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Mandrake 9.2 ISOs Available
joestar writes "Since LG has released updated firmwares and a recovery procedure for all so-called ATAPI LG cd-rom drives that were "destroyed" by a feature of Mandrake 9.2, MandrakeSoft has publicly released the set of Mandrake 9.2 ISO images which are now available on a number of FTP mirrors. Mandrake 9.2 is one of the few remaining 100%-OSS major Linux distributions, so considering a MandrakeClub membership or joining Cooker - Mandrake's open development version - is certainly an excellent idea."
Here's the feature list.
is mandrake available for PPC G4?
http://www.thebesttrek.net/forum/index.php - visit my FORUM
But their computer components leave something to be desired.
What im grappling with is whether this is actually some form of Hardware Darwinism...
Mandrake is good stuff, and getting better every release. Kudos!
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
Redhat doesn't want my busness anymore, so it looks like a perfect time to try mandrake.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Given that the ftp servers are getting pretty whacked, a link to a .torrent would be very welcome.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
Pardon me for the stupid question, but what does that comment regarding "few OSS distributions remaining" mean? I can see how "few remaining COMMERCIAL distros" would apply, but last I checked, there are thriving gentoo, debian, and even LFS communities out there, not to mention slackware, all those debian based LIVE CD distros, and hell, even FEDORA. What exactly is the poster's intent by that comment?
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Mandrake 9.2 is one of the few remaining 100%-OSS major Linux distributions.
Whatever happened to Gentoo, Debian, and Fedora? The only major distribution that isn't completely open source is SuSe.
-Kernel 2.4.22 (a Linux 2.6.0pre kernel is also provided in contribs)
-Net code 6.1 which halves ping times
-XFree86 4.3 (including long-delayed support for scroll mice!)
-Glibc 2.3.2 -GCC 3.3.1 (no more pointer errors, the Turing-complete code self-checker works great)
Thier ISOs are hosed up.
There is supposed to be three ISO files, instead, there are only two files. ISO two at 700+MB only doewnloads at 300MB then stops.
This is on all FTP sites.
Whassup wit dat?
I'm so glad they got this fixed, and I hope this whole sorry incident can be swept right under the rug. 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, but not if it's screwing up people's cd rom drives. Thanks for the speedy fix, guys.
Is there a standard for being a 100% OSS distribution? Who decides that? What other distros are 100% OSS.
I think other distros need to look to Mandrake as the leader it is in making free software easy-to-use. Mandrake's distro isn't perfect, but it has come a long way in helping me to enjoy my Linux use.
:)
Off to join MandrakeClub...
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Good job guys, you're helping to keep linux alive and kicking on the desktop!
I dont know if I'm dumb or what but I can't find the firmware on LG's website.
killall -SEGV init
This is a listed benefit of the Mandrake Club:
" * Full access to commercial applications which are normally only available in retail packs. Over 130 high-quality
packages built & tested for Mandrake Linux can be installed with a single mouse click. Applications include
easy-to-use web browser plugins, Java, powerful commercial applications and demo versions, software drivers, and
lots more"
Which basically says, you can download commercial software which would normally be in the retail package, when a member.
BitTorrent link from Mandrake. It's located on the download page right before the FTP mirror list:u x-9.2-DOWNLOAD-3CD.torrent
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/download/MandrakeLin
1 LG CD-ROM drive detected.
Would you like to pray for it?
Did you pay for your RedHat or did you just download the ISO images for free like the rest of the freeloaders aka "free software advocates"?
Giving away stuff is NOT a way to do business. RedHat realized that. How long will it take from the other guys?
The drives re-implemented the FLUSH_CACHE command to update the firmware. The standard allows either to implement it (and do nothing on a CD-ROM drive) or to not implement it (resulting in an error), but not to use it for something else (and they chose to do something potentially catestrophic with it).
;-)).
So, drives with older firmware aren't compliant, and their degree of non-compliance results in the drive erasing it's own firmware (I mean, they could instead have re-used the command to open the drive tray
I believe the "so-called" part is from the manufacturer not sticking to design specs and also having bad code implementing what they did design that caused the CD-ROM firmware to be scrambled when a particular "Flush" command was sent to the drive.
-- D3X
NeoX3.com: The ONE, the Only, the first truly Free Adult Entertainment site... [I'm serious]
Slashdot headline in 20 minutes: Mandrake 9.2 ISOs No Longer Available.
The problem was that they did not correctly implement the ATAPI standard. If the drives received a certain ATAPI command, they would die. This is, of course, a violation of the ATAPI standard, as well as poor engineering. Thus, the "so-called" adjective was appropriate --- the drives were labeled ATAPI, but were not actually ATAPI.
as much as i love linux, and use it everyday, i would have to say that this Mandrake is something beyond anything we could ever comprehend as mere mortal souls.
Firstly: with the improved configuration tools, one has a much simpler time configuring all the periphrials and setting the time in the little clock.
Second: the NTFS partition resizing is a definate must. To be able to resize partitions through this feature shaves minutes off the time that it usually takes to do those types of things.
So with all those things, this is without a doubt the best thing ever to be brought upon Gods green earth, and I do love Him for blessing us with such a masterpeice of a product.
Thank you Jesus.
Yes, it was a problem with the firmware on the drive. See the following page for full details.
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/lgerrata.php3
Was it a problem with the drives not having a standard ATAPI interface?
Yes, LG re-used the standard (and harmless) ATAPI command FLUSH_CACHE to mean "upload firmware", which is what caused this problem.
Does this re-release contain all those updates to other packages that they released for 9.2 earlier?
They're "so-called ATAPI drives" because they reused one of the standard ATAPI signals (flush-cache) to do something else. Flush cache is meant to flush the buffer on the drive, but they implemented it to clear a drive's firmware.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
Does anyone know if these new ISOs will contain the patches that have come out since the last ISOs were released? It would be a waste of bandwidth to have to download them again.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
- I can't unplug my Dell 5800 laptop while running or it locks up, same with plugging it in while running. Working on the cause.
- BE SURE to check your MD5 sums. I've had more bad disks with this release than the last 3 or so releases combined. One bad disk would not only fail to install a package, but would break and remove several others unless the offending package was removed. Then voila! the broken packages return to the menus and functionality.
- Handles 3d hardware acceleration fine for my ATI 9500 card, but no 3d for my 9700 pro (5 install attempts and dozens of fixes) I will not give up... Must..get...CWET...working.
- K3b is the default burning software, so just change your cd drives to ide-scsi and save yourselves some headaches over "unusable" drives
- Mandrake-galaxy is a theme that actually appeals to me. And I generally can't stand themes no matter the platform.
