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Review of Linux Mandrake 9.0
CoolCat writes "It seems that Mandrake 9.0 has been surpassed or at least catched up by the latest versions of Red Hat and SuSE. OSNews has the review of the new Mandrake version and they have hit a number of bugs and problems. In fact, a number of Mandrake users in the OSNews comment's section agree that this release has been buggy and not a big step from version 8.2 or their competition. I use Mandrake for years and I really hope that the next version will bring us back the good ol' Mandrake we knew..."
It was only a few months ago that others told me that Mandrake was the Linux way to go. After having checked out RedHat 8 and SuSe, I guess Mandrake has fallen behind. Hopefully they'll regroup and start churning out better releases - competition in the Linux distro world is always good...
smd4985
Catched up? That's just lovely.
the poster I can understand, english might be a 2nd languauge, but the Editors are supposed to speak, and WRITE english at a bare minimum.
"catched?" Do forks need to fly in you eyes before you edit?
Work's great for me.
Isn't that the same person who trashed SuSE?
Does she like any distro?
Any relation to that Mikey guy who hates everything but Life cereal?
If a Life Linux distro were released, would she eat it?
The surgeon general has determined that Windows may be hazardous to your wallet.
GREAT review. RIGHT on target.
At last, someone had the *guts* to come out and write about all these happenings.
I have switched to Red Hat 8 since Mandrake 9.0 was released.
...because all my mice have a wheel. Clicking in the right option, it would make my mouse jumping like crazy all over the screen making the installation impossible to continue.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but in 8.2 there was a little tag saying "ROLL THE MOUSEWHEEL", and if you neglected to do that, the mouse would jump all over the screen. Does mandrake have a bug here or did the reviewer just forget? I kinda wonder how thouroughly the reviewer went through the rest.
"Catched up" and "I use mandrake for years" although I use mandrake for years does make sense gramatically it shouldn't be used here. Nevertheless. I find mandrake slow, and bloated. the menues are stupid, though I like the fact that it comes with so many desktop managers. I would never use it for my primary OS. Possibly on a virtual hard drive, but never as my primary OS.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it - Sir Winston Churchill
I have a lot of the same issues that she has with Mandrake 9. Didn't have them with 8.2. Thank god RedHat 8 is out. I think I'm switched to RedHat for good now.
I decide to go back to redhat - 7.3 is better than 8, IMO, but neither one has the crashes or hangs I saw with Mandrake 8.2.
XML causes global warming.
I didn't get _any_ problem that she mentionned in the review... WindowMaker works for me and everything else! She also mentions "nano" which didn't run correctly. But Nano is not even part of Mandrake 9.0!!! To my understanding, she has something against MandrakeSoft, that's all...
s letter/sn021017
I find Mandrake 9.0 just *great* and beautiful, the best Mandrake ever actually. Even on the desktop, SuSE & Red Hat are not as powerful as Mandrake. When I plug a USB scanner or camera under Red Hat 8.0, I don't have any icon showing up on my desktop...
By the way, there are two (really) interesting news about Mandrake today:
1) Mandrake was awarded "best distro of the year" by Linux Journal Readers (read on http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6380)
2) MandrakeSoft today published their new results (for latest fiscal year), which show an increase of nearly 30% for revenues!
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/investors/new
Now, the Linux I love is Yellow Dog. It's RPM-based, but with apt-get updating, doesn't have dozens of dependencies for every package, and while it's updated regularly, the overall system layout is reminscent of "classic" Linux installations. Think Red Hat 5.2, or something like that.
So, I've got this Athlon/NVIDIA box, that's been through Red Hat 7.2, Mandrake and SuSE. (Debian wouldn't install, for some reason.) If Yellow Dog won't run on it, what's the closest x86 distro to it?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I've been using Mandrake 9.0 download edition since the day it came out, and I think it's great.
:-)
I haven't had any problems. It's snappier than past versions. I hear this is because it's compiled with gcc 3.2, which is nice to c++ than previous gcc versions.
The install went faster than in the past.
I don't see what there is to complain about. It's not a quantum leap better than 8.2 was, but it is incrementally better.
I am told the 9.0 designation was because of the gcc 3.2 thing.
Hard to bitch about a quality, free product. (that's quality AND free, not free of quality, smartasses
Well after reading all the linux reviews of the 3 major distros. It looks like the best choice is neither of the three. No I am just kidding I will probably go with redhat. But it looks like the reviewers werent overly excited about any 3. I disappointed about the Mandrake review. Because I really like 8.2, shrug. But it looks like the Xfree86/DE aspect of linux distros is catching up with Windows but they are also becoming as slow. Do what windows will be doing, go with the XML approach, maybe next update...
---- Berlin Brown http://www.newspiritcompany.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mandrake 9.0 has been rock solid for me. I use it at home and on several servers at work. Not a single crash anywhere. Of course, DRI has to be turned off to get it to work on machines with ATI graphics cards, but this is a known problem with Xfree 4.2.x and not with Mandrake! I think this author is trying to gain hits.
Magnus.
I mean, really......
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
You obviously didn't read the article, nor have you read any of the comments here. If you are a Mandrake user, please attempt to look objectively at your distro and admit that all those frou-frou dialogs are attempts to dumb the UI down to the average Mandrake-user level.
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"I am Greek and english is not my native language. We do OSNews for fun (however, OSNews takes most of my time every day), so if you have a problem with my spelling and grammar either a) do not come back (spare us and save your time too) b) send me a proofread version of the article in question.
Whining about something I can't radically improve overnight, is not an option."
- Eugenia Loli-Queru, Editor-in-Chief of OS News, and author of this article.
yes, actually, it is. the grammar and spelling of this article is atrocious, even by Slashdot standards. i have the option to complain when someone is serving as Editor-in-Chief of a news publication and berates anyone with criticism in advance. there's a difference between the quality requirements of a blog like Slashdot and an article published in a magazine. if you expect anyone to take you seriously, you need to speak english with a modicum of skill. take a look at newsweek, time, the washington post, and zdnet for examples.
the result is that no one takes OS News seriously. this 'article' was just a nit-picking flame without any attempt at pyramid-style organization, introduction, conclusion, structured thought process, or any other semblance of journalism basics. if this is all we have, as a community, then that's just sad.
