Mandrake 9.2 Initial Review

joestar writes "Mandrake Linux 9.2 was released yesterday, and a first review is already available at ofb.biz! It focuses on the new desktop-oriented Mandrake 9.2 flavor, the Discovery, a 2-CD office/multimedia product for beginners which comes without any server capability. It seems that a new competitor to Windows is born, and according to Tim Butler, 'Another key to making a distribution novice friendly is insuring that everything works out of the box, and Mandrake Linux 9.2 succeeds there.(...) To the best of my knowledge the only other distribution presently including the Radeon drivers from ATI is Lindows.' Waiting for reviews of 'real' Mandrake 9.2 products (PowerPack, Corporate Server...), this review is nevertheless quite comprehensive and very interesting reading, and this new Mandrake Discovery thing should do well with the public, at least as an office desktop affordable solution in corporations."

Comments

Discovery.

[ideatrack]

I like the look of this Discovery package, if it lives up to it's promise.

The main thing putting most everyday users off Linux (arguably the people who need it most, just look at the reaaction to Blaster) is how to learn it. XP is dayglo and simple, that's why people use it.

If Discovery is attractive, easy, and comes with a nice little introduction to get started, that's got to be a good thing.

Re:Discovery.

[garett_spencley]

XP is the "latest greatest", and it's down right stable compared to 9x/ME.

Simplicity has nothing to do with anything. XP really isn't that simple to use, at least compared to MacOS, yet Windows still has the majority of the market share.

There a few reasons people use Windows:

1) It came with their computer.
2) They have no reason to change.
3) Everything imaginable, just, plain, works.

I'll elaborate on point #3. Devices, apps, games etc. You can walk in to any Staples or Best Buy and pick up any piece of software or any printer, digital camera, mp3 player etc. bring it home, plug it in, insert the cd-rom and presto! it just works.

Even if Linux is a million times faster and a million times more stable and has a replacement application for every common windows app if you take away that one little piece of convenience you may as well forget it.

KDE and Gnome are very windows-like and any person who's been using a Windows computer for more than a year will pick up how to use those two desktops with very little effort. I'm even reminded of a recent article published here on /. about a non-biased study which claimed that KDE is pretty much just as easy to use as XP.

Yet why change? What's the problem exactly that Linux is supposedly able to fix? Stability? I'm running XP right now and I've had more hardware issues than software.

The only thing I can really think of that Linux offers over XP, for non-tech users, is security and the ammount of free (as in cash, not beer) software that's available for it.

I work professionally as a UNIX admin right now. I deal mainly with Linux boxes, though we have some Solaris. I used to use Linux exclusively on my desktop, and to this day I wouldn't dream of using a non *nix OS at work. I can think of millions of advantages that Linux has over windows for coders, web developers, sysadmins and anyone who's really techie and likes to hack at their computer. .. but for people who just want to check their e-mail, surf the web, look at pictures of their grand children, listen to mp3s etc. I can't really think of any reason to justify them switching to Linux. No matter how easy it is to use.

Now don't get me wrong. There are hidden costs to using Windows, such as MS licensing, the MS tax etc. Considering that I do look forward to the day when Linux is installed on every new desktop PC being pushed out of Future Shop and when every single device will work on Linux out of the box, ditto for games and apps. But until then I just can't see recommending Linux to anyone but my techie friends.

- Garett

Re:Discovery.

[NamShubCMX]

The main difference, I think, is that you are in control of your OS. If you want, you can change any part of the source you don't like, re-compile, and there you go, features you needed.

Of course, this isn't simple like that, but still, it is *possible*

This means that the "monoculture" doesn't really exist. Everyone can change configuration, default apps etc as they please, because they're in power of their system. I often read that having many choices (many kernels, many WM/DE, many apps that do the same things, etc...) is "hurting linux adoption on the desktop". I won't argue this, I let you be the judge, but one thing is sure, it eliminates the "monoculture" effect.