Other than these major points, I think this is the best Mandrake yet. I can't wait for kde 3.2 and the 2.6 kernal. I'm just not feeling that adventurous yet.... but i will soon.
--sigs are like giraffes, they can look cool sometimes, but they don't make any noise.
The LG drives in question were not 100% compliant with the ATAPI specification. The drive firmware re-mapped the optional, rarely-used "clear cache" command to "upload firmware". As a result, when the Mandrake drivers issued the "clear cache" command as part of the initialization routine, the drive firmware was erased.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
It's really simple. That and I want my download to go faster :-P
"so-called", because they redefined part of the ATAPI protocoll (the flush_cache command) for their own purpose, which caused the problems.
Here's the torrent:
u x-9.2-DOWNLOAD-3CD.torrent
:-)
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/download/MandrakeLin
Make with the downloading...I'm only getting 160k/sec so far
I have a girlfriend whose name doesn't end in
Now, to see about talking my manager into having us join the Mandrake Club....
There's no wrong way, to eat a Rhesus...
Others have speculated that mandrake is due to be snapped up, perhaps by HP . Perhaps this is a good time to pick up a little Mandrake stock, no?
As a "power-user" I really don't like how Mandrake hides so many settings from me. Like I installed Mandrake on a laptop with a USB Network dongle and I needed for Mandrake to wait until the laptop had loaded the drivers for USB before doing the network settings. I could not figure it out though! No where in the settings could I tell it to wait and tell it when to set up the network. Each bootup I had to go back into the CLI and type in ifdown eth0, ifup eth0 in order to get my network up.
:-)
Its just little things like that, that need to be ironed out of Mandrake and I think it'll be a great OS. As a Windows user, I sort of expect stupid crap like that to work correctly. I love the power *nix OS's give me, but I'd rather not have to deal with these silly configuration issues. I think thats the biggest drawback with Mandrake and all other Desktop *NIX's. When dealing with server software like Apache, PHP, MySQL, Perl, etc... everything seems to work together seamlessly, but in the Desktop... it feels like each piece of software is in a different universe.
-- D3X
NeoX3.com: The ONE, the Only, the First truly FREE Adult entertainment site... [ I'm Serious ]
I had numerous problems with my 9.1 install:
- kernel-source not included
- Error-loop installing CDC ethernet driver
- secsup mirror was unreachable!
- After I ran Mandrake Update all my KDE and GNOME menus were EMPTY!
- No screensavers with default install
- Python couldn't find itself
- Couldn't compile and run Karamba or SuperKaramba(ay carumba!)
Many thanks guys. I was just doing an update on my Mandrake 9.2 when you guys hit the servers. No update for me today.
Just ot let you know that I have been using it for 2 weeks and think it is really good. Only had one problem with acpi on my laptop but that got sorted.
Even have my parents using it and to my suprise they like it. The joy of being able to remotely administer their machine from my house are great.
I'm pretty sure I didn't hear of SUSE or RedHat doing this.
AFAIK, SuSE (and Gentoo) did. And, Redhat quite often ships with CVS snapshots of core software (glibc), pre-releases of others (gcc), and other large patches not used by others in stable releases.
The glibc on RH 9.0 caused lots of problems (MySQL apps would not compile, installations with large numbers of users/groups were broken for a few months).
Mandrake is, and always has been, buggy at best.
Probably no worse than Redhat, and pretty close to SuSE and Debian testing. Stable software, new features, choose 1.
Another example would be if, we were discussing "Linux Distributions geared towards homosexuals," then of course the answer would be Gentoo.
I've been using if for a few weeks now and it kicks ass
We lost two CD drives before we clued into the problem. Luckly both were on warranty and Dell replaced them with Samsung CD-RWs! :-)
We are about to test the 9.2 distro which contains the "fix" for this problem (read as: do not send a flush cache command to LG drives as they are wacked").
Don't know about the LG firmware upgrade as I could not find it with a quick search.
Merlin.
You can't be an Apple user. This statement gave it away : get a girlfriend. You should have said get a boyfriend.
I hear using Gentoo would would help reduce the stress you are apparently suffering from. Gentoo also cures headaches, purifies water, makes a great floor polish and desert topping. I added a quart of Gentoo to my car, drained the oil, and have been driving it for nearly a million miles. Recent scientific studies indicate that Gentoo cures cancer , brings the dead back to life, and adds spice to any decor.
Try Gentoo... it's not just for Gentoo zealots any more.
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can't unplug my Dell 5800 laptop while running or it locks up, same with plugging it in while running. Working on the cause.
Broken local APIC. Boot with 'nolapic' to workaround it.
Handles 3d hardware acceleration fine for my ATI 9500 card, but no 3d for my 9700 pro (5 install attempts and dozens of fixes) I will not give up... Must..get...CWET...working.
There are updated ATI driver packages on the Club, you may want to try those.
than I want you to right now. The intense desire for your painful demise is tearing at my very being. If I ever meet you in person I will murder you, then murder your wife for marrying an absolute moron like you, then murder your kids so your genetic material is cleansed from the earth, then murder your dog for crapping on my lawn, then murder your parents for the inconvience they caused me, then I will burn all your bodies, piss on the ashes, bury them in the woods and salt the earth so nothing will ever grow there and erect a flaming crucifix to mark the spot of your soiled being. I will then conduct a Wiccan voodoo ritual to seal the deal with Lucifer Himself that your souls will rot eternally in the dankest pit of the Seventh Layer of Hell in puddles of the molton feces of single mothers and homosexuals. Fuck you.
I like the way it sounds like "gentle". It's a distribution to us men who are aware of their feminine side and can appreciate the finer things in life.
RH is NOT dropping consumers. They directly support (and even control) the Fedora project. The only real difference is that Fedora is more community orientated than RH was, and has a new name.
#include "sig.h"
Look at it this way. A "destroyed" drive is not really fried and fucked, it's "destroyed". If Windows had fried and fucked a CD drive for exactly the same reason and under the same circumstances, the submission would read like this:
Of course there would be the obligatory retarded "editorial" comment by the Slashbork editor to the tone of "Well, I use OS X so this is not a problem for me, but I do feel for everyone who lost a drive this way".
In the original story there were people claiming that "hey, LG drives are shit anyway" and "well, CDRs are so cheap nowadays, why not just get another". I mean, WTF??
FUD is wonderful, especially when used by the very people who complain its used so much against them. Victims, I tell you, all of them.
This is just an unfortunate bug, nothing more and nothing less. But when if you spin it, maybe you can make it look like the blame falls squarely in the manufacturer's lap, and Mandrake gets off like shit off a shiny shovel. $deity forbid Microsoft or anyone else that is not a Linux distro tried to do this.
