Linux.com

i have been using drake since 7.0. when installing, if you use a username from a previous install, it will import those settings. i have found that RH doesn't do that. you're best off moving all your stuff to<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/backup, or<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.tar.gz'ing it, then adding a new user. mandrake's menu structure is pretty straitforward. usually it will default to the desktop preferences (i.e konq/kmail->KDE, galeon/evo->gnome). but you should have gotten the mandrake first time on startup. this will allow you to set up your environment. for all the carping, mandrake is linux underneath.

kudos to drake. jsut installed it on an old (k62-300, 128mb) laptop. it found my linksys wap11 card, and everything fine, except soundcard which 8.0 picked up. however, adding it to<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/modules was easy. (still not a "simple" task for newbies, but then again, this laptop is 5 years old!!). i also like the osx-like profiles for network prefs. way to go.

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How did you upgrade Red Hat?, its just every time I've done it, it seems to work with regards to username and settinga.

I was rather disappointed to find that when I tried to upgrade from RH9 to FC1 it hung the installer (my guess was the LVM partitioning), so I backed up and installed from scratch.

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when i upgrade, i usually just do a full install. except that i don't hose<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home. drake will recognize your user prefs, setting, etc. as best as it can.

i have used RH9 for a while. i was a little concerned awhile ago about drake's finances, and decided to use RH because i was not sure about drake's future. but hopefully, that is in the past. i am going to update my desktop soon.

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do you have version 4 of the linksys w11 card? just curious. i have that card and i can't get it working under linux yet. i spent one weekend trying and i have not tried since.

thanks.

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it is 2.6 or 3.0. they changed up chipsets after 3.0. i think there is info at linux-wlan.org. they claim the wpc11 (not wap11, oops) is a realtek chipset. the 2.x/3.x uses either the prism2_cs or orinoco_cs module. i'd guess you can get older cards on ebay. also, i recently got a belkin pci card for my desktop. not to hard to get it running on RH9. going to update to mdk9.2 soon. had to google for the link, and compile it, and it's not an open source driver, but hey...

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That Fedora is a bit like RedHat, it even has a Red Hat, who'd have thought!, I didn't have to change my desktop to a mega-different distro despite Red Hats announcement! Amazing!

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That's a great discovery. Maybe not Lewis & Clark, but at least on a par with the East Pole in Hundred Acres Woods.

I wish you great success as a beta tester for Red Hat.

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Thanks, been doing it for a few years now.

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Yeah, unfortunately since you have switched to Fedora you are not an ALPHA tester. Fedora was the worst Linux I've ever touched, and I've had my hands on some doozies (Gentoo, Jailbait, or Medori anyone?)..

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In your opinion.

Which I happen to disagree with since there isn't exactly a vast amount of difference between Red Hat 9 and Fedora Core 1, there are updated packages, graphical boot, an update to a better GNOME and other version updates.

I really can't see how Fedora can be significantly worse when its a full release, (the lack of a box really doesn't bother me, I do have a pen and CD cases), the beta version is provided and released at a different location on the FTP server and most of the developers are the same people.

In fact I see what you're saying as an insult to the developers, you're impying that they have become rotten at QA overnight (presumably the night Red Hat made their announcement?)

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I am insulting them, as FEDORA CORE HAD no QA. Just look at the bug list for yourself, take your blinders off. I was one of the most adament RedHat supporters up until Fedora CORE. I ran the test releases, I even recommended Fedora for the first day or two that I ran it. It's garbage.

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I also switched to Fedora from rhl9. I discovered that while it's roots are the same, it's DEFINATLY not the same quality that RH always was (running it since 6.1..)

RH, for me, always had the highest polish and quality out of the box than any other distro. I installed Fedora, expecting the same thing, and I was sorely disappointed. My CD burner didn't work out of the box (Plextor), when I tried to change some mimetypes in GNOME's control panel it always reverted, when I installed KDE 3.1, there were no desktop icons, Nautilus and file-roller's create archive didn't show up like in RH9, etc.. I can list about ten other issues. I'm still using Fedora ATM, but I'm considering either switching back to RH or installing something else.

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If you've been a RH customer that long, you know that RHL x.0 distributions are notoriously quirky and not production quality, RHL x.1 is stable enough for production, and RHL x.2 or greater are polished and rock solid.

Fedora is RHL 10.0, so it's going to have quirks. They updated the development and distribution (e.g. yum) of RedHat. This change is about as big as the long overdue update of GCC in RHL 8.0, so it'll likely be as disruptive.

If history is any guide, Fedora Core 1.1 will be solid and FC 1.2 will kickass.

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Unfortunately, there are going to be no more dot releases except for the enterprise versions.

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I recently upgraded Mandrake 9.1 to 9.2 and found it to be very troublesome. For instance, just opening, looking at and closing MenuDrake got rid of 80% of my menu-icons. Not too great that...
After trying to get everything back to work as before for a while, I decided to bite the bullet and did a complete re-install.
This was the best thing I could have done, the new version runs a lot better now. The hardware detection has again improved. Even my brand-new USB-camera (HP photosmart 935) and new all-in-one printer, scanner, copier work perfectly. Without installing anything I can scan from within the Gimp (or any other program). Great stuff Mandrake.
I absolutely love it that whenever I hook up the camera, the camera-icon (FLPhoto2) just appears on the KDE Desktop automatically.
Most used programs are:
Mozilla Thunderbird, Evolution, Gimp, OpenOffice.org 1.1 and Netbeans 3.5.1.

Oh, a tip about the updates: you just have to set the setup-sources yourself, initially, only the CD-set you used to install is set as a source. I removed the setup-disks from the list and added one of the mirrors, and that way, I keep the system up to date perfectly.


I have used RedHat 6.4,7.2 and 8.0 before, but I've never really missed it since switching to Mandrake.

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What all-in-one printer do you have?

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My printer is a brand-new HP PCS1210, the low-end of their new all-in-one range. But it works just admirably under Linux.

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I have also found that a fresh install works best although I don't format the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home partition and I expect that is the source of a bug or two.

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I lost my menus too upgrading the KDE packages.

update-menus -v

will fix it.

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Had the same thing happen when I upgraded from 9.1 to 9.2. Just pop into MenuDrake and make sure to save. It will overwrite your spartan menu with the default installation.

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I used the upgrade since my winmodem needs a special module that is not free anymore (You have to pay for the developpement since it is not supported by Connexant. I think it is fair but I have no money for that right now). I still have a RPM on my hard drive but it is for kernel 2.4.21-0.13mdk. The upgrade went really well ( much faster than in other occasions I tried to upgrade).

Even if I agree it is always better to do a new installation, I have to say that Mandrake developpers did a really good job with the upgrade.

Usually I format everythink except the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home directory. But I always create a new user for every version. It works well.

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Joe:

Since you didn't mess with your<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home partition, I would guess this is why things seemed a bit off. All those diddly dot files with your customizations for Red Hat may have interfered with your fresh install of KDE.

This also makes me wonder if perhaps a fresh, from-scratch install of Mandrake would be as quick and painless as your transitional installation. Maybe it would be even smoother.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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He formatted<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/. Creating a new user or logging off the desktop and torching some . directories and files would accomplish as much as a fresh install.

