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Mandrake Linux... Not Dead Yet?
bloodeu writes "Mandrake Linux has been beaten down by linux experts alike, but this new release of Mandrake may hold many promising Linux users
what they have been waiting for, like NTFS resizing(which is a first), Automatic Network config(zeroconf), Supermount, and
many more. You can download the Mandrake 9.1 RC1 Here"
The obligatory Monty Python reference. I'll go sit quietly now.
"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." Col. Jeff Cooper
Um, okay. Maybe I've been out of the loop when it comes to Linux/NTFS compatibility. I thought we were still kinda' afraid to write to NTFS partitions. Now we can resize them.
Can someone please elaborate?
I tried it (9.0) for a few weeks and the only thing I didn't like was that wine wasn't installed/configured like in RedHat (7.3). Is this another case of some linux people hating a distro because it's too easy to use?
It's worth pointing out to anyone thinking of installing this as their main OS that this is an initial release candidate and is nowhere near prime time.. be warned unless you want to find and report bugs.
Mandrake is great. They've really built something that's useful in its own right, and provides many useful things back into the community. Maybe it's not for you, but it's a great place to start for a lot of people. A nice introduction.
The problem is, Mandrake as a business is like a comedy of errors. All sorts of crazy problems, some of which were outside their control, and some that could (and should) have been avoided in the first place. 20/20 hindsight is nice, so I can't carp too much, but if they could get their shit together for just one release (no distribution problems; keep the paying club members happy, and get them a box before it's been on shelves for 3 months), I think things could turn around in a hurry.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
Mandrake Linux has been beaten down by linux experts alike
Ok. I'm a Linux, more specifically a Unix "expert" and I can see nothing wrong with Mandrake:
A easy to install, easy to use, full featured Linux desktop? How horrible! Oh the humanity! When will it stop!
It's not like Mandrake Linux pissed in my Wheeties this morning.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Even if you don't use Mandrake, you've probably benefited from the work they've put into "making the Linux desktop user friendly."
:) [And I could be wrong -- perhaps they also had Red Hat, dunno.]
(That's a category I'm in right now: I don't currently have any systems running Mandrake, but for about three years running -- until about a month ago -- I did.)
- Mandrake concentrates on ease of install. Not that everyone's intuition is actually the same, goes the past-the-nipple argument, but Hey, Mandrake 6 did a lot better job with *my* intuition (and hardware) than did any of the contemporaries I can remember putting on.
- Automount. Yes, it's come and gone strangely (back now?), but Automount is a very good thing. Try explaining to a Mac user the procedure of mounting a CD drive, or a simple %$#@ USB memory key thing.
- Mandrake (afaik) was the first and so far only Linux distro to be sold as a standalone product in Walmart, and I bought several versions there (as the king of Swamp Castle says "... just to show 'em!"). Software specifics aside, this is another good reason to be grateful to Mandrake, whether you use their distro or not. Lindows was *not* the first Walmart-associated Linux
Mandrake started to fade off my systems when I discovered how nice Red Hat 8 is, and then when I used Knoppix to convert some machines to Debian. (And since I need to reduce the number of machines floating around here, there are fewer computers with which I care to purely experiment.) However, I plan to try the 9.1 release candidate to see where it falls.
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
All new purchases from the Mandrake store and new release box sets will come with a one month complimentary subscription the MandrakeClub.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
So it's easy, when is the linux community going to drop this attitude of "Linux is supposed to be hard".
In the last three weeks I've tried RedHat 8.0(too slow on a 366mhz machine), Yopper, Knoppix (lots of stuff) and Mandrake 9.0. Of them all, I'm using mandrake. Why? because everything worked, first time, everytime. So I went out and bought a copy. Voting with my wallet, the easiest thing to do. I hope they make it out of Chapter 11 or whatever the french equivalent is. They're providing the gateway to make it easier to switch, without the cost overhead that Lindows requires.
~corporate tool, but employed~
I find it funny that so many people overlook urpmi. It's apt-get for rpms. It can retrieve packages from cdrom, or the internet and handles dependencies automatically.
