Gaël Duval on Mandrake, GNU/Linux in 2005

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Gaël Duval on Mandrake, GNU/Linux in 2005

Posted by timothy on Monday January 31, 2005 @02:05PM from the look-out-it's-manbat dept.

uninet writes "To catch up on what's new since our last full interview, Mandrakesoft co-founder Gaël Duval recently agreed to talk with me about where the company is heading and other interesting IT current events, such as the Linux Core Consortium and Apple's Mac mini. You can read the new interview on OFB.biz."

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FP? by vettemph · 2005-01-31 15:17 · Score: 1, Offtopic

First post an hour after the article was posted?
c'mon guys, what's up with that?

--
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
1. Re:FP? by thegrassyknowl · 2005-01-31 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe everyone is busy redownloading the third stream of updates in 3 days to fix the fact that they broke the KDE RPMs when they released them the first time.
  
  They have a pretty polished distro that is easy for the average n00b to install, but they have fscked up a couple of times, with the KDE updates and also clamav (updated 3 times in as many days because the upgrades broke more than they fixed).
  
  --
  I drink to make other people interesting!
2. Re:FP? by loddington · 2005-01-31 15:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Most people dont have the distro news turned on by default. You would suprised how much of slashdot you miss using the standard slashdot filters.
  
  As for Firefox and thunderbird you can get them from mandrakeclub.
  
  --
  --- Who put this sig here? ---
3. Re:FP? by superpulpsicle · 2005-01-31 18:33 · Score: 1
  
  Can't help it. Mandrake is like a dying distro. It reminds me of RIP Turbolinux. Sure the company can fill the big void left by the lousy Redhat fedora.
4. Re:FP? by paulatz · 2005-01-31 20:33 · Score: 1
  
  The problem is that urpmi is a good rpm manager but it is not 100% moron proof. Furthermore it does not include a "dist-upgrade" feature wich can prevent a user eho want to upgrade his installation from doing some stupid errors. I think that more efforts should be spended in improving apt and apt4rpm (which is already fully functional for Fedora and SuSE) instead of creating (a bit) lower quality tool such as urpmi and Yum.
  
  --
  this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
5. Re:FP? by thegrassyknowl · 2005-01-31 22:20 · Score: 1
  
  It's not URPMI that's the problem. Urpmi does a pretty good job at the end of the day. It manages the repositories of files and downloads what it needs to fix dependencies.
  
  The problem with the latest batch of upgrades was kdebase was broken and kbebase-nsplugins was renamed as a part of the upgrade. On top of that, the nsplugins package depended on itself, so you couldn't install it with urpmi unless it was already installed...
  
  And there was a problem with clamav (I don't use it so i didn't read the advisory in detail) where Mandrake broke it in the upgrade and it stopped working. It could probably have been averted with testing.
  
  I have been using Mandrake for years, and I find it to be pretty good in most cases. It's just they're letting their guard down when testing their updates for compatibility.
  
  --
  I drink to make other people interesting!
6. Re:FP? by vettemph · 2005-02-01 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  Is that a US centric view? We all know that RH is the top US brand but Mandrake has been the TOP World brand for a very long time. Have a look at distrowatch.com. See the page ranking half way down on the left column. Look at all the data span options. Mandrake has loads of packages and if you attach to the PLF repository you'll get all the packages that mandrake doesn't include for image/legal reasons. (P2P, stronger encryption, special DVD tools...)
  
  PS Ubuntu has taken #1 in the last month by a small margin. give it a few weeks to see if this is a fad.
  Also, I tend to be US centric myself since I live here.
  
  --
  The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
7. Re:FP? by vettemph · 2005-02-01 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  >>left column
  Make that the right column, sorry. :)
  (ambidextrous, I always get them mixed up.)
  
  --
  The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
8. Re:FP? by superpulpsicle · 2005-02-01 07:40 · Score: 1
  
  Are u kidding me. You are using a website page hit as a metric to see if anyone uses mandrake. They could have downloaded it anywhere. There is no way to really measure whether some kid's bedroom secondary PC is running mandrake or redhat.
9. Re:FP? by vettemph · 2005-02-01 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  Fine. But I'm curious:
  
  1) What marketing segment and region were you refering to.
  
  2) What are your references?
  