With windows, you're pretty much stuck with windows, and what Microsoft thought was best for their software / their shareholders / their clients / their bank account. Yes, windows can be configured in many ways, but you are not in *total* control of your system. Microsoft is.

Therefore, if 100% of the computers would run on GNU/Linux, I don't think it would be as bad as 100% running on Windows (or Mac OS, or any closed-source, proprietary OS) because even though you can install a distribution and be happy with it, you could always build it yourself, change what you want. When you need a feature, you *can* add it...

Anyway I think my point was made by now :P

Re:Discovery.

[blixel]

DLL Hell and a no-name audio card with a auto-configured IRQ conflict will make bald men even balder, young women turn into Pug-faced hags, and kids turn inside out spilling their Speghetti-o's all over dad's new desk.

Are you trying to be funny? Or are you just stupid?

Nothing you mentioned is valid. And even if it was, how is it any worse than buying hardware for Linux?

Research the product you want to buy to make sure it "works" with Linux. 2 or 3 weeks later when you find hardware that "works" (meaning Linux can see it, although 50% of the functionality is removed), you go out and buy it. You bring it home, plug it in. Nothing. You find out your kernel doesn't have support included for the hardware you bought. So you recompile the kernel. Reboot. Several hours go by of tinkering with config files and boot options. Then you spend another 2 or 3 hours on newsgroups and Linux help sites and find out that your kernel version doesn't have support for the product even though it claims to. So you get a patch. Recompile the kernel. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot again back to the old safe kernel. Fix the problem. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot. Fix the problem. Reboot. No kernel panic this time. Woohoo! modprobe ModuleName. Some obscure meaningless message. More research. More newsgroup searches. You find 150 people describing the exact same problem you are having. But unfortunatley no one seems to know the answer. You reboot again just for good measure hoping against hope it will magically fix the problem. It doesn't, of course. After a 30 hour marathon in front of the computer to get your device working, you fall over on the floor and pass out. 12 hours later you wake up feeling like death has sucked out your soul, but get back to work anyway. Another 8 or 10 hours goes by. By now you've downloaded 50MB worth of libraries, source code, drivers, scan tools, etc... and installed it on your system. God only knows where. You feel like you need to format and re-install just to clean up your system now. A dozen or so reboots, and kernel compilations later you decide the device might be defective. So you reboot and select your WinXP partition to verify that device is physically bad.

"Found New Hardware -- Would you like to install it?"

"Yes" ...... ......

"Your hardware is now ready to use!"

Re:Discovery.

[swv3752]

I had the exact opposite problem. HP printer connected through USB. In Mandrake (some aold version from over a year ago), it took a couple of clicks in PrinterDrake to install. No fuss, no mess, as easy it one could imagine. One could hardly ask for a more pleasurable experience that does not involve alcohol, drugs, and/or sex.

Now in Windows, I made the horrible mistake of leaving the printer connected. Most hardware on most OS's, you connect the hardware then instal drivers. But some idiotic HP engineer thought it would be funny to design thier drivers so that if you do not connect the printer halfway through the driver install, it will not work. I guess they were trying to top the Low created by ATI. After finally editing the registry to show ghost devices, I was able to yank the misconfigured printer driver out of Device Manager and get it installed. My POS Acer Prisa scanner will actually make tolerable images in Linux, good luck getting anything better than a bad photocopy in Windows.

The only thing I would need to recompile my kernel for to get working fully, is my 8-in-1 card reader. Apparently there is some scsi option I need to enable to use anything besides the compact flash reader. As I primarily got it to read CF and the other things were a bonus, I am not in a big rush to recompile.

Re:Discovery.

[Archie Steel]

Which piece of hardware gave you so much trouble? I'm curious, because in my 2 years of using Linux I've never had any problem using any piece of hardware. I installed Mandrake Linux, it detected all of my hardware on the first pass - even connected itself to the Internet for security updates once I put it the gateway's IP.

Hardware compatibility is a shrinking problem. 99% of computer hardware now works with Linux distros out of the box (with the notorious exception of Winmodems). The only additional step is installing proprietary drivers for NVIDIA cards (although the 2D works with the nv driver that comes with the distros) - but that's ridiculously easy, requiring you to run a script found on the NVIDIA site.

