More on installation of 7.1.

We decided to not deploy SL 7.1 

Down loaded the nice serial manual from RH site.  Well written, and everything 
works as stated.   There still does not seem to be a way to get a simple 
Ethernet connection.
Error message is "NO Connection"  We started out with a working box running SL 
5.11.

Since all of our users gave it a thumbs down and did not do not want this OS - 
the vote was  unanimous.

The Ethernet install failure was the a show stopper.

Installations we tried were the "standard", "automatic etc.
Last night was the 16Th time we tried to install it and make some sense of it.
So far we have tried about every thing and finally let it do a standard 
install on the OS disk.  It didn't improve anything.  
Made you think of Windows 7 - Bill computer on this time its big Red's 
computer.

1.  When looking at the /  there were two partitioned /boot, /home & / and 
that was it.   If you do a "df" -n on look at the installed stuff it is just 
a bunch a numbers and no clue as to what they all did.  
No /var, /opt, /tmp and others we use on other disks were no where to be 
found.  Just a series of characters - no meaning.

2.  We tried to load a couple of apps we use some are home grown, some are 
purchased, cad packages did not want to install.  We ordered VMWare so we 
could install some variants of Windows for special stuff and use our file 
system layout.  Down loaded it on another system but have not installed it 
due to Ethernet problem.

3.  We decided to just reload 5.11 hook up other disks and forget till SL 8.1 
comes out sometime.   We could not install a previous OS .  It seams that SL 
7.1 has written something on the Track 00 of disk that it was installed on we 
cannot see it but it prevents you from backing to a prior OS version.
Once you install 7.1 you have been Intercourrsed.

4.  We need a way to gracefully remove SL 7.1 if we can't then we will have to 
do a low level format on disk.
One of the guys suggested that we take the disk out and put it on fence post 
in south forty and he would loan me his twelve Gage.  Just because a low 
level format takes so much time.

5.  We have invested about 16 hours on various installs at the shop rate and 
that is a lot of money spent for a Zero gain.
Dan remarked that it is so secure that even as root you could do nothing.   
Reminded him of a 10 Ton Steel safe full of trash at 15 K ft. below the 
surface, secure but effectively worthless.

6.  One of the major birches is how do you tun off the goofy sound when you 
manually step back too far.  Can you imagine 50 of these noises going off at 
the same time.   This is below first grade stuff and needs to be removed.
The last thing you need in a machine shop is a surprise when some one is 
running a mill, lathe, power sheer, drill press.

One of disturbing trend is that everyone likes to use the word "Wizard"   I am 
old enough to have watched Mr. Wizard in the 50's and the usual Wizard 
experiment blew up in our faces.
A word that should be "forbidden" in software is  "Wizard" and one other that 
I can't remember that is used in Windows and stuff I have seen in Red Hat.

I need a way to uninstall 7.1 from our test system.  One way that was 
suggested was to load Windows 7.  Ouch.

We have been using Unix since 79 on a PDP8, a Convex super computer, Sun Super 
Server a 16 processor Server, and for the last 10 years  We have been using 
SL  Starting with SL 4.1  Linux.  Tried to use Susi, Slackware & others that 
were around. and all had major deficiencies.
So here we are with SL5.11 and some boxes @ SL 6.4.   They all work together 
and the network was easy and the video was excellent.

Thank all of you for your help over the years.

Will go back to sleep till SL 8.1 comes along. Hope its before 5.11 support is 
ended.

Larry Linder