Haydar Linux 1

["Ossama Khayaat" <ossamak at nht dot com dot kw>]

Assalamou Alaikom everyone,
I'd like to thank our brother Haydar for all the excellent work he did in preparing the first version of Haydar Linux.
I want also to tell you that I finished teaching my Linux System Administration today and distributed 6 copies of the first CD to the students and ask them for help for haydarlinux.org and arabeyes.org :) I told them that the original copy packaged costs 10KD here in Kuwait (as I remember), but it's just a gift for the excellent students only.
I've actually installed it just 2 hours ago and tried it for a while. It's really wonderfull how the KDE and HWM are improved specially with the latest packages and drivers.
Unfortunately, there were some annoying errors like:
+ I got a kernel panic when I booted the CD on my dual-XEON machine, that has two SCSI hard disks. So, I couldn't install it. I think it's because of the missing driver.
+ I installed it on my PIII-600 machine (the one I'm using now), but faced a problem because of the high refresh rate, anyway, I tried to use ctrl+alt+- and could get over it.
+ When I tried Xconfigurator it had a segmentation fault. I found Xfdrake and ran it and could get it running.
+ KBabel doesn't have support for Dictionary Database option :( which I find better than using PO Auxiliary and Compendium
+ When using Mozilla or Konqueror on both HMW and KDE, the Arabic fonts are broken in many places (e.g. www.distrowatch.com). It's even worse when using Mozilla because the fonts are even scrambled
+ I couldn't start Konqueror from HWM
+ Right clicking anywhere in the HWM doesn't do any thing (I guess it should at least show a shortcut menu)
+ The Maximize/Minimize menu options in the control box have been switched since Beta2 and still are!! although I reported this since then.

Other than this, everthing seems fine and still I didn't have much time to check it out.
One nice thing that happened while I was using HWM, which has the Arabic Windows XP start button, one Microsoft guy visiting our company was standing behind me talking on the phone. He was shocked when he noticed it and asked me.. "What is this? They stole our logo!!??". I just laughed and told him "What's the big deal! It's only a theme man :) Do you want me to show you Internet Explorer theme for Mozilla!!!". He just shut-up and stood for a minute and then walked away.

All in all, I can't say anything more than thanks again to all those who made it happen and I'll keep you updated on more about Haydar Linux as I use it.

Ofcourse, like always, please email me your address if you want a copy of the 2 CDs as well as RedHat Linux 9 3CDs which I have available so far.
Please don't hesitate to ask, it would be my pleasure.

regards,
Ossama Khayat