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Mandrake 6.1 Is Out (For Real This Time)
Several readers have written in with the news that, yes, Linux-Mandrake 6.1 (Helios) is out. The ISOs, and the whole bit are availible from their site as well as mirrors around the Web.
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Corporations may be effectively targeted by Red Hat, though. I noticed a post yesterday where someone said he was choosing Red Hat to push at work despite those problems for the very reason that the PHB's have seen it mentioned in a good light in the standard PHB-oriented publications. Of course, given that Mandrake won the Linux product of the year award at LWCE, which had a 'suit-friendly' aroma, and that Caldera also won an award, I wouldn't regard Red Hat dominance in this segment as a given.
I think consumers could easily sway between Mandrake, Red Hat or Corel (once released), as they tend to be more about pushing the envelope on "new user gui friendliness", which recently has necessarily meant releasing quickly. For instance, the new kernels and X support evermore devices.
I think Red Hat is really blowing it the hardware certification area, though. That the only machine they've certifed was one that contained a winmodem demonstrates a profound lack of ethics, imho.
Of course, this is from the geek "big picture" and not from the business "big picture".. I'm guessing the businessmen at Red Hat thought it would be great to further legitimize themselves by having a hardware certification program and to grant IBM a favor to promote good relations with a huge industry player. But, as their IPO risks statement said, they risk losing the support of the community. I think this is a risk that could have easily been avoided by picking a different model to certify. (Was the Thinkpad really doing that poorly against competing laptops that IBM felt they had to push this one for Red Hat certification? Do they really think this will affect their future sales positively?)
I think it's critical that any of the doors Red Hat is given credit to for opening should really be opened. Speaking from experience, it really sucks walking into a screen.
You have a valid point. I too would feel more comfortable with a non-pre kernel. The problem is that there is no way to know how long it will be until 2.2.13 comes out. Were are on pre-9 already.
And going back to the last stable kernel 2.2.12 really isn't a good idea either. 2.2.12 (and 2.2.11) was riddled with wide spread problems. I respect Mandrake for trying to stay on the cutting edge as well as ensuring that their distributions are stable.
Please remember, 2.2.13-pre3 has been out for a while and we have been hammering it pretty hard to make sure it is stable. And, of course, as soon as 2.2.13 finally is released it won't be long before Mandrake release a small update package.
It's not that I disagree with your observations, I just don't think the issue is so big as to scare someone off from a much improved distro release.
Cheers!
I've been following the development of Mandrake's latest release from 6.0 to 6.1 very closely. I strongly encourage anyone running an older version of Mandrake to upgrade.
There are major changes in this release which are very much worth taking advantage of. Most people will enjoy the new graphical installer and graphical disk partitioner. These things make it nicer for the average user to install. But more importantly than that, 6.1 is the first release benefitting from Mandrake's "cooker" process.
Mandrake 6.0, while being very good, was chock full of small annoying and disruptive problems. After the experience with 6.0, Mandrake opened it's development process up to the public. Thos of us who have chosen to participate have been able to download and intall development versions of 6.1 and make suggestions for improvements.
This means that 6.1 has the inputs and suggestions of far more people than any previous release. Hopefully we have all found the "gotcha" issues before the official release this time. I am confident that the 6.1 release is far more stable and gotcha-free than the 6.0 release.
Once again, I enourage all Mandrake (or KDE based distribution) enthusiast to give the new distribution a try.
Cheers!
...But don't take my word for it..try it out. I plan on ordering a CD from CheapBytes as soon as it's available.
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
- Linux-Kernel: 2.2.13 (pre4)
- Enlightenment 0.16-dev5
- GnomeICU 0.66 (according to the GnomeICU Homepage, 0.66 hasn't been released yet..it's still in developement!
And there are other examples of software that has barely been tested...
And while I respect the fact that they are no longer basing their distribution on RedHat, they do claim compatibility with RedHat. I fear that by releasing their distribution prior to RedHat's release they risk some incompatibility.
Redhat now has a chance to "one-up" Mandrake's distribution if they choose to.
Just a few thoughts...
--Jamin Philip Gray
jamin@DoLinux.org
Celebrate the finer things in life
... is here, with info on the major updates and changes.
Its only to be expected that we will be seeing floods of first time or new users eager to try out Linux with the media profile of our favourite OS being what it is nowadays. But what will happen as the userbase matures ?
I'm sure I'm not the only Linux user who has started to move away from using the shrink wrapped stuff. You install a Red Hat, or a Suse or a Mandrake or whatever, you spend a few months setting loads of stuff up , tweaking it , installing all of your favourite gizmos and libraries from source, graudually making your box as comfortable as a pair of well worn slippers. Then six months down the line attracted by the shiny new box on the shelf at PC world you buy a updated copy and do the upgrade thing. Then you spend the next 2 weeks in mild shock getting everything working the way it used to again.
And after doing that once, how inclined are you to to fork out your dollars to go through that experience again ?
-- Oh Well