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Yes, Mandrake 7.2 is ready for download. It hasn't been officially announced or spread to all the usual mirrors yet, but word crept out yesterday on mandrakeforum.com. Be patient if you can't get through at first; you know how these things go; and keep an eye on the official Mandrake site for further news. This release is nice advance over Mandrake 7.1 or 7.0, worth downloading and installing (if you're a Mandrake user) for KDE 2 and KDE Office alone, both of which are incorporated into it. I got a small head start and played with 7.2 a bit last night, and found both some neat stuff and a few small but interesting usability gaps.

The first thing I found myself wondering when I logged in as root was, "Where's my CD supermount icon?" It wasn't there in root. Only users see it. Yes, you can do the usual command line mount/unmount, but isn't the point of Mandrake to be as close to 100% pointy-clicky adminable as possible?

A new Linux user trying to install (say) StarOffice on Mandrake 7.2 from a CD is going to be doing a fair amount of needless head-scratching. It was frustrating to pop in a StarOffice CD as a user and try to install it, only to get a "KPACKAGE has to run as ROOT" error message, then to log in as root and not find an obvious, E-Z method of reading files from a CD. Whether this is the fault of KDE or Mandrake I do not know, but it is a needless bit of hassle.

Another thing that threw me and my friend Joe (who owns Amnet Computer and helped me with the test) was that not only was RealPlayer not included, let alone pre-installed as a Netscape plugin as it was on the previous Mandrake releases we have gotten used to using, but that no PDF reader was preset as a plugin. Mandrake has spoiled us in previous releases, we freely admit, but we wish they would keep us spoiled. It is not hard to install Netscape plugins, but we're busy people so the less time we take setting up a new system the happier we are.

CUPS, the new Common Unix Printing System, was dirt-simple to set up for the Epson Stylus Inkjets both Joe and I own -- as local printers. We were not able to get our printers running through our networks with CUPS. The GUI configuration tool looked simple, but apparently wasn't. Perhaps smarter people can get it to configure network printers, but someone used to Windows probably will probably give up on network printing with CUPS fairly rapidly.

KOffice has been well-described (and rightfully praised) elsewhere; it is a beautiful piece of work. All the Windows people who claim they can't switch to Linux because they need PowerPoint have just lost that excuse. I was able to make a nice-looking slide show in KPresenter after only a few moments of trial and error. Other KOffice components are just as slick, and the new KDE desktop is a thing of beauty, in my personal opinion far more attractive than the default Windows desktop.

The Mandrake 7.2 install itself was flawless; when we followed the defaults (which means about all you have to do is select a keyboard language, then click "yes" several times) and selected "all packages" we didn't have much more to do besides watch The Simpsons. We tested both a low-end desktop computer Joe had just assembled and my Sager (essentially generic) laptop, and had no problems with either of them. Even the laptop's sound and video autodetected correctly and started right up. The only grumble Joe had (in part because he likes to grumble) was that it's about time for Mandrake to start providing support for Winmodems whenever possible; the low-cost motherboard in the desktop we used for our test had a Winmodem built in, and Joe said it was one for which Linux support is now available.

All in all, this was about as fine and easy a newbie-level Linux install as you can get. Yes, we all know Mandrake's partition scheme is not as cool as the preferred Debian one, or even Red Hat's, but Mandrake isn't aimed at old Unix/Linux heads, and its default partitions seem to do the job just fine.

If you download and install Mandrake 7.2, I would appreciate it if you would either post your experience below or email me to let me know how it goes. A Mandrake developer is supposed to be at my house Wednesday to help figure out some problems we had installing and configuring the retail sale version of Mandrake 7.2 they sent me -- a level of service most users can't expect from any software vendor. But dealing with the "boxed set" (and the reason Mandrake is giving me this level of personal attention) is another story for another day, one I hope to have for you either late this week or early next week.

What's 19.5 inches long, bright yellow, flexible, and rubber? Wait, don't answer that. To be be more precise, let me rephrase: what's 19.5 inches long, bright yellow, flexible, rubber, and equipped with a 7-foot PS/2 cable? (Read more.)