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Yes, he did a fresh install, but if you backup your home directory (guessing thats what joe did) you are still going to get those . files when you restore it. And ya, those things can wreck havoc on your display if they are from different versions of stuff.

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ender, go back to #fedora. Of course reinst'ing the dot files will result in his problem set, but isn't it more fun to try 10k other things before stating the blaringly obvious?

Of course, the obvious is not quite so glaring when one is on the other side of the kb, but still... drake 9_2 is not quite up to spec in several areas without a clean install. Who knows, they may not go bankrupt in time to prevent his having an effective quack version installed...

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Try reading the article next time. Joe didn't format the partition containing<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home. Perhaps you need to look more closely at some Linux user's ~ directory without filtering out the files and directories that begin with a dot.

I'm not much concerned about your FUD about Mandrake's bankruptcy. They booted the "experts", put some of the people back in charge who actually have a clue about free software, and immediately turned the business around.

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i wouldn't trust any distro that has problems reading my . files in my home directory, if I have to wipe out all my configurations it's just not worth it, cause that takes a long time to rebuild. Anyways, what's the point of having a separate home partition, if you have to hose it, when you install a new distro??? By the way, I have gone from SuSE to Debian, to my current distro, gentoo, keeping my home, only having to slightly modify<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.files in my home directory without any problems.

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It seems I am not the only one going out for Mandrake after the new Red Hat policy.

At home, I use exclusively Debian, but I also give courses and we settled for Red Hat two years ago. I must say that the experience was not entirely positive. Certain parts of the grafical interface, notably around GNOME, tend to generate kernel panics.

For this year, I put out the message to base all our courses for this school year on Red Hat 9.

However, with the changed policy, we can not really afford to use Red Hat AS, because it is too costly for a school, we do not have the time to download the sources and compile it ourselves, and I do not want give a course on something that may be not too stable. Although most people have the opportunity to download and burn CD's, I feel that one should give a course based on things that one can buy in the store.

Another thing is that maybe next year we will start giving courses OpenOffice/StarOffice on Linux desktops.

This, together with the acquisition of Suse by Novell, led me to opt for Mandrake. Maybe the fact that it is for the moment the only distribution that is completely European plays a role.

So, in the coming weeks I will be testing Mandrake 9.2, adapt my courses and find out which bugs could bother me. I think that Mandrake is also as well a distribtion as any other for server usage, especially since in a country as small as ours (Belgium) people tend to opt to use simple white box systems as servers.

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"This, together with the acquisition of Suse by Novell, led me to opt for Mandrake. Maybe the fact that it is for the moment the only distribution that is completely European plays a role."

Amazingly that again and again MDK and Debian users spread a lot of FUD against SuSE, they're not reading any official message from SuSE or Novell,
just repeating FUD hoping that people will choose for MDK/Debian. Plz use your energy to make your own distro great.

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Actually, he's not a MDK user. He's a RedHat user looking for a replacement to RH. Next, all he stated was concerns over the direction SuSE may go. Are you saying that the Novell buy-out hasn't caused you to ponder that issue?

So tell me, what's worse, a MDK or Debian user (or in this specific case RH user) expressing concern over how SuSE may be changed based on the acquisition or a SuSE users badmouthing other distros and suggesting they are spreading FUD?

Who is doing more harm to whom?

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Certain parts of the grafical interface, notably around GNOME, tend to generate kernel panics.

This sounds like BS to me. What was the panic message?

--
Mark Roach

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Yeah, come on now, you have no credibility unless you can perfectly recite an error message you got two years ago!

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"Maybe the fact that it is for the moment the only distribution that is completely European plays a role."

Maybe the fact that you are an anti-American bigot plays a role.

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I am also a European - and as such feel that having a distribution of an operating system which cannot be touched by American hands to be a good thing.

It has nothing to do with the American people but everything to do with your power mad goverment - Please don't take offence - I realise you didn't vote for them either!

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>>"Maybe the fact that it is for the moment the only distribution that is completely European plays a role."

>Maybe the fact that you are an anti-American bigot plays a role.

When did you last use a European, Asian or South American distribution?<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-) (Or non-US steel, Chinese textiles... ?<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-))

There are differences between distributions, as we all know. Some of these differences are probably due to differences in mentality between continents, so a 'local' distribution is possibly simply closer to my preferences.

I'm British, and live in Switzerland. I've used

• Yggdrasil Plug & Play Linux for several days, failing to ever get it installed
• SuSE Linux (5.1,6.2,7.x,8.1) (my main distribution for years)
• several versions of Red Hat (5.2? 6.x, 8.x and 9), and always had some problems. The problems could probably have been solved, but there was just something about Red Hat which I just did not like, so I couldn't be bothered to invest the time and energy to get it running.
• Debian since March, after trying Knoppix

I've also checked out Mandrake once or twice - I can't remember having problems, but it never lasted long on my computer. I can't remember why. I tried Corel Linux, too.

(And before you accuse me of being an anti-American bigot too, three of my closest friends are Americans, as well as my father's new girlfriend.)

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If Americans by american products they are called "patriotic". If europeans prefer their own products they are called "anti-american".

Everybody can buy the products they prefer. I´m from Germany and i really like Suse. But i think now that they become part of an american company they have to include many of this bullshit patent issues into their distribution. This patent obsession is really what i stongly dislike.

RedHat and SuSE as well do not include many videocodecs because of legal issues that are manly only issues in the US. I know it is quickly fixed if you install the complete mediaplayer after install but it surely would be prefereble to have the functionality out of the box.

I installed Mandrake 9.2 lately. I have to say it´s wonderful. The Mediaplayers they deliver is much less crippeled than others. It just works out of the box. I guess thats the reason why many europeans tend to move to mandrake now. Or take Gnome. Gnome does not play a great role here. But KDE does. Mandrake tends more to KDE than Gnome as SuSE did til now just because the main customers demanded it.

KDE never was a priority for RedHat, so their Gnome is much better there.

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You may want to check back with Red Hat. They just announced a program for education sites that deeply discounts RHEL WS and AS.

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"I don't know if I did something wrong during installation -- possibly failing to configure something correctly -- or if Mandrake Discovery 9.2 just has a bug right out of the box that prevents security updates from being applied as part of the install, but I'd like to know which is the case. New install or not, the latest security fixes should always be applied."

The solution is here:
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/errata.php3#pubke<nobr>y<wbr></nobr>

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Thanks! That sounds like the culprit, alright.

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It's a good thing the writer took up this issue. The tools in the Mandrake Control Center look nice, but they have always been terrible hacks really. During the mdk 8.x even the Software update used to crash, at least now most of the tools work, but these kinds of errors will have to get fixed some day.

The problem with Software Updates is, that it doesn't check for return values from urpmi. I once run weeks with the SU telling me that "the list of updates is void, your system is up to date" (something like that) when in fact it was just the mirror that had closed and was returning a 404. (You can test this by unplugging your network cable, and trying to upgrade. urpmi will tell you what's going on, the graphical interface will let you think that everythings fine when it's not.)

Dispite all this, I think Mdk is the best desktop distro and I use it myself. I just hope once they get out of their financial troubles, they'll hire someone with some discipline to go through the apps in the Control Center.

Another comment on the article: The club doesn't make it any easier to install updates. This was Red Hat's strategy, not Mandrakes. Mandrakes provides easy updates even for those who don't pay, their system is very similar to Debian in that respect.

