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Mandrake 8.1 Released

Posted by michael on from the 586-goodness dept.

Loke and several others wrote in with notes about Mandrake Linux 8.1. Release notes are available, or download an .iso, or just order it. Looks like it includes KDE 2.2.1, which is pretty impressive...

4 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Japanese support? by Stunky · · Score: 4, Flamebait

    Suse has a japanese version of it's linux distro. I still think it's the best.

    http://www.suse.com/us/suse/news/PressReleases/Jap anese.html

    Stunky

  2. A Bold Statement by omnirealm · · Score: 3, Flamebait

    In the release notes, we read:

    MandrakeSoft is proud to announce Mandrake Linux 8.1 as the newest alternative to Microsoft Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

    Wow. It's hard to find two operating systems as different as MacOS (pre-X, like the versions that videographers would use) and Linux. Pushing Mandrake as a "alternative to Microsoft Windows" or "Macinstosh" may be a little premature at this stage.

    I think it would be more accurate to call Mandrake an alternative to RedHat, Debian, SuSE, etc. But not MacOS or Windows. Not until I can install fonts by simply copying them into a directory. Not until my TV-out works on my Matrox g450. Not until my wife can open up the PowerPoint files that her professor has on the class web site.

    When we jump the gun like this, and people (I'm talking people like my parents, not my fellow engineering students) try installing it themselves (as an alternative), people in general will get a bad taste in their mouths when they perceive that they have less functionality from their computers than they had before.

    --
    An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
  3. Re:Japanese support? by teg · · Score: 4, Flamebait

    Red Hat Linux 7.1 has Japanese support out of the box, and is one of the leading distros in Japan. We have developers in Japan, and it shows.

  4. Bigger and slower than ever. by _LORAX_ · · Score: 1, Flamebait


    Nothing personal guys, but Mandrake is the worst of the bunch. This distro might work ok on your 1ghz 512mb pc, but 8.0 ran like crap on my 128mb P200mmx. And yes, I know what I'm doing, it's running at runlevel 3 ( no graphics ) with a reduced set of rpm hand selected on installation. It even screwed up the installation by never installing the /dev/ nodes. I had to use the # prompt on the install disk to rebuild the /dev before it would boot.

    Mandrake has too many bells and whistles that attempt to hide the fact you are running UNIX. Call me a hacker, but not having the standard BSD unix tools by default really annoys me to no end ( ftp, telnet, and many others were not installed without individual package selection ).

    I have been running linux since 0.9.4 in '92-'93 on at least one PC in my house, so I do know what I'm taking about.

    All of this emulating m$ makes me want to go BSD.