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Mandrake 7.2 Download Available
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.
I don't understand the problem that some people have with these GUIs. They are just one way to publish the underlying APIs (for clicking). Just as the command line instruction is just another way to publish underlying APIs (for scripting).
The issue is that neither should be the only way in which a particular API is published. I resent as much the fact that an API is completely hidden behind a GUI (often the case in Windows) as an API that is completeley hidden behind a command line instruction (often the case in Unix/Linux).
For example, how can you use the Linux grep functionality in your code, without resorting to executing its commandline? Where are the APIs?
I did try that. I also went in and installed the line printer daemon as well and still could not get it to work. After I installed everything and tried to launch printtool I found myself back in the cups configuration tools.
I am not sure why they went with this cups system anyway. Mandrake prides itself on being the best distro for beginners. This translates to mostly home users, so why would they install a system that is more geared toward network printing and from the looks of it a system that is not as well supported?
By the way, I am able to print with PDQ. It works just fine, but is not as slick as printtool and lpr.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
The distribution was already on about 90% of the mirrors before Slashdot ran the story.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Check the current development status in freshmeat, at the bottom of the page.
Netscape is included as the one exception because Mandrake doesn't feel there is a sutable replacement at this time. Yes Konquerer is out there but if you don't want KDE you're kinda screwed.
I had 7.2 beta-1 working on my asus 7700dlx geforce II gts... I'm would imagine they havnen't broken anything between the beta and now.... good luck
What I worry about is using reisterFS now for an install, and then something like ext3 becomimg the more "accepted" file system. Then, it won't be easy to go from ReisterFS to ext3 without backup/format/reinstall.
I've put up a mirror for an http download from a .edu site http://eskimo.tamu.edu.
I hope this helps out some students on the Internet2 backbone get their Mandrake fix a little quicker.
-podious
Why was netscape included at all then?
seriuously, why?
Personally, I find Mandrake's floppy install *better* than Debians. Why?
1) Debian requires 5 floppies - and it's difficult finding 5 without errors. Mandrake's only requires 1.
2) Mandrake's install off the floppy gives you their great graphical installer. Debian's installer is bit confusing if you don't know what you're doing.
I know that Debian is working on the install process of their distro - but if you like the floppy/internet install of Debian, you really should give the Mandrake floppy/internet install a whirl.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
An operating system should not only be powerful, but also simple to install, maintain, and upgrade. This is why I choose Mandrake over distros like Debian, Slackware, etc...
I think the Mandrake people take a lot of pride in their work, because I've been following Mandrake since their 6.x distros and I have never yet had a complaint. With each Mandrake release, things just seem to keep on getting better and better. They offer such a diverse range of software. If it wasn't for Mandrake, I probably would never have tried and fell in love with XFce.
7.1 was the best distribution that I have ever used, bar none. It was the ONLY distribution that would install on my obscure, no-name old P166 laptop. The Red Hat installs wouldn't recognize my keyboard so I couldn't proceed through the installation. The Slackware install wouldn't even start. I also tried Storm, Caldera, and others without success. (OT: Surprisingly, QNX RTP also installed on my laptop without any considerable difficulty).
I will personally continue to use, and only use Mandrake. These people really have their shit together. Other Linux distros could take a lesson here.
Oh, one more point. Mandrake seems to have the best, most frequently updated list of RPMs on rpmfind.net. This is of definite importance to me, because I don't want to have to compile from source unless required (mixing source compiles and RPMs just gets too messy), and I don't want to have to wait long after a new version release for an RPM.
Here is the original posting from the Mandrake cooker mailing list regarding this issue.
Mount takes forever on large partitions too. I had mandrake 7.1 installed on a 40GB drive. It took about 5 minutes to mount the root partition every boot cycle. Now the same drive broken into 3 partitions mounts in 20 seconds total.
0 1 - just my two bits
Of coarse it died. mandrakeforum is just a poor little machine with news for a few hard-core mandrake-fans. It can take several thousends of visitors/day, but not the hoard of slashdoters. One day... .-)
Since I'm already writing this: I want to thank Roblimo for holding back a story until today.
I am rather sure that he got a word on it at friday, because I got it at friday evening
(cute, as if I didn't know already...)
So at sutherday, I decided to give the hard core of mandrake users a chance to download 7.2 before slashdot effect kills all the mirrors, and I'm really happy that /. did not strike imediately.
Thx, Rob!
Why, oh why do you announce product releases before they've been mirrored? It just means that the main site gets clogged, and nobody can get it. It took *days* to get Redhat 7 off a mirror, quite possibly because you announced it before the mirrors updated, and /.ers clogged the main site.
So, next time you announce a release, could you please wait until the mirrors update? Thanks.
"It sure was strange to see something on Usenet about me that didn't involve Klingon gang rape." -- Wil Wheaton
Thanks. I too did the expert install on the beta 3 and was not prompted with this question. However, now that you mention it, on the first beta it did ask me if I wanted 4.0 or 3.3.6
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
I've written down some of my first expressions with Mandrake 7.2.
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"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Actually Linuxnewbie.org had news of this up on their front page well before this.
Well, I like eye-candy, so I like it.
But some don't, so un-install Aurora, and that should get rid of it.
We all go a little mad sometimes.... haven't you?
So what I do, is compile almost everything from sources for a long time, then install a new release every few months.
Of course, I don't run a ton of services, so the reconfiguring thing doesn't affect me much.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
FYI,
Iam using Redhat 6.1 with KDE 1.1 and it already does it..Anybody know how/why ?
