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Mandrake 7.0-Beta Ready for Download
December 22, 1999 - MandrakeSoft is very pleased to announce that its new Linux distribution is available, only for geeks and testers who can't wait to discover all the new killer features that have been introduced. This beta version (NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE) includes:
- New perl/gtk based graphical installer Drakx, including support for many languages and the DiskDrake partitioner (lets one change the size of Ext2, FAT... disk partitions).
- Use of supermount (integrated in kernel 2.2.14) in order to suppress the need to mount and unmount for most removable medias (cdrom, floppy, zip): Mandrake easier to use than ever!
- Several security levels are available. They let you use your Linux box like a jail (extremely high security, restricted use), or like certain very common proprietary OSes (very poor security, no constraint in use). The default security level, medium, is the security level found in most standard Linux distributions.
- Improved desktop integration with new tools like DrakConf and rpmdrake that let the user manage its Linux-Mandrake box like a charm.
- New hardware configuration tools like lothar and XFdrake
The new distribution has to be tested by many people to detect any problem that would not have been found internally.
Hackers, Geeks, Nerds or simply curious users, just download Mandrake 7.0beta, have fun with it and report all the bugs! For this, just see http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/oxygenbeta.php3 and read the instructions!
The Mandrake Team.
If Linux is ever going to be accepted by the masses as an alternative to Windows, it must have a graphical installer, and must, on the surface, appear to be as user friendly as a Mac.
Woah!! Wasn't Windows 95 accepted by the masses before it had a graphical installer?Isn't it true that W2K still doesn't have a fully graphical installer?
However, a graphical installer is something that's beneficial to Linux, no denying that. But that claim that Linux *needs* a graphical install to be "accepted" is largely without merit.
-BrentNonsense. There's nothing forcing us to use Linux till the end of days. It's like the early American settlers. They explored new areas, and as others followed them and it got crowded, they moved on. We to will move on as the purpose of Linux changes.
FreeBSD is starting to look nice... And there is always the Hurd. Or maybe there'll even be a new kernel to hack with. Never look back.
-BrentYes but I wonder what that actually *means*? Does it choose to allow you to install or not install certain packages? Does it make inetd services not available by default? Does "most secure" just mean putting "ALL:ALL" in /etc/hosts.deny? What reason is there for not choosing most secure? Does anyone have actual details on this, I'm pretty curious as to what they mean by this feature...
What I don't understand, is why can't we all have one or two common graphical installers instead of one for every distro? So much labor is being wasted as each company tries to create their own version of graphical linux installation nirvana. If there was one or two, then we could all pitch in and help and progress would be a lot faster.
Wow.. every distribution seems to have a graphical installer now. Does anyone know which one works the best?
The thing is that Windows doesn't need pretty installers, since most people don't install it. It comes pre-installed on their computer.
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Development will never "stablize". There'll always be a new and improved version coming up. It has been the tradition (I think) for distributions to be updated every 6 months. This gives you a reasonably up to date distribution. Distributions are supposed to be collections of the last 6 months progress, not the next six months.
In 6 months if the newest versions of the software are out, and have been fully tested, then they will be included, else there'll soon be a new version. If distributions wait for a fully developed Linux suite, we'll be waiting for Linux, just like we've waited 4 years for W2K. And no one wants that.
-BrentHmmm... I think you really do lose some of the power if the interface isn't perfect...
example: make menuconfig is *far* more navigable and easy to use than make xconfig. hands stay on keyboard - tab, space, enter, and the up/down arrows are all you need to *quickly* get around (and F1 is close for descriptions). xconfig doesn't allow you to scroll through choices with the arrow keys - you *need* to use the mouse. That alone slows things up considerably...
If graphical installers tend to follow the same methods, it makes it more difficult for people to install - especially is you have a new mouse that doesn't have direct BIOS support... what will you do then?! Hmm, I can't seem to navigate this install... graphical installs tend to take longer if you actually want to change anything than simple, text menus... in almost every example I can think of...
