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Mandrake 9.2b1 Released, 2.6 Test Kernel in Cooker

Posted by timothy on from the making-things-easy dept.

DCowern writes "Mandrake today announced 9.2 beta 1 of their distribution. More interestingly, Mandrake has included a test version of kernel 2.6 in cooker (their development version). It's dated 27 July so it should be on all the cooker mirrors in the RPM2 directory by now. If you can't find it on your favorite mirror, it's definitely on ftp.sunet.se." Better yet, Bruha points to BitTorrent files for the 1st 2nd, and 3rd ISOs, and a link to the Mandrake 9.2 wiki, writing "Note that the beta1 installation uses the same kernel as 9.1 did, so if you had problems installing 9.1, you may want to wait for beta2 (which will use an updated kernel)."

39 of 219 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet... by GameGod0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will this be the first major distro running the 2.6 kernel?

    1. Re:Sweet... by MuParadigm · · Score: 5, Informative


      I think so.

      Word on various boards seems to be that the 2.6 kernel is much faster than 2.4.x. People are claiming improvements of up to 50% in some operations.

      Of course, these are early adopters, most of them with single cpu machines. I haven't heard of anyone testing it for robustness or stability in a high-end environment yet.

      Anyone else got word on it's performance or bugs?

    2. Re:Sweet... by MuParadigm · · Score: 5, Informative

      Sorry to post to myself, but I was wrong about Mamdrake being the first major distro to supply the 2.6 kernel. Red Hat has had an RPM for a few weeks.

    3. Re:Sweet... by Tirel · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well, not really, gentoo has had the option since 2.6.0-test1 came out. The portage tree is wonderfully updates within a few hours with the main branch and others (mm, aa, ac, ck, ...), so the only thing you need to do is check out /usr/portage/sys-kernel and decice which one you want to have at install time (or later, if you're upgrading like me)

    4. Re:Sweet... by mickwd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Well, not really, gentoo has had the option since 2.6.0-test1 came out."

      Yes, but all Gentoo does with a kernel is download the source and install it into /usr/src/linux, leaving you to configure it, build it and install it.

      Anyone who can download a file and use 'tar' can do the same thing, quite easily.

      And when you install a new kernel, Portage doesn't even tell you which ebuilds need to be re-installed (nvidia-kernel, i2c, lm-sensors, etc).

      Not knocking Gentoo (I run Gentoo and Mandrake), but the binary distributions do more of the hard work for you. To some people that is their strength, to others it is their weakness.

    5. Re:Sweet... by Slime-dogg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Gentoo's had the source available in portage since test 1 was released. It works too.

      The only problem is that you need to use the open nvidia drivers, since the old drivers are not compatible. Who knows when Nvidia will release a version for this kernel. :sigh:

      --
      You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
    6. Re:Sweet... by Bryce · · Score: 2, Interesting

      OSDL has been doing heavy duty testing of the kernel 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6 on 1, 2, 4, and 8
      processor systems, for the past 2 years. See
      its Kernel
      Testing website and tools. The particular tool
      that does this is the Scalable Test Platform.

      Bryce

    7. Re:Sweet... by jonadab · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Of course they could always include it as a 'try this if you dare'
      > advanced feature

      That's what Mandrake Cooker is all about. The regular Mandrake
      distro is somewhat less bleeding-edge (though more cutting-edge
      than some other distros), but Cooker is for testing alpha stuff.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  2. 11 days late by peek-n-squeeze · · Score: 3, Funny

    Beta 1 was put onto the mirrors on 22nd July. So by the time you read this, it'll be at beta2

    --
    "My dog needs new ears"
    1. Re:11 days late by jm.one · · Score: 2, Insightful

      August 2nd + 11 days = ? oh it is so hard to understand so i`ll explain. July 22nd: Mandrake 9.2iisos where put on mandake ftps and mirrors. July 24th: the Mandrake website was updated so that day was "offical annouce" August 2nd: there`s a slashdot aricle claiming that mandrake9.2b1 was released today span between July 22nd and August 2nd is 11 days. i hope now you got it.