So what's the announcement that Robimo is going to make about his association with Mandrake?
load "linux",8,1
I have installed mandrake 7.2 last night and i noticed that right out of the box ti recognized my promise ata100 controller and seen my hd's, cool great, note: my primary hd that i installed it on was on my onboard hd controller to avoid any booting problems, anyway after the installation went through i rebooted and during the botup process right after it detects my last hd on my ata100 controller the kernel halts with no error msges just freezes there. The only kernel that i could get to boot was the "hack" kernel and after i did that i had to dl kernel 2.4.0-test9 to get all my hw completely recognized after a new recompile. Anyone else have this problem or am i missing something?
I don't think "windows user-friendly" really sums up what this distro is all about. Mandrake has does nothing but innovate and improve as it has matured, just as the Linux kernel itself has.
Great example:
To my complete and utter shock, I was able to create a massive ReiserFS partition (yes, I know alloting 6 gigs to "/" is tacky) and then boot it after a restart. At that point I had full support for the second celeron cpu and onboard highpoint ata/66 controller on my abit bp6 motherboard. No compiling necessary. Everything worked with a minimum of effort on my part.
So, how many distros can you name that are this feature-loaded? And that won't require 5 iterations of the "patch" command against the linux source code followed by a careful compile that may or may not break what you've installed? That's what I thought.
I ove how laid back Mandrake is. They know that 90% of most people that will use thier distro are just regular shmucks like you and me.
Why don't we let the mirrors get at it first??
POST!!!
According to the original posts and many other posts, the reason is simple: A mandrake system, just like any other unix systems, probably will go nuts in a short perios of time when the user run EVERYTHING as root.
... But here's your answer.
From the looks of it, most of these people just don't have the concept of admin/user and they probably have very little concern for stability and uptime. They want the latest releast to help them with things they don't know and will never want to learn. I'm not saying that it is a bad thing per se,
Disclaimer: I'm a Linux newbie :-)
.deb packages. You can convert RPM's to .deb, I believe, but I don't think it is recommended. This shouldn't hold you of Debian - keeping a Debian system up to date is pretty easy! You only have to type "apt-get update" and "apt-get upgrade" and your system is up to date - now is that cool a what!?
I've just installed Debian 2.2, and here is my take.
Installation is not as easy as, say Mandrake or Redhat, but it is not that difficult either.
It can (as far as I remember) partly configure X for you, but else, XF86Setup is available.
Debian does not support RPM's - it uses
You've got to clear the mbr before you try to reformat under win2k. Just boot using a dos/win98 boot disk and "fdisk /mbr" that bad boy. Format away and then boot your linux partition using the boot disk that you (hopefully) made. Reinstall lilo onto the mbr with the "lilo" command. Everything should be golden.
From what I've seen in respective README files, all those Winmodem drivers are pretty much in alpha/beta and some (like the LT one) are *known* to be unstable. Maybe not conducive to the seamless, no-hair-tearing experience Mandrake attempts to provide?
What would it take for Slashdot to maintain a server for mirroring open source releases announced here? Then the release could be mirrored followed immediately by posting the announcement, with the URL for the Slashdot mirror. Particularly, I would think that Slashdot could mirror the major Linux distros and the GNU packages automatically just like some many other sites do. Forget trying to mirror every great free project on the planet. Just stick to the ones that every Slashdot reader is going to scamper off to get a copy of immediately.
If this is too much to ask, then please folks, when you submit release announcements, take the time to grab a copy of the distro's mirrors page and paste it into the story.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Do you go on IRC under the nick of h3x0r? If so, maybe you should stop ...
I was wondering the same thing. I have *NEVER* used X as root. Hell, I never even log in as root. That is what su - is for! If you have an X environment even configured for root, you are wrong!
Who is following who now ?
My printer (HP 710C) works in linux for the first time, KDE 2 looks really stable and I now have Reiser FS for my 40GB hard drive (formats in about 10 seconds vs. 1 hour with ext2fs).
All of this out of the box that RH 7.0 does not do on my system !!
This is actual freedom to inovate, Way to go Mandrake !!
Mandatory first female collie sex post.
Everything is but a number spoken by itself.
1. stole thunder from the official announcement 2. they might sitll be mirroring 3. it might not be the real deal 4. makes slashdot sounds like some tabloid (oops, too late already) claiming "exclusives" 5. Pre-Announcement Announcement is not NEWS (for nerds) and definitely doesn't matter!!!
As far as I've understood it Winmodems are so cheap because its basically just a fancy port. Most of the _modem_ functionality lies within proprietary Windows drivers. I have no idea how easy/hard it is to reengineer, but I guess you'll have to build a software modem around it to get it to work at all.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Here's a workaround in case they don't have that fixed by the time the CD offically goes to press:
The easy way:
As root, go the your user's desktop directory (for example, mine is in
The hard way:
* In root, right click anywhere on the desktop, select New -> Filesystem Device
* In the text box where it says Device.kdelink, change that to Cd-Rom.kdelink, and click OK
* Select the Device tab
* Under Device type
* be sure to check Read Only, and to select the permissions tab and make sure that the User, Group, and Others can read from it, but only the user can write to it.
Click OK, and you're done.
I fully agree. When you're dealing with the average computer user (newbies, people with little computer experance, and poeple who just want to use thier computers), things that an expert user might consider "little things" do matter alot, espcially useabulty issues. What many power users so easily fail to realize is that not everyone has the same experance level and level of expertise that they have. While the instructions that I just gave may seem easy to most people here, try following them from a newbie's perspective.
