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MandrakeSoft's Status Update
joestar writes "MandrakeSoft today posted an update letter from its CEO about the company's health. Among other things, it's interesting to learn that the company seems to be on the good track to go out of the "chapter-11 protection" before the end of the year, that it's taking part to several publicly-funded research projects, and that Mandrake 9.1 is having a good success. They also thank for the warm support they received from the community. Worth a read for all Mandrake fans, like myself. Viva la Mandrake!"
If they go out of Chapter 11, does that mean that my 175 shares of mandrake stock will be worth anything? It was doing okay, until they went bankrupt.
- tom -
Downloaded, tried it, and I liked it... was much more for home users than say Red Hat 9. Unfortunately Ximian Desktop 2 doesn't support it yet so I put on my redhat and resorted to primate behavior with Ximian.
--------
Free your mind.
mandrake, imho is the best desktop linux there is. installation is easy, and it's much more user friendly than the more advanced linux distributions out there.
long live mandrake!
I want to see how many club members joined the club, as well as h ow many corperate club members there are.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Posting mandrake accolades on Slashdot is great, get the word out. More importantly, invest in a great company providing a quality product. Perhaps this will help them out of trouble! Interestingly, there is a rumor that this downturn is because of the US & pro-Us policy geeks not spending their money in France.
Kill the White Man
Linux Weekly News just released (today) an interesting interview with Gaël Duval, the creator of Mandrake Linux. He covers topics such as the Mandrake Club business model, Linux on the desktop and the SCO lawsuit, and others. It's on: http://lwn.net/Articles/38405/
MandrakeSoft News
Update about MandrakeSoft status 2003-07-01
Dear Friends,
Many of our customers, users, contributors and partners have been asking about our status since MandrakeSoft applied for Chapter 11 protection at the beginning of the year. So, I would like to take this opportunity to update you on our current situation and my beliefs for the future.
Products
We are very proud of the accomplishments introduced into Mandrake Linux 9.1. This version was released at a very difficult time, considering the problems we were facing. But our Engineering staff performed a wonderful job to deliver on-time what we consider a breakthrough release. Mandrake Linux 9.1 has received excellent reviews from individual users, professionals, and the press. 9.1 is also doing well on the commercial front, especially at our online store.
Soon after the release of Mandrake 9.1, we delivered 'Corporate Server 2.1', a robust, complete server solution with an extended release cycle - perfectly suited for the enterprise market. We are pleased with the positive feedback received from our targetted customers on this product.
We also recently announced our first delivery of MandrakeClustering, a specific distribution targeted to those who need to manage parallelism in clusters. This accomplishment is the result of long-term R&D investments made with our partners INRIA, the University of Grenoble, and Groupe Bull within the collaborative project titled 'CLIC'.
We are now busy working on Mandrake Linux 9.2, the CowboyNeal edition, which will be delivered on schedule in the fall of 2003. You should hear more about this upcoming release shortly.
R&D
Two MandrakeSoft R&D projects have just been selected for financing by the RNTL fund, which finances pre-competitive research programs. One project is based on clustering and taco-stealing, the other project focuses on wi-fi and nomadism. Both of these projects will greatly enhance our technology offerings.
On the same front, the Hyades European project, which focuses on clustering and real-time processing, is initiating its kick-off phase.
Services
More and more, MandrakeSoft is focusing on delivering high quality products and services in a timely manner. We have made huge efforts to improve our online store in terms of delivery speed and ease of use. We continue to strive at improving this important service.
MandrakeClub continues to be a crucial part of our future -- it receives special care and we continue to offer improved services and discounts to all Club members. We keep on renewing memberships and enrolling new members.
Chapter 11
As most of you know, MandrakeSoft filed for Chapter 11 protection at the end of January 2003. This meant that we were granted a court appointed administrator and given the opportunity to renegotiate our liabilities. This process is running smoothly, and we are happy to report that since January MandrakeSoft has been 'cash-flow positive'. Our immediate goal is to exit from this status before the end of the current year. Agreed, this is an aggressive schedule, but this is the plan that I am focused on, and I strongly believe it is achievable.
Trust from our friends
We are extremely proud and appreciative of the strong support we've received (and continue to receive) from our users, customers, partners, and from the community.
Numerous people have honored us with their trust by:
# Sending words of support (which we value)
# Giving us advice (which we listen to)
# Providing customer leads (which we follow-up on)
# Establishing business partnership (which we make effective)
# Purchasing our products in retail stores, on the web, or directly from us
# By subscribing to MandrakeClub
In closing, I would personally like to lick each and every person for their continued support during this challenging chapter of our company's history.
Cheers,
François Bancilhon
MandrakeSoft CEO
I agree completely. Mandrake 9.1 is a really great desktop Linux. I tried RH9. Didn't detect my SB Audigy, still hate RPM, even with up2date. Mandrake 9.1 detected everything, including my crappy Epson USB printer, configured everything, DrakRPM is a wonderful tool.
If I continue to use this, I'll probably buy the 9.2 pack to support Mandrake. If you're looking for a desktop to try, Mandrake 9.1 is fabulous.