The biggest difference between Mandrake and Red Hat is urpmi. urpmi is the packaging system that Mandrake employees, and just about every desirable program is available (after a little setup) with a simple:
a ke/9.0/i586/Mandrake/RPMS with ../base/hdlist.cz
a ke/9.0/contrib/RPMS with synthesis.hdlist2.cz
urpmi (packagename)
First though, it's very handy to setup urpmi so that it never requests the installation CDs, but rather gets the packages via the internet. Here's what I do immediately after installing Mandrake:
1. Remove the three CD-based package sources:
urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 1 (x86) (cdrom1)"
urpmi.removemedia "Installation CD 2 (x86) (cdrom2)"
urpmi.removemedia "International CD (x86) (cdrom3)"
2. replace them with an FTP source:
urpmi.addmedia base-ftp ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandr
(That's a single command. It may appear wrapped.)
3. add the contrib source:
urpmi.addmedia contrib ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandr
(That's a single command. It may appear wrapped.)
4. add the plf software source:
urpmi.addmedia plf ftp://plf.chem.yorku.ca/pub/plf/9.0 with hdlist.cz
(That's a single command. It may appear wrapped.)
After those four steps (don't forget to su to root before you run them) you'll be able to easily install just about any program that you run across . It brings the installation ease that Debian users enjoy (via apt) to linux newbies in Mandrake. Redhat has nothing that can touch urpmi. The term "RPM Hell" exists for a reason -- RedHat.
Apache 1.3 is still present, but it's in the Contribs (separate download or extra CD in PowerPack).
What's more, you can install *both* versions, and with a simple command (advxrun1.3 or advxrun2.0), change from one to the other.
PHP 4.3.1 has been tested a lot, and we fixed most major bugs. I use it on production on several servers, and I find it more stable than the 4.2 series.
The parent post is complete B.S.
Yes, the Club Members will have a more complete list of mirrors, possibly including Club-Only mirrors.
But as far as I know (and I am a Mandrake employee, so I should know), Mandrake Linux 9.1 will be available for everyone on public mirrors.
Don't forget that it's 100% open-source, most of the stuff is GPL, so it has to be distributable by everyone.
That said, I strongly suggest our users become members of the Club, it's the best way to support our work.
Without touching off a flame war, I will have to disagree with:
Redhat has nothing that can touch urpmi.
There is a version of apt for RedHat-- Here's how to install and use it in RH 8:
Download and install these:
http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/psyche/apt
http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/psyche/apt
Make sure you're online, then, as root (or sudo)issue the following commands:
apt-get update
(You will see apt download package listings)
apt-get -f install
(This is to fix dependencies that will prevent apt from working.)
Your output should look something like this:
Reading Package Lists... Done
Collecting File Provides... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 removed and 0 not upgraded.
If your output is different, make sure that you know what you are doing before you let apt make changes to your system.
Now, do:
apt-get install synaptic
and run synaptic as root or sudo root. You now have a gui tool to resolve dependencies and install packages.
This was shamelessly stolen from an excellent article by Robert C. Dowdy on OSNews:
http://www.osnews.com/printer.php?news_id=1890
God is imaginary
Here (195kB PNG) is a screenshot of Mandrake 9.1rc1 running Gnome with the Galaxy theme. I hae done almost no changes to Gnome (I don't usually use it), so this is pretty much how it looks currently out-the-box after changing to the Galaxy theme (which I assume will be enabled by default on rc2). The window decorations for KDE went in only a few days ago, wait till I update some stuff from cooker for a KDE screenshot.
My USB flash disk was detected automatically, just had to right-click on the desktop and check "removable" (in KDE an icon appears which you can just double-click). ACPI works (though I am not sure how much functionality my Thinkpad 600X supports). Note the ACPI is not enabled by default (acpi=off is in the default append for the bootloader) due to problems with desktops. Zeroconf works (ie over a crossover to a windows box I get a "auto-configuration"-compatible IP address and can resolve my own hostname via "dns"), but the gui tools need a bit more work (config only works during install currently), but my NIC does not support ifplugd, so I do not get automatic interface management.
I did make some changes to the fonts in Mozilla, which may have affected how Galeon displays.
We just hope that freetype-2.1.4 will be out in time to make it, since the maintainer will not agree to shipping CVS versions (which Redhat seems happy with, even with glibc to the point of breaking things like winbind - for those of you who think Mandrake is not stable).
Is knowing you downloaded The 3 ISOs before it was posted on slashdot.
arcane for life