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Mandrake Releases 9.1b1, New Packaging Model
DCowern writes "Mandrake today announced version 9.1 of their distribution. While there are some interesting choices for new packages (like kernel 2.4.21pre2 and XFree86 4.3 beta) the most groundbreaking thing about this release is the way in which they decide which packages are "high priority" for development and inclusion in the standard install. Any registered user at MandrakeClub can vote. Their opinion is that no one knows where development effort needs to be spent better than the end-user." Update: 01/10 19:38 GMT by T : That's "distribution."
Does anyhow know how Mandrake's doing in regards to solving their money woes?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Packaging evolution reached perfection with .deb files. Modifications to packaging schemese since then are merely negative mutations.
Based on my experience with the last three releases of Mandrake on anumber of machines, both my own, and my room-mate's, I can safely say that STABILITY should be what they focus on.
:(
I would NEVER recomend Mandrake to anyone who doesn't specifically enjoy trouble-shooting buggy software.
I am primarilly a Linux user (Red Hat and Debian), and have been for five years, and I test new OSes all the time. I can say without any reservation or doubt that Windows ME was more stable than any version of Mandrake that I have encountered.
Which is a shame, because for the few minutes that I have seen it running smoothly, it LOOKS as though it could be a very nice system, once uptime can be measured in days instead of hours.
the beta comes as a 1 cd download. hopefully this is an omen for 9.1. mandrake has always been a bloated distro. sure, i like all the stuff, but more is not always better. better is better. fewew, better apps are the answer. make OO.org fonts better (RH did), fix up the menus a bit, and streamline a few things. a 1 cd distro has more than enough room fo rall the good stuff (think knoppix). you don't need 17 editors nor do you need 14 mp3 players. mandrake has been the "newbie" distro. it is where i started. and even four years later, it is still my distro of choice. i can tweak it (like any other distro) if needed. one cd is all that's needed.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Mandrake is now sold pre-loaded on millions of inexpensive, high-quality computers at Wal-Mart
...which means Microsoft made no money from the purchase of that computer. That's probably a big deal for those to whom this sort of thing matters.
Playing devil's advocate here; I'll venture that most of those machines get reformatted with a warez'd copy of Windows.
High-Quality? (even the most zealous of Slashdot readers have agreed that these machines are made of bottom-grade components. Certainly usable and functional, but no where near the quality of even a low-end Dell or HP machine).
In stores? (last I checked, these machines were only available from walmart.com)
Amazing! Three errors in one sentence! Your argument is interesting, but you do nothing to aid it by just fabricating supporting points.
No money in the bank, but they get mindshare by having a Windows desktop displayed. That is worth something.
Trolling is a art,
Shouldn't they have started with all of the packages and had users vote packages off of the CD? Seems to me that's how it's done these days.
What I'd really like to see is something in RPM that, rather than merely telling me that it needs libfoobar-5.1.mdk (and leaving me to flip back to my browser, hunt it down, download it, attempt to install it, find I need Yet More dependencies, repeat adnauseam), it offers to retrieve it from rpmfind.speakeasy.net and install it - I don't want to have to keep downloading and satisfying dependencies by hand, I'd rather have it semi-automated. (Not fully - having it do everything is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot with a bazooka.)
This sig no verb.
--I think if any of the big guys can get a one cd retail version that can be put on the shelf for ten dollars that linux will "take off" for joe average. Reality is reality, "money" has to come into the picture in a much bigger way or linux is gonna stay an also ran, no matter how good it gets. Geeks who are totally happy to spend all the time in the world tweaking and downloading etc are less than 1% users very broadly speaking. That's the choice, keep it geek only or not, it's binary.
That and as soon as some of the bigger box makers like dell start making their "home peecees" come with at LEAST an installed dual boot, or have an OS option choice sitting right on the showfloor that is reflected in a cheaper fairer price for the same exact hardware config over to the "best electronic buys in your office world city" store.
A ten buck (or so) "home surfer" with some other stuff that's pretty cool" distro release would be nice. If the clone companies can do it, so can the distro releasers, making it one cd will allow at least a single small paperback manual included, written in ENGLISH (or language of choice that is not acronym based geek technogarble to most people) to be included in that price. I mean really, man pages need actual translation for most people. They "work" for geeks, that's it, kinda sorta.
Releases needed, IMO --> "home surfer", "small business that is an office", "enterprise business that is an office and also needs to be a host/server on a whopper scale".
