Slashdot Mirror

Missing links, sorry: Gael's article and the press release.

In addition to the 2-CD set for $20, this page allows for outright donations to various open source projects, including Mandrake ones.

Go grab your credit/check card and give $5 or $10 and put our money where our mouth is. I'm going to now.

You can buy GPL'd cd's.

You can make a donation to the development area of your choice.

For those of you who use Mandrake or even those who don't, if you want to see them continue to create a great distribution (as well as contribute to many other free software projects), either buy the distribution or contribute directly to them at Mandrake donations

OK. First, the Los Alamos/NSA connection. If you worked at any of these places, you would know that you could get fired for publicly posting information about what systems they use. It's in your clearance paperwork, that part about not divulging sensitive material. Which means you probably don't work there, so who did you get fired to get this information?

Second, I do agree with you that most Linux installations are insecure out-of-the-box. That's because most Linux installations are Red Hat. Comparing RH7.1 to RH7.0 and saying it's more secure doesn't impress me. Furthermore, UNIX != Linux. Last I checked, OpenBSD kicked ass right out of the box. I do agree that there is a shortage of good UNIX admins out there.

Lastly, computer security is about a lot more than locking down ports. Yes, that's a part of it, and probably the most visible part, but there's a whole lot more to it. Just one instance: Mandrake does a fair job of setting up permissions in the various directories (the security term is "DAC", discretionary access controls). Red Hat's FS permissions have been, and continue to be, abysmal.

Not so:

Gnome 1.4 released April 3rd

Mandrake 8.0 released April 19th

Without an easy 1-2-3 binary installer, most people wouldn't see any benefit of installing their software. Instead I think Eazel and Ximian should be accepting donations, something like Linux Mandrake's donation page where users can donate to a chosen project. While this alone has no chance of breaking even, I am sure many of us appreciate their efforts and want to help any way we can, especially if we aren't talented coders.

> I'm sure there are others too.

Yes. Francisco Burzi, creator of PHP-Nuke, for instance...

It's awfuly slow. Here's the feature list.

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 provides a completely graphical installation process including "point and click" disk partitioning. Define disk partitions, including Windows partitions, with just a few clicks of the mouse. And, depending on the power of your system, a typical Linux-Mandrake 8.0 installation can be performed in 30 minutes or less. View demo

Automated hardware configuration Linux-Mandrake is widely known as the Linux distribution with the best hardware detection and configuration abilities. Thanks to built-in hardware detection, Linux-Mandrake can detect and automatically configure many of the most recent hardware devices. Kernel 4.0.3 provides enhanced support for USB, Infrared and FireWire devices, as well as better performance with AMD and Cyrix CPUs, support for sound cards based on ESS Solo1, NeoMagic 256AV/256ZX and VIA 82Cxxx chipsets, improved SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) support, and much, much more. View demo

Simplified system maintenance The new user-friendly Mandrake Control Center makes it easy to manage and configure your Mandrake box. View a demo

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 main benefits

">Graphical environments
The famous Linux desktops GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2.1.1 are fully integrated with Linux-Mandrake 8.0. Discover these and many other graphical environment such as WindowMaker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, and six other favorites.

">Installation
DrakX is our famous Open Source graphical installer. DrakX provides built-in hardware detection and two installation modes for the various skill levels of users. Internet and network connections can be configured during installation with full support of ADSL and RNIS technologies. Additionally, nearly 50 different languages are available in DrakX.

">System maintenance
With the new Mandrake Control Center, all tools are now located in one centralized environment. From this one location you can easily perform most system tasks including customizing the video display, setting the system clock, configure network settings, install & remove software, take control of running services, and dozens of other crucial system tasks.

">Kernel
Linux-Mandrake provides the latest Linux kernel 2.4.3. You'll also find two customized kernels "kernel secure" (for servers that need added security) and "kernel enterprise" (for high workloads).

">Graphical interface
Xfree86 4.0.3 is the default graphical server which includes many new features and support for additional video hardware.

">MandrakeUpdate
Mandrake Update lets you easily update your system automatically through the Internet. You'll find MandrakeUpdate a great help for staying current with the latest security releases.

