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."

Comments

Confused?

[ctxspy]

To me, that was a damn confusing summary..

What exactly are they talking about?

Re:Confused?

[The Evil Couch]

they're releasing a new version of mandrake linux and they're cutting things out of the desktop distro so that it'll fit on one CD. they've set up a poll for all mandrake users to pick and choose which features they want to ship on the CD.

This is a pretty cool idea. I don't use mandrake, so it does me no good, but the concept is really awesome. build up a community and then let the community drive the development and implementation of the product. this should serve as a great example of what the people with the money should be doing in the open source communities.

of course having *everything* would be nice, also. but you can always download the extra features you want/need.

Re:Confused?

[DCowern]

Mea Culpa. That's all I can say. I was running out the door and read the announce but didn't properly spellcheck or coherency-check my post. :-)

The point is that there are certain packages included in a "standard" install of Mandrake. Since these packages are installed on pretty much all Mandrake systems, they get the most attention from the Mandrake development team. More attention = more support for the community surrounding that specific project.

Now instead of the Mandrake corporation making these decisions, they've decided to let the average user make these decisions via Mandrake club. The thought is that the average user knows best what the average user wants and needs in a distrIbution. ;-)

Re:Confused?

[Mr Guy]

Good summary, the idea is most people don't give a crap about the extra RPMs, and if you do, they are easy to get online. Eventually they can whittle Mandrake down to the kernel and urpmi and end up with Debian Lite.

Re:Confused?

[fault0]

> they're releasing a new version of mandrake linux and they're cutting things out of the desktop distro so that it'll fit on one CD. they've set up a poll for all mandrake users to pick and choose which features they want to ship on the CD.

correction.. it's only for people who are club members. I guess it's a incentive for people to join the club, and a rather good one at that.

Re:Confused?

[mickwd]

"All this is is another way to get more money out of their users."

Download it for free, use it for free. Sounds fair enough to me.

But if you want to have some input as to what actually goes into the distribution, then join the Mandrake Club, which costs money.

Sounds like a great idea as far as I'm concerned, and I wish them luck with it.

I just wish (for their sake) they'd get the Boxed Sets ready earlier (before 90% of their users have already downloaded it for free) - or supply free updates with the boxed sets (maybe slip a "latest updates" CD into packages bought online, installed automatically as part of the installation process), or something else to make them more attractive to buyers. Although it is nice, in a way, to be able to say that supplying extra commercial apps just doesn't cut it anymore (with Star Office being the possible exception) - since the free apps are just too good in comparison.

Although I wouldn't really like to see it, they could also restrict downloading of ISOs to Mandrake Club members only until the boxed sets are ready. But I don't know whether they'd do this - they're pretty committed to the "free"-ness (as in speech) of (Gnu-)Linux.

Re:Confused?

[13Echo]

I like the idea. As a matter of fact, I have even submitted a request for a specific app. Though I don't really actively use Mandrake (I've always been a Slackware fan), I've found some benefits to being a member of the club. This shows that they care about what the users want.

Did anyone else notice something about the Mandrake Club? They've got over 22,000 subscribed members. At $60 per year, per person (basic membership), that is a pretty substantial chunk of income. Undoubtably, they may have some corporate or group memberships, but still; Mandrake Club has proven to be a success, and opportunities like this only help it more.

Re:Confused?

[Capt. DrunkenBum]

Linux is amazing.

Microsoft Sucks.

Wait...

Wait....

Wait.....

Count me in.

Re:Confused?

[mickwd]

Good point.

But until Mandrake's financial situation becomes healthier, I think it's more a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune.

I think there's also a concern about important but less glamourous, behind-the-scenes packages not being voted for.

Or maybe that's just the worries of a less-than-glamourous, behind-the-scenes techie ;)

Re:Confused?

[EvilAlien]

There is no need to attempt to compare a stripped-down Mandrake release to something like Debian. It seems little more to a random holy war troll to those who tend to prefer distributions in the Red Hat/RPM lineage to the Debian/apt-get lineage. Why bother?

Mandrake can already be installed with a small initial footprint. The urpmi app can be used to grab rpm binary packages (or source rpms) online and install with integrity checking etc, but Mandrake puts effort into putting the bleeding edge into a very useable and advanced desktop/server distribution. You can try to stay away from the bleeding edge, but Mandrake isn't designed (at this point) to cater to that stance. By contrast, Debian is not primarily a bleeding edge distro, but like any Linux it becomes what you make of it despite the design tendencies.

Re:Confused?

[hkmwbz]

Yes, can you imagine?! A company giving extra benefits to their customers so more people are willing to pay for their product?

My God, what a horrible business model!

They should behave properly and follow the RIAA/MPAA business model instead: Take choice away from their users and charge more while at the same time delivering less.

Shame on you Mandrake, for trying to get more funding with creative new ways!

Re:Confused?

[Dave_bsr]

seems to me that they will vote for the really lousy bugs first...and then maybe on getting new packages. Thats how i interpreted it...

so the benefit is two-fold. They get voting-enabled bug-checkers and some cash to make it past teh tight points...not bad at all. maybe that new CEO is a smart guy after all...

Re:Confused?

[yobbo]

how the hell would you know what they'll vote for? And even if they did just vote for "lousy bugs" first, that's their choice because THEY are the ones paying to get the damn thing out the door.

Re:Confused?

[luisdom]

Although I wouldn't really like to see it, they could also restrict downloading of ISOs to Mandrake Club members only until the boxed sets are ready. But I don't know whether they'd do this - they're pretty committed to the "free"-ness (as in speech) of (Gnu-)Linux

Mmm... I am myself a freeloader, and I wouldn't mind waiting a couple of months more than the paying people. Come on, it is still libre, let the supporting people have some privileges, it is THEM and the developers that make it free for us.
If it makes mandrake survive and improve, two months is better than never.

Re:Confused?

[packeteer]

I have no trouble installing Mandrake 8.x or 9.x off one CD. All you need is CD #1 and your fine. It wont have the entire suite of apps that you might want but if you have your own choice of apps already why use their's? Personally i download the extra CDs and its not a problem at all. Most of the time all the CDs sit in a case waiting to be put into a new computer or if i choose to load some software off the CD.

We all need to thank Mandrake

[Amsterdam Vallon]

They brought Linux out from the dusty closets of computer hackers and to the front lines -- of the American economy, that is.

Mandrake is now sold pre-loaded on millions of inexpensive, high-quality computers at Wal-Mart stores country-wide.

Before you diss this newbie-tailored distro, remember that it really was Mandrake, and not Red Hat, Solaris, or Slackware that brought Linux to the masses.

Business Week, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal all write about Linux based largely in part on the inclusion of Mandrake on many popular-selling computers.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[grub]

Mandrake is now sold pre-loaded on millions of inexpensive, high-quality computers at Wal-Mart

Playing devil's advocate here; I'll venture that most of those machines get reformatted with a warez'd copy of Windows.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[malthusan]

Mandrake is now sold pre-loaded on millions of inexpensive, high-quality computers at Wal-Mart

Playing devil's advocate here; I'll venture that most of those machines get reformatted with a warez'd copy of Windows.

...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.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[grub]

..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.

No money in the bank, but they get mindshare by having a Windows desktop displayed. That is worth something.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[IamNotWitchboy]

Let's not lose our pespective here.

I also think it's a great triumph for mandrakesoft to reach a much wider audience through walmart, but ... millions?

and by the way, solaris is not linux.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[digidave]

"they get mindshare by having a Windows desktop displayed. That is worth something."

No, that's worth everything. I'd rather that everyone paid for Windows and then used Linux. Market share is more powerful for Microsoft than sales of their OS.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[stinky wizzleteats]

Playing devil's advocate here; I'll venture that most of those machines get reformatted with a warez'd copy of Windows.

