I'm running a small company in Europe (music records & music on the net). In our offices we have 4 PCs in Intranet, with a DSL link to Internet. We do email with Netscape-mail, maillings with StarOffice or Abiword, financial projections with StarOffice, web editing with several tools, graphics creation with the Gimp and others. Also we have a local webserver that was very easy to install. Also we have NFS mounts through the Intranet. And we watch and listen tons of MP3s and.ram videos on the net.
It was very easy to set up, it is extremely cheap (we just bought a Pack in a store). And this is extremely reliable and fast to use.
We have 3 PCs with Mandrake 7.2 and one in dual-boot Mandrake 7.2/Win 98. The win98 is only here for accounting and for checking that some of our webpages look good with Exploder. I think in the long term we can remove Windows completely.
It's good news... Really I know Mandrake very well and they just come back to a more sane environment where you have to make money before spending it;-) Trust me: Mandrakesoft is in good health and there are no plans to shutdown the company. They have hit #1 retail sales in the USA during 1st quarter 2001.
I've been using Mozilla since 0.8 because of some email features (multiple accounts management in particular) and I must agree that the 0.9 release is a very good improvement over 0.8: no more display refreshing errors, 1.5 to 2 times faster (mail client as well as web browser) and I'm quite happy of that. The only worse thing is a bug in the email client that seems to trash sometimes the.msf files (it's index of the emails) which is quite a bad thing because you see all the trashed emails coming back:-> (I had 874 emails back!)
By the way, Mandrake 8.0 includes Mozilla and Galeon and Netscape and Konqueror and... Evolution. I think giving the choice is the good way instead of deciding to impose a choice to users.
As far as I know (mailling-lists, forums...), the integration of ReiserFS and Supermount into Mandrake have never lead to any problem. So "broken" is not the exact name.
About the online update tool, maybe you didn't follow the story, but as far as I can remember, it was included first in Mandrake (called MandrakeUpdate) in their 6.0 release by june/july 1999 and then came Red Hat 6.1 or 6.2 in sep' or oct' 99, with the first release of up2date. And the list of new features firstly introduced by Mandrake and then adopted by Red Hat is long. Even in Red Hat 7.1 I can read:
"* Heightened Security delivers secure default settings that keeps ports closed and Internet utilities inactive until needed. A new firewall screen enables user to turn on or off as many features as desired for totally customized security." that sound very much like... MSec, the Mandrake security tool... introduced 16 months ago.
And I could comment the "new features" lists more deeply...
Anyway, you may be right about the fact that Red Hat is the Linux company with the most kernel hackers inside. The truth is that RH is (was) a 30 billion $ company and had the means to hire many of them while Mandrakesoft is not even public (is it?). But this doesn't mean Red Hat can control free-software because free-software is by nature not controlable.
To me, Red Hat appears more and more like a follower, compared to Mandrake, even if it's a really bigger company! I'm waiting for Mandrake 8.0, to be released in a few days, very impatiently, with all the extremely cool new features.
Latest Mandrake releases (e.g. 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 and the newcoming 8.0), are not based on Red Hat at all. The best proof is that they generally introduce new features (such as online updates, USB support, 3D cards support, wheel mouse support, graphical boot, high-level security stuff...) a long time before Red Hat does. The funny thing is that I generally find (and many people whom I know too) Mandrake more stable than Red Hat at every release (in workstation mode and server as well).
Also Mandrake has made a huge effort on updates (security and bugfixes) which are free and available in real time. The result is that Mandrake, which was the outsider in the Linux-distro game, is gaining huge respectability as an OS. Even Bob Young seems to love Mandrake (read the recent Slashdot article) because this increases the Red Hat potential consumers base for Red Hat derivative products (e.g. not the distro itself)!
The only thing I really don't like in Linux-Mandrake are the colour themes and their icons. I hope it will improve in the future.
Shift-alt A shortcut to select an entire thread of discussions in the mailer to delete it. This feature is in Netscape-mail 4.x, not in Mozilla-mail. And also It would be great that my Netscape-mail 4.x address-book was correctly imported.
You're wrong - I've done some benchmarks (I don't remember the name of the tool:-( ) and there is a *real* difference between 2 and 15% gain more, depending on the category of tests.
I disagree for server use: I have several machines serving thousands HTTP request per day, with MySQL database calls and Mandrake is great for that: excellent performances (i586 optimizations + SGI optimization in Apache-Extranet-Advanced-Server). And also they have the high security levels: I put the highest and have not cracker breaking my servers. That's very confortable. And really, for stability: did you test it intesivly? It's *really* not unstable. And they are very reactive with security patches.
I agree but Mandrake has released special versions (of 7.0 in particular) for 486 processors (and for SPARC and Alpha as well BTW), and releasing for i586 by default gives the major coverage of users and provides them better performances than a Linux distro compiled for i386.
