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MacMillan Sells Most Linux, gets No Respect
g8orade wrote to us with a
column currently running on ZDNET about Macmillan Linux, aka Linux-Mandrake. The column is regarding the fact that while Macmillan is the best selling, the "geeks" of Linux don't give it any respect - which is an interesting point, although I would like to say that we've done more then one story on it. The column has some thought-provoking comments about useability and the direction of Linux, as well.
As some one who started out using the ultra-user-friendly slackware distro and moved straight to debian, I find myself wondering what makes mandrake rock... from looking at screen shots it looks... hold me back... EXACTLY like RedHat... so I find myself asking the question, if it looks like redhat, is 99% compatible with redhat... isn't it just redhat... what is the difference for those of us uniformed (Incidently I wouldn't have to ask this question, if I could have easily found it on the web page, hint hint hint.)
They DO do something. They market Linux better than anyone else (so the article says). That means MacMillan is doing the best job of getting Linux in front of the masses. Marketing's required for world domination.
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"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Bigotry in linux distributions is contrary to the point of open source and the GPL.
:)
If Linux wants to be a 'major player' it has to be Linux. It can't be Corel-Linux and Redhat-Linux and so forth otherwise we'll end up with a huge holy war which will, end up in the end, Hurting the GPL and the 'movement'.
The only way I can think of to save us from ourselves is by getting People who run Distros (by that I mean the dev teams of groups like Corel, VA, Etc., people who have respect need to try to stop these wars before they start.) to pass some sort of test to prove that, while they like the distro they work for best, (as they work on it) they will never spread lies, flames, or the like about another distro or another groups work. That way we wont end up like those we scorn for their policy, philosophy, and what we consider to be general evil, (or as I see it, those who put the profit motive above people, or friendships, or trust, that sort of thing. But hey what do I know, i'm stuck up. And obviously I can't talk for everyone.
-[ World domination - rains.net ]-
I have to give a great big congrats to Macmillan. They took, IMHO, the best of the Linux distros and have obviously been successful at marketing it. On top of that, their success has translated into development support for the Linux Mandrake team. Furthermore, because they play such a laid back role, the Linux Mandrake team is presumably more in control of the direction of the distro than say, the development team at Red Hat. Sounds to me like there's something positive for all parties on this one...
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
I happen to have (OK, flame me for this) one of those "Macmillan Linux" boxes on my shelf...
The box labeled "The Complete Linux Operating System 6.0" is, in fact, Linux-Mandrake. It's not some crazy distro by Macmillan. It's Linux-Mandrake packaged by Macmillan. Linux-Mandrake is a distro put together by Mandrakesoft, not Macmillan.
Similarly, Macmillan also publishes plain-vanilla Red Hat 6.0 and Power Tools. This doesn't make them Macmillan Linux 6.0 and Macmillan Power Tools. Imagine the confusion if every company that packaged Mandrake and Red Hat just put their own name on the box. Hrm, Linux Mall Linux 6.0? CheapBytes SuSE?
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
My .02 worth. Macmillan is a distributor. It packages and distributes to retail stores the Mandrake distro. It pays a licensing fee back to Mandrake. It is beneficial for Mandrake if they use a pre-exisiting distribution arm that has a established sales force and marketing behind it so they don't have to create one. Mandrake is outselling RH because it is cheaper and some would say better. Macmillan Mandrake also comes with 24/7 support web, fax and email support from Linuxcare. It also contains electronic versions of books too as a value-add. If the enduser feels they need phone support and wants to pay $79.99 for it, they can buy RH. You can still download Mandrake from their site at no charge.
Don't subsidize laziness. If some newbie doesn't want to RTFM, they should have to hire someone to read it to them.
I could personally care less about World Domination. I'm all about choice. While I personally dislike Windows, MacOS, and even *BSD, I could care less if people use them. I'm also concerned with the truth. I don't care if Evan is a "suprerior techno-geek", but if he can't keep from lying, misrepresenting, and otherwise pressing false conceptions through his articles, I'm going to continue to trash him. :)
*rofl!!* Now that's funny.. However.. I'm sick of all the lies. *BSD fanatics lie about GNU/Linux, GNU/Linux fanatics lie about *BSD, Microsoft lies about everyone, etc. etc. I may sometimes get the facts wrong myself, and occassionally troll (ok, only once on Slashdot, really ;), but then again.. I'm not writing news articles. And I don't lie on purpose. And if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. Or if someone points out an interpretation of something I say I didn't think of, I'll elaborate. Nonetheless, if you're going to be a journalist, you should get your fscking facts straight, because you're going to be reaching a far wider audience than, say, me, and the last thing the public needs is more lies. It's enough to make me sick .
If Evan reads Slashdot, as he clearly does, he has absolutely no good reason for his gross errors in that article. End of discussion.
~ Kish
based on what i've seen at LNO it seems that there is some buzz going around to newbies that Mandrake is the distro for them.
I highly recommend it to the emails i get as well, however, this buzz is obviously strong because the influx of new linux users seem to head straight for Mandrake.
Mandrake is faster than redhat and easier to install and comes with a few more apps. Redhat seems to have taken a hint with their newer gui install.
http://www.icalledit.com - Predicting the future, one post at a time
Actually, it says in 14-point type:
Linux-Mandrake(TM) 6.0 (Red Hat(R) Linux(TM) 6.0 with enhancements)
And, in much larger type:
The Complete Linux(TM) Operating System 6.0
And the logos for Macmillan Publishing USA and Mandrake are equally sized, albiet small, in the upper left-hand corner of the front of the box.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I have no problem with people that aren't "superior techno-geek" (in fact I don't understand why anyone would label themselves geek or nerd), but I do have a problem with the Jesse Berst wannabees i.e. anything to generate hits.
/mill
According to the article MacMillan is not respected by the "geeks" (as evidenced by his search here at Slashdot i.e. they/we don't care). According to the article MacMillan is not concerned by this. So if neither the "geeks" nor MacMillan care about this whole issue then why is it even brought up?
I don't see why anyone should respect or disrespect MacMillan. What have they done to earn the respect of the Linux community? Sell Linux? Should I respect the local supermarket for selling Coca Cola? Should we show our respect to Cheapbytes too? To all the magazines that bundle CDs with Linux on it?
Interesting that he has to bring up how users are allegedly abandoning Red Hat, mainly because of the KDE/GNOME "issue", all the time too.
The vagaries of press organizations is still curious. Yesterday ZDnet was running an article claiming that if Linux wanted entry into the enterprise market, it would have to make its security updates more "manageable." Today they posted this article under the section heading of "Enterprise Linux."
It's good that RedHat exists. I admire redhat for what they have done with linux (ie: they went commercial, but so far, have kept up and even increased their community support). I admire Mandrake linux. It's my flavour of the month right now. But every time I use it, I know that all of Redhat's hard work is in there too. That's what makes it cool. It's cool that RedHat is cool with this.
MacMillan is a business. Doesn't matter. Respect is social. If they want social respect, they need to act in socially respected ways. If they search for money, and nothing else, then, if they are successful, their stockholders and accountants will respect them. That doesn't earn the respect of programmers.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
That's all, everything else but 11 packages is 2.2.x ready.
Regarding glibc2: Debian uses glibc2 since Debian 2.0 (hence the name).
Ciao, Martin
I bought the Mandrake/MacMillan boxed set at Sam's Club a few months back for about $25. I tried to install it on a machine that runs an old version of linux and no matter what I would do, it would lock up during or after the disk partitioning step. It didn't matter if I used fdisk or whatever partitioning tool ships with RH. I didn't even have to change anything and it would lock up. I returned it to Sam's and got my money back.
I meant to say Macmillan is not mandrake but you knew that right??
It's amazing how much "pp" wrote, with no evidence, even anecdotal, cited.
Oh, yeah, and of course there's the plain old Microsoft quality Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt:
"Even egcs... has had its problems..."
of COURSE it's had problems at some point.. but problems get FIXED. pp, have you even *tried* compiling a kernel with a *recent* egcs *stable* release? Have you read of someone else who has, and failed?
"I know of at least one kernel developer who ignores..."
Well, Anyone can come up with at least one person who does something. Without more details about the "problem", like the pgcc version used, the version of Mandrake used, and whether it was actually a kernel problem, and not just user error, might be helpful.
Yes, this is a strongly-worded reply. Someone might even click it to (0: Flamebait) or worse. But, the whole point of slashdot discussion (it seems to me anyway) is to elucidate the facts, and to point out the falsehoods.
\\'
It's amazing how much "pp" wrote, with no evidence, even anecdotal, cited.
Oh, yeah, and of course there's the plain old Microsoft quality Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt:
"Even egcs... has had its problems..."
of COURSE it's had problems at some point.. but problems get FIXED. pp, have you even *tried* compiling a kernel with a *recent* egcs *stable* release? Have you read of someone else who has, and failed?
"I know of at least one kernel developer who ignores..."
Well, Anyone can come up with at least one person who does something. Without more details about the "problem", like the pgcc version used, the version of Mandrake used, and whether it was actually a kernel problem, and not just user error, might be helpful.
"...but using pgcc for the kernel is just irresponsible"
Sure.. if you say it enough times, in enough ways, maybe you'll convince someone, without having to back up the statment.
Yes, this is a strongly-worded reply. Someone might even click it to (0: Flamebait) or worse. But, the whole point of slashdot discussion (it seems to me anyway) is to elucidate the facts, and to point out the falsehoods.
And look.. I am aware that compilers aren't flawless... but slandering a major project, without backing it up with any facts just seems wrong to me. It just incensed me enought to type this...
Macmillan is a hard-working company selling a decent product.
:) i believe that's a fair deal for all they care, isn't it?
there are quite a few companies who do that, even in the computer industry, notorious for ridiculous EULA's and skyrocketing prices
(note these cost nothing to manufacture once designed)
does that call in for special respect? that's for you to decide.
as for the "geek" issue, i believe it's part of redhat's marketing strategy. and obviously, it seems to be working very well, as redhat gets a decent exposure.
this might be a good thing, to drive macmillan to try and 'work with the geeks' aswell, producting and supporting more software.
on the other hand, is linux all about geeks? macmillan is trying to sell a product.
we will have to wait and see, which of "silent" marketing like macmillan's or "loud" market like redhat's work better.
i personally believe linux can and should make it without "geek" stamped to it. so does macmillan. but they don't earn my respect, since they earn my money instead
I'm a linux guru, and I *do* like Mandrake. But honestly, RedHat has almost the exact same desktop.. it's just not quite as polished.
BeroLinux, for those who don't know, was the first 2.2kernel distribution with everything recompiled to be pentium optimized.
Sorry Dan, but this is not true. Even if it doesn't really matter who did what first I can not resist to point out that Stampede Linux was the first 2.2 kernel distribution that was compiled with pentium optimization.
In contrary, I like to type something instead of
doing "Click... Click... Click...". Now, what is
your point and how it relates to Mandrake (as a RedHat derived work):
a) processor optimization: same for both (correct me if I am wrong, but there are i686 packages for RH6.0)
b) what does it mean *complete* ?
c) install: very the same (at least for "Venus" verison of Mandrake, the only I've seen)
d) KDE - included in RH 6.0 as well
e) publisher - see posting about "Get thick books quickly" somewhere above
[Moderators, this is "troll, offtopic, flamebait" posting. Please score it down several points. Thank you and have a nice day]
Well, I think part of the problem was you were in efnet.
Whenever I go into Linux rooms on Efnet, that's the sort of thing I see. But if I go into #linux on dalnet, I see people actually assisting each other.
I'd agree with your criticism of the Que and SAMS publishers of this world - I haven't read a book from either of the above publishers on any technical subject and found it any use. (and I've read a lot of technical books)
/. All of the non-technical people I know view computers as a means to an end, not as a hobby or way of life.