"Out, Out! Demons of Stupidity!" - Dogbert
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I am a Mandrake user and have been waiting for a good new version of their distro for a while... but despite my impatience I wish they would wait until after Xfree 4, KDE 2, the new linux kernel, mozilla, and other things are released. This would give them plenty of time to test things like the new partitioners and installer.
:-)
I welcome the new ease of setting things like security levels during the install...I don't mind using command line tools and text files for configuration, but those howto files would be wonderful documents if only they worked on my computer
Oh, come on. The development cycle of Mozilla is open. You can go to mozilla.org and see how the project is progress. Certainly it won't be another year even to have a distributable copy of Mozilla.
I think we may even see Mozilla bundled in distributions early next year. Before July-like.
-BrentAnother aspect most people ignore. Especially a certain journalist on USA Today.
-BrentI'll agree with the other poster on this thread that the text screen redraws almost instantaneously on my card (an old S3 ViRGE -4MB), and incredibly quick on my Matrox G200...
I don't *hate* xconfig... it's just (IMHO) harder to move around in - the improper options don't dissapear (a really nice feature of menuconfig), and my biggest gripe is still the scrollbar issue. I don't need to use them in Netscape, IE, or any number of other X/Windows apps that have them. Using a UI as intended is not a valid goal, unless you have designed / altered the UI yourself. Ever used Lotus Notes (MUST DIE!!!)? I can't even *imagine* how that was inteded to be used from a UI standpoint.
I love graphical manipulation and mice and all that stuff, but I have gone against people who use on xconfig, and head-to-head ounavigated them using menuconfig. It is a cleaner, easier, more appropriate interface.
If xconfig was modified to be properly keyboard navigable, I wouldn't switch to a console to configure the kernel... It may be easier for those who have never done a kernel before, but trying to view the explanations takes longer, making choices takes longer - if you make the y/n selection with the mouse, you then need to move the mouse to scroll the window (see comment about choices not dissapearing), and in text mode you'd have several other choices made already...
The point is - if you know what you want in your kernel, it *is* quicker to navigate via the keyboard - hands don't move - no wasted time. That's all.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
There are many advantages to having a large customer base... e.g. companies support you with drivers for their hardware.
OTOH, it is certainly possible to get too comitted to gui-ness. It seems stupid to cripple the text installer just because you've added a graphic installer. I never set things to boot directly into X Window, because I've sometimes had trouble getting X Window set up correctly.
Still, there's no sense in trying to deny that when the gui's are working well they normally save a lot of time and effort. And there's always the terminal window available for those commands that aren't cleanly implemented.
The real problem is not that graphical installers are available, but that sometimes text-based installers aren't (or at least appear to have been crippled). I'm all in favor of making things shiney, smooth, and easy to use. I'd like it if my wife could use Linux. But be sure not to cripple it in the process of making it shinier!
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
It's a thingie by Stephen C Tweedie (ext3
ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/sct/supermount
I quote:
"Supermount is a pseudo-filesystem which manages filesystems on removable media like floppy disks and CD-ROMs. It aims to make management of removable media as easy as it is under DOS."
Actually, yes they can. Pop-up windows, better text layout, organization of the screen. You have much more flexibility with graphical, then with an 80x25 text screen.
I'm the first to admit that I have never extensively used a GUI installer - but for those of you who have - what did you think? Does moving to (g)tk really improve the installation experience? Does it make it easier to install? Does the install ever fail? Or am I just paranoid?Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
A graphical layout does improve the process. As a mentioned above, you can do a lot more on-screen with a graphical interface, then a text interface. In doing so, it makes it easier to install. Consider for instance having help in a window along side the options, whereas you have to hit to see the help in a text interface because there's not room to have both.
The install fails, not only do to things like trying to run X on a monochrome screen, but regular failures that happen with a text-based interface. ie user-error. But hopefully a graphical interface will provide the extra hand-holding to help prevent some of these errors.
-BrentSecond, don't you have any non-technical friends? Relatives? Listen to any music made by non-geeks? All of these people benefit from easier-to-use computers. If they spent all their time learning computers they wouldn't have any left to make music, etc. The price of admission to technology should not be understanding the format of makefiles. I would like everyone I know to reap the benefits of Linux and not be trapped in Windows.
