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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.
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
Drake is the easiest to install and use. It's fat as a hog and eats memory like a PacMan machine but it will get you where you need to be. I do all my unix stuff on consoles at work and all my X stuff in Drake at home. I find it to be a perfect fit. I refer to it as Newbie Linux.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
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.
Out of those listed, the top 4 distros that will appeal the most to Redhat users are in order with most appealing as #1 and least appealing as #4:
1. Fedora (aka "the distro formally known as Redhat Linux")
2. Mandrake
3. Suse (beware it has closed proprietary parts)
4. Knoppix (everyone has a copy of Knoppix)
There really were only 3 big consumer oriented desktop linux offerings; suse, redhat and mandrake. Suse hasn't had ISOS for public download for years (if ever, I dont know), redhat now is going to focus on the enterprise and their desktop offering is meant for 'enthausiasts' (ceo said windows is for the desktop.....). And then there's mandrake. Mandrake has been the most popular desktop linux for some 5 years and still is. It has a very active and supportive community and the company depends on that community for its revenue, unlike redhat.
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.
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.