But hey, I use Windows 2000 and XP. So far they haven't destroyed - or "destroyed" - any of my hardware. Sometimes it's even detected, too!
1/2 ping times ????
no more pointer errors ????
Dude, don't hog the bong. Pass it on.
This is probably more of a kernel issue than a distribution problem, but to me, is utterly unacceptable. SATA has been out for several years now, and is still unsupported by Linux.
Oddly enough, Windows had no problem installing on the drive.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Uhhhh...
You do realize that OSX is based upon the open source code for BSD UNIX, right?
We must be alert to the danger that public policy could become captive to a scientific-technological elite. - Eisenhower
Yes, I bought Redhat Linux in stores. Its like paying for an album on mp3.com. I like it, and I want to support those responsible for its creation. That isn't the easiest thing to do with OSS, but buying comercial linux offerings is the least I can do.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
My brother recently gave me a copy of the old ISO's. You can imagine my surprise when the following happened: I tried to compile something and found that the kernel source isn't installed by default. So I went to install it. Guess what--the kernel source wasn't on any of the CD's! What's up with that?!! Isn't that a violation of the GPL? Is the kernel source on the new ISO's? If not, why? Someone please enlighten me.
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
Does that include anonymous gay sex through the gloryhole in the men's bathroom?
I bought all of those shrink-wrapped boxes, because Redhat Linux was a lot easier to set up and use, than if you were to do a Linux From Scratch setup. Redhat is still free (as in freedom), but it's a little more expensive now, because people like me who support quality, supported free software have to pick up the slack for the freeloaders. This whole thing is bad news for the freeloaders, who are now left with the orphan child that is Fedora (or they can move elsewhere), but it's good news for Redhat. They're not sorry to see the freeloaders go. Freedom. At what price? Is it worth it? For $60 a pop, it sure was to me. For $180 and up, no, I don't think so.
I have the Mandrake 9.2 Power Pack DVD (I'll support Mandrake now, and hope that others do the same, so that they don't disappear or go the way of Redhat. I can play DVDs and play Frozen Bubble, all without having to muck around, searching for the right RPMS or find out where to get Perl-SDL, or whatever I need to compile Frozen Bubble. I'm sure it can be done, but like Redhat says, this is not the sort of stuff Grandma wants to be doing ("eh? Make? Configure? What's this you're talking about, sonny?"). Mandrake takes care of things like this for you, while Redhat never did. Makes me wonder why I didn't switch to Mandrake earlier. I just hope that all the freeloaders will reconsider their actions, and consider giving Mandrake some money, if they like what they have to offer.
Its just little things like that, that need to be ironed out of Mandrake and I think it'll be a great OS.
/etc/modules
Indeed, but no-one is going to iron it out if it isn't reported.
This looks like a hotplug/coldplug issue. Does it come up if you boot up, remove the dongle and plug it back in?
It looks like this ight be your bug. Please subscribe to it, and/or add any additional info that would help use fix it.
Another issue may just be that the modules aren't loaded, you can hack around this by adding the necessary modules to
I have to say that this is the best Linux distro that I have used. KDE is getting great and love hearing new releases of each of these.
But can I install it to my SATA RAID-0 array? Typically these distros include modules, but NOT on the boot disk/kernel, therefore I can't install to a RAID array. Anyone try this?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
-kernel-source not included
kernel-source was in 9.1, not on the 9.2 ISOs though
After I ran Mandrake Update all my KDE and GNOME menus were EMPTY!
Never seen this reported for 9.1
Python couldn't find itself
This normally only affects users who installed cooker packages on 9.1, and didn't remove the old libpython2.2 package.
Couldn't compile and run Karamba or SuperKaramba(ay carumba!)
Superkaramba-0.32b is in contrib for 9.2. So, maybe you weren't running 9.2?
Major commercial distribution. Gentoo, Debian and Fedora are great, but for a commercial player Mandrake has been a surprisingly upstanding member of the OSS community. Not only in keeping Mandrake free (as in beer and freedom) but actively using alternative funding methods in an attempt to reasonably sustain that freedom (in a commercail marketplace).
I've got a lot of respect for that.
Quack, quack.
Slackware dying?
Who are you? Stephen King?
$30 Off All Plans: Use code TRIPLESAWBUCK
Nice troll tho!
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Heres my brief review of my Mandrake 9.2. I was going to write up a big review of my whole experience of upgrading but this story came up to soon. So here goes...
The installer is hands down the best installer for Linux I have ever used. They've managed to improve it quite alot from 9.1, it asks me less questions and just plain works. I noticed there is only *1* advertisement show during installation. I'm sure most of you would be happy about this, I think it's kinda sad because this has to be bad for Mandrakes bottom line.
As for the OS itself, some nice improvements to be noted. It does indeed seem to be quicker and more optimized then the previous version. It does have a few notable bugs though. I noticed things mysteriously dissapear off the menu in KDE when installing new software. This seems to have gone away since I applied all the updates. Also, in the startup sequence... networking reports a [FAILED] condition although it actually appears to work. These things were annoying but I managed to find work arounds.
Lastly, it looks like they have made a pretty good effort to remove some of the clutter they were previously infamous for. No longer is there 50 text editor, 20 shells, and other junk to sift through on the menu. They pretty much stick to basics which is a nice improvement.
Blender And Linux Fan
The question that most Mandrake to-be users are asking: Do the new 9.2 ISOs that have been released include the 300MB of updates so far, or just the new kernel RPMS? Anyone know? It's not mentioned on Mandrake's site, though downloading after the fact isn't a huge problem.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
First off, I love Mandrake 9.1, and have every desire to see them succeed.
HOWEVER, if you order the Powerpack on DVD, you're discriminated against. Those who order the CDROM versions get limited techsupport, probably one month membership in the M. Club, and bound documentation. DVD ROM Powerpackers get: one (1) DVD ROM.
Allegedly you also get limited technical support, but I am at a loss as to how to access it since that information also wasn't included.
Anyone wanna start a class action against Mandrakesoft ?
Run the "unstable" (or "sid") branch, and you will have stuff that is NEWER and better tested (more development and desktop use) than nearly any other distribution
Hence, not better tested than it's own stable, but better tested than other unstable branches in other distros.
Get back to work...Fox News doesn't pay you to read slashdot, Mr. Out Of Context...
The download version is 100% OSS software. If you join the Mandrake Club, you get access to additional commercial applications. These applications also come with the retail package, which is a nice little box including Mandrake 9.2, the commercial applications, and lots of documentation. You wouldn't be confusing applications with the operating system, would you? ;)
LG drives are standard on about 1/3 of the Dells out there. If Mandrake doesn't test a large variety of the most common configurations, then they really don't deserve anyone's money as they are rather amateurish.