">MandrakeExpert
Direct access from the desktop to MandrakeExpert.com (MandrakeSoft's e-support website) allows you to obtain answers directly from registered "experts". With the purchase of Linux-Mandrake 8.0 you'll receive 30, 60, or 90 days (depending on the product) of MandrakeExpert installation support with 48 hour response time. With Linux-Mandrake 8.0, you benefit from the help of the best Open Source experts in just a few clicks.

">Development tools
Integrated Development environments: Linux-Mandrake includes the latest visual environments KDevelop, QtDesigner and Glade.
Programming languages: Choose from over 10 programming languages including C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Fortran, Pascal, etc.
All source code included: Open Source gives you the opportunity to view and modify, debug or add functionalities to software.

It's awfuly slow. Here's the feature list.

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 provides a completely graphical installation process including "point and click" disk partitioning. Define disk partitions, including Windows partitions, with just a few clicks of the mouse. And, depending on the power of your system, a typical Linux-Mandrake 8.0 installation can be performed in 30 minutes or less. View demo

Automated hardware configuration Linux-Mandrake is widely known as the Linux distribution with the best hardware detection and configuration abilities. Thanks to built-in hardware detection, Linux-Mandrake can detect and automatically configure many of the most recent hardware devices. Kernel 4.0.3 provides enhanced support for USB, Infrared and FireWire devices, as well as better performance with AMD and Cyrix CPUs, support for sound cards based on ESS Solo1, NeoMagic 256AV/256ZX and VIA 82Cxxx chipsets, improved SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) support, and much, much more. View demo

Simplified system maintenance The new user-friendly Mandrake Control Center makes it easy to manage and configure your Mandrake box. View a demo

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 main benefits

">Graphical environments
The famous Linux desktops GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2.1.1 are fully integrated with Linux-Mandrake 8.0. Discover these and many other graphical environment such as WindowMaker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, and six other favorites.

">Installation
DrakX is our famous Open Source graphical installer. DrakX provides built-in hardware detection and two installation modes for the various skill levels of users. Internet and network connections can be configured during installation with full support of ADSL and RNIS technologies. Additionally, nearly 50 different languages are available in DrakX.

">System maintenance
With the new Mandrake Control Center, all tools are now located in one centralized environment. From this one location you can easily perform most system tasks including customizing the video display, setting the system clock, configure network settings, install & remove software, take control of running services, and dozens of other crucial system tasks.

">Kernel
Linux-Mandrake provides the latest Linux kernel 2.4.3. You'll also find two customized kernels "kernel secure" (for servers that need added security) and "kernel enterprise" (for high workloads).

">Graphical interface
Xfree86 4.0.3 is the default graphical server which includes many new features and support for additional video hardware.

">MandrakeUpdate
Mandrake Update lets you easily update your system automatically through the Internet. You'll find MandrakeUpdate a great help for staying current with the latest security releases.

">MandrakeExpert
Direct access from the desktop to MandrakeExpert.com (MandrakeSoft's e-support website) allows you to obtain answers directly from registered "experts". With the purchase of Linux-Mandrake 8.0 you'll receive 30, 60, or 90 days (depending on the product) of MandrakeExpert installation support with 48 hour response time. With Linux-Mandrake 8.0, you benefit from the help of the best Open Source experts in just a few clicks.

">Development tools
Integrated Development environments: Linux-Mandrake includes the latest visual environments KDevelop, QtDesigner and Glade.
Programming languages: Choose from over 10 programming languages including C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Fortran, Pascal, etc.
All source code included: Open Source gives you the opportunity to view and modify, debug or add functionalities to software.

It's awfuly slow. Here's the feature list.