If I was aware of that happening, I'd turn them in. Not out of Linux zealotry per se, but because I don't want M$ to have a good reason to squash the market for PCs without the M$ tax.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[MobyTurbo]

They brought Linux out from the dusty closets of computer hackers and to the front lines -- of the American economy, that is.

Mandrake is now sold pre-loaded on millions of inexpensive, high-quality computers at Wal-Mart stores country-wide.

I don't know what's in your Wallmart, but I had the impression that they were only selling Mandrake pre-installed at their online store, not in the bricks-and-mortar stores where "Aunt Tillie" shops.

Business Week, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal all write about Linux based largely in part on the inclusion of Mandrake on many popular-selling computers.

I suspect business publications talk about Red Hat because that's what's on the vast majority of corporate servers or workstations in North America. The Wall Street Journal and Business Week could care less about what kind of Linux is sold in the Walmart online store.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[glwtta]

Red Hat, Solaris, or Slackware that brought Linux to the masses

No, I'm sure it was Solaris that brought linux to the masses.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[Stonent1]

Wasn't this exact comment posted on the last Walmart-PC story?

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[geekoid]

wait until people try to use a warez copy that won't work do to MS softwre protection. That will be a great day for Linux. Of course I predict that MS will stop with this when they start losing mindshare.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[__past__]

If Solaris and Linux would be the only options, believe me, Linux would rule the world.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[teslatug]

I'd venture that the millions claim is also a tad too high

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[Dave_bsr]

Careful now, there be lots of solaris-on-intel folks running around. They might come and slit your throat. And besides, Solaris is a nice OS...i'd use it over Windows if it had games. Dangit, its not cuz winXYZ has this or that, its the games that matter. *sigh*....

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[Stinking Pig]

by Dave_bsr (520621) on 03:56 PM January 10th, 2003 (#5059625)
(http://slashdot.org/) ...
And besides, Solaris is a nice OS...

wow, you really are slaphappy! I mean, it is Unix and ergo doesn't completely suck, but Solaris is a real pain next to Linux.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[Jugalator]

Well, you'd better start turning them in then. :-P

I can't think of one person that willingly pays for Windows when there's an easy way to get around it... Especially if it becomes a well-known fact that you can just reformat the computers and install Windows among less experienced users.

Of course the users doesn't care what that does to Microsoft, their top priority is their wallet. What that computer package cost, just like they always did.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[FooBarWidget]

It doesn't really matter if the users format & install Windows on that box. What matters is the sales numbers. Companies will *think* Linux's market share is increasing, which means more companies are likely to release software for Linux. This is a Good Thing(tm).
Fear the power of illusion.

Re:We all need to thank Mandrake

[MobyTurbo]

I don't know what's in your Wallmart, but I had the impression that they were only selling Mandrake pre-installed at their online store, not in the bricks-and-mortar stores where "Aunt Tillie" shops.

Not so

Hmm, perhaps one of the models is sold offline, except when I clicked on it's details section it indicated it also was only sold online, and on top of that was not sold with Mandrake as standard, but with the "Lindows" distribution.

At any rate, I sincerely doubt that "we all need to thank Mandrake for the Wall Street Journal taking Linux seriously" because "Mandrake is sold on computers at WalMart", as the message I replied to claimed.

I love the naming techniques

[Lt Razak]

Mandrake 9.1b1, kernel 2.4.21pre2 and XFree86 4.3 beta.

You just gotta love these release numbers2.1a

Re:I love the naming techniques

[Chagrin]

Sun Microsystems postfixes the kernel versions of their linux-based servers with "enterprise". Bleh.

Re:I love the naming techniques

[DeadBugs]

Don't forget KDE 3.1rc2

Money woes?

[Skyshadow]

Does anyhow know how Mandrake's doing in regards to solving their money woes?

Re:Money woes?

[squiggleslash]

Yes. They're finally making a profile, after a persuing a strategy that apparently started off which collecting a whole bunch of underpants.

Nobody knows what they did after that, but now they're making a profit.

Re:Money woes?

[Amsterdam Vallon]

There hasn't been much said recently by those who keep Mandrake's books.

Their page for latest financial information hasn't had an update in several weeks.

However, their last news indicated that for fiscal year 2001-2002, revenue increased 31% and they massively reduced operating losses.

I think in the end they will stay in business because of the strength of their products and community.

Re:Money woes?

[Mr Guy]

Summary of Mandrake's Future, from their perspective.

The line I find most interesting is this one:

The world already boasts of several million Mandrake Linux users, and we know at least 200,000 of you. We could get over this crunch if less than 20,000 users became Silver Members of MandrakeClub.

/sigh

I guess since I run it on my desktop, and finally convinced my wife to run it on her laptop, I should cave and make that 19,999 users.

Re:Money woes?

[PunchMonkey]

The world already boasts of several million Mandrake Linux users, and we know at least 200,000 of you. We could get over this crunch if less than 20,000 users became Silver Members of MandrakeClub.

I guess since I run it on my desktop, and finally convinced my wife to run it on her laptop, I should cave and make that 19,999 users.

Well... it does say if less than 20,000 users. Seems to me that 1 is less than 20,000. Register your wife and you will have single-handedly saved Mandrake! Congratulations!

nice timing

[muyuubyou]

Just the day after I downloaded 3 SUSE CD's from a 56K....

Re:nice timing

[ottffssent]

Wait, the day after you started, or the day after you finished?

Re:Misleading

[dnaumov]

There is absolutely, positively NOTHING bad about the RPM. It's all in the tools around it. Have you ever thought what would be so special about *.deb if it wasn't for apt-get ? Right, nothing. And you can have apt-rpm for RedHat.

customer oriented development

[Kunta Kinte]

I'm impressed.

Next thing you know, they'll be making money.

I think these are the innovations that the linux distros need even more than new drivers, other technical advances.

Mandrake getting desparate?

[etymxris]

According to this, they are planning on reaching break-even by spring of this year:

Reaching the "break-even" point is now planned for the next release of Mandrake Linux in the spring of 2003.

Perhaps they didn't get the money they needed from the last plea they gave out, and so are speeding up the development process to get new versions out.

They just released 9.0 in November, if I recall correctly.

That being said, I think I'll finally chip in, as I like the distribution, and have only been downloading ISOs for a while now.

Re:Mandrake getting desparate?

[Dman33]

That being said, I think I'll finally chip in, as I like the distribution, and have only been downloading ISOs for a while now.

I agree... Just last week I downloaded Mandrake 9 for my company to put up a last-minute FTP server.

Installed in no time, pftpd configured properly and all. I was quite impressed and urged my boss to throw $$ at Mandrake for becoming an OS that we can rely on when we just need to get a machine up and running.

Re:Mandrake getting desparate?

[LinuxGeek8]

No, they release 2 new version every year. One in uatumn, around September/October, and one in spring, around April.
They don't want to speed it up more, they'd rather slow it down to once a year. Half a year is very short to break something (add features) and fix it again, for example with upgrading their drakxtools and installer to Gtk2.

I agree with them

[core plexus]

While it's nice to have an army of hackers working on projects, the fact remains that until the end-user is happy, and I especially mean those who might be interested in switching from Windows or some other proprietary OS, as well as those users who don't care about what their machine is running, just as long as it does what they want it to without having 5 years experience, Linux will be, at best, #2 on the desktop.

Personal Strap-On Aircraft for Auction on eBay A What?

Re:a good idea

[Eu4ria]

But if the majority of people make a choice that sort of makes it correct. If 90% of people want gnome and only 10% want KDE, then gnome is the correct choice, that's how democracy works, even if you would choose KDE

'Ports' is a much better setup.

[nurb432]

Using the BSD Ports system is much more organized, gives you source code and simplistic
compilation of said code..

Even takes care of all dependences along the way.

I guess if you don't have horsepower to compile big stuff, there is still the packages collection..

