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Mandrake 6.1 Is Out (For Real This Time)

Posted by Hemos on from the go-out-and-download dept.

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.

3 of 69 comments (clear)

  1. Big Improvement by TheBashar · · Score: 4

    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!

  2. Packages in 6.1 Just a Wee bit *too* Bleeding Edge by Skeezix · · Score: 4
    Does anyone else think that many of the packages in Mandrake 6.1 are just a bit premature? For example (see the announcement):

    - 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
  3. So many distributions , so little differentation. by scrutty · · Score: 4
    Seems to be a growing number of high profile distributions these days , an increasing number of them based on RedHat. But I wonder how truly sustainable some of these are.

    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