There may be other answers to that eternal, burning question, but the only one of which I am aware is the strange and intriguing keyboard (hooked to an Amnet laptop on loan from Roblimo) on which I type ths review. It's called the Flexboard, available in the U.S. from Man & Machine. And yes, it works fine with Linux -- in this case, with a semi-functional installation of Corel Linux 2.4. Nothing unusual about it, in fact, except that it's banana yellow, has no moving parts, can be rolled to the approximate dimensions of a stromboli, smells a bit like a paint store, and can droop becomingly around a user's naked thighs. Other than that, just your run-of-the-mill PS/2 keyboard.

With a design straight out of '70s Sweden, or perhaps the personal computer division of Fisher-Price (but actually manufactured in Germany by a company called Kota Technologies, this is not a keyboard you're likely to to find around the office. First of all, most offices do not need keyboards that cost as much as a passable 15" monitor -- and at $129 for the standard Home / Office version (the one I'm bumping away at), it's pretty close. (In case you're wondering, it is available in other colors, including neutral grey.)

Your $129, though, gets you an interesting, very specialized piece of equipment. This keyboard can withstand treatment that standard mechanical ones cannot, to put it lightly. (Turns on spigot -- not too hot, but not too cold.)

Add $100 for the even tougher "Industrial" version, and you can happily drench your keyboard in oil and many chemicals; the Industrial version also features a 2-year warranty vs. the standard edition's single year, and will withstand a wider range of storage and operating temperatures. For factories, laboratories, workshops and such it seems like just the ticket. Even the standard one, though, shrugs off both water and hot chocolate at point-blank range just fine. Rinse off, towel dry -- no need to wring.

The sensors which enable the keys are hidden beneath flat-topped projections in the one-molded-piece-of-rubber which is the keyboard. The letters, numbers and functon keys are perfectly round, while space bar, enter, and other special characters are elongated ovals. (Lower drain plug.)

The keys are adequately labeled; the printing is a little lighter than I would expect -- grey-brown rather than black -- but in practical use provides plenty of contrast. (Adjusts water.) Not that I'm giving it any practical use right now.

How well does it work? In short, a) better than I expected and, b) not bad. It takes some getting used to the feel of a rubber keyboard (and adjusting your typing style to its response), but it's not the awful, toothgrinding experience of "typing" on the flat-membrane surface of the old family Sinclair Z-80; it's really possible to type at a decent clip on this thing. Slower than my regular keyboard, but OK. Even combination keystrokes (shift-plus, alt-plus) work fine. However, if you're used to clacking along on a mechanical keyboard, especially if you crave the audio and tactile feedback of an IBM desk-dominator, the feel of this one will come as a surprise, though not necessarily a rude one.

The loudest you can make this keyboard roar, in fact, is closer to a Sunday School whisper than to, say, normal conversation. Unless you really want to swing your fingers, it is utterly silent. (A little more Hot, please.) A gentle squeezing motion is all it takes to actuate the keys. Even after acclimating myself to it for a few days, though, I find that a few keys (F, J, and a few others in the bottom row) simply do not work as well as others. Disconcertingly, the key which causes me the most trouble is the spacebar. I am generally a right-thumb spacebar thumper; I find that by switching to my left thumb my success is much improved. Overall, the engineers did an admirable job balancing sensitivity with oversensivity. I end up hitting backspace more than I'd like, but less than I feared I would have to.

So who would want one of these? With not a sharp angle or hard surface to be found, I can think of various institutions which might order it for those characteristics alone, and of which I know only by thorough reading. (Ouch! Too hot!) Any environment that could be wetter or messier than you'd subject an ordinary keyboard to (anyone who's gotten cat hair or soda in their keyboard will know what I mean) might be well-served with the Flexboard. Office klutzes everywhere -- we know who we are -- still would have to go through quite a few $30 keyboards from the local office supply before one of these makes sense for that reason alone.