If the only people you know and care about are geeks, I highly encourage you to get out more. There are more worlds out there than you can imagine, and a lot of those people are really great. And smart enough to teach you a few things, too.
Gee RedHat thet's a great product you've got there. Let's see here... I'll take it, revamp and improve it and then I'll outsell you using your own product. But seriously...
Perhaps you meant it as a joke, perhaps not. I certainly support the idea of a new, small, energetic group striking out on their own. But I do not support the concept of plagiarism. Please tell me I'm wrong about this, but many of the Mandrake docs appear to be Red Hat docs with no changes other than every occurance of Red Hat being replaced by Mandrake. If this is true then it's very wrong. If it's not, then I apologize for even suggesting the idea.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Installers use base configurations. Linux has no more problem in this area then Windows does. I don't think anyone is claiming that the installer is failing to load in graphics mode. Okay, there are a few bugs. But the problem is not that it "can't" be done.
There are 2 problems people point to with graphical installs right now. One, they are mostly new development projects, so aren't really that stable yet. More time, and usage should take care of that. And second, there are times that graphical installers are useless. Can't use a graphical install on a headless box.
-BrentI feel that is a limited way of looking at the situation. It has already begun... Linux has hit the mainstream, and though the mainstream corrupts, some things are inevitable.
There will always be options for Open source users. There will be options as far as operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD collection, etc.)... and distributions... Redhat, Caldera, Corel, etc for the User friendly atmosphere. And Debian, Slackware, etc. for the geeks/power users, etc. Right now Linux is being marketed as the "new" alternative to Windows (tm), when in reality Linux isn't new at all.
Windows (tm) converts want gui installs, they want things to be as easy as they are in Windows (tm). Some Windows (tm) converts I'm sure are also willing to learn the depths of Linux, others are not and simply want to do their word processing and check their e-mail (if they even know that much).
Old school Linux users will be skeptical, that's a fact, as it is with any issue of this nature.
I am not a Linux guru, I would never claim to be, but I am a participant and an open minded observer and I think that the Linux community shouldn't completely shun the inevitable, otherwise they are alienating themselves and people who are open to learning more about the power of Linux. Be a teacher instead of keeping your knowledge to yourself and not accepting those who aren't as well learned as yourself.
The reason I use linux is that I'm very inquisitive, I like to try new things, gain as much knowledge as possible, experiment, learn. So for me Linux is something to experience. I am a newbie, but a newbie who is learning more and more each day and digging into the foundation.
Alright, I'm finished rambling. Say what you will.
meow
Well, I just went and looked at it...
Keyboard Zen, huh? 8^D
I like it - though I was (and still am) better with half keyboard / half flightstick pro in Descent (I/II)... but a couple'a extra hat switches are good like that...
And I think most of the commands in emacs are intuitive... sheesh... *^)
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
I have tried Red Hat, Slackware, Suse, Corel and Mandrake. I just love Mandrake. It's compatible with Redhat (which seems to be the most widely used distro). It's compiled and optimized for Pentiums, and it does feel fast when I used it. It has the most up-to-date releases of almost everything including the important ones like the kernel, Apache, Perl, PHP, Python, KDE, Gnome, Netscape, Gimp, etc ... And if your apps are not up-to-date, Mandrake has even provided its own update tool that lets you download new apps and install them automatically with just one click. Painless update without messing up other apps. Although KDE is the default desktop, Mandrake lets you easily switches to Gnome or other desktops. Mandrake improves on little things like color texts, a well-tuned Apache server with mod_perl, php and other modules already configured, etc ... Overall, I find Mandrake to be well-tuned without being dumbed down.
Well, 2.2.14pre16 or so is actually more stable than 2.2.13 final (there've been a LOT of stability and security fixes by Alan Cox and others in the 2.2.14pre series). I've said it before and I'll say it again: I trust AC's "pre" kernels more than most people's finals :)
ID Software released it's controversial Quake mod hours after God released Weather, and the script kiddies have been causing widespread mayhem in California. Due to a programming bug, California slid into the ocean. Munge, of l0pht industries, has been calling for "ethical hacking" of the weather infrastructure.