I haven't installed new hardware on WinXP yet, but I can already tell you that adding new hardware is as easy - if not easier - on a modern Linux distribution such as Mandrake 9.X

Laptop

[darkmeridian]

Mandrake seems to be the best Linux OS for newbies and laptop users. On my Dell Latitude D800, Mandrake 9.1 worked perfectly. The new release betters support, but Mandrake isn't just a newbie release but also for laptop users.

Re:Laptop

[Dan-DAFC]

I like Mandrake but on my newish Toshiba Satellite laptop it doesn't install properly, ACPI issues I believe. I had to choose the alternative kernel to install 9.1 then use a rescue CD from an older version to boot it and build my own patched kernel, more effort than I would have liked.

I tried 9.2 RC2 and the problems were the same so, unless somebody knows otherwise, I doubt the final version will work either.

Re:Laptop

[arcanumas]

Mandrake seems to be the best Linux OS for newbies and laptop users.

I don't understand this. Why should we say that Mandrake is for newbiew. Do you mean that it is not good for someone experienced in Linux? If it works out of the box then it MUST be evil is that it?
There are some iritating things about Mandrake, yes (automounter anyone?) but i can not say that it is made for stupid users and does not allow the knowledgable user to do his work. I can install a Mandrake distro and have it running perfectly in much less than Windows or any other distro i have seen. (but i haven't seen them all)
I would like to hear someone come with a good explanation why Mandrake is a Newbie Distro. I have seen other distros and it all boils down to the same things. If you can do it in one you can do it in the other.

I am afraid that it is the same old thing. When something becomes popular the it must be evil right? If you are not using WeirdUnsusualAmazinglyBizzareDistroFromHell version 0.666 then you are not 31337 right?

Download the ISOs now, for free

[bconway]

Torrents of the GPL ISOs are availabe at http://suprnova.org/. Search the front page for "Mandrake" and you'll find them (their location has changed a few times, so I won't post direct links).

The more people that jump on, the faster it'll be, so spread the word. These are the download editions and legal under the GPL, of course. You can check the md5sums against those posted in the earlier Slashdot article comments.

Re:Download the ISOs now, for free

[slux]

The idea of releasing the isos two weeks early to the club members was to give some kind of a benefit to those who've actually bothered to support the development of the Mandrake GNU/Linux distribution.

They could've gone the other way like SuSe and many others (Lindows, Xandros and so on) - make a small insignificant bit of their distribution non-free and let no-one download the isos, but they wanted to try something that would keep the whole distribution free, right according to the GNU philosophy.

They decided to trust that their club members would hold off distributing the isos just for the short time of two weeks. In my mind that would've been the decent thing to do. Limit the leeching a bit for a very limited time period and create a little incentive for actually giving something to the company that has done all the work.

Moderators, could you not mod this down?

VMWare included?

[DaneelGiskard]

From their Features Page:
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/92/dis covery

8. Compatibility: run MS-Windows and Mandrake Linux on the same computer

And next to that they show a screenshot of Windows XP running in a Window through VMWare.

If I wouldn't know better (a VMWare license costs around 300 bucks) I would assume that this is included in the Discovery Distribution (which costs 39 bucks) and I would be pretty pi**ed ...

But other than that it looks interesting :)

Re:VMWare included?

[hcuar]

Ok... Just checked... VMWare is included in the PowerPack. Which is $69 US dollars. Discovery Distribution doesn't appear to offer VMWare.

Re:VMWare included?

[scosol]

IIRC VMWare3 is now "free" for use-

VMWare4 (providing signifigant other abilities) is the premium paid version.