- - -s.
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Why do distros instead of fixing their bugs and make the distribution better,they rush to come out with a new version which will also have bugs. It seems to me that actually making the distro better by fixing errors you would get more users. but what do i know...
I can feel the flames already, but here goes...
:))
I've been a redhat user since 6.0, and after trying LFS and deciding I needed a desktop, I gave Mandrake 8.2 a try. It was buggy, not all that fast, and frankly I think the blue and gold colors are ugly(which is 50% of the reason I didn't like it
I was expecting a lot more based on all the good reviews I had heard. After that I tried the redhat beta (null) and never looked back.
I guess it might be nice if you need your 3d card to work out of the box, but I was looking for a desktop with more 'finish'.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
While on 3D apps, using the contributed NVIDIA binary driver for my Geforce2, the system freezes (not everytime but often enough). I hate binary drivers!!!!
I use reiserfs and I have found that multiple freezes end up trashing my configurations for kde, etc.
This didn't happen with 8.2.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Eugenia Loli-Queru, reviews are very PICKY, and i find them sometimes leaving stuff out or just a rant session.
MDK 9.0 has built in support to join MS domains in the installer, real clean works great.
she didnt even know antil a post posted it,
i would take her review not as a final word but:
"with a grane of salt"
her hardware and setup a far from normal,
and she installs the os one time on ONE machine and that become the """"review""" of it.
she should install it a few times ussing different
methodes each time and fully explore the OS, taking in to account the target of the OS, and other factors. and not just some multi page rant like some idiot.
the more a read Eugenia Loli-Queru the i find her
lacking, to be fair, some stuff she says is REALLY good,
but some stuff is really BAD.
MY 2 cents
end rant
Nex6
I thought after all the problems they had with 8.2, they'd clean up their act. Their excuse on the Cooker mailing list for the quality of 8.2 final was "publisher deadlines". Maybe they need to get another publisher who understands that if it ain't ready, it ain't ready?
I haven't participated in Cooker development since the 8.2 betas. I got fed up with trying to contribute because they had no bug tracking system. All communication between developers and testers was on the Cooker mailing list, and it was sloppy and clumsy at best. Fixes were frequently overlooked and contributors got upset because they thought they were being ignored. During beta 2 I pointed out that the curl-config script was missing from the libcurl-devel RPM; during the RC I mentioned it again, and still it went to press without it. So I had to build my own libcurl to build an app against it. I had all kinds of problems just installing 8.2 final on my system; KPresenter always segfaulted on my laptop and wouldn't even start on my desktop; the Xenophilia RPM was entirely missing from the distro because they "forgot" to commit it; and countless other problems. So I went back to 8.1.
Lots of people on the Cooker list were calling for Bugzilla, but the developers insisted that the mailing list works just fine. Can anyone tell us if they've come to their senses? If not, the heck with 'em.
"Catched up" and "I use mandrake for years" although I use mandrake for years does make sense gramatically it shouldn't be used here.
Although *DOUBLE-QUOTE*I use mandrake for years*DOUBLE-QUOTE* does make sense gramatically*COMMA* it shouldn't be used here.
In fact, a number of Mandrake users in the OSNews comment's section agree that this release has been buggy I read the first page of comments and don't know whtat some of those readers are smoking. Can't burn 700Mb isos on anything? I burned all three of them with the cdrecord on Debian Potato. In short, don't just blindly agree with the comments says, use your own common sense.
Haven't had a lot of time to play with M9.0, but if it isn't ready for primetime, M10 will be.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
That's enough for me.....
I started using mandrake back in 99, with version 6.1. It was a lot more power-user friendly than 7.0, and really they've automated much more since then. I've switched to a "real" distibution (no offence guys), and wouldn't go back even if they did come out with a good release.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
OK, the author of the article clearly wasn't reviewing the product, she was whining. There is a difference. She convinced me of that when she started complaining about how "the default KDE isn't pretty enough for me". Lady, get a grip. I happen to think it looks quite nice, and I've left it at the default settings for the most part. So there. :-) (Besides, um, what default Desktop? The first time I logged in I was asked "which environment do you want" and given the choice of KDE, GNOME, WindowMaker, and the assorted others I had installed. What's she talking about?)
:-) After that the install went smoothly.
:-) A friend of mine said the package is buggy and I should recompile from source, but I'm trying to avoid touching the command line for as long as possible, just to see how long I can last doing that.
:-) (If someone can explain why BZFlag kill the entire system but TuxRacer works perfectly fine, please let me know.)
Still, though, there are a few problems that I've found in the past few days since installing Mandrake 9.
Firstly, during the install, it hung for a long time on the kernel-source package, for reasons I do not understand. After I went to bed and woke up, it finally gave me the option to skip that package. It finished the install, then doubled back to package selection and went through the whole thing again, save for that 99% of everything was already installed, so it only took a few minutes (I selected a few extra packages
Secondly, UserDrake when run on its own works fine, but if run through the Mandrake Control Center it will not clean up its temp files when closed, which will prevent it from opening next time. (It uses them as lock files.) They can be deleted manually, but it is annoying.
Thirdly, GAIM keeps imploding when I try to send an IM to someone. I think it may be a bug in the MSM module, since it only started after I installed that.
Fourthly, several of the OpenGL games, for some reason, still manage to lock my system up cold. I do not understand why, though I'm not sure if it's a Mandrake problem specifically. I have an ATI Radeon 5000 video card, which at least in 8.2 was, somehow, the ONLY Radeon card in existance that lacked OpenGL support.