It does seem like this would be a great keyboard for children, since not only are there no pieces to break off and chew on or swallow, but more importantly it cannot be used as a bludgeon against other children. And for anyone in a situtation which truly requires a spillproof, particle-proof keyboard, the generous cable allows you to better protect the PC itself, placing it in a cabinet, say, or otherwise out of your particular "splash zone." For situations where quiet is more important than input speed, this board would shine.

Having typed this review from the comfort of my bathtub, I can also attest to the Flexboard's resistance to Freeman Botanicals Apple Nectar shampoo as well as Dove moisturizing soap. Better close before I find out what it can't shrug off and get myself into even more hot water.

Many thanks to Clifton Broumand of Man&Machine for graciously providing this review unit.

Long ago and far away, I started writing a series called "Road To Linux," in which I set out to learn Linux in a few weeks. Talk about clueless. Nearly one year, two wasted computers, a ticked-off spouse, (and a Yellow Lab who ate a motherboard) 30-plus books and manuals and much assorted debris later, I've more or less made it. I have no illusions about the technical accomplishments I've achieved here, but these are the first proud words I've ever written online without any assistance from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or any big fat corporation. Small stuff to most of you, Computer Everest to me.

My PPP daemon keeps cutting out, and I'm puzzling over swap partitions, random seeds and generators bin/appfinders, so I'll keep this brief. In the next few weeks, I'll write more about my personal, somewhat hellish road to Linux. It was a hummer, accompanied every step away by the jeers and cheers of geeks and nerds on and off of Slashdot.

The big lesson was that I approached Linux in the wrong way, from every conceivable perspective. It needn't be that hard.

Rather than wading into manuals and books and programming (if you do it, believe me, O'Reilly is the best), I finally figured out that there are people like Joe Volodarsky out there, and companies like Amnet, people who live and breathe computers and Linux and who actually pick up the phone and help Every-Single-Time-You Call! The truth is, I never did figure this out. Somebody figured it out for me, but I finally got it. If you're not a geek, that's the big news.

And I am not a computer geek, and don't aspire to be one. I'm a writer, and happy with that title. Posting a column on a Linux laptop somebody else designed and preloaded for me hardly makes me any sort of nerd or techno-whiz. This is, in fact, the level of the classic breathless newbie, a mantle I expect to take to the grave.

Disagreement and criticism is a healthy, integral part of Web-writing, but the minor yet persistent controversy surrounding my writing for Slashdot has always surprised me. Some are passionately into defining who belongs or doesn't, an unfortunately common and increasingly difficult impulse in electric (and off-line) communities.

The term "geek" is broadening and evolving daily, and is coming to mean different, complex and increasingly positive things to people.

The real geeks and hackers, it seems to me, aren't into chest-thumping about who deserves the title. Like Joe, their real kick comes from getting people where they want to go. They're almost invariably welcoming and helpful. They're pretty secure about themselves, and their techno-manhood. From the first, they've been trying to help move me along, to the best degree of my limited ability. But if I recognize my limitations in writing on a Linux Box, I'm still pretty happy about it.

Real programmers are different from mortals, certainly from writers. They are a separate species. Programmers are precise, confident and look ahead. They have no doubt they can make technology come out right for them. Writers are imprecise, uncertain and backwards-looking. Their relationship with technology is uncertain, a means, never an end.

But here's what the fight about me being on Slashdot has always really been about: You don't need to be - and shouldn't have to be - a programmer to use and appreciate Linux, which is, to my amazement, every bit as easy and logical as my beloved Macs, once you get past the installation.

Linux is fun. Knowledge is, in fact, empowering, and learning and seeing how a computer actually works, especially in the context of a powerful idea like Open Source, is worth the grief and trouble. And for non-geeks heading for Linux, there will be plenty of both.

Joe Volodarsky was savvy in puttng together this computer for me, to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible. He used KDE and set up folders for Netscape, WordPerfect, documents,the printer, Templates, News, Updates, the Gimp, CD-ROM and floppy disks. I can't stay off of the KAPP Finder, which scrolls through an exotic list of programs and apps I'm reading about one by one, using my O'Reilly and other Linux guides. My laptop was designed with me in mind, even down to a Mac OS logo on the start-up menu. I've spent a dozen happy but nerve wracking hours puzzling over random seeds and bizarre commands, but I've learned more about computing in the last few weeks than in the decade I've been online.

