iBook2 Sounder 7 review

[David Miller]

Sounder 7 install notes:   (Dual USB iBook 500)

The installer once again can't see the Firewire drive.  As a data point, 
I did have a USB mouse connected.

The initial install process otherwise went quite smooth other than the 
"Installation is complete" dialog, which I understand has already been 
fixed for Sounder 8.

On the reboot, I still get all of the mknod errors, and the 
device-mapper errors, although the device-mapper errors are less verbose 
than they were previously.  (I think the new package that fixes these 
was posted after Sounder 7 so I probably don't have it yet)

It seems a shame to have a text mode timezone selector when 
gnome-system-tools has that beautiful GUI timezone selector, but I'm 
sure that'll come later when we get a GUI installer :)

I had to stop and think at the "Enter a full name for the new user" 
question.  I was expecting to be prompted for a username and had to 
think for a minute to realize that it was asking for the display name 
for the account rather than the actual account name.  I'm not sure how 
to reword this so it's any more clear, except perhaps to indicate 
"You'll be prompted for a username for the account in a moment" or 
something at the same time.  Or perhaps put both questions on the same 
dialog box so you enter them both at once.  That would actually be my 
preference.

X still comes up borked.  I copied my config from the backup copy and 
all was well.  (I'll try this again with the new one that just got posted)

The battery monitor still doesn't work until you open a terminal and 
modprobe apm_emu.

Sound still doesn't work.  Doing "modprobe dmasound_pmac" gets sound 
working, but the volume control applet in the gnome-panel still doesn't 
work.

The root account is disabled, but all the admin utilities are still 
doing su instead of sudo so you can't actually do anything admin-like.

I notice my default account got added to sudoers specifically.  It might 
be a better idea to add an admin group to sudoers.  Then the Users and 
Groups app can have a checkbox to make a user an admin, which just adds 
them to the admin group and doesn't have to fiddle with sudoers.

The backlight on my screen dims after 30 seconds of inactivity, which is 
a pain in the butt, and I can't find any way to disable it.  It does 
this even when X is not running, so I don't think it's related to X.  It 
is somehow related to something controlled by Linux though because OS X 
doesn't do it.

Tap-to-click *needs* to be disabled by default on install (it's not, 
currently).  This is controlled by pbbuttonsd.  Tap-to-click is really 
useful if you're expecting it, and if you're a power user.  If you're 
not expecting it, it creates a really BAD user experience, because you 
click on things a lot when you're not trying to click and it screws up 
where you're typing and so forth.  This is especially true on Apple 
hardware where the trackpad is right under the keyboard where you can 
accidently bump it with your palm while you are typing.  This feature is 
off by default in Mac OS X, and can be enabled in the Keyboard & Mouse 
preference pane.

-- 
Dave Miller      Project Leader, Bugzilla Bug Tracking System
http://www.justdave.net/             http://www.bugzilla.org/