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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.
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.
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.
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 $21. Hum.
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$tar -xvf
Plus every HP Mandrake PC comes with free indemnification against SCO lawsuits!
I should buy some cement.
Little things like killing CD-ROM drives
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.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
1. My mouse was uncontrollable.
... so Mandrake 10.0 should get this right.
... or whether there is a solution.
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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
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.