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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..."
yeah, works great for me, too...and it's running on a pretty old laptop.
this person is on crack. "oh, I knew that I couldn't boot off of an xfs partition, but the installer didn't warn me!!" what the crap? I'm booting fine just fine off of an xfs partition. lilo doesn't read the filesystem (which is used by default in mandrake), and even grub has xfs support.
anyway, take this article with a big jug (the kind with the metal spout) of salt:)
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 was bitten by that bug. I selected a different mouse, when it loaded the driver to test, the mouse didn't work. Instead of reverting back to it's previous state, the mouse continued to be screwed up no matter what I did... Until I rebooted and started over.
I agree competition is good, but I disagree when you write Mandrake has fallen behind RH or SuSE! Recent move of RH and SuSE on the desktop hide the fact they have limited knowledge in this area while Mandrake has worked for years in this area. The latest Mandrake provides a great user experience, and very automated settings, but at the same time, an experimented user will never be frustrated because with Mandrake you can always get more options if you need them. Furthermore, I'm sorry but RH & SuSE have just a new look (even if RH has _unified_ the look&feel), whille Mandrake provides _real_ desktop options such as supermount (transparent access to removable medias) or the dynamic desktop. These features _really_ make user's life easier, it's not just vaporware like SuSE or Red Hat.
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.
- General UI crappiness - inconsitent layout/design, confusing menus (to a NORMAL END USER, not us geeks), multiple settings locations (really i despise this about all modern linux distros). She praises the few that get it right though, such as red hat with bluecurve (according to her at least).
- Stability Oh yes, 'linux' crashes. Sure we will say no it is just X that crashes but does the end user care/know? No they don't, and no they don't want to go into console to kill x and start it over again, instead they will just reboot. To be honest X crashes more on me than Win2k/Xp. Doesn't mean I don't like X any less just an observation.
- The Many and Varied issues with X - The most common of these, and the one that makes me shudder with hatred, is the only way to change your refresh rate is by going through and editing a set of
.conf files (yes, yes I know this was just added to the CVS tree a few weeks ago but it isn't here now now is it?). This is a feature windows has had for nearly 7 years now! . Also, some of us use fixed-frequency monitors which means our computer is unusable until we can get through and edit these files. Personally my SGI monitor will work for about 10-15 minutes at 60hz (needs to run at 85hz) before shutting off. I hate having to go in and edit these files where as with windows it is a few clicks away. And many, many more problems. Not that X doesn't do some things great (terminal server anybody?) but it isn't perfect by any means.
- Too Many Programs - us geeks love having 13 web browsers. Other people would rather not care. She makes an excellent point with respect to the 7 terminal clients included with Mandrake. 7???? 1 or 2 at most, leave the rest to be installed by those who want them.
I think people who hate Eugenia's reviews the most are those who are unwilling to admit the huge flaws present in most linux distros today. BTW, I use debian at home for my desktop (apt-get rocks my world), it's not like I love windows but it does do quite a few things better than linux. And some things alot worse for that matter.This is what Debian strives for. I'm not sure if their user base is climbing though, in proportion to Redhat/Mandrake/etc..
It's kind of a nice equilibrium actually. Mandrake/Redhat are always pushing the bar, getting new software out there to the users in a packaged RPM format, which helps the actual developers make their software better because they can get feedback from those users. And Debian polishes packages up until their are ultra-stable and then moves them from "testing" to "stable". So users, as a whole benefit. There is a freedom of distribution...and at the same time software is being improved upon and features are added.