Re:'Ports' is a much better setup.

[fault0]

Yep, I agree. After using Debian for four years (since Hamm), for _all_ of my boxes, whether they be server (stable, production setup) or workstation boxes (usually as bleeding edge as I can be), I've finally become 100% debain free.

All my server boxes are pretty much running FreeBSD. I also have a router box that's running Redhat 5.2 (it's really old and I don't want to break the uptime)

My workstations are all running Gentoo linux right now. Both ports and portage are a pleasure to use. Apt kept me on Debian for a long time, however, there are better alternatives out there. I especially enjoy the much improved fine-grained control possible through source based distros.

1 CD

[b17bmbr]

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.

Re:1 CD

[mustangdavis]

I totally agree with your thoughts of making this distribution a single CD, but unfortunately ...

IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!


OK, now to prove that this isn't a troll post, I'll share my thought process about this ...

Mandrake (just as all other Linux vendors) are not here to simply promote Linux (otherwise, there'd only be one Linux distribution) .... there here to make money!

If they make the distributions small, everyone will simply download them (even people on 56k) rather than go to the store (real or online) and purchase their distribution that is already on CD with their documentation and lovely packaging.


This is why all Linux distributions will get larger before they get smaller ... and that sucks!


Just my $0.02 cents .... and my spelling lession for the day. I never claimed to be good at spelling (that is what clippy is for), but I now know how to spell distribution.

Re:1 CD

[mickwd]

Just because Mandrake comes on 3 CDs in the download edition (and more in the boxed sets) doesn't mean you have to install all the CDs.

You can install Mandrake 9.0 from a single CD, and still end up with a very useable system. Or just use two CDs, or just three.......or all of them.

But since you've been using Mandrake for four years now, you knew that, didn't you ?

Re:1 CD

[Atzanteol]

I would simply be happy if an *install* only required one CD. I remember fondly the days of putting a CD in, starting an install, and coming back later to have it finished (not asking for the next CD).

Re:1 CD

[RollingThunder]

You can, with Mandrake.

When it asks you what CD's you have, deselect CD2 and 3. The available packages in the selection list will be lessened (for obvious reasons, I might add), but you're still good to go.

Re:1 CD

[praedor]

Bloated?

Ever install Suse? Or Redhat? What's bloated? Last Suse distro I had came with 7 disks chock full of cool-ass stuff. And then extra CDs of even more cool-ass stuff. Is that bloat or thoroughness? If you want it it is probably on one of the CDs. There are 2 CDs for the core Mandrake distro. Depending on how much YOU choose to install you may need a couple or all of the others. It is up to you. You are not required to use all the CDs when installing.

Oh thank you God

[Gyorg_Lavode]

Mandrake 9.0 was the windowsME of linux. It had nice looks, but added little and caused nothing but troubles for me. I'm really hoping that Mandrake 9.1 resolves most of the problems I had. Also, I'm looking forward to XFree86 4.3.

Don't get me wrong. My favorite distro is still mandrake 8.2. It was excellent, but Mandrake 9 didn't do anything for me. It caused crashes (Grip for whatever reason seamed to lock up the desktop), problems (not working on reiserFS), more crashes (NVidia drivers crash when rendering 3D continuiously), bad organization mistakes (why in the world separate out package installation and removal), and many other things. But I've always liked mandrake and am really hoping that 9.1 clears up the problems and increases the extras including the great. up-to-date, package selection. I support distro's I like which is why I'm part of the mandrake club and I am really hoping this one continues to improve.

Re:Oh thank you God

[stratjakt]

>> It caused crashes (Grip for whatever reason seamed to lock up the desktop), problems (not working on reiserFS), more crashes (NVidia drivers crash when rendering 3D continuiously)

Warning.

You have violated the Slashdot Linux Zealot Act of 2003 by stating that Mandrake linux crashed.

Please repost your comment, replacing Mandrake with Microsoft and Grip with Outlook, or we will be forced to notify the authorities.

Objectivity regarding Open Source software will not be tolerated.

Re:Oh thank you God

[robson]

For the record, I've been running Mandrake 9 since I got my pre-order DVD in the mail (about 3 months ago), I use ReiserFS, NVidia drivers, and have had no stability problems.
I'm not denying that you're having problems, but they may not be indicative of a larger pattern.

Re:Oh thank you God

[Xerithane]

I'm not denying that you're having problems, but they may not be indicative of a larger pattern.

I can second your comment, I use nVidia drivers and use GLX often, and have no stability problems. The only problem I have is Japanese input is buggy as hell on Mdk9...

Re:Oh thank you God

[Spoing]

What did you really expect from a .0 release? 9.1 probably won't be perfect either. I imagine they'll stop at 9.2 until 10.0. It's the same with Redhat.. 7.0 (buggiest), 7.1(less buggy),7.2 (less buggy then the last),7.3 (not too buggy).. and now 8.0 (back to buggiest). Consider it a stable beta.

While I agree that .0 releases of Red Hat are traditionally unstable, Red Hat 8.0 broke that mold. I've had no problems with it on multiple, different, machines. It feels like a .2 release.

Re:Oh thank you God

[BoneFlower]

No, Mandrake 8.0 was utter crap. 9.0 is solid.

Re:Oh thank you God

[Slime-dogg]

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.

Re:Oh thank you God

[umoto]

FYI: You still need to use the "mem=nopentium" kernel option if you're combining Mandrake, NVidia, and Athlon. My wife bought me Tux Racer for Christmas (yay!) but it crashed frequently at first, until I remembered to add that option to LILO. No crashes since. I learned about it from a Slashdot thread about a year ago.

If anyone knows of a real patch for this bug, a pointer would be much appreciated.

Re:Oh thank you God

[Reziac]

I will commit a different sort of Zealot Act violation, by stating that out of all the disties I've tried, Mandrake is the one that DIDN'T crash. I'll violate another section by further stating that none of my WinBoxen ever crash, so I *expect* stability from my desktop OS.

Actually, after said trying-out, I pretty well settled on Mandrake as the linux of my future. Besides, I just plain liked it best. Therefore I am not truly in violation, because I am allowing personal inclination to sway my decision. ;)

Millions?

[NetJunkie]

I think not. I doubt millions went to walmart.com and ordered these. Anyone got sales numbers?

For those...

[BigBir3d]

...who don't know if they want to support the club, go to the mirror list:

here

Try out the beta, if you like it, join the club and help focus the direction of a decent distro.

Yes, I use mandrake. No I am not a club member, or employee.

Debian has this to.

[jonestor]

Debian has this to. It's called Popularity Contest.

Re:Debian has this to.

[Dark Lord Seth]

But Debian is aimed at people who know what they are doing while Mandrake is aimed at clueless people who think Linux is some sort of Egyptian drink. Going to install Mandrake 9.0 on my dad's PC, he got kind of interested in Linux after I managed to get some junky Olivetti server and after I gave him one Knoppix CD. I tried it out on my second PC here, using default install and it worked perfectly, even finding my network printer. I like it as a desktop distro.

try again, sir

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions? (I don't think there's been any announcement of sales figures; your statement is pure conjecture. If it were millions, I think we'd have heard about it.)

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.

Re:try again, sir

[epukinsk]

last I checked, these machines were only available from walmart.com.

Actually, check out the selection of Microtel PCs at walmart.com. Four out of the five say "Online Only," implying that the fifth, the $499 Microtel SYSMAR718 is available in stores.

Erik

Re:Mandrake's priorities

[b17bmbr]

I can say without any reservation or doubt that Windows ME was more stable than any version of Mandrake that I have encountered.

dude, wtf are you smoking? i have an 4 year old k6-2 450/128mb box in my classroom running 8.2 that i do everything on, and it has been up for over 2 months. i have OO, moz, gimp, xmms, as well as apache/ftp/ssh all running concurrently. never had a glitch.

