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..."

Comments

Going downhill....

[smd4985]

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...

Re:Going downhill....

[joestar]

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.

Re:Going downhill....

[13Echo]

My biggest complaint about Mandrake was that it always seemed somewhat broken. Apps seem to not function properly, and there are a lot of weird config issues. Fortunately most of my system hardware worked right out of the box, making it easy to install and configure, but I've not had a Mandrake install that I was ever completly happy with. Back I went to Slackware (where everything works perfectly, but devices take more config time) and banged on it for a while until I knew it inside and out.

A lot of Mandrake never really seemed practical to me, but it has its own niche and followers. I don't use their software, but I became a Mandrake Club member eairlier this year to help support them. They did help me migrate to Linux after all, even though I didn't quite find that their software was right for me.

I agree with you. Mandrake seems to be caught in the middle of a spot where they want to appeal to everyone. Their installs are just too broad and there is a lot of useless stuff that gets installed in a base installation. Lycoris is a good alternative for beginers, but really seems behind on their libs since they fine tweak their software so much. They seem too dependant on certain finite specifics. They still have a one-up on Mandrake for the ease of use category, and they make it a point to not overwhelm you with lots of crappy apps. Please correct me if I am wrong though. I haven't used Mandrake much since the 7.x series, and don't know how much it has changed.

By Eugenia Loli-Queru

[Flamester]

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?

Re:By Eugenia Loli-Queru

[ender81b]

Eugenia does have a tendency to trash most *anything* she reviews. Sometimes it can be annoying yes but often times she brings up great points and nobody can accuse her of being biased (she did like Red Hat tho). Often times she explains it as she tries to look at the whatever as though a typical end user would - not a geek who understands and knows about many of the issues facing linux. I find a number of points she brings up quite useful/relevant:

• 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.

Re:Huh?

[Progoth]

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:)

*Very* surprising review...

[joestar]

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...

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/news letter/sn021017

Re:*Very* surprising review...

[Tosta Dojen]

I installed Mandrake 9.0 a couple of weeks ago; here is my take:

Installation was a breeze for me. I used 'Expert mode' and had no difficulty with my Logitech Cordless wheel mouse, though I did have to select it manually; it detected as an unwheeled mouse, as I recall. Like the reviewer, I also experienced a failure in the auto-update feature of the installation, though in my case that was due to incorrect network settings I had specified. Had I set those correctly, I probably would have been able to auto-update during install, but I can't say for sure. As for partitioning, I would have liked the ability to type in a number for the partition size instead of moving a slider. The slider wouldn't give me exactly what I wanted.

I have had no trouble with slowness on my single 500 MHz Celery, so I know not of what the reviewer complains. I do know my machine is running faster with Mandrake 9 than it was on Redhat 7.3. All of the applications I have run have worked perfectly, with the occasional exception of Mozilla, but I've upped that to the 1.2alpha, so I expect a few glitches.

Personally, I like the default KDE look; different strokes for different folks, I guess, but to me, improving the 'prettiness' of the GUI is not an issue. Usability, certainly, and the usability is fine. The reviewer just seems to have something against KDE.

With my previous install, (RH 7.3), I had significant slowdowns at times, and plenty of application crashes at random times. For me, Mandrake 9.0 has been nothing but great.

I've had no problems

[geekd]

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 :-)

Re:How often have they installed mandrake?

[npietraniec]

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.

Re:Basic rules of grammar...

[SmokeSerpent]

Why you problem! English not langage all speak in native moroon? Edit no posting to start make change and all be uncertain what say submit person and even speaking american people so what! Language fluid thing is to be undertood matters all, and who to say you are what is' the corrected way to write one thing or some other one thing:

Eugenia Loli-Queru -OSNEWS

[Nex6]

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

Lame article, but there are a few bugs

[GrouchoMarx]

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?)

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 :-) After that the install went smoothly.

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. :-) 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.

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. :-) (If someone can explain why BZFlag kill the entire system but TuxRacer works perfectly fine, please let me know.)

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.

Criticism!=Bashing

[Sean Clifford]

I'd love to mod you up; you're right and your post is damned insightful. When someone does a review of a product they're *supposed* to bitch about all the warts and blemishes of the product and point out the gee-whiz stuff too. Eugenia does just that.

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.

The Eugenia Loli-Queru Linux distro drinking game:

[kreese]

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.

Linux "journalism" sucks

[InodoroPereyra]

I got sickened reading this article. It is plain biased. Period.You see, most Linux Sites root for some Distro or Desktop environment. And what is worst, they flame the rest of the Desktops/Distros. This is plain childish and unprofessional. The reviewer is attacking Mandrake constantly through her "review". Look at her conclusion for one example:

Mandrake 9 seems to be a bit out of focus. The OS itself has no clear focus of what it wants to operate as. A Server? Desktop? Workstation? All? No one really knows what the actual market of Mandrake is.

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 :-(