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Mandrake Linux 9.2 Hits the Street
joestar writes "Just announced at Mandrake's website, Mandrake 9.2 (FiveStar) has just been released. Mandrake Club members get full access to 9.2 ISOs (through BitTorrent), as well as... all 9.2 contributors and translators. But the best news, in addition to all (impressive) 9.2 features is that everybody can access the traditional binary & sources tree! Public release of Mandrake 9.2 ISOs will happen at the same time as Mandrake 9.2 Pack availability in retail. It makes sense."
If by "streets", you mean the gilded hard drive pathways of MandrakeClub's paying members, then yes, Mandrake 9.2 has hit the streets. For the majority of the public you're talking a release in 1-2 weeks.
Yeah, you are. The club is alive and well. Which means I'll be firin' up the old Bittorrent client as soon as I get home tonight!
Reminder: find a new sig
So I was a Mandrake user for the both the 7.x and 8.x series. I liked it a lot, but I also had quite a few crashes (usually KDE apps). I know lots of other people have had the same gripe about Mandrake in the past, i.e. that it was very nice, but pretty unstable.
Has Mandrake's stability improved in the 9.x series? I'd especially like to hear from folks who were testing the Cooker versions that became 9.2. Thanks.
Ripper: "Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie use Windows?"
Mandrake: "No, Jack. I can't say that I have."
Ripper: "Linux. That's what they use, isn't it? Never Windows?"
Mandrake: "Well, I believe that's what they use, Jack. Yes."
Ripper: "On no account will a Commie use Windows? And not without good reason?"
Mandrake: "I don't quite see what you're getting at, Jack."
Ripper: "Windows. That's what I'm getting at. Windows, Mandrake. Windows is the source of our economy. Seven-tenths of the earth's economy depends on Windows. Why, do you realize that 95% of all computer users own or use Windows?"
Mandrake: "Odd."
Ripper: "And as human beings, you and I need fresh, regular Windows updates to replenish our precious Intel-based applications."
Mandrake: "Yes."
Ripper: "Are you beginning to understand?"
Mandrake: "Yes."
Ripper: "Mandrake. Mandrake, have you ever wondered why I use only Windows NT, or Windows XP, and only pure closed-source software?"
Mandrake: "Well, it did occur to me, Jack, yes."
Ripper: "Have you ever heard of a thing called the GPL, the GPL license?"
Mandrake: "Yes, I have heard of that, Jack, yes."
Ripper: "Well, do you know what it is?"
Mandrake: "No."
Ripper: "Do you realize that the GPL is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Commie plot we have ever had to face?"
FYI I'm getting an average of about 20KB/sec with bittorrent. Certainly not lighting fast. Peak has been about 140KB/sec, low around 5KB/sec. Estimated total time about 17 hours.
Some of the members of Mandrake Club can't get the ISOs because they are behind "transparent" proxies set up by their ISPs. The reason is that MandrakeSoft is using the user's IP to allow the bittorrent download, but for people behind this proxies MandrakeSoft sees the proxie's address instead of the user's address and doesn't authorize the use of the bittorrent tracker.
This is happening to anyone using Spain's Telefonica ADSL. This covers almost everyone in Spain.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
If you want optimized, install gentoo instead. Contrary to popular belief, you don't actually have to compile everything. If you download the CDs for your architecture, you'll find that the included binary packages are compiled for your architecture alerady.
-- Stu
/. ID under 2,000. I feel old now.
You make technology decisions based on vague rememberings of something that you can't find evidence of?
Maybe you're thinking of the ads displayed during the install process rather than spyware? That's a pretty hefty accusation to be tossing around, even in a vaguely-worded statement such as yours.
I've had success installing Mandrake using the network install floppy. Here are some simple instructions, but the gist is that you download the network.img and note the location of a rpm mirror for when it asks you. It downloads a 45mb cramfs image and uncompresses it to memory so you should ideally have 90+mb of ram, or mount a swap partition from one of the other terminals.
I would recommend doing a very minimal install consisting of nothing but GNOME or KDE and any servers you wish to run. Then after the install, use urpmi to install any other packages. With 9.1 I would get lynx and use it to grab a list of mirrors from Easy Urpmi. I recommend using Texstar's repository whenever he starts packaging for 9.2. The page currently only has 9.1 and earlier sources, but expect people pestering him from this link to illicit an update.
CSS is an optional encryption on DVDs, if a DVD isnt encrypted, you can play it back.
This excludes virtually every hollywood release, of course. But arent we boycotting them anyways, to make them bow to the mighty spending power of the unemployed IT worker?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
So if I join the club I get access to all the contributors and translators? Like, I can make them mow my lawn and stuff?
Karma: T-rexcellent.
They addressed this already.
It seems kind of slow due to slashdotting.
On a side note, this time the slashdot sensationalism really disapointed me. I've been eagerly checking Mandrake's site for a while now, I've got a computer that's waiting to have 9.2 installed on it. I'm waiting for the free download, then as soon as I'm sure I like it, I'll run out to buy a copy. Does anyone know if Best Buy will carry this one? I saw them with an older version years back.
This space for rent, inquire within.
Ok, Mandrake's site is running really slow, and I still have the window opened, so here's the text of their press statement:
A controversy has erupted today in the Linux community about the upcoming Mandrake Linux 9.2 and advertizing. Although the overall reaction from the community is mostly positive, a few people don't seem to be happy about having advertizing in Mandrake 9.2. We'd like to explain briefly why we have done this and why you shouldn't worry.
0) There won't be any ad in the screensavers in Mandrake 9.2
There will be one paid-ad in the installation procedure, and a few paid-links in bookmarks.
1) Ads are selected and won't be intrusive.
Our advertizing plan is only offered to MandrakeSoft partners - we select only ads that make sense as complementary Linux solutions. Additionally, ads won't be intrusive (no pop-up windows) and can be removed easily.
2) There have been ads in Mandrake Linux for years.
Maybe you didn't notice it, but in the installation procedure and in browser's bookmarks, there have been many links to Mandrake products, the GNU project, many Open Source projects and so on. In Mandrake 9.1 there was the first "commercial" link to a technical book content provider. Nobody was annoyed, we didn't get any feedback about that.
3) Free Software and business model.
As we are firmly committed to Open Source/Free Software, we want to keep on exploring business models that are compatible with this spirit.
This space for rent, inquire within.
As I'm downloading it right now, I'm wondering however if releasing to everybody through bittorrent wouldn't have been a better choice, as that would imply faster downloads for club members as well ...
The Raven
Samba 3.0 (release) is in the cooker contribs with package names samba3*. I'm running it now at work. It's packaged to be installed (but not ran) simultaneously with Samba 2.x, using a 3 suffix for all conflicting files and directory names.
Haven't seen the 9.2 release contribs though - has anyone? At least a Samba 3.0 RC should be in there, if not the release.
Free != free.
Once you've paid for it, you can do anything with it (within the GPL's limitations) - including re-selling it to someone else, or putting it up for free download via BitTorrent. If someone puts it up for free download, you can get it - perfectly legally - for free.
Mandrake also has the freedom NOT to provide it to anyone who hasn't paid, as long as the source is included with the binaries they're selling.
% mkisofs -b network.img -c boot.catalog -o bootcd.iso
mkisofs: Missing pathspec.
I added network.img to the end of the command and it worked:
% mkisofs -b network.img -c boot.catalog -o bootcd.iso network.img
Size of boot image is 2880 sectors -> Emulating a 1440 kB floppy
Total translation table size: 2048
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 0
Path table size(bytes): 10
Max brk space used 3000
768 extents written (1 Mb)
___
Cognitive Overflow
more than yo