Scale it up like that, add extra cds for what might be wanted "Games! cd" whatever, "all kinza artsy fartsy stuff" cd, "mega media enjoyment" cd, "office crap up the wazoo" cd, and charge more then, there's another ten bucks. The competiton is roughly one hundred dollars, and it's not that hard to have enough apps included at even the ten buck range to make it pretty spiffy, but don't overload it as well, too much is as bad as not enough. People get into new stuff this way crawl>walk>run.
Adjust 'support' accordingly. Have a generic optional CD that has tons more generic apps, and sell it separately from the other releases. Keep ALL of them under the pricing of the borg. And make SURE that what's included *works*,ESPECIALLY getting online and NOT GETTING OWNED WITHIN 15 MINUTES, and release less stuff, but make it better quality, and upgrades as flawlessly as possible - release to release - without breaking the last generation install.
Prices have dropped for the coupla big dog releasers,the releases themselves are very very good, this is GOOD, now make it BETTER and get that stuff on the shelf and on the new PC boxes.
signed, joe consumer who wants to do more than just tweak forever and ever to make things work.
I'd say that my biggest complaint is the update / install feature.
Red-hat has this rather nice update program that completely updates everything on your system (including all of the dependancies), without asking for CD's or user intervention. I could just say "Update," let it sit for four hours or so, and I'd come back to the latest edition of Red Hat.
Mandrake doesn't have anything near to that. It does have the install utility that lets you select individual packages, but when there's a list of 1000 packages, this can be inconvenient. If you select a package that has dependancies that need to be fulfilled, it stops the installation process altogether with a message saying that the dependant package needs to be installed. It doesn't just DO it.
Ah well, I use Gentoo anyhow. It's got the most wonderful update system of any distro out there, except that it may take a while to do it.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
I went shopping for coffee (Nescafe!), oil, and some drinkable yoghurt. I went to Carrefour, which is my standard stopover for staple items. I usually go to the open market for fresh goods, because they are cheaper and fresher. One of the top two domestic computer manufacturers had a display as you walk into Carre Four proper. It's a hypermarket, so it's got a ton of little shops and restaurants on the first floor and about 25% of the second floor, but in the shopping area there was this Liberta display. Eight computers, including one laptop. The first I came to presented me with a KDE2.2 desktop, which I see often at IT malls.
Thailand still uses KDE2 because KDE3 refuses to display Thai correctly. It is a problem that the local government is working on fixing, and will have a new version of LinuxTLE (5.0) based on RH8.0 out in beta by the end of the month. After I had looked a little closer, though, I asked my girlfriend, Goy to look at it, as well. She, in her "I know nothing about computers" way, looked at me and said it was beautiful, and, wow, all the menus were in Thai. I replied that this was the same distro that we had at home, but we use IceWM to lock it down for the students... anyway, we could have that, too. What I really wanted her to look at, and pointed out for her, was the branding.
The wallpaper had been changed to some Liberta logo and slogan -- whoopee... but the K menu was now the key logo that they use, all the icons had been redesigned, and the default apps on the kicker included mozilla and a Thai OO.o. We've been talking about the possibility of branding for a long time, but I've never seen it in stores. Liberta Menu -> Internet -> Connect (kppp), Web Browser (moz), Video Conferencing (Gnome-Meeting?). All the apps seemed to be hand picked and top in their field. The Games menu was chocked full of everything, though. I was really impressed with the whole setup.
It was the bottom of the line, a Celeron 1.7 with 40Gb and 128Mb, monitor, everything for less than 18000 baht (~US$450). Cool, so I moved on to look at the next computer, expecting WinXP, but it was a KDE Cel2.0. Next. Next. Next. They were all this branded linux distro. The fifth was a laptop and I thought to myself, "what a shame it'll be Windows -- a Linux laptop would be cool." Nope. Same. I hadn't been counting, so I went back and started again. Five desktops before I hit an XP. Cool. But wait, two XPs, and I was back into Linux.
This, ladies and gentlemen, was not Panthip plaza. It was the only computer display they had in the whole store. 6 Linux / 2 Windows.
I am not naieve about Thailand. 95% will find their way home only to be reformatted by a friend of a friend and Win98SE installed. I guarantee, however, that, because those Linux machines were 10000 baht cheaper than the equivalent Windows box, that some of those will stay, and with the government supporting whole hog the changeover from a highly pirated foreign OS, things might change here.
Put identity in the browser.