Look here: http://www.vmware.com/download/

Article Text

[Anonymous Coward]

FIRST LOOK: Mandrake Linux 9.2 Discovery Edition
By Timothy R. Butler
Editor-in-Chief, Open for Business
October 14, 2003, 12:45:03 EDT

It's official. By the time you read this, Mandrake Linux 9.2 will be available to Mandrake Club members around the world. Mandrake Linux 9.2 marks the first release from the "big 3" distributors in about six months. If you're wondering whether you should rush out and install it, read on for our first look at a distribution from the Fall 2003 distribution release cycle.

For the purposes of this brief preview of Mandrake Linux 9.2, we tested a copy of the new "Discovery Edition" provided to us by MandrakeSoft. The Discovery Edition replaced the "Standard Edition" offered in previous releases, but it isn't just a fancy new name - it's a desktop focused distribution intended especially for novices (although, we feel more advanced users may be pleased with the simplicity of the Discovery Edition as well).

First there is the installation. Now, if you've installed any of the major GNU/Linux distributions in recent times, you know that most are quite simple to install as is, and Mandrake Linux is no exception. Discovery Edition takes a page out of the LindowsOS and Windows XP installers, however, and makes the existing Mandrake installer even simpler by removing package selection. While many additional packages are included for installation later, should they be needed, Discovery Edition focuses on installing what the average user needs without making them sift through tons of unfamiliar programs.

Once booted, Discovery Edition includes another quickly apparent simplification - task based menus. While Mandrake usually includes task-based menus as an option in Menudrake, they wisely chose to make it the default in this edition, thus freeing the user to worry about what they want to do rather than how they want to do it. I found the menu layout very intuitive, making it a snap to find the programs I wanted for various tasks. The standard menus were also available as a submenu for those wanting a specific tool for the job.

Another key to making a distribution novice friendly is insuring that everything works out of the box, and Mandrake Linux 9.2 succeeds there. When the system was booted for the first time, we were surprised and delighted to find ATI's official FireGL driver for the Radeon 9700 video card was already installed. To the best of my knowledge the only other distribution presently including the Radeon drivers from ATI is Lindows.

Other hardware that has been problematic also was installed. Our Hewlett-Packard PSC 2210's photo card reader was automatically mounted and unmounted (with a convenient icon on the desktop) - making it as easy to access the compact flash card that we inserted as it was to access a CD. This puts Mandrake Linux further in the lead as far as Hewlett-Packard multifunction devices are concerned, since we are unaware of any other current distribution that even properly detects the PSC 2210, much less properly configures the photo card reader.

The only issue we had with the hardware was actually a non-issue - the master, speaker and PCM volume controls on the soundcard were muted. Admittedly I should have caught it, but I overlooked the PCM volume control in my haste. It would have been nice if the friendlier aumix had been preinstalled along with kmix (which gets absolutely obnoxiously large when used with a SoundBlaster Live), but if this is the worst we have to complain about, it isn't much.

Also included was the newly released OpenOffice.org 1.1, which just barely made the release cycle. With this release's much speedier startup times, using the suite is much more pleasant than before. OpenOffice's many new features perfectly complement the Discovery Edition's improvements in usability to make the distribution perfect for a Windows replacement on an office desktop with no fuss at all.

We were esp

That page is an excelent example that...

[phre4k]

You should always make php-scripts die if the db fails:


Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/uninet/public_html/open/includes/sql_layer.p hp on line 235 Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/uninet/public_html/open/includes/sql_layer.p hp on line 235 Warning: mysql_free_result(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/uninet/public_html/open/includes/sql_layer.p hp on line 491 Warning: mysql_fetch_row(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/uninet/public_html/open/includes/sql_layer.p hp on line 283 Warning: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in /home/uninet/public_html/open/includes/sql_layer.p hp on line 339

Time to change domains...

[johnthorensen]

...to www.cfb.biz

5.274 minutes after being posted to slashdot, ofb.biz is now Closed for Business :)

-JT

Mixed blessing

[Lane.exe]

I've always said that Mandrake would be the distro to cause MS users to seriously consider switching. I started my Linux oddysey on Mandrake (hell, I still use it!) and fully believe that it offers the widest spectrum of a Linux experience.

The average user can get it working right out of the box (or download). That's something you can't say for most Linux installs -- or even some Windows installs. The hardware support is phenomenal.

