Slashdot Mirror
Mandrake Releases 8.2 Beta
joestar writes: "As seen at Mandrake's website, Mandrake Linux 8.2 Beta seems to be available for download at different places. The new features include the ability to install a Mandrake as small as 65Mb on the HD, and encrypted file-system support. I guess it's the good time to report all bugs we don't want to see in the final version. Very promising release, worth a look at!"
You killed my ISO download. You bastards!
Why didn't they just wait until April for KDE 3.0 to come out? Or are they going to release Mandrake 8.3beta at that time?
No todo lo que es oro brilla
Mandrake has always been good to me on the install, (it autodetected my weirdo soundblaster board, that RH would have nothing to do with).
:)
My mother actually read the handbook that came along with Mandrake 8.1, when i came home one day she asked me for an account. All i can say is that Mandrake definately has quality, i can't wait to see 8.2 in the stores
can't fight against the youth.
"I guess it's the good time to report all bugs we don't want to see in the final version.
No, it's time for you to report all the bugs that shouldn't be in my final version. Now get back to work testing my future software.
------
Today's Top Deals
option 1 is the best...
the site appears to be well on it's way to a slashdotting.
Here's the important info.
The look and feel of 'Mandrake Control Center' has been reworked with 'better ergonomy' in mind. If you do not like it, or do not find it clear, or such - say it now.
Several new features are available during the installation:
The ability to download and install updates after the packages installation.
Minimal installation mode, which installs nothing but the basic system. This installation mode leaves you with a functional linux installation taking only 65 MB on your HD.
Encrypted filesystem support.
In addition , there is a new rescue mode, with a help menu to automatically mount your old system, rewrite lilo and more.
New tools have been addded to the 'drakxtools' family:
Drakbackup helps you keep your data safe, and restore them if something goes wrong.
Scannerdrake helps you configure the scanner.
rfbdrake lets you easily perform a remote control of an X session. Helping your friends get started with linux has never been easier.
New file sharing function makes it simple to export local files.
Obviously, these new tools need a lot of testing. In particular, scannerdrake has only been on the little number of scanners we got in the lab...
Other tools have been reworked (bugfixes, ergonomy, additional functionality):
Diskdrake got support for encripted and network file systems
urpmi and its graphical interface, rpmdrake got a face lift: New 'synthesis file', is almost 100 times smaller than hdlist, which makes urpmi.update -a (reloading the urpmi/rpmdrake database) a pleasurable experience - even with a slow modem connection! Rpmdrake will also work faster, and handle 'exceptional' situations better than in ML 8.1.
MandrakeOnline got now the updates warning feature, i.e. it will warn you whenever you have to upgrade some package.
Finally, 'msec', is more powerfull than ever. Use with care: in paranoid mode, msec will let you happily secure your box from yourself now (been there, done that).
Of course you will also find all the newest versions of famous packages:
kernel 2.4.17, celebrating the comeback of kernel-secure, and a more robust supermount.
XFree86 4.2, with support for many video cards only supported in 3.3.6 version until now.
glibc 2.2.4
Window Maker 0.8
apache 1.3.22
evolution 1.01
kde 2.2.2
galeon 1.0
mozilla 0.9.7
Before we could react, the beast managed to mirror itself on a multitude of public FTP servers, which makes any attempts to capture it futile. All we can do at the moment is to keep an up-to-date list of public FTP servers on which the first beta has been sighted so far on the "downloads" page of the Mandrake Linux site.
I don't know if they just made the whole "accidental release" story up or not, but either way their attitude is pretty funny about this. Apparently they didn't mean for people to get their hands on it, but now that it's out there they are helping everyone download it, giving out the specs, and encouraging bug reports. Sounds like a good development team.
~ now you know
So what are the real advantages of Mandrake? I'm currently running Red Hat. I have a friend who is religious about SuSe because it confoms more to the old-school Unix configuration scheme. What makes Mandrake popular?
Does Mandrake still have the neato-keen "Linux By The Pound" feature in the installer? Where, instead of selecting packages, you choose the total number of MB to install via a slider.
"I'm feeling saucy. I'll try 456MB of Linux today."
"Oh, I better take it easy. Only 95MB of Linux for me."