Re:Debian packages are the bomb

[einhverfr]

Packaging evolution reached perfection with .deb files. Modifications to packaging schemese since then are merely negative mutations.

You mean I can get Evolution as a .deb as well as an RPM and it runs better?

In all honesty, I think that the real problem has not been the packaging technology of either system but rather the front-end client. But then I have never done a detailed study.

Look-- we can have holy-wars about this topic of package management. I personaly prefer automake ;) But, I for the initial installation, RPM or .deb make planty of sense.

What is new with Mandrake here is the idea that the beta tester community will help determine what they prioritize on their distro. Ths could be good if the beta testers generally represent their market, but I am afraid that if Mandrake is marketing to the masses, this may not be the best of ideas.

Re:Misleading

[mickwd]

"I thought they meant that it was going to be a new package format, like Mandrake decided to not use RPM and devolepped their own"

Well, you could mean urpmi - apt-get for RPMs, which works out and installs the required package dependencies - although Mandrake's had that since at least Mandrake 7.0.

This may well be true

[kfg]

And I have no particular reason to believe it isn't, nor do I have any particular reason to care either way if it comes to that.

However, I will point out that Chevy will always sell more Monte Carlos than Ferrari will sell all of its models combined.

Big deal.

This is really only of significance to those that actually believe their jacket saying "Tommy Hilfiger" on it makes it "better."

My neighbor's choice of car has little or no bearing on whether or not a Monte Carlo is a more desirable car for *me.*

KFG

That page is missing.

[billstewart]

That link points to http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftptmp/1042225920. 78796bc94d6342c90d73c6d7e2ec5baa.php#beta
which gets the usual Mandrake web server message about "That page is missing. Go back to the main page". Probably some sort of auto-updating thing; I got that two days ago when trying to find the mirrors page to download 9.0 :-). Alternatively, it's possible that my company's firewall is up to something.

Re:That page is missing.

[Old Wolf]

So URLs have been around for 20 years now or whatever, why haven't people learned to paste them properly yet ? Posting an URL with an obvious session ID is stupid. It's also annoying when I look in the geek section of the newspaper and they go "blahblahblah/index.html" , hello people you dont need the index.html. Equally annoying to me (but I guess objectively less bad) are people who ruin aesthetic URLs by throwing 'www.' on the front.

So...

[NDPTAL85]

...........does Mandrake need some more money again?

Re:Democratic source?

[jpa5n]

Designing by vote isn't a bad idea at all. A number of comments I see on /. are to the tune of "If only (project X) had (feature y) it would be perfect". Or with M$-related postings, "If only (application X) didn't have (feature y) it would be better". Let's say the Mandrake folks love Python and want it to install *instead* of Perl by default in their distro. That's fine -- it's there distro. But potentially if you ask the users you might find it's a different story about what they want. Simple equation: Many users = popular Few users = unpopular Note this doesn't mean good or bad, just popular. If the goal is more Linux and less Windows, popular is just as (if not more) important than technical merit.

Then you add the things you know you need

[billstewart]

It's not a big deal - obviously there will be important packages that nobody's really interested in, like boring-glue-stuff.rpm. So you use the voting process to pick the popular packages, and use your engineering judgement to add the other critical stuff, but you probably don't need more than 100-200MB of mandatory stuff, plus another 100MB of packages that are required to support the packages picked by the popular vote.

MandrakeClub?

[grub]

Shades of Mickey..

All together now!

M.. A.. N..
D.. R.. A..
K.. E.. C.. L.. U.. B..

MandrakeClub!
MandrakeClub!
The Linux group you're sure to lub!

Who's the leetest of the groups that's made for you and me?
M.. A.. N..
D.. R.. A..
K.. E.. C.. L.. U.. B..

Re:MandrakeClub?

[Blimey85]

Grub, you never cease to make me laugh. The Mandrake Mouse Club... I love it.

Re:MandrakeClub?

[grub]

Grub, you never cease to make me laugh. The Mandrake Mouse Club... I love it

Why thank you! Would you like my PayPal ID? ;)

Release Numbers...

[Dman33]

Off topic, but I loved the version numbers at this one software company I worked for...

Example:
3.5.05.01h
3.5.05.01b
3.5.05.06

I worked there for 3 years and over that time they went from v 3.5.04.xx to 3.5.09 beta

What a joke.

Actually it was...

[BoomerSooner]

Actually it was Linus that brought Linux to the masses. But I digress.

Package survivor

[spells]

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.

Mandrake Naysayers

[hogger]

I just don't get you mandrake naysayers. Have you tried Mandrake 9.0? You don't have to use KDE or Gnome, it's right there in the install. The following tips will surely change a few of your minds:

1. During installation, select "advanced" installation, rather than the default.

2. Be sure to add "Other Window Managers" in addition to KDE & Gnome

3. Make the selection during install that DOESN'T start X on bootup.

4. After installation, put a .xinitrc file in your home directory. Put "exec icewm", "exec fluxbox" or whatever you like for your window manager in it.

5. use urpmi.remove to get rid of the CD sources for package installation:

urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 1 (x86) (cdrom1)"
urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 2 (x86) (cdrom2)"
urpmi.removemedia "International CD (x86) (cdrom3)"

and replace them with an FTP source:
urpmi.addmedia base-ftp ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/9.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS with ../base/hdlist.cz

and add the contrib source:
urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/9.0/contrib/RPMS with synthesis.hdlist2.cz

so it never ever prompts you for CDs (assuming you've got broadband)

Add the plf software source:
urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://plf.chem.yorku.ca/pub/plf/9.0 with hdlist.cz

Now, you can install just about anything you like with a simple "urpmi {package name}". For instance, if you want mutt, and you're also missing a lot of its dependencies, "urpmi mutt" will not only get mutt, but it will first get whatever is needed for mutt to run. FreeBSD addicts can surely appreciate that (ala the freebsd ports system).

I've been running MDK9.0 since the day it was out of beta and have never had these buggy problems that some of you complain about. No window manager problems (I use fluxbox), no nvidia problems (I've played many a LAN party with my box, never had a crash during crunch time yet), no problems of any kind.

You boneheads should give it a chance before blasting it. Don't try to use it as if it were some kind of RedHat clone, it's moved way beyond that in the last couple of years.

Re:Mandrake Naysayers

[fritter]

I just don't get you mandrake naysayers. Have you tried Mandrake 9.0? You don't have to use KDE or Gnome, it's right there in the install. The following tips will surely change a few of your minds:

1. During installation, select "advanced" installation, rather than the default.

2. Be sure to add "Other Window Managers" in addition to KDE & Gnome

3. Make the selection during install that DOESN'T start X on bootup.

4. After installation, put a .xinitrc file in your home directory. Put "exec icewm", "exec fluxbox" or whatever you like for your window manager in it.

5. use urpmi.remove to get rid of the CD sources for package installation:

urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 1 (x86) (cdrom1)"
urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 2 (x86) (cdrom2)"
urpmi.removemedia "International CD (x86) (cdrom3)"

and replace them with an FTP source:
urpmi.addmedia base-ftp ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/9.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS with ../base/hdlist.cz

and add the contrib source:
urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/9.0/contrib/RPMS with synthesis.hdlist2.cz

so it never ever prompts you for CDs (assuming you've got broadband)

Add the plf software source:
urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://plf.chem.yorku.ca/pub/plf/9.0 with hdlist.cz

Now, you can install just about anything you like with a simple "urpmi {package name}". For instance, if you want mutt, and you're also missing a lot of its dependencies, "urpmi mutt" will not only get mutt, but it will first get whatever is needed for mutt to run. FreeBSD addicts can surely appreciate that (ala the freebsd ports system).