Are Macmillan trumpeting their contributions to Linux? As long as they continue to just sell Mandrake I don't care (although I assume Mandrake are getting paid for their work, and they are contributing to the community)
I just think that we'll just have to get used to people that want to use Linux, not code it, not spend a large portion of their online life in newsgroups and
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
I run Mandrake 6.1 and the installer looks, acts, and smells just like the RedHat installer... O Wait could that be because *it is* the RedHat installer... No Mandrake wouldn't do that! So how can Mandrake install easier and quicker than RedHat when they use the same installer?(I use the ftp install, so they are the same)
:-)
The only reason I run Mandrake is b/c it was out first(prolly their plan), maybe I'll switch to RH tho
Mandrake hasn't done anything worth technical praise yet, but at least they're working on it(or so they say...)
One thing to remember is that MacMillian pays zd alot of money for adverts. If you watch zdtv at all, you will see Macmillian Linux commercials all the time. Of course they are going to do an article on them. It's cheap advertising.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
> The phrase is "box-shifter", and we've never yet had any respect for them, if they lack any developers - brains! - of their own...
My first Linux, RH 4.1, was a Mac. But only because they put "Red Hat" on the box in big letters and "Macmillan" in fine print. I didn't realize what I had done until I saw the return address on the registration form.
I didn't bother sending in the form. What kind of tech support could I expect from a book seller? Better to learn to RTFM than to sit on a line with someone else who hasn't.
If you want tech support, buy from the people who develop the distro. If you don't need a FM, download or buy from CheapBytes. If you fall between those extremes, Mac may be just what the doctor ordered. But let's not add them to the "boo hoo my favorite doesn't get equal airplay" list. We've got to long a list of those already.
When Mac does something interesting, I'm sure we'll be eager to talk about it.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Didn't this strike anyone else? I mean, isn't what you pay for when you buy RH (or #include 'other_distros.h') the support? I mean, if you just need a CD, you go to a guy with a fat pipe to the net and a CD burner.
I, for one, would have some very serious doubt about buying a Linux distro without support. On the other hand, I have nothing against Mandrake - I'm considering it for my next install.
It seems somehow strange to me that a distro with 'ease of use' as it's primary asset comes without support. (I doubt it's so easy to use that nobody will need support...hehe) Don't get me wrong though - I'm not condemning it. The GPL allows people to make money in the strangest of ways...
dufke
-
__
Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
It is the mark of a more sophisticated market that different roles are taken by increasingly specialised companies. For example, the initial method of selling milk (driving cattle through streets) has been replaced by farmers, producers, transportation networks, wholesale distribution, retail, and marketing, all done by different entities. I see no reason why software won't go the same way with creation, porting, packaging, distribution, and support all going to different companies. By letting each component in the value chain focus and improve on their respective roles, a wider and more robust market can be reached. If the only complaint is the name or branding, then that can be easily solved.
The increasing competition between RedHat, Mandrake, Suse etc can only lead to more refinements and (hopefully) better software solutions provided nobody uses standover tactics. T'is good.
LL
> This just seems like someone is whining because thier favorite linux distro isn't the major player.
More likely, ZD is just trying to start a distribution flame war to get us off their back over publishing their assinine "security benchmark".
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
And also with Macmillan-Mandrake you get FREE segmentation faults with emacs! A custom tweaked kernel! Something hacked in which won't let you recompile the kernel!
I saw this (v6.0) in my local computer centre last Saturday and bought it to try a different distro from RH and COL. Installed it, keeping my /home directories and as before. Had some weird problems.
nice little penguin logo on login, though.
dave
Exactly! How is that so may people get their panties in a twist over this or that distribution? I had used Slackware for years before I tried RedHat and then the Mandrake/MacMillan packages. Each distro has unique strengths and weaknesses; to issue a blanket statement that one is "better" than another is just plain dumb. It depends what the user wants or needs; neither an ultra-geek nor a complete newbie (nor anyone in between) has *one* answer as to "what is best" for all - they're just lying if they make such a claim. imho, the widest possible distribution and use of Linux the better. Let the user decide.
This article seems to be saying that they don't get enough press in places like slashdot, etc. Mandrake gets lots of press. So does RedHat. (which in turn, helps mandrake, as it's based on redhat) Macmillan? Just because they sell lots of boxes doesn't make them matter to the free software world. It's good that they pay money to Mandrakesoft. But if they want recognition in the oss community, they will have to really DO something. Just like if someone bought redhat.... would we think they were great and deserving of credit for hard work? This is like someone selling debian and then complaining that they 'don't get enough credit for their distribution'
No such thing. Mine was an opinion (and clearly marked as "Commentary") that was expressed, based on observations I've made both amongst /. readers and amongst new users. I give quiet a few "Intro to Linux" lectures, and I believe I have a fairly good idea where new users are coming from. They're most certainly on a different wavelength than this bunch. Not better, not worse, just different.
The reaction I've seen to my column here does nothing to change the perception that an awful lot of people just don't get it. Some come across as "I get it, so what?", and that's OK. But some of the nastier replies I've seen (including some really precious ones in private email) have a common theme: how dare I suggest that /. readers are losing touch!
Looks from here like I've touched a nerve. Totally unintentional, but fascinating nonetheless.
- Evan
The ISP I work for tried going from RH5.2 to Mandrake 6, mandrake didn't have all the tools we expected to find in a redhat clone, many of the included tools core dumped, and it wouldn't compile sendmail. It may provide a lovely desktop, but it won't make it as a server.
Now, I'm not trying to flame you, but some of you statements are pretty silly imho.
"RedHat employs Linux developers and improves it."
"I haven't seen Mandrake do anything. Until then they can get no respect or cash from me."
Mandrake does too, but Mandrake is a small company when compared to Redhat, but they all the create, they are giving back to the community.
Look at my previous post, or even better, look at mandrakes website, for information about what they do.
"Mandrake sucks!"
This is pretty imature - it's just as bad as all the FUD Microsoft publish, imho.
Why? - you don't write one single fact that supports you claim.
It would be allright to write that "Mandrake sucks", if the Mandrake dsitribution had huge flaws, but until now I haven't heard about that being the case.
Please, lets have a serious discussion instead.
It's probably a stupid decision to reply to your post at all, but it's my hope that you'll think a bit more, before you post again.
Hmm. I'll attempt to tread a little more carefully with the following assertations, though I'll cut out the notion that I will bother reasserting any points questioning the validity of your work that have been previously posted by others right away. Not all of it boiled down to simple name-calling, however.
By the way, I believe that despite drawing your ostensible ire, I've proven my time-honored point that I tend to choose my words quite carefully. My proof?
I would bother to disagree, but all of the relavent points have been disagreed upon throughout the course of this entire discussion. To rehash them would be redundant. I was simply responding to the thread insinuating you "Slashtrolled".. To the point, however.. Since you are obviously talking to me, I never once called you a liar. In fact, if you'll take a closer look at most of my commentary, it's rather abstract, general bitching, mostly brought on by responses other than yours (wow, and you think Slashdotters have some serious ego). Only a small minority is actually directed against your article in particular. ;)
Well, that might be because I have not attempted the impossible and highly paradoxical task of disproving something that is not a fact (i.e., an opinion). Opinions are by definition subjective, while facts are objective. This does lend further credence to the idea, however, that you are attempting to troll on a massive level. You'll have to do a little better to sucker me in.. =P
Interesting point, but, um, I still never called you a liar, on top of the fact that as you pointed out, someone else brought that up, not me. If you're going to make a point out of talking to me directly, you can at least track our discussion a little better. :)
To your credit, the quote of mine you included in your post is as close as I came to calling you a liar:
Now that I've had an oppurtunity to stare at this a little more often, I realize I should have said "and/or" rather than "and". Even so, as it stands, I dare you to prove who this explicitly states that I am indeed referring to you as a liar. As people can with your opinions, or you can about theirs, anyone can feel free to read into what I say all they want and claim it implies this or that, but until I say that what they claim is the gospel truth.. it's all hearsay and wild-eyed speculation.
Most of my posting was general bitching about the uninformed viewpoints and/or deliberate mistruths represented by a grand majority of "techie" articles. My strike against you, however, is that I see very little reason why you would not be informed enough to assert a few opinions that made a little more sense than the ones you did. Sure, you're entitled to your opinion, but I find it all too easy to imagine why someone might accuse you of trolling. A lot of your statements are misleading and appear rather uninformed (and, if you'll note my only post directly replying to yours, the only thing I really accused you of was being clueless.. not of being a liar) The fact that you said the following makes it even more mind-boggling.
I'd be very interested to read the rest of that background. Why not post it here? =P At any rate.. Hmm.. Slashdot. Your information resource one-stop. Even a brief period of stay, or a few more carefully selected uses of the search box, will enlighten one to practically no end, so long as they maintain their threshold of one and are open to new thoughts and information. :)
By the way..
Yeah, I believe.. perhaps.. that was me! Wow, imagine that. However, I believe I was dissing the editors on that point, not you. =P
And yeah, come to think of it, I did participate in a little name-calling in that post as well, but I didn't call you a liar because of it, you know. ;) I was simply stating my opinion. Obviously you felt the distinction was important.. I didn't. So what? Big deal.. But if you're going to say I was calling you a liar, back it up. I backed up my factual points, and was simply flaming with regards to my opinionated points. Makes sense, does it not? Whatever you do, do not mix the two.. That is the essence that holy wars are spun out of.. ;)
At any rate, anyone who thinks we are going to care enough to make the distinction between "Macmillan" Mandrake and just plain Mandrake (you seem to confuse the issue yourself, actually) is probably a little nuts. There are already far too many distros out there without becoming even more specialized in our coverage of them. Mandrake happens to get a lot more attention than many, but since it's not actually Macmillan that creates the distro, no one gives a damn about Macmillan. People do care about Mandrake, and talk about it, however. Your entire point seems a little murky and bizarre, if you ask me.
~ Kish
Does Mcmillion include a CDROM with every book or magazine sold? Do they count these as sales?
I don't.
This seems like a PR stunt to confuse the masses. They are not earning any brownie point from me.
If Macmillian can move software, let them. Help them, even. It's good for Linux.
But please do not whine [UK: whinge] they get no technical kudos. They have done nothing worthy of technical notice, nor do they aim do.
They just do a marketing job, as important as it is. Let them get marketing kudos.
-- Robert
The real question is why you wrote this piece. First you create a problem (i.e. MacMillan doesn't get their due respect) and then use this red herring to tread down the paths of GNOME vs. KDE, Red Hat vs. 'someone' and "geeks" vs. mainstream.
/mill
You accumulated the necessary hits for your employer - mission accomplished. Just like Jesse Berst.
I respect MacMillan, because of their marketing prowness, they have put Linux into the distribution channel. If it wasn't for MacMillan there are many store shelves out there that would most likely be barren of any Linux at all!
Call MacMillan leeches, but what they have done has futhered the popularity of Linux, this is a good thing.
Heck, the article says MacMillan pays royalties to Mandrake, so in effect they are contributing money back into the development community, CheapBytes doesn't do that.
And what exactly is Red Hat? More than 95% of their distribution they didn't create themselves yet they are profiting from the labours of others. And the token amount of stock they gave back to the "community" IMO is a joke. It doesn't seem right or fair that some of the founders are billionaires, but thats how the Linux game works.
Ok, This is fud and heres the proof. In his article, he says that Mandrake just came out with 6.1 october first and redhat still has theirs on the drawing board. Um? didn't redhat release 2 days ago? Anyone else catch anything i was only skimming the article (due to lack of content)
I have respect for the people at Redhat. They went to alot of work to make their installer and package everything up into rpm, but mandrake just takes all that work adds kde and calls it their own, kinda sickening.
Strangely enough I'm in a room of 20 machines running Mandrake in the hospitality suite at NANOG. It just doesn't get any geekier then right here.
