Gael Duval, the founder of Mandrake Linux and co-founder of MandrakeSoft, agreed to an LQ interview. Here is what he had to say. Thanks Gael.
###
LQ) Tell us a little about yourself, how you got into Linux and why you started Mandrake Linux?
GD) Actually I firstly discovered UNIX at University where I learned computer sciences. It was mostly on Sun with Solaris or SunOS, and I really was impressed by UNIX. In 1995 I had a 386-based PC at home with MS-DOS/Windows 3.1 runnning on it and of course it was... extremely frustrating. In particular when you are a student with absolutely no money, it was impossible to purchase all the development software for programming in C/C++/Common Lisp and others, or you had to copy it illegally. And of course it was without the documentation. So I spent more and more time at Uni working with UNIX. It was the early WWW times, and I remember I searched for "free Unix" on the Net. If I remember well, I used Yahoo! which started less than one year before, and the browser was... Mosaic:-)
The search results showed several Linux pages. That is how I discovered Linux. A few days later, I was at home with my Slackware on 50-diskettes, still not believing that I could run a Unix-like with X11, Emacs, GCC, Lex, Yacc, Clisp and... all the documentation on my 386. A few hours later, the miracle was here: Linux was running on the PC, with OpenLook on the screen. The next great experience was when I performed the first Internet connexion by modem, through a University access.
Two years later, it was clear for me that Linux had the potential to be an excellent alternative to Windows, or maybe even a full replacement, and at the time I thought that it would be good to provide a Linux distribution that would be as easy to use as Windows. So I started to "play" with Slackware, and later with a Red Hat. It was also the time of the first versions of KDE. After a few months of work, I released the first Mandrake, in July '98, and was the first distro to ship with KDE 1.0 as default graphical environment.
LQ) Before releasing the first Mandrake version (which was based on Red Hat) you were working on a Slackware-based OS. Any regrets on that distro switch? Do you think things would be different had you not made that change?
GD) No regret at all, for a simple reason: it was not serious anymore to release a Linux distribution without a good package management like RPM. I seriously considered to switch to Debian as a base because at the time, Red Hat's reaction was very unclear (as far as I know, forking from a commercial Linux distribution never happened before Mandrake). But back in 1998, Debian's installation procedure was really not friendly at all. As a result, a key success of Mandrake was also that all packages made for Red Hat were compatible with Mandrake, including commercial packages. So the choice of RPM was the good one.
LQ) During a mid-year status update, Francois Bancilhon noted that "Our immediate goal is to exit from this status before the en of the current year" (speaking about the Chapter 11 filing). Does it look as if you will meet this deadline? How does MandrakeSoft's financial future look?
GD) Yes, our goal is now to exit from the Chapter 11 filing soon, but there is no emergency - actually it just limits the level of business we do. We will provide an exit plan on early January and it should make us leave two to three months later. It needs a court approval.
Anyway, we've just released first financial results and they are very positive. There will be a benefit for the current quarter.
LQ) What major changes and updates can we expect to see in the next Mandrake release?
GD) In addition to many improvements, there will be more and more focus on applications that are needed in daily business in small and medium corporations (office, groupware...).
LQ) What are your thoughts on the recent End of Life announcement by Red Hat? Do you feel that it will have an impact on Mandr
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Shut the hell up. GUD OEN SIR. YUO SUERLY TOLD HIM^%*"( # Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic.
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Pornography is evil now? Wow, I'm right up there with Saddam Hussen. But where the hell are my 70 virgins!? Hey, there's a reason you're on my friends list.
Sales of the Gamecube have recently quadrupled, they should conentrate on releasing more quality games rather than making a new console. If they release one now it'll be about a year before the Xbox2 etc, reducing sales for Nintendo in the long run.
...base their efforts on one single distribution... based on Debian Yeah, but I think he's forgetting that the main reason there are so many ditros is because people want to do different things with different distros, if there's only one distro a lot of features will be lost.
Slashdot Mirror
Amazon and Bookpool.
Gael Duval, the founder of Mandrake Linux and co-founder of MandrakeSoft, agreed to an LQ interview. Here is what he had to say. Thanks Gael.
:-)
###
LQ) Tell us a little about yourself, how you got into Linux and why you started Mandrake Linux?
