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HP Starts Pushing Desktop Linux
iswm writes "HP has supposedly been selling MandrakeSoft Linux on the desktop for a while but has been so quiet about it that for all intents and purposes it's been a stealth operation. That's all about to change, with two new Linux desktops ready for rolling out by HP to the North American SMB market, both boxes to be sold with Mandrake Linux."
mandrake wasn't installed. they just included a mandrake disk.
there was some minimal linux install just so you could boot it.
No, Microsoft's policy is that their PC Manufacturers cant sell a computer without an OS. Implying that the only OS that people would want is MS's, if they did what you said, well then they'd have been in court years ago...or wait..they were..but not for this exactly:) Thats why Dell ships some computers with FreeDOS, so they dont break their agreement with Microsoft.
Regards,
Steve
They have been selling mandrake workstations for a while (about a year os so).
Their financial troubles began when they changed a marketing model that didn't product what it expected to do. It was like playing poker and they didn't know when to drop back to the nickle slot machines.
Mandrake has always been a financialy sound company, it was just a couple of bad decision by new blood that caused them to dip.
Go to Dell. Configure a PowerEdge 400SC, and note the "no OS" and "Red Hat Linux" options.
Small Business -> Choose SC Servers -> Customize It -> Continue.
Small-Medium Business as opposed to home and enterprise markets
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
I read the press releases a while ago last year. I recall it being a "worldwide agreement". I dunno much else. the press release from HP is here. i searched for mandrake's too.
see http://www.hp.com/workstations/itanium/zx6000/ and http://www.hp.com/workstations/ia32/index.html
I make my face look like this and concerned words come out.
In this case, it's not Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., and it's not Sega's Super Monkey Ball either. SMB can mean either small-to-medium businesses or server message block.
Uh huh. That's why most owners of Hitachi FLORA Prius machines never even knew that OS was on their computers, and no bootloader was preinstalled. Hitachi just wanted to do that way. Right.
The DoJ was aware of this and decided, in their infinte wisdom, not to include it in their antitrust action.
Booting BeOS on Hitachi
KFG
Gaming yes, but that's not true anymore w.r.t. music and multimedia.
I watch videos (using Gentoo's win32 codecs ebuild) and play MP3s all the time in Linux. The only thing inferior I have to put up with is the gtk file selector that xmms uses.
I just install Lindows on a family member's computer because they were sick of all the pop ups and spyware. Lindows is the real deal as far as ease of use. The whole click and run thing worked out nicely. Indeed, Linux as prgressed very fast.
Knoppix is nice too but it had minor problems.
p.s. I know about synaptic and such and I think click and run is easier your average joe.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
dx2000 Specs from HP:
- Linux - Mandrake 9.2
- Intel(R) Pentium(R)2.80A GHz/533MHz
- 256MB DDR 400MHz (2X128)
- Integrated Intel(R) Extreme graphics2 (64MB equivalent)
- 40GB PATA/100 5400RPM
- 16X/40X DVD-ROM Linux and audio cable for Linux
$627Choosing Linux instead of XP gets you an upgrade to a DVD player from a plain CD, and saves you $21. Hum.
--
$tar -xvf
Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!
I should buy some cement.
You should try Lindows next. Click N Run is pretty effortless. It's based on debian so you can't really go wrong.
The best way to support the US war effort is to continue buying American products.
answers to your "the bad"
1. The mouse is controllable. Assuming you're using kde, find "configure your desktop" in the start menu, then expand peripherals, then click on mouse and configure away.
2. Again, click the kmenu (aka start menu) and find "packaging --> install programs" and click that. put in root password and you can download and install programs to your heart's content.
use plf.zarb.org/~nanardon to easily generate the commands necessary to setup net downloads of software for free. There is probably an easy tool to update this too, I just don't bother because "urpmi.update -a" as root is so easy.
3. I don't know what's up with konqueror. It's rock solid for me. I highly recommend you try mandrake 10 when it comes out because it is using kde 3.2 which is a major improvement.