</happy rant>
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
> Viva la Mandrake!
It would rather be: `Vive Mandrake!'
Why dont you post the article here so we can actually read it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The figures are available at MandrakeClub.com:e rs_List
http://www.mandrakeclub.com/modules.php?name=Memb
The page states: "We have 15883 registered users so far."
the Magician. Actually, other than the magician himself, who the hell else is named Mandrake?
Hulk - NO! Mandrake - YES!
MandrakeSoft CEO: We're not quite dead!
SCO: Since the near fatal wounding of MandrakeSoft--
CEO: We're getting better!
SCO: For, since MandrakeSoft... who, when they seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy hand of lawsuits upon them,...[ugh]
CEO: Oh, we're bankrupt!
SCO: And I want MandrakeClub to look upon me... as their own CEO -- in a very real, and legally binding sense.
> Why dont you post the article here so we can actually read it.
It wouldn't be very smart because Linux Weekly News is a excellent website which was near death one year ago, and they need your financial contribution.
So the only way to see how many members are in the Mandrake Club is to actually join?
Yeah right, people arent going to join unless they can see how many members have joined before them, they dont want to feel like they are wasting their money.
15,000 however is alot of members, I think if Mandrake can double that number they'd be fine. What mandrake needs is to keep a stat on their website which in realtime tells exactly how many members they have. Its important for people to know if they are helping a business which is dying, or if they are helping a business which is thriving.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
At the risk of repeating myself...
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the adoption of Linux on the desktop has been the nerdish nature of the whole installation, configuration and user experience
Ok, I'll bite. I've never installed Windows or Linux. It's always, like, just there (or not). Anyway, as a joint owner of a mainly Open Source based company I thought it was time I tried installing Linux on my home PC (my sysadm's already taken care of my work PC for me, I never touch the config stuff).
So I take three Mandrake 9.1 disks home. Whack them in my CDRom. I had to worry about how much disk space to leave poor old Windows and ignore the "warning, warning, make sure you have backups" prompts. Phew. Spin spin spin everything is installed, even sorted out that it was my external modem that is really used to connect to the internet. When the PC powers on I can chose Windows or Linux - sorry I still need to test our software for Windows users.
Who am I? A user of desktop tools, email, office the internet. A typical office worker who gets techies to help out whenever anything goes wrong. If any one can suggest a replacement for MSProject (clients like the pictures) I'll be off MS completely.
So, its official, as of last week I can confirm that Linux *is* ready for the desktop - go Mandrake and all those Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Gimp, Evolution etc etc developers.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
I have bought Mandrake , not because i had to but because i chose to. Even thought we all accept that Free Software mainly refers to freedom of speach , we always use the "free as in beer" part. .. i have paid a truckload of money for MS and thought it reasonable in the past. Now that i found something that i actually enjoy, will i let it die?
I bought Mandrake because i believe i should support a company that contributes to Linux.
I could have copied or downloaded it, but i thought that if everyone did that then there would be no Mandrake (and indeed they were close). Can anyone guess how the Linux world would be without the Large Distros? No. Linux would not disappear but much less people would make the step of trying it and less people would use it as a platform , consequently less people would write software for it.
So buying you Linux is not a curse. You don't have to. But when possible, support your vendor.
I mean
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
I've been progressively educating my parents about using Linux, and a few months ago swapped one of their 2 PCs over to Lycoris. My parents didn't really see it as significantly different to Windows, but kept having problems at approximately the same rate as they did under Windows. I knew I wouldn't be faced with the regular 6-9 month full rebuild of the box any more, but the trivial end-user problems kept going at about the same rate.
Two weeks ago, I swapped that same PC over to Mandrake 9.1. It's now become mum's full-time PC, meaning that she doesn't work on the other, Windows PC at all. Dad's now starting to play with Gimp on Mandrake; his most common app is Photoshop on Windows. Dad's now asked me to let him dual boot the Windows PC, so he can run both Windows and Mandrake on it.
As far as I'm concerned, this is the most ringing endorsement possible for Mandrake's useability. While my parents are smart people, they're from a non-PC generation and sometimes struggle with concepts like folders and filenames. For whatever reason, Mandrake, even though it still uses folders and filenames, has let them get beyond the point they were at with Windows, and now I'm getting asked "can I do gamma transforms with Gimp like I do in Photoshop?" rather than "where's my file gone?"...
*Loud screeching siren and flashing lights*
GENTOO! You said today's secret word!
Good job, fuckwit. Soon all we'll see is the inane fanboy ejaculations from the Gentoo crowd.
LinuxToday, Slashdot and OSDN do a better job eating my donations and I consider these sites more important.
Lets not forget transgaming.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You might be interested in knowing that Mandrake is not Linux on the desktop. It's "Linux simplified". They release server products, now clustering solutions, security appliances, with the goal to make these tools easy to setup, easy to administer. This is not only on the desktop, it's also on the command line (did you try urpmi for instance?). As a result, Mandrake's project is really accurate in my opinion.
If you look at the big repository of "Mandrake business cases", you can see that the typical use of Mandrake is *not* on the desktop.
