Mandrake 6.1 NOT Out (Update)
swestbrook writes "It appears that Mandrake 6.1 final is out. It's starting to appear on the mirrors everywhere-grab it from here or the usual places. No news of the release on their website but details should show up today. Update: 09/14 10:44 by H : I've been informed by Mandrake that it is not out yet-they are still going through the beta process, so don't be surprised by bugs in the current beta. You've been warned.
I have had nothing but problems with mandrake. Of all the distro's I have used so far, it is by far the most unstable with complete lockups of the machine and terribly corrupted filesystems afterwards. There is much more beta software included standard than your average redhat. I liked the pentium optimizations and performance tuning techniques, but I have heard they are releasing a i386 distro(to gain marketsahare?). I fear that they will be too divided by supporting i386 and i586. It is my belief that there are more than enough i386 ditro's out there and that this is a backward move for them. Mandrake appears to be confirming our fears about linux's rise in popularity, rushing to get things into market(that may not be ready) and beat the competition to the punch(where have we seen this before?). On the other hand they are funding many good open source projects(some of which are a little redundant at this point in time). Lothar looks very promising.
Joe
jlrice@columbus.crossinds.net
What kind of system was it? I've had no problems at all on my generic home-brew 3 year old P-Pro system at home and a couple of PII systems.
I hope they put together a KDE 1.1.2 update asap.
I have seen RedHat and SuSE at Best Buy, MIcrocenter has everything and if you live in the North East( As far as I know) Staples carries Mandrake Linux and RedHat. Bookstores like Barnes and Noble as well as some others are starting to carry Boxed versions of Linux distros as well. Its no where near as hard to get Linux as it was 3 or 4 years ago.
Mandrake is trying to diverge from redhat while still maintaining compatibility. I don't waiting until RedHat 6.1 comes out is a very big issue for the mandrake folks.
Does anyone know if this was fixed in 6.1? ihad a problem where if somehting seg faulted, it wouldn't give me a "seg fault" error, it would just hang (not the whole system, just that binary) and no matter what i tried, not even kill -9, the thing wouldn't die? i had RH 6.0, SuSe 6.1 both running on the same box, it that was never a problem....
It looks like it includes kde 1.1.2 which is good, but like Redhat 6.1 lorax ftp site, it also includes Tcl/Tk 8.0.4. Tcl/Tk 8.1 is out and I believe that 8.2 may even be out. These are supposed to fix some bugs, so why don't they upgrade these libs?
I lost several files after system hangs. Switching off without proper shutdown shouldn't cause any problems normally (it never did with any of the other distros I used so far), but it proved rather disastrous with mandrake. Apparently they were so busy polishing their desktop that they forgot to switch on bdflush. Problem is, with a major bug like this there should be a big red flashing pointer to the update-file right on the top of their webpage, with an explanation what the problem is. There was an update file, alright, but I found it through dejanews, not through their webpage. Not syncing the system on a regular basis is tantamount to a brand new car with faulty brakes. And this is generally announced on the radio, it doesn't require searching the internet first.
I've been installing via ftp (twice for me and then for friends), very nice feature if you have a high speed connection, such as a cable modem or a university connection. BUT, I could only do a fresh install, I could not get the upgrade option to work. I've been pounding on 6.1b for days now and have had no problems. Yet ;-)
I downloaded & burned the Mandrake 6.0 CD image a couple of weeks ago. It installed just fine, autodetected everything. I have had no stability problems whatsoever,and the occassional lost inodes I used to have on hda with RH are gone. The configuration is just so much more complete that I don't think I'll bother with RH again. Then again my CD image was 6.0-2 (I think) so perhaps the early problems had been fixed in it. The weak point of the whole thing is Netscape 4.6, which is (if possible) even worse than 4.05, no matter how new, upgraded or "-stable" package you get.
Uncomment the line that starts /sbin/update. There was some confusion about whether it was still ncessary to run update (bdflush). It *is* necessary.
My understanding from the devel mailing list is that the outstanding bugs on the bug page is a result of their bug tracking system not being fully in use. They claim that bugs are actually getting fixed but bug page updates aren't happening like they should.