The nr 1 reason to join Mandrake Club is to give Mandrake money and thus help them keep running. (Yes, I happen to think this is a great reason. I like to download the ISO instead of bying a box that takes 1 month to manufacture, and I'm okay with paying mdk for that.)

The only actual benefits you get is an urpmi repository of some non-free applications like java, flash and realplayer and a possibility to vote for new RPM:s to be packaged. As of 9.2 the download edition was first available to club members only, which probably saved a lot of LG CD-ROM:s, but is not a major thing otherwise imho.

Nice article, thanks
henrik

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Have you tried Fedora? It is Red Hat Linux, just under a new name. Most Linux enthusiasts tend to run the latest and greatest version of their chosen distro. Fedora fills this need even better than Red Hat Linux did. Heck, you can even upgrade from a previous Red Hat Linux install to Fedora Core 1. Its every bit as stable as 8 or 9. Rather than jump ship entirely to some other distro, give the next version of your current distro a try. You won't be disappointed!

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Personally, When I needed to switch distributions from Redhat to something generally available and supported, I switched to SuSE - but whatever works for you.

I wish Redhat much luck in future endeavors, but I wish all their apologists would sit down and shut up. Redhat orphaned a substantial part of their paying customer base - they're going to have a hard time living it down.

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Things proven in Fedora will end up in Red Hat.

That makes it a beta-test distribution, and that's definitely not what I'm looking for.

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Things proven in Red Hat Linux 7.3 ended up in the enterprise Linux. Was Red Hat Linux 7.3 also a beta-test version?

Mandrake Linux Corporate Server 2.1, hmm, do you think Mandrake will use provably stable stuff from mandrake Linux 9.2 in future releases of MLCS?

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I was disappointed. Fedora continued Red Hat's tradition being a poor workstation.

Most things take longer to setup or get done than on Mandrake. Fedora also misses or has very old software packages, just check it out yourself at http://www.distrowatch.com

I'm happy I moved away at last from Red Hat, after using it over 8 years. A new and very exciting world opened<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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"You won't be disappointed!"

Everyone I know was..

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I was totally disappointed. Fedora is chock full of bugs, far worse than non-SP1 Windows XP. Dependency problems right off the bat, buggy KDE, schlocky GNOME applications. And it's slower, too.

I can't believe whoever runs Fedora would release such a buggy piece of shit.

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I'l jumped from RedHat 9 to Debian Sid (unstable) and I'm never gonna look back. Viva la Apt!

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Fedora is not anywhere as full-featured as Mandrake is currently. I found too many things missing.

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i'm proud to be a mandrake user from the start. from 8.0 to 9.1.

i should really upgrade now.

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Proud Mandraker from 5.3 to 9.2 (after a few weeks fumbling around with Red Hat 5.1).
I've also tried Red Hat 6.1, and even 8.0. I've had Sorcerer and Gentoo. I've even tried Debian. I never was able to get SuSE to install (I think that was SuSE 6 Eval.)
I've toyed with FreeBSD and once utterly failed to get Solaris x86 to install.
Mandrake has consistently been the most useful Linux distro out of the box for me. And with the MandrakeClub contributors, I have to compile my own programs from tarballs far less often than ever before.
--
D. Wokan
Proud Penguinista

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I mean, not from a technological point of view, but philosophical.
You quit RedHat because they become payware. Why go to another Payware?
Mandrake does not distribute its binaries nor it sources for free. In order to get them, you MUST take a subscribtion to the club (which is unfair, in my opinion). So why not just take a charged version of Red Hat?
In addition, as somebody said below, you can still get Red Hat for free under www.fedora.us.
You can get Mandrake for free nowhere.

So in my opinion, Red Hat is still better than Mandrake.

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Mandrake distributes both binaries and sources for free. For example:

<A HREF="http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/unix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/9.2/" TITLE="mirror.ac.uk">http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/<nobr>u<wbr></nobr> nix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/9.2/</a mirror.ac.uk>

—Toby Inkster

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Mandrake's Sources & Binaries are free, security updates are free. Now if you want commercial binaries, an update to kde3.2 when it's available, that will cost you. If you read the GPL, you can charge a fee for the sources to cover expenses (labor,media,etc).

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Huh? That's funny. I could've sworn that I downloaded Mandrake for free:

<A HREF="http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3" TITLE="mandrakelinux.com">http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3</a mandrakelinux.com>

Must've been my imagination.

As for the sources, they are only available via ftp when using the downloaded version (they're included on CD in packaged versions other than the new user-oriented Discovery Pack).

There's "free" and there are "freeloaders". Mandrake favors its paying customers (the free download came a month after the paid packages), but that's hardly the same as requiring you to pay.

Even the security updates are free (contrary to what the original article implied). Stick with Fedora if you want, but it's pretty childish to call a pretty decent company "unfair" and not even get your facts straight.

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9.2 packages was released to the general public with club members on ftp mirrors, the only difference is club members got ISOs general public got a bunch of packages.

you could run a network install, urpmi --auto-select your way to 9.2 or download all packages and use the makecds script to generate isos (which had the same mdsums as the club isos).

Mandrake employees and developers even told you how to do it on mailing lists and forums.

so all that happened is that Mandrake postponed spending resources on conveniantly delivering the free product for a while.

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Mandrake 9.2 ISO´s are available for download to the general public after November 14, please see <A HREF="http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#iso" TITLE="mandrakelinux.com">http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3#iso.</a mandrakelinux.com> Also please get your facts right before writing.

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what the ??
what I said in no way contradicts what you say, where are the wrong facts that I stated in the previous comment??

I know ISOs where released for the public, I just making a point that Mandrake 9.2 was available to the public at the same time it was available to club members just in less convinient forms, so even if you did not want to wait for the ISOs you could have installed 9.2

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Yea man,

I think you did a foot in mouth on this one. Mandrake has everything released as source and binary from day one. Unlike Suse, and the other confused degenerates.

They give the compressed iso's out early to club members, but everything else is a free for all. They have more mirrors than fedora has as well. You are paying for the convenience of them making a iso for you in case you are too damn lazy to mkisofs yourself.

I suggest you support the people that are actually supporting you, whether it be redhat or mandrake or whomever. One day, you'll need to do more with your box than show it to your friends.

You'll at one point need to be able to point to a phone number or email and say, "Dr. Bob, if you have problems with this just give them a holler." And then you'll wonder in amazement where all the support went for the desktop you've been using for years. And sadly, it's already happened. Guess you weren't paying attention.

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Unlike Suse,

hate to burst the bubble there bud but you can't include SuSE in this lot. Their rpms and source are always available from their web server. the only thing they don't do is provide iso images, which I admit is a pain, but you can still get everything for free from the ftp site. including all updates fixes etc

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You misunderstand the reasons I changed. Let me make them clear for you.

1. Red Hat is not interested in the Linux desktop. They make money from server Linux. They dropped the less profitable pursuit from their business plan.

2. The cost of using Red Hat triples if you stay with them, and if you are a desktop user, you are still a second-class customer. They want corporate seats, not onesies and twosies.

3. I prefer to do business with those who support the Linux desktop. Not by contributions to Fedora or a project at OSDL, but by making the success of their business depend on it.