Even slashdot, a nerds for news site has not gone unaffected. It's servers were attacked by a huge distributed Abundance of Service attack (ASS) causing torrential downpours which have flooded out a three county area surrounding the "Geek Compound".
Additional news to follow...
I could understand Mandrake 6, new kernel 2.2.. Mandrake should really wait until kernel 2.4, XFree 4 come out at least, which isn't too far in to the future - as well as new drivers, such as those from Creative... OK, you get obtain them anyway, but its much nicer being able to install new drivers with a new version of Linux instead of hunting around on internet.
Do the new features really justify a new version number? It implies a major release, but to be honest, I can't see that it does...
In fact, my understanding of the differences between the things that AC lists is not as good as it should be, though I recognize that all of these are valid, independent concepts ...
;).
Kernel, OS and shell I'm OK with --
But I have trouble picturing the diff., for instance, between a window manager and a desktop manager. I've had it explained, but like many things (like the rules of baseball), I'd have real trouble clearly distinguishing them to someone else. Can anyone recommend a site where these things are really well spelt out? ("Dummy" book level is just fine, thanks.)
And I'm mostly a Mac victim rather than PC, but your point is still valid
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Mandrake's like Bishop.
Gee RedHat thet's a great product you've got there. Let's see here... I'll take it, revamp and improve it and then I'll outsell you using your own product.
But seriously, I absolutely love Mandrake. I have Mandrake 6.0 and RedHat 6.0 and there is no comparison. I've got RedHat 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, and 6.1 and as much as I like it, Mandrake is just more taylored to my liking.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Am I the only person who doesn't like them? Obviously, they are prettier than the standard text / ncurses based installer. But do they really offer any additional functionality?
By switching to a graphical installer, you introduce the signficant possibility that, for whatever reason, X won't load. I have heard tales of GUI installers refusing to start, and rebooting the machine without any explanation. Graphical installers are inherently more complex than text-based ones, and thus more likely to have bugs.
I'm the first to admit that I have never extensively used a GUI installer - but for those of you who have - what did you think? Does moving to (g)tk really improve the installation experience? Does it make it easier to install? Does the install ever fail? Or am I just paranoid?
The easiest installation I ever had was with Slackware 7.0. It was simply a charm! Straight forward. Bare bones. Simple. Of course, you needed a bit of computer savvy, but you need more of it with NT/W2K. The next easiest was Mandrake 6.0.
The worst installation I ever had was Caldera 2.2. It was the only graphical installer I ever used. I didn't like my video card, so I had to revert to Lisa. Next up was Debian (why are you installing nonfree packages by default!?!?).
But the real key to Linux is not ease of installation. If we succeed in the marketplace, then everyone will be getting it preinstalled anyway. The real key is setup and maintenance. In this area, Slackware really shines. It's because there's no broken linuxconfs or single-minded Yast's in the way.
Now, understand that I'm not recommending Slackware for the absolute newbie. Certainly not. But once you've got a certain modicum of knowledge under your belt, Slackware is a breath of fresh air.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This talk of how lowering the average IQ of linux users by providing easier installs is both mistaken, and more importantly, misses the point: on linux, the morons are powerless to harm you.
In windoze land, morons can be malicious by releasing viruses and blindly financing MS's efforts to prop up it stock at the expense of humanity.
In linux land, however, all morons can do is provide a greater installed linux base that will get the attention of companies porting their hardware and software. The dominant culture of releasing quality software rather than crap is inherent in the open-source model and is not going anywhere. There is not a finite amount of development out there that we shouldn't squander on the point-and-drool crowd -- they can be incorporated into society with full suffrage and few complications. Even if such accomadations become the default, there will always be the underlying tools and flags for those with the power to wield them. If you don't want to run their software, then go ahead and don't. There'll always be slackware or something like it for people like you.