The mail on the Cassini (6.1B) mailing list seemes to indicate that 6.1 (helios) is not released yet. Still some bug fixws going on.
yeah i know 6.0 has been out since may that wasnt what i was asking, im talking about 6.1 ISO images.
I guess we wont see that until its actually out though, if it isnt "Officially" out now.
Mandrake's main web-site
Follow the "free download" link under "Get Your Mandrake!" to: Mandrake mirror sites
Hard drive optimisations are turned on at the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
I think that I need to fiddle with them too: my hard drive light stays on permanently when I'm in Linux. Something that I find quite disturbing!
What I heard about Linux at Costco was pretty darned interesting: They said that they decided to offer RedHat linux on a whim, and that it had outsold Windows 98.
I wish I could rememeber where I read that, at any rate: it was amazing to see like 4 pallettes of redhat boxes right where you walk in at our local store.
Thankfully, since then, RedHat has vowed to stop making silent upgrades (what they should have done is release this as RedHat 5.1.1, what they decided to do instead is stop shipping CD's with updates already applied -- which is lame but better than the original situation). And with any luck the kernel people will start making stable branches that are actually stable (i.e. after the feature freeze, nothing goes in but bug fixes -- if you want to have new features, run the odd series kernels).
--
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Several months ago, I was at CompUSA buying a hub (desperate -- we needed to get out of the colocation cabinet that night) and, to my amazment, I found a whole shelf with various shrink-wrapped Linux stuff: multiple distros, WordPerfect, and Civ: Call to Power for Linux. Apparently that day was the first day the store got CTP. I was highly impressed.
I downloaded one of the early 6.1 variants a few days back, and I have to say it does excel in a few areas, notably speed. Also their GNOME/E setup (at the time) was probably the best I've seen, period, in terms of *everything working*. It also seemed quite stable.
I did have a problem, however in that when it kicked into "sleep mode" it would throw the system clock completely off. Has anyone else experienced this problem, if so is there a fix available? Apologies if this is a newbie question.
Happy Tuesday
wally
Just curious, you wouldn't happen to have an S3 Virge card. If so, that's happening because the X server(s) for the Virge are so completely broken.
Folks....hold up! The 6.1 release is not yet finished. Wait until they get a few more bugs worked out ok. The official pressing isn't until some days away so let the mirrors settle and the ISO images get created. Also there are some other small nigglies that have to be worked out. It is not done yet so please don't download it and then complain about it. Thanks, Nicholas
He can still install it. Just on the reboot after the install you have to boot from the floppy and edit the /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit file and comment out the section that does the udma stuff. GeekBoy* ***
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Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
If you want bleeding edge, try cooker, Mandrake's real time development distro!
However, if you encounter bugs on pre-Helios, please send them to Mandrake's bug ml.
Thank you!
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
There are many little differences, like the penguin on the login prompt :) I find that mandrake is a little more "polished" than redhat. they force you to creat a non-priveledged user during setup, something i'm usually too lazy to do on my own.
:)))
I also believe that mandrake is now compiled with pentium optimizations, which is supposed to give a speed increase.
I've used both 6.0s, and personally i like mandrake better. I cant wait to get my iso image and check it out
There was a problem when it first came out. You need to uncomment a line in the /etc/inittab file. Unfortunately I don't remember which line it was off the top of my head.
I was looking at the ftp mirrors today, because I wanted to download 6.0. I could only find 6.1, and, seeing as I thought it was still in beta, I didn't want to download it. This clears everything up...
Anybody got a list of new features?
Juiced? Or Not?
Yeah, I just ordered 6.0 from Cheapbytes... Oh well, guess I'll use up some of the twin T1's for the upgrade.
-- Keith Moore
This sig is the express property of someone.
...but 6.0 wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, particularly during install. /. for beating out Mandrake with the news. Perhaps someone should let them know they've got a web page.
BTW, congrats to
I think they were just waiting for the KDE version to be finished. The beta they had up before was built from the 1.1.2 CVS, not that I tried it mind you (no highspeed bandwidth or CD burner). Things like Lothar for configuring hardware look very promising, however maybe they should have waited to see what Redhat is really doing and incorperate it? No matter, either way Mandrake always puts together a solid distrobution.