Latest Mandrake was 7.2, so it's quite natural to have the new one called 8.0beta! Ok, in the past they have jumped from 6.1 to 7.0 (this was the *real* version inflation), but in a still older past, they did a 5.3 after 5.2:-) Anyway, I've tried to download the two ISOs - I've followed and contributed to the development of this new Mandrake on the Cooker-list and while there are not many extra features from Mandrake itself this time, there is Kernel 2.4 an, KDE 2.1 and Gnome/Evolution and Nautilus. So I'm very impatient to test this release candidate!
I've seen and used Mandrake 7.1 on big Sun workstations in last June in Paris Linux-Expo and that was great... Does anybody know if I could install it on the Sun Blade 100 workstation. I always dreamed to have a Sun running Mandrake:-)
"Nicholas Petreley, editor of LinuxWorld and member of the Linux Standards Base Project on behalf of Caldera Inc., has blessed us with an article where he explains
why Debian should be the base standard, subtitled "apt-get beats RPM"...
This article chimes in on the latest euphoria about 'apt-get' and the related bashing of RPM. Let me explain why I think Mr Petreley has no clue...."
Why RPM and DEB couldn't create an extra database for each user, that would, with the datas grabbed from the main RPM database (the one installed as root), manage the user's packages installed in his home?
Mandrake has equivalent tools (urpmi to handle deps at install and urpme to handle deps at uninstall). See:
# urpme kdesupport
To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be removed (80 MB):
kdelibs-sound-2.0-5mdk kdebase-2.0-7mdk kdegraphics-2.0-4mdk koffice-2.0-2mdk kdesupport-2.0-1mdk kdeadmin-2.0-2mdk kdetoys-2.0-1mdk kdeaddutils-2.0-3mdk kdelibs-2.0-5mdk kdemultimedia-2.0-4mdk kdeutils-2.0-3mdk kdenetwork-2.0-1mdk
Is it ok? (Y/n)
Furthermore, I've been told that apt-get was standard tool in latest Cooker aka Mandrake 8.0beta.
I use RPM everyday to install/uninstall packages on my Mandrake box and I never have any problem with it: dependencies are extremely well managed (but maybe it comes from how RPM packages are designed: I know that Mandrake has a more strict dependencies requirement than Red Hat) - and they also have urpmi and urpme (and also apt-get for those who want it by the way!) to solve deps automatically at install and uninstall. See:
# urpme kdesupport
To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be removed (80 MB):
kdelibs-sound-2.0-5mdk kdebase-2.0-7mdk kdegraphics-2.0-4mdk koffice-2.0-2mdk kdesupport-2.0-1mdk kdeadmin-2.0-2mdk kdetoys-2.0-1mdk kdeaddutils-2.0-3mdk kdelibs-2.0-5mdk kdemultimedia-2.0-4mdk kdeutils-2.0-3mdk kdenetwork-2.0-1mdk
Is it ok? (Y/n)
Really my main concern with RPM is that you have to be root to install a package - I mean: why should you be root to install a prog in your own directory just as you install a tarball... I think it's an issue for people who don't have root access on their machine (most students for example...) so they cannot install anything in their accoun but a tarball, which is not as easy as RPM. Ok they can also use rpm2cpio, but it is not very elegant way...:-/
Slashdot Mirror
It was very easy to set up, it is extremely cheap (we just bought a Pack in a store). And this is extremely reliable and fast to use.
We have 3 PCs with Mandrake 7.2 and one in dual-boot Mandrake 7.2/Win 98. The win98 is only here for accounting and for checking that some of our webpages look good with Exploder. I think in the long term we can remove Windows completely.
It's good news... Really I know Mandrake very well and they just come back to a more sane environment where you have to make money before spending it ;-) Trust me: Mandrakesoft is in good health and there are no plans to shutdown the company. They have hit #1 retail sales in the USA during 1st quarter 2001.
I've been using Mozilla since 0.8 because of some email features (multiple accounts management in particular) and I must agree that the 0.9 release is a very good improvement over 0.8: no more display refreshing errors, 1.5 to 2 times faster (mail client as well as web browser) and I'm quite happy of that. The only worse thing is a bug in the email client that seems to trash sometimes the .msf files (it's index of the emails) which is quite a bad thing because you see all the trashed emails coming back :-> (I had 874 emails back!)
By the way, Mandrake 8.0 includes Mozilla and Galeon and Netscape and Konqueror and... Evolution. I think giving the choice is the good way instead of deciding to impose a choice to users.
Rob, you run Mandrake now?
About the online update tool, maybe you didn't follow the story, but as far as I can remember, it was included first in Mandrake (called MandrakeUpdate) in their 6.0 release by june/july 1999 and then came Red Hat 6.1 or 6.2 in sep' or oct' 99, with the first release of up2date. And the list of new features firstly introduced by Mandrake and then adopted by Red Hat is long. Even in Red Hat 7.1 I can read:
"* Heightened Security delivers secure default settings that keeps ports closed and Internet utilities inactive until needed. A new firewall screen enables user to turn on or off as many features as desired for totally customized security." that sound very much like... MSec, the Mandrake security tool... introduced 16 months ago.
And I could comment the "new features" lists more deeply...