I've been running MDK9.0 since the day it was out of beta and have never had these buggy problems that some of you complain about. No window manager problems (I use fluxbox), no nvidia problems (I've played many a LAN party with my box, never had a crash during crunch time yet), no problems of any kind.

You boneheads should give it a chance before blasting it. Don't try to use it as if it were some kind of RedHat clone, it's moved way beyond that in the last couple of years.

Wow, it practically installs itself!

Re:Mandrake Naysayers

[Christianfreak]

3. Make the selection during install that DOESN'T start X on bootup.

4. After installation, put a .xinitrc file in your home directory. Put "exec icewm", "exec fluxbox" or whatever you like for your window manager in it.


Small correction. If you install other window managers and leave X on by default it will ask you which one you want to run.

Re:Mandrake Naysayers

[nutshell42]

How about:
1. During the installation choose "advanced" to get the package selection and install whatever you want

2. Use rpmdrake to remove the CD sources and install a ftp-source from the list

3. Changing your WM works like on most distros either via ~/.xinitrc or the display manager's dropdown menu

I think that should do about the same =)

Astroturf!

[dacarr]

As much as I like Mandrake, I'm sticking this one in the "Astroturfing" pile. I mean, I understand why Micro$oft engages in it, but the LINUX COMMUNITY?! Please spare me the bullshit!

Depends...

[Usquebaugh]

Is CrazyDuck trying grow market share or please it's existing users? By tailoring the package to their existing users they may be limiting it's ability to attract new users.

I feel this sort of preaching to the choir is best avoided. These people have already bought CrazyDuck, what about the 99.99% of other PC users?

Re:Depends...

[swv3752]

This really to insure that lesser used packages make it in. For instance, Abiword was not in MDK9.0. Now we can vote to add it back in.

Changing the source wasnt the point

[nurb432]

That is only a side advantage, the real benefit is that the source is compiled to suit *your* machine's setup, not someone else's..

Helps eliminate screwy libraries, interdependences, having to maintain a mess of versions due to compatibility of new packages, and
other hidden benefits like that. It's just cleaner and manageable.

Yes compile time is an issue, but once its done then that problem goes away and you just 'use' it.

Screenshots

[isNaN]

Here are some screenshots of 9.1b:

Screenshot one
Screenshot two
Screenshot three
Screenshot four
Screenshot five

I think it's looking quite sweet... Can not wait for the download to finish...

Is this a bad time . . .

[Idou]

to remind everyone who has used or is interested in using Mandrake to become a Mandrakeclub member? The Slashdot community has been pretty critical of Mandrake recently, so here is your chance to become a member and do something about the distro you spend so much time bitching about.

Otherwise, people might get the idea that slashdoters are a bunch of whining freeloaders who complain for the very sake of complaining.

Er, or is that me . . .?

Re:Is this a bad time . . .

[FooBarWidget]

"Otherwise, people might get the idea that slashdoters are a bunch of whining freeloaders who complain for the very sake of complaining."

Slashdotters are a bunch of whining freeloaders who complain for the very sake of complaining. Usually their complaints even contradict earlier complaints. A lot of complaints are even outdated.
Examples:

All the whining about how open source developers create bad GUIs and how usability experts are not appriciated? Have people never heard of the GNOME Usability Project and the GNOME Human User Interface Guidelines? And the enormous amount of effort put into making GUIs usability by developers and usability studies contributed by Sun and Ximian? Not to mention all the huge efforts spent into making KDE more usable. - outdated argument.
People should read their mailing lists more often.

How OSS developers are all elitists? ("Don't even pretend this isn't true"?) Where are these so-called elitsts and how many of them exist? They are like... what? 5% of the entire community? - common prejudgement.

All the whining about how *BSD is dead while Netcraft statistics always proof them wrong? - moronic whining.

All the whining about how Lnux has no good centralized support, while commercial OSses do? And when a new release of RedHat is released, everybody whines about how their phone support (tadaa! centralized support!) should be free? - contradicting complaints.

All the whining about Slashdot is an anti-MS site, while every single MS article has more pro-MS comments than anti-MS comments ever since 2000?

Sorry, but I can only conclude that Slashdot has gone downhill. Today, it's a community composed mostly of flamers, trolls, cynics and MS advocates, who are either uninformed or just stupid.

Re:Misleading

[dacarr]

Nothing bad, but what about us lazy folk?

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.)

Are there two Mandrakes?

[Trick]

I could have sworn there was only one Linux distribution named Mandrake, but now I'm not so sure. I'm seeing messages about how great this Mandrake is, and how we owe them a debt of gratitude, and all kinds of other praise.

I must be mistaken... this must be a different distribution than the one that received all the "Die, Mandrake, Die!" comments when they were asking for money just a few weeks ago.

Re:Debian has this too.

[Trick]

You mean those Debian guys let you tell them what packages you like without having to pay for the privilege?

Must be a bunch of damn commies, I tell ya.

GOOD FOR YOU!!

[Idou]

I wish your post would get modded to 5 so that other slashdotters would see it. You will not regret being a member. The mirror script makes urpmi setup very easy and painless. Being able to vote for your own rpms is great (I had a starcontrol 2 package rpmed for me, and it runs great)!

And now . . . I can vote for my favorite rpms in order to make sure they get into the next release. Things are just getting better and better (I am a Silver member for the next 600 days).

a one cd retail version

[zogger]

--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.

Re:a one cd retail version

[Cally]

This sounds great! Please do let me know when you're ready to release. Oh wait, you mean you put all that effort into listing what you want from Linux, and that you think will be the unstoppable distro that will finally wipe the floor with Microsoft, but can't be bothered to contribute to an existing distro project or start your own? Oh well. "If wishes were fishes we'd all be fat" or what-not.

Don't mix your facts from fiction

[Idou]

I know of three boxes purchased from walmart that are running Mandrake, RIGHT NOW.

I don't know about you, but the windows users I know have no idea that pcs are selling for $200 and $300 these days, they DON'T like installing their own OS, and they are very risk adverse when it comes to buying over the Internet. That is taken from a very, very small sample of the population (the people that I know), but it is better than the baseless BS you are spewing.

Re:Misleading

[ubernostrum]

Red Hat or any RPM-based distro could never make it that easy; if they did they'd be boycotted for taking away the knee-jerk "Oh it's simple, you just apt-get foo" or "Oh it's simple, you just emerge foo" response from the Debian and gentoo zealots. I mean come on, in some threads that's half the comments on Slashdot; you don't want to wreak that kind of havoc, my friend.

Of course, I like manually installing RPMs; it's really not that much of a hassle for me, and it means I always know exactly what's being installed and why. If there were an automated system, it'd probably just display a progress bar saying "Satisfying Dependencies" and not tell me anything useful, which would be annoying.

Re:Misleading

[WetCat]

urpmi in mandrake does exactly that.

Re:Misleading

[lakeland]

Bullshit. There might be nothing wrong from a user's perspetive, but from a package developer's perspective, RPM is nowere near as advanced.

Consider things like virtual dependancies, multiple satisfies/reverse depends, empty packages, advanced configuration (when one script won't do), etc, etc.

Next time do a google search before coming up with such FUD.

Re:Misleading

[pyros]

RedHat Network is pretty nice. Does dependencies for you, tells you what dependencies are automatically being installed for you, sends you email when packages you have installed are updated. But if you don't like RHN, there's always apt for RPM, look at freshrpms.net. I take issue with the complaint that ou only get RedHat RPMs through RHN. People can set up their own RHN servers, to get a network of servers like for Debian. In the end it's all about what you're comfortable with. I like RHN so I use it.

Results/Voting page

[sgtsanity]

Luckily, even non-members can view the Voting results page. Amazingly enough, it seems that even among the "geek"-biased club, many votes are for multimedia-related applications. Whether this may be due to important non-multimedia applications being labeled as vital and automatically included, or through a real shift in the users of linux.