In all seriousness, and not to start some kind of trollish thread, could you tell what's good about running Slackware?
I started Linux with the box set of Red Hat 9 a couple of months ago. When I realized that you couldn't even recompile the kernel successfully -- what with all the non-standard stuff they throw in -- I wiped my machine clean and downloaded the 'Net install version of Debian. I just put that on my box a few days ago.
I want to play around with that distro for a while, but I'm under the impression that the "real men" run Slackware. (Actually, what I've read is that if you want to know anything, ask a Slackware user.)
If you can spare the time, can you give me your thoughts on the distribution? Thanks.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
And I'm the guy with the "bong" post above who first pointed it out. :(
Is OS X available for x86 platform now or what?
Meh.
The public release was delayed until LG provided fixed firmware for their drives, and a means to salvage machines that had already lost their firmware.
It would be quite complicated supporting essentially two different releases of 9.2, so unfortunately you will just have to do the updates (for now).
I am posting this because, believe it or not, there are a lot of /. readers that have no experience with Linux but are curious to try.
I am one if the inexperienced Linux users. I tried several distros and the one that was hands down the easiest to deploy from the noob prospective was Mandrake.
My first try was with release 8.0. I loved the installer and the docs available for learning to setup my machine for dual boot and proper Linux partitions.
The installer is a work of art. It made the installation as easy as *gasp* Windows. It walks you through the proper options to choose so you get the setup you want (in my case I wanted to try workstation, not server). I had no trouble with my systems hardware being compatible.
My plea to anyone who has never tried Linux but is curious is to try Mandrake. It's the most noob friendly distro around.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
regarding kernel 2.6. Does 2.6 include the multi-threaded booting? Allowing it do boot up much faster by not serializing the processes? It's rare that I reboot my desktop, but the laptop takes a fair amount of time to start up when I'm running linux on it.
Thx in advance.
WURD!!
Damn I wish I could mod you up +5, Funny! I'm a Gentoo user myself but not a zealot and don't like the fact that some are so your post really made me LOL :)
I installed 9.2 on my laptop with no CD-ROM drive (try doing that easily on shitty distributions like Gentoo! Hah!) using a PCMCIA Prism2 card, over a rogue 802.11b connection. Yes, I stole SCO's intellectual property using a stolen wireless connection! Mandrake installed perfectly in about an hour, except that after installation, I had to manually configure my Software Update sources because I couldn't install or update anything.
Most SATA chipsets need proprietary (ie, they provide sources which are wrappers for a binary object which they don't supply the source for) drivers.
This means that no-one can legally distribute these drivers with a kernel without violating the GPL.
However, if you want, I can build binary modules for you, any you can stick them on a floppy and have them loaded during installation (before hard disk detection). You would possibly still need to copy them to the drive before booting the machine (I haven't tried this).
If the ftp mirrors are too crowded, try
ftp://ftp.phys.ttu.edu/pub/mandrake/iso/
For those who didn't get the 'funny' part, check out these guys with internet explorer.
With OS X here and available now, why are you still using Linux? This is an honest question from me
Not an honest question, since i can't believe you are dumb enough to forget that OS X is not available on x86, which has ~95% of the desktop market.
So, you are just a troll. Nothing to see here, drive through
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
"for all so-called ATAPI LG cd-rom drives"
I'm confused. If they aren't LG ATAPI CD-ROMs, then what are they? Is the problem somehow related to the fact that the drive is not fully compliant with the ATAPI spec? Or did the poster just say this because LG drives are rebranded? I don't get it.
The full Powerpack is quite a bit more expensive than the DVD-only ($69 vs $54 for the DVD-only), and it quite clearly states that it comes with no docs and no support:
...
"Support and reference documentation is not provided with the product."
So, I don't think you'll have any luck.
Personally, I prefer the ProSuite CDs+DVD, since the 2 server-only CDs are quite useful, and I don't need no support
I'd like to run this on my Compaq 2170 laptop, so I have the same concerns about startup time (and battery life which, based on what I've read, should be very good thanks to ACPI support in 2.6).
However, this distribution includes the earlier kernel (2.4.2, I believe). How does one change to the 2.6 kernel? Somebody help me claw my way to the top of the learning curve.
yes, and only LAMERS make stupid coments like "MAndrake is a stoopid noob distro, real leet hax0rz use gent00 biotch."
I did 'emerge sync && emerge -U world' today. Is this the same as an ISO?
...or do LG's products just suck?
I hate OSS-Free. When are the distros all going to start using Alsa?
It's hell for music/sound guys when the distro doesn't come preinstalled with alsa.
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
but since we can't see the code, who knows?
And that's the key point. Since we can see mandrakes code, we know for certain that it's not doing anything unreasonable. And so mandrake carries greater credibility than microsoft.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think an open source software model where the software is not free is ideal.
...I just don't see why open source software should be paid for.
Maybe you need to ask yourself and resolve it one way or the other? If you're going to troll, at least try to be consistent...Define "unreasonable". This is a bug in the hardware, correct? Or are you impliying that a vendor would fry hardware just for the heck of it?
And so mandrake carries greater credibility than microsoft.
Hmmmm. Define "credibility". I mean, outside of people who really don't care about looking at the source but just want the thing to work. Thanks!
about Redhat. It's currently a great a desktop with Bluecurve. I don't disagree that Mandrake is also a great desktop, you I don't think you can honestly say that Redhat (and now Fedora) are bad desktops.
Maybe if you were clever enough to use anything besides a click & drool GUI you'd be smart enough to format your /. posts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It's stable. It doesn't "hold your hand" with graphical configs and setups (ie you edit config files by hand). It's stable and easy to secure. Very little of the included software is non-standard, and you don't run into dependency hell as with .rpms. I run it on my server for the stability, security and flexibility it offers. This isn't to say that other distros don't offer similar features (after all, Linux is Linux right?), but for me, Slack "just works." As you mentioned, an added benefit of working with Slack is that you get to know the inner workings of the OS better (as opposed to distribution specific configurations) so it's easier to port that knowledge to other distros, should you be called upon to help out a friend. Oh yeah, I've recompiled my kernel a few times, and I have never run into problems that were Slackware's fault.
That happened to me too. I went into Mandrake Control Center under X (run drakconf) and went to System, MenuDrake and they came back.
--
But then again I thought VCR+ was a stupid idea and would die a quick death--so what do I know?