Oh, one more thing:
One trick I started using whin I got tired of logging into root to install an RPM was to open a filemanager in superuser mode (on my system (man 7.1, KDE), [main menu icon] -> Applications -> File Tools -> Filemanager (Mode Super User)), and then click on the RPM to install it for there. I haven't tried it, but you may be able to accoumplish the same thing by setting Kpackage as SUID root.
This trick works, but what I'd like to see is Kpackage (or whatever interface to RPM you use) ask you for your the root password when it's about to do someting that requires root access, or, even better, ACLs fully implimented in Linux.
Actually, I think you are halfway right.
Odd kernel versions such as 2.1 or 2.3 are considered unstable, development kernels.
-podious
I got it two days ago and didn't tell anyone it was out there. Oh well.
Yes, people log on as root and run X as root [Gasp!] What we teach new sys admins and what we do are two different things. JB
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.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
The previous release of Mandrake was Mandrake 7.1, which was released June 6, 2000, which was over five and a half months ago. The previous release before that was Mandrake 7.0, which was released January 14, 2000, which was five before Mandrake 7.1. While it doesn't have the exhaustive testing cycle of Debian, there is an extensive beta and release candidate cycle. Mandrake manages to stay on the cutting edge with its releases while still maintaining stability, and if someone wants to sacrifice stability or security, they can always download a less tested version of software, Mandrake-packaged that is tightly integrated with the rest of the system.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
It should be setup automatically during an install of the OS. So have any ideas about that?
a new release every month?
i would like to know where you get the idea that mandrake releases anywhere near that often. are you counting their beta releases? i have been using mandrake 7.1 since at least june when i upgraded from 7.0. im pretty sure it's been out since the middle of may. funny i never heard about the five differnt releases they made between 7.1 and 7.2
<Sarcasm off>
seriously, though, the mandrake folks make a release more or less every six months, which is pretty close to the release schedule of the other major distributions. the notable exception to this, of course, is debian, which seems to manage to get a new release out the door once every other year or so. (no wonder debian users are so enthralled with "apt-get update". i would be too if i had to wait that long for my distro to come out with a new release)
as far as upgrading mandrake, you have a couple of options:
1) MandrakeUpdate. this seems like some sort of apt-get thing i imagine (having never used either one) it automatically updates any updates for your installation. i have never used it, as i prefer to do my upgrading manually, so i have some control over what is happening. the one downfall of MandrakeUpdate is that it doesn't know how to handle non-mandrake updates. for example, if you have the helix-gnome mandrake packages installed, it will get quite confused, and probably wont work at all.
2. network update. radhat has for a long time had the ability to install/update via network (ftp/http/nfs) naturally, when mandrake branched off, they retained that capability. if you want to upgrade over the network, you just download the floppy image, boot up, and run the network update. it detects what packages you have installed and downloads/installs the updates.
3. download the RPMS. just decide what RPMS you want, download them yourself and do 'rpm -Uvh *.rpm'
4. download/buy the cd. download (or buy) the whole cd image, and run the update program from the cd. or the install program, if you want a clean slate.
all in all i have to say good job to the mandrake guys. 7.1 is i think the best linux distro i've ever tried, and i hope 7.2 will be as good. my only significant peeve with 7.1 that i can think of is the way the mangled netscape's key-bindings. i can understand them wanting to change the default bindings to be like the windows bindings ( i remember saying once upon a time that i was going to do that very thing myself) but they could have found a way to make that an option. and more importantly, they could have been consistent. why was alt-F remapped to ctrl-F, but alt-N was left unchanged? to me, this is far more confusing than the fact that the alt-* keybindings are inconsistent with most other apps and with netscape on windows. it seems like it would be easier to adjust to using alt-v for netscape instead of ctrl-v, than to figure out which commands were alt-* and which were ctrl-*. (iirc i think the commands in the File menu are alt-* and the rest are ctrl-*. even with a reason behind it, this still seems like a very arbitrary division) oh, well. just one of several reasons i never have (and never will) installed a netscape rpm.
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If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
heh... have you tried upgrading to rpm-4.0?
the rpm package format changed from 3.0 to 4.0, (hence the change in major version number) and all of the rpm-4.0 packages that i have found are in rpm-4.0 format. so how to upgrade it?
hmmm.... seems we have a problem here, doesn't it...
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If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Netscape 4.x isn't open source either, so why don't you exclude that from the distribution?
Does the XFree 4 install work correctly this time? 7.1 couldn't correctly set up my Geforce card for 3d stuff, I had to go in and uninstall libraries, make links to other ones, and hack my XF86Config(-4) all to hell.
:)
I want 3d out of the box.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
So to me it makes perfect sense that you didn't get RealPlayer or Adobe Acrobat. Ohh and BTW as far as I know the only Netscape Plugin for PDF is the actual Adobe program.
tom, MandrakeUser.Org
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"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
There has recently been some discussion on the Mandrake cooker mailing list (I'd link to it but apparently the mail archive doesn't have it up yet), about the fact that Wal*Mart is selling a version of 7.2 that is labeled as 7.2 but is actually a prerelease version with many bugs. I strongly recommend that everyone hold off buying boxed copies until Mandrake has let us know that this issue has been resolved. At this time no one from Mandrake has actually responded to this issue!
tom, MandrakeUser.Org
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"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
www.linmodems.org Some are supported, most are not. They are supposed to have decent xfer rates if linux can control it properly.
