On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 10:43 AM, Larry Linder
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Sir:
> Loaded SL 7.2 for third time and finally got it to where we can run it.
> I hate to complain but doe anyone check their work anymore.
> Or just compile it without errors and shove it out the door.
>
> There a several major things missing or wrong:
> 1.  It groans and complains about size of /boot - its set to 101 Meg.
> Reloaded 7.2 again and there does not seem to be way away to change size
> of /boot partition.  I periodically nags at you because there is only 25K
> left.  Now way to fix problem or to shut of "NAG" function.

This is not SL, this is upstream at Red Hat Enterprise Linux. There's
a great deal to dislike about the current, highly graphical anaconda.
The change from a flow chart, one step at a time, ncurses based,
checklist  installer of much older versions of Red Hat to the newer,
bulky, graphical toolkits came with inconsistent layout, confusing
options, confusing dependencies that used to be automatically handled
as blockers and dealt with before proceeding in the ncurses, text
based tools.

It looks to me,, like in this case, you need to custom partition the
disk. No idea why "/boot" is so small, but can you reduce the size of
"/" and then expand "/boot"?

Unfortunately, each layer of anaconda installer on top of undelying
tools like parted for disk management, yum for package selection, and
NetworkManager has injected its own layer of interface on top of
*another* interface, on top of the actual configuration commands and
tools. And the results are predictable: edge cases result form
assumptions that were made, and which break down in practice. The size
of "/boot" is one of those.

> 2.  Could not find a way to set up groups or add new users.
> Had to go back to hand edit of passwd and groups to make it happen.  No way to
> assign user id numbers.

What? What happened to "useradd" and "luseradd", "groupadd" and "lgroupadd" ?

> 3.  Could not find a utility to set up Internet connection - When you used a
> KDE or Gnome the Mac address of the router was different. !!!!  We have not
> been able to connect it to Network.

Yeah, NetworkManager is not my friend. You might benefit from the
lightweight 'nmcli'. I'm fairly unhappy about NetworkManager:

> 4.  Default monitor was set to a pixel size you need a microscope to make out
> the text.   If you used the Gnome it said monitor was IBM 12" France.  KDE
> said monitor was IBM 12" Brazil.  No other options were available. Maybe go
> back and hand edit Xterm stuff.   A major step back by 20 years.

Ouch. You're on a laptop?

> 5. With out com and a way to make display readable it becomes useless to run
> word processor, spread sheet, or anything.  Can't optimize width or set
> width,  You can go to full screen and the result is the same.
> There no way to set up terminal for other colors or text.
> Borders of GNOME are same color as other windows so you have to look twice to
> see which is which.   List of dislikes goes on and on.

Gnome is not my friend. I've not tried porting 'vtwm' to SL 7 or RHEL
7, but my tools for putting it on SL 6 and RHEL 6 are available at
https://github.com/nkadel/vtwm-5.5.x-srpm.

> 6. We (everyone in the shop) unanimously hates the GENOME desk top.  There
> does not appear to be able to select an alternate.

See above.

> 7. Could not find a way to turn off high pitched sound when you tried to step
> back too far on a line.   This part of "NAG" function and can't turn it off.
>
> 8.  Tried to play a CD - old Marty Robins and it skipped tracks and got hung
> up and could not X it out.  Had to Reboot.   There is something basically
> wrong with the OS if you can't kill an application.  Disk plays fine in my
> Dodge truck and does not have any visible defects.  DVD writer is good as we
> were able to make a dual layer DVD for 7.2 with it using SL 5.11.
>
> 9.  Gave up on SL 7.2
>
> Notes:
> The default set up was like a quadriplegic Windows 7.  We use one on our UPS
> account to ship stuff.  Everyone who uses it hates it.   Another disaster
> story.
>
> We have SL 5.11 deployed in the shop and support about 50 systems.   I would
> not like to tell the boss that we had to trash 45 to 50 perfectly good
> monitors and give up our ability to add users, groups and network extensions
> etc.
> example:
> We have a number systems in shop and one by Mill and Lathe so there are no
> paper prints.  Guys can review prints on line and set up CNC stuff on line.
> Saves a lot of time.

Consider testing SL 6, which has _not_ had these problems for me.

> The evaluation box is a dual core AMD, 16 Gig of Ram, 4 disks - totaling 2 TB.
> and a GForce Video card, all pretty current stuff and a working 5.11 system.
> We will reload SL5.11 on to test box and start looking for another Linux
> distribution that has not been mangled by Ex Microsoft employees, working at
> RH.
>
> Due to obtuse problems we quit evaluation and will not deploy SL 7 -
>
> The best solution is to drop back and evaluate SL 6.5 and see if we can live
> with it.  We have a SL 6.2 used on special project.
>
> We need to run spice, a Circuit layout editor, many spread sheets and a number
> of in house programs to manage inventory, component ordering, e-mail,  VMWare
> to run several cad packages and a stress analysis program.  Some employees
> run  12 desktops and two monitors.   So fare we have not see a limitation for
> 5.11 but have had to install a number of newer libs to accommodate new SW.
>
>
> Larry Linder