I switched between RedHat and Mandrake for a couple of years. After installing Mandrake 9.1 I won't consider anything else. It is a nicely refined distro for both the newbie and veteran Unix person. With respect to L.G. Mandrake followed the standard and L.G. did not. Mandrake went over and above to accomodate L.G. If the rest of you are a bit put-off by RedHat now is the time to make the move. You won't regret it and please support them.
Torrent for you, futhamucka!
Fellowship 9/11
Link:u x-9.2-DOWNLOAD-3CD.torrent
i nu x-9.2-DOWNLOAD-3CD.torrent
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/download/MandrakeLin
Text only (for easy copy/pasting):
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/download/MandrakeL
Sources are on the 3rd ISO, which includes mostly packages that are not as "mainstream" as the 1st and 2nd ISOs. So people sometime do not bother to download it. The installer allows you to have only 2 CDs, and if you run a standard (default) install it almost never asks for the 3rd disk. So did you have the 3 CDs ? did you look at CD 3 ? I know I have the source RPM on disk 3 !
One of those Europeans...
If the guys brother won't give
him the source files.... Then
someone should sue his brother.
Define "unreasonable". This is a bug in the hardware, correct? Or are you impliying that a vendor would fry hardware just for the heck of it?
Unreasonable in this case would be issuing commands not allowed by the ATAPI spec. If you were to spew noise at a CDROM, you might expect unpredictable things to happen. However if you only issue commands explicitly allowed by the standard, you've done all you can, and it's up to the hardware to do the Right Thing(TM).
Hmmmm. Define "credibility".
As in, when Mandrake makes a claim about what their software is doing, we can easily go check the source and see if they're telling the truth. When Microsoft makes a similar claim, it would take some serious reverse engineering kung fu to verify(or discount) it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The LG drives in question were not 100% compliant with the ATAPI specification. The drive firmware re-mapped the optional, rarely-used "clear cache" command to "upload firmware".
As a result, when the Mandrake drivers issued the "clear cache" command as part of the initialization routine, the drive firmware was erased.
So it is true that "hey, LG drives are shit anyway". Unfortunate; yes, but bug on Mandrakes's part; no.
That was supposed to be:
:P
I just don't see why open source software should NOT be paid for.
I was trying to make the point that open source software should be paid for in some way. Then again, it's up to the authors of the software to decide what happens with their work. The idea of donating to something like the FSF or EFF is good though. Thank you for pointing that out, should have read it better before posting, sorry.
I've used Mandrake for about 4 years. I was a member of Mandrake Club, and I really thought Mandrake was easy to use and a very complete distribution. I still would recommend it to anyone who wants to get started with Linux. However, after spending so much time with Mandrake and KDE, I found that I liked GNOME better. To me, KDE vs. GNOME is essentially quantity vs. quality, and I'll stick with quality. Most of the KDE apps are just plain inferior to their GNOME counterparts. Konqueror vs. Galeon? Puh-lease. (OK, so Galeon isn't really part of GNOME. Picky, picky.)
Mandrake is committed to KDE. They don't cripple GNOME, but I felt I'd be better off with a more pure GNOME desktop. (I was right. I'm much happier having switched.)
I thought about Ximian and Red Hat, but I went with Gentoo after reading about the distribution and the philosophy behind it (I would paraphrase it as "power and simplicity"). I had tried to install Gentoo before, but the compile time wore me out. Now, there is a Gentoo Reference Platform, which contains binaries for a fairly complete installation. I personally chose not to go that way, because my computer is a 2.2 GH P4, which is basically fast enough to bring the compile time down to something reasonable (GNOME compiles overnight - I didn't check exactly how long it took). But, the GRP seems like a very reasonable way to quickly get Gentoo on your system.
I've been very pleased to find that I'm learning much more about the system, by reading the excellent Gentoo docs, and by asking the occasional question at the #gentoo IRC channel. I am not a Linux guru, by any means, but I'm not a newbie either. Somewhere in the middle.
I'm amazed at the breadth of software available. Yeah, it's a bit of a hassle installing from source, rather than from binary packages, but I feel like I'm closer to the metal. And once I get all my favorite stuff installed, I can update them all to the latest, just by typing "emerge --update world". I can easily download and try the latest unstable kernel, if I want, or get the latest Mozilla Firebird, to see if a bug has been addressed. Or I can shoot back to an older version which is known to work. I guess I could have used Cooker with Mandrake, in order to experience the bleeding edge, but I never gave that a try. Somehow, I doubt it is as simple and easy to use as the Gentoo portage system.
In fact, I would compare Mandrake vs. Gentoo in the same way I compared KDE vs. GNOME. Mandrake is "quantity" of tools, but Gentoo is "quality" of tools. There seems to be a great deal of thought behind the Gentoo architecture and tools. They're typically command line - no GUI whiz bang stuff, but they just work.
The Mandrake GUI config stuff didn't always work properly anyway, and I'm finding that I enjoy editing the config files and learning how to make my system work the way I want it to.
If you're a newbie, stick with Mandrake, but if you're a little more advanced, and you can afford to initially spend some time learning and problem-solving, I highly recommend Gentoo.
The #Gentoo IRC channel almost always has tons of people on it, who are more than happy to help a new user figure out what's going on with their system. Try to find your answer in the user docs first, though, so you don't waste someone else's time.
Nope. No kung-fu. Windows does not fry these drives. That's about as much proof as I need.
Umm.. the whole point GNU is too NOT make money, and put those trying to make money out of business.
hee... so the Mandrake Fairy starts installing, happily humming along.. hello Processor... hello Ram,... hello CD player.. "POOF", your a doorstop
I use and like Mandrake.
Files are where they're supposed to be, and well commented. And when you've finally fixed what you've wantd, some crazy gui program doesn't wipe your change out.
The installation gets a lot of critism, but it's really not that difficult. It's pretty much as hard/easy as any other distro's, but with less graphical eye candy. Plus you only do installation once to twice a year, so it's not that big of a deal. If you can install debian, you can install slack. (I've never been able to get debian to install)
It also seems to run faster than any other distro. It's running on my P166MMX and it's surprisingly useable.
The bottom line is that slack is a linux distro without the junk. However, you do give up some stuff. There no graphical admin tools and the package managment sucks, but to me, the tradeoffs are worth it.
"To save the planet, I had to go to the worst spot on Earth, and that was Philadelphia." -- Sun Ra
Well since Fedora Core 1 failed to load, I will happily dump it in favor of Mandrake.
As far as why Fed would not load, it failed to regonize my Kyro video card & onboard Ethernet.
This system was running Mandrake 9.0
Viva Le Mandrake
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Dumb modders, you just showed his point has validity.