I wish you had posted that in the first place. :-)
but a lot of times I don't want the latest beta release of every package, I would rather have a stable release in a lot of cases. I do appreciate a lot of things about Mandrake though, such as pentium optimized rpms and a couple of other design decisions. Heh, maybe they are just too bleeding edge for me, but then again, I don't play with development kernels either, so I guess I don't count :).
As far as I'm concerned Mandrake is redhat with window dressing and so is SuSE for that matter....how much do the 3 really differ..besides some added Admin apps or something. And I'm sick of hearing about "Easy Installs" ...WHO CARES...you don't ahve to be a computer hacker to install any dist of linux...so when you argue about the differance between distribution installs it means nothing to me...and why should it? so with the install and the couple added admin apps in the 3 dists put aside....what is left? all i see is redhat. IMHO there is no distributiont hat can even compare to debian. Anyone who uses debian I am pretty sure would never go back to redhat/suse/mandrake. Debian and Slackware are pretty Original Distributions. So why does mandrake deserve any special attention from us? cause it cloned redhat and made a pretty install? or cause it has pentium optimized RPM's? Debian can handle RPMS also....but i would never use them because DEBS are SUPERIOR to RPMS..but take away the pretty install and rpms and whats left? nuthin special :) my spelling sucks :) I could go on for days about how debian kicks all other dists asses but I think i'm starting to babble hehe. Any other debian or slack users out there care ta back me up?
So it's, what, some sort of vehicle?
What is the precise relationship between Mandrake and RedHat linux distributions these days?
Perhaps Mr Leibovitch ought to wake up to the idea that it was us "geeks" who brought him linux in the first place, and if we don't credit a Macmillan distribution (I'd never even *heard* of it until today!) then that's the way it goes, whether it sells boxes or not.
It's called doing the Right Thing, and I suspect merely cloning distributions doesn't deserve as much "respect" as writing your *own*, surprisingly enough...
As for we shun it "because it represents what [we] don't understand: marketing and sales", bollocks. I understand "Marketing" and "sales" as far as they're useful - they get credit for supplying my salary, and that's about it. For selling their souls to push something and having no brains (as per Dilbert stereotype), no credit.
The phrase is "box-shifter", and we've never yet had any respect for them, if they lack any developers - brains! - of their own...
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
"They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of..."
:-)
They're publishers! Book publishers! They probably couldn't tell the difference between a new and malloc if it segmented between their ears
"Have they contributed funds or other resources to organizations like the FSF, The XFree86 Project, Software In The Public Interest, or other such?"
No, but they have contributed funds to the organization that started the linux i18n project, the first Free partitioner/resizer, etc. As for not contibuting to FSF or SPI, those are political organizations (surprise), and perhaps Macmillan doesn't want to get involved in politics.
..."there isn't any other source of "positive points"..."
What is this, Boy Scout accounting? Helping old ladies across the street isn't good enough? Maybe they figure if 99% of the extreme vocal advocates of Linux don't give back (give back what?) to the community, they don't have to either.
"It appears that their priorities are largely economic"
Hello, McFly! Macmillan is a business. They are supposed to make money. Their shareholders will tar and feather them if they don't make money. Respect don't put food on the table, economics does.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I was at BestBuy looking for RedHat6 and Mandrake was $29.95 while RedHat was $79.95 since they both said they where RedHat 6.0 I bought the cheaper one....I will never make that mistake again.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Don't forget about some things...
If you claim Mandrake hasn't done anything worth technical praise yet, you're ignoring the work behind the scenes.
Just one example: The patches making kernels compile cleanly with gcc 2.95.1 are from Mandrake.
And just for the records, the installer is not 100% the same either - the RH textmode installer does not add unprivileged users, for example. (Fixed in 6.1 though)
This is the first I've heard that they actually pay royalties to the makers of the product they ship. Still, perhaps the reason no one gives them any respect is that they don't actually do that much. People respect Mandrake and Red Hat, but what reason is there to talk about MacMillan? It's not like it's a different product. It's just a different box! And a box from a company that has zero presence in "the community", except for some books which are most certainly not free. The article argues that we should pay attention to MacMillan because they sell so many copies, but I just did a Slashdot search on Cheapbytes (an equivalent operations, I suppose). Two responses, neither of which has anything to do with Linux. Why again are we supposed to discuss distributors in detail when one of the benefits of all this open source is that we're not subject to them?
What's really sad is that a large percent of these people claiming that RedHat is a god-send are clueless... If you think RedHat is that great (and you're running it on something other than a 386), try another distribution!
- --
Mandrake IS based on RedHat, but they've gone through and recompiled the ENTIRE distribution for use with modern processors (i.e. processors created in the last few years (586+ class) rather than the last decade+). Most will argue that this shouldn't make much of a significant (read "visible") difference in performance, to which I say: TRY IT. From my experience, it's the kind of difference you'd see between running Windows 98 on a 486 with 8MB RAM and a Pentium with 16MB RAM - while not like the difference between an 386 and a new Alpha running NT, it's still a very noticeable difference.
IMHO RedHat is disgustingly slow - after trying 5.2 (when it was the latest) I had strong doubts about ever wanting to look at it again. Then I heard numerous reports about how unstable it was compared to other distros (Slackware, for instance), which made me start wondering why it seems to be so liked by the Linux world...
We need to realize that just because a company has the most publicity, that company does NOT necessarily make the best product (in this case, RedHat arguably has the most publicity (or close to it) of the Linux distros)... I mean, come on, MS Windows has more publicity than Linux overall, and does anyone truly believe Windows is a better OS?
-----------------------------------------------
And as to the #linux channel, I whole-heartedly agree... I went in to ask about a new boot-loader for use on a multi-boot system because I couldn't find any documentation anywhere, and what response did I get?
Answer:> Why don't you just use LILO? It does more than you think, and besides, it's obviously the accepted one.
Me:> I'm using Linux to learn and play (that and to use a real OS) - if I was going to do what was "accepted" and only stick with the defaults, why would I be using Linux? No development is done without some form of testing, and the only real testing that can be done is for people all over to try the program under development... If everyone is going to "stick with what's accepted," the Linux environment overall would go nowhere.
The other annoying part was the vast quantity of people trying to communicate at once (granted that's going to happen when there's 150+ ppl in the channel)... IMO some people need to go in and divide up the channel into some sub-channels (installation, general help, chat, etc).
There's my $.02 on the matter...
"Try that in Windows!"
Im not so sure about the geeks vs 'normal' users theme but Mandrake installs easier and faster. If I had to teach my kids or my parents Linux, Id use mandrake to do it.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
conventional Linux geeks appear to be losing touch with the changing face of the Linux mainstream
..... are they serious?
Again Slashdot has its collective head in the sand while Ziff Davis Meggacorp has its finger on the pulse of the Linux mainstream!
draws the ire of the Linux faithful
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
I have never heard of any of the actual distro makers do this. But (some of) their supporters, on IRC, /., Usenet, etc... do it all the time. (Hey, just read thru the comments for this article...) I just hope they will realize it hurts the OS they love.
Otherwise I agree totally.
dufke
-
__
Comment submitted. There will be a delay before you understand what you posted.
Yeah, Debian is free, so are all the other Linuxes... I can download any of them *for free*. Just because Debian doesn't sell their distribution(I think they do though), it doesn't mean that it's more free, because I can get the other distros at the same price....
I like Debian, it's too bad that their last official release is still on the 2.0.36 kernel... You get what you pay for, and since Debian isn't pressured to release they don't, granted their releases are usually better but, hey I want to run glibc2 stuff but Debian can't do that out of the box now can it?
If you want a quick & easy install, give Caldera a try. I was pleasantly surprised. Now if only they provided a greater selection of packages and a better package installer than kpackage. Since you can't customize the package selections during initial install, it would be nice to have a package intsaller that did auto dependency checking like YaST for adding/deleting packages afterward.
Anyway, if you can live with Caldera's predefined install options, it is by far the easiest Linux distro to install and get up and running. It is certainly easier than 95 & NT, and comes in second only to BeOS in my experience.
...in the least. It's all about accessability. It is just now becoming common that you can buy other distros in stores like Best Buy, CompUSA, Barnes and Noble, etc. The book stores like Barnes and Noble, Borders, and Books-a-Million have always carried books by MacMillan (amongst others.) That have had Linux distros in them. This form of retail is much more accessible to the general public.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
M$ has the best marketing group of the world, and we nodn't like it! Linux need developers, documenters and it matket it self:)) I think that founding some developers will give them A LOT more respect.
I see your point. You would like corporations to contribute more/differently.
Sorry, they won't. Open source is a volunteer effort in every respect. Don't try to ruin it by making people or corps feel guilty they aren't doing more. Guilt is not a good motivator, especially not of corporations.
FWIW, Macmillian _is_ doing what they do well. And distributing/marketing especially valuable since few others around here can do it at all.
-- Robert
Quite simply, in the Open Source mentality, the amount of work you produce has no direct correlation to the money you'll make. It's something we all realised when we got on this boat, or so I hope.
Anyway; Linux-Mandrake is a good distro. It installs easily. It's "nice". But people, it's Linux! This is like arguing about the value of a novel because of the choice of covers. Every time a Linux-Mandrake CD sells, it's a Linux CD being sold. Whether they call it Linux-Mandrake, Corel Linux, Slackware, or Microsoft Linux (eek), it's still Linux gaining territory.
Besides, I have a sneaking suspicion that this backlash against Linux-Mandrake is only motivated by the fact it's a 'user-friendly' distro. We geeks can be so macho at times... It may not be about cars, but it's about processing power, how much wasabi we can eat or what Linux distro we use. (I'm guilty of all of the above.) Fine. I suspect with the coming of Armed Linux and WinLinux 2000, geeks will consider Linux Mandrake to be true to the hardcore Linux mentality, and turn to bashing those sissy distros that don't even bother to wipe the FAT32 partition.
Me, whether the newcomer installs Linux by sweating over dozens of manuals over two months, or by popping in a CD and running Linux under Win32, I don't really care. They're still getting a taste of what a real OS is.
"There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."
no sissy editors in there, no GUI either, and no monitor or keyboard support, and definately no mouse, if you don't know what your computer is doing without looking, you shouldn't be using it.
the funny part is that the people that posted above me thought this guy was serious, and probably will think that i'm serious too. come on people, don't you remember the old jokes?
"i had to walk 30 miles to school with nothing but rags on"
"you had rags?..."
---
This article was published simply to fill up space. ZDNet has to keep a steady flow of new articles flowing to feed the info-junkies (like myself :>). So they invented an non-existant problem and wrote a quick and topical article about it.
./ article. :) Sadly, the vast majority of the aricles on the commecial web media sites are simply a waste of time. The cost of publishing these are even less then that of "pulp print" and thus even more disposible
This is nothing new: ZDNet, CNET, and many other media outlets have been doing this for years. Highly "respected" newspapers have been creating filler for decades, only these were called "human interest stories".
Hiring good writers and reporters and giving them the time to write and report something meaningful takes lots of money and time. Far easier to just make up something like this drivel.
I've found that the only writings worthy of my time are books, a few select magazines, scientific journals, and the occasional
--==Hail Eris!!==--
I think this is the whole point. You made a generalized claim about an entire group of people, with little or no substantiation. If the distinguishing characteristic of the group in question was a particular skin color, rather than an operating system, this kind of commentary could be called racism.
You now acknowledge that this claim doesn't actually apply to the whole group. Well, there are jerks in any group, particularly online ones, and particularly surrounding something as heavily hyped as Linux. But your reaction to this, via the column, makes you part of the problem.
I think your characterization is particularly unfair given that it's the Linux geeks and Slashdot readers who will shoulder much of the burden of free support of friends, family and neighbours as Linux grows.
"Looks from here like I've touched a nerve. Totally unintentional, but fascinating nonetheless."
This is a common refrain of columnists who make provocative statements in public forums, and profess to be surprised by the response. Often this is sheer disingenuousness, but it can also be because they haven't sufficiently examined the basis of their own opinions and motives, or thought through their statements from an outside perspective. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and put you in the latter category.
