Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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
It's not a great review, it's a review especially done to be published on Slashdot, because it's controversial, and Eugenia is very good to write such articles! It reminds me of David Coursey/ZDNet. Eugenia, you're ready for ZDNet :-)
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
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.
She did not read the instructions. It does say that. BTW, if it is a usb mouse, it works fine. She did not mention the first time user tool. That inclines me to think that she shared her home directory with other Linux installs. Or else it is because she did not use a *DM. That might also be the cause of her login problem. I switch to a virtual console and I login immediately. What newbie would not use a graphical boot?
I think she does not know what she is talking about.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
My post was actually in response to the ./ editorial policy of not correcting spelling and or grammar, which is largely due to the fact that the ./ editors, who are to my knowledge all native speakers of American English, are, each of them, illiterate to one degree or another.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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 :-(
She did not read the instructions
Who does?
I've been working for Mandrake for almost two years, and I commited to rewriting the manual from scratch when I first arrived. I was also the one who suggested that there be a dialog at install time to add users...
Back to the manual anyway. I made a lengthy chapter on the installation process, giving a few hints here and there, trying to explain stuff and all... Explained Unix philosophy, the command line, how to access it, detailed a good number of utilities and even got as far as to "describe" ext2, kernel compile (yes, even that), SysV init and whatnot. I wanted users to *read* the darn thing, I thought it to be good to have an easy-to-use distribution giving the ability to empower the users.
Blah. I asked for internal peer review and got nearly none. When the manual was first out and I reread it afterwards I found quite a few errors and/or bad explained things. No bug report, either internally or from the users. They wouldn't even read the install manual to begin with. Either becuase they just didn't want or it sounded arcane to them, I don't even know. That was two years of frustration, I can tell you. I was left with the impression to waste my time (and the company's resources).
As for a UI designer, when I left there was none. There were graphic designers, but that's not quite the same. And my calls for real ergonomy work (and in particular a common look'n'feel for GNOME and KDE...) were redirected to /dev/null. "No, first let's add some functionality, it's more important". Read: Mandrake Control Center. For which I asked that it be integrated in a way or another to konqueror/gmc (at this time). Yeah, that sounds like some OS, but hey, people are used to that.
As a result, RedHat has begun on this front first, albeit after a LOT of time, raising criticism from KDE/GNOME fanatics. But the end user doesn't give a <beep> about KDE or GNOME, he wants (unconsciously that is) consistency. Choice is nice, but end users *DON'T* *CARE*. Mandrake is now doomed to react. If it were only for me they would have acted first on this front, especially since they have KDE *and* GNOME developers.
Anyway, Mandrake is not the first to blame. KDE and GNOME are, for they are still being developed separately and are too proud to look at the FACTS. A previous article I think clearly points to where the fundamental problem lies for Mandrake.