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Newest Mandrake Linux Delayed
Jens Lönn writes: "Linux seller MandrakeSoft has had to delay shipment of its newest version of Linux because of problems in moving manufacturing to the United States. Mandrake Linux 8.1 is available as a download, but the first CDs of the product were supposed to ship by the end of September. "Getting 8.1 production up and running in North America has been a slow and expensive process," the company said in a e-mail message to those who have ordered the CD." Since Mandrake makes certains things so easy (smooth installation), I hope they soon get their newest release again on Walmart shelves across the U.S.
made me go back to Mdk80....
Not because it is bad, but because the Network-FTP ruined my original Mdk80. It must be some sort of feature I am not used to.
I wouldn't think that setting up a CD production line would be that slow or expensive.
:^) Hopefully they'll get it all sorted out soon.
Obviously I don't understand the problem.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
at Adequacy and other outlets? Really, Mandrake can't let their critics get to them.
Very smooth installation...until you mistakingly think the grey colored stars meant selected and format the wrong hard drives :(
There have been lots of troubles all around w/ this MDK release - devfs causing headaches, a kernel level security issue ... maybe a delay could give them time to apply fixes so that the Wal-Mart crowd won't be left wondering, "Just what is this kernel thing anyway ... "
When you buy a CD (music or data) in the UK, nine times out of ten it will have been manufactured in Germany, or somewhere else in Europe. We have import costs very similar to those of the US, yet it's still cheaper for foreign companies (like US-based record labels!) to have their manufacturing offshore - even when they're selling to a completely different country.
I suspect that it's just easier for Mandrakesoft to get someone else organising their North American manufacturing and distribution all at once, rather than managing the supply chain from Europe.
These sigs are more interesting tha
5 yrs ago who would have thought that one could buy linux at Walmart?
if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There is always the availability of CDs via Cheap*Bytes
All three CDs (two install and the supplemental) including shipping for $10 US
there are doorways I haven't opened, and windows I've yet to look through. Going forward may not be the answer..
"Who in their right mind would pay for another OS when one came with the system i bought FOR FREE?!"
It's not really a market i see happening. If you MUST have a Mandrake CD at 2am, most likely you can d/l and burn one yourself..
There is no shortage of U.S. firms capable of packaging software and Mandrake's delay in getting their product to market could have dire consequences. The entire Linux distribution market is in a precarious position. Their business model is predicated on most potential customers not having the bandwidth to download multiple CDs, but with cable modems (and DSL connections) finding their way into more and more homes, many people are finding that downloading 1-5 CDs is no big deal. Start it up, wait a few hours or go to bed, burn them the next day.
Add a delay to the availability of a boxed distribution and suddenly people are asking their friends with high-speed connections to download and burn a set of CDs for them. Some that would have paid for a retail copy will now download it themselves rather than wait for it to appear on store shelves.
The only hope that I see for the Linux distro market in the near future is to switch over to DVDs since most people currently lack the capability of burning DVDs from images.
Mandrake 8.1 really works great for me. It has gotten much better since the last few versions.
KDE 2.2.1 and mozilla 0.94 is included, which is very nice, and I can really recommend this version!
maybe they're moving to america so they are another business in america that relies on linux for their income and can help stop the government introducing the SSSCA :-)
stuff
Heinz have had to delay bringing their new type of beans to market, as they are having difficulty getting the cans in time.
Slashdot: So?
s/Heinz/Mandrake/
s/beans/Linux/
s/cans/CDs/
Slashdot: Quick! Hot news!
Hmm. I know how useful sed is, but I never realised it was powerful enough to turn boring tripe into news in just 3 simple commands. Maybe I should read the man more carefully.
:o)
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
... and extra time to fix this distro. I've decided to delay my upgrade until 8.2. Until recently, I was planning on making the upgrade to 8.1. The reports I've read, however, have convinced me to wait. Now that you have the extra time, why not box an 8.1.1?
I believe RedHat have the same problems, since RedHat 7.2 has been ready (even on the mirrors) for some time now, but they will not distibute it (ie. add the everyone-read bit to the file permissions) until they have the CDs ready.
The RedHat 7.2 relase is available trough rsync ....
$ rsync -av csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu::pub/redhat/redhat/lin ux/7.2/en/iso
... done
n ux/7.2/en/iso/i386/MD5SUM .