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 provides a completely graphical installation process including "point and click" disk partitioning. Define disk partitions, including Windows partitions, with just a few clicks of the mouse. And, depending on the power of your system, a typical Linux-Mandrake 8.0 installation can be performed in 30 minutes or less. View demo

Automated hardware configuration Linux-Mandrake is widely known as the Linux distribution with the best hardware detection and configuration abilities. Thanks to built-in hardware detection, Linux-Mandrake can detect and automatically configure many of the most recent hardware devices. Kernel 4.0.3 provides enhanced support for USB, Infrared and FireWire devices, as well as better performance with AMD and Cyrix CPUs, support for sound cards based on ESS Solo1, NeoMagic 256AV/256ZX and VIA 82Cxxx chipsets, improved SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) support, and much, much more. View demo

Simplified system maintenance The new user-friendly Mandrake Control Center makes it easy to manage and configure your Mandrake box. View a demo

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 main benefits

">Graphical environments
The famous Linux desktops GNOME 1.4 and KDE 2.1.1 are fully integrated with Linux-Mandrake 8.0. Discover these and many other graphical environment such as WindowMaker, Sawfish, Enlightenment, and six other favorites.

">Installation
DrakX is our famous Open Source graphical installer. DrakX provides built-in hardware detection and two installation modes for the various skill levels of users. Internet and network connections can be configured during installation with full support of ADSL and RNIS technologies. Additionally, nearly 50 different languages are available in DrakX.

">System maintenance
With the new Mandrake Control Center, all tools are now located in one centralized environment. From this one location you can easily perform most system tasks including customizing the video display, setting the system clock, configure network settings, install & remove software, take control of running services, and dozens of other crucial system tasks.

">Kernel
Linux-Mandrake provides the latest Linux kernel 2.4.3. You'll also find two customized kernels "kernel secure" (for servers that need added security) and "kernel enterprise" (for high workloads).

">Graphical interface
Xfree86 4.0.3 is the default graphical server which includes many new features and support for additional video hardware.

">MandrakeUpdate
Mandrake Update lets you easily update your system automatically through the Internet. You'll find MandrakeUpdate a great help for staying current with the latest security releases.

">MandrakeExpert
Direct access from the desktop to MandrakeExpert.com (MandrakeSoft's e-support website) allows you to obtain answers directly from registered "experts". With the purchase of Linux-Mandrake 8.0 you'll receive 30, 60, or 90 days (depending on the product) of MandrakeExpert installation support with 48 hour response time. With Linux-Mandrake 8.0, you benefit from the help of the best Open Source experts in just a few clicks.

">Development tools
Integrated Development environments: Linux-Mandrake includes the latest visual environments KDevelop, QtDesigner and Glade.
Programming languages: Choose from over 10 programming languages including C, C++, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, Fortran, Pascal, etc.
All source code included: Open Source gives you the opportunity to view and modify, debug or add functionalities to software.

How do you feel about the fact that Red Hat Linux was 'the womb' of what would now have to be considerer one of the strongest Linux distros for the desktop, and a major competitior to Red Hat on the desktop with it's claimed "99% Red Hat compatibility"?

You shouldn't. Use the tool that's right for you. Just don't keep your eyes closed to new developments, there may be a reason to switch in the future.

Personally, I have a PC that I'm using as a cable router, dhcp server and file server for my windows boxes at home, firewall, web server, mail server, streaming music server. I'm running several open source programs (webmail, web "portal", image gallery) backed by an open-source database. This all comes "out of the box" on my linux distribution. For free. This makes it much easier and cheaper for me to use linux. YMMV.

Now I'm no big RPM or Mandrake fanatic (ports! yay!) but the author of the article very obviously didn't do his homework.

URPMI is to RPMs as APT-GET is to DEBs.

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/urpmi.php3

You can also do scheduled security and package upgrades from the console with the MandrakeUpdateRobot (as mentioned in the forums). This is still labeled 'Cooker' software but supposedly it's going to be put into production very soon (a couple of weeks).

http://www.cyest.org/drakupdatetxt/

Mandrake has allowed RieserFS installs since at least version 7.1 in the ``expert'' install mode. [My laptop is currently drake 7.2 with ``RieserFS everwhere'' except for a 20M /boot.]

SGI provides a Modified Red Hat 7.0 Installer that allows installing linux on top of their XFS filesystem. I haven't tried the XFS under Linux, but I've been impressed with XFS under IRIX. [One of the larger machines I currently admin has several terabyte-sized XFS filesystems.]