It just struck me as really funny for some reason.
Well. Have you, like I, had an ex-girlfriend who got all her personal files check out (and copied I'm sure) by "friends" who did that when she was in the bathroom/cooking/on the phone etc
That's why you have them. I archive lots of stuff that really are personal - I don't want others to be able to lay their hands on them. I have my computer on 24/7 and I want to be able to have friends stay there if they need to - even use my Internet connection - and still have my personal data safe.
Encrypted filesystems are great, all that's needed is to make them simpler to use - what's the point in having them if you mount them at boot and leave them open thereafter?
it's in my head
Obviously, these new tools need a lot of testing. In particular, scannerdrake has only been on the little number of scanners we got in the lab...
Of course you will also find all the newest versions of famous packages:
The two rules for success are:
1) Never tell them everything you know.
* rfbdrake lets you easily perform a remote control of an X session. Helping your friends get started with linux has never been easier.
The fact that it really looks like XP frightens me. The fact that it notes that you can help your friends setup Linux from remotely also frightens me.
While this may not come as a default setting (as it best not) what happens if someone who is not all that saavy (isn't that what Mandrake is designed for?) turns it on and next thing you know we have some large security issues.
I like the fact that it has the option to install it minimally only taking up 65mb but you would lose all the fancy dancy shit wouldn't you? Isn't that what Mandrake is? All the bells and whistles?
It comes w/2.4.17, XFree 4.2 (which is very nice), and some other excellent utils.
Sounds nice.
Who would have thought that *Mandrake* would be the distribution to slim down to such an impressive size? Up to now I've run Slackware on small boxes because it was the only thing I could fit into 60 or 120 megabytes. But I'll consider switching to Mandrake - it should be possible to get a system with X and ssh in under a hundred megabytes.
:-(.
All I need to do is recompile the whole distribution without Pentium opcodes
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
With the loop-aes kernel version-independant module, it's not hard to add encrypted loopback to any Linux.
The only PITA is that you have to compile a kernel without loopback built in the kernel or compiled as a module, but you don't have to patch the kernel or anything.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Mandrake has lost their position as "Newbie Linux of Choice".
While I use Mandrake and have purchased every standard version that they ever released, I really feel that Mandrake is being left behind in the useability department by the likes of SuSE and many of the upcoming newbiew friendly distros like Redmond Linux. The real nit that I have with Mandrake is total lack of cohesion between the Drake Applications. Many of these applications really pioneered new functionality for the linux desktop, but they haven't grown together like applications from KDE, Gnome, Ximian, etc. They all function/look/act differently.
Why hasn't someone inside of Mandrake taken pieces from the KDE and Gnome design standards and attempted to apply some uniformity between the applications that Mandrakes designs? It simply boggles the mind that tools like RPMDrake can be so poorly designed.
And what about ICONS!!!! The Mandrake icons and the menu system itself are both totally unprofessional. Can Mandrake afford to pay an icon designer who knows how to make icons in more than two shades of blue?
So what do we attribute the stagnification of Mandrake to? Is Mandrake's development model too open? No one within Mandrake has the guts or the brains to stand up and say: "No, we shouldn't be designed 20 applications that all look and function differently. There is a reason why KDE and Gnome came into existence." Then again, perhaps it is just the bureacratic chaos and momentum that surrounds Mandrake.
Mandrake 8.0 was the very first distro that I got to install cleanly right off the bat and allowed me to connect to my DSL immediately. I tried other distros, like Red Hat 6.2 and Mandrake 7.0, but I had serious problems.
:)
8.0 was the PERFECT distro for a newbie like myself. It spared me the pain of having to configure my DSL and allowed me to immediately post questions and get responses from Linux help sites, like LinuxNewbie to get the answers I needed to my important questions. Although they are exlusive to Mandrake, I was quite impressed with the GUI tools, which, although I should really use the command-line equivalents, were of great help to me just starting out.
8.1 seemed even better than 8.0, but I later found out that it wouldn't automount my CD-ROM or floppy, and I couldn't use my CD-Writer at all. I tried all kinds of tricks, but nothing seemed to resolve the problem. Reluctantly, I switched back to 8.0, which I'm still using.