... done
*** Welcome to the Purdue University Computer Society RSYNC Server
*** Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
http://csociety.ecn.purdue.edu/
This archive is available via FTP, HTTP, and RSYNC at:
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
rsync://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
Report problems to ftp@csociety.ecn.purdue.edu
receiving file list
dr-x------ 4096 2001/10/05 01:54:02 iso
dr-x------ 4096 2001/10/04 02:01:50 iso/doc
-rw-r--r-- 50 2001/10/04 02:02:00 iso/doc/MD5SUM
-rw-r--r-- 624476160 2001/10/04 00:35:00 iso/doc/enigma-docs.iso
dr-x------ 4096 2001/10/04 02:03:42 iso/i386
-rw-r--r-- 226 2001/10/04 02:04:22 iso/i386/MD5SUM
-rw-r--r-- 680282112 2001/10/04 00:27:19 iso/i386/enigma-SRPMS-disc1.iso
-rw-r--r-- 542537728 2001/10/04 00:29:25 iso/i386/enigma-SRPMS-disc2.iso
-rw-r--r-- 677961728 2001/10/04 00:22:08 iso/i386/enigma-i386-disc1.iso
-rw-r--r-- 669429760 2001/10/04 00:24:42 iso/i386/enigma-i386-disc2.iso
wrote 94 bytes read 691 bytes 314.00 bytes/sec
total size is 3194687764 speedup is 4069665.94
$ rsync -av csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu::pub/redhat/redhat/li
*** Welcome to the Purdue University Computer Society RSYNC Server
*** Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
http://csociety.ecn.purdue.edu/
This archive is available via FTP, HTTP, and RSYNC at:
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
rsync://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/
Report problems to ftp@csociety.ecn.purdue.edu
receiving file list
wrote 106 bytes read 500 bytes 242.40 bytes/sec
total size is 226 speedup is 0.37
$ cat MD5SUM
efab549656a1a85ab8fa39eb873eff0e enigma-SRPMS-disc1.iso
70703897af7703b40e41777a3aa186c3 enigma-SRPMS-disc2.iso
cf7bce0c1cdbfedfae29e60aef202f6f enigma-i386-disc1.iso
fd705b3e5d0e37a828db35d21195a9f6 enigma-i386-disc2.iso
Note that the files are dated 2001/10/04
RFC1925
No doubt, Microsoft is at it again.
Same as with the Mandrake site.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
I'm still wondering if he was being slightly sarcastic about Mandrake's smooth install and having the distro available in Walmart.
:-D
:-(
Personally, I like Mandrake better than any other distro I've used (I started with Slackware about 5 years ago, and it still owns me
The fact that its easy to use and that you can get to the more advanced parts of linux without much hassle makes it a great distro.
I d/led the two install iso's but haven't had time to burn them and play with it
~centurion
Cheap Bytes (bless their busy little hands) only dl's stuff and burns it, then sells it cheap. Nothing wrong with that, but Mandrake doesn't get a cut, as far as I know. The point of this story is that Mandrake, the orginisation, is having trouble making money because of shippiing problems.
I for one, happen to think it would be a real shame if they went under. Mandrake and Debian are my two favorite distros.
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
Mandrake linux is not owned by Geoff "mandrake" Harrison
In all honesty, that's probably the best reply yet to the parent post.
Lets see, the USA, promoter of free trade in the world, imposes a tariff on imported software.
I guess the poor ol' US software industry needs the protection of imports, even though until recently they needed special rules to import more tech workers, and the DOJ is working on breaking up MS.
I been using Mandrake 8.1 for the last 2 weeks and let me tell you I love it. I think Mandrakesoft out done a great job putting Mandrake 8.1 together. It is so easy to configure your network, change boot loaders, install/remove software and download updates. Everything you need all in one place! Now I been a Linux user for two years and sometimes you just want junk to work without trying to figure out every little thing. I know if anyone who want to start using Linux I would give them a copy of Mandrake hell I'm going to buy Mandrake 8.1 when it hit stores. Just to show my support and even if you don't like Mandrake Linux I think everyone need to still support there disros of choice.
