notes on 2.2...

[William C. Taggart]

I have a TiBook 550 (256MB RAM) and I have recently switched from YDL 2.1
to 2.2. I have to say that I am very happy with the improved support for
my hardware. For the first time ever, I have heard a sound emanate from my
TiBook in Linux (a system bell). Haven't tried to play mp3s but I will
see.

Gnome and KDE look much better with 2.2 (but especially Gnome). The fonts
look better in K however.

Can finally (?) use nmap and its frontend (beta) with YDL. As this is
basic stuff for a system explorer, I am happy to see this for my arch.
Also have ethereal. Both are on the extras cd.

Of course the software modem still does not work (and probably never
will).

I will be more satisfied in a couple of months (when I move to a
university that has better support for laptop users, including ethernet
drops and wireless nodes, both of which are reported to work with YDL and
a TiBook).

One weird note: when I installed 2.2, it refused to overwrite my
bootloader, putting the whole installation in jeopardy. Can't remember the
exact message, but luckily I already had a bootloader in place so after a
hard reboot I got into YDL no problem. This might be a problem for others
however.

What else? It seems marginally faster.

Overall I give 2.2 for the TiBook a C+, but this grade should only improve
over the next few months with 2.3.


William Taggart
wtaggar@mail.uark.edu
Graduate Student
Department of Anthropology and
King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies
University of Arkansas
http://comp.uark.edu/~wtaggar