  3. If you're running Redhat... by warmcat · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... note that this guy at redhat is tracking the test releases with redhat-installable RPMs, over RH9.

    If you try it, note that you must upgrade modutils and some other packages given in the link. Many modules have changed names, like usb-ohci.o -> ohci-hcd.ko so you will need to do some screwing around. I have been running test1 then test2 for a couple of weeks from the link on top of Redhat 9 and it has been working very nicely.

  4. Why is this on the front page? by groove10 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know a lot of people use Mandrake (myself included), but really is it necessary to annouce the beta version of a point release? C'mon... Not that many people are interested in burning the ISOs for a b1. When the point release comes out of beta, then maybe it deserves a front page article, but this is just wasted space on /.s front page.

    --
    MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
    1. Re:Why is this on the front page? by antiMStroll · · Score: 4, Funny

      What part of 'News for Nerds' do you find confusing?

  5. test kernels by Tirel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Don't be fooled by labels such as "beta" and "test", I've been running 2.6.0-test1-mm2 on a server for about a week now and it's extremely stable. If you need any of the features that the 2.6 branch introduces or if you just want to try it out, mandrake is the way to go.

    OTOH, the only thing I dislike about mandrake is that they force KDE down your throat like it's the next best thing after bread and butter, I really wish they would include mode optinons at install like wm2, ion, openbox, icewm, but also install the qt and gtk libs in the background so you could run gnome/kde applications. That way more people would find out about the alternatives to KDE (it's too distracting and relativealy slow for my tastes.)

    1. Re:test kernels by Tirel · · Score: 5, Informative

      read this

    2. Re:test kernels by Azureflare · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Most Newbs who will be using that package selection during the install (i.e. not selecting individual packages) aren't going to want to muck around with the more complicated interfaces (Hey, I think it's complicated, and I'm a newb...kde and gnome are reassuring, because they are more like windows than the others. I like the speed of icewm, but config of toolbar/menu is a pain, and KDE is just so much easier.)

      I think KDE is a good newbie GUI, and it's pretty effective for the average user. If you include all the window managers (A heck of a lot) it will only confuse the user. Limiting it to two good, solid GUIs that are very user-friendly, especially to people coming from windows/mac, is a good idea on Mandrake's part. If you're a pro, you should be using individual package selection. There's no other way to tailor a distro to an individual's tastes, since everyone is different.

  6. Don't post to stories you don by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Please don't post to stories that you don't think are interesting. If you do, you will just post uninteresting comments. A new release of a beta of linux version is very important. That's how the news reaches those who would beta test. I'm very interested in knowing what to expect, even if I don't test the beta.

  7. Re:Unfinished product? by azzy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    New users shouldn't be using a beta

  8. What, 16 alternative WMs too few? by buchanmilne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OTOH, the only thing I dislike about mandrake is that they force KDE down your throat like it's the next best thing after bread and butter, I really wish they would include mode optinons at install like wm2, ion, openbox, icewm, but also install the qt and gtk libs in the background so you could run gnome/kde applications.

    $ cat /etc/mandrake-release
    Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (Cooker) for i586
    $ urpmq --sources enlightenment windowmaker blackbox xfce olvwm waimea AfterStep amiwm evilwm fluxbox fvwm fvwm2 ion ion-metadome pwm ratpoison rox-session swm
    ftp://ftp.cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/ Mandr ake/RPMS/enlightenment-0.16.5-13mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp: //ftp.cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS/WindowMaker-0.80.2-4mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://f tp.cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS/blackbox-0.65.0-1mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp. cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS/xfce-3.8.18-1mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.cae. co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/swm-1.2.5-3mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.cae.c o.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/fvwm2-2.4.16-2mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.ca e.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/amiwm-0.20.48-6mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.c ae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/waimea-0.4.0-3mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.ca e.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/olvwm-4.4-14mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.cae. co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/AfterStep-1.8.11-3mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ft p.cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/ratpoison-1.2.2-2mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp .cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/fluxbox-0.9.4-2mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.c ae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/pwm-1.0-11mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.cae.co .za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/ion-metadome-20020605-3mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp ://ftp.cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/evilwm-0.99.14-1mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp. cae.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/fvwm-1.24r-23mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.cae .co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/ion-20030627-3mdk.i586.rpm
    ftp://ftp.ca e.co.za/pub/mandrake/cooker/i586/Mandr ake/RPMS2/rox-session-0.1.20-1mdk.i586.rpm

    (this is our internal mirror, find your own)

    Is that enough? (oh, there's still qvwm in PLF, since it looks too similar to some other desktop we know).