So does KOffice - I've been using them for a week. Why is everyone saying that KDE2 apps don't run under GNOME? They seem to, perfectly, in my experiences.
Yeah, this car analogy is getting tired. *grin*
Don't most car manufacturers make you bring your car into their shop for regular maintenence and any warrantied repairs if you don't want to violate your EULA, er, lease or warranty?
Perhaps we should be comparing Linux to bicycles or motorcycles, which to my mind are what all real tinkerers (or maniacs-- not neccesarily exclusive) drive.
I do not have a signature
I did submit a bug report. It's bug 962. I've been very impressed by how smoothly php/mysql has been working (apart from this little hickup) for most of the time leading up to 7.2 itself. Installing the different php modules separately is very nice indeed.
The way teh config files are set up is very intuitive, as is the vhosts setup for apache.
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
sndconfig is a Red Hat sound configuration program. Mandrake has a similar, but better, sound configuration program called sounddrake, which you can use instead.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Did you install a 'server' or a workstation stat you secured? Do tell...
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Well, this is more true of older cars than of newer ones... Nowadays you have to tinker with poorly documented, propietary electronics as well as the mechanics of the car...
No sig for the moment.
"Why this hassle about configuring systems in an X environment?"
Very simple, it is easy. Editing config files by hand is only an option if you know how to do it. Learning how to do it is time consuming, and will in many cases not deliver you significantly more performance. Example: I want to share a directory over the network with a windows user. I can either learn how to configure samba using the config file (prepare for some HOWTO browsing) or open linux conf, add a new share, click OK.
What is efficient for you depends on the context you are in. In my case the last option is to be preferred because I really don't want to be bothered with all the details of SAMBA configuration.
So if you are like me (which you obviously are not), you'll love mandrake because it does all the boring configuring for you. After installation you are presented with a system with correct display settings, a working sound card, a working network card, automatically mounting floppies and cdroms and convenient tools to administer your system.
Jilles
ReiserFS is the way to go for large drives or for any data really. I hate to fsck.
Using ReiserFS just to avoid fscking up your filesystem when the power goes out? Once the new Tux2 phase tree patch to ext2 makes it into the kernel, ext2fs will be "atomic" to the point where the need to fsck with your partitions is dramatically reduced.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Have you tried REMOVING packages? This is one area in which all RPM-based distros SUCK ASS BIGTIME.
I tried out Mandrake 7.2beta3 - aside from the fact that I lost the partition with all my (legal) mp3 (7GB worth! argh!), it worked fine - but I told it to install everything.
I later wanted to get rid of some of the cruft, but due to the dain-bramaged RPM system, you can't just tell it to uninstall, say, libpgqsl, and have it uninstall everything that depends on it - you have to MANUALLY SPECIFY EVERY SINGLE FREAKING PACKAGE!
Back to Debian for me...
(losing that partition might just have been stupidity on my part - I really don't know if it was Mandrake's fault or not)
Root permission isn't, and shouldn't be necessary for mounting CDs on a desktop based distro like Mandrake.
Nor do they encourage users to log in as root [or type `su -', cause that's damned confusing. You click DrakConf [on everyone's desktop], which prompts for the root pw and then prsents you with a neat m,enu of admin tools.
The issue is that Mandrake should have created KDE file association from RPM files to gnorpm-auth or `kdesu kpackage', rather than kpackage. That's actually the KDE peoples fault. Not to say the Mandrake people shouldn't have tried to fix it.
Go there : http://www.linmodems.org/
____________________
Ni!
Umm, like the guy above me said, 7.2 has been up for 2 days. I'm surprised ./ didn't post earlier. All the primary mirror sites had the data by the time these guys told you. Just so you don't get too upset. Later.
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
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"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
The HP DeskJet 712C should work without any problem. As I know, it is the same hardware as HP DeskJet 710C and so it should work as the other guy commenting onto this Slashdot article writes: Nice features, Could this be better than RH 7.0 ?? by mAIsE (Not@all.com) on Monday October 30, @03:05AM Perhaps you contact him for more info. As I know, you simply choose "HP DeskJet 712C" in the printer configuration program (printerdrake, kups) and then it should work. If the quality is poor, you should set the default options either by starting kups, right-clicking onto the symbol of your printer, and choosing "Configure Printer" in the pop-up menu. Or you use the web interface (http://localhost:631/printers/). Go to your printer in the list and click on the "Configure Printer" button.
I remember that the version of RH which I tried a few months ago (6.2?) had it, and it seemed to work; it event fired automatically either the file manager (for normal CD) or gnomeRPM (for RH Installation CD).
So why Mandrake did not pick up the hint? I don't have much a use for such a featrure, but any windows user would appreciate it. Does currently automount implementation have any flaw?
P.S. I DO NOT like the way Linux distros are trying to imitate Windows in 'dumbifying' user, but this is another thread.
Ciao
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FB
- Mandrake is very easy to install. Most hardware is auto detected, partitioning is automatic, etc.
- Debian is a dream to maintain (run dselec t once when you've installed it and you'll never want to run another distro again) but can be tricky to get installed (for example is has almost no hardware detection during installation).
Mandrake is derived from Redhat, so in my opinion there is no technical reason to go for Redhat instead (although there may or may not be issues like support pointing you either way).I've tried to install SuSe (6.4) once, and my impression was that it was a mess. OK to install, but their YAST administration program was really weird and finding packages (GNOME packages in my case) was real tricky.