And the ease of use doesn't have to detract from its power -- Mandrake gives you plenty of choices, from a fully-loaded, app-laden KDE or Gnome interface to light, fast WMs like Fluxbox. And best of all, it's Linux, pure and simple, so that all our favorite apps are still there.

I originally switched away from Mandrake because of the poor package management they used to have, but the implementation of urpmi in 9.1 convinced me to scrap my Debian install for Mandrake. Package management is a breeze once you get your sources configured. It's still not as developed as apt, but at least it doesn't break things the way apt is wont to.

Mandrake is Linux's best hope for widespread adoption.

Secure!

[supabeast!]

"...which comes without any server capability."

No daemons listening, no remote overflows! Yummies!

Desktops are "real"

[fmaxwell]

Waiting for reviews of 'real' Mandrake 9.2 products (PowerPack, Corporate Server...)

It's that kind of elitist attitude that keeps Microsoft happily selling countless copies of Windows XP while Linux venders have to beg for donations. 99.99% of users don't need to run their own web server, FTP server, SMTP server, Telnet server, or SSH server. They use their computers for web browsing, games, e-mail, word processing, and maybe doing their taxes. They wouldn't know how to configure USENET news servers if their lives depended on it.

To look down on an OS release solely because it isn't configured for a server role is silly. And it's counterproductive. Do you think that Microsoft would sooner give up server OS sales or desktop OS sales?

A desktop product is no less "real" than is a server product. It's just an OS for a different audience. If we want to see Linux prosper, it has to get a real foothold on the desktop and, for that reason, this release is far more important than the "real" releases to which you referred.

Re:Development?

[Apostata]

Generally, yes. The Power Pack includes some Java authoring tools et al, but the vanilla 3-CD download comes with gcc KDevelop and other standard goodies (and sshd).

Re:"Newbie" Distros

[Divide By Zero]

I definitely agree with you.

I think people equate "newbie distro" with "crippled" or "unsuitable for the power user". I think a newbie distro can still be useful to somebody who knows what he's doing.

I'm a Solaris admin by day, and by night, I don't want to have to WORRY about it. Sure, I -could- invest the time in getting some crufty complex distro running, but I don't want to. I'm not obsessive-compulsive about programs on the system I won't ever use, so I let Mandrake install them. If I need something, I can put it on. Pull down the RPM or build it from source. It's not like it's not supported.

At the end of the day, if it's Linux, it's running the Linux kernel and you can do what you want on it. It's just a question of what other junk comes with it. I happen to like the junk Mandrake includes, especially their installer. I can click through most of the default options and have a functional system up in the time it takes the package to install, and still watch hockey in the background.

If you (in the general sense, not you-the-author-of-the-parent-post) derive your geek-self-esteem by doing more work to make your computer run than I do, more power to you. I'll spend the time doing something else, and you can be the bigger geek.

DMCA ALERT!!

[Stevyn]

you just told people how to circumvent something having to do with a computer! That's in violation of the DMCA. VMware's stock (I know they're private, humor?) just went down .004% and cost them millions which you must pay back.

Slapped Down!

[Bombcar]

Wow! Nothing says "bitch slap!" as much as someone with a UID over half a million being whipped around by a RatBastard with a UID of 3 digits!

*Bows before the Low UID Overlord*

Sorry, I assumed everyone knew . . .

[Idou]

Mandrake used bittorrent this time, so the club members were supplying their own bandwidth.

Mandrake released first to club members to reinforce the value of the membership. As a club member I support this since it also means a certain number of people will decide to join the club just to download early (100 or so people did become members for that reason, only to be disappointed that they could have waited a day to get the download for free). More members means a better distro and a better member site.

You are right, I am going to talk to Mandrake about implementing an exclusive copyright on the installer and configuration tools for a limitted time and then releasing those under the GPL AFTER the club members have all had a chance to download the distro first. I suppose this problem will be resolved by the next release (there are simply too many hardcore freeloaders to get around this).