    Mandrake has never forced a desktop on anyone, and all you need to enjoy the Mandrake configuration tools is gtk+2 and perl.

    Sure, not all the window managers are in the main distro, but without contrib, you're missing half of the distro anyway!

    1. Re:What, 16 alternative WMs too few? by buchanmilne · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sure, the default is KDE, usually with GNOME also (would you prefer newbies straight from Windows to be dumped into ion?), but you can uncheck KDE and GNOME during installation in the main package selection (this has been the case as long as I can remember, so at least since 7.0), and installing a different one is trivial. Plus, they all work out-the-box from whichever display manager you use, and most of them have the consistent Mandrake menus throughout.

      If you don't want KDE, all you have to do is uncheck one pretty obvious checkbox ...

    2. Re:What, 16 alternative WMs too few? by buchanmilne · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'd prefer they be started with something sensible that doesn't cause them to think 'Linux is slow and bloated' right off the bat, frankly.

      Remember that the competition now isn't Windows 3.11, it's Windows XP. We don't need to worry about bloat too much by default, but we are behind on features and usability.

      If speed was all that mattered, why don't we just give them twm, mutt, links and vi?

      Sorry, but there is no way you can put ice up against WindowsXP for a newbie, but you can with KDE, and maybe the latest GNOME release.

      I think it would give a better initial impression to most newbies.

      Riiight. Why can't I drag and drop to the desktop? Where is my "My Documents?", "Where is my CD-ROM drive?", "Why is the text in the menus so ugly?. Maybe 7 years ago, before Windows 98 ice could have competed with Windows ...

      Instead, these things are left exclusively for those of us that know about them, know how to find them and how to configure them on our own time, while the newbies are being given a very bad impression of Linux

      No, the people at mandrakeusers.org, mandrakeclub.com etc will quickly set them right.

      if they try to install it on anything but a brand new box at least.

      KDE plus OpenOffice.org plus Mozilla plus a few more utilities run just great on my 800 Duron which is now 3 years old (assuming you have about 192MB ram or more). My girlfriends 366 Celeron/128MB ram machine is a bit slow, but not noticably slower (except OpenOffice.org startup) than it was running Windows98.

    3. Re:What, 16 alternative WMs too few? by Reziac · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Speaking as a DOS/Windows user (accustomed to beating every species of Windows into submission, from 3.1 thru XP), Mandrake is the *one* linux disty that I immediately liked (out of a dozen or so that I tried), and found relatively straightforward to use right off -- for pretty much the reasons you cite. My first impression was "It works enough like Windows to be immediately usable", *not* "WTF do I do now??"

      I really oughta update it, but.. I have MDK 7.2/KDE on a P3-450/256mb (a poor old K6-200 was too slow) and even that venerable disty compares more or less to WinXP on the same hardware. Not exactly crisp, but not notably laggy.

      I'm glad to see Mandrake still progressing despite the company's setbacks. It gives me hope that there *will* be a viable alternative for myself and my clients, once M$'s ambitions go where I won't follow (as threatens to be the case with the next consumer Windows).

      BTW, the MDK newsgroup was the first linux watering hole where I was *welcomed* as a newbie, rather than derided for my ignorance. Cheers!

      --
      ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
  9. Re:The Mandrake Boycott (IMPORTANT!) by PeteQC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president. If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop.

    What are you saying? Oh no, there's other country outside USA... We should not help them. Yeah, they should buy US products, but please don't buy their products?

    And after that, people will still be amazed that there could be an anti-american feeling in the old countries...