Fifthly, I STILL like Mandrake 9. I've yet to have to visit a command line to do ANYTHING since the system was installed. (Though I may have to so that I can get GAIM working.) The Mandrake Control Center is light years ahead of Linuxconf and the assorted other collection of poorly implemented "tools". KDE 3 is also sweet. (I've not tried GNOME 2 yet, I confess.) I LIKE having the distribution come with everything I could possibly want. If I don't like it, I won't install ir or will uninstall it. Duh. (Note to reviewer: In the install you can pick which terminals to install. You must have chosen to install all 7.)
Distro to end all Distros? No. But still overall quite nice.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
Mandrake has always been a distro that if it works on your system, then it's excellent.
Some people have lots of problems and can't even install the thing, and for others (like me) it works perfectly
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
There was many changes from 8.2 so it was too be expected, 9.1 or 9.2 will rock. 8 sucked IMHO, but 8.2 was really good
When someone criticizes a product, most folks think they're bashing it. It's not like you ever hear how Nokia's phones suck on a CNN segment, but you sure do hear how cool they are. That's true with most "reviews". We should hail Eugenia for her thoroughness, not bash her for unvarnished opinion.
Can slashdot please posting this crap?
Eugenia is an idiot.
Why must her "articles" be linked from slashdot every time she posts something new?
Have you people ever read any of her garbage?
First of all, this is not intended to be a flamebite. Red Hat's Disk Druid refuses to see my second hard drive since version 7.1. Starting with 7.2, it refuses to use good old fdisk. I switched
to Mandrake as a result.
No matter what the reviewer says, I never had any serious problems with Mandrake (including 9.0 which
I use now).
Gene.
The looks might be different but at the end, they're all the same to me. Since I switched to Gentoo, I can have all my binaries compiled with -march=athlon-xp -O3 and other optimizations. This is how GNU/Linux should be IMHO.
But obviously, the reviewer is a troll that doesn't know much about what should be under the hood of a distribution and she only reviews the clothes...
Yeah, well YellowDog found my cat. Mandrake did not!
I've been using Mandrake for years and now I'm gonna keep it running until I actually run into one of the problems described in this *review*. Check back after a few years. I look forward to NOT being able to reply.
The main distinguishing feature of Mandrake over other distros is that it is great for newbies. My parents, in-laws, and soon my brother all have Mandrake on their systems. This differs a lot from the typical slashdotter requirements of speed and a unique looking user interface. I say to each his own distro.
In my opinion choosing a distribution is like choosing a car. All cars get you from point A to point B. Some people need a minivan, some a pickup, and some a sports car. But it is really difficult to say that one type of vehicle is the best for everyone.
This space intentionally left blank.
There is a better review here:
1 /6 894
http://www.sporks-r-us.com/story/2002/10/2/1121
Hahaha! Make your time!
You mean the one which basically was Redhat with a | sed s/RedHat/Mandrake/g done to it?
Yep, Mandrake is proof that Redhat is another Microsoft. Good ole' Bill wouldn't have minded one bit if I borrowed the source to Windows 95, put my name on it, and resold it with a few extra dressings..
I noticed a lot of softwares are usually buggy at X.0 versions. The newer versions like X.1, X.2, X.3, etc. are much better.
Hasn't anyone noticed that with Linux distributions?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
You have to understand, this is the distro that started out at version 6 if I remember correctly. They basically made a clone of Redhat, recompiled packages so they would run 2% better but not run on anything less than a pentium, and slapped a version 6 on it.
Talk about nerve. They totally rip Redhat, and then slap a version 6.0 on it.
Totally Antdude, totally. I've noticed that too.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Dumb_people == "like hard to use when easy to use is available";
In other words, you cannot be very bright if you CHOOSE TO DO THINGS THE DIFFICULT WAY.
... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed...
Since Mandrake is so adamant about playing version numbering one-upmanship, despite the lack of any actual technical improvements to justify bumping the major number, I'm surprised that they don't simply start each new major version number with a ".1" for the minor version number. Anyone who is actually fooled by their version number inflation should fall for that as well.
It's funny that you got modded down for this post. While it's not true, it's funny because anyone who ran the first version of Mandrake will remember that it was basically Redhat with a few modifications. And the best part was they gave it the same version that Redhat was on at the time, 5 or 6.
I guess since most Mandrake users like to bash Redhat they don't want anyone to know that their distro started out as a fork of Redhat.
> Dear Troll,
Admitting that the parent was a troll and then responding to said troll means that you're a complete fucking idiot. HA Terrible D.
Lets see, new gcc, new glibc, new KDE and GNOME. yeah i think this deserves a new major release number.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Lots of people on the Cooker list were calling for Bugzilla, but the developers insisted that the mailing list works just fine. Can anyone tell us if they've come to their senses? If not, the heck with 'em.
They have bugzilla now. I tested rc2 & rc3 this time around, and while the cooker mailing list had way too much traffic for me to keep up, they fixed most the bugs I complained about. Most serious was the inability to run the drak tools and urpmi...which they fixed. There were some little things, and the kernel was also unstable on my laptop. This they didn't fix but the linus kernel works, so I just switched to that.
I think they should have done a couple more release candidates, but I'm gonna test some of the beta's next time around so they at least get urpmi problems fixed before the rc's go out.
I like the decisions they made with the UI, I reconfigure the menu anyway so it's good to have every app there to begin with. I also install all the non-server packages since there is plenty of space and it saves me the effort of installing the things I need later. But, I know a co-worker that would have just prefered starting with that what do you want to do today menu they added; he's a business guy who hasn't tried Linux in a couple years so he's prolly as close to that mythical "regular user" as you're gonna get. He doesn't need 7 terminals, while I use 4 of them regularly.
Preparation: several kegs of beer, a lot of glasses, and a browser open at osnews.com
Participants: as many Linux, er, "fans" as possible.
Method: someone reads the review out loud. Best that they are a designated reader, as things tend to get messy. Then...