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Ok, so you had too much to drink when you wrote this, happens i suppose...
Of course you can get Mandrake ISO's for free. One good address to get it, as well as any other distro you would like to try is the following: <A HREF="http://www.linuxiso.org/" TITLE="linuxiso.org">LinuxISO</a linuxiso.org>

  Next time, get your facts straight before complaining.

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Sorry for the long answer

A FREE start is important to me.

If you want to try Mandrake, all that you have to do is to try the free download. If it doesn't work for you you haven't lost anything, you had to pay NOTHING. I loved Suse 7.2, but when I tried the $80 version of Suse 8.0 it locked up on install. Plugged in the MDK disk and I was back to MDK.
I like the feeling of "Independance" that MandrakeSoft provides, because they are struggling financally (SP?) as much as I am...<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)
I now try to pay the $60 club payment with each release, so now I'm good for 481 days, and the next release would put me over 600 days for sure...
MDK 9.2 has been a bit buggier than past releases, but it is the best computing expierence that I'mve had in my 22+ computing years. Even though I've had to reeboot more often, at the moment I've been up 2 days and 13 hours now.
IN playing with URPMI in the last week, I've found it easier to setup urpmi by copy/pasting using Konsole in KDE. From there on I found it easier to use the gui stuff in Mandrake Control Center.

But I have used urpmi in many ways.

urpmi (name of program) on command line
d/l the file and right click the file in Konqueror.
If you have a link for a file on the internet (galeon), I will right click the link, but instead of "saving" I click on "open" and everything can be done in one step.
Then there is even the easier way. In MCC go to the sources section and click "update". Then go back to the "add programs" section and find all the programs that you haven't installed and click on 4 or 5 of them at a time, and click "install".
Wow! a shopping list of hundreds of programs to run for free! Like a kid in a candy store!
I did have a problem with the menus getting screwed up after many installs, but I've found a couple of ways to "fix" them. Menudrake under root, or update-menus -v on the command line...
MarkP

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Well, this is simply nonsens.

You can get Mandrake for free.
Or you can get Mandrake PowerPack for $54.
In contrast, I can't get ANY Fedora. Why?

I am from Croatia (Europe).
I am trying to buy(!) "free" Fedora Core 1. There are many sites that offer
CDs, but none of these sites offer transaction over secure server
AND shipping in Croatia. I have only an dial-up (ISDN) connection, so
I am not able to download 6 CDs!
Actually, once I've found site, email them, and they send me a 6 CD
Set. The only problem is that 5 of 6 CDs are corrupt!

Now I must preorder(?!) on Amazon stupid Bible book WITH Fedora
Core 1 (3 CD set).
In contrast, I have ordered Mandrake PowerPack for the same amount of
money.

Currently I have boxed Red Hat 9 Professional and Mandrake.
Althrough Mandrake is Red Hat based distribution there is big
difference between them. In Mandrake everything just work!
I have a DEXXA optical 5 button mouse. This mouse never worked under
any Red Hat in console. No matter how hard you configure all files -
it simply won't work (I am not a beginner). The same mouse work
perfectly under Mandrake 9.0, 9.1 and 9.2.

When "modern" company like Red Hat begin to mess with birocracy then is
best to leave this ship becouse you will not find any code there. Or any
sense. Just stupid bunch of kids in black swimming in the water.
Management can be very dangerous today. lol

Sorry about my English. This is not my native language.

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You only need the first 2 cd's.

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I've been a member for 2 years, but I chose to do so when Mandrake started making commercial applications available (particularly StarOffice) to Silver members and above.
The main benefit I get from the club right now is the ability to vote for applications I'd like to see added to the distribution and the mirror lists that tell me what mirrors are available to members as well as the mirror for commercial apps requiring a membership user/pass.
If you wanted the ISOs for Mandrake 9.2 before they were made available to the general public, you had to be a member. That was Mandrake's way of thanking us for joining.
Right now, if you want to, you're free to download Mandrake 9.2 ISO images and burn your own CDs. If you don't do a custom installation, you're likely to get the welcome message encouraging you to join (which can be turned off, like the Windows welcome program when you first boot it). If you do a custom/expert install, you can avoid even that.
I've watched conversations go back and forth over the whole membership thing. I've seen college students complain when they talked of being short on funds. MandrakeSoft employees responded that they don't want any money if you can't afford it. They want the support of their community, but not to a community member's detriment.
--
D. Wokan
Proud Penguinista

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Nonsense, Mandrake is one of the few distros that is 100% free software. The isos are available via bittorrent, and the rpms / srpms are on the usual mirror sites.

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Your affirmation is wrong. Mandrake IS GPL, and can be downloaded for free. Joining the club is not mandatory.

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I don't understand the "angst" that motivated all this. Why not leverage Red Hat knowledge and experience and move to Fedora? It's the same code, after all. It's community supported, and it's GPL.

People running businesses on Red Hat who depend on paid RH support have a legitimate reason for angst. But, I'm sure very, very few run of the mill non-enterprise desktop users have or use paid RH support. Angst about RH stepping aside from the consumer market for a while seems more like wounded pride to me.

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Its just part of the wonderful and weird world of Red Hat I guess, its amazing what people say about both the company and the distribution itself

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Because I don't want to use a beta-test version of Red Hat for my production desktop.

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So don't use Fedora Beta, use Fedora Core 1, its no more and no less a beta-test version that Red Hat Linux 9, they've always used a desktop version with more up to date packages so they can learn from the bug reports and stabalise the enterprise versions.

They just announced it as well as doing it.

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It is so broken that it is worthless, use Mandrake SUSE hell use XP before you waste your week trying to get Fedora to work!

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I'm sorry to hear that you had such trouble getting it to work, perhaps the trouble installing broke your running version?

It took me slightly longer to install Fedora Core than Red Hat Linux, but that was mostly because I was getting a cup of coffee.

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Trouble installing? Installing was no trouble. I installed it several different ways on several different machines. It was just as broken on any of them.

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Why do you think it's a beta? If RH had released it commercially, it would be Red Hat 10. It's SOP for enterprise releases to be a version or three behind the retail desktop release. Businesses pay for stability and support. not brand new features. So, when RH treats Fedora as a proving ground for code that might migrate to their enterprise platform, they're simply doing what they've done for years.

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"they're simply doing what they've done for years."

You have a career in politics or marketing ahead of you.

ps: You forgot to add: "Except they don't do it any more."

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"Why not leverage Red Hat knowledge and experience"

Try cutting and pasting between GAIM and GEDIT 5 out of 10 times it won't work.

Try creating a drawer. Put items in the drawer. Log out, and in. Use the items in the drawer. (HINT: use the arrows on the keyboard since you can't click them.)

Try moving windows around on the screen, 1 in 20 sticks to the mouse until you "click" it off.

Try setting up a printer, now reboot and prey it's still there.

If it is, try to print to it.

Fedora is SHIT, it shouldn't have ever have been released.

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Yes, but there are also bugs listed in other distributions too.

I mean I could go to the bug listing at Mandrakes site, or SUSE's and also generate similar FUD, it doesn't make it anything more than your opinion, which is all fine and stuff, but making the arguement that something shouldn't be released by just getting stuff from a bug list and making it sound worse is a little conceited.