From Zero to Hero... Starbuck Zero
European government has a very hostile attitude towards smaller businesses. CE Mark, tax policies, yadda yadda yadda, it all adds up to making it very difficult to start or maintain a small business.
They must be freaking morons at MandrakeSoft. Hey, I use Mandrake, but it's cheap and easy to get a run of CDs with whiz bang labelling, inserts, cases, shipping even large quantities is a breeze, and cheap to boot....
They probably just didn't plan well, or just moved here without any idea how those things run here.
And if you're worried about big brotherish laws in the US, and you're in the UK apparently - well, that makes a lot of sense.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
It's great value for the money.
Maybe they would take this time to fix there damn distro. Its pretty damn broken, its non-stop problems. I think they rushed things a little tring to beat out rhs release. I think overall, rh is gonna wip them.
So is there any *public* mirror of the ISOs available? When I tried to grab the 2nd file, it said "connection refused".
8.2 is due tomorrow, and 8.3 on Monday.
Seriously...where do these guys find time for quality testing...they seem too busy stuffing the next distro out the door.
Sheesh.
-Ben
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
The U.S. has been and is a great place. However, the crazy legal environment and corporate republic mentality will gradually cause a migration to Europe anyway for pragmatic reasons.
In the EU there is no DMCA, no weird cryptography rules. The EU Commission, as bad as it is, even seems to be handling the Microsoft issues better.
Recruitment will happen. The benefits are much better: lower crime, health care, 5 weeks holiday, free university, pension, and in some countries, clean rivers and lakes.
Also, most European governments (at least the Northern European ones) make it really easy to start small businesses and provide tax major breaks and grants. The larger countries also get pretty good deals. However, the competition between companies in the same branch is often really cuttroat and dictated by who is childhood friends with whom.
For example, regarding privacy, I automaticaly get a written statement of who has requested my credit rating and why.
The other option is to phase in the European standard of living in the U.S. For ex, doesn't California provide free or inexpensive university to its residents?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It is now easy to predict that Mandrake will go down as the biggest Linux distro screw up of all time.
(1) Their management is obviously incompetent. This group of French business dum asses handed the most popular (at least by download stats) Linux distro over to a bunch of dot-bomb e-learning idiots here in the States. They later fired that group. Who knows how much money that cost.
(2) Mandrake has to have the worst marketing of all the Linux distros. There is a reason that no big OEMs that Mandrake seriously. This distro has attempted to sell an operating system that people will use to run their businesses while the main Mandrake marketing motif is a drunken looking goofy version of Tux. As for the Mandrake icons and graphics all I can say is it great that Gael Duval's sister has found work.
(3) The Q&A that you see from the older distros like SuSE and RedHat just isn't there. Mandrake 8.1 uses DevFS. While an admirable technical pioneering effort, you just have to look at the Mandrake mailing lists to see that DevFS isn't ready for prime time. It is pretty much a disaster as there are significant hardware configs that DevFS can't handle. Mandrake went from the distro that has the best hardware support to the distro that has the worst. And this is supposed to be a Newbie Linux? 8.1 shipped with a kernel with a VERY broken VM. I have locked up my box many times now as the kernel after taking all 256 megs of swap dies a horrible death.
I installed it, and it wanted to install 1.7 GB of stuff right off the bat. It took me a while to go, one-by-one, down the list to cull enough stuff so that I could actually install on a 1.5 GB partition. Also, it doesn't seem smart enough to tell that, while my root partition might have 1.5 GB, I have designated a /usr partition where much of the stuff Mandrake will install will go.
What happened to the days when you could install a perfectly functional Linux system with X, apache, perl,gcc, etc. in less than 40 MB ?
I have seen the speed of pirated VideoCD getting to the market in HK. Normally, you can find the pirated version of a movie on the street before the official release. Even if copyright owner put huge effort into protecting the master copy and the production process, pirated version can appear within 2 days. The whole process involve some retailer get the official release, send it back to mainland China (it used to be by courier, now through internet) and pressed CD would be ready in the next day.
This story shows that technologically physical medium production may not need long time to setup. I believe the whole thing is slow because you have to go through all the process of registration (making sure you're not asking the factory to press pirated version of software), and the less competitive response time from factory because the market is protected by the government tariff.
A sig is redundant.