It's cleaner, with many other cases etc. Enjoy!

On Mandrake website, for Linux-Mandrake uses... See their page, it's instructive.

They can go through their patent file and go for anything in Linux that looks remotely like some patent they have.

Which will do them precisely how much good? Apart from the US and Japan, no technologically advanced country recognises software patents. So Mandrake (in France) is invulnerable, SuSE (in Germany) is invulnerable, Debian is invulnerable anyway because it can put it's servers overseas, and gues what, you might just find RedHat relocating to Wales.

I don't see how Microsoft can prevent individual developers doing Linux work in their spare time in the US, and even if they can there are enough Linux hackers in Europe to keep the flame alive.

Of course it may be illegal to sell Linux in the US, but how is that going to stop you downloading it?

Some Additional Linux Distribution Suggestions

• Caldera Systems
• Turbo Linux
• SuSE
• Mandrake

• Sun/Open Office
• Applix/Applixware Office
• Oracle
• HP
• Compaq
• Dell
• GNU

• Osborne/McGraw-Hill
• O'Reilly
• Sybex

oh yeah....Mandrake has some interesting walk throughs...

Demo here
The only thing thats missing is "dist -update", as that's how they make their money :)
--
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc

Debian IMVHO should work more on getting the installation right. Those who brought us wonderful tools such as apt and the whole Debian packaging system should be able to add an optional graphical install that installs X and configures networking after the user selects his/her choice of software.

About Mandrake: Its my favorite distro so far... Its still rpm based, but it has managed to keep a safe distance from RedHat. Its user-friendly facilities (install-configure-etc) are without peer. Check them out here.

Is that compiler optimisation is probably going to count for more and more as Intel wring every last bit of performance out of x86. Linux distros like Mandrake, which currently comes in a version optimised for P5, could potentially have big performance benefits if you get the version compiled for your specific processor. Of course, the really good news is that Intel et al will have to take quite an active role in GCC development if they want to make their processor look great under free operating systems.

Unfortunately, what it could potentially mean though is that if Intel were to do some sort of special deal with a proprietry OS maker (MS for example) they could make that OS run far faster than any others, simply because it'd be compiled with a better optimised compiler.

-- Piracy is a vicitmless crime, like punching someone in the dark.

When you're ready to give it another shot, I highly recommend Mandrake if you haven't already tried it. I had tried Caldera first (bleh!), and I was amazed at how much more smoothly the Mandrake install went.

FYI, fixes for installation problems (including a problem with CUPS) are here

____________________

Li n4W in
WinLinux2000
All the distributions
WvDial

HTH.

For my home machine, I generally use Mandrake's cooker branch. Since I am often downloading packages, I was interested in trying the various ftp clients available. For a while, I was using gFTP, which was easy to use, but not always stable. Before then, I often used Netscape, but it is a total sloth at FTP. Then I tried lftp one day and was shocked; it was usually one or two(!!) orders of magnitude faster than any other client I'd tried (This on my university's T1, so I have the bandwidth.) When other clients would give me 6-80 Kbps, I routinely get 500+ Kbps from lftp (to the same server, of course).

So for those of you who are comfortable with the original command-line ftp, and have high bandwidth, I recommend you try lftp. It has tab-completion, bookmarks, wildcarding, etc. I'd be interested in hearing other people's recommendations for ftp clients.

PS. Yes, I use MandrakeUpdate as well, but I like to check for new packages.

I'm currently updating my own MandrakeUser.Org for the new stuff in 7.2. Soon, there will be an article by Till on using CUPS.

Official documentation for 7.2 will be available online, of course.

The newsgroup is alt.os.linux.mandrake

Mailing lists (English, French, Italian, German). Most of them are archived at mail-archive.com (links on the same page).

Good luck ;-)

tom, MandrakeUser.Org

--

I'm currently updating my own MandrakeUser.Org for the new stuff in 7.2. Soon, there will be an article by Till on using CUPS.

Official documentation for 7.2 will be available online, of course.

The newsgroup is alt.os.linux.mandrake

Mailing lists (English, French, Italian, German). Most of them are archived at mail-archive.com (links on the same page).