4. the beauty of linux and unix in general is that you don't have to know where programs are installed. if you go to the command line you should just be able to run it because it should install in your path. Also, if you install via rpm you should get automatic entries in the kmenu. From here you can add links on your desktop or on panels if you like.
5. what soundcard? It's probably fixed in mandrake 10. Try #mandrake on irc.freenode.org
6. What version of mandrake did you try? I've never heard of this happening.
The kicker is that the Radeon 8500/9100/9000/9200 (all essentially the same chip) is currently the fastest GPU that's well supported by Open drivers (Xfree/Mesa stuff).
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
While I'm not going to suggest that your'e a TOTAL N00B and a failure for not getting the hang of Linux on the first try, I'll try to helpfully address a few of your points.
1. KDE Control Center -> Peripherals -> Mouse -> Advanced.
Yes, it is a shortcoming of the component-ized nature of Linux that things have to be configured in several different places when they should really be in one. This wouldn't be a problem at all if there were just one desktop environment (KDE, of course) to deal with, but that's not going to happen any time soon. Still, I think improvements can be made.
(After reading other responses written while I was writing this) Ok, I'm not sure why it's still not behaving. What does the Mandrake mouse options say you're using for a mouse driver, and what mouse are you actually using?
2. The program locations concept was hard for me to get used to as well. The basic idea is that you don't *have* to worry about it, since the distro takes care of it for you, but it's hard to come from Windows where programs install themselves haphazardly wherever they want by default. Still, there are times when the RPM way just doesn't work.
As for your specific problem, the package name you were trying to install indicates that it's a package for ALTLinux, not Mandrake. The Mandrake package depends on a different library, so you won't find libpictl on Mandrake at all. Actually, it might just be a different name for the same library, but that makes all the difference as far as dependencies go.
There should be a Mandrake-specific rpm, pilot-link-0.11.8-4mdk.i586.rpm, (notice the "mdk" instead of "alt") listed in rpmdrake (the search feature is pretty useful, btw, if not as good as that of YaST or Synaptic).
As for uninstalling, the rpmdrake uninstall program (one of my biggest pet peeves with Mandrake is the separation of the install/uninstall parts of rpmdrake, btw) will take care of any installed RPMs easily and cleanly. Programs installed from source are trickier, but I'd stay away from those at first, unless there's something you really need that's not available from urpmi.
3. Yeah, Konqueror crashes a little too often for my tastes as well. It's gotten better in KDE 3.2, but most of the time it crashes (both in 3.1 and 3.2) is when I'm exiting after having a window open for a long time, at least in my experience. Your mileage may vary.
4. The Mandrake menus seem to be slow at updating themselves. I'm not exactly sure how long it takes them, but they'll be there. The categories seem pretty ok at directing which menu to look in. For the most part at least.
5. (going based on reply to other posts) If Mandrake supports it, you shouldn't have to isntall a driver yourself. Have you looked in the Mandrake Control Center sound card configuration? That is, if it's there. I remember 9.1 had a panel for it, but unless I'm stupid it's not there in 10. Well, that's crap.
6. Dunno about this one. You could have a bizarre video card/monitor combination, or Mandrake could have just goofed. This might be something to report to Mandrake QA. What card/monitor do you have, anyway?
I've also found that many of the answers to questions I look at are incomplete and cryptic. I hope what I wrote is understandable. I have a tendency to get incomprehensible when I get into geek talk.
Overall, I'd say you're likely to have a slightly better experience with Mandrake 10, though in your case I'd wait until the "official" edition is out. I've had a small share of problems with the Community release, and you don't seem like you need more complications. Good luck, and don't give up on Linux.
Elitist blah blah my butt.
And to put an answer to your rhetorical questions, it does matter, because it matters today. People running OS X and Linux are affected by the proliferation of Windows and their accompanying attacks. It brings down connectivity. Even though you can't get infected, you still get the crap hitting your IPs and in your inboxes. Which is why Linux adherents have long prootested against the situation.
