Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter – Issue #31

“This Week’s Summary: 8.2 Beta Articles at MandrakeForum; Mandrake PPC
8.2 is coming; Mandrake in the News; New Product “Goodies” at
MandrakeStore; Have You Been to MandrakeExpert Lately?; Business Case
of the Week; This Week’s Online Poll; Security-related Software
Updates; What’s New at MandrakeUser.org?; Headlines from MandrakeForum.”

Top Story
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MandrakeForum is hosting a series of articles about Mandrake Linux 8.2 
Beta2 and needs your feedback. If you've installed the latest beta, 
please post your comments and suggestions about the following topics:

  * What's new and how to test this latest beta
  * Supermount and urpmi
  * Server functionality
  * Diskdrake
  * Scannerdrake
  * Printerdrake

http://mandrakeforum.com/search.php?query=8.2+beta2


What's Cookin' at MandrakeSoft?
----------------------------------------
Great news for Linux PowerPC lovers.
MandrakeSoft's Stew Benedict reports that he's currently creating beta 
ISOs of Mandrake Linux 8.2 for the PPC platform, so we should be seeing 
an official PPC beta very soon. Keep an eye on the Mandrake website and 
upcoming issues of this newsletter for announcements regarding the 
release of the first Mandrake Linux 8.2 PPC Beta.

For all the latest news from the PPC Cooker, subscribe to the mailing 
list by sending an email to sympa@linux-mandrake.com with the words 
"SUB cooker-ppc" in the body of your message. Two online archives are 
also available for browsing:
http://www.mandrake.com/en/archives/cooker-ppc/
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=mandrake-cooker-ppc&r=1&w=2


Mandrake in the News
----------------------------------------
OFB.biz -- Mandrake cooks up a winner.
The "Open for Business" Open Source Migration Guide offers a compelling 
review of Mandrake Linux 8.2 and concludes:
"Our Compliments to the Chef.
In the end, we found our installations - which were done on two 
desktops and a laptop - came out nothing short of well done. If you are 
looking for a way to move even the most staunch Macintosh or Windows 
users over to Linux, giving them a taste of Mandrake certainly would be 
a good way to do so.

Summary Overall: A+
Functionality: A+
User Interface: A
Availability of Updates: A+"

http://www.ofb.biz/article.php?sid=75

--

DesktopLinux.com -- A conversation with Gaël Duval, founder of Mandrake 
Linux.
DesktopLinux.com founder and executive editor Rick Lehrbaum speaks with 
Gaël Duval, Founder of Mandrake Linux. Gael relates the history of 
Mandrake, explains what makes Mandrake unique, discusses the company's 
market focus, describes Mandrake's philosophy with respect to Open 
Source, and offers his vision of the future of the Desktop Linux Market 
and what will help its success.
http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT4698611406.html

--

Mandrake Linux 8.1 & MandrakeExpert nominated for LinuxFormat Awards.
LinuxFormat, the UK's top-selling Linux Magazine, is hosting their 
first ever Linux Format awards and YOU get to choose the winners. 
Mandrake Linux 8.1 is a candidate in the "Distributions" category; 
MandrakeExpert.com appears in the "Best Support Resource" category; and 
the Mandrake Firewall is an option as "Best Security Tool".

The polling ends on March 4th, so be sure to cast your vote.
http://linuxformat.co.uk/awards/


Product News
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New Products at MandrakeStore.
Now you can order your own official Mandrake Cap, Mandrake CD Holder, 
and Mandrake T-shirts featuring "SuperTux"  or "Mandrake Tux" (check 
website for product availability; products may not be available for all 
locations).

View the latest products and place your order at MandrakeStore:
http://www.mandrakestore.com


MandrakeExpert
----------------------------------------
The MandrakeExpert online support site offers two levels of support:
* Community-based support provided for free by the Linux community
* Premium Support offered by MandrakeSoft and Affiliate Experts.

Following suggestions from many users, the website's layout recently 
went through a major redesign resulting in noticeable improvements in 
navigation and usability. But don't take our word for it, stop by 
MandrakeExpert and take a look around -- hopefully you'll want to stay 
awhile. And remember, anyone can ask a question and receive an answer 
for free!

The Top-Ten Experts are:
 dakota (6570)
 uligue (2650)
 delboy711 (2160)
 rolan (1330)
 charles78 (1100)
 mara (1030)
 sfsetse (800)
 DaveF (630)
 achiral (560)
 fane (430)

http://www.mandrakeexpert.com/


Business Case of the Week
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Incat Systems Inc. -- Mandrake Linux = powerful server!
Terry Mills -- an engineer for  Incat Systems Inc. -- runs Mandrake on 
his laptop to help troubleshoot networks and to set up communications 
between systems and CNC equipment. One of the main reasons he uses 
Mandrake is for the ability to connect to many networks while working 
at various customer sites. "After getting connected I have all the 
tools needed to share resources, like my cd to allow me to mount it 
from other systems and install software, ftp data and install images to 
my customers machines."
http://www.mandrakebizcases.com/article.php?sid=244

For many more examples of Mandrake in the workplace, please see:
http://www.MandrakeBizcases.com


This Week's Online Poll
----------------------------------------
Have you tested the 8.2 beta?

* Yes
* No, but I'll test the second beta!
* No, I'll wait for the final and complain about bad QA
* No, but I won't complain when final comes out 

Cast your vote in the Voting Booth and check the results:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/pollBooth.php?op=results&pollID=28


Software Updates
----------------------------------------
Security-related software updates have been released for:
ucd-snmp -- fixes multiple vulnerabilities
cups -- fixes potential buffer overflows
openldap -- fixes permissions vulnerability

View the complete list at MandrakeSecure.net
http://www.mandrakesecure.net/


What's New at MandrakeUser.org?
----------------------------------------
Thanks to overwhelming support from MandrakeUser fans, Tom is happy to 
announce that he plans to stick around and continue working on his 
popular website. Additionally, Deno reports that he and Tom are working 
to better integrate "MandrakeForum" and "MandrakeUser" with the goal of 
eventually merging them into one very strong news, documentation, and 
discussion site.

There are many updates and new contributions this week at 
MandrakeUser.org, including 100 new entries in the Mandrake Laptop 
files which now contain 950 listings, and updates on:

   * Being "root"
   * Enabling supermount
   * Keyboard in X
   * IDE HDs
   * Samba Setup
   * System Recovery
   * Mounting
   * and lots more

Read the complete list of changes at:
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=1700


Headlines from MandrakeForum
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Aliases On Steroids: Shell Functions
Tom writes: "Usually, if you have some long and cumbersome command to 
type over and over again, you would set an alias in your .bashrc and be 
done with it. There are cases, however, in which an alias will no 
longer do and you need something more powerful.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=1697

Accounting Software for Linux.
Moulinneauf describes several accounting packages that are available 
for Linux, and readers recommend their favorites.
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=1695

Another Beta To Test: KDE 3.0 Beta 2.
Tom writes: "Boy, do we have lots of stuff to play with these days ... 
;-) Yesterday, KDE 3.0 Beta 2 has been announced and today there are 
already packages for Mandrake Linux 8.1, 8.0 and PPC on the KDE FTP 
mirrors."
http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?lang=en&sid=1691

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