RedHat / Fedora
The next version of Mandrake will be:
Poison Root Core 1
That is funny but SCARY.
cpeterso
Hmmm, where is the Dell, Compaq or HP 64 bit desktop? Oh, that's right, M$ won't be shipping a 64 bit OS until next year. Some call that "freedom to innovate". :D
Where do I want to go today? 64 bit desktop is where I want to go TODAY. SuSe and Mandrake will let me use my Opteron desktop machine now. I can choose from several open source, new technology solutions now, or wait for "innovation" to catch up when it gets around to it. If that's innovation, guess I'll have to settle for freedom and choice.
Okay!
You must be the change you wish to see in the world - Ghandi
Interesting experience with Fedora Core 1 last night.
I was foolishly upgrading during a windstorm, and lost power while the "cup holder" was out waiting for me to insert disk 2.
As it was late, I grumbled some nasty remarks, yanked the cord out of the wall, and fumbled to bed by flashlight.
This morning, I decide to see how bad I screwed the filesystem, and fired up the PC. Grub was there, with new Fedora options and the old Windows option. So I let it boot through, no FS recovery needed on the ext3, I still had a full working system with the new kernel and all of my data was intact.
The only daily application that did not work was evolution! I shutdown and started the upgrade over, it spent a bare minimum amount of time reading disk 1, and proceeded to go through disk 2 and three at the normal pace. Rebooted and everything was there, full working version of evolution, all data. Very sweet!
This was on a hacked version of RH that has been running the upgrade cycle since 7.1, and has been butchered by installing Mandrake RPMs and some of the bleeding edge non-stable versions of programs out on freshmeat and sourceforge.
Fedora even warned me about possible inconsistancies in versions, but since I had a backup I figured "why not, what's the worst that could happen?" Still waiting for the worst, it works great!
So, try doing a cold shutdown in the middle of a Win2K or XP upgrade and see if you can just boot to a working system. I'm not sure if Mandrake could recover, I know that RH 8 would not!
I'm sticking with Redhat and Fedora, you can keep Mandrake.
I just upgraded from 9.1 to 9.2. First thing, it is still nice but there are some bugs in the system right off the bat, primarily concerning KDE. You will immediately want to download the updates to fix them. You will likely experience some problems with kmenu items. Updating fixes it. If you have an LG cdrom, download the fixes from the mandrake website. It apparently isn't mandrake's fault, this problem, but they have a fix.
There are a LOT of updates. If you have a modem connection...it's going to take a while. I downloaded all the updates to my laptop over my job's ethernet connection so they would be on hand immediately after installing 9.2 on both my laptop and desktop. I suggest something like this for others with modem connections at home.
After the updates, no problems at all.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I had the door on my case closed! It ejected the drive tray and now the motor in my DVD-RW is fucked! BASTARD!
It seems like most people here are concerned about desktops. Which distro is the best if you want to colocate a web/mail server with a database backend? I really don't care at all about KDE and GNOME.
I have been a Red Hat loyalist since I first got into Linux about 2 year ago. I certainly think that they put out the most polished product, and I actually like their Bluecurve interface on Gnome. I think it's the perfect mix of stylish and functional. It's also close enough to the Windows style that I don't have to think about what I'm doing after I change a titlebar doubleclick to restore/maximize instead of shade. I hate SHADE! However having recently built a machine on an Asus A7N8X Delux motherboard, I will make the jump to Mandrake to see if it will support my AGP video card, which I could not get working no matter how much I patched the kernel in Red Hat. It seems like Red Hat (and the dissappointing Fedora) really are abandoning their desktop users by leaving out core desktop components like hardware support, mp3 decoding, and NTFS support of their releases. I know that most of these are just an RPM or two away, but upgrading a Linux kernel is not for the faint of heart and should not be left to (possibly newbie!) end-users. Even though I have felt Mandrake looked and felt a bit amateurish in the past, I'm far more willing to tool around with the interface (which I do under Windows anyway) than I am to have to modify key system components.
---
Take it sleazy,
-The Shockmaster
Basically, have I got to ditch it and re-install to maintain compatibility with the new version???
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
real leet hax0rz use da hurd biotch!
I remember a time when I got interested in linux a couple years back, and I was able to download every single distro for free and test it. Mandrake seems to be the only one that still makes it easy enough to download their distro.
Who lives on your hard drive on your PC? ...
Gentoo Leenucks!!!
Performant and swell-o and purple is he!
Gentoo Leenucks!!!
If technical prowess is something you wish
Gentoo Leenucks!!!
The download the code and compile your own 'nix
Gentoo Leenucks!!!
Gentoo Leenucks!!!
GENTOOOO LEEEE-NUCKS!!!
I am not an authority on Slack, but I will give you my impression from using it just a few weeks, after using RedHat for many years, and having SunOS and Solaris shell accounts for MANY years.
Slack seems more Unix like. Things are in very standard places, where you would expect them to be on a real Unix system. This is still a little confusing to me because I am used to them being in the wrong places with RH, but my SunOS and Solaris experience helps. I found it to be quite easy to install Slack 9.0. Some parts are a little confusing, but only because they are different, not necessarily harder. Unlike many, I prefer a menu based text based install, which Slack has. After roaming around it a few minutes, it all made sense. My second install took 10 minutes to get started, and then I just walked away while it copied files.
It handles groups differently, it doesn't just create a group for every user independently (which I never understood why RH does). The security is a bit more important, and you will find it defaults to a bit more secure of a systems, especially compared to older RH distros (7.2 and older). It does require some getting used to, and I am still not ready to commit the servers to it (looking at Debian also, waiting for a new MB to arrive for testing). But its in the hunt.
I can easily see that Slack is NOT for people who just want to click pretty widgets to configure their systems. My experience with pretty widgets on Linux is a mixed bag, from linuxconf trashing an install (on RH 6.1 default install) to all the crap included with Gnome (which I don't like) and KDE (which I do like, but dont use the widgets). I can see why real hardware/os minded people like Slack, because of its elegant simplicity, power, and security.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
9.2 download edition does not have "kernel source" on the cds. You have to get it from mirrors.
less is more
because they changed the default vi tab to a non-standard 4 spaces. Yes I can change it. But I don't like the changing tab agenda.
...Debian can rightfully call their dist GNU/Linux, since they used that before RPM started shoving it up peoples asses.
because they they started buying into RMS politics and calling there dist GNU/Linux.
because the original reason I used Mandrake was that they added KDE. (Redhat didn't ship it then).
So it's only Fedora and Debian for me.
So, try doing a cold shutdown in the middle of a Win2K or XP upgrade and see if you can just boot to a working system. I'm not sure if Mandrake could recover, I know that RH 8 would not!
FYI, there has been disaster-recovery built into the Windows Setup program since Win95...
Hear, hear!