It is not blah blah. It's very realistic. Open your eyes - and stop being elitist yourself.
Little things like killing CD-ROM drives
...
...
...
...
.0 release on a new kernel series is always problematic (do you remember 8.0?).
No drives were killed, their firmware was merely overwritten becuase the drive was non-compliant. Drives with never firmware didn't exhibit the problem (so, obviously LG was aware of the problem, they just didn't bother to inform *their* customers). LG provided a means to reflash the firmware on the drives (for those that had already had the firmware overwritten) and tools to update the firmware for those as-yet unaffected.
BTW, the patch that caused the problem originated with SuSE
And, Gentoo had the same problem, they just have so little market share no-one was bothered to fix the problem until Mandrakesoft found the cause
screwed up menus
Guess who didn't install updates for 9.2
non bootable boot CDs
On some hardware, only on the download version, and CD2 does boot and can be used to start installation (and all of this is covered in the errata).
10.X been out a week or so and already 400MB of patches!
10.0 Community has been out for a week. And, that's the whole point of the community release, to iron out all the really minor issues that end-users really care about, but some of us couldn't care less about.
You should really wait for 10.0 Official to give out to newbies
Mandrake is often more cutting edge. 2.6 Kernel and so forth but Cutting Edge often means you bleed.
So, install the 2.4 kernel available with the distro.
A
I don't mean to be a troll, but I wonder how Mandrake's ongoing trademark case will affect their revenue and business plan.
Hmm, from your symptoms, I am guessing you should try booting with the options 'noapic nolapic'.
Everything works out-the-box on my laptop.
1. My mouse was uncontrollable.
... so Mandrake 10.0 should get this right.
... or whether there is a solution.
...
...
Most likely you selected the wrong driver for your mouse during installation. The 2.6 kernel now makes this a lot easier
2. By far the biggest problem: Installing programs. In XP it's as easy as double clicking an icon and picking a directory. Not so with Linux. You can read my post on the newbie forums
here.
Your problems are *precisely* because you think WindowsXP does things right, which it doesn't. You should not be downloading arbitrary packages from the internet WHEN THE PACKAGES ARE PROVIDED BY THE DISTRO!!!!!
Don't install ALT Linux packages on Mandrake, when Mandrake provides packages.
Don't go looking on the net first for packages, USE THE PACKAGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS PROVIDED!!!
Mandrake has it's own pilot-link packages, and you can install them in the Mandrake Control Center->Software Management->Install software, or you could do it with 'urpmi pilot-link'.
Just becuase you're used to XP only providing 20% of the functionality you need out-the-box doesn't mean Linux is like this.
If you have downloaded a Mandrake RPM, double-clicking on it should actually install it for you. Did you actually *try* this? It's worked every time I tried it.
I have no idea where anything installs to
Why do you need to know? Everything is installed so that is just works. If you really need to know, the package management tools will tell you.
, nor the best way to uninstall things.
Use the package management tools (Mandrake Control Center->Software Management->Remove software).
3. Despite claims of stability, Konqeror crashed repeatedly. I can not say why
Well, unless you tell use what you were doing, there's not much we can do to find out what the problem was
4. After installing a program, finding where it installed to would be like pulling teeth. Making a shortcut would be even worse.
Well, if you don't use Mandrake packages, this is what happens. The equivalent would be compiling and installing all the files on Windows, and when last did you do that?
5. Installing the correct driver for my soundcard was very complicated, even after reading the INSTALL file. I eventually gave up.
Unless you are using a card with proprietary drivers, the chances are you already had the driver installed, either:
-the card was muted by default (ALSA does this to prevent damage), and Mandrake hadn't been provided with the necessary information to unmute your sound card on first boot (as it does for most cards, since users have provided the necessary information)
-your card works better with a different driver WHICH IS INCLUDED!! You could have run draksound to switch drivers and give the other driver a try.
6. I got a sync out of range message when I first tried running Mandrake. I left the monitor settings on default during install. This took hours to discover and fix.
