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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.
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.
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
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.
Hmm, is it really such a good idea to have graphical installers? At least IMHO there should be a text-based fallback. I've seen graphical Linux installers fail (Corel being one, on newer video cards), which is really a shameful turn-off for people who are switching to Linux for the first time. Now, if only there was a text-based fallback, everything would be OK -- so even if the installer encounters some strange video card released just a day ago, it won't barf but simply fall back to a text-mode installer that at least gets the base system installed, then the user can worry about configuring Linux to work with his video hardware.
(No, using VGA16 does NOT guarantee anything... at least in Corel's case, the X server simply segfaults on the ATI Rage 128 even in VGA16 modes. Text-mode is virtually a 100% guarantee: why not be prepared for the worst when it doesn't cost that much?)
mikre he sophia he tou Mikrosophou.
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 :)
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...
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?
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).
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?
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"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
I don't think everyone is ready for graphical installers yet. I think they need to be improved before they're unleashed upon the masses. Here's some problems I've noticed with the installation of a few distros:
Red Hat 6.1:
The graphical installer doesn't list all of the available packages. It also failed to correctly configure X on my computer. The fallback text-installer in 6.1 does configure X properly, but it is missing the F1 package descriptions! Ouch!
Mandrake 6.1:
Text install only. Descriptions are there, and everything works as advertised - until you get it running. For some odd reason, that distro doesn't install kdelibs! I always need to install it by hand. This is my favorite distro.
Corel Linux:
Just tried to install 1.0 last night on a spare machine. The GUI installer doesn't work with my mouse. I have a Logitech FirstMouse+. That shouldn't be a problem, but it is.
For 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