The most critical thing that can be contributed is working code. There are an assortment of other things that could be useful.
And if they don't contribute anything, then they will have to continue to remain "underrespected."
It's entirely likely that they will remain thus, which transforms their complaints into whining. Actions result in reactions; if their actions don't merit respect, then they won't get respect.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
MacMillan should do the honorable thing and allow Mandrake to market the name of its distribution
Well, the boxed package they sell in the software stores (that I've seen) says "Linux Mandrake" on it in big letters across the front of the box, with MacMillan in a corner somewhere. Unless they've changed it recently, I'd say the name-marketing was pretty well in favor of Mandrake.
-My $.02
I've used Slackware (a long time ago), SuSE (6.0 & 6.1), Red Hat (4.2 & 5.1), Stampede (0.79, 0.86, 0.89), and Caldera (2.3). Of the lot, SuSE is the most complete, most robust, a least bug ridden of them all. Stampede is the leanest & fastest. Caldera is the easiest to install and configure. Red Hat is second to SuSE in completeness, but tends to be buggy and is a mess to customize and manually configure because of all the !$#*&@ scripts.
Although SuSE is my favorite overall distro, there are a couple things I don't like about it. First, they are always behind the others in using the latest libraries. For example, SuSE didn't get around to releasing a glibc 2.0 distro until 6.0, and waited until 6.2 to upgrade to glibc 2.1. Other random libraries tend to be out of date also. The second complaint I have with SuSE is their non-support (or weak support at best) of Gnome and many window managers. For instance, SuSE generally ships with out of date packages for Gnome, Blackbox, Window Maker, Enlightenment, etc. Also, they don't maintain/update those packages on their site. Finally, they don't include Gnome, BB, E, WM and others in their xdm/kdm and susewm setups, nor do they build SuSE customized icons & menus in Gnome as they do in KDE, fvwm, and AS.
"I know many people who bought Macmillan's RedHat 5.2 thinking they were buying the "New version of Red Hat" (6.0 at the time)."
In my hand I hold the box for this very product. Oh look! In big letters! 5.2!
Macmillan is doing exactly what cheapbytes is doing -- except they add several THOUSAND pages of linux reference materials, and a support agreement through LinuxCare. Doesn't sound like that bad a deal now, does it!
Man, you guys are giving Macmillan loads of penguin dung today! The main theme seems to be that Macmillan is exploiting Mandrake/Redhat/hackers/proletariat/etc.
If I recall correctly, and I may be wrong, both the FSF and the OSI see nothing wrong with commercial Free Software. I also see nothing in the FSF or OSI forbidding the redistribution of Free Software by non-geeks. I see nothing mandating "giving back to the community". I see nothing requiring distributors to be officially baptized by the elite.
Continually, to the point of nausea, madvocates keep telling everyone who will listen (and those who won't) that Linux is "NOT ABOUT FREE BEER". If that is so, then what's the difference between a $2 CD from Cheapbytes and a $30 CD+Book from Macmillan. Other compaints are based on Macmillan distributing something that they didn't make, that in fact, they are resellers. Again, what makes Cheapbytes holy and Macmillan evil in this matter?
But the GPL, BSD, AL, MIT, and every other Free Software license allows the redistribution of software. Linus, Richard, Larry, Kirk and Eric all knew very well that people would be distributing their works without contributing to it first. If they didn't like this situation then they shouldn't have used the licenses that they did. Are any of the people complaining here actually developers whose works are being distributed by Macmillan? I seriously doubt that there's even one. But in case there is, I must ask: If you didn't want someone distributing your work without your specific permission, why the fsck did you use a Free Software license?
But I think the real reason so many people are pissing in their panties is that their personal distribution of choice isn't winning the sales competition. And of course, being slashdotters, their personal choice is, ergo, the One True Distro(tm), and Macmillan has committed heresy, blasphemy or worse.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Everyone (5 people) that I have talked to that has purchased a MacMillian "Mandrake" distro has done so because it says "RedHat 6.0" on the box (which I believe RedHat is trying to prevent), and the price is much lower than the standard RedHat 6.0.
However from my experience, Mandrake is far from RedHat. It has major compatibility problems (the installer freezes on two of the three machines I needed to install it on). The machine that I did get it installed on is flakey. The PCMCIA services fail every 5-10 minutes requiring a restart. I've never had problems like this with RH. All of these machines were previously running RH 5.1 with no problems.
I'm not sure what Mandrake is trying to do, but I can see why they are not getting any respect.
My... what a cocky and egotistical person we have here!
I've had a lot of pieces picked up by /. without mentioning it, that generated a lot more response. I didn't ask for this one to be put in, and really don't care that it's here.
If the /. editors think that a mere mention of their site in an article makes something immediately newsworthy, that's ego at work rather than judgement -- the same ego that seems to think that a troll accusation is "insightful".
- Evan
Ahem... wouldn't want to contradict you, but I wouldn't count Caldera in the "Big 3".
Sure, Caldera is hot in the Enterprise which is its home turf, but outside it I consider Debian to be more noteworthy.
Just my opinion of course, I have no intention to start distribution crusades or anything (besides, Caldera makes an excellent distro).
"Mandrake just announced October 1 the availability of release 6.1 for download, while Red Hat's 6.1 is still on the drawing board."
This (even though it's innocent and I could be mis-interpreting it) is one of the concerns we must address.
When you look at the linux self at your favorite computer store, you see many different distributions of linux sporting many different revision numbers. More than once my local CompUSA has announced the arrival of Linux 6.0 (they've even called OpenBSD Linux).
The problem is the general public has been corrupted by lame revision numbers, to the point that some think developments parallel one another (eg the 4.0 browers). Many will pick the software that has the highest revision number, reguardless. This is normally the mark of the well informed user, but the "higher is better" has corrupted the idea of these little numbers.
This leads to the Mandrake/Redhat/Caldera/Debian/TurboLinux/ problem. All have toyed with their revisions just as much as a certain other company. Would someone be more inclined to get OpenLinux 2.x or RedHat Linux 6.x or even Mandrake Linux 6.1.? They'd pick the higher one, because "higher is better".
We must struggle to ensure that all linux distributions are uniform in saying Kernel 2.2.x on the box in big letters, or else the uninformed will lose all track of what's going on. The other day I asked someone what kernel they were running, "6.0" was the answer in a display of blissful ignorance equal to the "what ISP do you use?" "netscape" question.
BSD != Linux
Linux 6.0 == null
CompUSA == lame
I sometimes op on an Efnet channel called #linuxnewbie (related to the LinuxNewbie.ORG website), and haven't seen any flaming over distro choices there. The point of THIS channel is NOT to wave the biggest dic^H^H^Hdistro around, but to help people who are new to Linux. I know that I received a LOT of help there with my Slackware installation, and I've seen many others request and get help with many different distros, though not with a "Macmillan" distro. Lots of people with Mandrake questions though, along with SuSE, Slack, Caldera, RedHat etc, etc etc.....
I'm not feeling that clever this morning.
Not sure what your problem was but it installed fine on P90, Dual C433, etc. Had no problem with the "which" command, but I also use "zsh".
Out of the box, no, but -unstable is based on linux-2.2/glibc-2.1. Getting slink(stable) up to potato(unstable) is as easy as typing apt-get dist-upgrade.
Potato, as it's unstable designation implies, *may* be unstable, but I generally keep on the cutting edge, package-wise, and have had few problems.
mike.
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
I have been struggling on getting started with linux for a long time and even though I am a fairly advanced NT sysadmin it has been very difficult for me to get a grip on an OS such as linux with so many wonderful complexities and options. There's simply so much to learn and I wanted something that just worked out of the box and was preconfigured with apps and KDE in an organized fashion. Red Hat did not offer this type of usefulness, at least not to the degree that Mandrake has customized their interface and menus. Therefore, I have bought mandrake and installed it and have learned much more off of it than off of the generic Red Hat distro. I recommend this distro of linux for anyone starting out and wanting something configured out of the box to play with and experiment. Linux gurus might also like this distro because it takes so little work to get it up and running.
I need this!!! Where can I get it? I don't like people, and my best friend is mt right hand.
Sure - edit /usr/lib/rpm/rpmrc to get the flags
;) ).
you need, then rpm --rebuild *.
If you want speed, you'll probably want to use gcc 2.95.1 or pgcc 1.1.3.
gcc 2.95.1 has problems compiling some packages because it got stricter ANSI and also modified the asm() syntax a bit, and not everything got fixed yet.
I'll put up an archive of gcc 2.95.x-related patches soon. (as soon as the admins give me the space I need, that is
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Just about everyone I know who has been curious about linux goes out and buys a book- not the o'reilly books they probably should, but a book that also includes linux on cd, stuck in a little transparent envelope to the back cover. That's usually "Special Edition: Using Linux" or "Using Linux", both from Que, which is an imprint of Macmillan. Sams is also an imprint of Macmillan, and also has Linux books. Macmillan themselves has linux books. I'm assuming they all use Mandrake.
So how many "boxes", as this article talks about, are actually strange information containment mechanisims called "books"?
When you take that into consideration, of course they sell that many- they can sell linux in barens & noble and waldenbooks, instantly bringing up the number of point-of-sale locations by an order of magnitude. Think about how many bookstores there are compared to computer stores savy enough to carry any linux distributions.
Not that I have any problem with more sales of any version of Linux. I'm not knocking Macmillan, just the idiotic article. Someone else called it already- a new trend "slashtrolling", writting articles designed to get on slashdot to attract all those slashdot eyeballs.
*obDisclaimer-- I have worked as an independent contractor for Macmillan in the past.
Mopar: Most Other People A'int Ready
I have one Mandrake system that puked on Pentium compiled X after a couple days of uptime. Here is a better Mandrake: 1. Only Pentium compile non-crucial RPMs that will gain from this optimatization. 2. Replace Linuxconf with a COAS that is adapted to RedHat. COAS while lacking in features in *much* better technically than Linuxconf. 3. Throw away many of Mandrake's spurious additions to KDE menus 4. Use RedHat's installer except provide the number of installable packages that you can get from SuSe
I will bet you that you run a overclocked system, the emacs and ptty's are in redhat just the same but redhat compiles it for 386 as it's base with egcs 1.1.2, Mandrake compiled it for 586+. A system that has been overclocked has been shown to be bad for tightly optimized linux code. SIG11 in different parts of the OS are a prime symtom of this type of system.
Note: Until recently, the Intel Celeron processor was the only Intel processor, with "On-Die" cache.
Because the Intel Pentium II processor on many laptop models, and the Intel Celeron processor both have "On-Die"
cache, Intel's CPUID Utility reports the Intel Pentium II as an Intel Celeron processor. Intel is aware of this issue,
and has stated that the next revision of the CPUID Utility will fix this issue.
i can't believe anyone here is actually getting up in arms about this. :)
:)
zd is just baiting us, afterall. whether they are just trying to get more banner ads out, or they just printed it out of spite, i don't know. but c'mon...if people were really snubbing macmillan then why are they the best selling "distribution?"
they don't get any press because they are just the publisher. how often do people swoon over Bantam publishing because a new paperback has come out? rarely...the attention goes to the author, in general.
get with it, folks...zd is pulling our chains, there's no reason for us to attach that chain to our new, shiny nose rings.
"The things we wizards have to put up with."--Jethro Bodine
Honestly, I think that was probably the act of a small majority. The same things happened to me on #linux on DALnet more than a year ago. The vast majority of the linux community is helpful and respectful, from what I've found, isolated pockets of lamers aside. -j
The distribution is a boxed up copy of Mandrake. Why would we take a lot of interest in it on Slashdot. There are other books with a Redhat CD in the back, and the focus here has been on Redhat/Mandrake, rather than MacMillan/SAMS/QUE. This is a geek site, not a marketing one.