Suse does have a good reputation though, so maybe I'm just Suse impaired. Personally I moved from RH62 to Debian 2.2 a month ago and I'll never go back. Once you get Debian installed (if you manage to go through the installation which can be tricky regardless of what people say), you are hooked.
Have fun!
//Johan
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
Everytime a story about a distribution is posted, invariably the same comments about the superiority of debian's apt-get package management scheme are trundled out. has no-one here ever heard of, or even used the excellent urpmi utility that is included in recent Mandrake releases?
it acts in a very similar way to apt-get...you provide it with a list of package sources (file, FTP, NFS etc etc), which it then uses to build an index and a list of dependencies. installing new packages is a one command affair...dependencies are automatically managed and installed if necessary. urpmi can also be configured to allow non-superuser installation of RPMs from a specified list of 'safe' packages
urpmi has saved me loads of time when installing RPMs...why do people continually overlook this tool when comparing distributions and continue blather on about apt-get (and the fucking dreadful dselect)?
This is going to sound like a stupid question, but on these new File systems can you install everything regularly and stuff, or does it not have backwards compatability with EXT2?
I've been thinking about installing Debian.
Are you able to let it configure X for you?
Is their an installation that is comparable to Redhats? Or is it all dificult?
And does it support RPM's?
With Konqueror, I have the thing that has always been missing from Linux. A fast, stable browser that works reasonably well. Even works on 128-bit encrypted sites. I can throw that piece of junk Netscape in the trash bin. And mozilla remains far too buggy for everyday use.
RM
AFAIK the main prob was linuxconf-gui & that was fixed (by removing it :))
Kmail & Konqurer have both crashed on me though, but they crash nicely, not taking X with them, like good ol' Netscape....
--
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
Full plate and packing steel! -Minsc
Although ISO files are also not compressed, they are easier to grab and faster than using an FTP utility to grab everything under the i586 directory - having to setup and tear down an FTP get connection for every file really slows things down.
Does anyone know of a utility that will break an ISO file down into its individual files without burning it to a CD? It seems like a waste to actually burn it to a CD when I have more than enough drive space to hold the whole un-ISO-ed archive.
It's trivial to get your SB16 to work in slackware. Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.modules, scroll down to this line:
...and uncomment the appropriate line below that.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Those are the same security options that were in M 7.1, so it would be my guess that they would keep them in the final release of 7.2
I have been running linux for 2+ years, and I can tell you that of all the installs I have had, I can't count one that becomes as shaky and unstable after everyday use as W2k does. Our burner system at work has only existed for about 3 months, and it is teetering on a reinstall. My firewall/ fileserver at home has been running without a hitch for 8+ months- and that includes upgrades and everything on the hardware. I'll give w2k prof props for looking good and running decent, but it ain't the end all of anything, except MS's reign on the lower end server market. Besides, why is it that my NT workstation install gets better perfomance on my laptop than does my W2k install. Because to achieve the same performance level, W2k requires MORE hardware than NT. I'll keep with linux for what I do. It isn't everything, and is missing some things windows has (like quicktime and visio) but after seeing KDE2, start looking over your shoulder. MS has a challenger.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
from what I hear Storm is quite good, but I havent tried it myself.. I'm pretty happy with SuSe though, which I know has a real easy install.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I also downloaded 7.2 before the /. effect took full force, and I'd like to comment on the PDF issue. While it's true that Netscape doesn't have a pdf plugin automatically installed (for license reasons others have noted), Konqueror does have it. And not only that, Konqueror is about 3 trillion times better than Netscape (about equal with the latest Mozilla). Just try it, it's great.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
What does the "Upgrade" option in a Mandrake installation actually do?
/etc, /usr/bin, /usr/X11R6...) and put the new stuff in?
Does it merely compare existing RPMs and replace them with different versions?
Does it wipe out full directories (e.g.
I've installed some RPMs on top of my Mandrake 6.1... will these be there when I upgrade or will I need to reinstall?
Yes, I've RTFM, all it says is "choose Upgrade to upgrade an older Mandrake installation".
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo
I was wondering if anyone has upgraded from 7.1. I happy with my install now but would like some of the new features such as KDE 2.0. I was wondering how pain(less/ful) the upgrade process is.
The only problem I can see with debian is the requirement to logon to the net to get updates.
Most people I know (including me) still use modems and pay per minute fees. Keeping an updated system this way can be very expensive and time consuming.
I have been running it for 3 days on a Duron 700/Abit KT7 (KT133 chipset) with no problems.
Once installed, ReiserFS looks like EXT2 to the applications, etc. You still need to "reformat" the drive, though. There isn't a way to convert the filesystem in-place when going from EXT2 to ReiserFS. (You can, however, convert an EXT2 filesystem to EXT3 in-place.)
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
On the plus side for me, I carved my 17GB drive into multiple ~4GB partitions, so if there is any quadratic behavior, I cut it by a factor of 4. Actually, I should reformat those w/ 4K clusters and far fewer inodes, since I'm mostly using them for bulk CD-ROM image storage. (The bulk of the fsck time is spent checking block bitmaps and inodes. With 4K clusters, the block bitmaps are 1/4th the size, and I get far fewer indirect-blocks for huge CD images. With fewer inodes, I spend less time checking inodes that never have and never will point to files.)