Scull one glass every time:
- BEOS is mentioned
- Eugenia replies to comments within three minutes of them being posted
- the words "my", "Celeron" and "533" appear in a sentence
- Eugenia refers to herself (this alone should make most pass out by the end of the first page)
Scull two glasses every time:
- the linux on desktop argument is exhumed
- some sly comment is made about tightwad companies not paying for mp3 licensing fees
- you hear a complaint about not a given distro being newbie friendly within 20 seconds of hearing a shell command line...er, command quoted
Bypass the glass and drink straight from the keg every time:
- you suspect that complaints about the distro's UI are overwhelming the substance of the review
- the review doesn't complain about nvidia at all
- somebody exclaims "what the f**k is she talking about!?"
and
Eat your hat if:
- Eugenia refrains from responding acidly to comments in her reviews
- you understand what the major fundamental difference is between a distro marked as 7.6/10 and one marked 7.8/10
BTW, if you get an opportunity to eat your hat, call a taxi, you're done for the night.
You wan stability? Don't run KDE, and all that crap that goes with its desktop...
... finally someone that made the perfect window manager:)
Run RATPOISON...go www.freshmeat.net
It is a minimalistic window manager, how many icons do we really need on a desktop?
In the talkback section to one of her articles on
redhat she said.
" I am modding you down for being a complete
ass and general lack of disscussfulness."
That is almost as classic as
" all your bases are belong to us now."
But aliens ate my Buick!
I'll stick with Lindows. Lindows is Debian-based distribution which offers an excellent set of GUI-tools, and is easy to install for the newbie. Also, it will be around in 5 years from now because Lindows has a REAL business strategy, which means making people pay for their product and not offering it for free for download online, while still complying with the GPL.
Also, Lindows knows what it wants to be. I wants to be a GNU/Linux distribution for the average desktop user.
That said, I'm not a newbie and I don't need hand-holding. I personally use Debian, because of its great track-record for stability, and because I can freely obtain it. Any graphical tools which I like in Lindows I can also get in Debian, either by download or by buying the Lindows CD and putting those apps on my computer.
Despite sticking with Debian, however, I really think that Lindows is a great thing for Debian GNU/Linux. Lindows can be to Debian GNU/Linux what OSX is to FreeBSD: an easy-to-use OS designed for ease of use for a new user (a diplomat between the world of power-users and newbies). Also, I'm excited about how Lindows is being sold pre-installed on very cheap computers. This is great, because many people just need a computer for very basic needs, and Lindows helps one buy a computer for under 500 dollars. This might be just the thing GNU/Linux needs to get newbies on-board.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
While checking out Mandrake 8.2 I looked in /usr/lib and /usr/lib and saw hundreds of files that had no business being there - they dumped all the KDE libraries and include files directly into the system directories. At least they should have thrown KDE into /opt/kde or something. Mandrake sorely needs a major directory structure overhaul - it's a hornet's nest. I'd expect this from Windows (system directory and its thousands of DLLs) but not a major Linux distribution.
I haven't had the time to check out Mandrake 9.0.
Did they fix this mess?
I really like Mandrake but have only had it as my desktop of choice since 8.2. The biggest plus I see with Mandrake is that they have taken a lot of time and effort into making the install process very painless. Not just the basic install but all of the packages.
I run a home server and it was a snap to setup all of the services. Cups, MySQL, Postgres etc.
However, on the desktop what normally happens is that I install Mandrake, am very impressed with it's potential but have to fall back because of one or more bugs that I can't get around.
I usually have fallen back to Redhat. This is the distro on which Mandrake is based. However, version 8.2 has been rock solid for me. Well, as long as I don't try to apply the KDE 3.0 upgrade.
I'm very happy with 8.2 which is a good thing because I am a KDE user and Redhat has made KDE look very different in its newest version. A lot like Gnome I think. Although Gnome is excellent, I'm just not use to it and would rather stick with KDE.
I installed Mandrake 9.0 and ran it for a few weeks but I've fallen back to 8.2 because of some undesirable behavior. I'll wait and try it again at 9.1. But if I know Mandrake, they'll be on the leading edge with KDE 3.1 and other things so maybe I'll have to wait until 9.2 to get a bug-free platform.
I guess if you want all of the new toys you have got to expect some bugs. That's okay as long as they work out all of the bugs in point releases like they did in 8.2.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Red Hat has better usability, intuitive menus and Open Office integration. The Blue Curve theme is also great. The Red Hat Network, enabled at every boot, is a pain.
Mandrake does a better job when it is about integration with peripherals, like digital cameras an PDAs. And RPM Drake "just works", compared to RHN, that requires registration.
Well I'll throw in my own personal review for anyone who wishes to compare notes.
/etc/profile no longer work.
Overall I'm pretty happy with Mandrake 9.0, although I was upset that it featured a few new annoyances. Heres my list of pro's and con's so far that I've noticed:
Pro's
------
My HP printer FINALLY works right.
KDE3 installed by default.
A couple of nice new apps (Mr. Project)
Control Panel much better (in some areas)
Cons
------
OpenOffice is broken. Spell check does not work.
Some packages that I still need were removed and I had to get them elsewhere.
- libdvdread
- libvga
- libdvdnav
MySQL will not launch on startup even though I set it up to.
Setting ENV variables in
xscreensavers not visible on the KDE menu anymore.
Aside from the annoying glitches, the printer support and default KDE install are worth it for me. But I hope they fix this stuff in the next release.
Blender And Linux Fan
Gee I being a RedHat fan recently made bold to try out mdk 9.0 on my Compaq laptop and I tell you the thing is really damn good. I faced none of the problems the author refers to. Sure every Linux distro has its shortcomings even today, but that sure is no way to treat a very good linux distro. If you care to make a fair & unbiased comparison you'd be sure to find Mandrake not half as bad as the article claims.