Still, putting Linux on computers is a Good Thing, and the fact that MacMillan do it rather than Redhat is of no issue to me.
The fact that MacM don't contribute back to the community is not so true. Mandrake is available free! so they are contributing to open source by paying Mandrake. And the Mandrake guys then fund other open source developers. As I remember, Mandrake are funding some KDE/Kernel development.
I'm not too sure that Redhat are concerned about the difference in sales either. MacM probably aren't shifting many support contracts.
"We see ourselves as the marketing and sales distribution arm for Mandrake," said Doug Bennett, President of Macmillan USA.
It seems to me that this article is claiming that MacMillan gets no respect while at the same time admitting that they are not really interested in doing anything but marketing Mandrake. This raises the question: so what? The only person who seems to care if MacMillan gets any respect appears to be the author of the article.
Certainly none of the MacMillan people who were quoted for the story were complaining. If someone aspires to be a marketroid and doesn't complain about being called a marketroid, how can they be unhappy about being thought of as a marketroid?
In my mind, there seems to be no purpose to this article except to generate hits / pageviews / whatever.
Does this
You forgot about not making it clear who provides the support. I bought what I thought was Red Hat 6.0 and paid about what I would have paid had I ordered it directly from Red Hat, only when I got it home I found out it was published by Macmillan. It had a copy of the Red Hat CD (free to reproduce and resell), and a copy of the Red Hat Installation Guide (also freely redistributable according to the copyright). But Red Hat won't support it (not that I blame them).
Macmillan has admitted that they are not a technical company. Who do they have on staff to answer installation (and setup - egads!)questions from users who may have never used Unix before but have heard about this really cool free (as in freedom) operating system called Linux.
Evolution in Action? :)
That's from.. ah.. Oath of Fealty! Yeah!
I think that was a Niven/Pournelle book but I might be wrong, it's at home, so I can't check myself
*wants an implant*
The discussion following this article is interesting, but did anyone else think this was a Slashtroll, that is, an article written with the intent to make it on Slashdot. The big key is actually mentioning /. in the text. About three of Byte's articles every week are of this variety, now it looks like Zdnet is learning a thing or two.
Macmillan, unlike most of the "boxed Linux" vendors (including Red Hat), has a solid understanding of the retail channel, and can get their product into the low-end stores and general market bookstores that wouldn't otherwise be moving product at all (or minimally). Solid general market distribution is the key to World Domination.
If the other vendors develop merchandising/packaging/distribution skills, they will gradually displace Macmillan in that channel. But until then, Macmillan takes a decent Linux product, bundles it with online textbooks and goodies, sells it to newbies and people looking for a bargain, and pays royalties to the developer of the distro they use. It's a win for everyone right now...
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
the triple click of a cycloptic mouse?
Oh please, whatever you do don't make me type! I might actually be forced to admit that I can't type.
Yeah. sorry, I was baited. What do you expect.
I happen to agree that the easier the install the more people WILL install. but, then again I personally don't care what operating system *you* are using only which system *I* am using. Which happens to be the Mandrake (who the heck is McMillan?) distro.
NT is based on the premise that anyone who can manipulate a mouse can administer a system. Huh?!?
I've got Macmillan's redhat 5.2 package, and their more recent 6.0 package.
Neither one of these is branded as "Macmillan linux" The 5.2 one is branded as "RedHat Linux 5.2" and the Mandrake (6.0) version is branded as "The complete Linux."
I see Macmillan as one step above cheapbytes since you do get some extras, etc. (I've also bought many a disc from CB.)
I think I'll take the new RedHat 6.1, set it all up the way I use it, and then repackage it as "ReHeatd Linux" -- then I'll get macmillan to sell it with the catch phrase "All of John's favorite links, games, and utilities! In one easy package!"
I've tried numerous distros but I recently settled on Mandrake. Why? Well, first it's a lot cheaper than RH at the store. Second, it's quite easy to install (as easy to install as Caldera). Third, it has nifty extras already built-in like the true-type font server which allows you to veto those uglyass x fonts in Netscape. Mandrake might just be RH 6 with more marketing acumen but they add value in that they integrate those features which most people want for the desktop. Sure, one could just get RH and install those extra features but why bother when someone else does the work and sells it for cheaper? Of all the distros, it's about the easiest to install and work with. On my meager laptop I no longer need to boot Windows because I have a Linux installation which finally looks great and has everything I need. IMO, distros like Mandrake could win over the a very sizable segment of newbies, casual users, and lazy fscks (like myself).
Distros are for wimps! I install everything from source! If I want to build another system, I attach a disk to a running system and install from source! Why back in the old days, we didn't even have autoconfigure. Make!? For wimps!. Figure out the dependencies yourself! And you should know all the compile options by heart.
Jeez you kids. You don't know how easy you have it.
I've tried (RedHat, Debian, Slackware) and settled on SuSE as the most polished and refined distro. It's five CDROMS come jam-packed with all the right stuff that I commonly ever need and the YaST installer simply rocks. All for only about US$50, makes this distro well worth the money for this much convenience. Unless one of (Debian, RedHat, Slackware ) just really does something new that quantum-leaps over SuSE, I'm not likely to change. Just like Humphry Bogart said in that movie, "Them Germans, they lays down a system and they sticks to it." the SuSE crew has definely laid down a good system. --Lorky
Ah. But as a complete newbie, I had no idea of this. Nor would I have known who linuxcare was if I had found it somewhere in the fine print.
No grudge against Mac really. It's just silly (IMO) to think of them as a major player in the Linux game. But perhaps they will be some day.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I just caught this quote. Does this strike anyone as arrogant on the part of zd/macmillian?
;) (That *WAS* a joke, however much in bad taste it may be)
In other words, it looks like Mandrake is going to be
with us for quite a while -- or at least as long as
Macmillan is interested in it.
Does the success of mandrake *NOW* depend on who markets it? IT was doing quite well on it's own. I think I've had my fill of bullshit for the day. Good thing I don't own a gun
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
the pgcs is not that experimental, and it's trouble with the kernel is not the compilers fault but the kernel's. The kernel was coded to work around problems in gcc 2.7.x and thus gained some problems when compiled with egcs witch was has corrected the problems gcc 2.7.x had. but as far as kernel 2.2.x goes, they compile fine with egcs/pgcs.
I have to say that I didn't even know that MacMillan has anything to do with Mandrake. I've never used Mandrake personally so that's probably why I was ignorant but if MacMillan wants the Linux community to think better of them, they should get on the ball and more strongly associate the two names together. Before I read this article I just thought of MacMillan as another company who just shovels books onto the shelves to take advantage of the latest trends like most book publishers. I also knew they had a book that contained a CD of Mandrake but lots of companies have Linux CDs in their books. They need to make people aware of the connection if they want credit.
..aren't Que and Sams both owned by Macmillan? =P
I've never read any Que books (they don't look so attractive =P), though I'd have to say Sams books are.. well, they're alright. Nothing great, some annoying technical errors, but probably fairly easy for a newbie to grasp.. as compared to works from O'Reilly or Addison-Wesley (sp?), anyway. The one book I have a hard time slamming Sams for is HTML 4 Unleashed (practically any edition.. the 2nd Edition is good, but I'm annoyed at the distinction between the Prof. Ref. edition and the regular edition.. esp. since I don't think they have a Professional Reference second edition yet.. it has a lot of nifty stuff the regular edition doesn't, and makes the regular edition pointless). Even a total newbie could become a competent (and probably even good, or great) Web designer just by reading that book and actually using that information. ;) Yeah, there are a couple errors, but nothing I would have noticed without extensive reading. Certainly not as many as in their C/C++ books. Ugh. =P
~ Kish
The Macmillan distro outsells RH 2-to-1 during the month of July. I'd be interested in seeing the statistics for Feb/March, when Red Hat 6.0 hit the market. Kinda like everybody who really wanted the boxed Red Hat bought it a few months earlier.
...it's not that Mandrake is particularly easy to use vs. RH (they contain mostly the same software, after all), it's just that (a) Mandrake is optimized for my architecture (and anything sold in the last three years, btw) and (b) it is more *complete*. The RH releases continue to be very rough around the edges and missing really useful stuff that I have to go out and snag right away (eg, xemacs). RH has done a great deal of work, and I benefit greatly from it indirectly, but they need the polish that Mandrake spends a little time adding.
Mind you, I've installed some grisly distros -- Slackware 2something almost three years ago, for one -- but I do like to get some work done once in a while!
"And for my next trick..."
"Professional coder on closed source. Do not attempt."
Besides, isn't MacMillian just like Cheapbytes? What do they offer besides a burned CD and a book? Not too damn much. I'd rather forgo the cheap little book and get a $5 CD.
Err, Debian does use glibc2. You can also go to the unstable tree to get kernel 2.2.12 if you want. Perhaps you are thinking of Slackware, I think they are still using libc5 but have also moved to a 2.2 kernel.
I installed it recently on a fresh system (no upgrade) and it had all sorts of problems. Emacs would segfault when you used it on a TTY & exited. There was tons of problems with the new 2.2 ptty stuff. Several X11 libs were broken by the beta egcs pentium-only compiler. XV would crash reading JPEGs for god's sake! Jeez! And for all it's "bleeding edge" it still had Python 1.5.1 when 1.5.2 (major changes actually) has been out for over 6 months.
I took that piece of crap back to Best Buy and bought RedHat (and a red hat) from RH's website.
I can't believe so many people have misread the ZDnet article, judging by all the comments here. Even the /. editors themselves misread, I think. I sure had never heard of MacMillan before, but then I'm no Merkin. ZDnet whines/whinges about MacMillans apparent lack of recognition, not Linux-Mandrakes. Ok, everyone with us again? Then let the flamefesting continue.
Anyone remember when Leibovitch was a rabid Caldera fan?
Anyone remember reading Leibovitch's pissy comments about how much money he had lost over WINE? (or in Leibovitch's case Whine)??
Leibovitch is just another of the Linux egotists littering Geekland.
Pentium optimization seems to be one of
the major points in mandrake these days.
However, I _really_ wouldn't trust my
production systems to code generated by
an experimental compiler.
Even egcs,which is quite conservative compared to pgcc, has had it's problems with generating
correct code (especially for things like the kernel).
The amount of speed gain you get from pgcc
isn't _THAT_ big in the common case. Sure
you get impressive speed gains with something
like gzip when you use -O99 -fexperimental-option-of-the-month -m686, but
for most things it's a few percent max.
glibc already has inline assembly for string handling/math.
For userland you probably can get away with it
without too many critical problems, but using pgcc for the kernel is just irresponsible. I know of atleast one kernel developer who ignores reports from mandrake users because one "problem" went away after the user switched to another distribution that doesn't compile their kernel with pgcc.
But where did Rodney Dangerfield work himself into this?
It's national techie day. Give your favorite tech a kiss or maybe a good lick-down.
First of all it isn't a community, as Bob Young noted a while ago, or in his words not cohesive. 99.44% (tm) of the time this is a Good Thing (tm).
However, the industry needs to get its head out of its ass and get over the novelty of using Linux. It's time to get serious. Perhaps home schooling associations might like to create a distribution tbat takes out the mp3 rippers and adds classroom planners or something.
Businesses might need prototyping applications or let's say Rev or Sneaker Linux for Electronic Design Automation and Reverse Enginneering.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
agree. "big" is very subjective (except for those who equate it with "has lots of $$" but we geeks wouldn't do that, right?), but still, I wouldn't think of Caldera as one of the biggest. I'd think RedHat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, and only then Caldera. (this is not an attempt to judge their respective qualities, just my idea of their mindshare).
If you look at http://www.macmillansoftware.com, you will see that they offer several different Linux packages (and more if you search under "Operating Systems"/"Linux").