Now I'm debating whether to try out 8.2, or go for a more "pure" Linux distro, like Slackware. I feel as though I've hit a dead end as far as learning Linux goes. I have an old PC on hand, which will really help me to experiment.
I think even if I decide to switch to Slackware, I want to try Mandrake 8.2, for purely sentimental reasons
This space left intentionally blank.
Unlike 99% of the other operating systems out there, Mandrake 8.2 actually included updates as part of the install process. When Joe User goes to install 8.2 six months from now after X number of holes have been found, it'll automatically bring the system up to the current patch level _before_ bringing the entire system online.
When is RedHat 7.3 expected? After KDE3 in April?
I would imagine so. In fact, I'd go so far as to speculate that the next version of RedHat is not going to be 7.3 but rather 8.0 (yikes!).
If you take a look in the rawhide directory on your favourite mirror of the RedHat ftp, you'll see packages for KDE3 cvs builds, gcc3.1, and lots of other big changes that could break compatibility in not-so-surprising ways.
Many of the packages in there aren't simple installs on a 7.2 system anymore; the dependencies amongst them are too much. Either they require tens of core rawhide packages (i.e. a new glibc) to be installed, or in the case of the core packages, current 7.2 packages show incompatibilities.
Of course I may be completely wrong and the next RedHat *will* be 7.3 and all compatibility issues will be resolved by then (hey, rawhide *is* very beta!), but I wouldn't be surprised...
It's only software!
I think most distros will install in a small footprint if you're careful and know what you're installing. I haven't tried Mandrake in a while so I can't comment there, but it's pretty easy to shoe-horn a RedHat 7.x release into about 80 megs.
/usr/share/doc will also save a surprising amount of disk space. With a bit of tweaking, it should be no problem to get *any* distro to run (and be useful!) in ~50 megs. Of course that depends on what your definition of "useful" is...
Obviously that's with no X, but that still includes apache + mysql + some other useful things. Manually tearing out
It's only software!
LVM and Software RAID are beautiful. Unfortunately, the benefit of LVM is completely lost on a great deal of the community. The strategy seems to no longer be to partition nicely, but rather, put all your space in / and don't worry about it. These are the people Mandrake is catering to, and it doesn't seem like it is worth their effort to support a type of configuration that has no benefit to their target users...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
But then you have nightmares in support and distribution. Not everyone has a fast, convenient net connection through which they can run an update nightly. Additionally, of those that do, not all *want* to update. Releases allow for a checkpoint to be available in which the user is assured some amount of testing has gone into that exact configuration. When you have a system where you just update packages at will, you end up with strange configurations that few have tested and will likely break. For a seasoned user, this may be workable, but especially for a new person, this would really be disappointing.
Imagine providing support where the number of revisions in common use is comparable to the days that have passed with updates to the codebase.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem with this is that esd is started only when GNOME/KDE start.
Not true. ESD is the Enlightenment sound daemon, therefore it only starts when Enlightenment does. Running esd under arts (kde's sound server) is as easy as typing artsdsp esd -trust. Pretty easy actually.
So.. other than XFree86 4.2, I've been using everything 'new' included in MDK 8.2 for about 1-2 months now. (using Debian testing/unstable). On the other hand, I'd have to give the Mandrake people a thumbs up for the increasingly rich-featured installer. Allowing newbies to set up crypto filesystems with no effort is a great idea.
Ahem. Don't know about the first part (shit happens), but the part about X configuration is outright false.
a ng =en
Moreover, proving that your assertion is false is very simple: there is a copy of our manual on linux-mandrake server... There is also a troubleshooting article on MandrakeForum, for those who are too lazy to RTFM:
http://mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1354&l
Yes, indeed. They must be kernel patch-happy over at Mandrake because they do in fact have XFS available as of Mandrake 8.1. I'm using it on my computers now. Works great, as far as I can tell.
Before I switched to Mandrake 8.1, I was using RedHat 7.1 with the XFS install program from SGI. The thing I like about Mandrake is that XFS is already included. My XFS partition moved over to the new installation with no trouble.
Plus, they compile Samba with XFS support - so you can manipulate the ACLs from NT/2000/XP machines. (To do that with Red Hat, I had to recompile. No big deal, but I like having it taken care of.)