This sure looks like an article purposely bashing Mandrake due to some weird reason. Am sure Red Hat or Suse are no better than Mandrake 9.0. Personally I feel(as a recently switched mdk user) that it is simply the easiest and jazziest of the lot in there.
Like what many of /.ers found, I believe Eugenia has been very negative about Mandrake9. I have switched from RH to Mandrake about 1.5 years ago.I use the GUI tools infrequently, primarily relying on editing config files.
I have run Mandrake 8.1/8.2 on a variety of laptops, desktops, servers (Including a Quad Xeon IBM x350!). I have found Mandrake to be a solid distro with very useful packages bundled. I like the fact that I can get a IDS box in place with M8.2 in I am running M9 since RC1. I have not faced any major problems so far (Actually the system seems more responsive)
I hope to do a more balanced review in a week's time....
It seems that everytime a new Mandrake comes out, that's what I hear from many people (articles and Slashdot posters). Mandrake has gotten better in several areas, mainly automatic detection of hardware. But it sems to get worse in two areas every time:
configuration (the UI for the utilities is SLOW and sometimes even broken)
upgrades (for some reason--maybe just my luck--everytime I try to upgrade something--even fufilling dependencies--something else breaks)
It's a good starting disto--what I used--but it breaks too easily for some unknown reasons to be used forever
I fell in love with Mandrake at 7.0. It seemed like they were just the distro I wanted. They have remained that way; I gave them $60 because I love them. My take on 9.0 after 2 weeks of using the download edition: ;-)
Fast set up (Insert CD.....get WEB)
The first Mandrake since 7.1 that detected and setup everything.(tho I still miss the Photon theme.)
It's noticeably faster than 8.2
It has some fun games.
The control center is a great config tool.
I've heard other distro's don't have supermount. Tough for y'all.
No problems so far; and if I find any I forgive MandrakeSoft in advance.
1000 SlashDot sigs
I agree that maybe mandrake 9.0 is less than 8.2 but it alwyas happened like that. Never assume that #.0 are stable. Even with the RC# you dont get a total full experience until #.1 or #.2- if necessary- comes up. I should recomend for people to review the bugs and test them to learn. Bugs are not bad, definetly a great opportunity to learn how OS is putted together.
The JZA
Which [i]would[/i] explain why he isn't posting on Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew, German, or even Spanish sites, wouldn't it? The "ugly american" bit would also explain why he isn't posting his picture on hotornot.com, wouldn't it?
In other words, get off our internet.
And she goes on but I already feel like vomiting.
You know where I go to read reviews ?. Slashdot, users comments. You get real smart people telling you their real stories. People who really know what they are talking about and have no reason to bias one way or the other. And the good reviews get modded up. Peer review. I just don't understand however why this "review" in OS news was posted in slashdot, especially since the submitter of the story is clearly trolling .
On the Issue of Mandrake 9.0 . I installed it in three machines: home desktop, laptop, office workstation. It all went fantastic, and I have never ever been happier with a distro. It is saving me lots of time in administration, it is pleasant to use, I just love it. Almost everything works out of the box. It autodetected local and network harware, I crossed mounted disks through NFS, etc, all without effort from the Control Center. Software Installs and upgrades are a pleasure with the RPM front end. Simply outstanding. But you see, I don't need to flame or trash or bitch other distros to simply state that I became a happy Mandrake user.
It would have been much more productive for slashdot to post a pointer to the several "first impression" reviews of Mandrake 9.0 on the net, which are much more balanced than the one in OS news (see distrowatch.com section Mandrake), and encourage people to write their own reviews. I have lots of cool stuff to say about Mandrake 9.0, but I ended up biting for the troll. Oh well :-(
When Mandrake set up hurdles for reporting bugs my first though was, "well, if they don't want to hear about them, they ain't gonna find them, they ain't gonna fix them!".
This was an effort to cut down on people reporting non-bugs and taking up valuable resorces, apparently.
It took me a lot of searching throught their website to find the bugzilla and even more effort to be granted posting rights.
There are about 400 bugs in the bugzilla last I checked. I would have expected thousands for an operation this size. Mozilla has thousands because they actually welcome bug reports. If I report one it is usually checked within a few days as real/imaginary/dup etc. and most important, Mozilla is rock solid.
Perhaps spending valuable resources sifting through thousands of bugs for just a few real ones is actually quite a useful part of quality control.
Hablo un poquito Espanol, mas de la idioma por restaurantes que algo.
I can usually tease the general gist out of a short article in German, though I am not capable of generating an comprehensible sentence or understanding much of it when spoken.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A friend of mine told me once that Mandrake is always a beta. And with the past couple of releases I agree. I use RH 7.3, and don't plan on changing to anything else yet. I loaded MDK 9.0 and all seemed fine, except it look like they can never get Nautilus to work right in any version. The biggest upset for me is I can't get UT2003 to load. RH 7.3 and even EvilE loaded it no problems. Besides the gripping here, I believe it is a good distro for those that do want five different versions of the same program and cutesy icons. The one thing I can say Mandrake always does a good job with is the menus. They are consistent with any WM you use and quit well organized. It takes more than a good HCI approach to make a functional OS.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
can you adjust mouse speed? Not a troll, it's just that Debian seems to be the only one to have thought of this minor detail. Everyone else seems to require you edit mouse "resolution" in XF86Config-4 (and then it applies to all users). And don't tell me how you can adjust acceleration under KDE's control panel. Speed!=acceleration damit!
I agree with EVERYTHING than ender81 said about Mandrake 9. The UI is inconsistent and I don't know why Mandrake didn't make the default look something like Liqua. If you open the Network Connections Mandrake wizard, the box where the network adapters are listed is usually underneath a pile of buttons and other elements, so you can't view it or click on it easily. Some Mandrake screens are completely screwed up if you resize them. Yes, I can have 10 different text-editors, but why doesn't Mandrake just list one in the KMenu and only enable others if you choose. ...this is why for usability, I prefer Windows XP, which still can't hold a candle to MacOS X, that is Unix based, and I'm sure KDE could be just as impressive.
