Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on February 13, 2005 12:50 AM
From my experience, your post is quite incorrect. I have given Mandrake many chances and have found:
1) Debian and Red Hat/Fedora (particularly FC3) are far superior in terms of stability. However, both of these distros do involve more post-install configuration after install as compared with Mandrake. Also, to my knowledge, neither Debian or RH/Fedora have ever "fried" anyone's CD-ROM drive and tried to pin the blame on the hardware manufacturer instead of their own inept quality control.
2) Mandrake typically pushes toward "bleeding edge," both in the software they include and the software they create for their distribution. While recent releases are nowhere near as buggy as pre-9.x, I still find annoying little bugs all over the place.
3) Mandrake looks nice, but if you want to combine functionality with appearance, SUSE is a better option.
In addition, I challenge the assertion that "Mandarke [sic] (and, of course, Debian!) are wholly committed to free software and not only to corporate clients..." Mandrake is a for-profit business and Mandrake Linux is their product. Frankly, now that YaST is free, Mandrake is no less commercial and no more free than either SUSE or Red Hat. Also: Neither Debian or Fedora Core are commercial distributions and neither of them dilutes Open Source or Free Software values in favor of convenience. Yet, each makes installation of proprietary features (e.g., MP3 codecs) convenient enough, should the end user wish to configure them.
Finally, "...mainly a US 'patriot' distro" is a narrow-minded, petty, inflamatory, and ultimately insubstantial argument, akin to saying "Mandrake is for Francophile, globalist apologist sycophants." I could also say the "patriot" remark is the product of an emotional, logically-challenged, self-congratulatory Trekkie, although it would be clearly wrong for me to do so.
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Re:the top of the top!
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 13, 2005 12:50 AM1) Debian and Red Hat/Fedora (particularly FC3) are far superior in terms of stability. However, both of these distros do involve more post-install configuration after install as compared with Mandrake. Also, to my knowledge, neither Debian or RH/Fedora have ever "fried" anyone's CD-ROM drive and tried to pin the blame on the hardware manufacturer instead of their own inept quality control.
2) Mandrake typically pushes toward "bleeding edge," both in the software they include and the software they create for their distribution. While recent releases are nowhere near as buggy as pre-9.x, I still find annoying little bugs all over the place.
3) Mandrake looks nice, but if you want to combine functionality with appearance, SUSE is a better option.
In addition, I challenge the assertion that "Mandarke [sic] (and, of course, Debian!) are wholly committed to free software and not only to corporate clients..." Mandrake is a for-profit business and Mandrake Linux is their product. Frankly, now that YaST is free, Mandrake is no less commercial and no more free than either SUSE or Red Hat. Also: Neither Debian or Fedora Core are commercial distributions and neither of them dilutes Open Source or Free Software values in favor of convenience. Yet, each makes installation of proprietary features (e.g., MP3 codecs) convenient enough, should the end user wish to configure them.
Finally, "...mainly a US 'patriot' distro" is a narrow-minded, petty, inflamatory, and ultimately insubstantial argument, akin to saying "Mandrake is for Francophile, globalist apologist sycophants." I could also say the "patriot" remark is the product of an emotional, logically-challenged, self-congratulatory Trekkie, although it would be clearly wrong for me to do so.
Live long and prosper, indeed.
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