I switched from Windows NT to Mandrake 9.1 back in May, when I saw the release announcement here on Slashdot. I set aside a weekend to installing 'drake and setting up a dual-boot. I overestimated. It took 45 minutes, dual-boot was set up automatically by the Mandrake installer. Sweet.
There were a few bumps: During install, it popped up a message that it couldn't see my sound card (Crystal 4232b, you see), and I needed to run 'sndconfig' at a command line when I was finished. So the install finished, I opened a root console, and typed 'sndconfig' and hit enter. Done. Hello, sound. Right now. Why the installer couldn't do that, I have no idea. But compared to Windows driver hassles, it was so easy... Linux's loadable module support and the Mandrake installer put plug-n-pray to shame. One day I plugged a HP scanner into the SCSI chain, it was immediately detected and configured with no input from me required. Try that in Windows.
Other thing was that I have an NVidia card, and of course the acceleration wasn't working so GL performance sucked rocks. Fixing this involved a download of the NVidia binaries, the README therein said to run 'sh install.sh,' change one line in /etc/XF86Config from 'nv' to 'nvidia' and reboot. This is NVidia's fault, but I did it, and hello GL acceleration. One third-party driver install and it was all done. [NVidia, binary only is unacceptable, open it up. Do you want to sell me hardware ever again?]
Compare what I had to do to install NT: Put in CD and boot. When the screen goes black and says "Detecting hardware," I have 2 or 3 seconds to hit F6 (not that this is written down anywhere except in the errata on the SCSI driver floppy) so I can install my SCSI drivers from floppies. Choose custom install, turn off as much Microsoft lockin-ware as possible. Finish install, reboot. Install SP6a. Reboot. Install video driver and sound driver from disk. Reboot. Install tape backup driver. Reboot. Any other drivers needed and reboot again. Now install SP6a again and reboot again. Four hours later, I can start installing apps, more reboots. I have long SCSI chains; rebooting takes over 5 minutes. I spent more time just rebooting during a typical Windows install, than it would take to install Mandrake TWICE. And in six months, when the registry starts to bloat and the system starts bogging down, as it inevitably will, I get to do it all again.
Sidebar: My WinNT installs took even longer, since I figured out that if you install from an original issue pre-SP1 CD, then take a hacksaw to the registry, reboot, and then delete certain DLLs before installing any service packs, you can eliminate Internet Exploder, Infection Express, and SpamMessaging - SP6a won't put them back if you deleted all the keys and DLLs beforehand. Just FYI. So really it took 6-8 hours just to get to where I could install apps. See why I planned a whole weekend?
If Windows is "easy to install" and "ready for the desktop," then Mandrake is "trivially easy to install" and "Owns the desktop." Any Linux distro I've seen is easier to install than DOS/Windows 3.1 ever was, and I didn't see people saying consumers couldn't use that. I'm one good multitrack audio editor/mixer app away from banishing Bill from my life forever. I expect I'll see it within another year. Good riddance, Redmond.
A few ads in the installer seems a small price to pay. This ain't Windows, you're only going to run that installer once.
u sux so much u cant evan instal gent00 tahts y u use redcrap or madrake! L4M3R!!!!
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL JOO SUXOR!
Most new users migrating from Windows will have a WinModem and it's incredibly frustrating, not knowing your way around, trying to get your WinModem working (if possible) as a new user.
I see Mandrake 9.2 doesn't support a lot of modems (according to it's hardware database page.) Certainly not a way to attract new Windows users to Linux.
Linux with deep Internet roots and having it running on a box that can't access it is ironic, but it is the best choice for the new Linux user.
Personally, I like the streamlined config files. First, none of that Sys-V foolishness. Second, there's usually one config file for each type of service. The printers are only controlled by the /etc/printcap file. Samba is controlled by 2 files that need user editing - /etc/smb.conf and a password file for samba users. You control basically everything internet related through editing inetd.conf and/or running netconfig, which quickly and easily sets up the internet.
On startup, everything's really quite easy. You startup from the CD, and run setup, which it then takes you through. It prompts you where to put your swap, your root directory, etc. If you have extra partitions, it will give you the option of setting up extra mount points (for /usr/local, for instance). It detects windows partitions. It automatically puts all that in your fstab.
Other distros do the same (well, some of them), but slack has a nice compromise between prompting you to do the defaults and still giving you the ability to easily do what you want.
Install is a breeze. Also, I've noticed slack starts up a damn sight faster than RedHat. And like you say, unlike RedHat, the guts are standard. You need another kernel with slack, get the source and compile the damned thing.
Some people bitch about the package handling with slack - personally, I love it, and think it's quintessentially slack. It's as simple as can be, without unneeded frills. They use *.tgz for packages, which as standard as can be. That said, they can convert rpms as well (as should be!) with rpm2tgz. Works for me! But personally, I recompile most things from source anyway. Lightning fast that way. ;)
I will say this - slackware does teach you linux, because you do stuff yourself. Friend of mine's been using SuSelinux on his laptop for a while. He went to install it as dual-boot on a machine we had at work and wiped the windows partition because he didn't know what he was doing. He'd been using Linux for 2 years, yet didn't understand such basic stuff.
To me, it's not a machismo thing. I've never tried Debian (I'm happy with slack), so I can't compare them. But if debian works for ya, go with it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Really? I thought it's based on Mach.
The command in question is not used often. The ATAPI spec specifies that you may implement the function, or you may ignore it entirely. You MAY NOT reimplement it as something different and harmful, as LG did. This is stupid and goes entirely against the purpose of standards. It is only happenstance that windows doesn't fry these drives.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I am one of the perhaps few here on slashdot who shudders at the thought of upgrading a kernel. Compiling a kernel and patching it makes the blood supply stop going to my brainnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
(Sorry passed out onto the keyboard there for a minute).
But I do try to learn and understand where things have been fixed and should show up for me. So, while I've been using Redhat and SuSE, the latest incarnations of those only use 2.4.21-x. And I know that 2.4.22 fixes some issues I had with my power mgmt and digital camera support!! It might even fix issues I had with the funky graphics card in my new laptop (though I need to check on that).
Armed with this information, I will have a go at Mandrake!
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
Erm... Before I continue with my post, let it be said that I love Mandrake; I run 9.1 on my system at home, and I convinced my boss to begin deploying it on workstations at the office (we were previously an entirely Win98/2k office).
With that said, I hardly think it's fair to compare last year's version of Mandrake to a version of Windows that's what, roughly eight or nine years old now?
Of course Windows NT can't compare to it. My boss and I were shocked last year when we noticed that it automatically detected a serial mouse we plugged into it -- it's infamous for its inability to detect hardware. Try out your SCSI chains with Windows 2000 or XP, I would be willing to bet that it detects them just as well as Mandrake.