  --
  The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
10. Re:FP? by opkool · 2005-02-02 10:47 · Score: 1
  
  Actualy, both Thunderbird and Mozilla-Firefox are available for free from the "contrib" media, available on all free (as in beer) mirrors.
  
  No ned to join MandrakeClub to get those packages. Although it is nice to be part of MAndrakeClub
  
  Peace.
cracking on the mac mini... heh by bach37 · 2005-01-31 15:21 · Score: 1

GD: [snip] Now the question is: what's the cost of the Mac Mini without MacOS?
Seriously, this is Apple traditional (and excellent) marketing and communication.
1. Re:cracking on the mac mini... heh by SpottedKuh · 2005-01-31 15:46 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Gaël Duval makes the somewhat "interesting" assumption that everyone who buys a desktop computer wants to run Linux on it:
  
  OFB: Is [the Mac Mini] a threat to GNU/Linux on the desktop?
  GD: Not really since the Mac Mini is very likely to run Linux.
  
  I think the question OFB was really asking was: Will the inexpensive Mac Mini cause people to choose OS X as a desktop UNIX solution instead of Linux. And while Linux is a fine desktop solution, the simple truth is that if people are willing to spend over $2000 to buy a Powerbook for the sole sake of running OS X, they're probably willing to spend under $500 to have an OS X desktop too.
Mod Parent DOWN by Quattro+Vezina · 2005-01-31 19:44 · Score: 1

I actually read TFA, and nothing even resembling this quote appears in it.

The parent is simply trolling.

--
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
1. Re:Mod Parent DOWN by bcmm · 2005-01-31 21:21 · Score: 1, Offtopic
  
  No, mod Funny.
  RTF patent. It is owned by IBM and covers changing visited hyperlink purple.
  
  --
  # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
  Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
What does Mandrake do that RedHat doesn't? by bzipitidoo · 2005-01-31 21:31 · Score: 1

RedHat/Fedora, Debian, SuSE, and Slackware are the most well known distros. And Mandrake? Most distros are ripoffs of the first 4. Mandrake is RedHat based. Gentoo is one of the few of the relatively new distros that is really different. Knoppix, too, is more than "just a Debian ripoff". I'm not criticizing them for copying. Just that what's the advantage of using a RedHat based distro when you can just use RedHat? Easy to think of one disadvantage-- you have to switch or live with obsolescence if the obscure distro you're using isn't being updated anymore.
Never having used Mandrake, all I know about it is it's supposed to be friendlier than RedHat. Someone tell me if Mandrake has a point beyond that? Gentoo and Knoppix do. Does Mandrake?

--
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
1. Re:What does Mandrake do that RedHat doesn't? by rmm4pi8 · 2005-02-01 02:22 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  1) The config tools are better than Redhat's--nice for new users.
  
  2) Equal support for KDE and Gnome.
  
  3) [And this is the real winner] the urpmi tools for automated package management. The repositories are newer than debian-stable without being bleeding edge, and for packages not included (rare given the size of the repositories!) you can use it to stuff in rpm's you've found on your own, and still check and download their dependencies manually. Works pretty well flawlessly, and it's this command line program, not the pretty stuff, keeping me on Mandrake.
  
  --
  U.S. War Crimes blog. Email for free Mandriva support.
2. Re:What does Mandrake do that RedHat doesn't? by LWATCDR · 2005-02-01 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  I do not know about Mandrake but I can tell you that Fedora Core3 does not work on the Intel 810 graphics chip out of the box.
  Does Mandrake have a point? Yes it is a choice and choice is good. Mandrake has a very good installer.
  BTW Suse 9.2 works great with the 810.
  
  --
  See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
3. Re:What does Mandrake do that RedHat doesn't? by opkool · 2005-02-02 10:44 · Score: 1
  
  Mandrake works with i810 chipsets noproblem.
  
  In fact, HP sells in the US PCs with i810 and Mandrake pre-installed.
  
