Forum Moderators: bakedjake
Wanting to try other flavors, I installed Red Hat 8.0 today.
Installation
The installation seemed to be very smooth and took around 30 min. All the hardware was found (except the HP printer which I did not turn on, different topic) including the MS intellimouse, Nvidia Geforce 4 card and the Dell monitor.
First reboot after install
This is where the real fun started. It would not start Gnome and I was presented with some kind of error message. Not what I was expecting or hopping for. Turns out that I had to select the generic monitor option to get to Gnome. I'm just guessing but I think this might have something to do with the Nvidia drivers. I had the same kind of problem with Lycoris until I installed their Nvidia drivers. This is something I hope to fix soon because right now I'm stuck with 800-600 screen.
Something else I was not happy to see is that sometimes the mouse does not work when I first turn it on. Sometimes when I first move the mouse the cursor goes to the top right corner of the screen and stays there.
First impression
Other than the few problems I'm having, I think Red Hat 8.0 kicks butt. The desktop is very clean with only three icons which look very nice. The menu is laid out very well and some programs seemed to be named for what they do and not what their real name might be. Setting up the adsl was a snap. Most of the programs that I have tried so far start fast, Mozilla takes about 5 seconds. OpenOffice is the exception so far. I'm just guessing but maybe around 20 seconds. Evolution was easy to set up and looks good as well.
Conclusion
Do I think RH 8.0 is ready for the everyday Joe and Jane PC user? Maybe. So far it seems easy to use but I think the few problems that I do have might make others want to give up. If someone that really knows what they are doing (unlike me) installs it for them, then I don't see much of a problem. After I get the few problems I'm having sorted out and I learn how to update software (Mozilla) and install software (analog) I can see RH 8.0 replacing Windows 2000 as my main OS.
The moral of the story? Take it for a test run or check app specific fourms before upgrading and make sure you can downgrade right quick if necessary.
