If you run a workstation, try it out and you will likely be very pleased.

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