[oclug] Mandrake 9.0 / KDE

[Rod Giffin]

I installed Mandrake 9.0 on two systems today, and I noticed something almost 
as soon as I did.  I1t's fast - and I take back all of the bad stuff I said 
about KDE being a bloated script kiddie toy.  One system does an unattended 
boot in under 50 seconds, and starts KDE in about 15 seconds.  The other 
system is slightly slower but has only about 1/2 the processor too. (a 
Athalon XP1700 and a PIII 800)   Even XP doesn't boot that fast on the same 
equipment - but I'm actually running a bunch of servers XP doesn't support 
and Linux is still faster.  (I would have tried GNOME, but I was more 
interested in KDE because it took a very long time to start in MDK8.2)

Somebody has spent a little time working on the user interface too, which is 
nice to see, but it still seems somewhat clumsey (KDE-ism's I suppose).  I 
like the user avatars in KDE, there's even a cat avatar that's prettier than 
XP's if you like cats.

The only issue I have at the moment is that it doesn't recognize the sound 
card I've got in one of the systems, but for that matter neither does Windows 
XP or Windows 2000.  Even the manufacturers drivers for 2000 don't work.  No 
prob.  I've got an old SoundBlaster Live somewhere around here.

Anyway I was mildly impressed.  Now if I could only get OOo to start faster!

Rod.