    --
    Montreal - Best city to live in!
  10. Re:Unfinished product? by snoozerdss · · Score: 5, Informative

    Mandrake Linux 9.2 Beta 1 has arrived to offer you the opportunity of an entertaining summer bug squashing. Ranking of this next Mandrake, as for level of refinement, is partly in your hands. Join forces with the Mandrake Development team! Install the Beta and send your reports. Remember however that this is an experimental distribution not suitable to everyday-tasks machines. Take care.

    Thats from Mandrake's website.
    Jeeze...RTFA next time. Or go look up the definition of BETA software.

    --
    Snoozer.
  11. Huh? by ErikZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought Mandrake needed millions of dollars in donations or it was going out of business? What happened?

    --
    Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
    1. Re:Huh? by t482 · · Score: 3, Informative

      There distribution was alway profitable. It was there other business which pushed them into the equivalent of chapter 11.

    2. Re:Huh? by buchanmilne · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I switched my attention from Mandrake to Red Hat when I read that Mandrake was doomed.

      Isn't that like kicking people when they're down? Here I was buying stuff from them (since I do generate spare income using Mandrake), and contributing to the distro, when I should instead have dumped and run for a distro that doesn't pay attention to the features *I* want?

      Now it looks like Mandrake is back on track

      They weren't ever off-track ... they have just had to cut down on cash-sapping activities, like expo-attendance etc

      or are they releasing work that had already been done and this is going to be the last we hear?

      Well, since they went into bankruptcy protection, they released 9.1, which was a pretty good release. And since 9.1, they have been making serious changes to allow greater community participation, to the extent that community contributors who know their stuff have commit rights into the main distro (although more recognition for the community work on maintaining the ports to alpha, hammer, sparc and ppc would be nice). But they have done a lot of work on GUI cleanups in the config tools etc, added more features in urpmi, and of course updated to the latest packages.

      And they are still innovating more than Redhat ever did (unless the only thing you use linux for is an Oracle cluster - in which case you're probably better off with SuSE anyway ...).

      Now, imagine what they could do if they had enough resources to employ more hackers?

  12. Re:Unfinished product? by rocjoe71 · · Score: 4, Funny
    is mandrake trying to push an unfinished product on us?

    Those *jerks*! The nerve of them shipping a BETA release with bugs in it.

    And here I am, sitting around like a fool thinking "beta" was short for "betar than the final release".

    --
    Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
  13. Heh, Slashdot's slow . . . by Idou · · Score: 2, Funny

    I downloaded those bitorrent iso's last week, way before they could get slash . . . wait . . . bitorrent . . .

    I CAN'T WIN!

    --
    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  14. I would like to see OpenOffice 1.1 in mdk9.2 by t482 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have been using OO 1.1 now for 6 months or so. Its beta - but it is very stable. Some of the features (print to pdf) make it worth including it in the distro now.

    Also does anyone know if they have included the Ximain OO hacks for OO?

  15. Learn some econ, Troll-Boy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look, when I spend $50 on Red Hat instead of $2000 on Microsoft, the other $1950 doesn't just disappear. I spend it on other goods and services. So I still purchase $2000 of goods and services into the world economy, it just goes to more people than the ass-hats at Microsoft.

    Ironically, the name of this fallacy is the "broken window fallacy".

  16. Re:The Mandrake Boycott (IMPORTANT!) by coats · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president... What are you saying? Oh no, there's other country outside USA...

    One of the most profound students of "what is different about America was the Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville. I*n his book Democracy in America describing what makes American culture distinctive, he said that the inclination of Americans to form informal, community-based non-government, non-corporate associations in order to do the projects the community needs. Volunteer fireman associations are but one common example.

    And now the Internet has expanded the notion of community past walking-distance geographic boundaries, has expanded those needed community projects to include Linux, Apache, and the like, and has exported the whole volunteer community association idea to the world.

    The sad thing is that now big government and corporatism -- and collusion between the two -- are destroying that uniquely American practice of volunteer community associations at home!