The only problem i went on with mandrake was that `perldoc` wasnt there... i had to install it manually (what a great pain), even if i select all the
now if someone wants to avoid such non-friendly problems, consider installing a linuxfromscratch... at least is it doesnt have something you badly need, you're the only responsible
freddo
--
http://freddo.netfirms.com/
--
-- search the web
There is a bug in the default /etc/ldap.conf file:
the line:
nss_base_group ou=Group,dc=officenet,dc=no
Should read:
nss_base_group ou=Groups,dc=officenet,dc=no
There was a missing 's' in ou=Groups which made the ldap-lookup faile to look up groups correctly
--
Andreas
I did an upgrade in 'recommended mode'. Well things went OK but after a reboot:
It took me hours to get the X server and the ADSL working but I still have no sound.
I am fed up with all this. I think I am going to try RH 8.0
le souvenir d'une certaine image n'est que le regret d'un certain instant (M.Proust)
Mmmmmmmmmm... hairless, shit caked, sweaty balls. Mmmmmmmmmmm... I am such a f4g0rt!
"...instead of the Retard install button..."
That made me laugh. I don't even know why Mandrake doesn't just make everyone learn a bit on install. Oh well, not my distro - I don't own MDsoft. But - I can say that if you have any idea about what you are doing, hit the expert button on Mandrake. It makes things clearer, function better. And being able to do individual package selection is nice.
Personally, I'm getting sick of the "do the dummy thing: next-next-next-next" install/reviews. Put some time into it, please - let us know what Mandrake/RH/Suse/Debian is like when you really work on it. And I know, I know, she talked to Mandrake about her problems. I just wanted a bit more than "the default them sucked. bla." Maybe check out the other, cooler themes? suggest going to the plf and getting some nicer themes??? Just a thought.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
You can send me your dvd, if you don't want it. I'll pay shipping. The OpenGL drivers you got worked fine for me - did you (re)compile them, because MD uses GCC 3, and not 2.X - binary incompatibility there dude. Sorry...
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
apart from removing MySQL *sniff* it seemed to break quite a few confs. This wasn't really this surprisong as I didn't expect it to work in the first place.
So I decided to install this, now I only ssh into this box and it has no monitor / keyboard / mouse. Since moving country I didn't even have a mouse serial mouse for the box...
And before anyone comments that mandrake is a desktop OS balh blah blah if I'm going to use it for a server, blah blah blah, the disks were here when no others were
BTW German keyboards suck "QWERTZ" WTF is up with that? (ALT GR)Q to get @, jesus!!
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
u r vary sexay. cyber plz?
Deno posted about this on the Mandrake Forums. They exist, they are not supported, and available to club members only (and non-club members, if a club member distributes them, they are GPL'd, as all MD software). Good luck, anyone finding them.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Go here. Browse. Smile - your cd burner is $54. Free shipping, plus a 10 free cd's. 40x speed burner.
Newegg has the best service of any place online. My last order, I ordered it this past monday, I got it wednesday.
I don't work for Newegg. They don't pay me anything.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Compile your own. Something's wrong with the binary's, don't ask me what. I had problems, I then compiled my own, and they were beautiful. no problems.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
#start sarcasm
... and ...
No dude. Only up Distro numbers when you switch to a new major kernel number. ONLY then. Otherwise you are just fake.
#stop sarcasm
yeah. don't forget new Mozilla from 8.2, and OpenOffice 1, and completely new Mandrake Control Center, and msec, and
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
Well I am probably on my 6th Mandrake 9 install, 3 of them fresh from start. I used mouse, no mouse and text only. Yes, Mandrake has serious drawbacks on its install procedures, some of them quite stupid, ex. I had one machine where I had to force a fresh install because the install script had a bug related to listing RAID devices.
However...
I don't get why this guy had pains on installing XFS on root. Well, either Matrix is having me in full force or I have installed XFS on root in all machines. One of them starts from SCSI, one starts from plain dumb IDE and others have UDMA-66 and UDMA-100.
Besides, his troubles with mice seems that he is a cat that doesn't try hard. All wheel mice have a problem with Mandrake. When one starts rolling the wheel, the cursor goes crazy (even with MS wheeled mouse). However a few runs up and down and the thing comes back to normal in most mice. This problem is endemic to Mandrake, it was there since they started this wheel test. So, I suspect that this guy made his first install in his life...
Frankly this critic looks much like FUD to me. Yes, Mandrake has problems and this guy seems to have restricted his look only to them. However, he seems to have forgotten that the new Mandrake has some great things like enhanced security, a more wheighted level of apps, OpenOffice from start and several more things.
Nowadays the Desktop environments on Linux have more-or-less matured, no one seems to be implementing new ideas at the same rate that they once where and Mandrake itself has become stagnate, A RPM based distro built for Kde just doesn't seem to be as big a deal that it once was and if people what Unix with a really good UI then they can now use OSX. People now seem to get excited by things like Gentoo, after you've finshed compiling it.
Of course it is a bit early to say someone slipping after releasing just one distro, and a .0 at that, That Mandrake that held themselves up to such a high standard in the past makes this current distro disappointing to a lot of people (myself included) but if people remember Redhat 7.0 didn't even have a working compiler as I recall.
Pianist : Some jerk whos taught themselves how to type in rhythm
The main reason I moved from Red Hat to Mandrake (7.2) was the ease of 3D graphics drivers. I just installed and worked.
With Mandrake 9 I had to download the drivers, compile them and install them myself. I can do that, but my mother can't.
I also really miss all the nice toolbar applets from Gnome 1.2, especially Gnome-icu applet and Xmms applet. I think switching from Gnome 1.2 to 2.0 was a bad idea.