Even if this doesn't work out for Mandrake, it'll still serve as an interesting sociological experiment and good precedent for other linux distros to design and improve accordingly.

well, that could be just fine..and more ramblings

[zogger]

..really, that's cool, didn't know that-and neither do the other 50 million people who buy peecees at the store. I don't see it on the shelf at the two stores locally that sell software. Get it on the shelf there for ten bucks I'll try it, maybe the other 50 million might try it. One cd good, 5 or ten bucks easy to buy, better. Easy to uninstall and install the best. I'm on a modem, downloading mega gobbles of stuff ain't happening. It's already a hassle keeping up with releases and patches as it is now, let alone downloading the entire shebang every few months and then restarting the patch stuff. Too many releases, too many distros, and the stoopid desktop manager wars is beyond nutso. Not spending two weeks downloading just to "try something out" when for ten bucks as an impulse buy at the local store I might grab it. The KISS principle.

There's software programming and development,serious hobbyist involvement, then there's retail selling of same in mass quantities, two ENTIRELY different things.

I'm in between, neither a hard core software programming geek, nor "joe average just use whatever came on the box when it was bought" person. I got a real good perspective because I'm so close to the middle there I can see both sides points of view. Reluctant lazy computer users relying on brand loyalty and some big company to keep them happy are sorta clueless, and ubernerds thinking everyone is gonna drool at their latest patched and 'skinned' version .xx67ab.9x whatever thing are just as clueless. Now I don't mind tracking down a clone OS maker online,and ordering online,and trying this and that out, it's SEMI fun to me, but 49,999,999 other people DO mind doing that and ain't gonna do it. And I'm not gonna pay full release distro price for a set of cds-or even one cd- to try them out at 20, or 30 and up a pop price when there's dozens and dozens of release distros out there, that's hundreds of dollars just to "tryout" the top dozen to see what I may like or not. Not_happening_ever. 5 or ten bucks home tryout surfer version, sure,maybe at least, 20 to 60 dollars per distro? Nope! And then rinse lather repeat every 6 months? huh? It's not gonna happen, not in any big way. If non-geek joe and josephine average pooter users people spend their time downloading it's gonna be 99% music or pictures. I know it, you know it, they know it, everyone knows it, so we'll take that as a gimmee. This OS or that OS has to be in the store cheap on the shelf or preinstalled, one or the other or both, and it can't cost so close to the borg in price that people go " Huh? WTF is this $%^7, why should I do this I can barely run what I got, downloading patches is hard enough and a hassle, I don't even know what this crap is". But for ten bucks, MAYBE they might try it, a "try it out" version, especially if there's a way to have a total OS install "undo" button to mash. Knoppix is sorta like that now, and it's a GREAT IDEA, it lets someone try before buy (install) in a way. I can assure you, I know plenty of people who would try various other OS's if it wasn't such a hassle to repartition, have another hard drive, etc because they don't want to lose what they got already. It's a valid concern. If any distro had a "temporarily install it to see if ya like it and it's easy to remove and won't break anything " option button to mash when ya stuck the CD in it would be a *good thing*. People I know I've encouraged to "try" something besides the borg have a point there, they are afraid they are gonna lose whatever they got now, and they sure might. As a consequyence "new and improved das peoples' distro du jour" still hasn't caught on that well, despite being 'out there' for ten years plus. Major clueskis there. I will tell you it's real real hard to get people to even try a new OS unless you just go over and do it for them, then you are on the hook forever as the free support guy.. They MIGHT try it themselves if it was cheap enough and easy enough and on the shelf in plain sight and could be easily "undone", like clicking to remove any other app, because that's what people think it is, another app.. I can't tell any distro guys how to do that either,get it in the stores on the shelves cheap, not my business gig. And with dozens of distro "orgs" out there, all claiming to me "they are the best, the other guys are lamers and suck", well?????

My opinion is you simply can NOT assume everyone else in the known universe is a hard core software programming geek and will jump through any serious hassle hoops to try "anyone your's" OS version out. Very small numbers will, that's all you're gonna get with that mindset and business model.

That ain't a dis to freebsd or linux any other OS flavor or to any person, just noting "real whirrled" reality a little. Human beings develop inertia, and brand loyalty that they will stick with even though what they are using ain't the best or cheapest. If that wasn't true there wouldn't even exist the term "brand loyalty".

beta packages in beta

[Ankh]

Note that there's still approx. 3 months before a scheduled release, so I'd expect the kernel and XFree86 versions to be later.

The package management tools have also been evolving fast -- if you follow the cooker list, you'll know that the gtk+ 2 version of rpmgrake is out, and it's much faster and improved. (and there's an update to urpmi, too).

At this point, urpmi is approaching the usefulness and robustness of apt-get, albeit with slightly fewer features -- e.g. no "suggested other packages". It's possible those willl come later, at least in principle: there's nothing inherent about RPM that prevents such features.

If 9.0 crashed for you, the right thing to do was to report the problems one by one, and help get them fixed for everyone -- not wait 3 months and then whine on slashdot that there were problems. Maybe the Mandrake developers didn't have your hardware. Maybe the XFree86 developers didn't have a machine with your video card, soundcard and disk controller, and couldn't reproduce the problem.

In general I think Mandrake is going in a good direction: making a Linux distribution that's easy to administer and use, but that is powerful enough for experienced users and admins (e.g. distributed package management, command-line configuration possible), has reliable automated package downloading and installation (including dependencies), and yet that uses the standard config files for everything, so that you can still administer it the "old fashioned way" be editing /etc/fstab or whatever... hence, a distributionthat appeals to new users, and also can be used by developers.

Some of Mandrake's tools (e.g. draksync, a graphical front end to rsync that can use ssh) could do with being moved to sourceforge or somewhere and being more widely used.

Having a Linux distribution that most people can install in 20 minutes to an hour, with no difficult questions, makes a big difference. People moving from MS Windows are often used to reinstalling frequently: this way, wen they can't fix a problem, instead of going back to Windows, they go reinstall Linux, until they learn more about reconfiguring and fixing stuff. And if they never learn how to reconfigure, and always reinstall, it's still a win if it doesn't crash, is Free, open, and they can have a say in what packages are available.

Does anyone think a single CD is a bad thing?

[SilentStrike]

I am running Red Hat 8 right now, but I recently installed Mandrake 9 on my 13-year old brother's system (he is running it exclusively, not even dual booting). A few months ago, I put Mandrake 8.2 on my sisters system, which is dual booting with Windows 2000. I am also a member of Mandrake Club.

That said, going with one CD rather than the traditional three isn't really a good thing I believe. If you really wanted Mandrake on one CD previously, just download the first CD. This was already an option, and you could install a reasonably functional system. Surely, they could make sure the the 'highest priority' packages are on the first CD (they have less motivation to do that with the old multi-CD distrobution system, they could afford to let an 'important' package slip to disc 2), which will certainly happen with the new situition, but it's still limiting choices.

Mandrake is basically saying, we are cutting down our distro to 1/3rd the size, pay us to make sure the 2/3 that get cut aren't stuff that you like. It's really not a winning situition for the customer.

I think it would be a much better idea for Mandrake to focus on urpmi. Have networked (RPM, urpmi?... I don't know what they should be called) servers as the default place to look for packages in addition to the installation CDs. They could focus on being like Debian (extreme ease to get new/updated packages after the install), except that the initial Mandrake install doesn't require reading massive amounts of documentation, or much experience with Linux.

Personally, I still like compiling stuff from source, and the only reason I run Mandrake/Red Hat is so I can get an initial working installation... perhaps my I am now competant enough to install Gentoo, and then I won't have to worry about Mandrake anymore anyway.