A few days ago, I read this review of Mandrake 8.1 which was, to say the least, a bit controversial. After reading some of the comments on the story, I wonder about the accuracy of many things in the article, but you can't deny that it genuinely reflects someone's experience with Linux. It's important to keep up with reviews that AREN'T written by us UNIX gurus, because widespread adoption hinges on the experience new users have with the OS.
Factual or not, this is how new users see the operating system. The harassment that the author of the review received in the wake of writting it will probably drive him away from Open-Source forever and only further reinforce the stereotype of the Linux Community being elitists and jerks. Another story on that site (I can't really figure out the purpose of the site; some of the stuff is really weird) reinforces the same idea: new users like the authors of these two articles are insulted and demeaned for "factual errors" because they're... gasp... new users. The irrational desire for guruism and leetness wins out over the rational desire to encourage and help new users, and ultimately the Linux Community suffers.
Just something to think about.
I personally find Mandrake 8.1 to be a real gem (the X configuration has improved greatly, I love the changes to the package management, and I see little changes here and there that keep making me smile), but if the review reflects the experience that most new users have, maybe it'd make more sense to examine the OS experience rather than flaming the newbies.
I can't wait until Mandrake 8.1 hits the shelves. While I have downloaded the latest version and have the 3 CD set and have also installed it. I would like to support Mandrake Financially.
I used to be unable to afford that. With my current job, I now can afford to support Linux companies. I have been happy with Mandrake's previous releases and would like to see that OS taken more seriously in the corporate and home user markets.
One way for this to happen is to generate real sales figures that give software houses the idea that there are enough installed Linux desktops that they could make a few bucks selling their wares.
Now, many of you believe that Linux doesn't need commercial apps. While that is true, Linux needs no commercial apps. Unless, Linux-users want their OS of choice to be taken seriously. The average PC user (Home or Corporate), will only take Linux as a serious operating system if there are readily available commercial applications.
I do my best to advocate Linux to as many people as possible and that is the one wall that I regularly run into. Where are the commercial apps? Where is the software on the shelves of [Insert_software_vendor_name_here]?
If you like Linux, love Linux and use Linux. Then support Linux, by buying your distros. Not only will it be good for the state of Linux companies, it will also help raise awarness of Linux in the minds of corporate [Insert_Country_Name_Here].
--
.sig seperator
--
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It's too dangerous to visit a friend in the US? Um, no. The cops are not walking around with AK-47's picking up random people off the street. The RIAA isn't prosecuting every internet user. Unless you're coming to talk about and demonstrate an illegal (in the US) thing you did or sell tons of pirated copies of Windoze and Office, you don't have anything to fear. Yet, at least.
More than likely, nobody will care about you if you're just visiting a friend. Just follow the laws (however unjust they are) and you have nothing to fear.
My ass.
Maybe compared to the text install of Debian that I tried first, okay, I can accept that. I've been trying to jump the Windows bandwagon for a few weeks now on some test machines, and haven't been terribly lucky with everything going smoothly, not even with Mandrake 8.1.
For instance, if you try to set up an ethernet card using the Control Panel (or whatever it's called), you cannot set up a NIC correctly without using BOTH normal AND expert mode. Reason being, in expert mode, there's no way to set the Gateway and DNS (I think?) servers... you have to go to normal mode to do that, but only if you set up a static IP. If you set up bootp or dhcp, it won't show up those boxes. So once I set those correctly, I went through the expert install and finished off the process. This took some serious tinkering to figure out their severely broken UI, and several hours to sort out because they don't even show you what the settings are unless you get to those screens by pure luck.
If I were the typical clueless Windows user trying Linux for the first time, I'd probably have given up and installed Windows by now.
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
devfs is reporting errors on bootup, my primary cdrom (which I booted and installed from) isn't being mounted despite the fstab entries...
Something is unstable in my system and I'm not sure what it is: after a few minutes of running X the video occasionally starts to get corrupted... these things never happened to me in 8.0
I'm going to regress back to 8.0 which was quite simply: solid. I'm simply not knowledgable enough with their distro to be able to troubleshoot the problem. All I can say is that 8.0 was great.
p.s. installed 8.1 fresh from CDs (not an upgrade)... anyways.. for those interested, my system is an Athlon 850 Asus A7V and Matrox G400/SB Live/3COM3c905b/AcerCDRW
Installation CDs burned after doing MD5 checksums on ISOs, and then afterwards on RPMs on CDs.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Certainly his facts are incorrect, and I myself had to stiffle a giggle at the Internet Explorer comments, but is it really productive to blame a new user for being a new user? "New users to Open Source are stupid about Open Source." Well, no kidding: that's why they're new users.