Essentially the same problem. Mandrake includes information on all monitors it can. But, if no-one bothers to report their hardware settings, nothing can be done to fix it
See how you can help here.
But above all installing programs is a pain.
Then you are doing something wrong, and you should be careful not to give out false information when you haven't got enough experience to tell if you are just doing the wrong thing.
Forget what you learned about the easy way to do things on Windows, they are WRONG! Things are much easier on Mandrake, *if* you are prepared to actually change your habits
Sure, but you're talking commercial linux distros here.
... they sell goods on their site, and Mandrake is:
...).
Surely "commercial" is the wrong adjective here.
Gentoo is just as commercial as Mandrake is
-totally GPL (the development tree, public stable tree, and download ISOs)
-more open than Debain and Fedora
I think you may prefer to use non-free or similar (yes, Debian has non-free software in contrib AFAIK
As for the granting discounts or other commitments, what is your source? This is common practice all over the world in all kinds of markets so I'd be curious to know exactly at the EU differs.
According to a handy guide to EU competition law that I have been given, the key issue is that Article 82 of the EC Treaty prohibits the abuse of a "dominant position". Having a "dominant position" is not illegal in itself, but it means that a company cannot do various things that would be allowed for companies that do not have a "dominant position". An insignificant company is permitted to offer a discount to customers who do not do business with their competitors, a company with a "dominant position" is not. I think the idea is that a customer can tell an insignificant supplier to install their discount in a suppository configuration, and just go to the competing supplier instead. It is not so easy for a customer to do that to a supplier who has a "dominant position", so it is the courts who can tell the supplier where to put their discount.
The other issue is whether or not the courts (and the politicians) are prepared to enforce the competition law in their jurisdiction. It is always more politcally acceptable to crack down on foreign companies.
Kidding aside, the biggest reason more workstations are sold with Linux is that there aren't enough professional applications (design stuff like ProE, The pSPICE family (at least Cadence and Synopsys, etc) haven't all been ported to linux yet.
Pro\E *is* available on Linux, and in fact, on HP workstations.
Many other scientific applications are available on Linux, including Matlab, most CFD suites, most FEM suites, and more maths packages are coming.
I had a Radeon VE, and acceleration wasn't working as well; by following these steps it worked:
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 /etc/modules /etc/modules.conf
searched for mesa libraries in mandrake cd and installed everything;
edited files as follows:
Section "Device"
Option "AGPMode" "4"
agpgart
alias char-major-10-175 agpgart
options agpgart agp_try_unsupported=1
I think the last step is the most important. Anyway, when I later upgraded to a Rad 9000, it still worked fine without any further ado.
Regards,
Andrea
Ander
@=
Nice way to quote out of context. If you want to convince people of Clinton's 'badness' at least let them make their judgment based on the whole quote. Unfortunately, all I can seem to find in Google are mostly pages with the inflammatory fragment you have. The most complete I can find is:
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles... that we are unable to think about reality."
I personally would like to know what is left out by the ellipses, but it is still a radically different statement from what you have.
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Good to know:
One should not trust that HP figures for sold linux desktops represents actual new linux users.
As there is no windows license fee with the machines, my organisation buys (last batch around 15000 units) these configurations and then use our select/corporate windows license on them. This cuts us a great deal of costs from the otherwise mandatory per. computer windows license.
force the user to run root in a minimalistic environment
/. material, but they do not "click on everything". If the account were still named "Administrator", It'd be a different story.
This has already been done to some extent. A number of gee-whizz stuff refuses to run as root. A number of things go to a more minimalistic, brute-force feel to them. If you keep the name "root" and not do something stupid like "Administrator", the situation will tend to be self-correcting.
root is for when you have to fix things. You run as root because you need to, not because you want to. We still run Microsoft Windows, but I was smart enough to rename the domain administrator account to "root". If I leave a user's computer with root still logged in, my users get in a hurry to get rid of root and get their own stuff back. I don't know what they associate "root" with (seems like I've overheard some cracks about roter-rooter). My users aren't exactly