Re:Red Carpet

[nutshell42]

Could someone mod parent +1 informative? =)

Re:Mandrake Math

[nutshell42]

It's nothing compared to Nintendo-math with it's famous equation $99.95=129-139EUR for the Gameboy Advance SP.

I'll have to admit..

[zogger]

..I have to admit I don't live in any major urban area nor visit and shop much. I honestly don't know what's on the shelf any longer at any of these various electronics stores. I got a chinamart and a small office supply to look at locally. If lycoris is on the shelf there at Fry's for 20$ that's better than nuthing,it's a good thing, I hope they do well, or maybe decide to merge efforts with another company, which is a better idea, IMO.

Best I can do in an individual effort is to encourage my real world and cyber world friends to try something "new" out, which I already do. Every time they get nailed with the daily virus, they get a polite razz. When people tell me this or that is "too hard", best I can say is to just freeking try getting out of first gear with your computer. I tell them you would at least learn how to hit all the gears on your car, your brane ain't gonna explode to give it the same effort with a computer. You got more than first gear and "engine stop". I know it's a real tough nut to crack, I can see that readily, so all I can say to the various distro guys is hang in there, less releases but better quality,get togerther and see if ya'all can't AT LEAST pick A desktop and some way to update, pick a freeking set of normal apps and make sure they work well,and keep it very reasonable in cost, and do your best to get the pc makers to at least give their customers an option. And if that means to some of the programmers and orgs and companies etc, who contribute code for profit or free, to swallowing some pride and going to help out the closest existing to your point of view major effort instead of "yet another effort-wasting branch" of this or that OS or app, then do it. Just do it. From the outside looking in, there's way, way, way more than enough "distros" and "apps" out there that strive to do the same exact thing. That's about it.

I like the voting model going in the parent article. I'd like to see that concept go to some sort of even higher level, to consolidate some of the branches back into a stronger effort. Maybe that's impossible, I just don't know, but the extremes are that-extremes- one OS and one function app ain't enough, 50 lebenty dozen is "too much". Cooperation is not a cuss word, it actually "works".

Railroads got to be a good deal from standardizing on at least a track size and width.

Not "Support the company"

[Idou]

"Support the community." Free software costs money to make, but once it is made it is free for all of humanity to use. Mandrake is the most community centralized distro company I know of. Some people mischaracterize this as a "no good begger" but as you can see with package voting, they are really just trying to create a business model as "Bizaar" as possible.

No, everyone who uses Mandrake should not feel like they need to pay ML money. But, I believe the majority of Slashdotters are well off enough and smart enough to become part of the Mandrake community that caries its own weight, hence my call out to the Slashdot/Mandrake community. Especially when they have such strong opinions about the distro.

Let slashdotters become mandrakeclub members so that Mandrake will go on to let non-profit clinics in 3rd world countries have a complete and workable distro they can use for free. But, if you have food, water, and shelter, maybe you are well enough to donate some money to the cause.

Slashdotters, though I hate to admit it, you are, in a sense, the cream of this community. This is your chance to give back and be a hero.

"With great power comes great responsibility" (Necessary Spiderman quote to appeal to hero aspect of the geek persona).

Re:Misleading

[Dave_bsr]

um.... URPMI? Mandrake's package system?

Perhaps you are being silly, but if not...

1. RPM compatibility...yup
2. GUI installation and package selection...yup
3. console install screen...yup...

so either you are joking or not using mdk to its fullest. Either way, your wish is here and yes, URPMI is schweet.

Re:Red Carpet

[dnaumov]

"Are there any similar GUI's for apt-get, that analyze the system, and tell you what needs/should be upgraded?"

Look into "Synaptic".

not sure now

[zogger]

--not sure now, I'd have to go back and break out the quad focals and read the fine print on their latest operating marching orders the DOJ gave them. I think they can't do that anymore but I just ain't sure. Maybe it's not true that they can "insist" on "no other OS on the drive"? Or two drives and two OSes, with one of each, which I think those major box makers ought to do anyway, the dang drives are so inexpensive now. That's what it's going to take though, mass marketing by one of the computer manufacturers who advertises on TV, one of the big guys. A "It's your CHOICE" campaign. "Choice" is a buzzword that is recognizable. " Choice! We here at belchdata boxen have listened, and now you get the best of both worlds! here ya go, two installed operating systems, all the apps you can shake a stick at, we listened, we heard you!" Something like that.

looking forward to seeing the fonts fixed

[rsilvergun]

Bad fonts turned me away from Mandrake and to Redhat. It's especially bad if you're trying to read Japanese (or chinese I suspect). There were kanji I just couldn't make out (and my Japanese isn't good enough to guess :) ). I really loved Mandrake's config tools though, and I can understand why somebody on older hardware wouldn't want Xft (it lags sometims on my PIII 800/GeForce2mx, I couldn't imagine it on a P 200). I've heard Lindows is going to license some Bitstream fonts. I wouldn't mind RH or Mandrake doing the same (sorry R.M.S., but I'm willing to trade that small bit of freedom for readable fonts that aren't stolen from my windows partition :) ). And I've heard good things from osnews.com about the RH8.1 beta. Mandrake's really laging here, and it's only going to become more important as linux gets more popular (my last tiger direct catalog had a Lindows PC, yeah!).

Already happened in Thailand!

[Daengbo]

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.

Re:Already happened in Thailand!

[zogger]

hey man, good for you guys! That sounds pretty dang neat to me, and that market must be a hoot! Eventually it's gonna be that way here, as soon as we hit a critical mass level of awarness of what the heck linux, etc really is to most people and the computermakers give it a whack as an install. But like you saw, maybe the customers will just go ahead and stick a pirate copy of borg back in, but maybe not if they play with what's on there first and it works well.

MAN pages now politically correct.

[Kahn Verge Hiss]

Hey gang, I've notice a peculiar change to the familiar MAN pages on the new version of Mandrake. I wanted to look up some SMP stuff so I typed "MAN kernel" (I'm a bit rusty), and got a weird error. "Syntax now WOman " This sounded strange to me but I though meh... I tell you, these new WOman pages are terrible! It used to be like "MAN automount" and then you've got your information. I typed "WOman kernel". Now this is weird, it said, "If you don't know what's wrong, I'm not going to tell you." I thought this was some kind of joke. I had some time, so I low-levelled and installed it again. I got the same..uh.. error? Anyways, I was able to get MAN SMP to work in the console with root access, but it didn't really get to the point, it was ambiguous, and generally frustrating to deal with. I eventually gave up and climbed in a bottle of Dubonnet red. Anyone else have any WOman problems with Mandrake 9.1b ?

It is called URPMI

[swv3752]

urpmi foo

And if foo is not specific enough it will come back and say the following packages contain foo so you type:

urpmi foo-matic

and it will download and install all dependancies and the package specified.

OK, I hear ya...

[zogger]

OK, roger that. I was surprised though over the one dollar figure for the oem OS inclusion, had no idea it was *that* cheap. One buck? That's all microsoft gets from you guys? Uh-mazing. Well, can't really argue all that hard against that price. I was thinking more like you had to pay them 30 to 50 bucks or something.

All right so what's the solution to giving people another choice? Just hold out and wait until one of the distros can actually cut the mustard better within your parameters? To be fair, because you as the box maker are picking the hardware, at least that part can be addressed in advance, all that stuff should work if you pick and choose carefully, and you could include a recommended hardware accessories list like "these printers and scanners and cams and doodads are known to work" list. Besides that as to tech support, don't know, what breaks and knowing that in advance is the hardest part, and what they can't figure out, the customers/end users I mean. Printed manual, you're gonna include one anyway (you do don't ya?), so that should be a wash. As a standalone distro product on the shelf, allright, make it 15 clams at entry "home surfer release" level, that should cover it,a cd plus manual.

Re:OK, I hear ya...

