Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter – Issue #20

This Week’s Summary: Business Survey; Mandrake in the News; What’s
Cooking at MandrakeSoft?; Business Case of the Week; Software Updates;
This Week’s Online Poll; Top Stories from MandrakeForum; What’s New at
MandrakeUser.org?

Top Story
----------------------------------------
As you may have heard, Microsoft has been conducting a campaign to 
discredit Linux by collecting stories from business people who will 
claim "We have switched from Linux to Windows, and we are happy." Not 
wanting to see this evil deed go unpunished ; ) MandrakeSoft is 
promoting our own "Business Survey" to show the world how Mandrake 
Linux is used in enterprises to deliver powerful and flexible solutions 
at much lower cost than M$ products.

The Business Survey has already gathered some great responses -- a game 
development company uses Mandrake Linux as a programming platform; 
schools/universities using Mandrake Linux to teach courses; an ISP 
basing their main business on it; consultants and service providers who 
setup entire networks for their clients with MandrakeLinux; all the way 
to Mandrake Linux-based systems being used in a "mission critical" 
situation by a defense contractor.

If you use Mandrake Linux for professional purposes, or if you know of 
a company that uses Mandrake Linux, please let us know the details! 
Send an email to enterprise@mandrakesoft.com with "Business Survey: 
COMPANY NAME" in the Subject line, then a short description of how 
Mandrake Linux is being used in the body of your message.
For more information please see:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/print.php?sid=1403?=en


Mandrake in the News
----------------------------------------
ZDNET: Mandrake 8.1 offers superior server platform.
Here's a wonderful article about some of the "high-end" capabilities of 
Mandrake Linux that we don't hear enough about:

"Mandrake Linux 8.1 is an excellent choice for organizations seeking a 
viable, stable, technologically advanced alternative to Windows-based 
servers. While its utility as an alternative desktop is still dependent 
upon (growing) commercial app support, Mandrake's server environment is 
an excellent--and affordable--option for use as an Internet gateway or 
file and print server for Windows (and Linux) clients. Its included 
applications and utilities are highly useful, and its support offerings 
are more than adequate for corporate server deployments. Also, its 
support for ACLs (with XFS) enhances Mandrake's capabilities as a 
file/print server in NT environments. 
Organizations looking for ways to lower their server costs would be 
well advised to evaluate this latest offering from Mandrake."
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2826684,00.html

--

The Duke of URL -- Mandrake Linux PowerPack 8.1.
Daniel Christle publishes a thorough review of the 8.1 PowerPack with 
descriptions of the Installation, Post-Installation, Security, What's 
New, and Pro's & Con's; his conclusions is:
"Without a doubt this is Mandrake's best release ever. If you're 
looking to try Mandrake, there isn't a better time. Mandrake has 
tightly integrated all of their utilities into this release, making it 
one of most streamlined Linux experiences around."
http://www.thedukeofurl.org/reviews/misc/mandrake81/

--

LinuxWorld.com -- A first look at Mandrake 8.1.
Joe Barr thought it was time for a change, so he test-drives Mandrake 
8.1 for a few days and writes about his observations. He hit some known 
snags with nVidea drivers and Lexmark printers; read about how he 
resolved these issues:
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1119.mandrake.html


What's Cooking at MandrakeSoft?
----------------------------------------
MandrakeSoft PPC developers are updating their packages to keep up with 
the main distro. MandrakeSoft will skip an 8.1 version of Mandrake PPC 
to focus on 8.2 which should be released in the first quarter of 2002.

MandrakeSoft PPC developer Stew Benedict reports:
"I've added PCMCIA support in stage1 on my localbuild and performed an
installation over the network with a PCMCIA card in a Powerbook, as 
well as preliminary stage1 support for Airport.
XFree86 is waiting for the last patches to be published, but I've had 
positive feedback from a rage128 user, and it works fine on Mach64's.  
nVidia support is also in there for PPC (as well as the kernel), but is 
currently untested."