Does it really help the Open Source Community to call inexperienced users "idiots" rather than explaining to them how things work; for example, why there's no Internet Explorer for Linux? Now that most distros are shipping with either no manual (just a "quick install sheet"), a 12-page manual covering just the installation, or a 2000-page manual that'll never be opened, there's no way for new users to know these things -- they have to be told.
Do you really think most users who are frustrated by their first Linux installation experience (which is a perfectly normal situation for the new user to be in if he isn't a geek guru like us) and are told that they're "useless idiots" because of it are going to make a SECOND attempt?
I don't.
Its not about selling information! Its about selling services.
The reason why people will buy a CD from a store is not because of the DATA on the cd, but because of the fact that they dont have to spend hours downloading(even on DSL and cable) 20-30 minutes burning it, 2-3 hours downloading and printing out the manuals, and then when theres a problem, have to spend 2-3 hours more trying to fix it.
You buy service, all of this comes in a package, you get a manual, you get technical support, you get a higher quality CD or set of them, all of this you get instantly.
your choice, spend a week installing Linux, Or spend an hour going to the store and an hour installing.
The same reason people use ISPs when the internet is essentially free.
My feeling with the Linux distributions i've seen in stores was, that they always seemed a little dated. I know which kernel is out at the moment, and while in many cases the kernel makes as much a difference as the MHz-Number of your processor when it's between 1400 and 1600, the step from 2.2 to 2.4 was quite large, especially for folks with newer Hardware. Often the kernel-version announced on the package doesn't even tell the whole story, since the mandrake kernels even include many patches which didn't make it into the Linus kernel yet (but have a good chance to get there), but there's only so much you can print on the side of a box and not have it covered in fineprint.
...). With the fast paced and openly visible development in Open Source Software anything three month old already looks slightly dated. So the distributions must frequently issue new versions, and they must get them to the stores as fast as possible (since few people would buy 8.0 knowing 8.1 soon to be out). So when frequently issuing new versions another problem emerges: with the advent of the new version the old CDs drastically loose value, but the new ones need some time from being announced to appearing in the stores.
I think this is quite a problem when selling Linux on CD, since i believe many folks who think about buying Linux in the store at least know the kernel version (but probably don't bother about glibc, gcc,
The folks at Mandrake know all this, their distributions contain all the most recent stuff, their development rpms (cooker) are really cutting edge, and they even offered to sell 8.1 as preview and send the actual CDs when they're out. I run Mandrake and am quite happy with it. I'll probably buy 8.1 just for the manual and being able to install it on some friends computer (and also since i think it's worth the money), since i think Mandrake is a great distribution to start with, and also a good one to stay with, especially if one likes to toy around with the newest stuff (no distro wars please).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I tried compiling my own kernel and every time in mandrake, it ruins the entire system
I read through the Adequacy website very thoroughly, and although I must admit that the site perplexes me, I see nothing that indicates the site isn't totally serious. I read through the mission statement, the FAQ, the meta page, and so forth, and I didn't see the word "Satire" anywhere. I even went so far as to e-mail one of the editors asking what was going on with the site, and once asked on their IRC channel, and every time I was told the site was completely serious.
It's a scary thought, but the site seems to be legit, unless you can document otherwise.
- find companies that could create the CDs (including labeling or possibly silkscreening),
- get quotes from them (probably at least 3, and possibly a day or two each),
- arrange payment (MandrakeSoft is probably considered a dot-com, and does anyone give credit to dot-coms these days?) and
- probably all sorts of other stuff.
It's the kind of thing that as an individual you could probably do in just a couple days, but even fast companies have more baggage to carry through the whole process.fencepost
just a little off
You don't phone, you don't write, you don't troll. It's over.
Unless you're coming to talk about and demonstrate an illegal (in the US) thing you did or sell tons of pirated copies of Windoze and Office, you don't have anything to fear. Yet, at least.