GD) Actually I firstly discovered UNIX at University where I learned computer sciences. It was mostly on Sun with Solaris or SunOS, and I really was impressed by UNIX. In 1995 I had a 386-based PC at home with MS-DOS/Windows 3.1 runnning on it and of course it was... extremely frustrating. In particular when you are a student with absolutely no money, it was impossible to purchase all the development software for programming in C/C++/Common Lisp and others, or you had to copy it illegally. And of course it was without the documentation. So I spent more and more time at Uni working with UNIX. It was the early WWW times, and I remember I searched for "free Unix" on the Net. If I remember well, I used Yahoo! which started less than one year before, and the browser was... Mosaic
The search results showed several Linux pages. That is how I discovered Linux. A few days later, I was at home with my Slackware on 50-diskettes, still not believing that I could run a Unix-like with X11, Emacs, GCC, Lex, Yacc, Clisp and... all the documentation on my 386. A few hours later, the miracle was here: Linux was running on the PC, with OpenLook on the screen. The next great experience was when I performed the first Internet connexion by modem, through a University access.
Two years later, it was clear for me that Linux had the potential to be an excellent alternative to Windows, or maybe even a full replacement, and at the time I thought that it would be good to provide a Linux distribution that would be as easy to use as Windows. So I started to "play" with Slackware, and later with a Red Hat. It was also the time of the first versions of KDE. After a few months of work, I released the first Mandrake, in July '98, and was the first distro to ship with KDE 1.0 as default graphical environment.
LQ) Before releasing the first Mandrake version (which was based on Red Hat) you were working on a Slackware-based OS. Any regrets on that distro switch? Do you think things would be different had you not made that change?
GD) No regret at all, for a simple reason: it was not serious anymore to release a Linux distribution without a good package management like RPM. I seriously considered to switch to Debian as a base because at the time, Red Hat's reaction was very unclear (as far as I know, forking from a commercial Linux distribution never happened before Mandrake). But back in 1998, Debian's installation procedure was really not friendly at all. As a result, a key success of Mandrake was also that all packages made for Red Hat were compatible with Mandrake, including commercial packages. So the choice of RPM was the good one.
LQ) During a mid-year status update, Francois Bancilhon noted that "Our immediate goal is to exit from this status before the en of the current year" (speaking about the Chapter 11 filing). Does it look as if you will meet this deadline? How does MandrakeSoft's financial future look?
GD) Yes, our goal is now to exit from the Chapter 11 filing soon, but there is no emergency - actually it just limits the level of business we do. We will provide an exit plan on early January and it should make us leave two to three months later. It needs a court approval.
Anyway, we've just released first financial results and they are very positive. There will be a benefit for the current quarter.
LQ) What major changes and updates can we expect to see in the next Mandrake release?
GD) In addition to many improvements, there will be more and more focus on applications that are needed in daily business in small and medium corporations (office, groupware...).
LQ) What are your thoughts on the recent End of Life announcement by Red Hat? Do you feel that it will have an impact on Mandr
Laden or unladen?
...
I have created a new account and have already begun the process of karma whoring
Hah. wannabe.
indeed
Bored of the rings :)
Good book
They're not being paid.
Really, what IS wrong with moderators at the moment? That was meant as a joke...
Right over
here
I hope the person modding me down relised how fucked they're gonna be when I metamod them down.
I miss people posting "KARMA WHOER KARMA WHOER OMFGOOSES%&(*%(%*" after every post I make :(
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/03/30/0510225.shtm l?tid=133&tid=159404 5 9) was not found.
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The requested URL (articles/03/03/30/0510225.shtm%20l?tid=133&tid=1
Shut the hell up.
GUD OEN SIR. YUO SUERLY TOLD HIM^%*"(
# Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Because the things in the article go underwater, and are autonomous?
TAHT MUST MAEK TEHM BETTAR TEHN!$&(*$&"
are the 3 eyed fish?
Laugh At The Funny Pictures?
Indeed.
Now we can simply RTFP.
How do you read a fucking-picture? LATFP seems more appropriate.
Pornography is evil now? Wow, I'm right up there with Saddam Hussen. But where the hell are my 70 virgins!?
Hey, there's a reason you're on my friends list.
Why waste that commute time playing Tetris when you could be hacking on Python code?
What do you mean waste? Those were the best years of my life!
Is the IP ban still in place?
Yes.
Sales of the Gamecube have recently quadrupled, they should conentrate on releasing more quality games rather than making a new console. If they release one now it'll be about a year before the Xbox2 etc, reducing sales for Nintendo in the long run.
I looked at the eros project and straight away relised it's greek for love (erotic love), also the greek god of love. Weird, no?
Yes, but what do the critics of the critics of the critics of the FOC rule miss?
...base their efforts on one single distribution... based on Debian
Yeah, but I think he's forgetting that the main reason there are so many ditros is because people want to do different things with different distros, if there's only one distro a lot of features will be lost.
is it worth $129?
When I download a Linux distro I don't ask myself 'is it worth $0', why should this be any different?