Anyway, you may be right about the fact that Red Hat is the Linux company with the most kernel hackers inside. The truth is that RH is (was) a 30 billion $ company and had the means to hire many of them while Mandrakesoft is not even public (is it?). But this doesn't mean Red Hat can control free-software because free-software is by nature not controlable.
To me, Red Hat appears more and more like a follower, compared to Mandrake, even if it's a really bigger company! I'm waiting for Mandrake 8.0, to be released in a few days, very impatiently, with all the extremely cool new features.
Also Mandrake has made a huge effort on updates (security and bugfixes) which are free and available in real time. The result is that Mandrake, which was the outsider in the Linux-distro game, is gaining huge respectability as an OS. Even Bob Young seems to love Mandrake (read the recent Slashdot article) because this increases the Red Hat potential consumers base for Red Hat derivative products (e.g. not the distro itself)!
The only thing I really don't like in Linux-Mandrake are the colour themes and their icons. I hope it will improve in the future.
Yes you are right: Germany is *included* in Europe, no *equal* to Europe ;) I'm in France and UK and I don't know any SuSE user.
I don't know the exact story (who knows?) behind the scene, but you seem to have a point here...
Shift-alt A shortcut to select an entire thread of discussions in the mailer to delete it. This feature is in Netscape-mail 4.x, not in Mozilla-mail. And also It would be great that my Netscape-mail 4.x address-book was correctly imported.
:-)))
thx Slashdot Editors :-)
Why is it not the Mandrake icon?
You're wrong - I've done some benchmarks (I don't remember the name of the tool :-( ) and there is a *real* difference between 2 and 15% gain more, depending on the category of tests.
It's FUD. Look at Linux counter - you'll see that Mandrake has more users than SuSE.
$ uptime
6:55pm up 8 days, 18:12, 2 users, load average: 0.19, 0.23, 0.20
I went out for the week-end 10 days ago :-)
I disagree for server use: I have several machines serving thousands HTTP request per day, with MySQL database calls and Mandrake is great for that: excellent performances (i586 optimizations + SGI optimization in Apache-Extranet-Advanced-Server). And also they have the high security levels: I put the highest and have not cracker breaking my servers. That's very confortable. And really, for stability: did you test it intesivly? It's *really* not unstable. And they are very reactive with security patches.
I agree but Mandrake has released special versions (of 7.0 in particular) for 486 processors (and for SPARC and Alpha as well BTW), and releasing for i586 by default gives the major coverage of users and provides them better performances than a Linux distro compiled for i386.
Latest Mandrake was 7.2, so it's quite natural to have the new one called 8.0beta! Ok, in the past they have jumped from 6.1 to 7.0 (this was the *real* version inflation), but in a still older past, they did a 5.3 after 5.2 :-) Anyway, I've tried to download the two ISOs - I've followed and contributed to the development of this new Mandrake on the Cooker-list and while there are not many extra features from Mandrake itself this time, there is Kernel 2.4 an, KDE 2.1 and Gnome/Evolution and Nautilus. So I'm very impatient to test this release candidate!
yes they do Alpha and SPARC - and they also have announced something for PPC...
I've seen and used Mandrake 7.1 on big Sun workstations in last June in Paris Linux-Expo and that was great... Does anybody know if I could install it on the Sun Blade 100 workstation. I always dreamed to have a Sun running Mandrake :-)
This article chimes in on the latest euphoria about 'apt-get' and the related bashing of RPM. Let me explain why I think Mr Petreley has no clue ...."
Why RPM and DEB couldn't create an extra database for each user, that would, with the datas grabbed from the main RPM database (the one installed as root), manage the user's packages installed in his home?
# urpme kdesupport
To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be removed (80 MB):
kdelibs-sound-2.0-5mdk kdebase-2.0-7mdk
kdegraphics-2.0-4mdk koffice-2.0-2mdk
kdesupport-2.0-1mdk kdeadmin-2.0-2mdk
kdetoys-2.0-1mdk kdeaddutils-2.0-3mdk
kdelibs-2.0-5mdk kdemultimedia-2.0-4mdk
kdeutils-2.0-3mdk kdenetwork-2.0-1mdk
Is it ok? (Y/n)
Furthermore, I've been told that apt-get was standard tool in latest Cooker aka Mandrake 8.0beta.
# urpme kdesupport
To satisfy dependencies, the following packages are going to be removed (80 MB):
kdelibs-sound-2.0-5mdk kdebase-2.0-7mdk
kdegraphics-2.0-4mdk koffice-2.0-2mdk
kdesupport-2.0-1mdk kdeadmin-2.0-2mdk
kdetoys-2.0-1mdk kdeaddutils-2.0-3mdk
kdelibs-2.0-5mdk kdemultimedia-2.0-4mdk
kdeutils-2.0-3mdk kdenetwork-2.0-1mdk
Is it ok? (Y/n)
Really my main concern with RPM is that you have to be root to install a package - I mean: why should you be root to install a prog in your own directory just as you install a tarball... I think it's an issue for people who don't have root access on their machine (most students for example...) so they cannot install anything in their accoun but a tarball, which is not as easy as RPM. Ok they can also use rpm2cpio, but it is not very elegant way... :-/
Not deadly - extremely alive!