[packeteer]

Its KIND OF that cheap. When your buying thousands of copies of windows your going to hafta pay for more than the OS license. Your going to have to hire a few MCSEs to make sure it all works right. How often does any one given Windows computer break down for you and think of that times how many computers some companies run. Microsoft makes a lot of money selling off support. Office is their big money maker but they also have many things like certification and sending out tech to fix comps which is the real way they make money off the OS part of their company.

Shock!

[Dwonis]

What a SURPRISE! Soemthing that is touted as a "new", better way of doing things, has already been done by Debian for some time. Gee, THAT's never happened before!

An alternative business model?

[Pranjal]

Why can't Mandrake give out a basic lite version for free, which for example might not have all the popular apps. They could then put a full featured distro for download or on a CD and give it out to only the paying subscribers of the mandrake club? Or is this not permitted under GPL?

Re:Misleading

[Max von H.]

I'm using apt and synaptic in Mandrake 9.0 as we speak. Works flawlessly!

Cheers,
max

Open source about choice

[Jimithing DMB]

Let's face facts, no software is ever perfect (especially in the eye of the creator if he is a good programmer). Binary software that hooks the kernel has a great potential for crashing.

The simple fact of the matter is that in this case, it has a lot to do with the fact that the component is not open source

However, with that said it's not impossible for programs to crash here and there (though the only kernel crashes I've EVER experienced were related to nVidia or Netraverse). Fortunately, if you think your distro is doing a bad job of packaging the software and/or is giving you a bunch of buggy shit... You can go use a different distro! Unlike some other platforms.

BSD == zealot?

[leonbrooks]

gpl: Salvation by submittion

bsd: Salvation by choice

The Spelling Nazi in me calls for s/tt/ss/ - and having got that off my chest: GPL's software is the software that won't work for your enemies. If you think you have no enemies, let's just say that you're the victim of a one-sided deal.

I personally GPL everything I write, and choose GPL over BSD if the products are otherwise equal. I'd rather be putting my work into something that can't be used by any soulless bastard to club me with later.

You may choose to BSD everything you write, and that's your choice, a much better choice than not releasing it at all. Just don't slag off the GPL, it may well end up the last thing standing betweren you and world domination. If you don't like it, stick to non-GPLed and proprietary software.

So? It's secure, isn't it?

[leonbrooks]

And with most OS products, it's honestly not the OS that breaks the OS, but something else that does it. Kazaa, AOL, etc. The problem is that people want those programs.

Linux has equivalents that work. And if the luser has no root password, they don't have (at least with standard packaging systems) an easy way to stuff up their systems. People who have no skill or knowledge for managing a system want rights to manage a system. It's a bit like people demanding the right to drive, licence or no. The choice should be there for the determined... for the rest, let them ask someone who knows. Then at least there's a chance that they won't become wormbait.

Not quite, you don't...

[leonbrooks]

all of my experience with Linux has taught me that anything can break, but it doesn't like to tell you. At least Windows whines like a little girl.

All of my experience with Linux tells me that you have to set out to break it, and you'll generally get an informative and direct error message, whereas with Windows you can never be quite sure whether it's broken or not, and if it is, what to do about of it short of wipe-reinstall. There's no DLL hell for Linux, and broken hardware shows up PDQ. With real security and journalling filesystems that work, what's there left to break?

Wrong

[leonbrooks]

Solaris has all sorts of things useful for people running mission-critical servers that Linux doesn't have yet, such as kernel crash dumps

fear the penguin! (-:

Or perhaps I should say did you forget this? (alternative shortcut)

Re:Wrong

[Kiwi]

I think, with the 2.6 kernel, Linux will be as scalable as Solaris; each release of Linux is that much worse news for the Solaris crowd.

Now, I find it ironic that Linux is more of a threat to people who have helped the free software movement than it is for people who have not.

Well, unless you count the fact that I wrote open source software living off of the savings I earned after working as a contracter for Microsoft for three months.

- Sam

"Solaris Linux"

[leonbrooks]

Try here, but it's only warmed-over RedHat.

Steady as a rock. Er, ing horse.

[leonbrooks]

I can say without any reservation or doubt that Windows ME was more stable than any version of Mandrake that I have encountered.

A few people I know reverted from ME to 98 because 98 was more stable for them.

One engineering firm (customer of mine) ran AutoCAD on a 98 box (the rest of the shop is Linux; they may well all be Linux soon since AutoCAD now runs under WINE) and got a new plotter, which worked fine. The next day, they got a new employee, and a new box for him, with ME pre-installed. ME trashed itself on Day One. So they installed 98 to be consistent. The 98 on the new box wouldn't talk to the plotter; after much farting around AutoDesk said "switch to ME", so they did, and lo, for the plotter worked. They switched their original 98 box to ME for consistency, and lo, the plotter stopped working on it. So now they have one 98 and one ME box. The ME box crashes more often (98 twice a day on average, ME 3-4x a day).

Their Mandrake Linux boxes don't crash. Ever. Nor do mine (except when my wife's GeForce2 card gets too much dust in the heatsink). Nor does my Debian gateway box (familiarisation exercise). Nor does any other Mandrake Linux server or workstation I've ever set up (scores of them), from junkbox-resurrectees to IBM NetFinity servers, no worries.

Either you're incredibly unlucky, or doing something wrong.

Are they a Catholic distribution, then?

[leonbrooks]

it really was Mandrake, and not Red Hat, Solaris, or Slackware that brought Linux to the masses.

Must be Debian bringing it to the assorted Lord's Suppers of the Protestants, then. (-:

Seriously, if Mandrake ever learn to package things as well as Debian do, the other mainline commercial distros may as well pack up and go home. Mandrake have a whole flock of really easy-to-use tools which fill in the how-do-I-do-this gap in most distros, rivalled only by SuSE, and seem to have much more of a knack than RedHat at picking winners in the assorted WM and app races. Once (or if) they get over their present cash-flow hernia and can employ enough people again (waves to GC, Pixel, others), the QC will improve too.

Re:Consequences of a "Democratic" Approach

[kakos]

The Athenians voted him guilty. It was only after his speech did they decide his punishment. And yes, some scholars do think he threw away a chance at exile. But no one really knows.

The point is that in a democracy, people run the government or software development or whatever. That sounds like a great thing, but I sometimes question the intelligence of people. Personally, I think there are a lot of morons out there. If they had any kind of power to affect the government or software development, I wouldn't want that to happen.

Final straw / Microsoft not necessary to the GPL

[leonbrooks]

Wow you took that a little heavy.

Sorry, you were a final straw.

If Microsoft would not have existed the GPL/BSD licenses would have no meaning and nobody would care.

You really ought to start practicing moderation in your positiojns. GPL would most certainly exist and be deeply meaninful. If not Microsoft's greed, then someone else's would make it necessary.

GPL dangerous to its friends?

[leonbrooks]

I find it ironic that Linux is more of a threat to people who have helped the free software movement than it is for people who have not.

Sun were at least bright enough to see the bloodless hand, writing on the wall. They are using OOo as extra brownie points on StarOffice, which in turn is a weapon against Microsoft. SGI saw the end of their traditional markets coming much earlier, and jumped in with both feet. More kudos to them, they will probably survive because they got started early, Sun may not because they don't really understand Linux and Open Source as a competitor, only as a weapon, and many other corporations will either have the carpet whipped out from under them (Adobe, for example, had better pull its socks up soon) or rupture themselves trying to realign to a fast-changing marketplace in time to survive.

In short, the GPL will change things, and that's dangerous to inflexible companies, and to companies who misread the signs.

Microsoft's own skeletons are banging quite loudly on the closet doors. You know what they say about being able to fool some of the people all of the time or vice versa but not both...

Saw the joke, didn't think it was funny...

[leonbrooks]

...and as I said, you must be singularly unlucky with your machines. This Mandrake 9 install's been fabulous for stability. Tried an exorcist?