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That's nice, but these are bugs I and others that I help support experienced first hand. It's not my opinion, it's fact.

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>Yes, but there are also bugs listed in other distributions too.


  Whoa. Way to sound like a Microsoft apologist there, Peter. Yes, there are bugs in other distros, but the ones he encountered are really severe ones. Maybe you need to let go of Red Hat for a little while and check out some other distros, I think you'll find there's a lot to them.

  Face up to it, Red Hat doesn't give a damn about desktop users, and you'll get slagged off from here on out.

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Nah, if I wanted to sound like a Microsoft apologist I'd say that the bugs are bugs in either Linux or the distribution itself, not bugs listed there. (I have been to ZDNet)

I also use Mandrake, and occasionally Knoppix when I can't get to my own computer. I find it difficult to admit that Red Hat doesn't give a damn about desktop users when they are responsible for Fedora and they contribute code back in to the community, rather a lot of it in fact.

I don't really care if I get slagged off for that.

Now I'm off to look for open bugs in Debian and then say it shouldn't have been released because its shit.

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Poor you, I must have struck a nerve this morning huh. Feel free to slam anything you want, but you should uhh use it first like I did.

Otherwise, you really will be a troll.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)

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bullcrap. RedHat cares about desktop users just like everyone else does. They have a "desktop/workstation" distro, and they support it, just like Mandrake and SuSe.

people are complaining about RedHat because they have changed their prices, period. changing their focus to enterprise server market was in their best interest. you say that "they don't give a damn about desktop users" ? they give a damn about staying in business and being profitable, as is Mandrake and SuSe. If you think that Mandrake hasn't done the same thing because it's out of the goodness of your heart, then you're fooling yourself.

You think that they are somehow ignoring the alienating of their loyal past desktop users ?

You think that they have just made this decision willy-nilly and somehow weren't aware of the possibility of customer fallout ? RedHat is not dumb, these issues have been in play for quite a long time, and RedHat is the first one to change their direction.

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You misunderstand several points and have made a significant error in one of your assumptions. I purchased Redhat 9.0 professional. I purchased 8 support contracts. For my home system - my family (including my 8 year old son) each have a dual boot WinXP/linux system, and we have 2 file servers and a web server/firewall.



As near as I can figure it, that was around $400.00 USD I paid Redhat. and 5 months later, I
was told to go to hell. That's not angst you hear, it's people who were ripped off!



and if you read the newsgroups, you'll find a whole LOT of people who formerly ran Redhat, who have looked at Fedora - and pronounced it crap. Same code? Apparenly not. Not if you cannot install it on hardware that used to run Redhat.

Redhat made a decision that screwing part of their customer base was a sound business decision. Stop apologizing for them.

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I'm running Fedora Core 1 on both my desktop and my laptop. Its been just as solid as Red Hat 9. I don't know who these folks are in the newsgroups, probably users of other distros out to assassinate Red Hat's character. If you read the Fedora mailing list, you find that Red Hat Engineers are very involved in Fedora development and run it themselves. They want it to be a stable, yet cutting edge distribution. No, not as cutting edge as Debian unstable or Gentoo, but, having been burnt by both of those, I'm glad that isn't the goal. Have you tried Fedora and subscribed to the mailing list? If not, then I don't see how you can evaluate it based on other people's opinions, most of which based on my experience is just FUD to try to kill it.

As for being a Red Hat apologist, I admit to being biased, I like what they have done with Fedora. If that makes me an apologist, so be it, and I won't shut up, I have a right to state my opinion as much as anyone else. As far as what they did with the Enterprise line, I can't say I like it, but, they have to do what they can to make a profit or there won't be a Red Hat. They didn't have to create the Fedora Project. They could have dropped Red Hat Linux and only sold their Enterprise line. They didn't have to release source RPMS of their Enterprise line, they could have just included the CD's with the source to those who purchase subscriptions as required under the GPL. But, they did. I would like to see cheaper options for small businesses, I think they could sell the unsupported RHEL subscriptions for much less and do well. That said, there are many who want free, or want to be able to pay $40 every 2 years and use it on 100 servers. There isn't much way for Red Hat to pay employees from that.

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This is my second try at posting--sorry if the other one made duplucates this...

2 reasons for the angst:

I have a brand new dual opteron 246 system bought last week. I want to run a 64 bit Linux.

Was planning on RH, since I am running it now.

Who would ever want a 64 bit Linux, says RH, except for a server? So 64 bit Linux will require perpetual annual fees.

I will (and have) bought every operating system I ever ran. I am not going to pay, and pay, and pay, for the same operating system every year.
The cost would eventually eclipse the investment in hardware.

2nd reason for angst:
Both my sons were interested in studying for taking RHCE certification next summer. But now they feel -- what's the point of being certified on an operating system that they, as teenagers, cannot even afford the annual fees for?

They are part of the future of Linux as they both desire to be future contributers to the community and the "announcement" by RH alienated them to some degree.

But Red Hat is free to do as they please, and free to alienate whoever they want from RHCE certification. That is their right, and our angst.

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i found an alternative to Redhat, except i moved to SuSE-9, i downloaded Mandrake-9.2 just to give it a try, it is a good distro, but i think SuSE is just a little better...

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http://www.speculation.org/garrick/faqs.html
when i discovered this site i felt like i had all my problems solved
since i am not a techie this site is especially good for newbies as he really breaks it down
br3n

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One, I agree with just about everything that Peter Robertson has posted here.

Fedora is a beta test distro just like Suse, Mandrake, and RedHat were: they take work and bugfixes introduced in the standard editions, and put them in their corporate versions. Some people call that good software development.

Second, for me, a 'desktop distro' is linux that I can have desktop tools on. I have mainly been a RedHat person, but haven't experienced any sort of special attention for using it on the desktop, and I wouldn't be receiving any such attention from Mandrake or Suse, either. FVWM2, OpenOffice, etc....these are things that I can be running on any distro.

If you want to talk differences, then bring up packaging woes or support licensing, not whether or not the company 'supports' desktop users, because unless you REALLY love bluecurve, or have had to call RedHat for support, it doesn't matter. For what it's worth, RedHat still supports 'desktop' editions, they only make you pay more. They do that because they are a business, just like Mandrake, just like SuSe.

I am still running RH9, and sure, I'll check out Fedora, but I see no reason to change at this point just because RedHat will be dropping support. Why ? Because I never used the support to begin with. Getting fixes and new software is just not that much of a barrier for me.

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I think that was the point that someone was trying to make to Mr."paper RHCE" in one of the other threads. I feel bad that he has obviously had such troubles with fedora core 1, but since he can't even offer solid documentation or proof of his problems, and resorted to childish behavior then I don't think anything he has brought to the table has been very valid.

Just my 2 cents worth.

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I spent my time off from work getting Gentoo installed. I have been fed up with distributions like Suse, Mandrake, and Red Hat for some time. Why? because, in their attempts to make things easier for joe blow end user, they make it very difficult to enable more advanced options. Gentoo is geared to more advanced linux users, I got alsa working in no time. Plus, I don't have to worry about dependencies anymore, portage is a godsend. The greatest thing about it though, is that I can optimize all packages for my system, and I only have to install what I want/need. Bloat-b-gone.