Good luck ;-)

tom, MandrakeUser.Org

--

I'm currently updating my own MandrakeUser.Org for the new stuff in 7.2. Soon, there will be an article by Till on using CUPS.

Official documentation for 7.2 will be available online, of course.

The newsgroup is alt.os.linux.mandrake

Mailing lists (English, French, Italian, German). Most of them are archived at mail-archive.com (links on the same page).

Good luck ;-)

tom, MandrakeUser.Org

--

tom, MandrakeUser.Org

--

Think of how much the school systems could save, if each district didn't have to pay millions for crappy on-off, outdated applications from houghton-mifflin or macmillan or whatever...

On a side note, isn't Mandrake funded by Macmillan? They are in the perfect position to sell software to schools. With the recent release of OpenOffice they could profide a complete office automation system for schools. This would also be a good way for students to learn some real computer skills instead of how bad systems behave irrationally and the magic three fingered salute.

Recommended, of course, is to download the latest Mandrake release candidate from www.linux-mandrake.com; then report bugs to their bugzilla.

A quick query on that site shows that there aren't too many release-critical bugs, but if you find any, PLEASE REPORT THEM.

Mandrake 7.2 beta is pretty bleeding edge and is running great on my computer.

Well, it used to be some RedHat with goodies.
It's not true today.

Their web page says Mandrake Linux is compatible with RedHat (because it uses RPMs and has mostly the same directory structure), but no more RedHat based.

Join KWSN - The coolest SETI team!

[By the way, the mirrors are here: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/e n/f tp.php3#usparc]

By the way, does anyone here has the latest figures from PC-Data?

Well, there's something to be said about being a Real Man, and hacking your system together, piece by piece, from source. Mind you that this is a big jump from running a nice, friendly Red Hat system, Mandrake, while having its differences, is still very much like Red Hat, and as a previous poster mentioned they have a SPARC distro as well..

I recently tried out 2.4.0-test7 with the patch for Reiserfs 3.6.14, and it seemed to work fine.

I'll download the iso for 7.2 tomorrow and see what is there. In the meantime, if anybody knows what is really in 7.2 beta 1, please let us know. Like, which kernel 2.4.0-testX, is it really? And, which version of Reiserfs is supplied? For some benchmarks, test5 seems to be a temporary high water mark.

Well, the MandrakeUpdate utility seems as easy to me as Windows Update. From their web page:

"An update utility called MandrakeUpdate is installed on your Linux-Mandrake desktop. All you have to do is launch MandrakeUpdate to update your system through a graphical utility. The program lets you choose your ftp server within a list of server mirrors. Then it fetches each update you have to make and lets you choose those you really need."

Ok, there are gonna be alot of people bitching about how slow debian is on releases. Well, if you are gonna run a server, running the latest and greatest is a bad idea.

OK, but, then, if I don't want to set up a server, perhaps some commercial distros are better (and easier to install). My favorite one is Mandrake.

Back in April, MandrakeSoft issued a press release saying that they had the most downloaded ISO distribution from TUCOWS. They referenced what was aparently a regular download stats page on TUCOWS http://linux.tucows.com/hotlist.html that the reader would assume is updated on a monthly basis. However, TUCOWS has never updated this page. To me that indicates they created the page at Mandrake's request, or perhaps to court ad revenue from Mandrake.

If TUCOWS is truly unbiased, then they should either archive this page, and/or update it with the most current download statistics.

Also (and I apoligize if this was already addressed in one of the other SlashDot threads on this topic, this is the first I've read) Mandrake is distributed by MacMillan, and this may be a much more common practice in the book publishing industry. There are so many books published each year, that it is unusual to find reviews indicating a particular book is flawed. Except for works by authors who have previously had top ten bestsellers, it seems flawed books typically don't get reviewed. MacMillan may have assumed that if a review was going to be published it would be primarily complementary.

Would be great if VA Linux would invest into Troll Tech to make the same thing happen with QT. This would be another boost to Linux and Free Software & make everyone happy.