From the Adobe copy protection debacle, it looks like you can be arrested in the US for doing something that's legal where you live, but illegal in the US... this is an interesting precedent.
I'm looking forward to the UK government arresting any US tourists that carry concealed weapons when they are at home in the US.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
Just FYI, Mdk is actually firing about 10 people
in their main office...
Devfs is causing many people no end of grief, I wonder if Mandrake is going to actually fix a few things while their "production delays" are taken care of. If they don't, I suspect 8.1 is going to be one bumpy ride for them.
Their business model is predicated on most potential customers not having the bandwidth to download multiple CDs
I wonder if they could try the interesting bandwidth saving step of releasing distrobutions "early" via P2P systems such as Kaza/Morpheus, Edonkey, Gnutella or whatever. Imagine if they release a week earlier. All us junkies that won't have anything but free beer and nights keeping kernels up to date will immediately get the newest release the moment it is available wherever it is. Less techie people can download it from FTP and mirrors a week later. And the people who want to support a worthwhile company can still get their boxed set.
Heck it happens with Microsoft, the final releases appear on P2P before they reach the shelves, isn't about time Mandrake followed suit? It's free beer after all
stay out of the US, you foreign asshole
Where is Dexter Linux!?
yah...
I'm in Birmaingham England and have been running Mandrake 7.0 fot tha last year or so.
Gotta love it.
Automatic installation of hundreds if not thousands of venerable and funky *NIX toos!
The local BIG bookstore had 7.2 but I hadda wait MONTHS To even get 8.0.
To make matters worse, wheh I finally got 8 home, the installer went so weird on me for a week that I threw 7.0 back in and reinstalled.
The freshness of the box content is definitely short lived.
I hope they stick around though, They really had it right at the time of 7.
I moved a NIC to a new PCI slot last night, and here's how my OSes handled it.
:)
Windows ME: decided it was a new card, didn't remove the old settings and made me setup networking all over again.
Mandrake 8.1: It just worked.
http://slashdot.org/articles/980725/117228.shtml
Had to recall that, just for history
I've been playing with Mandrake 8.1 since it was released. My first attempt at Linux (major newbie). Most of my experience with mdk8.1 has been bad, it's just not working on my system, for whatever reason that is. Reading the forums it seems like this release is giving many people problems, and for some it is working great. I wish I was one of those folks. I'm going to try a different distro, possibly the new SuSE and see if that works.
So whats the problem with the delay?!? for several weeks (2 to be more precissely) mandrake 8.1 is available to download from an inumerous websites in US and Europe.
I had download all 3 cds in one night, only with ma cable connection here in Portugal from an italian mirror. I installed on ma box along with ma two other flavours of linux and 2 others of openbsd and freebsd. And i got amused how big the diferences were from version 8.0.
kernel 2.4.8, kde 2.2.1, gnome 1.4.1.
Especially the inclusion of kde2.2.1 that had been release one week earlier
So guys just dont understand the fuze about the delay!!
if u are in a so rush to try/buy, grab it from theirs ftp servers
GRAB IT or Shutup!
I ran my own company for 2 years before starting my final years at uni. It isn't difficult! Register your company - you fill in one form. VAT - don't worry at all unless turnover is >£60,000. You pay national insurance automatically (I did it by direct debit), basically no more complex than being employed by someone else. CE marks are no problem, the manufacturer of goods just has to ensure it isnt going to kill anyone and get the right to use the CE mark once.
You obviously have never had to CE Mark an electronic product. It goes so much farther beyond just making sure it doesn't kill anyone. It also has to function perfectly in a building with a poor ground (earth) connection directly under a strong AM station - and that's just the beginning. It also has to survive something like 40 direct lightning hits (or more, depending on how you classify the product). You also generate a mountain of paperwork, and you need a consultant or a good month or two to obtain and verify that you have the latest requirements that are in effect this year, and keep track of when all the rolling grandfathering clauses expire and you need to retest to meet newer, stricter, zanier requirements.
You can take some of the risk yourself and say it complies, but you can go to jail for that. It's maybe $10-$20K to comply anything that plugs into the wall, sometimes more, especially if it doesn't pass the first time around. But hey, why wouldn't it pass, clearly you own the $200K worth of products to test only half of features, right? You DO have an anachoic chamber on site, don't you? Farraday cage and all?