For somebody who loves to write about technology, this is definitely a humbling gift and an opportunity. Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas I've come across in media, even as I'm just beginning to grasp how complicated an idea it is. Linux is a huge part of it. I'd like to go as far as I can get, taking small steps, one day at a time.

Playing around with my new laptop, I'm fascinated by how accessible the workings of this system are, (and how hidden the processes of my other computers have been) and have even moved a few things around, killed a few programs, and relished checking the Term windows to see my computing life and history passing before my eyes. I was up till 2 a.m., and had more fun than at any point in my life aside from walking into Joe DiMaggio on a New York City street when I was a kid.

Since this is the third time I've tried to post this message, I'm not going to prolong it.

Thanks to Joe of Amnet, which makes Linux boxes, laptops and servers. For getting me up and running, he deserves a place in the Geek Hall of Fame. Rare in our world, he is both technologically skilled and empathetic. He only lost it with me two or three times, and then briefly ("Katz, you don't have to Re-Boot. Don't turn it off!"). Thanks also to VA Linux Systems for hooking up the Slashdot crowd with Sony Vaios.

For those of you who sneered and jeered, thanks. You gave me the iron will to persevere. It was the Penguin or Death. And nuts to you, too.

For those of you who supported me in a hundred ways - especially Rob, Jeff, Robin, Jesse, Joe, Karl, Tom, Sandy, and scores of others who offered help every single day for nearly a year - thanks even more.

I might never be a Linux Geek. But I am my own particular kind of geek now.

Seems to me that's the idea.

Long ago and far away, I started writing a series called "Road To Linux," in which I set out to learn Linux in a few weeks. Talk about clueless. Nearly one year, two wasted computers, a ticked-off spouse, (and a Yellow Lab who ate a motherboard) 30-plus books and manuals and much assorted debris later, I've more or less made it. I have no illusions about the technical accomplishments I've achieved here, but these are the first proud words I've ever written online without any assistance from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or any big fat corporation. Small stuff to most of you, Computer Everest to me.

My PPP daemon keeps cutting out, and I'm puzzling over swap partitions, random seeds and generators bin/appfinders, so I'll keep this brief. In the next few weeks, I'll write more about my personal, somewhat hellish road to Linux. It was a hummer, accompanied every step away by the jeers and cheers of geeks and nerds on and off of Slashdot.

The big lesson was that I approached Linux in the wrong way, from every conceivable perspective. It needn't be that hard.

Rather than wading into manuals and books and programming (if you do it, believe me, O'Reilly is the best), I finally figured out that there are people like Joe Volodarsky out there, and companies like Amnet, people who live and breathe computers and Linux and who actually pick up the phone and help Every-Single-Time-You Call! The truth is, I never did figure this out. Somebody figured it out for me, but I finally got it. If you're not a geek, that's the big news.

And I am not a computer geek, and don't aspire to be one. I'm a writer, and happy with that title. Posting a column on a Linux laptop somebody else designed and preloaded for me hardly makes me any sort of nerd or techno-whiz. This is, in fact, the level of the classic breathless newbie, a mantle I expect to take to the grave.

Disagreement and criticism is a healthy, integral part of Web-writing, but the minor yet persistent controversy surrounding my writing for Slashdot has always surprised me. Some are passionately into defining who belongs or doesn't, an unfortunately common and increasingly difficult impulse in electric (and off-line) communities.

The term "geek" is broadening and evolving daily, and is coming to mean different, complex and increasingly positive things to people.

The real geeks and hackers, it seems to me, aren't into chest-thumping about who deserves the title. Like Joe, their real kick comes from getting people where they want to go. They're almost invariably welcoming and helpful. They're pretty secure about themselves, and their techno-manhood. From the first, they've been trying to help move me along, to the best degree of my limited ability. But if I recognize my limitations in writing on a Linux Box, I'm still pretty happy about it.