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
I have installed and run betas 1 and 3 of 7.2, and have had a great deal of difficulty trying to get my printer to work with cups. The problems is the 710 series printers implemented something called printing performance architecture. The folks at sourceforge were nice enough to build some filters (the pnm2ppa project) to work with printtool. Now that Mandrake has ditched printtool and replaced it with cups none of my old tricks worked. I know that I am not the brightest light in the harbor when it comes to linux, so maybe I was doing something wrong. I did however get it to work via the Print Don't Queue (PDQ) project that is also hosted at sourceforge and the pnm2ppa project has a filter for PDQ. It is a little clunky but at least it is a working fix until I can resolve the issue with cups. I have not yet had the chance to download the new distro yet, so I am not sure if this problems has been resolved yet.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
Here's my problem -- I have NFS setup, and it worked great for 7.1 after a kernel re-do, but when I upgraded to 7.2, it no longer works. I get the "nfssvc fucntion not implemented error", which i got before until i enabled SUN NFS Emulation in my kernel. Am i going to have to re-compile?
Next -- I checked out gkrellm, and i'm constantly running at 100% CPU -- the problem? logrotate! I have like 7m in /var/log ... where is it working? Last time to stop it i just deleted my /var/log/mail (which was big for some reason), and logrotate chilled out. Now i don't know what to do or where the problem is.
Next -- It seems that i will FINALLY have a working 3D action in my GeForce 256 (right?) .. if so, how do i test this out before going out and finally buying Quake3Arena? Is there some sort of Mesa 3d test?
Aurora looks great, the installation is finally VERY stable, and i'm happy with the packaging. CUPS seems to be working for me, i'll test out the SMB Sharing i need for that later.
Thanks everyone!
-mike
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I must be really out of the loop: Since when were _any_ winmodems working for linux? Seriously, I thought that would take hardware companies being nice and releasing massive amounts of specs (and isn't alot of it hardcoded into windows itself) or a MASSIVE amount of reverse engineering?
when Push Comes to Shove
Is it even usable on AMD Thunderbird systems?
This is easy to fix if you care. There is a mount option for ext2 called "nocheck". This turns off an obsolete consistantcy checking step in ext2 mounting. Ted Tso said he's probably making nocheck default in 2.4.x . Maybe it alread is.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.
I'm using it now to type this message. My general impressions are it's a bit more polished that 7.1 was; however, my first install failed, after going to the 2nd cd, it just froze on Penguin Command (while installing). After a reboot, and re-install (unselecting Penguin Command to be safe) everything worked great. Had to play with the network settings a bit after installation to get the default gateway set properly, other than that, everything seems to work fine.
Gene
www.erachampion.com
well done.
--
BTW, how do you Mandrake users upgrade? Do you need to download and burn the ISOs, or can you upgrade your machines over the network a la debian's apt-get update?
-p.
Perhaps he meant fsck? I know if I take down my machine incorrectly, I have to sit there awhile when my 17GB disk fscks, although more like 5 or 6 minutes, not anywhere near the half-hour you'd guess by interpolating from the original poster's numbers.
Are some of fsck's algorithms quadratic in nature or something?
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
I have RH 6.2, Debain, SuSE and I might get the newest mandrake... I don't know which one to chose, I want to learn something in the process of this, but at the same time I want it to not be impossible... thanks for everyones help...
cuban
I'm going to keep explaining this until something gets done.
* The FHS is not linux only
This is a probem. Like your sig says, GNU isn't Unix. We shouldn't follow everything Unix has previously done. We're here to improve, not imitate. God, I'd hate to think Linuxs role in life is to clone Unix. Is that why we still have this shitty permission system?
But if you mean a BSD [or any open source OS], the point still stands.
* Define `addon application software'. What's an addon? Something that comes in a distro is addon? Acroread is an addon in Red Hat, but not in Caldera. Do we install the same app in different locations?
Or is an addon soemthing which isn't necessary? What if you find the kernel source unnecessary? Or KDE? Or grep?
The concept of optional is entirely arbirary on any open source OS.
I hear it coming --- "Mandrake is like windows, man!" , "That's for wimps dude, get your BSD." I credit is due to Mandrake for having a truly user-friendly distro (esp. on install). Sure, it is the first and only distro I recommend to Linux newbies and I have stuck with it even after spending time with other distros. I've only had success with it compared to other distros, clean installs and upgrades --- too bad these suckers aren't public. I'd buy their stock in a heartbeat.
Oh, and I'd like to add, if /opt isn't for optional software, then its mislabelled. Let's fix it.
Under the expert install you have the option of six security levels; paranoid, high, medium, low, poor, and my personal favorite "welcome to crackers". Can anyone tell me if the kept this in the final version?
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
The first few installations failed with some error like "hdlist not found" after clicking "cancel" when I wanted to make a change to the Networking item I chose or doing other things like that.
The second complaint of mine was that the base installation was HUGE. I only have a 1.3 Gb hard drive and I had to spend 45 minutes selecting individual packages to install so that I could get a useful install. Even then the smallest install I could manage was 800 Mb when I can easily get a 400 Mb install on other distros.
It found my USB mouse with wheel quite nicely, but although it found my sound card it couldn't get it to run (it kept giving the error that it didn't know what to do with some specific component [I have a standard SB32, nothing fancy or non-standard]). Other distros find and run my card easily using sndconfig.
I needed to install old libg++ and libstd++ 2.7.2 (not 2.7.8) and tried with a few "compatibility" packages listed in the install. None of those worked and I was never able to find it using Mandrake Update. I also was never able to fully use and understand Mandrake Update.
