🚀 go-pugleaf

I've been working with the LGX CDROM for a for a fortnight now, and I'd
thought I'd share my experiences.

Pros:		Almost complete source.  Cheap.
Cons:		Poorly integrated/compiled.
Overall:	Disappointing.

My bona fides: I've been following Linux since Linus announced the
kernel in c.o.m.  I've offered a number of kernel patches, ported a few
applications, written a device driver.  My business is programming, with
8 years experience in DOS/Un*x programming and maintainance.

My first complete Linux installation was SLS 1.0.  Despite the recent
flaming of SLS, I found it easy to install, requiring only minor
tweaking to create a functioning Linux/X environment complete with news
and mail feeds via UUCP.  My system is an 8Mb 386DX25, 105Mb/650Mb SCSI
disks with TMC885 controller and ET4000 video card.

I was looking to make the jump from pl9 to pl13.  In the process, I
wanted to repartition my disks, and wanted a large source repository.
After comparing LGX, Nascent and Ameritech CDROMS, I went with LGX
because
    1.	Price.  Just Computing were preselling for a most
	reasonable price.
    2.	Postgres.  I wanted to have a look at DBMSs.
    3.	This is Yggdrasil's second release.  I assumed that any
	problems/bugs in the distribution would have been ironed out.

The install script allows you a choice of installations - cd_dependant
(1Mb), runtime (27Mb), complete (235Mb) and everything (700Mb).  I
installed the runtime system, with a view to customizing my system with
the control panel, an application that allows you to selectively install
packages.  Some of the problems I encountered may have been due to this
partial install - it's possible that users doing the complete install
would have less trouble.

As a resource, the CD is good.  It would have been great if it was a
little more up to date (see below).  As a turnkey Linux system, it's
poor.  Yggdrasil are promoting this as a `plug-and-play operating
system'.  This is true only in the most juvenile sense of the word
`play'.  Mail, UUCP, and news don't work.  The compiler package is
installed missing a key program.  Most X libraries are not installed.
I find it hard to believe that any QC was done at all.

The nitty gritty.  This is not presented in any particular order.

    1.	The install script does not handle the case of no swap.
	While this doesn't affect installation, newbies are going
	to be quite disconcerted to see error messages during
	installation.
    2.	fdisk does not handle SCSI drives/controllers that return
	invalid drive geometries.  While not an Yggdrasil problem,
	it might have been detected (and easily corrected) by QC.
	This fault makes it impossible to repartition drives on
	certain systems.
    3.	The demo will not run on an 8Mb machine with no swap.
	Not a real problem, but no mention is made in the manual
	of the >8Mb requirement.
    4.	asteroids will not work without a patch.  Again, not an
	Yggdrasil problem, but seeing as this program is the first
	one listed on the games menu for the demo, it should have
	been detected and is easily corrected.
    5.	reboot is located in /bin, not in /usr/bin where init expects
	to find it, so init doesn't handle the three finger salute.
    6.	An older, incompatible version of init in /bin.
    7.	A number of directories are installed with the wrong permissions.
	For example, /usr, /usr/bin, /usr/local and /usr/local/bin
	are world writeable, as are others.
    8.	/usr/bin/ranlib is not installed when you choose to install
	the compiler component.
    9.	/usr/bin/Mail cannot update a users mailbox.  While it's an
	improvement over the mail that came with SLS, it requires
	/usr/spool/mail to be world writeable in order to create a lock
	file.  There are two choices: make /usr/spool/mail rwxrwxrwt, or
	recompile mail to create its lock file in /tmp.  I chose the
	latter.
    10.	Most of the X libraries in /usr/X386/lib do not get installed.
	Soft links are created for them in /usr/lib, but only the
	shared libs are installed.
    11.	The UUCP programs are installed with the wrong ownership,
	which means they can't spool to /usr/spool/uucp, which has the
	right owner.  I needed to recompile anyway to install a bug
	fix, so this wasn't a problem for me.
    12. INN (InterNetNews) is stuffed.  Not only is the config suspect
	(try posting to a moderated newsgroup), the installation is
	missing a key program, innd.  An incompatible version of inews
	is in /bin.  Also installed with the wrong ownership.
    13.	Kernel rebuilds require configuring IN2000 support.  IN2000
	support appears to have been added by Yggdrasil, since it
	doesn't appear in my copy of linux-99.13k.  All well and good
	for Yggdrasil customers with IN2000 cards, but I don't see the
	point of making everybody else compile with IN2000 support, when
	a 5 line patch removes this requirement.
    14. No NET-2.  I may be mistaken here, because networking is one
	area in which I have no experience.  However, one of the
	packages I've ported (FlexFAX) requires a minimal TCP setup, so I
	thought I'd have a go setting it up.  Following the instructions
	in /usr/doc/FAQs/NET-2-FAQ, I got to the point of running
		/bin/hostname -S razorback
	Guess what?  My hostname became `-S'.  While no mention is made
	anywhere of NET-2 support, I assumed (hoped) it would be included.
	Because of the NET-2 faq, and /usr/doc/network-guide/netguide-0.4,
	I thought it was.

The following are more nit-pickery than Yggdrasil problems.

    15.	There is no source or documentation for minicom.
    16. /usr/src/sbin/getty_ps is version 2.0.2, not 2.0.7b.  Since
	2.0.7b was released in April, it would have been nice to have it
	updated.
    17.	A choice of init would have been nice.  The poeigl supplied is a
	little dated (1.11), and I prefer the SysV init from Miquel van
	Smoorenburg.  Not a Yggdrasil problem, a personal preference.
    18.	etc is located in /var.  If var is meant to be a mountable
	filesystem, putting etc on it is going to make it difficult.
	Wait for the FSSTND call on this.
    19. The demo of the Andrew System (ez) requires the environment
	variable ANDREWDIR be defined.  Since it isn't, some of the
	demos fail.
    20.	The fonts installed for ghostscript-2.6.1 are from the
	ghostscript-2.5.2 package, so a number of those listed in Fontmap
	(Nimbus, URWAntiquaT, URWGroteskT) are not available.
    21.	While the manual cover lists JPEG/GIF/TIFF viewers, you're
	not actually told what they're called.  Expecting xv/xli/xloadimage,
	I had to poke around before discovering display.
    22.	Man pages exist for xmahjongg, xjewel and jetpack, but not the
	programs themselves.

There are a number of other things I've had to do, but they fall more into
the area of normal configuration/setup.

The upshot is that two weeks after getting the disk, and thinking it
would be an evenings work to install, I'm still tweaking (eg, I only
discovered the missing X libs last night).  If I'd known what this disk
was like beforehand, I would have waited another couple of weeks for the
new SLS CD - the difference in the amount of downtime would have more
than compensated the price difference.

Yggdrasil had the oppurtunity of making a great introduction for Linux
with this.  The addition of mpeg/sound applications shows off the
potential that Linux holds.  Howver, the ball has been fumbled badly,
and I would not recommend this CD for users without significant *ix
experience.

LATE FLASH:  As I was posting this, I received a message from Yggdrasil
in response to an earlier posting of mine.  While the time between
posting and response was fairly long, it shows that Yggdrasil listen to
their customers.  Hopefully they can use this post to better their
product.

Rick.