Real programmers are different from mortals, certainly from writers. They are a separate species. Programmers are precise, confident and look ahead. They have no doubt they can make technology come out right for them. Writers are imprecise, uncertain and backwards-looking. Their relationship with technology is uncertain, a means, never an end.

But here's what the fight about me being on Slashdot has always really been about: You don't need to be - and shouldn't have to be - a programmer to use and appreciate Linux, which is, to my amazement, every bit as easy and logical as my beloved Macs, once you get past the installation.

Linux is fun. Knowledge is, in fact, empowering, and learning and seeing how a computer actually works, especially in the context of a powerful idea like Open Source, is worth the grief and trouble. And for non-geeks heading for Linux, there will be plenty of both.

Joe Volodarsky was savvy in puttng together this computer for me, to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible. He used KDE and set up folders for Netscape, WordPerfect, documents,the printer, Templates, News, Updates, the Gimp, CD-ROM and floppy disks. I can't stay off of the KAPP Finder, which scrolls through an exotic list of programs and apps I'm reading about one by one, using my O'Reilly and other Linux guides. My laptop was designed with me in mind, even down to a Mac OS logo on the start-up menu. I've spent a dozen happy but nerve wracking hours puzzling over random seeds and bizarre commands, but I've learned more about computing in the last few weeks than in the decade I've been online.

For somebody who loves to write about technology, this is definitely a humbling gift and an opportunity. Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas I've come across in media, even as I'm just beginning to grasp how complicated an idea it is. Linux is a huge part of it. I'd like to go as far as I can get, taking small steps, one day at a time.

Playing around with my new laptop, I'm fascinated by how accessible the workings of this system are, (and how hidden the processes of my other computers have been) and have even moved a few things around, killed a few programs, and relished checking the Term windows to see my computing life and history passing before my eyes. I was up till 2 a.m., and had more fun than at any point in my life aside from walking into Joe DiMaggio on a New York City street when I was a kid.

Since this is the third time I've tried to post this message, I'm not going to prolong it.

Thanks to Joe of Amnet, which makes Linux boxes, laptops and servers. For getting me up and running, he deserves a place in the Geek Hall of Fame. Rare in our world, he is both technologically skilled and empathetic. He only lost it with me two or three times, and then briefly ("Katz, you don't have to Re-Boot. Don't turn it off!"). Thanks also to VA Linux Systems for hooking up the Slashdot crowd with Sony Vaios.

For those of you who sneered and jeered, thanks. You gave me the iron will to persevere. It was the Penguin or Death. And nuts to you, too.

For those of you who supported me in a hundred ways - especially Rob, Jeff, Robin, Jesse, Joe, Karl, Tom, Sandy, and scores of others who offered help every single day for nearly a year - thanks even more.

I might never be a Linux Geek. But I am my own particular kind of geek now.

Seems to me that's the idea.

Long ago and far away, I started writing a series called "Road To Linux," in which I set out to learn Linux in a few weeks. Talk about clueless. Nearly one year, two wasted computers, a ticked-off spouse, (and a Yellow Lab who ate a motherboard) 30-plus books and manuals and much assorted debris later, I've more or less made it. I have no illusions about the technical accomplishments I've achieved here, but these are the first proud words I've ever written online without any assistance from Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or any big fat corporation. Small stuff to most of you, Computer Everest to me.

My PPP daemon keeps cutting out, and I'm puzzling over swap partitions, random seeds and generators bin/appfinders, so I'll keep this brief. In the next few weeks, I'll write more about my personal, somewhat hellish road to Linux. It was a hummer, accompanied every step away by the jeers and cheers of geeks and nerds on and off of Slashdot.

The big lesson was that I approached Linux in the wrong way, from every conceivable perspective. It needn't be that hard.

Rather than wading into manuals and books and programming (if you do it, believe me, O'Reilly is the best), I finally figured out that there are people like Joe Volodarsky out there, and companies like Amnet, people who live and breathe computers and Linux and who actually pick up the phone and help Every-Single-Time-You Call! The truth is, I never did figure this out. Somebody figured it out for me, but I finally got it. If you're not a geek, that's the big news.