ControlCenter crashed on me and told me to email the developer to inform him of the bug. I was just changing the mouse to have "focus follow mouse."
The system NEVER was able to leave X properly. If I tried to shut down X and go to a "failsafe" session, it would flash a full screen of red and white characters on my screen until I shutdown the computer. Whenever the machine would shutdown, it did the same thing. Pretty much, I could never run in any other runlevel than the one for X (5?). That was a BIG bug in my opinion.
All in all, I really did not like the distro even though it did flawlessly install KDE 2.0, USB, and X4.0 (though I chose to install 4.0, I don't know if it did or just put on X3.x).
IANAL, but I play one on
Main mandrakesoft site isn't open for "normal people", it is "mirrors only" to avoid this kind of problems.
And mirroring started on friday, so they should have had enough time to syncronise until monday.
I have a 30GB drive in a machine that I had to fsck once and I can tell you that you'd better take a lunch break. ReiserFS is the way to go for large drives or for any data really. I hate to fsck.
hi, i wanted to comment on your statement about the FHS in your user bio and your sig: /opt because of that.
/opt is not for optional software but for addon application software
/usr/local is NOT for selfcontained apps, it has the same structure as / or /usr.
installing itself in /usr/local/<appname>/ is the worst thing an app can do.
the FHS is not linux only, thus we can't throw out
greetings, eMBee.
--
Gnu is Not Unix / Linux Is Not UniX
I've been following the progress of mandrake with rsync and rpm -Fvh. All in all it's a very nice distribution... BUT I've had more X lockups, crashes(!) and problems with the stuff that's released (and I don't mean the betas or releas candidates, I know they're just that, not complete) than I had with ALL the RH distributions from 5.0 to 6.9(pinstripe).
They include ReiserFS support. It's a very nice file system, fast and the journalling is sweet! But, I've gotten 2 kernel panics with it. (i've filed a bugreport with makdrake's bugzilla, but there's been no response (yet)
There are also problems with x4.01 in Mandrake that I didnt' have with X4.01 under RH6.2 (with the rpm's from linux.3dfx.com), including X randomly restarting. That's happened three times already.
Klyx misbehaves
MandrakeUpdate chokes if you've got helix gnome installed. In fact, if you install helix gnome, the apps won't appear in the kde or gnome menu's, since Mandrake uses their own menu system
I'm having some problems with php4 under Mandrake7.2 (it worked thoughout the beta site, and only broke with their final update)
I'm not sure if they've solved their linuxconf problem yet, but there's been a lot of complaints on the cooker lists about that. I had to add it to inetd.conf myself to get the web interface to work
BUT, there are a lot of great things about Mandrake 7.2 as well. They have included Webmnin, and set that up very nicely. It's a peach to use.
When it works, their unified menu system is very nice. They've also included blackbox, and a lot of other window managers and desktop environments. It makes it easy for people to try what they like.
You can import fonts very easily with their mandrakefont tool. In fact, they've got a lof of nice mandrake tools for controlling everything from runlevels, to configuring X.
Their 2.2.17 kernel includes USB support, so my Visor syncs without a hitch.
They include the alsa drivers (which I've not tested yet, but they probably work).
They include grub as a bootloader. Of course, I use xosl and lilo still, and that's very nice.
So, in spite of the problems, it's a very nice disrtibution and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it!
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
I clicked on the ``good HTML'' link from a Slashdot quickie bundle of about a week ago while using Konqueror. It loved it, lapped up about 12 nested frames, all manner of rubbish. And it does Hotmail so I can use it in Web cafes. Still not perfect (fonts go strange occasionally) but excellent and can only improve.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The link to my zip drive thru the zip icon on my desktop was /mnt.zip. I quickly changed the . to a / and the resulting /mnt/zip worked. I wonder why the properties were set wrong on the zip drive. I had this problem in 7.2 final, betas, and release candidates.
They do include the flash plugin for netscape(possibly the gpl one).
[Science] is one of the very few things that raises human life a little above farce and gives it the grace of tragedy.
This is not ment to be flame bait...
I used to think that Mandrake was the best Linux Distro for someone new and wanting to try Linux but now that I found StormLinux I am getting people to use that distro.
What does everyone else think??
FYO, I'm using Mandrake 7.2 for my server already. Have no problem yet & I'm sure it doesn't have RedHat's 3week & crashed problem.
I'm impressed with the performance so far, & have had nothing but good experience from Mandrake in the past.
Oh, just so you know there ain't nothin to look at on my page yet so, no need to waste your time there.
-RedElf
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Olitec, a great french modem company released Linux drivers (I should say "software") for their connexant winmodems. Don't know if these drivers work on other Connexant chip based winmodems. Olitec supports Linux (see the TUX on their front page) and make great modems. http://www.olitec.com http://www.olitec.com/linux.html
Pfft. Why the fuck would I go on IRC? Good god man, don't be so cruel.
---
GetSystemMetrics(SM_SECURE) == FALSE
ALthough this was mod'd down as flamebait, if you have any actual hard info about what holes were 'sploited, that'd be useful to share, y'know?
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Program Intellivision!
I first started using Mandrake about 4-5 months ago but had to dual boot because I couldn't find certain tools I use daily; Outlook, Agent, Media Player.... I tried 7.1 and all of the 7.2 betas but couldn't find equiv's for the above proggies (or couldn't get them to work :-) finally found GTV for mpegs ).
However with the 7.2 final the two news reading programs I needed (one for normal messages and one for binaries) worked straight out of the box.