Agreed. This is a great trend to see -- Linux companies using their newfound market power to get more software released under the GPL! MandrakeSoft did it with the Bochs PC emulator, now VA Linux with MySQL. (I don't know if Red Hat has done this, but they've funded GNOME development quite a bit.) It's that "rising tide" thing; the more of this we see, the better it is for everyone.

Troll Tech should be next. Seriously, there is a lot of demand for QT despite license headaches; if QT were under the GPL, it would be a Good Thing (tm). Perhaps Red Hat, VA Linux and other Linux vendors could join forces to do more of this, starting with QT. (I might suggest Motif also, but that may not be viable.)

As an aside, could we have a bit less license proliferation? Does every open-source software release really need a custom license with slight variations on existing ones? (I think I'd like to see GPL/MPL dual-licensing become the norm, unless the GPL is modified to be compatible with the MPL...)

My experience with Dell and RedHat Linux was rather distrubing. We purchased a Dell PowerEdge 2400 (with the PERC2/si Raid Card) when recieved the machine it was not preloaded. In fact the raid driver was not finished. They finaly got us the driver after three weeks when to out suprise the driver was compiled for a specific version of the kernel (Dell's Special Tweaked version) which had a PPP problem (which we needed). I guess my point is RedHat and Dell get all sort of publicity for being open sourced, but yet we could not get the source code to compile the driver ourselves. Yet company like Caldera, IBM, and Mandrake get some publicity but it is almost an after thought. This is just my opinion. Peace Out.

We need to make sure any poor saps who are stuck with such a system are aware of things like Workspot and Linux4Windows (see your friendly neighborhood Mandrake distribution for details), then.

Go to Mandrakes FTP page and in big bold letters they have:


Linux-Mandrake 7.1 is not yet available. Please wait

Whoever posted this article was on crack.

Oops, my mistake. Those are the sites mirrors are supposed to mirror from. The official list of mirror sites is here.
---

In any case the couple of hours this story probably sat in the queue is more than enough to get a couple of gigs out to a few mirror sites. (It seems Mandrake only has two mirror sites; this one and this one).
---

There's (old) news about the beta here.

And the fact of the matter is, the author of the article neglected to mention that gcc's optimizer is well known to be horrible.

Conventional programming wisdom is that "the compiler's optimizer can do far more than you could ever do in your source code". This is an indisputable fact, since the compiler optimizes not only the high-level language (e.g., C), it also optimizes at the assembly level, even taking into account specific assembly instructions for the architecture that you are running on.

Don't get me wrong -- gcc is a fine compiler. But anyone who knows anything about high performance computing knows and acknowledges that gcc is not used for performance-oriented code. One reason for this is because one of gcc's main goals is to be portable. As an author of portable unix software, I can appreciate how demanding this task is. Making software portable is extremely time-consuming and resource-demanding. Making software high performace is doubly so, particularly across multiple platforms and operating systems. It is extremely difficult to get both high portability and high performance, particularly for something as large and complex (and system-depedant) as a compiler.

gcc has (rightly, IMHO) chosen to emphasize portability and give reasonable optimization (vs. extraordinary optimization).

More conventional wisdom -- this time from the "Beowulf" side of the fence -- get your hardware cheap (i.e., x86), pay for good RAM and hard disks, but don't pay for any software except for a commercial compiler. There are several vendors who produce very high quality C compilers for x86/Linux, and there's even at least one freeware effort that has produced a pentium-optimized version of gcc (Mandrake Linux uses this compiler, for example). The difference in real-world performance between code produced by gcc and code produced by a good optimizing compiler can be measured in orders of magnitude.

So while the rest of his article seemed to be reasonable (although admittedly short and incomplete), I believe that the results are extremely skewed by using gcc as the "base-C" and "max-C" cases. I would like to see the tests re-done with a better compiler.

Final note: why does it matter how long it takes you to come up with a good set of optimization flags for a C/C++ compiler? By definition, optizations are highly configuration-specific (e.g., OS, architecture, etc.). The fact of the matter is that they can provide substatintial performance improvements. Java, despite the uniformity of VM behavior across platforms, might very well benefit from the same thing (it may only be a matter of time before such specific optimization flags are introduced, anyway).