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And that's the great thing about Linux. Those who want to can get down to the nuts-and-bolts of things and tinker to their heart's content.

Those who get enough of programming/tinkering in their day job, and who just want to use their computers when they are not working - folks like Linus Torvalds, for example - are happy using just about any of the modern distributions.

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I loved portage, but didn't want to optimize every setting for my system. Nothing like spending a full day installing and compiling XFree, QT, and KDE. Gentoo didn't give me an option of installing binaries with portage.

I left RedHat years ago because all the up-to-date packages were for Mandrake. (never heard of rawhide at the time) But left Mandrake because I spent too much time backing out the bad assumptions that Mandrake made during install.

I've settled on Knoppix for now. It's not ideal because I have to do the HDInstall and then uninstall packages I don't want. But I'd rather have a fully functional system after 10 minutes. (with 'extras') There isn't the rush to remove extra stuff like there is when you need to install/configure something before you can work.

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>they make it very difficult to enable more advanced options

how is that, you still get the same config files you get the same commands and tools, you don't like the way they're set up you can edit them (its the same amount of effort since you have to edit them in gentoo too).

>I got alsa working in no time

is that an argument for gentoo?? hell Alsa works out of the box in Mandrake so whats the point??

> I don't have to worry about dependencies anymore

gee what are dependencies?? you mean the things urpmi resolve for you??

you do emerge we do urpmi whats the difference??

> is that I can optimize all packages for my system

ok I'll admit this one is easier in Gentoo.

while rpm --rebuild foo.src.rpm would do the trick for other distros it would not install dependencies automaticaly (urpmi does not support source packages yet AFAIK but I may be wrong) and there is no way to recompile everything with one command.

this is the only benefit you get from running gentoo and has always been the focus of gentoo the rest is just BS

> I only have to install what I want/need

in Mandrake you can choose a minimal install then you can pick and choose the packages you want, no bloat and no unneeded packages Bloat-b-gone.

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Well, the really nice thing in Gentoo is rarely if ever mentionned : it's the USE tags system.
Sure, binaries disties may give you package dependencies, but you still depend on the choices made by the packager.
On the other hand, the USE system lets _you_ choose.
The question is, does that matter to the point of recompiling everything ?
I install and administer quite a few machines (let's guestimate at a dozen), with different needs (and thus USE tags) and architectures. I cannot bother with Gentoo, except as a toy in dual boot, to tinker with in my "Copious Free Time"(TM).
Of course, if you are a student, it is a nice learning tool, not quite LFS, but much more usable.
YMMV.

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But isn't the company about a fiver from going tits up? Mandrake + financial seems to == crisis in Google.

Doesn't mean it wouldn't continue without the current organisation, but if it isn't clearly better than the competition, did you find it worth the effort?

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MDK recently turned a profit<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-D

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It's called Red Hat Professional Workstation, and it's on the shelves at CompUSA and Best Buy (possibly elsewhere too). It's usually around $99, though I've seen a couple of sales.

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You are being suckered: RH hasn't pulled the workstation or retail versions of RH9 from the distribution channels. The CD's are still in the boxes, so you can install, but you'll be installing a version that's DOA. Support will end April 2004 -- and this means NO MORE SECURITY PATCHES! -- whether you pay $99 or $990 for your box.

Last time I heard, you could still sign up for 1 yr subs to RH Network, on RH's own site, too. People HAVE purchased 1-yr subs, only to discover that their support would end after 6 months or less.

Not pulling dead product out of the channels is, IMO, sleazy on RH's part. Continuing to sell 1 yr RHN subs AFTER announcing the end of support is crooked, no matter what legalese RH has to cover their butts.

RH has TWO products now.

Fedora is an experimental bleeding edge 'rolling' release, which may or may not work well now, but WILL NOT have SUPPORT when it's a year old. So, if you run servers, you can forget about running a Fedora release for more than 9 months, unless you don't care about security.

RedHat proper are now stable corporate releases, that range in cost from MORE than Windows XP/2003 to a WHOLE LOT MORE.

Since I need stable inexpensive small network servers . . . RH no longer has any products for me.

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Next time, read the post more carefully. He was talked about a product called "Professional Workstation," not about redhat 9. They are not the same thing, and Professional Workstation is a new product based on their enterprise versions.

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Okay - let me see if I can put this all in perspective for you kiddies:
1) Red Hat is Linux.
2) Mandrake is Linux.
3) SuSE is Linux.
4) Fedora Core 1 (aka "Red Hat 10") is Linux.

What is with all the distro-bashing, kiddies? I don't care if you use any of the above named distros or Debian or Gentoo or any other Linux distro - the IMPORTANT thing is that you're using Linux and not the brain-dead "os" that most of the rest of the unthinking world is using and is also sold by an monopolistic asshole-istic (good word) corporation. We should be attacking "them" instead of each other. In the immortal words of Rodney King "why can't we all just get along?"

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My sentiments exactly!!!

so long as we are all using Linux who gives a rat's ass as to which distribution, it's all good.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

Beats the hell out of using Windoze!

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One of the big advantages of using an operating system containing the linux kernel rather than the one from Redmond is that you can select from many different distributors.

Discussing the relative merits of the different distros is nothing harmful, it is just supporting healthy competition.

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Here here. I started with Debian, tried Gentoo a while until I broke GNOME badly, but will probably try it again when I get more time, used Mandrake 8.2 a while, and ended up switching to Red Hat. Debian helped me get the job I have now as an admin for AIX, HPUX, Solaris, and Red Hat systems, earning the RHCE in the process. Knoppix is a life saver, I'm downloading a new version as I type this to use to solve a problem on a system. I've tried Slackware and SuSE, they just weren't what I was looking for, but could switch to them or Mandrake in the future if I wanted to. I like the bravado of Lindows taking on Microsoft, and its great to see SuSE and Red Hat doing well in the corporate world. It's good to see newcomers like Xandros and Lycoris doing well, and Sun's Java desktop doesn't look shabby. We have the freedom to choose. So Red Hat killed off one choice? They gave us two in place of it: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Four if you count Professional Workstation and the RHEL source rebuild distros.

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you mentioned heavy use on knoppix. I used to use knoppix a lot, but found it very bloated for a lot of things i did with it, so i googled, and came across <A HREF="http://www.damnsmalllinux.com/" TITLE="damnsmalllinux.com">dsl</a damnsmalllinux.com>. It was nice, being slimmed down, but wasn't quite what I was looking for, and then I found the ultimate cd distro for someone like me, <A HREF="http://www.insert.cd/" TITLE="insert.cd">insert</a insert.cd>. This distro is great, cause it has all the benefits of the tight, compact dsl, but has some better tools, for data rescue and other things, like partimage, clamav, and it even has ntchpw for changing nt passwords, however, im waiting on a release using 2.6 kernel, so i can have some ntfs write support.

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I'm glad that you gave mandrake a try. I've been using it since 7.0 and have been very happy. There have been some shady releases (8.2/9.0), however the 9.2 release is very good. I still flirt around with other distros but always come back to mandrake on my desktop. It always just works on my desktop box!!! firewall,ssh,mplayer,opera,cdrecord,blackbox!!!! good stuff!!!!! no distro is perfect in my opinion, however, mandrake comes close for ease of use:-) i hope they make it ot of bankruptcy and come back with a vengance! my second favorite distro is slackware, which should be tried:-)
have fun and good luck!