  Not bad...
Mandrake is for n00bs by renata.org · 2005-01-31 23:07 · Score: 1

C'mon guys... Mandrake is a very nice distro for totally n00bs who like cute stuff. It's a nice replacement for Teletub... I mean, Windows XP desktops. My mother would love it! I'd love it also if it included a wallpaper featuring Gaël naked, but as it does not, I love my Gentoo.
1. Re:Mandrake is for n00bs by rmm4pi8 · 2005-02-01 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  Is this to imply that Gentoo includes a wallpaper of Gael naked? Do tell! On a more serious note, Mandrake is more than eye-candy, as I explain above.
  
  --
  U.S. War Crimes blog. Email for free Mandriva support.
2. Re:Mandrake is for n00bs by haakoneide · 2005-02-01 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  Mandrake is for nobody. It has all the disadvantages of WinXP (slow, unstable) without any of the advantages. People say it's easy to use, but Knoppix is way easier both to use and install thanks to the automatic hardware detection.
3. Re:Mandrake is for n00bs by renata.org · 2005-02-01 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  I knew someone was going to ask that. I'll leave the mistery in the air: does Gentoo secretly includes a naked Gael wallpaper?
  (but having a Gael wallpaper would certainly make Mandrake even more eye-candy)
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 06:03 · Score: 1

Suse went bankrupt? Are you on drugs? They were bought by Novell (much like Ximian) and SLES (Enterprise Server) is a huge seller. Novell have ported their Netware services to SUSE SLES9, please check www.novell.com/oes .
What you lack in facts you certainly make up in conviction.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 08:19 · Score: 1

I don't understand what you are talking about. I own a company - partner of Novell/Suse and I can assure you Suse is not only not bankrupt but is generating a nice income for its partners. You seem to be stuck in 2002, it is 2005 now.
I don't like discussing business on /. but believe me, Novell's strategy as far as Linux/Suse is concerned is pretty coherent and the fact that they have put SLES9 on equal footing with Netware speaks volumes.
I am also a paying Mandrakeclub member (gold) for about a year and a half and I have become increasingly amazed at the low quality of their products. At some point, I tried to make my company a partner of Mandrake, let's just say I have never met a more unprofessional reply in my life, and that includes the Redhat robots that spent three months reading my email before answering.
I don't know what your beef is with Suse but, technologically and marketing-wise they are fighting head to head with Redhat. Spend less time quoting and more time testing their software.
I hate the fact I sound like a fanboy because I really am not, Suse through the Novell brand is hugely sellable and a great product that runs from laptops to IBM monsters.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 08:24 · Score: 1

I also think you misunderstand the meaning of the word "bankrupt".

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 09:10 · Score: 1

I find your comments offensive, abusive and incoherent. The last thing I need is getting into a fight to prove my knowledge or my business sense with some random guy on slashdot.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 09:54 · Score: 1

Please stop drinking coffee.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 10:24 · Score: 1

No. Learn to be civilised.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-01 19:16 · Score: 1

Ashamed of what? I gave my opinion and you replied with insults. The last thing I'm going to do is give my real name to some random slashdot guy with an obvious persecution complex. I am sorry your experience at suse ten years was horrible but that does not change the fact that NOW they offer a very credible solution.
Read the thread again and tell me what were the "insults" and "lies". Re-read your own messages and feel free to apologise for your tone. Otherwise this "conversation" is over.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-02 03:56 · Score: 1

If you want to enter a flame war I suggest you master English.
I don't have any reason to hide, nor do I have reason to "clear my name and my ancestor's name" - btw, my name is clear from my email addy but whatever. The name of my company is Adelie, site at www.adelie.pt, but then again you'll find some other psychotic reason to scream about the wrongs people have done you.
I also cannot see how you can argue that SLES is a huge seller for me since I am selling it and you are not, guess we'll take your word for it. Suse WERE bought by Novell, maybe you object but they did. "What you lack in facts you certainly make up in conviction" is not a lie, it is an observation and certainly much more civilised in tone than your ramblings
You are knew here, you have written something like 10 messages and already have bad karma. This should give you a pretty good pointer on whether your style is correct for informal conversation or not. As far as I am concerned you have no reason to react as you do, you are the one insulting, not me.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Re:Everything ... by Dot.Com.CEO · 2005-02-02 04:44 · Score: 1

OH MY GOD!!!! Getting bankrupt is a legal process that leads to administration and liquidation of assets. A company covering another company's debts is NOT bancruptcy.
It is obviously a lost cause "conversing" with you.

--
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.