I will probably try the latest SuSE and see how it is.
temporarily sigless
Mandrake 9.0's installer detected that the later partitions needed renumbering (e.g. /dev/hda5
goes to /dev/hda6 and so on) - it decided to
re-write the MBR to update this info. Fair enough
(meant some grub.conf hacking for other Linux
distros in those partitions, but no big deal),
but after I installed Mandrake 9.0, Win 98 SE
refused to boot (and no Win 98 SE boot floppies
would work either !).
Luckily, I used cfdisk to toggle off booting on the Win 98 SE partition and then toggle it back on again - Win 98 SE then sparked into life and booted OK, putting the blame squarely on Mandrakes rewriting of the boot partition numbering. A lovely bug for an end-user to encounter or what ?
I had the OpenOffice spell checker problem too ....
You need to install the 'myspell-en_US-1.0.1-0.20020626.4mdk' rpm package for the spell check to work.
Does this mean now that those of us who subscribed to Mandrake Club will stop their donations?
I wonder why the latest "financial results" of Mandrakesoft show just the revenues... What about cots? and (God forbid) maybe even profits?
Too bad unionfs won't be supported in Linux until the 2.7 kernel series.
Here is a good description of how unionfs works on BSD.
Basically, unionfs allows one or more directories to be superimposed over each other giving the appearance of just a single directory.
not quite sure if Eugenia is even using Mandrake 9. having downloaded and installed the day of release, I can say Ive encountered only 1 bug(cd 1 wouldnt boot...creating a boot floppy for the cd image fixed that).
maybe shes using weird hardware, but Man 9 installed flawlessly on my PII400(and fast too!). apparently she didnt read the installer message about 'wheel mice' or she would have known to roll the wheel for about 5 seconds(yes, the mouse jumps erratically for a few seconds, but once you roll the wheel, the mouse works fine)
7 terminals??? guess she told Man to install EVERYTHING...I went through my packages and installed 2 terms, and only the 2 I installed show up on any menus.
havent found a broken/non-working package yet(yes, originally I tried the 'update' function from the install....my mistake. if you wait to install updates until after the system is completely installed and running then you will have no problems). MySQL works(dont know why her Mysql wouldnt start at boot...did she change a config?)
I like the default KDE3 desktop...wish my Win2000 desktop looked this nice!
all in all, I am very happy with Man 9...easily their best, most bug-free distro yet.
my 1 problem(which isnt a Mandrake problem), is that the PHP/MySQL dev work I do on my Win2000 machine doesnt work on Man 9, but chalk that up to incompatible versions between the 2 platforms.
the history of the world
For one: People have been bashing RedHat for the changes they've made to KDE.
Wonderful hypocrites - The GNOME implementation in Mandrake 8.2 has to be the butt-ugliest desktop I've seen. I'd rather be running twm - This is coming from a hardcore GNOME user.
For another: Mandrake consistently tries to push the limits of the hardware and software. It's *too* bleeding-edge, which is probably why you experience it as "broken" - I've had the same experience. I remember installing Mandrake on one system - It tried to perform some weird "hard drive optimizations" that rendered the system unbootable 50% of the time and horrendously unstable when it did boot. I installed RedHat and it was rock-solid. (To their credit and RH's detriment, RH always enables DMA if available in their installer. Normally this is a good thing, but both RH and Mandrake should contain checks for Intel Triton/Natoma chipsets which have broken UDMA support and drop into multiword DMA which works. To Mandrake's detriment, while their installer didn't have problems, UDMA was turned on as soon as the installer finished.)
Overall, while RedHat may be a bit "behind" Mandrake as far as the "latest and greatest", RedHat usually seems to do a better job of QC and provides a more polished product.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
isnt it already there?
Mandrake 9 is the first and only version of Linux that required absolutely no tweaking to install on my ThinkPad i1300 series 1171-NM1 laptop. While I admit it is buggy and that the version number makes more sense as 8.3 or 8.5 at best, I'm am duely impressed that a version of Linux has finally been released where I don't have to become an expert at the Distro to install it, esp. when you consider that 8.2 wouldn't even boot due to somthing with the graphical boot screen.
Which motherboard chipset do you have?
Some Intel chipsets (Triton/Natoma, aka PIIXn) have broken UDMA support. If you enable UDMA on your HD/CDROM, your system WILL crash within a few minutes, esp. with heavy HD usage.
I had this problem with RH7.3 on my old laptop - But Mandrake 8.2 wasn't much better. While the installer doesn't use DMA, it turned on UDMA as soon as it was done, resulting in a system just as unstable as the RH installer.
You have to go into the config files and specifically force one of the multiword DMA modes, which does work.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
In order from the distro that holds back the most for testing and the one that pushes the bar too far: :) Also, sometimes the QC can go TOO far, as another reply to your post on issues with php4 and other packages mentions
Debian - Seems to be eternally trapped in testing.
RedHat - Middle ground. Reasonably modern, pretty good QC
Mandrake - While they have the "bleeding edge", every Mandrake install I've used has felt unpolished. BOTH have had serious hardware compatibility problems. To Mandrake's credit, RedHat had similar problems in one case (Broken UDMA support on my mobo chipser), but in another case, Mandrake tried to "optimize" the hard drives at bootup, resulting in the system freezing. RedHat happily ran for months on end on the same machine.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
My guess is you'll installl RH 8.0 and find something else to complain about.
==
"- the review doesn't complain about nvidia at all"
What's there to complain about nVidia? It better not be the open source stuff you guys keep complaining about...
And my monitor is 80 pounds... Doesn't kick well.
/boot and it works fine. I could be wrong.
First, if someone has 8 other OS's don't you think at least one of them would have been another Linux distro and therefore the shot about Mandrake not supporting his camera either would have been already known, or he would know the RPM's existed to get the thing to work?
Also, since when does the average internet user use 800x600 ?! This is clearly not the case. I do but thats only because I have a small 14" piece of crap monitor that only supports 800x600.
Personally I find the partitioning tool very intuitive. What's more simple that selecting the drive to work with on a tab, and clicking create and sliding a slider to make the partition the size you wish? I guess he prefers FDISK...