I tried RH6.0 and it was very unstable on my system, so I tried Mdk6.0 and haven't had a problem since.
They did rush out a quick fix for a problem they were having with the init scripts. It never affected me though.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Before you jump to unwarranted conclusions, check your facts. The bug tracking system is broken. That doesn't mean that dozens of developers are just sitting down picking their noses and waiting for a release. They're fixing them despite the fact that they can't log the fixes for you to see.
Mandrake developers are active participants in the general and developer mandrake mailing lists. If there is a specific bug you are concerned with, post a question to the lists asking if it's fixed.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I've tried DL'ing the 6.1version from several sources and they all seem to crash, so I would hold off a bit before DL'ing the files. I did briefly use the 6.1 Beta and it ran very smoothly (and fast), but the non-beta is still buggy - I can't install it - it just crashes even before I can select which packages I want to install
..........FULL STOP.
- The install failed because one of the needed modules was built for the wrong kernel version, so an install-time insmod died.
- It turned out that if you read the fine print it's actually a Macmillan product, not even an `official Mandrake' product... so, no Mandrake support. (Not even any Macmillan support, actually, just some third-party um professionals whose name escapes me.)
I think such knock-off slap-together quick-buck distributions do an extreme disservice to the cause, putting bogus software in the hands of those who can least deal with it and thus tending to feed the FUD.I had a problem where hdparam (hdparm?? can't remember) was set on hard disk that didn't support the flags that were being set. Took me ages to work out that I was getting filesystem corruption and THEN to work out the problem.
I still have a problem where the system just freezes when I'm in KDE or Gnome.
grrr....
Damn i just burned a copy of 6.0 1 hour ago!!!
They have been experiencing various difficulties. Their NFS server had a faulty motherboard and must be replaced, and they had various difficulties with their ISDN modem (which I helped their sysadmin in solving). Release is expected Real Soon Now (tm).
Redhat is everywhere, but it's too damn expensive ($79.95 for the basic box? Download it)
Mandrake at Staples and Media Play, but don't bother, they don't have Mandrake's best, the Power Pack. I've only seen their basic and deluxe in retail.
Ordered my Mandrake 6.1 from LinuxMall, got a free RedHat CD with it, which isn't bad for $50.
Jpowers
-jpowers
Red Hat/Mandrake also in Software Etc. next to a copy of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux, and Word Perfect 8 for Linux at Staples. Scary.
jpowers
-jpowers
where did they go?
There's a mountain of stuff outstanding from
6.0 and practically none of it is being addressed.
See the sad story at their bug page.
Alan posted a summary of the 2.2.13pre5 patches on the Linux Kernel mailing List last thursday. MandrakeSoft might have considered this prerelease stable enough to include it in their 6.1 tree. They might also be holding their press annoucement until the final 2.2.13 is out and they can rpm-ize it and load it on their ftp site.
I've never installed a pre-xxx kernel before, and I wonder if any of you who did it had experience problems with software that test the minor version number of the hosting kernel. I guess a program based on atoi("13pre5") will not be too happy about the whole idea.
Last time I was at Software Etc. (picking up FF8) I was looking around; they had two distos, Red Hat 6.0 and a much cheaper box with Mandrake 6.0 :) Really, $100 vs. $30, if I was gonna buy one I think you can all guess what I'd get :)
--
-- Your IP is showing
Mark
Howdy.
Sorry about the horrible mess I just posted, its my first time ;)
Here are the file updated since the 12th:
09.12.99 X11R6-contrib-3.3.2-8mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 klyx-0.10.0-3mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 libmikmod-3.1.6-2mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 libmikmod-devel-3.1.6-2mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 man-pages-ko-1.1-8mdk.noarch.rpm
09.12.99 mikmod-3.1.6a-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 xanim-28010-6mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 cdrecord-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 cdrecord-cdda2wav-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 cdrecord-devel-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.12.99 bzip2-0.9.5d-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 enlightenment-0.16.devel.6-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 mkisofs-1.12b5-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 rhs-printfilters-1.57-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdebase-1.1.2-8mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdegraphics-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdelibs-1.1.2-7mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdemultimedia-1.1.2-3mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdesupport-1.1.2-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdetoys-1.1.2-2mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdeutils-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdeadmin-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kdenetwork-1.1.2-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 ppp-2.3.8-1mdk.i586.rpm
09.13.99 kernel-smp-fb-2.2.13-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 ncurses-5.0_990703-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 ncurses-devel-5.0_990703-4mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-BOOT-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-doc-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-fb-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-headers-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-ibcs-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-pcmcia-cs-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
09.14.99 kernel-smp-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm
The game of life doesn't except more quarters.