Knode replacing Outlook and Pan replacing Agent.
Hoping to finally leave Windows behind soon.
Also like the inclusion of the HTML editors (Bluefish and Quanta) because I am a Web designer.
Peace, n2o666
I made a small investigation, and found out that Roblimo used a machine with two network addresses, which exposed one well-known (to me) CUPS weakness. The solution is simple and I have made it available on the Mandrake Forum.
In my oddball 'bizzarro-universe', it is lame to have to modify ANY distro to secure it. What are those OpenBSD clowns thinking??
---
GetSystemMetrics(SM_SECURE) == FALSE
I was just wondering if anybody has any information on installing Mandrake alongside WinME. I'm new to linux. Here's my case: I have a 40 GB hard drive, two partitions. WinMe is on the C: and D: has nothing. Where do I get started? I'm afraid of losing my WinMe partition. Thanx
See, this is how upgrading a system one package at a time can bite you in the ass. I compiled the KDE2 distribution from sources, and now my menus are full of multiple entries, and my kpackage doesn't work.
...waiting for Mandrake 7.2 to ship...
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
This is what I like about linux. It is not defined as what the "Controling Company Says it is" It is defined on what the user wants it to be. It gives people the control of thier computer at the most itimate level. But most people do not care enough to know things at that level that is why they want thier computer experience spoon feed to them. But I say in a few years people are going to ask for a change on how things workthey will demand control of thier own computers This is the Linux and BSD of the world will come into play.
it looks like most of the mirrors have 7.2 on them now
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3
mandrake's site still isn't talking about 7.2 though
On 7.2 beta 1 xfree 4.0 was installed by default and then on 7.2 beta 3 xfree 3.3.6 was installed by default. I did not notice this until I hosed my system by installing the nvidia drivers and thereby severly screwing everything up. Can anyone tell me what they are doing now?
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
The real question for me is this: does it support the nVIDIA GeForce2 GTS? When I tried Mandrake 7.0 it read it as a GeForce 256 and I couldn't get X-win to work. I would love to get a linux distro on my computer, but I keep having problems with linux not supporting the hardware on my computer...
"Madness and Genius are separated solely by Degrees of Success." -Unknown
If kde is all you want then why not just upgrade to rpm 4.0 then upgrade glibc and the kernel and then upgrade qt and kde. It is an rp0m system so you should be gien a list of dependancies that you need to upgrade. I find that upgrading just the packages that I want to and the ones that they depend on that I am much happier this way. I don't need to upgrade everything there is no reason to.
I think that rpm is lacking in a few areas. And someone mentioned apt-get, I think debain is lacking a ease of install so don't even go there!
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
I've checked. the /etc/rc.d/rc.natportman by default is left out of the install. Also, by default /etc/rc.d/rc.hotgrits loads but ONLY if you run chkconfig --add mypants first.
I was just going through the text installation mode and by default it destroyed my freeBSD & NTFS partition even though I selected expert.
My harddrive consisted of a freeBSD slice first and my NTFS partition second. I just wanted to go back to linux but GOD not in this way!
The installation just went ahead and did it, I swear I was not careless!
I lost a lot of crap, most of which I can replace but the rest of family's user files are all gone. (no backups SHAME ON THEM!)
I prefer text installations since it's nearly 50% faster to install but atleast mandrake could have added more "hands on" utilities like fdisk.
All this could have been avoided if I just selected expert in gui mode but I have my suspicions that it would have destroyed my hard drive anyways.
But why don't they allow me to use fdisk during the text install?
It seams that they keep making things easier and easier to use but they are pissing off those that like to have full control of what they are installing.
BAD MANDRAKE!
VERY BAD MANDRAKE!
BAD!
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
Why this hassle about configuring systems in an X environment? I configure all my systems in console, with su and pico /etc/anyfile.conf. IMHO, the graphical configurator programs just mess it up really badly and don't tweak the system to its optimal performance.
:P. F those drag and drop HTML editors!
That's why I use pico for my HTML and PHP
May the Source be with you!
Cheers, coke_nl
coke
Mandrake isn't just a good distro for newbies ... I'm using it to run an IP masquerading router and web server (on an old Pentium!) and a pretty powerful development workstation as well. It seems to perform quite well in both functions.
I also appreciate the fact that Mandrake optimizes their RPMs for Pentium-class processors. I've noticed that the Pentium packages for GCC and other heavy number/text crunching programs tend to noticeably outperform the 386 packages on my system.
Another thing that Mandrake has really done well is hardware detection. I was amazed when I installed Mandrake 7.1 and didn't have to manually configure my Ultra/66 card, it was autodetected! The only things I wish they'd support better are my Lexmark 3200 printer and Aureal Vortex sound card :-(
"If we couldn't laugh at things that didn't make sense,
My bicyles
Car companies don't weld the hood shut. Yes, you can tamper with car engines if you know what you're doing - and you can pretty much customize your car "how you like it"
Everything is but a number spoken by itself.
Figures, I just downloaded and burned 7.2-beta3 2 nights ago.... mabye I should go compile the latest 2.4-test kernel to hasten along the release of the stable 2.4... :-)
Icon? Logged in as root?
Do those two imply that people not only actually log in as root (which you shouldn't, you should use "su" or "su -" if you need the environment), but even run a whole X session as root?
Even if root permissions is neccessary for installing packages or mounting CDs, wouldn't it be better to put that one admin user in group "admin" or "wheel" and make kpackage suid?
<grub> Reading