And if you won't even let them install the thing, how are they supposed to be converted and turn from their luser ways? How many of today's electrical engineers got their start assembling redboxes from schematics they downloaded off the local phreaking bbs? You will some day reap the benefits of others' charity, and you won't be any the better off for being an elitist fool.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Supermount lets you set your removable drives up so you can eject and insert new media at pretty much any time, just like in a well-known operating system named after a feature of your house. When new disks are inserted and you access them they are automatically mounted for you behind the scenes, with settings you've specified beforehand. Whenever you aren't accessing them the drive is automatically unmounted again so you can eject it.
It was originally written by Steven C. Tweedie for 2.0.x, but he abandonded it a while ago. This new version was ported up to 2.2.x and cleaned up a bit by a Russian programmer in response to a request on CoSource. As one of the "sponsors" of that development I'm thrilled with SuperMount, and I think it's great that Mandrake's picked it up (hopefully they'll maintain it and/or port to 2.3/2.4). It's much nicer than Redhat's autofs hack, and it enables games with redbook audio tracks to work in Wine amongst other things. (you can't play audio on a mounted drive under Linux, which is a severe limitation for games).
Could someobody PLEASE tell me why all the BSD stories have a "related link" of Linux, but none of the Linux stories have one pointing to BSD?
Much as I abhor major version inflation (seems to be a way to get a cheesy lead over others), it does have one _long_ overdue feature, the choosable security levels. Here's hoping it spreads into all the distributions!
On another note, I'm pretty interested in this "security" settings system they have. Moreover, I'd like to see how they've set it up for minimal security. Does it run in single-user mode?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
ftp.mandrakesoft.com/pub/chmou/kernel-2.2.14-super mount.patch
If Linux is ever going to be accepted by the masses as an alternative to Windows, it must have a graphical installer, and must, on the surface, appear to be as user friendly as a Mac.
In my experience, I have found that Mac users are the most open minded when it comes to Linux (probably the reason they tried something different in the first place) but are initially turned off by its complexity. If you make it seem simple enough to use at first, but keep all the power of Linux accessible to them, they will slowly explore and realize what a wonderful thing it is, but this is a slow process for many people who are not geeks.
Reality has a liberal bias
Mandrake is essentially RedHat. They recompile the code with optimizations for Pentium family processors (there is some debate as to whether or not those optimizations actually slow down newer cpus like K62/3, Celeron, P2/3), and they tend to use a newer version of the Kernel than does RedHat.
Also MacMillian(sp?) sells retail boxed versions of Mandrake that come with a decent set of books for the Newbie.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
It wouldn't set the correct LILO default partition. If I picked the DOS partition as default, it would still default to the Linux boot partition.
The X setup simply wouldn't work. I had to run Xconfigurator or restore my old XF86Config file.
When choosing packages to install, many of the packages that should've been checked by default weren't checked... but they installed anyway. This made it difficult to tell which packages were truly selected to be installed.
I hope Mandrake's installer doesn't suffer from similar problems. I never had any problems with Red Hat until 6.1.
+++
+++
NO CARRIER
This is the first I've heard of supermount. Does anyone have more information on it other than the patch? It sounds like this may be one of the first truly enticing reasons for me to update my kernel (other than the desire to have the latest and greatest, of course).
How many times do they have to say "Beta" in the press release? And with so many other stable, tested distros out there, why can't there be one on the bleeding edge with all the bells and whistles, that's clearly labelled NOT FOR PRODUCTION USE to play with?
Great, so you refuse to use 6.1. I'll alert the media. Meanwhile, what's the point? Why shouldn't I be able to use it?
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
As you already know, just about anything you'd probably have will suit. It just won't suit for everything :)
It depends on what you want to do. Compile Mozilla? Pentium !!! 500, 256 meg ram, 10 gig HD. Run StarOffice? Celeron 300, 128 meg ram, 6.4gig HD. Run an apache server over your DSL line? Pentium 133, 32 meg ram, 4 gig HD.