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Blah blah blah Red Hat sucks blah blah switch to $DISTRO blah blah blah blah.

I can't be the only one tired of this, can I?

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Damn-straight, pad're:

RedHat_8 works fine for me. Is there any real reason to move off RedHat_8/9 ? RedHat has been updating my system like mad, the last 3 weeks, new MOZ & O_L installed easy, and the underlying HWare ( P4S333/P4@2/WD/Crucial/NV440 ) is rock_solid.Ports buttoned tight. What are the consequences of doing NOTHING at all ??

Certainly, with my IRS / business_data snoozing in MySQL, nothing gets touched till April '04! Suppose I touched nothing till April '05 !!!

When does new software start failing install? What's the basic clue??

Oh yeah I got a spare 80GiG Seagate on that box, so when a slick v2.6.x Disto is ready to buy so am I........

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...And never had to pay for anything. any package I wanted I got. YOu don't have to pay, its nice to support you distro, but you don't have to. Just becuse they have a club don't mean that you have to pay for everything else. Mandrake has always been great to its user,s and they were alwaysthere when I sent them a e-mail. People love to bitch its the way of life. but if you ask me Mandrake has made a great product and will be using it for a while to come.

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As a long time Mandrake user, I have some corrections and additions, and some tips.

I joined MandrakeClub for the same reason I had joined the Red Hat Network: Quick and easy access to the latest security updates.

This is not correct, you absolutely don't need to be a clubmember to have access to security updates.
On a side note, my guess is that in your case the installation was so limited that there were no security updates; if you didn't even get gnome, chances are you didn't get apache and other such things either. (I don't know about discovery installer, was it so different from the standard download edition installer that you didn't get the overview with the type of system you're installing? Check what I mean here: <A HREF="http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/install92.html" TITLE="4.free.fr">http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/install92.html</a 4.free.fr> )

Did you actually check after doing setup of 'updates' (icon on desktop -- but only, as already mentioned, with a fresh user - make one and have a look at the standard looks of Mandrake 9.2), if there were any security updates for packages you have installed?

Mandrakeclub membership is needed if you want to use the non-gpl packages that aren't in the download edition but that are in the powerpacks. (For instance, precompiled nvidia rpms, some winmodem packages, some dsl modem packages etc; to make life easier.)
And it is good to support the linux of your choice.

Tip for urpmi: use it like this:
urpmi --noclean [packagename(s)]
and you can find all packages in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/var/cache/urpmi/rpm
For all those who don't know what urpmi is, how to set it up, how easy it can be to install programs on linux, check out <A HREF="http://www.zebulon.org.uk/ICML0.HTML" TITLE="zebulon.org.uk">Zeb's tutorial</a zebulon.org.uk>.

More tips for the setup here: <A HREF="http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration92.html" TITLE="4.free.fr">http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration9<nobr>2<wbr></nobr> .html</a 4.free.fr>
Including tips on how to setup a mx700 logitech mouse, on how to setup Mandrake to install from iso's or rpms on harddisk instead of asking for the cd's, etc.

The major difference between my new steed and the old one is that MandrakeLinux has not given up on the Linux desktop, while Red Hat apparently has.
No, RH has given up on the home users desktop. I think they will be quite happy to support any office desktop.

On this whole distro discussion (should use the one I use, should not, should to) that some are engaging in here: I agree with the thought that as long as it's linux and helps people move from MSWin to linux, it's good.
With RH not pushing home desktop, I won't seriously consider recommending it; debian is too difficult to step into -- not so newbie friendly; knoppix maybe is, gentoo to far out (though technically really cool), FC1 could be good, have to check it, SuSE seems quite nice, then there are also Xandros, Lindows, etc, trying to get users from MSWin into Linuxland.
Of all those, I think Mandrake is the nicest, for one thing it's really free / at no charge to have a look at, easiest to pass around, and of all free ones (FC, Debian, Gentoo) easiest to use and likely most appealing to newbies. But this is all IMHO, so if you don't agree, no problem.

BTW it seems to me that (maybe) FC is to RH what cooker is to Mandrake. You really don't want to get newbies to use cooker....

My 2 rappen,
aRTee
<A HREF="http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/" TITLE="4.free.fr">www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr</a 4.free.fr>

#

if your net work is not up and running it will not do security up grades, on a new installation like this it sometimes does not bring up the interface card in time to get the upgrades. I always immediately go in and do a manual upgrade<nobr> <wbr></nobr>,from the upgrade option and it usually does fine. in my opinion the upgrade function should be taken out of the install and a warning placed instead so the user will learn the procedure to do the up grades DAILY
my 2 cents

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I switched too. After Red Hat made its move and SuSE got bought I saw the writing on the wall. Corporate distros are going to be unreliable in terms of support and pricing. So I went with Fedora and I have never been happier with a Linux distribution. Fedora rocks.

#

same here. have had no problems what so ever with it.

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I used Red Hat from version 5.0 on but since Linux Magazine had a Mandrake 7.2 CD I was hooked. It's so easy to install and run.

At that time I was working in a large company with Dell/w95 laptops(pII-350/128Mb). During a perl programming course there were not enough Alpha workstations in class, so my colleage and I decided to install Mandrake (8.0 at that time) on the laptop and hook up to the network.
Despite some weary looks of the IT guys, we were up and running in no time and completed the course flawlessly.

Since then I run Mandrake at home & at work. The first because it give me everything i need, the second, hey I don't have time to decide on all the options to choose from in Gentoo and alike.

I have been trying (forced to) to use Red Hat and Suse in a work situation, but every time I went back to Mandrake as soon as I can.

Despite the hickups with 9.2 (KDE menus and such) I think Mandrake is there to stay.

#

good for you.

i wish I could say I had the same experience. Downloaded it via bittorrent and burned my iso images to cd. turned on the system and stuck disk one in the drive. shortly thereafter I had a useless CD-RW drive that I had just bought a few days before (LG brand, did not find out til later that 9.2 had a problem with them). Now I don't have an extra cd-rom drive to put in this box so I can test it out, I am a student, and I am broke til after christmas holidays.... (Hello Grandma!!! *grins* )

#

There is a fix available for broken LG CD drives. It has been released by LG. Look at the Mandrake site for details.

#

I have been using Mandrake since 8.0 and it suits me well. I have tried Debian, Gentoo, Redhat, SuSE, and Slackware. Why do I use Mandrake?

1. Ease of install. Graphical partitioning,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/dev/md software RAID on the fly, extensive package list, etc.

2. Ease of package managment. URPMI is what all other package managers want to be. Just add your URLs of FTP or HTTP sites where the rpms are at and it calculates all the dependencies for you. With archives like PLF, the MandrakeClub, and Mandrake's contrib archive, you will almost never have to hunt for the cool app you saw on freshmeat.

3. Mandrake Control Center. Configure any hardware, any service, easily through well done wizards that make even the most difficult procedure routine. The server wizards for SAMBA, ProFTPd, and Apache are invaluable tools.

4. Mandrake Club. With a large community of linux enthusiasts working to make Mandrake better 24/7 you never have to look far for help. And with a Mandrake Club account you can get access to hard to compile and configure commercial apps tested and verified for ease of use including; Realplayer, Acrobat Reader, VMWare, nForce kernels, ATI/NVIDIA reference drivers, and so much more.