Saying Linux is better than DOS/Win 3.1 is even more laughable. Yay! Linux is ready to compete in the market of the early 90's! From what I recall back then, the average consumer wasn't expected to set up their own computer or use it without any kind of training. It doesn't matter if Linux is more usable than NT or 3.1 -- it's not ready for the desktop until it's at least as good as the newest, most shiny version of Windows.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
He probably has in mind some scenario where someone (partially?) compromises your system and is able to compile their own code on your system?
Or maybe having a compiler would mean there might be compiling happening, and who wants their server to get bogged down trying to compile stuff?
I hardly think it's fair to compare last year's version of Mandrake to a version of Windows that's what, roughly eight or nine years old now?
NT was what came on my system when I bought it in '99. So as far as I'm concerned, it was the best Bill could do as recently as that. OTOH, your point is overwhelming. I'll cede, with mention that MS is comparing its newest stuff to five-y/o RedHat versions also.
Try out your SCSI chains with Windows 2000 or XP
I did try Win2K, it was the same as NT4, except they'd changed which function key I had to hit to get those drivers installed, as an additional fsck-you present. At 5 minutes per reboot - can't walk away because you only have a few seconds - well, that got old really fast. Then I ran it, it was sluggish, and I decided to go back, just to find it had silently changed the disk formats on every drive in my computer - another fsck-you present from Bill. After that, it became more a matter of trust than of tech.
XP, I haven't tried; the EULA's a deal-breaker. It also doesn't help their trust issues one bit with me.
The Win 3.1 comparison is, in retrospect, the second-dumbest thing I've ever posted on Slashdot.
Then again, I just pulled my Win3.1 box off the shelf to check. From the (formerly) shrink-wrapped box:
Easy to install, learn, and use.
Express Install automatically loads the Windows operating system onto your PC.
So yes, it certainly was targeted at home users, to install themselves. It was easy to install, and in fact, completely automatic - just read the box! Nothing can go wrogn! It also assumed that the user was able to navigate a DOS command line, and edit text files, in other points on the box. All these things that ten years of education and computer ubiquitousness later, we now assume is too scary for them. There's a real howler, too, it's OT but I can't resist:
A fast, reliable operating system
Application Reboot, which lets you stop a problem application while keeping everything else up and running.
Websters ought to include this in their definition of 'chutzpah.'
Anyway, back on topic, what I was trying to get at by bringing up 3.1 (and failed badly) was that the entire definition of 'easy to use' is 'what Microsoft does,' and anything that isn't exactly that is considered, 'not easy to use' - no matter how lousy MS's offering may be. Kind of like how, to Mac users, a good UI is a Mac UI, anything else is a bad UI (except at least the Mac UI is NOT lousy by any stretch, quite the opposite in fact, even if I do prefer KDE/Plastik to Mac/Aqua). There's a circular logic to it, as you said:
it's not ready for the desktop until it's at least as good as the newest, most shiny version of Windows.
IOW, Windows is automatically better every time they change the UI or re-arrange the control panel applets, even though it's still running the same creaky, hacked-to-pieces NT kernel. Me, I'm done using MS as the gold standard. Shiny, in my book, doesn't even rate. I know, other people think that's the end-all and be-all, it probably isn't your POV either, but it is frustrating and defies all logic. Linux is not ready for the desktop because only Windows can be ready for the desktop, and Linux is not Windows, therefore it can't be ready for the desktop. Ri-ight.
OW, Windows is automatically better every time they change the UI or re-arrange the control panel applets, even though it's still running the same creaky, hacked-to-pieces NT kernel. Me, I'm done using MS as the gold standard. Shiny, in my book, doesn't even rate. I know, other people think that's the end-all and be-all, it probably isn't your POV either, but it is frustrating and defies all logic. Linux is not ready for the desktop because only Windows can be ready for the desktop, and Linux is not Windows, therefore it can't be ready for the desktop. Ri-ight.
;-)
Well, that's a good point. In my opinion, Windows 2000 was probably the high point of the Windows GUI; since then, it seems like they've been adding shiny buttons and rearranging controls just so they'll have "new features." I played with the most recent alpha of Longhorn on a friend's computer for a little bit, and it's a nightmare.
Personally, I think that the current state of the Linux GUI is just as good as Windows, but to most people, it's not good enough unless it's exactly the same or overwhelmingly better; after all, if they have to re-learn how to use the interface to have the same functionality, what's the point of switching?
Since we began introducing Linux at my office, we've had the opportunity to train people with no prior computer experience (they exist, believe it or not) on Linux, and they pick it up just as readily as Windows. The people who were used to 98/2k took a bit of work to get used to it, but since we put Mandrake on the newest and fastest computers we got, they were looking forward to using "the new system" anyway just because it ran so much faster.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Sorry about the WinModem ... just their tough luck, I guess. Mandrake picks up both of my USB external modems on insertion of the plug.
... heads up! You'll need an external modem 'cause the internal ones are crap and Linux doesn't support 'em.
The Win-migrators can just take a few of the thousands of dollars they are going to save by moving to Linux and spend $30 of them on a decent modem.
Hey Windows users
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's a good idea to compare vendor support offerings when selecting products. When price is the only criteria, we end up with vendors who won't try harder than this:
From "readme(ed).txt" in "crd-8523b linux.zip" at http://us.lgservice.com/:
1.You have to CD-ROM drive connect to secondary master alone.
2.Don't touch while F/ware upgrading
3.If it happen to problem when you upgrade to F/ware,it is that your responsibility.
Because of you are mistake F/Ware upgrade
Therefore you must be care for F/Ware upgrade.
This page shows you how to burn the ISOs using one of three windows based CD burning programs.
Randum Stuff
I've had it installed on a box with a 3ware 8506 RAID card and 3 SATA discs in a RAID 5 config. I configured RAID using 3ware's BIOS, and Mandrake saw my 3 80Gb discs as a single 160Gb disc as expected. The install went well, everything worked well afterwards. On bootup, I can see a 3ware driver message flash by, but I can't read what it says.
Yours is the latest of several messages I've seen saying that 2.4 kernels have problems installing to SATA RAID. The consensus of the responses seems to be "wait for 2.6"...
But, for the sake of my own curiosity, what is the problem you're seeing? I'm about to buy a whole slab of these 3ware/SATA RAID systems, and it might be worth going for something other than SATA drives if you and others are seeing problems.
Mandrake 9.1, which I use, already includes XFree86 4.3, with perfect support for my Logitech Trackman Marble Wheel's scroll wheel. In fact, it supports it better than Windoze does.
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