I'd generally pick something up in the AMD K6-3 400, 128meg ram 10gig HD range. But what am I saying. I run Linux on a Pentium 233, with 128meg ram, and 20 gig HD space. And I still compile Mozilla and run StarOffice. And Enlightenment.
-BrentFor Microsoft (and to a lesser extent, other commerical) OSes, official version names are important to a degree which they aren't in the Linux world's enthusiastic, wacky developers and distro-suppliers, or in the BSD world's Castles of Smartness. That's because the name is as much (or more) a Marketing invention than a descriptive name.
..." To linux experts, this probably seems more marginal than it does to me, a long-time but basically shallow linux user. Most computer users stay even closer to the shallow-end than I do, venture to guess.
... you'd turn blue!
For Microsoft, the name of the product is an important selling point. The naming structure of MS products with the ProductName (Year) format is part of their marketing scheme, and they will work toward deadlines to make things come out in the appropriate year, or at least aim for it. (Remember the release of Windows 95?). I'm not bashing this approach - it actually makes some things slightly more intuitive. It's a lot easier to know "Well, I need to have Money 2000 to exchange data with my software at work." than "Well, I need to have kernel 2.1.5 and a certain c library installed
With Linux distribs, they're not limited by the marketing need for a certain number, though, or at least they needn't be. Mandrake certainly isn't!
They can release a major version (with what sounds like quite a few new features) as 7 quite legitimately. I'd also like to see the things you'd like to in an upcoming version, but there's no point in saying that Mandrake should wait until perfection is arrived at on all fronts before releasing. In fact, all those nice GPL'd things released by Mandrake will help everyone (including Mandrake) toward this goal faster than if Mandrake were to wait till it had independently solved all of the Unsolved Problems.
XFree 4 - what, early / mid 2000? It sounds great! (And I'm lucky enough to have no graphical needs unmet as yet with 3.6)
KDE 2 - still a while 'til it's really there, though it, too, sounds great.
the new Kernel - soonish, ditto.
mozilla - well, it keeps getting better, and is quite nice at present, if it meets your needs. But waiting for the "finished" product before releasing a new Mandrake
All that said, I must again praise the Mandrake (and underlying Red Hat (and underlying distro makers(and Alan Cox and other kernel developers (including Linus, as the colonel of the kernel's kernel)))) team for the greatness of Mandrake 6.1.
A friend of mine (brilliant but not into computers much) was amazed at how well put together Mandrake 6.1 was when she saw it at my place this week. "What are you running on your computer?" she asked. "That's Linux, with KDE."
"Whoah! I didn't think Linux was so slick!"
(Heavy paraphrase, but the spirit is correct.)
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I have a serious problem with trying to "mainstream" linux, everytime something that is created for (and in this case by) a niche market gets mainstreamed it gets bastardized. Remember CB radio back in the 1970s? We had every yahoo on the interstates jabbering on about "Smokey" and "good buddies","10-4".
I like the fact that Linux, *BSD, and BeOS are "geeky". Why? Because that alone keeps the no-nothing, keeping up with the Joneses, first 'puter losers away.
These people will take the emphasis off of flexibility, and stability and put it on ease of use.
If I wanted to exclusively us an "easy" OS, I have a few others to choose from. I want to POWER and STABILITY of linux to remain it's primary features.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
make menuconfig is *far* more navigable and easy to use than make xconfig. hands stay on keyboard - tab, space, enter, and the up/down arrows are all you need to *quickly* get around
That's funny. I always use "make xconfig" because "make menuconfig" is so hard to move around in. You have to use the arrows for everything, and text screen redraws are so slow. In X, a simple point and click opens any category instantly, and you can scroll very quickly by dragging the scroll bar's elevator.
you *need* to use the mouse.
You also need a running X server. Go figure.
That alone slows things up considerably...
Only if you insist on imposing an inappropriate usage pattern on it.
You can break any UI by treating it like some other UI. Use it as it was intended, and things almost always get better. I use xconfig because I like it better. You are free to use menuconfig if you like it better. But don't say xconfig is inferior simply because you don't like it.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.