All Macintosh Linux users are invited to participate in the testing; 
please subscribe to the PPC mailing list by sending an email to 
sympa@linux-mandrake.com with the words "SUB cooker-ppc" in the body of 
your message, then download the files from 
ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandrake-devel/cooker/ppc/

--

MandrakeForum has a scoop about nice-looking i810-based installs:
"If you've ever installed a Mandrake distro on Intel-810-based machines 
(this is a motherboard-integrated video chipset), then you've noticed 
it's not very pretty: instead of using the "normal" 800x600 colorful 
installation, you have to live with an ugly 640x480 16-color install -- 
Well, I should say "you HAD to", thanks to Tony Daplas and his "i810fb" 
kernel module."
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1412?=en


Business Case of the Week
----------------------------------------
Military Defense Systems use Mandrake Linux.
A defense contractor uses Mandrake Linux to develop command and control 
software for military land forces:
"This system involves the PC's sitting on the guns up to the controller 
of the hole regiment. The system has already been tested in the field 
and the OS ran fine without any problems."
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/article.php?sid=172

Every "bizcase" counts; please share your story by submitting it to 
MandrakeBizcases.com
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/submit.php


Software Updates
----------------------------------------
Security-related software updates have been released for:
squid   -- fixes potential DoS
expect  -- fixes potential root compromise
pspell  -- fixes spelling problems in Evolution
tetex   -- fixes temporary file insecurities
procmail  -- fixes crash insecurities
gnupg   -- fixes write permissions due to setgid bit
kernel 2.4  -- fixes multiple insecurities
kernel 2.2  -- fixes additional remote vulnerability

View the entire list at:
http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/security/


Quick Fact
----------------------------------------
Each week the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter is emailed to 130,000 
subscribers. To have a copy sent each week to your mailbox, please 
visit the MandrakeSoft website and enter your email address in the 
"Sign in" box located on the right side of the webpage.
http://www.mandrakesoft.com/


This Week's Online Poll
----------------------------------------
Why have you shut down your Mandrake machine?

Kernel upgrade
Reboot to Windows
Hardware failure
Kernel crashed
Some application blocked X
Could not sleep (machine too noisy)
Just for fun
Other 

Cast your vote in the Voting Booth and check the results:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/pollBooth.php?op=results&pollID=19


Top Stories of the Week from MandrakeForum
----------------------------------------

KDE 2.2.2 is out!!
Described as a "Service/Security release", this is the last scheduled 
release of the KDE 2 series; development is currently focused on KDE 
3.0 which is scheduled for its first beta release next month and for 
final release in the first quarter of 2002.

The improvements include several security-related fixes; some minor new 
features & improvements/fixes, and even a little performance boost.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1418?=en

Official Mandrake packages are currently being assembled that will be 
installable via the "Mandrake Update" utility.

--

More troubleshooting?
After wrapping up a successful series of troubleshooting articles, 
Denis asks for your input about expanding the series:
"Should I continue adding articles to the series? Should I add sections 
for specific SNF and LM8.0/PPC troubleshooting? If yes, which problems 
are sufficiently different on SNF/8.0 PPC than on standard versions of 
the Mandrake Linux to merit their own articles?"
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1409?=en

--

Cheap Laser printers.
A "must-read' article in case you're thinking about purchasing a cheap 
laser printer.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1417?=en

--

Slicing the Linux market.
Denis Havlik attempts to analyze the market of Linux users by examining 
sales figures, online polls, registered machines at Linux Counter, and 
several other categories. A good read for "marketing types."
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=1407?=en


Read these and other stories at:
http://www.MandrakeForum.com/


What's New at MandrakeUser.org?
----------------------------------------
Tom's away on vacation for most of November, but he's got a new PDF 
archive containing the entire Documentation Section for offline 
reading, and the much requested 'reg' file for Samba is now available 
for download, too.
http://www.mandrakeuser.org/

If you have a neat Mandrake tip, send it to tom@mandrakesoft.com 
and become a MandrakeUser hero.