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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.
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 ... "
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..
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.
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
I have a friend who was employed in the "electronics" department at Wal-Fart.
While stocking shelves one day, a co-slave looked at him and said
"What the H*LL is this [the Mandrake box]."
My friend attempted to explain
"So it's like Windows. Isn't that illegal."
My friend now works at Pizza-Hut.
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
the release of Linux Mandrake 8.1, aggressively timed to coincide with that of Microsoft's much vaunted Windows XP, marks the start of the final battle for domination of the computer industry.
The Linux operating system was born in 1991 and was created by one man, a Finnish student coincidentally named Linux Torvalds.
Previous versions of Linux have been named Red Hat, Slack Ware, Storm and Coral. In stark contrast to the mundane names such as 98, ME or NT preferred by Microsoft, the crazy names of each Linux release hint at its renegade nature.
why isn't the industry standard web browser, Internet Explorer, included with Linux? Despite the best efforts of the experts at the Internet Engineering Task Force to encourage adoption of the Internet Explorer standard, the creators of Linux seem to think that they know better.
But here's the dead giveaway:
Computer security is also an area that seems to have been overlooked by the developers of Linux. In these times when hacking and viruses are commonplace, it defies belief to learn that no anti-virus software is available for Linux. To add insult to injury, there is no Linux version of the popular ZoneAlarm firewall. By using Linux, you are issuing an open invitation to the hordes of ne'er-do-wells on the Internet.
The shortcomings of Linux are obvious. Without even installing Linux Mandrake, I have exposed several fundamental flaws.
As with most Satire, the danger lies in the unwashed masses taking it literally...
m00.
1) Get quotes and find the right supplier
2) Fill in the credit application form
3) Hit voicemail
4) Get the iso images burned on a CD-R and tested on a few machines to make sure the media is OK
5) Get the artwork in a format that's readable by the film-maker (sorry, gotta use QuarkXpress)
6) Get the artwork to a print bureau and check the output for any errors
7) Get the address where to send all the materials
8) Send them
9) Make sure all they received is okay
10) Hit the voice mail
11) It's weekend, so it will have to wait until monday
12) The CD plant received all the documents
13) They make the film for printing
14) They fax you a copy
15) You approve the copy and send it back
16) They call to ask it you want a white background or leave it silvery. They hit your voicemail
17) You call them back and tell them to leave it silvery
18) They start manufacturing
19) A couple of days later, your CDs are ready, they ship it to you via UPS/Fedex/Whatever
20) You receive them in your warehouse and have to ship thousands of CDs one-by-one
Just so you know, there is a pretty significant difference between versions of packages marketed by Mandrake. The "download edition" doesn't nearly include all the software, or even quite the same install, as the commercial versions, which bundle Star Office, Real Player, and a host of other useful, but non-free, applications.
I highly recommend buying an off-the-shelf version and comparing it to the version you downloaded. It's rather enlightening, and it's tough to go back to the "download edition" afterward.
Matthew P. Barnson
I learn what I think when I read what I write
sorry, but i have to disagree -- mandrake 8.1 has TONS of problems related mainly to the new GUI wizards they included for all kinds of setups.
i'm referring here specifically to their "Internet Connection Sharing" wizard (ugh, what's with that Windows nomenclature), which is supposed to setup up proper IP forwarding and some firewalling features, but falls furstratingly flat on its face. the anti-aliased KDE is pretty and obviously they spent lots of time on fluffiness and likeability, but they need to work harder on the tools they came up with.
there's a long way to go in this respect, especially with regard to the inclusion of like fifteen different tools to do the same thing in a *standard* installation, which will surely confuse many of the newbies this product is aimed at.
on mandrakeforum.com the consensus has been that this 'final release' should've been nothing more than an 'RC', since day 2.
peace
-p
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.
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
- 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