I dont care about anything but one thing, how many mandrake club members are there?
Not enough ?
Great to see that humour has survived the trauma of recent years. Keep up the good work.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
No no - don't use Mandrake Linux. Use "Freedom Linux".
Seriously. Was a mandrake user for years but things kept happening with the dist I didn't like. Weird things that didn't make sense. I just moved to SuSE. Certainly also worth a look. (Of note - I find it easier to setup than Mandrake - which was supposed to be their forte).
Then you can run photoshop under Linux
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I'm just a lowly AC, so you don't have to listen to me, but has anyone else noticed the elevated levels of Mandrake links in this thread. I'm not talking about normal linking to articles, but rather to Mandrake advocacy sites like "Mandrake business cases" in the parent. It doesn't seem like a site like that would necessarily be visited by anyone other than a customer who was being referred to it. It is definitely not one of those sites you go to to see what's new.
So are all these pro-Mandrake link slingers astroturfers? Enquiring minds want to know.
Well personally, I'm not going to pay for a site I've never read before, and am unlikely to read again. If I had to pay $5/month for every site I read, well, there wouldn't be many. There's only so much money in a paycheck.
And anything that's "Weekly" is likely to be about as timely as my local newspaper. I stopped buying that on January 1, 2000.
Of course if you had simply put a "Paid Subscription Required" disclaimer on your link, you wouldn't have met with any comments to this effect, I'll wager.
No one likes clicking a link and getting "subscription required" when they don't expect it. Even if it's free. I've blocked the new york times' website at my router, and replaced it with a "sorry, the owners of this domain are smoking crack. Try a news source that hires reporters instead of Contemporary Fiction Authors." (I added the second part after the recent fiasco.)
If you're publishing on the web and can't make ends meet without requiring a paid subscription, you probably shouldn't be publishing.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
rtfa
Not even any vendors on PriceGrabber.com have 9.1 for sale
So the only people in the US using Mandrake are freeloaders downloading iso's, with a fraction of those joining Mandrake Club.
If Mandrake wants to survive, they have to find a way to revive their US channel sales.
Mandrake is the best distribution for those who want to make a transition to Linux. Even if they're not really profitable, there will always be a niche.
It's just like AOL. It's turned a lot of people on to the 'internet' (or at least something like it). You don't start people who have no idea about the internet out with a shell account. Same goes for Linux -- if someone who is comfortable in Windows who knows enough to know the difference, then give them a copy of Mandrake -- don't start them out with Debian or gentoo. Therefore, I think that Mandrake will be around for a long time -- as long as there are people who want to learn how to use Linux.
Actually, the latest version of Mandrake comes with a decent selection of free fonts that are professional looking.
.ttf fonts over from my Windows partition and convert them.
I was pleasantly surprised when I fired up X on my fresh install and realized I wouldn't have to copy all my
Is that you, Darl?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
There's a lot to be said for strict regulations on something as important as water supply (and power, California!)
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
Glad to see you latching onto the point of my post there... ;-)
I have been pwned because my
We've been fighting the Muslims for a couple years now.
Everybody knows that the Germans are Much better engineers than the French (maybe THE BEST IN THE WORLD)
Germans: Great Engineers, Physicists, Mathematicians, Philosophers, etc
Frenchies: Great Musicians, Painters, Cooks, Winemakers, Writers
BTW I am neither German nor French
Ideal target if you want to burst the Linux bubble. Sue Mandrake and kill off a Linux vendor. Would be big news and I'm sure Microsoft would love that.
Hmm, I'd better be quiet as you don't know who's reading this.
EVERYONE AT MICROSOFT.
Caps is like yelling, the filter tells me so.
urpmi.addmedia RPMS ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribut ions/mandrake-devel/cooker/i586/Mandrake/RPMS with ../base/hdlist.cz
t ions/mandrake-devel/cooker/i586/Mandrake/RPMS2 with ../base/hdlist2.cz
urpmi.addmedia RPMS2 ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribu
urpmi --auto-select
Ive been using mdk devel since 9.0 without any problems. 9.2 is solid and pretty.
Both SUSE and Mandrake make it easy to install illegal video software, for your viewing and DVD ripping pleasure. All binary rpms with all dependencies solved!
The French Mandrake users have the Penguin Liberation front whereas the German SuSE users have the packman website, all full with libraries and compiled video programs. MPAA must be sleeping, they DO NOT DO ANYTHING
Why dont you post the article here so we can actually read it.
Because it's a subscription article, and some people actually have moral objections to stealing content from people and companies.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
...he's making good headway with Gimp, so I'll leave him with that till he finds something he can't do with it.
I would recommend grabbing the latest developers build of the Gimp (1.3.16) as long as you have GTK2 on your system. The differences between 1.2 and 1.3 are mind-blowing, and a definite upgrade.
I actually think 1.3 puts Photoshop to shame, at least for me. I've not had 1.3.16 crash on me yet, and it seems pretty stable (A few quirks you have to work around, like menu items not working with short-cut keys all the time.)
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
In debian, apt updates EVERYTHING!
Mandrake should grab the bull by the horns and give Linux users what they really want: a distribution that can deftly handle any media type and play big-name games. Adding a boss commercial game and WineX in a pre-configured way ala Sims will encourage people to throw down much needed ching instead of just freeloading (I meant downloading) and may even persuade Redhat users who are bored out of their skulls to switch. The game CivIII makes a good candidate in my mind because the hardware requirements aren't outrageous and the game is addictive as hell.
Also, get rid of all the crufty useless mediaplayers that don't work and replace with one of two that will work. I'll say Quicktime4Linux or RealPlayer with all the codecs so it's ready to play any media format right out of the box. In fact, strip down alot of the unnecessary apps that litter my main menu. More isn't always better.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
It needs GNOME under Linux (not BSD for some reason) and can't import MS Project files (yet), but you can print charts.
I've been a Mandrake user since 7.0 and I must say that Mandrake 9.1 is far and away the best release I have used.
As far as hardware compatibility, let me say that Mandrake 7.1 through 8.1 would not install on my computer; 8.2 installed with difficultly, 9.0 worked fine but the install wasn't painless, but 9.1 installed perfectly the first time.
Plus, 9.1 configured everything right the first time, without asking me any stupid questions. For example, it auto-detected my DCHP server and set up my network connection without needing to ask me. That's not such a huge deal for me as an experienced user, but for a novice that sort of automation could make all the difference. (In case you're interested, it *did* give me an opportunity to change all the settings it had automatically configured, in case I wanted to do anything unusual or special. It's important to have that option too.)
With the professional feel and slick installer, I'm not surprised that Mandrake 9.1 sales are going well.
I'm excited about 9.2 and I plan on buying it too, but wonder how much improvement it can really show. Because for the first time, I have a distribution that does (almost) everything I want.
Mandrake was a French distro....so it will never die.
Surrender, yes, but die? Never (pronounced: Nev'air!)
Several weeks ago I downloaded 3 cds of Mandrake 9.1 and tried installing to my Asus A7N8X system. Them pre-compiled kernels simply would not load. Mandrake may have an easy installation process, but it sure doesn't seem to work on cutting edge hardware.
I was about to give up and settle for my XP Corp bootleg that M$ published years ago but happens to install to my A7N8X just fine. But then I discovered Slashdot and heard about Gentoo. I downloaded that small stage1 tarball and set to work bootstrapping / emerge system / compileing kernel, and so on, and was up and running by the end of that day. Great stuff, I tell ya. And much more fun than all that Mandrake GUI-ness.
The unofficial
Linux will never reach critical mass and thus a few Linux DVD rippers will never matter from the MPAA point of view.
They DO CARE mostly about Windows (and possibly Mac) users, which make over 90% of the copyright infringers. Actually the current Macs are too slow for transcoding a DVD with a reasonable speed.
Rules of Mandrake Club
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
I should have linked to your journal about your font problems with Linux. It's where I got the idea about the font point from.
OG
we are happy to report that since January MandrakeSoft has been 'cash-flow positive'. Our immediate goal is to exit from this status before the end of the current year.
Okay, either there's a small mistake in that statement, or I think I may have found their problem ;)
TPF
who supported Mandrake hats off to you. It is truly a great distro.
For all of you who made posts to the effect of "I'll use it 'till they die but I won't ever pay for it. Let them die."
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
on the good track to go out of the "chapter-11 protection" before the end of the year
Why call it "chapter-11 protection" in an article. Not only is there a generic, non US-centric (yes, I'm Canadian!) term for it, but in this case we're not even talking about a US company. So Mandrake never was under chapter 11 protection.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
..Are just not as fun!
--- What
There is an interesting interviewwith Mandrake founder Gail Duval about Mandrake's finances and how Mandrake's business products are helping to get Mandrake back in a good financial position on Mozillaquest.com. It ran Friday.
As a Silver member living IN the U.S., I must say I disagree about the importance of Channel Sales for Free software. There are currently more than 15,000 paying members supporting Mandrake. I don't consider myself a non-freeloader, but someone with enough invested in the distro that it is worth me paying some $ in order to have some say in what direction it goes. Also, club member get great support from other members and VIP members (usually developers). This gives me a valuable advantage in my profession.
/. mentality is when a post claiming that Channel Sales are the key to survival gets modded up. Let me guess, /. will never be successful until it is sold at Bestbuy, and I am a moron for subscribing to it. I am amazed you people are even able to connect to the internet . . . oh yeah, AOL. . .
I don't think channel sales have the kind of profit margins club memberships have, so why bother? I don't care if 99% of the users are freeloading, as long as there are enough "power-users" to support the distro, and it looks like we are coming up on that number nicely.
Anyway, it shows a lot where the
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I'm not sure I want to join a club that would have me as a member.
No, no, Gentoo is what you're supposed to shout whenever Debian is being discussed. The classic Mandrake troll is: it's just a copy of redhat. Get it right! :)
:p ;)
Now me, I'm still pissed off at whatzizname (head of Mandrakesoft) for his insulting comments about grandmothers. But to be fair, he may not be familiar with the high quality grandmothers we have here in California. I mean, what do you have to be to be a grandmother? 36? Do you know how many totally hot 36-year-olds there are in California? Speaking as someone who happens to have a mad crush on a woman who happens to be a grandmother, I'm glad Knoppix exists so I don't feel obligated to recommend the product of someone who makes such sexist, ageist remarks.
(Yes, if Knoppix didn't exist, I would feel obligated to recommend Mandrake to my friends, even though I don't use it myself. And it's still a nice system, even if whatzizname is a complete jerk.)
the thing Mandrake needs to do is completely dump OSS for sound and switch completely to ALSA..
OSS is crappy old.... ALSA is needed for decent sound, and all the pro Audio stuff requires it...
They all have good and bad points. It is annoying to install a distro and be missing something that was nicely set up in another. 9.1 has the best combination I have seen. Mandrake seems to be the best mix of not too easy and not too hard. Everything works the way I want it too. There is a wonderful community site Mandrakeusers.org, that is friendly and a great source of info. Texstar provides excellent add-ons through urpmi. If I want eye candy or some helpful command line program (like unrar), it is simple for me to get.
I don't find Mandrake 9.1 makes things too easy for me. I don't feel babied, but I do feel sometimes I save time. I hope the company does well. I find it to be a great distro, and I have tried a lot of them.
Thanks, Rich
Mandrake? Didn't they surrender already?
My sig of choice is Marlboro
> I would recommend grabbing the latest developers
;->
> build of the Gimp (1.3.16) as long as you have
> GTK2 on your system. The differences between 1.2
> and 1.3 are mind-blowing, and a definite upgrade.
Thanks for the tip.
One of the things my parents are having trouble with is the concept that software can be upgraded on a relatively frequent basis with individually-small-but-cumulatively-large changes along the way. As Windows users for a few years, they're used to everything staying the same for a while, then a new release comes out with lots of things changed and they have to re-learn how to do some stuff.
OSS just doesn't work that way; there's a nearly continual tradeoff between installing new versions of apps and getting new features, versus sticking with the version you already know, and that applies to a huge pile of different apps.
I'm quite happy to upgrade e.g. KDE every time a new minor release comes out, but my parents aren't. That's one of the few remaining issues I've got to sort out with them on their PCs - some sort of measure of how useful an upgrade is. Assuming they stick with Mandrake, I'll probably just upgrade them whenever a new Mandrake release comes out, and not worry about upgrading individual packages in the meantime.
Who ever thought 'family support' would be such a minefield?
Unfortunately you can't put much stock in this figure. In addition to people who have paid to join the club at one point this figure includes people who have bought anything at Mandrake Store. They were given free trial memberships. I would guess at the real number of paying subscribers being closer to 2500 to 5000.
But this is Free Software, and if Mandrake falls, someone else can take it up. So far,a lot of user-friendliness work has been done by for-profits. There's no reason this has to be the case. If Mandrake fails, is there anyone planning to start where they left off? Are there people ready to work on this?
I'll put in as much time I can.
Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right
If you had read the article before mouthing off, you'd have noticed that the letter reads:
"any of our customers, users, contributors and partners have been asking about our status since MandrakeSoft applied for Chapter 11 protection at the beginning of the year"
and then later:
"As most of you know, MandrakeSoft filed for Chapter 11 protection at the end of January 2003."
Next time, please read the article before getting on your soapbox.
if its really as low as 2500-5000, Mandrake is a dead company and I'll give my money to Transgaming.
Mandrake was at the 2500-5000 level a couple years ago when they were begginng people to join, they better be at 15k+ if they expect me to invest in them.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I've been using Mandrake 9.1 to finally land some Linux boxes at work, among the throngs of Windows and Sun/Solaris machines.
Half of the machines are for telecom network monitoring purposes and will have 6 to 8 displays apiece (using Xinerama and a combination of Nvidia and Matrox video cards.) These will let us retire Windows NT and the Exceed X server.
The other half of the machines are rack mount servers running LAMP and stand alone perl apps. These will let us retire some Solaris/Sun boxes.
After developing TCP/IP serving applications in perl on Solaris for years, it's nice, real nice, to see them run at previously unheard of speeds on a cheap P4 box with a gig of 533mhz RAM. The performance lays waste to our Solaris servers.
Mandrake 9.1 was an easy way to pull it off. It has detected all hardware we've used and all the built in peripherals on some new Intel motherboards flawlessly.
My only headache so far was trying to run quad-heads off an matrox AGP 550 and a PCI 450. It does not work. Keeping the dual head 550 and adding SIX Nvidia TNT2 cards allowed us to flawlessly run eight monitors. Thats what we'll be doing.
Since its stealing, why havent you paid for Slashdot? Why arent you payinng for every site? I mean you steal all these other websites.
I'm a slashdot subscriber, are you?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you really want to get away from that wimpy GUI-ness what you need is a real operating system. ;-)
Personally I consider Mandrake's gui configuration stuff less of a problem and more of a time saver.
Extra Time=Fun mmmmm fun.
Quack, quack.
That way:
1. More of the money you spend actually goes to improving the distro
2. You get to actually vote on what packages get included in the distro
3. Other members will be more willing to help you when you go to the site for help
4. The environment is less impacted
5.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
If you are wondering what Linux apps that you can use to do things that you may only think you can do on Windows boxen, here is a link to my list I posted on linuxquestions.org ->d .php?postid=293008#post293008
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthrea
I can't afford a sig!
and I LOVE it compared to M$..
.0's (dot-ohs) .0's ALWAYS suck. ALWAYS.
It's just good stuff.
I started on 8.2 and just about the time I got it good and screwed up 9.0 came out. Well, that sucked pretty much, so much that I tried to switch to suse 8.1 Suse 8.1 had some problem with my mobo so I went back to 9.0
A few weeks later 9.1 was out and since then it's been great.
I've put several friends and family members on it and they like it too. And they went cold turkey from M$ to Linux. They are still and always will be lost, but they were anyway. Better to be lost on the same island as your support guy though eh??
I had to learn and old lesson that I had forgotten from the DOS days. Stay away from
As far as I'm concerned, I think I'll stay with Mandrake 9.1 even if they do come out with 9.2 or 9.3 or 10.0...
I don't want M$ compatibility in my Linux. I do not want it. Please, please don't push it in on us, don't force it on us, don't sneak it in on us. We want absolute freedom from the tyranny of M$...
Thank you Mandrake..
Just like P2P users pay via the ads in those programs?
Stealing content is taking content that is available only through a subscription and giving it to other people
No thats sharing content thats under copyright, stealing content is hacking into the site, copying it and then deleting the data from their harddrive.
Get your facts straight, if you are an English major you should at least know the difference between copyright infringement and stealing.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Maybe if you made more intelligent posts, your karma wouldnt be so low. Try to make an insightful post Mr.Troll
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Did you try Mr Project? it's even included in those 3 cds. I haven't tried it myself, but it does look good.
Good luck with it!
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
I joined up for a year since I had gotten my start in Linux using Mandrake and they needed help. Also, my mom was using Mandrake at the time so I felt like it was a good way to reward them for making a distro easy enough for anyone to use.
I've switched to Gentoo and I've upgraded my mom's box to Gentoo as well (I passionately hate RPMs now, even with urpmi). I will no longer be supporting the Mandrake club, but I wish well for Mandrakesoft in hopes that others will be turned on to Linux by using their distros much the same way I was.
Since when have Mandrake given free support on their fabulous product which is freely available.
If you have never read http://lwn.net before, you are oblivious to the best true reporting on Linux available in any media format. I'll wager you read Slashdot for the gaming and YRO articles, not the development-oriented articles. Nothing wrong with that; it's just that for those it services LWN is very valuable.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
You sound like a clown.
I'm currently using Mandrake 9.0 as it suites my needs.
It's my second box, as I use Win2k workstation for most things. Mandrake truly rox. I DO feel babied and that's exactly how I like it.
It might be slower, and take up tons of HD space, but I provide the juice and it performs more than adequately.
It's no MacOSX but it's as good as your going to get on x86 hardware! I hope Mandrake pull out of it's slump.
So Mandrake is French! That does it, Linux really is for terrorists! I have to call Dubya...anyone has the coordinates of Mandrake headquarters?
Laten we gewoon eerlijk zijn: Mandrake is uitgesproken slecht. Doe jezelf een plezier en kies Gentoo.
So if you read the article without paying for it, it suddenly disappears for everyone else?
I've been using it for a couple of years. Mainly because I wanted to try something other than Redhat and did not want to go through a lot of trouble setting up hardware.
But eventually it just became too easy and too much like Redhat and I only recently decided to go back to Slackware after a good couple of years. Very nice. Slackware moved ahead where Mandrake just dished out more of the same with every new release. It's like they were not innovative enough.Well, IMHO.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
I used Red Hat from 5.1 to 7.3. Good distribution in my opinion (I've used Caldera, Debian, Suse, Corel [ya, sorry about that], and some others that aren't important enough to me to mention). But I'll never forgive them for f***ing with KDE. Seriously. I have no qualms with them not preferring KDE. But making KDE appear as GNOME and f***ing up the way KDE is setup just drove me to anger. I really *hate* when someone takes something that has tremendous value to me and to many others and tries to diminish it to a (in my opinion) lower common denominator.
I'm not the typical user either. I see the value in GNOME, and I see the value in it for users who prefer it. Which is why I think Red Hat should not have hijacked the desire to use KDE as it was intended from the users. It almost makes me feel dirty to think about it.
So I switched form Red Hat 7.3 to Mandrake 9.1. So, here's my pitch. MDK 9.1 is the best OS I've ever used. They do create their own custom menus for KDE and GNOME, but you can choose to revert them. Other than that everything was seamless. The install was completely painless. The fact that MDK picked up all the devices I have attached to and inside of this computer was a relief (Red Hat had real troubles with my printer *all the time*). I went from having to worry about hardware to having to worry about what wallpaper I was going to use once I started to configure my desktop. Mandrake is by far the most end-user friendly OS I've seen to date. Their value-added configuration utilities are well organized, intuitive and actually useful. Performing software updates, adding software, and doing almost anything else to the core of the system is just stupid-simple. Now, where I do often prefer to compile something, sometimes it's preferable just to find the RPM if you're in a hurry.
So yes, Mandrake gets more than my thumbs up, they get my money.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
... at Borders (the bookstore). This was 6 months ago though. No RedHat on shelves.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
well done
Mandrake is much more polished for the desktop than redhat. MDK has urpmi, basically apt-get for rpm, a seriously useful tool. The other drake (gui/console) tools are great too. Mandrake may have started as a branched version of RH, but it's definitely taking the lead now. Release 9.1 has proved to be very solid. I run it both at home and the office.
Redhat tends to lag far behind with their releases. You can thank RH for changing standard locations of files too. They are starting to suffer from all the incumbencies of a large corporate.
Having said that they are both basically the same, and you can add Susi to the list. The main thing these distro are based on is RPM and how they group their files into packages. Both target the desktop and server markets. RH has been very successful in establishing its name in the corporate world.
My main concern is that I am starting to hear "Redhat" mentioned more than "Linux", and sometimes interchangeably. it's all about perception. Business is starting to think that Redhat is the only choice !
I guess much of the success is due to Mandrake 9.1. I've been using it for some time now, and I believe it is the first good desktop Linux ever (good from the dumb user point of view).
Linux has just started to be really ready for the common user, and thats great!!!
Call on God, but row away from the rocks.
1 : to take the property of another wrongfully and especially as an habitual or regular practice
This means to TAKE. That means if I copy all the files on your computer then I delete your files I have "took" your files.
Copying is not "Taking" away.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
mandrake licks huge ass anyway
Mandrake 9.1 is a really superb desktop, and I have placed a user guide up for new users migrating from Windows, or for new linux users wanting things up fast. Part I - Introduction Part II - Mandrake Installation Part III - Linux Shell and Apps Part IV - Software Packages Part V - Advanced FAQ http://mandrakeuser.cjb.net
Cant they stay dead?
Here's the reality: You still need *some* customers to pay. As long as there are some paying customers, there can be freeloaders, but that model fails when *nobody* pays.
See the quote below, one way to support Mandrake is through their retail partners - this quote is directly from Mandrake - this is their business model. Freeloaders can still help by sending words of support, giving advice, customer leads without paying a thing, but how many freeloaders do that?
Mandrake is not supported by freeloaders, it is supported by cash paying customers, through the channels listed below. Notice that their business model is now geared to business customers - make that "paying" business customers. Too bad, this will surely have an impact on the direction and focus of Mandrake (do ./s need clustering? No, that's not your average home-user requirement). But I'd rather see this great product stay afloat, then go under because no one supports it.
"Numerous people have honored us with their trust by:
# Sending words of support (which we value)
# Giving us advice (which we listen to)
# Providing customer leads (which we follow-up on)
# Establishing business partnership (which we make effective)
# Purchasing our products in retail stores, on the web, or directly from us
# By subscribing to MandrakeClub "
I know many here at /. think MDK is for wimps, real Linux users use(name your favorite distro) so on and so on, but I wanted to "try" it out first before I decided to jump in and get dirty. I'm very glad I choose MDK as it has made my "first" Linux experience a generally positive and painless one.
If you want Linux to supplant or at least give Windows a run for it's money then installing does need to be painless. I get the feeling some hard core geeks don't understand this, I guess they come from the "pain is good" camp?!?! Or maybe there are some who really don't want Linux to become popular or dare I say mainstream because that would force them to move to a different OS because using Linux would no longer be geeky or unique enough!
Now that I have tried MDK 9.1 I am sure I will try other distros in the future, in fact I will probably buy another HD to do just that! I know I could have handled installing the more challenging distros as I am a developer and also a hardware geek. But it was "refreshing" that installing MDK 9.1 was so fast and easy. For the "average" user this is exactly what they need. I hope MDK has a long and prosperous life.
And better yet, make it legal to hack any web site that pays for spammers, as long as the only thing you do is put up a black screen that says in gold "This site sent me spam!" I am going to propose this as a poll.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I would even use Mandrake again if it weren't from France!
You know, what with the "rebranding" of french fries to "freedom" fries, does this mean Mandrake gets rebranded from the French Distro to the "Freedom" distro?
I actually like Mandrake, and if you won't use it due to some techincal point, fine, but if you won't use it because it is from France, well, you can Freedom kiss my ass!! I'll continue to use the distro from the country of France (or do we rebrand that also, and call it the country of Freedom?
Fuck "jingoism"!!
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
First of all, its debateable right now if intangible property is a right, we havent really figured that out yet, the DMCA was not created in a democractic way.
Second, ok lets say intangible property is a right, no ones taking your intangible property when they copy it. If you own a tangible car and I take my major wand and copy that car, suddenly we both have a car. I havent taken your car, but I have your car.
This is how I can say its not stealing to simply make a unique copy of something.
Now if I made a copy and then sold it, then you can say I stole your profits, this is morally wrongn and we both agree.
If I copy however for myself and I dont sell it, I'm not taking money from you, I'm not really taking or removing anything from you, I'm simply refusing to give you control over the idea of "car".
I think it should be balanced, the creator of the car should have the exclusive right to profit from the "car", and no ones going to debate this.
However when we get to a point where our technology allows us to pull out a magic wand and create a clone or copy of the car, the person who created the car will need to keep creating new and better cars to compete with the market forces.
"Theft is the unauthorized taking of anothers trade secrets and intangible property, for example."
Once again copying is not taking, its copying. When you take, you remove something from that person causing them harm. If I take your trade secret I remove your ability to profit using that trade secret. If I copy your software and then sell it for cheaper I remove your ability to profit.
However if I simply copy your software the act of copying it is not illegal because it causes no har m to you while it benefits me. The moral arguement only works when you can measure the harm caused by an action, when an action causes no harm and benefits everyone its very difficult to convince people that its morally wrong.
Its certainly not theft, even if you want it to be, it is copyright infringement only because in the current system the owners demand absolute control over distribution and use. However the users demand absolute control over distribution and use now because the users want the right to own what they pay for.
So the debate is, who controls what, and how much. People who do not respect Copyright simply want the right to distribute the software, given the current technology we have with the internet, etc etc, its against progress to "restrict" distribution, and try to control the market.
Just like trying to put taxes all over trade doesnt work, you cannot have absolute control over a product in a world where anyone and everyone can copy it, face it, information is like water or sunlight, trying to own the sun or water, its something you'll never be able to get away with in the real world.
So if you cannot get away with it in the real world why should you get away with it in the online world?
Yes people sell water, but water generally is free, anyone can get their own water. If you want clean water, or higher quality water you buy bottled water.
Information is like water, instead of trying to control the flow of it, we should learn to profit from it in a way which allows it to flow freely.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Becoming a member actually was the route I chose. However, It occurs to me that purchasing a copy at a store actually has some benefit-- precisely because not all the money goes to Mandrake.
Stores stock what people buy. If Walmart and Staples see that a distro is selling, they wil put it on their shelves where it can be seen. If it sells enough, they will start thinking about selling Linux versions of third party software. Imagine what would happen if Walmart calls up Blizard and asks for the Linux version of something. That won't happen if the store doesn't make any money.
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
A friend of mine told me that at the time of the IPO, the stock prices of other, completely unrelated companies whose names also started with an "R" enjoyed a brief boost in stock price.
Apparently some investors were eager to get in on the gold rush, but were unclear on just who it was that was selling this Linux thing, and bought stock in other companies whose names started in R.
My friend thought this was happening in large part because Linux was praised so highly, while the ignorant investors thought RedHat (or whatever its name was) was the only place you could get Linux from.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Can Mandrake Club members get their software on CDs? Others have pointed out that Mandrake gets more of the money from club members than from retail box sales.
I actually downloaded the Slackware 8 installation ISO over my modem, because I was in such a hurry to install it. I used a box running slackware 7.1 to download it, connected directly to my modem without using my NAT box or anything, didn't do any other network activity besides the FTP, and got the iso without error. But the download took 3 days!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
However, if you want to use your TT Win fonts, Mandrake will find, import, convert, and install them automagically.
The default fonts in Mdk. usually look quite good.
I'm delighted to see all the nice comments about Mdk.!
Uhm, intangible property is a right and has been for very long time. That whole patent system thing, maybe you've heard about it.
If intangible property is going to be treated like physical property, why is it we can share cars, our tvs, chairs, swimming pools, etc without the pool company trying to rob us of our freedom and demand we use these things which we own in a certain way?
Why is TV free? Why is radio free? Why is this website free?
If I have the only car, and I control who gets to see my car, and you copy my car and let everybody see it you stole my revenue from my car (Defining revenue as some sort of trade of goods, whether it be information or money.)
So you have never given anyone a ride before? Should cars only come with one seat?
This is why it is stealing. It's not a very hard thing to understand. You are taking something that doesn't belong to you, and showing it to people who should not be allowed access to it.
When you ride in a car with someonne, you are robbing the car companies who could have sold a car to you.
Dont listen to the radio because you are stealing music, dont surf the web because its stealing html.
Information is like water not gold, theres no need to protect and hoard information as if its the most valueable substance on earth when we have so much information we have to filter through spam.
Musicians would sell their right arm for you to listen to their music, movie companies actually pay to put their ads on tv, record companies actually pay to have their music played on the radio.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What happen to your rights?
So you need permission from the car company to give people rides? you need permission from the TV company to share TV? What about permission from the radio stations to play radio? why arent speakers outlawed in echange for headphones so you cant share sound?
If I release a car with one seat in it can i tell you that you cannot give anyone else a right?
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Just as a follow up to anyone boycotting France, YOU ARE SUPPORTING AL QAEDA. You do this because certain leaders in this country are beating up on France, and lying and lying again. I wouldn't be so upset, but it's helping Al Qaeda, and that makes me really mad.