They have a "starter kit" based on Caldera, "The Complete Linux" (which is the Mandrake-based one), and "Deluxe Linux" which doesn't specify a distribution. They also have (or had) a "Red Hat" distribution complete with RedHat's logo; I don't know if this was officially licensed or not.
These Macmillan boxes are now quite common in local mass-market stores, but I have just recently started to see Official RedHat box sets and I have yet to see an official Mandrake, SuSE, or Caldera.
I bought the Macmillan Complete Linux 6.0 (Mandrake) for CDN$35. The box contains a nicely-printed manual and installation guide, some other advertising and booklets, a letter saying that this is an unofficial distribution and who to call for tech support (Romnet Support Services Inc.), a boot floppy, and 3 CD's. Two of these are the Mandrake binary and source discs, while the 3rd contains PDF versions of the books "Linux Unleashed", "Using Linux", and "Teach Yourself Linux" as well as a limited version of Partition Magic. This 3rd cd is under not freely distributable, and comes in its own license-covered envelope for easy disposal by GPL purists.
...Works great on our servers and workstations -- weeks of uptime, lots of apps up and running, a great show.
"Professional coder on closed source. Do not attempt."
All mouse-enabled OSes allow you to do something just by clicking. Perhaps it's just that you're too picky at what you want to do. :-) Of course, there's also the argument that typing allows you a greater breadth of possibilities, and that typing allows you to do things the UI designer hadn't thought of. Plus the fact that Linux is about doing new things in new ways, and that sometimes that requires that you download and compile some new source. But hey, no one is forcing you to think different.
Redhat Sold ~6000 Copies at $80 Mandrake like ~15000 at $30 Do the math.. Who makes more money?... Just a thought. But they are both along the same playing field for money. In the end tho More mandrake ends up in peoples homes!
There haven't been many stories on Slashdot about MacMillan because they *don't make a distro*!!! They just re-sell Mandrake. There have been quite a few stories on Slashdot about Mandrake.
I think the key here is most Slashdotters could care less show *sells* the most copies of someone elses distro!!! We care about who makes the best distro. Mandrake is a great distro, and they deserve lots of praise. MacMillan is just a publisher.
hmm?
Well, maybe the lawyers. I don't think the deal with IBM, which catapulted Microsoft from obscurity and basically made them what they are today, was done with any aid from MS's marketing folks.
By the time they started serious marketing, they were already in the number one position - a big advantage in marketing in and of itself!
D
----
In the OS section they had "MacMillan Complete Linux" or something like that .. and I thought to myself, isn't MacMillan in the BOOK business? What are they doing selling Linux? And -- why isn't beyond.com selling RED HAT?
It wasn't until a few days later that one of my more clueful buddies informed me that it was a boxed up Mandrake.
I checked again after I read this article and discovered that beyond.com is selling a MacMillan "Complete Redhat Linux v5.2 OS Del Secure Server" -- whatever THAT is. I could be wrong but it seems to be several releases behind ... with the additional irony of the recent /. discussion about the zdnet secure server trials and the patches needed for Red Hat, here's MacMillan selling what appears to be an out of date version billed as a "secure server." Interesting.
Crusade against lame software! votezone.com
Has your favorite distribution become too popular?
Looking for something a little more obscure to feed your self-loathing and solitude?
Well, look no further than RedHeaded Linux! Packed with features, it really satisfies:
** Complicated installation routines will leave your imaginary friends in awe of your prowess.
** Ultimate security via "Locked in Bedroom" mode. Actually disables all network adapters! Hack-proof!
** Have the usual commands become too easy to remember? Replace "kill" with "beltwhip" and "shutdown" with "grounded."
** Edit your users' "restrictions" and keep them from going outside for two weeks, or even more!
If you long for the days before others joined your little world, you owe it to yourself to try RedHeaded Linux.. The next wave in anti-social distributions!
(Note, this is not a slam against RedHat, or any other distro.)
--Conquering the Earth Since 1978.
It seems to me, and maybe I am wrong, that this article is simply trying to instigate more flame wars.t distro here] Zealots.
We have the Apple-PC-Linux Zealots. There are Wordperfect-Word97 Zealots. Ford-Chevy Zealots. And or course, our favorite, Red Hat-Mandrake-Debian-SuSE-Caldera-Slackware-[inser
Have any of you ever heard of McMillian Linux?
I have to admit I haven't, and I have installed at least three of the previously listed distributions.
I hearby moderate this article as -1, Flamebait.
Computers can only simulate determinism. ~Hermetic.
Dont think so. I think that behind it there's the fairly valid point that certain brands or flavours of Linux are seen as 'cooler' than others, especially amongst the self-proclaimed cognoscenti. And that new users are making different choices from the 'established hands'.
I hope Macmillan's distro goes well for them. I ran a large computer section in a large UK bookshop, and it caused a lot of problems for customers that it took so long for Macmillan to renegotiate/whatever with RedHat and get the current version into the bookshops... There was always a time lag (often months), and always disappointed customers. I had to recommend the Linux Emporium countless times, just so people got what they needed...
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
I mentioned this before, but I lost the post.. Oh well. Anyway..
I don't buy into the whole "Red Hat is going to make it's money off support" theory. Ask yourself this one thing: What distribution do most big-time computer manufacturers put on their preinstalled Linux systems? (no, Pengiun Computing and VA do not constitute the "big-time" for Joe Public)
Easy: Red Hat. And of course those guys are going to want the official version, right? I would think so, or else Red Hat would do some cracking down on trademark usage, as well they should, were these companies to call the distro on their systems Red Hat Linux (as opposed to VA which I think calls it VA Linux, but says their systems ship with Red Hat unless specified otherwise). Now.. if you were Red Hat.. would you or would you not charge a pretty penny for each system these companies put your distro on? Would you try to get a deal going so that they also shipped your cute little installation/set-up guides along with the box?
That would be where they would make the real money, as the most popular distro. By signing deals with computer manufacturers to ship their boxen with the "official" Red Hat Linux and guides.
I don't know if this is the truth of the matter, but if it isn't, the people over at Red Hat.. "not as smart as they think". =P
P.S. Before anyone points it out.. No, I don't think it would be smart to just call the distro something other than Red Hat and say it basically is Red Hat a la VA.. Why, you may ask? I myself was daunted by VA when I first saw the little thing say VA Linux as the distro.. I was like, "Gah.. Another freakin' distro?? Fsck this!" I'd imagine Joe Public would be much more easily daunted than I and not care to investigate further. Indeed, I don't even think he would go for anything other than the "official" version, if for no other reasons than a) it gives him a warm and fuzzy feeling b) he feels better knowing there is an entire company he can bitch out if his system doesn't work.. two, in fact.. he could complain to the people who sold him the box, too, just for kicks! c) the official version is always better, right? =P d) he gets those fscking guides! what's not to love?
~ Kish
They say that they are the "best selling". Perhaps that's true. But so what?
That doesn't even mean they're the most popular. All of the good Linux distributions are free software, which means that we're free to share them with our friends. Around here, a lot of people burn Red Hat CD-ROMs for each other. (Well, OK, not a lot of people, but enough that I thought it worthy of mention.) On the other hand, I use Debian, and while I have purchased Debian CD-ROMs (makes bootstrapping faster), usually I download from the unstable release.
So, in at least two cases, there are major Linux distributions in use where sales aren't being made. This is basically the same problem that the Linux counter project(s) have tried to address -- since Linux can be freely redistributed without accountability to the programmers, there's no real way to know how many people are using Linux, or what distribution(s) they're using.
And more to the point, most of us here are not strongly commercial. I don't care that AOL is the best-selling ISP in this country; I use a local ISP because they offer me real (albeit slow) connectivity to the Internet, whereas AOL... doesn't. I don't think AOL is a better ISP just because they're richer. And likewise, I don't think Mandrake is a better distribution just because it's selling.
I always have liked Debian, but I never used the dist-upgrade.... O what the hell, I have some spare time, I'm gonna try it again :-)
Unsubstantiated statements such as "These examples show how the conventional Linux geeks appear to be losing touch with the changing face of the Linux mainstream, and with the people who are buying Linux by the box in ever-increasing numbers" seem to indicate a prejudice of some kind, and certainly qualifies as a troll in my book. Perhaps it wasn't specifically designed to attract Slashdot's attention, but it's specifically designed to annoy the kind of people who read Slashdot. It would be a little different if it was, or could be, substantiated.
How about a bit of research or analysis to find out who these people are who are buying Macmillan's Linux? How many get sold along with a book and end up as shelfware? How many geeks use it and just call it Mandrake? If there really were a huge body of non-geek Macmillan Linux users out there, you'd think there'd be some more evidence of that floating around that could be reported on.
Unfortunately, the line between journalism and opinion pieces has become very blurred, and this article was a good example - presenting a few facts and using them to promote the author's point of view. Ultimately, it doesn't convey anything useful - it raises some interesting facts but doesn't actually make any meaningful attempt to explain them.
Unfortunately, while that strategy does get books onto bookstore shelves quickly, quality suffers just a tad...
They may be giving some funding to the Mandrake/Linux folks, but they haven't sponsored the development of X servers like Red Hat or SuSE, and it appears that they generally don't actually produce any free software themselves.
Unfortunately for their "level of respect," the "quality of product" matter results in some "negative respect points," and there isn't any other source of "positive points" that they are using to earn back respect.
None of these things are the "fault" of anyone other than the management of Macmillan, as they represent their policy decisions of what to do and what not to do. It appears that their priorities are largely economic; to get "respect" they would have to modify those priorities as well as their actual behaviour.
I don't feel sorry for them in this; they have made their bed, and will have to sleep in it...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Personally, I have no respect and no love for those sorry bastards. They are obviously clueless, and that "crack this box" challenge was hopelessly deviant and unenlightened. I wouldn't bother looking to them for truth.. on anything. =P
I find it interesting that you didn't address one glaring error in this statement. Red Hat 6.1 was hardly "on the drawing board" as of the 1st of this month. As this article clearly points out, RH 6.1 came out shortly after Mandrake 6.1.. Somehow I find it difficult to believe that a distro could be "on the drawing board" one day, and then come to be released a scant three days later. Anyone else consider that odd? As further evidence that ZDNet doesn't make use of all of the resources available (the foremost of which should be Slashdot.. they obviously can't research on their own, at least), see this article, which shows that the distro was done already, just that it wasn't "official" yet.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking.. Both of those articles came after Mandrake 6.1 was official.. However.. The article on ZDNet is clearly dated the 4th.. Who edits these things?
This is almost, but not quite, as stupid as the fact that the idiot searched Slashdot for Macmillan rather than Mandrake. Who gives a fsck about Macmillan?? Most people I know prefer books by O'Reilly, anyway. Unless those people aren't complete and utter tools.. =P
~ Kish
I think there are a number of reasons for this happening. Main among them is "who in the hell is Mandrake?" Up until a few weeks ago I don't ever really remember paying attention to any press they issued. I know all about the /. link here to see the past Mandrake stories, but I think a majority of people relate more to the Big 3 (soon to be 4) - Red Hat, Caldera, SuSe, and soon Corel. You see those names and you know it is a Linux article. I think Mandrake needs to start jumping up and down and waving a flag or something to get some more attention. From what I have read about Mandrake, it seems like an excellent distro.
I think another thing I consider to be a problem is Distro-bigotry. A case in point: last week I went into the efnet #linux channel. What a disgrace! The ops were there flaming everyone they could, made fun of this one newbie because he was playing around with WinLinux and was having some problems with it, and just plain making asses out of themselves. I was in the channel for an hour and all they could do was sit and bash this distro and that distro. Of course, they had their favorite, and everything else was pure crap to them.
So, imagine what is going to be happening... new guy comes in and wants to get some opinions, everyone chimes in "Red Hat!" and off they go. Those using Mandrake or Caldera or SuSe are not going to say a word for fear of either a) being flamed, or, as I saw the ops do to the WinLinux guy, b) kick and ban him.