Also, the mouse config tool works fine for me every time. I can't find fault in his review there, since it is possible he had problems for whatever reason.
The update packages part of the install works just fine if you include all the necessary information. At least on a dialup. He doesn't say that he did his best on configuring his internet connection so that this feature would work properly.
On the XFS issue he raises, I could swear that I have all my partitions as XFS with no
Also, please replace any instance of "he" with "she". Not that it matters in my statements.
Sheesh...
I have been a HUGE Mandrake fan for a long time. I always choose to install it on machines I am to lazy to configure manually. This being said -- after a wonderful install -- I have had all sorts of "weird" things happen. The biggest 2 being issues I am sure may be attributed to my video card setup and the Frankenstein stuff going with the AA Fonts and other issues. (Matrox G450 Dual + Xinerama). I had the same problems the reviewer had with various apps trying to spin my CDROM into submission for no obvious reason. Control panel apps that take 2 minutes to start. Etc. Etc. I think maybe I will give the new RedHat a shot -- I have not used RedHat since Mandrake appeared on the scene.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
MDK9 allows you to select a primary and a secondary language at the initial install phase itself. This is particularly important to me because this is the first time Tamil (a language spoken in South India, Singapore, Malaysia and SriLanka) is available 'right out of the box' in a major distribution. This is the first Indic language available in a linux distro. This is a great step forward in terms of simplifying deployment and training of computer technology without the language barrier. -TY
Adressing point by point:
I think its ridiculous to claim the installer looks "dated".. if it works, and its graphical, why does it matter? Has ANYONE here ever worried about their distro looking "dated"?
I have never EVER had a problem with Mandrake (since 5) and a wheel mouse.. and I have used bus, ps/2, and USB. I have had far more problems with my redhat box and mice. (Including having them dissapear for no real reason).
On "expert" you get a basic disk druid looking partitioning wizard.. it is the easiest one I have ever used. Maybe IM weird, but I found it simple, very quick, and quite intutitive. (It looks (to me, anyway) a lot like the 2K disk wizards).
Yes, it boots a lot of things by default.. but it TELLS you what it is going to boot, and then lets you turn them off if you dont want to, and custom edit your "security" runlevel.
I like it.. and Im *SO* freaking tired of hearing reviewers say "This distro sucks, because the default colors in K are ugly". Who cares? With as easy as it is in K to change your colors and background and themes, what does it matter? Does anyone really run the default schemes anyway?
(Not that I care, Im a windowmaker/blackbox guy..) but I'm very happy with the unified menus in both.. and someone previously said the menus arent laid out intuitively.. Umm.. how "non intuitive" is "networking" "configuration" "applications"?
Seems more intuitive than WIndows, to me.
Maeryk
Feminine Protection? What is that? A chartreuse flame thrower?
...as my primary server. Once I'm sure I don't need anything else from my 8.2 box, I'll install RH 8 on it and mess around). I have found NO problems with Mandrake 9. It's solid. It's easier to configure (as a matter of fact, I expected some things to be harder than they were and ended up wasting time trying to do them the hard way. Once I realized there was an easier way, they went off without a hitch). Everything you could want is there. Everything is easier to configure and everything just works. I'm actually considering moving to Mandrake as the corporate server to reccommend over Red Hat.
What is a good one to get to replace it? I think they want me to pay for Bastille.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Mandrake is a french company what do you expect a quality product? I'll take my american made slackware anyday. Suse is to German for me and BSD smells of Marxist/leninist doctrine.
Slackware is, and will always be the backbone to my wireless world!
This is my first month of 24/7 Linux.
I've played with it off and on for years but never seriously, I just used
Windows because it was easier than Linux.
As of late, M$ has shown itself to be increasingly hostile towards the end user
(AKA the golden egg) and has adopted very oppressive and hostile practices that
are blatent invasions of privacy and extreme breaches of security.
I began my Linux journey with Red Hat, a little over a month ago I had my fill
with W2K and made the switch. I went with Red Hat again but it did not like my
video card so I searched and found that Mandrake made PASSING MENTION of my
video card (SiS-305a) and installed 8.2
About a week later 9.0 came out so I upgraded to 9.0 hoping that IT would work
with my card (SiS is in bed with M$ and is NOT Linux friendly)
9.0 installed right over my 8.2 pretty smoothly and I lost no data.
I've had my fair share of glitches but most of those have been due to rolling
blackouts trashing the system. Other than that, MDK 9.0 seems decent enough.
However, it seems to be a little heavy on the eye candy (I use KDE)
With a Celeron 450 and an unsupported video card this is pretty sucky. I toned
it down a little and that helped. I like that the MCC interface so that I can
start/stop/install/remove whatever. It's not bad.
From a beginner's point of view, it's pretty decent. I am NOT going back to M$,
ever so from this point forward it's MDK for me. I moved all my eggs into the
MDK basket and that's where they will stay unless something much better comes
along.
As long as Mandrake and KDE KEEP AWAY FROM THE XP LOOK and they DON'T
incorporate M$ features they will keep me as a fan/user.
After seeing that Red Hat has imbedded DRM features into 8.x I will NOT be using
RH. It seems that RIAA and MPAA and M$ and Big Brother just will not stop
until they are in every box. I believe that this is a battle for our freedom,
to choose the OS of our choice and to be free of the prying eyes of others that
would rather we not have the freedom of choice and the right to personal
privacy.
For all it's shortcomings, (none of which are serious) MDK, at this point in
time is MY choice. And if the day comes that they begin to imbed modules into
MDK that violate my privacy and my right to freely choose then I will find
another distro that does not hinder my rights.
If worse comes to worse, I will learn to compile my own private NIX....
Privacy and freedom FIRST, everything else is optional..
Then by your own admission, you must be a KDE user...
I think it would be safe to say that risky hdparm flags should be an option ENABLED by an expert install, not DISABLED only in an expert install (i.e. on by default).
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?