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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."
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.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
You just gotta love these release numbers2.1a
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.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
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.
Nobody knows what they did after that, but now they're making a profit.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
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.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
> 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.
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.
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.
I do security
The line I find most interesting is this one:
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.
Never confuse volume with power.
"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.
Debian has this to. It's called Popularity Contest.
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:
.xinitrc file in your home directory. Put "exec icewm", "exec fluxbox" or whatever you like for your window manager in it.
a ke/9.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS with ../base/hdlist.cz
a ke/9.0/contrib/RPMS with synthesis.hdlist2.cz
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
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/Mandr
and add the contrib source:
urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandr
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.
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...
No, i don't like sigs...
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 . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
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).
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
--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.