And I am not a computer geek, and don't aspire to be one. I'm a writer, and happy with that title. Posting a column on a Linux laptop somebody else designed and preloaded for me hardly makes me any sort of nerd or techno-whiz. This is, in fact, the level of the classic breathless newbie, a mantle I expect to take to the grave.

Disagreement and criticism is a healthy, integral part of Web-writing, but the minor yet persistent controversy surrounding my writing for Slashdot has always surprised me. Some are passionately into defining who belongs or doesn't, an unfortunately common and increasingly difficult impulse in electric (and off-line) communities.

The term "geek" is broadening and evolving daily, and is coming to mean different, complex and increasingly positive things to people.

The real geeks and hackers, it seems to me, aren't into chest-thumping about who deserves the title. Like Joe, their real kick comes from getting people where they want to go. They're almost invariably welcoming and helpful. They're pretty secure about themselves, and their techno-manhood. From the first, they've been trying to help move me along, to the best degree of my limited ability. But if I recognize my limitations in writing on a Linux Box, I'm still pretty happy about it.

Real programmers are different from mortals, certainly from writers. They are a separate species. Programmers are precise, confident and look ahead. They have no doubt they can make technology come out right for them. Writers are imprecise, uncertain and backwards-looking. Their relationship with technology is uncertain, a means, never an end.

But here's what the fight about me being on Slashdot has always really been about: You don't need to be - and shouldn't have to be - a programmer to use and appreciate Linux, which is, to my amazement, every bit as easy and logical as my beloved Macs, once you get past the installation.

Linux is fun. Knowledge is, in fact, empowering, and learning and seeing how a computer actually works, especially in the context of a powerful idea like Open Source, is worth the grief and trouble. And for non-geeks heading for Linux, there will be plenty of both.

Joe Volodarsky was savvy in puttng together this computer for me, to a degree I wouldn't have thought possible. He used KDE and set up folders for Netscape, WordPerfect, documents,the printer, Templates, News, Updates, the Gimp, CD-ROM and floppy disks. I can't stay off of the KAPP Finder, which scrolls through an exotic list of programs and apps I'm reading about one by one, using my O'Reilly and other Linux guides. My laptop was designed with me in mind, even down to a Mac OS logo on the start-up menu. I've spent a dozen happy but nerve wracking hours puzzling over random seeds and bizarre commands, but I've learned more about computing in the last few weeks than in the decade I've been online.

For somebody who loves to write about technology, this is definitely a humbling gift and an opportunity. Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas I've come across in media, even as I'm just beginning to grasp how complicated an idea it is. Linux is a huge part of it. I'd like to go as far as I can get, taking small steps, one day at a time.

Playing around with my new laptop, I'm fascinated by how accessible the workings of this system are, (and how hidden the processes of my other computers have been) and have even moved a few things around, killed a few programs, and relished checking the Term windows to see my computing life and history passing before my eyes. I was up till 2 a.m., and had more fun than at any point in my life aside from walking into Joe DiMaggio on a New York City street when I was a kid.

Since this is the third time I've tried to post this message, I'm not going to prolong it.

Thanks to Joe of Amnet, which makes Linux boxes, laptops and servers. For getting me up and running, he deserves a place in the Geek Hall of Fame. Rare in our world, he is both technologically skilled and empathetic. He only lost it with me two or three times, and then briefly ("Katz, you don't have to Re-Boot. Don't turn it off!"). Thanks also to VA Linux Systems for hooking up the Slashdot crowd with Sony Vaios.

For those of you who sneered and jeered, thanks. You gave me the iron will to persevere. It was the Penguin or Death. And nuts to you, too.

For those of you who supported me in a hundred ways - especially Rob, Jeff, Robin, Jesse, Joe, Karl, Tom, Sandy, and scores of others who offered help every single day for nearly a year - thanks even more.

I might never be a Linux Geek. But I am my own particular kind of geek now.

Seems to me that's the idea.