I upgraded to Mandrake from Red Hat 6.0 about a week ago, and it has performed splendidly for me thus far. I've noticed significant speed improvements in GNOME/E, and GNOME actually seems less buggy to me now (I don't know if that's accurate, since I believe Mandrake packages the same version og gnome-core and gnome-libs, but it certainly seems that way). I'm done with Red Hat. Mandrake gives me everything Red Hat does and more, and offers better performance. Who can argue with that?
Ender
Windows Free
Either way, does anyone have data as to which of the major store-chains you can buy which distros at?
This would be good information to have online somewhere for potential buyers (at least those buyers who research their distros before buying one).
Werd.
Mandrake's main web-site
Follow the "free download" link under "Get Your Mandrake!" to: Mandrake mirror sites
When is RH6.1 coming out?!?!?!
"Microsoft is the epitome of innovation and product quality."
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
mandrake has a listserv and newsgroup (alt.os.linux-mandrake i think). These places are stocked with people who will answer any question about mandrake that you have. i've gotten help from everything from quake3 to setting up a domain with bind
Has anyone noticed that the distro appears to include kernel 2.2.13? I'm downloading it now, and there's a file called "kernel-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm". AFAIK, 2.2.12 is the latest. Is mandrake doing custom kernels, did they screw up their names, or is it something entirely differnet? Note that I haven't installed it yet, so I don't know what the kernel actually is...
Juiced? Or Not?
I apologize to everyone that I spoke a little too soon. My mistake.. thousands of rotten apples thrown my way.
I wouldn't rush to download this for a little while. People have suggested waiting for KDE 1.1.2, but that isn't the only reason. The 6.1 directories have been around for a couple of days and the contents are still changing. Here is a few of the files that have changes at a Mandrake ftp mirror (ftp.tux.org): 09.12.99 20:10:00 11R6-contrib-3.3.2-8mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 20:10:00 klyx-0.10.0-3mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 20:10:00 libmikmod-3.1.6-2mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 20:10:00 libmikmod-devel-3.1.6-2mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 20:11:00 man-pages-ko-1.1-8mdk.noarch.rpm 09.12.99 20:11:00 mikmod-3.1.6a-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 20:11:00 xanim-28010-6mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 22:20:00 cdrecord-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 22:20:00 cdrecord-cdda2wav-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 22:20:00 cdrecord-devel-1.8a27-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.12.99 22:30:00 bzip2-0.9.5d-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 0:15:00 enlightenment-0.16.devel.6-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 00:26:00 mkisofs-1.12b5-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 15:05:00 rhs-printfilters-1.57-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 16:45:00 kdebase-1.1.2-8mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 16:45:00 kdegraphics-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 16:50:00 kdelibs-1.1.2-7mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 16:55:00 kdemultimedia-1.1.2-3mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 17:05:00 kdesupport-1.1.2-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 17:05:00 kdetoys-1.1.2-2mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 17:10:00 kdeutils-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 17:15:00 kdeadmin-1.1.2-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 21:10:00 kdenetwork-1.1.2-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 22:01:00 ppp-2.3.8-1mdk.i586.rpm 09.13.99 23:23:00 kernel-smp-fb-2.2.13-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 01:15:00 ncurses-5.0_990703-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 01:15:00 ncurses-devel-5.0_990703-4mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 03:50:00 kernel-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 03:55:00 kernel-BOOT-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:00:00 kernel-doc-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:10:00 kernel-fb-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:10:00 kernel-headers-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:10:00 kernel-ibcs-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:10:00 kernel-pcmcia-cs-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm 09.14.99 04:18:00 kernel-smp-2.2.13-5mdk.i586.rpm As you can see, there is a reason this release hasn't been officially announced.
The game of life doesn't except more quarters.