Redhat has always been polished and solid, but never very innovative. Mandrake 9.2 comes with 2.4.22 stock and 2.6test ready to use. Slackware, Debian, and Gentoo just plain require too much under the hood work to get installed properly for the average computer user. As many have stated before, SuSE is dangerous at this point because of the unknown with the buyout.

Mandrake has just released information about a project called MandrakeMove which will be released by the end of the year, which in a nutshell is a bootable 9.2 live cd w/ support for storing your configuration on removable media. This has great potential to get people familiar with Linux in a easy to use and functional live CD that an average computer user will find enjoyable.

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Hardware is AMD 2200+ ATLAHON , 2 WESTERN DIGITAL 40 GB , ALBATRON MOTHERBOARD KX18D PRO II with nFORCE 2 on board, MERCURY NVIDIA GeFORCE4 video card , SOUND BLASTER LIVE VALUE,LITEON CDROM,PLEXTOR PREMIUM BURNER so this box is no a donkey.
Plus i got a second box as well but no as fast.

The problems with 9.2 after going from 8.2 to 9.0 which I haven't had problems with 8.2 or 9.0.
I use it as a multimedia system like making cd's and producing a radio program .

One thing is that at the begining to burn a cd on 9.2 using the K3b<nobr> <wbr></nobr>,it took 30 minutes to rip the cd into the folder of my choice so I could burn it it doesn't stop there , testing a mouse (USB) went ok but when I put the original mouse back optical PS2 it lost it could not find it .

So I call my friend Colin to help me he knows a lot more about linux than I plus more command line than me .

We spend about an hour on the phone to get the mouse to work with all the commands lines you can imagine but no good so I had to reinstall the whole system again from start Colin said to do it there was no choice .

There is more here after that it could not fine the floppy went to hardware (Galaxy)to see if I could do it from there nope! no way !.

Again reinstall system again and another thing it doesn't load up KPPP on default I have to load up manually after I load the system or look for in install where you choose how many packeges you want to install in the system.

I was very desapointed with it I almost went back to my 8.2 pro suit or 9.0.

There has some improvements is fast and all of that and the apps a better but cd burning mmmmm no so good a bit slow in opening the program K3b all the others are faster (burning programsin opening)
it takes a minute 1 1/2 !!to open it and if you got the cd in there all eday about 30 seconds !!!very slow !!.
The old GCombost was better that that!!!
Im looking at SUSE now, you guys lost the plot!!

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I cannot understand why you chose Mandrake over Debian? Mandrake is a modified RedHat, I thought you wanted to get away from RedHat! RedHat changes, Mandrake has to make major changes too. I'm switching to Debian myself. Creating the cd's as I type this message. Good luck.

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> I cannot understand why you chose Mandrake over
> Debian? Mandrake is a modified RedHat,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...

Well... Some day you should have a look at Mandrake, maybe test it, explore paths and so on... Mandrake is not at all a modified version of Red Hat! It has its own installer, its own configuration utilities and so own, it's not a Red Hat at all. As a result, the rest of your comment doesn't make any sense.

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Exactly, Orpheus, FRESH INSTALLS are the only way to go. Perhaps one reason why Joe's update is hanging is the access to the Mandrake server holding the update files. If you aren't registered or your password isn't recognized, urpmi fails. Sometimes mine will message out, sometimes I have to kill it. I've switched to using non-Mandrake backup/update sites.

There used to be a big thing against installing static binary apps because of memory and HD space limitations. Those reasons are not relevant anymore, and static binary apps, like nividia's installer, make app installations as smooth as installshield on Windows. But, using "Easy URPMI" from the PLF website as training wheels, I've learned to configure and use URPMI most effectively. It's a piece of cake to open a root terminal and type 'urpmi (appname)' and do something else while it takes care of business.

BTW, Barr recommended TVTIME in another article. I downloaded it and installed it. WOW! Great app if you have a cable tv/internet connection.

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I guess I do not understand what the fuss is about. I have been using Redhat as my primary desktop since version 6.0. After testing Fedora on three seperate systems and finally replacing my Redhat 9.0 install with Core 1 I have never been more pleased with the desktop.

This distribution has put more emphasis on the desktop than any version of Redhat and the community is supporting it with updated RPMs for Fedora.

Give it a try.

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It would be fairly easy to put together a list of reasons for why Windows is not ready for the desktop: security, poor updates, DLL hell, privacy issues, and so on.

The only reason that Windows is considered OK for the desktop and Linux is not is the monopoly. That monopoly allows MS to keep the competition off the desktop, or at least it has so far. Count the victims who tried, each of them technically superior: DrDOS, OS/2, BeOS..

HP can't make Linux preloads fast enough in parts of the world, but MS won't let them sell their desktops preloaded here. When the lid finally comes off, whether that means we have to pry it from Microsoft's cold, dead, hands or not, we will see a real tsunami of Linux desktop usage.

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You are doing it wrong. After a fresh install, Google urpmi and go to easy urpmi. This sith will guide yiu step by step on how to install other sources including contri and plf (penguin liberation front) which have all of the good programs, dvd css ripdvd etc. Once your sources have been updated all you have to do is go into the Mandrake control center and open the software manager. and load your favorite programs.Xine mplayer dvdrip grip or whwt ever. This is the only way to install with NO dependecy problems. RPM and tars are no good. use urpmi instead. Install 'etc-update' and this program will keep all of your setting preserved when you do an update. Install "backuponcd" and you can make a cdrw copy of root, and you never have to install programs again, and you can clone your system to another computer if you like.Mandrake kicks ass.

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Your experience is common for desktop Linux early adopters. Early desktop adopters (as opposed to server adopters) push the limits of their systems by installing and testing new software that might later spread to the rest of their organization. But not all early adopters are especially tech-oriented. They might just like to tweak. Sooner or later they will run into Linux's Achilles heel... software installation and updating.


From my experience with Redhat 9, this process is still primitive. Even with a tool like apt-get fronted by a nice GUI like Synaptic, RPM still hangs about 40% of the time leaving a trail of lock files and out-of-sync databases. For software that is only available as source, it's even worse. When 'make' fails with an 'error 2', how many people are going to dig into the docs to try to figure out why? Even a successful install ends at a command prompt, leaving you to wonder what got installed where.



Even a somewhat savvy user is going to think that software installation was easier when they used Windows and that most of their limited time is going into trying to install an application rather than testing its actual functionality. There is a lot of good software out there, but most of it won't be evaluated unless installation (and removal!) is simple.



You could argue that the corporate desktop Linux user shouldn't be messing with their systems and should be happy with their pre-installed applications. This seems to be the way that IBM and such are approaching the desktop. But that limits the audience for small scale software developers trying to reach a wider market.

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Speaking only for myself, it is amazing how good Mandrake 9.2 is.

The hardware recognition, the envioronment, software updates worked well for me. Etc.

For someone that is wanting to try out Linux, this distro should be high on your list. Very, very good.

At the end of the day, I am productive doing work on the computer. I like a computer setup where I am not thinking about the software / hardware all the time. I just want to do work. Web surfing, email, ICQ, writing.... I'm set.

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