We in the Linux community have a lot of attitudes to change and they need to be changed really fast.
-------------------
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may be drafted...
you work w/ a company that uses SAP??? what a wimp! Can you imagine anyone using GRAPHICAL front-office automation Gumpware? ORACLE??? that hand-holdy luser-friendly crap? why not develop your own database from scratch (with your own compiler, of course, none of this namby-pamby GPL compiler baby pacifier nonsense). And, don't cheat, no ansi-SQL shit- make your own protocols and standards. And, *gasp* RETAIL HARDWARE??? $#@%$#@ Jeezus Cristo, hasn't your wussy company ever heard of a breadboard and a soldering iron, you pusses??? can't make "big iron" (oooh, trying to compensate for your phallus inferiority complex, eh?) your own self, you blockhead pseudo-technologists? heh. seriously though, i do hope you were kidding b/c if not you're an ignoramous. just because you happen to take the looooooooong road to installation and updating kernels doesn't mean your brain pan is bigger than the 14-year old punx getting a distro from their friend. come on, the technological amelioration is there for a REASON: to make life EASIER and work more EFFICIENT. no one is using an abacus anymore, pal. you shouldn't either.
Heh. Im sure mandrake sells more than every other linux cause.. well... its a modified redhat.. and therefore it must be better than redhat using the reasoning that any change to 0% goodness can only mean good stuff. BUT DEBIAN IS FREER!!! Everybodies favorite GNU/Linux Distribution is almost primarily distributed via internet.. Yea they sell copies of debian with a pretty manual.. Same thing that redhat mandrake do.. But your not gonnna be able to walk into your local computer store and say. Hey I want Debian Linux please.. They will point you to either Caldera Mandrake or Redhat. So sure they have more copies sold thats cause they have a better retail distribution system.. *im happy with my Boot Floppie and dselect/apt install of debian* So =b btw GNU is pronounced one of two ways. Either Gah New (if you want to be a lazy american) or Nuh *Click* ew. The word has african origins and has a click in the original pronunciation english language dont use clicks soo we say Gah New.... Insert Slash Footer GNOME! WINDOWMAKER! TACO SUX! End Slash Footer
..that someone who actually bothers to read Slashdot could be so utterly clueless? I wish I had read this post before I had written the others I have already submitted in this discussion. That's just a whole new level of cluelessness.
Personally, I'd rather accept the idea that I was trolling than to suggest otherwise and thereby admit my total lack of intelligence. =P
On top of that.. Why are you even reading Slashdot right now, the comments to this story? My ego would have been ripped to shreds by now if so many things I'd said had been pointed out to me as being so much utter nonsense and other gibberish usually attributed to.. well.. I think I've said enough, already. ;)
~ Kish
MS has some of the best marketing out there. And they have world domination. If you want Linux to have world domination, then it's going to have to be sold to the masses.
Besides, if MacMillan can increase the visibility and marketshare of Linux, then more Linux developers will be funded as a matter of course.
I get intensely irritated by these articles that tell me I'm not doing something in a way that implies it's bad.
Sure, I'm not "in touch" with the "Linux mainstream". I don't keep close track of which distribution is most popular, which distribution wins, what the latest commercial Linux-capable software releases are, and so on ... because I don't care.
When I find myself nowhere near either a worthwhile net connection or a CD writer with a worthwhile net connection, I'll go out and take an interest in what boxed Linux distributions are available. Until then, it doesn't matter to me. Is this bad?
As I see it, there are only two problems with the fact that I'm "out of touch" in the sense that I don't use the same distribution as the fabled Linux Mainstream.
So why shouldn't I lose touch? I keep my mind on the important thing: actually doing useful stuff with my computer systems. This is a bad thing how?
An idea: RedHat could clone Mandrake and sell it as "RedHat for Business".
RedHat for Business offers what business people want:
- Quick setup in a Windows-like environement (KDE)
- 586 optimizations
- RedHat brand name!
For every other RedHat clones, they could integrate competitor's feature in that distro, and keep the RedHat vanilla for techies!
and this comes from a purchaser of their Linux boxes. The first, however, was a mistaken purchase where I thought I was supporting Red Hat. The second is knowingly purchased, because I can use it to install on my son's machine due to its having a limited license for Partition Magic. Hence, I can take a Gig or two for Linux. What makes me hold this view, however, was after ordering our copy from Linux Mall (6.1 (?) - by their numbering) I saw version 6.5 in Borders. Wait - this is supposed to be based on Red Hat and it just barely made onto the RH web site a day or two before. How can I respect a fancy, multicolored box claiming to be version 6.5 (and based on Red Hat that is only at 6.1? Herschel Cohen At a client's site.
MacMillan farms out their support to "linuxcare."
I just recently saw the "Complete Linux" set out at a retail store. Interesting. Anyone have this and know how it differs from Mandrake, aside from some extra packages?
Also I saw this one;
"Even so, the partnership is non-exclusive; you can buy non-Macmillan copies from MandrakeSoft, but you have to look pretty hard for a store that sells them."
I just picked up the premier issue of Maximum Linux at the supermarket, complete with a Mandrake 6 CD. Anyone else see this magazine? The best I can figure is that Mandrake may become Macmillian Lite?
I have just installed Mandrake 6.1 (After using Redhat for some time) because I liked the idea of a Redhat distro compiled for Pentium with some of the new goodies included like Kdevelop. Problem is the KDE does not behave well. It keeps switching desktops at random when I move the cursor over the panel, the task bar flashes on and off when I move the mouse there and worst of all it hangs totally when moving windows around. Does anyone know what is wrong with this ?
Because I got a copy on cd for 1.99. I also have redhat that I got for $60, that turned out not to be from red hat redhat but from mcMillian redhat and I couldn't find the support I needed. SO- Yep, a buck ninety nine! And wanting the full linux experience I didn't want to pay $80 for support I was led to believe I could get on the web. Ouch. If you want linux to succeed do us all a favor, once a week cruise through the newbie posts and answer 3 questions in full, without the RTFM since they probably don't know what manual your talking about. Once a week, or even just 3 questions a week. I do it, so you should too! My 2cents Jake
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
A lot of companies are selling Linux. And a lot of companies are developing Linux (note; 'developing' like making your own distro. For example the way SuSE does). Both ways are very supportive for Linux IMO and people deserve credit when they're working on projects like these.
I'm sure glad there are companies who are shipping / selling Linux. Thats great & what Linux IMO needs to get well known. However... Being such a company does not make you special. Face it; if you look at this worldwide (because Linux is known wordwide) you will see you are just one of the many. However; not special does not mean companies/people like that deserve no respect. On the contrary.
Back to our friends... They ship Linux and for that they should earn some respect from the Linux community. Unfortunatly they are throwing this away them selves (as far as I'm concerned).
Mandrake is, IMHO, a RedHat ripoff. And now we have a company who is dressing MD up (add (C) tools and some books) and selling it. You know what? I can live with this. Its great, helping MD out shipping their distro (whether I like it or not) helps the Linux cause in a way.
The thing that pisses me off is the simple fact that this company is acting like Jabberjaw; demanding respect for something everyone could have done. Investing money in a distro does not make you special. Many people want to make money out of Linux and this is just one other way to do it. As far as respect goes; the minute I see that those companies are also doing something back for the community (like RPM, Yast to name just 2) they got it. Whether I like the distro/company or not.
One website and some hardware detection module is not included here as far as I'm concerned. For a company who started out ripping other peoples work I expect a whole lot better then that.
About six or so months ago, I bought a nice shiny box with a penquin on it that had, in loud letters, "Red Hat whateverversionitwas". I think I paid something like $ 49 for it.
The reason I bought it at the time is that Rasterman was working for Red Hat, and I wanted to support the company that would do such a cool thing.
Imagine my shock and dismay when I learned that the box was not "Official" Red Hat, but rather MacMillan's version! Now, perhaps I was just being a stupid goober and what-not for not checking the package more closely before buying, but the way it was marketed still left a sour taste in my mouth.
Now, I see official Red Hat versions all over the place. If they lower their price, they'll gain most of their lost market share back, me thinks. I'm not at all sure why they priced their latest releases so high.
D
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Java. The IBM JDK does not run well on Mandrake for me, in particular when trying to access a network.
Video. I had Redhat 5.2 and 6.0 running X on a machine fine. When I installed Mandrake 6.0 (and 6.1) the video was freaking out. I had the same settings for X on Mandrake as I did for Redhat.
Besides that, Mandrake has worked well for me, but I think that I'll stick to Redhat for Java development.
Some people won't like the concept of a "Non-Techie" company selling Linux. The more people that use Linux, the less exclusive Linux becomes. It's the same phenomena as the the sports car driver that sells his car when he sees another person driving the same type of sports car.
Personally I think that the more people using Linux, the better. More newbies using things like Gnome or KDE means more usability feedback, which in turn means better applications.
I don't think that more newbies means that the command line should be hidden: When I first started with Slackware and Redhat 4.1 in early 97, I wondered what the hell BASH was. Was I doing something wrong, hence the system wanted to "bash" me? Now of course, I prefer to do most stuff from the command line, like editing the xfs config files to add a truetype directory... Although I must admit I'd prefer it to be done for me, and for those sorts of functions to be grouped in some kind of windows-like control panel (with nice icons, etc, I detest Linuxconf)
The more people that use Linux regularly, the more likely it is that we'll get stuff like quicktime at the same time as other platforms. The more people not using windows, the better the web and computing in general becomes. (Even the worst MS-loving PHB won't want to drive 60% of customers away from an "e-commerce" (blech) web site by making it IE specific if IE is proven to be installed on only 40% of computers)
The fact that the MacMillan books tell people quite a lot about Linux should be helpful. Hopefully the whole clueless factor of newbies will decrease. (I was one, and O'Reilly's Running Linux was a godsend)
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Perhaps they should have searched for "Mandrake" rather than "MacMillan". That would have returned tens of hits on Slashdot; perhaps not as much coverage as RedHat, but certainly better than ZD has managed.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I keep saying, and thus keep getting flamed by people in #linux, that if I want to type
"./dosomething"
I shouldn't first have to type
tar zxvf dosomething.src.tar.gz
cd dosomething
./configure
>
make
>
make install
>
dosomething
I should be able to go "Click.. Click... Click..." and something should be done.
It's absolutely no surprise to me that Mandrake is the best selling distribution, no matter what name (Macmillan) they put it under.
It's optimized for what processors people have, it's *complete*, it's got a very good desktop (KDE, currently 1.1.2), it's got a friendly install (although it could be better), and Macmillan, being a publisher, knows how to get things on shelves far better than even a bright group of open-source programmers would.
I applaud Macmillan, the Mandrake folks, the KDE folks, and everyone who's working to keep the power in Linux while making it accessable to those who simply want to get things done, get them done fast, and get them done reliably.
These are the people that will push Linux further than any group of powerusers ever can.
mindslip
What is a linux "market", anyway?
a) Linux is a kernel - but we've been down THAT line before.
b) Linux the OS is as much ideology ("free software", "free beer", "free speech", Open-Source, GNU) as it is software, it seems. Or at least the ideology is a big thing behind it all.
c) Freeware gets around but has no clout with PHBs who don't understand "No Money", so someone starts selling CDs of it.
d) Somehow, RedHat make enough money from the combined box-shifting and code-writing and support and distro-maintenance things, that there's a "linux market"? Oh pants.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I don't have a whole lot of trust in the Thick Tomes that publishers like Sybex, Que, SAMS, and, yes, Macmillan, put onto shelves. They tend to be rushed to market, made as thick and garish as possible, with the result that quality suffers.
Your criticisms of "What's Hard About Linux" represent things likely to be solved by organizations contributing to the development of tools like Linuxconf or COAS.