    --
    "My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
  17. Torrents by Bruha · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Those torrents I pointed out are from mandrake themselves.. They're running the tracker appareently.. I have not looked but I bet BT is installed in 9.2b.

    Now I'm curious what bandwidth savings Mandrakesoft made with using Bt to distribute the files!

  18. I hope Mandrake doesn't burn it's self on this one by Mipsalawishus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The last Mandrake release ran a 2.4.21 prerelease kernel. I personally never had any stability problems with it. I also understand that Mandrake tends to gravitate toward the bleeding edge of the packages they include in their releases, but the kernel is one place I think shouldn't be included in this manner. I think Mandrake is a wonderful company who makes an awesome distribution. I even have a customer's server running Mandrake 9.0 for 7 months and they haven't had a single problem with it (they use it for Samba and DHCP primarily). I suppose if one is looking for the latest and greatest, look toward Mandrake. Otherwise stick to Slackware or Debian for more matured packages in a distribution release.

  19. Re:The Mandrake Boycott (IMPORTANT!) by WindBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am a fool, but...
    Now that I have your attention, I would like to discuss the larger issue of Linux in general. It is time for us, fellow patriots, to look at our situation in the world on a global scale. Microsoft is an American company. Bill Gates started with nothing and built an empire. What is the problem here?
    Bill Gates father is a high-end corporate attorney. Bill grew up in a house that would be the == of somebody makeing > 7 figures today. In fact, Bill's father funded much of the early work. That is the fact.
    There are many american enterprises that are failing due to MS's tactics.

    We should be supporting American enterprise, not undermining it. The simple fact is that no true partiot would use Linux at all. In these hard times we must rally around our companies, our economy, and our president.
    And the www.whitehouse.gov runs what? The software that is sold to the CIA/NSA/Home Seucrity requires what? Say the word; Linux. Even the DOD is now moving to Linux as their base.
    I agree about the economy. As such, our companies that have to move forward, but can not spend money wastefully, have all moved to Linux and are getting profits. Google, Amazon, Walmart, and Lowes are either running Linux or are moving to it (quietly).
    I find it ironic that you are pushing MS when the net is horribly slow due to something aimed straight at its black heart. Likewise, the fact that Ridge had to issue a national security alert yesterday about it.
    And this disregards the fact that MS IIS systems account for less than 25% of web servers and yet have nearly 100% of the credit card thefts (normally American CC's; These could be used by terrorist to further blow us up).

    If we let the 'Linux Community' have their way, we will all be at the mercy of the Germans making KDE, or the Japanese with their desktop. Do you plan to learn Japanese in the near future? You may have to, if we don't start poneying up to the bar and laying it down for our cause...
    hummm.... free enterprise sounds like a good cause. If they are better, well.....

    I hate the fact that I even took a second to answer back, but man, oh man...

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  20. Re:France by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Since Red Hat is an American distribution, will it brutally murder innocent civilians after I install it? Will it leave dupleted uranium on your keyboard? Inquiring minds want to know.

  21. Re:The Mandrake Boycott (Please Read!) by Centinel · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Pretty hard to boycott something you can't even buy

    Mandrake 9.1 isn't available from any vendors listed on PriceGrabber.com, and I doubt 9.2 will be either.

    Face it, Mandrake's US channel sales suck.

  22. Re:The Mandrake Boycott (Please Read!) by antiMStroll · · Score: 2, Funny

    In this day and age of slapdash, sophmoric, poorly crafted trolls, it's a rare pleasure to find an artiste of your stature craft a world-class gem such as you've graced us with today. Patriotism, xenophobic rants, feux anti-capitalist baiting, dead and foreign language links, you wield them as a master wields the foil. Sir, I salute you and your unwavering determination to rise to the top of your field.

  23. Re:9.2 will default to a 2.4 kernel by buchanmilne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But in my opinion, Mandrake 9.1 was such a dramatic change from 9.0 that it should have been called Mandrake 10.

    Well, some people complained that it was too similar to 9.0, and that it should have been called 9.0.1!

    RedHat seemed to have got away with it.

    Well, they broke binary compatability with their premature inclusion of NPTL.