Macmillan isn't contributing to those sorts of developments, which means that they're effectively not part of the solution. This doesn't necessarily make them "bad people," but it does mean that they are not in much of a position to claim that they are helping substantively.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Mandrake probably does not get that much respect becuase it is basically a Redhat distro that has been improved. I believe that Mandrake takes the latest Redhat distribution and adds to it the latest kde libs, and some other utilities that don't normally come with Redhat. Some of these are hylafax, sane and a few other programs like that. While you can certainly download any of these programs, or get them with RH powertools, Mandrake has chosen to make some of these part of the distro. Mandrake also highly integrates kde into the system where as Redhat integrates Gnome. Both desktops are included in each distro, along with windowmaker and afterstep and several others. I have often thought about going to Mandrake, but now that I have RH 6.0 all setup and customized some ofd th esystem I really cannot see a reason at this time to upgrade any of my system. (READ if it's not broke don't fix it.)
Only 'flamers' flame!
Sorry Dan, but this is not true. Even if it doesn't really matter who did what first I can not resist to point out that Stampede Linux was the first 2.2 kernel distribution that was compiled with pentium optimization.
I stand corrected. They were the first 2.1x kernel based distribution w/ PGCC optimizations, I'm almost positive.
My memory's kinda fuzzy, but I remember spazzing quite excessively over Berolinux's contents. Anyone out there have a more accurate timeline?
Well, the boxed package they sell in the software stores (that I've seen) says "Linux Mandrake" on it in big letters across the front of the box, with MacMillan in a corner somewhere. Unless they've changed it recently, I'd say the name-marketing was pretty well in favor of Mandrake.
Wait a sec, I could have sworn I've seen some book from Macmillan w/ Mandrake included that barely mentioned Mandrake.
If what you say above is true, then I really don't think that ZD guy did his homework. We've been talking about Mandrake for months now.
fairly valid point that certain brands or flavours of Linux are seen as 'cooler' than others
/. IRC room one day, and someone was saying that if you use Red Hat, you don't deserve to use Linux. Yea, that's how you get people to use Linux, become an elitist.
You can say that again. I was in the
If I remember correctly the discussions I've seen on Usenet/irc/WWW have stated that the prime reason for Mandrake use is the ability to download .iso installations. I think Redhat has learned by their mistakes and now that Redhat is putting out iso distributions Mandrake users will drop off.
I have a question:
Could one download the Redhat Source cd and do a huge rpm build install to have automake compile the distribution optimized for your own computer?
(I'm not certain of the syntax for rpm, but I know you can have the rpm build itself.)
Joseph Elwell.
There is no such thing as an IRC room.
Ok, I don't want to say this is an end game for RedHat. But it does partially confirm my feelings about the viability of commercial OSS development.
The gist of the problem is: the company which spends millions of dollars on R&D does not necessarily have a better product than his competitors. You have to ask yourself, is it worth it to spend 10 million dollars developing a GUI that your competitors will copy byte for byte? You simply can't differentiate yourself based on your product itself. Futhermore, the competitors can copy your work byte for byte, and add in a few nominal contributions at the 11th hour making their product nominally better, not to mention cheaper.
I'm sure plenty of geeks will say "but RedHat is building up a reputation". While this may be partially true, the geeks are only sliver of the real market. Furthermore, many of these geeks aren't buying Redhat. They're downloading it.
I really do want to see RedHat succeed. But I have my doubts. I don't believe that this business model is anywhere near proven. The fact is that for all the "support" arguments, RedHat's profits aren't coming from support (yet). They're coming from what I'd term 'convenience sales'. That is, they're making profits by SELLING their product based on the fact that its a bit easier to install and document. For this reason, I have serious doubts about RedHat being able to grasp MS's market share. They've enjoyed relative obscurity. While would-be clones (byte for byte) can't garner enough attention to pick away at RedHat's sales profitably.
Essentially all RedHat has is a trademark, or a series of trademarks. Many people think this is enough, and they frequently point to Pepsi and Coca-Cola. In my opinion, these are entirely different. The different colas enjoy unique formulas. While they may, in reality, taste the same, many people would argue differently. Neither of them can, or would, claim that they are the exact same formula. The same can not be said for GPL software. Your competitors can make an exact copy of all your work. They can also pile software on, and still allow the customers exact same software.
"Some people aren't just cluefully impaired, they're actually clue resistant." --mandrake
Of course, since he's not a superior techno-geek, Slashdotters will diss him. But folks like Evan, and like MacMillan, are just as important to the success of Linux as the uber-geeks who actually produce the technology. What's the use of great technology, if you can't come out of the closet? Aren't we tired of Linux being the gay stepchild of operating systems?!
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
So Mandrake sells the most boxed linux. Your point? How relevant is this? Many, many people borrow discs from friends or download linux or even borrow discs from their library.
All this article really tells us is what distro a lot of newbies are trying. Ok, that's fine... and many of them will likely switch to some other Linux after they get more confidant. And some won't.
Whether we like it or not, there are at least two Linux "audiences" now. There is the techie, geek audience and the not-so-techie, not-so-geeky audience. Just becuase a lot of the latter group are currently becoming Linux users, does not mean that there is no longer a place for books/distros/sites that cater to the former group. Even if the article's claim about slashdot had been true (why didn't the author search for Mandrake?!), there would be nothing wrong with that... it is perfectly allowable for /. to cater to the geekier Linux users. (I am not necessarily saying it does, I'm just pointing out, that there is nothing wrong with that).
---
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
Well, speaking as a Mandrake Linux user myself (and actually fairly new to Linux), I must say that it has its ups and downs. On the upside, I found it much easier to learn, configure, and use than RedHat 5.1 and 5.2. Of course, I was using the freeware versions of the above, which probably has something to do with it. :-) But my general experience with Mandrake was positive.
I'm not sure about the newest RedHat versions, but Mandrake's inclusion of a bunch of HOWTOs (I actually think this may be standard, but due to my lack of experience, am not sure) was very helpful, especially the PPP-HOWTO. The inclusion of both GNOME and KDE was a nice touch too. If I remember right from what I've read, most only have one or the other.
But on the downside, a good number of Mandrake 6.0's packages are fairly buggy. The emacs command-line version is extremely buggy (well, one really nasty bug), and the Kaffe Java interpreter package seems to be corrupted (at least on my CD it was). These two are the most obvious, but there are others I've run into.
The impression I got reading the Slashdot article was that Macmillan made Mandrake, but they don't and the ZDnet article didn't claim that Macmillan was Mandrake.
Mandrake is made by Mandrakesoft and the only role that Macmillan play is that they are marketing copies of their distribution. You can get non-Macmillan copies from Mandrake as well as a free download just like you can with RedHat.
So this article is not to discuss the merits of Mandrake it's to discuss Macmillan and that's a big difference.
Now, I'm not what could be construed as a fan of RedHat by any means, but I'd like to say something in their defense. McMillan is the distributor for RedHat's box sets in bookstores (or at least they were the last time I checked). Should it even be considered a challenge for them to outsell RedHat--since all they have to do is ship twice as many copies of their version of Linux out to the same locations? It seems to me that this should be considered in the same realm as calling blasting away at fish in a rain barrel with a shotgun "fishing".
Just be aware that optimization is more tricky than it looks; merely using the -mfoo flag for your processor guarantees neither faster speed nor smaller size.
-- "Ever wonder why the SAME PEOPLE make up ALL the conspiracy theories?"
In the article, they mention that MacMillan had a distribution deal with RedHat for version 5.x. Come to think of it, my first Linux install was MacMillan Linux (RedHat 5.2). What you saw on beyond.com is just unmoved merchandise, left over from when MacMillan still did distro for RH.
Blame beyond.com for trying to unload "obsolete" merchandise, not MacMillan.
--
Okay, I got Linux installed. So where's the free beer everyone keeps talking about??
I just don't see making distributions being the kind of high margin business that would justify all the interest in RedHat. I think a lot better argument can be made for cross-distribution support and training operations like linuxcare being a big growth market with higher margins.
It's not that I don't think that RedHat isn't providing a great service to the Linux community, I do. I am having a hard time with the business model justifying the astronomical stock price. If what I think is reality later sets in, a crash in RedHat stock price in the future will not do the Linux community any favors as it might signal a lot of people that the "Linux Revolution" is over.
On the other hand, it might be better if the "Linux Revolution" hype cooled off. Linux doesn't need the hype to be really big. The big industry players (the IBMs, Compaqs, SGIs, etc.) like the hype because it keeps stirring the pot, getting people to buy new systems and services. Just as customers were tiring of the Microsoft/Intel Upgrade Treadmill, here comes Linux to get customers back on the "install a new IT infrastructure because it's the coming thing and we don't want to be left out" treadmill.
RedHat has come up with a good and complex distribution, pretty much from scratch. That deserves some amount of respect.
Mandrake has come up with a new spin on RedHat's distribution (different default desktop, Pentium-optimized binaries, and a few other changes). They did some new things, also deserving of some amount of respect.
Cheapbytes has taken RedHat and Mandrake, copied everything that's freely redistributable, and packaged them at a much much more affordable price. They didn't do much creatively, but their price opens up Linux to more people, which is worthy of some respect.
Macmillan has taken Mandrake (they used to take RedHat), cloned it, charged an arm and a leg for it, and flooded the shelves of companies like CompUSA with misleading packaging. I know many people who bought Macmillan's RedHat 5.2 thinking they were buying the "New version of Red Hat" (6.0 at the time). Their business practices border on fraud, they don't do anything creative, and they sour people to the Linux community. Why should we respect them?
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I like Mandrake Linux in and of itself, but more to the point MacMillian as a company was very good
to CHUGALUG. They were quick to respond to our request for prizes to give away at our Linux Fest and sent us a ton of goodies.. both software and books to give away as door prizes. We found them very supportive of "the community."
Athens Linux Fest 2.0
Classic Hackers University of Georgia Linux Users Group (CHUGALUG)
Sorry, Mac.
I like you guys. I actually do. Your Personal Bookshelf is an surprisingly useful site when I need a quick primer on some tech that I really should know off the top of my head by know, and you've kept that thing up for years.
But it's not fair for you to say you have a distribution. I think you know it.
Fellow Slashdot readers, I've been following the Mandrake guys ever since they merged with BeroLinux. BeroLinux, for those who don't know, was the first 2.2kernel distribution with everything recompiled to be pentium optimized. It was one heck of a slick package, unfortunately hobbled by some broken install routines.
Once Bero joined Mandrake(at the time, "Redhat+KDE"), I knew we'd be seeing a major powerhouse.
MacMillan may be doing great sales and marketing, but they're marketing the superlative work of the Mandrake people. I'm sorry if some Sales and Marketing folks at MacMillan don't feel they get much respect, but the bottom line is that the entire Linux community has been delivering rounds of applause to the Mandrake folks--those aw-shucks kinda guys who actually put together the package--to the degree that they got product of the year at the last Linuxworld Expo.
MacMillan should do the honorable thing and allow Mandrake to market the name of its distribution. There seems to be something quite faustian about his whole arrangement if you ask me; it's as if MacMillan went to Mandrake and said, "You could create the number one selling distribution, but it wouldn't be your name on it..."
That being said, I think they're doing a tremendous amount of good getting Linux out there, and we shouldn't take biased ravings(those geeks don't know what Linux is all about, thus he raved) too seriously--not even, mind you, from the person doing the raving. Five bucks says the guy was just quoting some out of line MCP guy off the record.
One lamer does not an organization doom...
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
I decided to gove Mandrake a shot. I ordered the cheapbyte's cd and took it for a spin on my ever-changing laptop. Right off the bat I noticed:
1) My cpu was being misidentified.
2) The "which" command didn't work.
These may both seem minor, but not having the "which" command made the installation of certain necessary software quit difficult. And damn, I didn't spend all that money on the pII to be told it's a celeron. I always understood Mandrake to be "bleeding edge; the installation was almost identical to RH. I liked the Lothar project. I give Mandrake respect. I just can't imagine how the "most popular" distribution can have such gaping flaws.
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous