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Mandriva Businesses

Mandrake 7.1 Beta Ready For Download 137

Posted by Hemos from the come-and-get-it dept.
I've gotten the word from the Mandrake folks that the beta version of 7.1 is ready for download. You can check out the details from the source as well. The current name for it is Hydrogen.
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Mandrake 7.1 Beta Ready For Download More

Mandrake 7.1 Beta Ready For Download

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  • I was wondering if anyone would care to comment on the strong points of Mandrake... how does it compare to some of the other distros like Redhat and SUSE?
    Also where are they heading with each release? More server related, or desktop?

    Thanks,
    Ryan

    "Don't nargin your MEX files!"

  • What is Mandrake? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not joking.
  • I'm impressed. Reiser is a very nice journaling file system; it doesn't need more space than ext2fs and runs measurably faster. Check out ReiserFS at http://devlinux.com/projects/reiserfs/ [devlinux.com]
  • Mandrake is virtually identical to Redhat. They seem to be targeting the desktop, though, as their target audience is beginning Linux users.

  • Great Distro (Score:3)

    by HalB ( 127906 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @05:50PM (#1110187)

    This really is a great distro, if you are a RedHat user and haven't tried it, check it out...

    IMHO, it is all-around better than RedHat. There tend to be some surprisingly cool packages installed, such as colorgcc, and supermount support is in the kernel. The install program is neat too, allowing you to download secure crypto packages from some european sites during the install. I believe it uses fbcon instead of X windows (a bit of overkill for an install program).

    The system configuration tool is also nice, and the update-finder also seems to work well.

    It also came with the BlueSteel E-theme, and lets you choose enlightenment without gnome from the kdm/gdm login without any extra configuring. It is actually usable out of the box...

    I am speaking from the 7.0 release, haven't tried 7.1 yet, but I plan to.

  • I too agree: these version numbers are getting somewhat inhibiting. If I was new to Linux and reading, I'd think that Mandrake was the "latest & greatest" and that might give this distro. a leg-up.

    Also, can someone finally rationally explain the case/goodness in Mandrake vs. any other distro? I've heard + read that it comes with some "ad-ons", but RedHat has been more than enough for myself & others...
  • Well, windows is at 2000, so logically they are the best, right?

    Version numbering has nothing to do with anything.

  • Mandrake != Red Hat (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They DON'T relate any more than Slackware v.X relates to Debian v.Y. That's the whole point. Starting with Mandrake 6.0 they started to diverge and Mandrake has proven to be a standout distribution based solely on its own merits. So let's see.. Slackware 7.0, Mandrake 7.1, Red Hat 6.2, Debian 2.1. I don't see anything similar other than the funny fact that Slackware jumped version numbers "because we felt like it". :-) Unfortunately Linux seems to be suffering a worse fate than 386BSD's code forking into FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc. in that we now have dozens of distributions that are almost exclusively all using different versions of "current" libraries, utilities, etc. The only thing software houses can do if they want to support Linux is to shoot for the biggest target (Red Hat probably) and build to that and hope the other distributions provide compatibility with the libraries that Red Hat makes available in its current distributions.
  • From what I can tell, Mandrake seems to be reading off towards the desktop rather than the server realm. For instance, the installation is very Win98 like (progress indicator along the left side of the screen, description and options on the main window to the right); it has a strong emphasis on KDE; and there aren't too many server-type utilities that I could find.

    Of course, that's based on how I set my machine up. The good thing about linux is, if you want a server, make it a server; want a desktop, make it a desktop.

    J

  • Re:What is Mandrake? (Score:3)

    by Devolver42 ( 177242 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @05:54PM (#1110192) Homepage
    Mandrake, I believe, refers to the name of the foreign exchange officer second in command to General Jack D. Ripper in the film Dr. Strangelove, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake. Really good movie, . [slashdot.org]
  • I thought the major difference between the two distros was the fact that Mandrake's x86 version is compilied with all the optimizations for pentium architecture?
  • Mandrake is more stable than redhat, and more feature rich.

    Mandrake is more open than SUSE or TurboLinux (IE evaluation CD, thought it was GPL)

    Mandrake is first to the market with many features and in my eyes seems the most stable at the early implimentation.

    I am not going to rant but i have always liked redat but i love mandrake.
  • For some reason Mandrake 'feels' better than RedHat to me. Though I did have a number of problems with the 6.1 release - I had to install the redhat egcs package because the Mandrake pgcc or whatever wouldn't let me debug C++ programs. I also had to fiddle with some wierd scripts because they kept overwriting the xsession file for some wierd reason.

    Good points with 6.2 were better packages included than redhat, and it wouldn't install gnome if I didn't want to.

    I'll have to try 7.x when I feel like wasting time on my computer again.

  • How exactly is Mandrake more stable then RedHat?

  • Mandrake is great, but one question is on everyone's mind... and it's been a while since I used mandrake so forgive me if this is common knowledge, but ...

    Does mandrake still have that ugly as sin ansi art in the issue file ( or maybe it was motd ).

    Ok, so this question really sucks, but I'm still curious.

  • french for magic hat.
  • When can I expect some distribution with these features?

    1) XFree86 4.0 (How can the Mandrake page get away with saying their 3.0 is the "latest"?)

    2) Journalled File System (any of the contenders)... I know this is still very much up in the air still, but I figured that someone on Slashdot would be able to give a good date estimate for when to expect it in a mainstream distro)

    3) Complete support for the DRI (Direct Redering Infrastructure?)-- perhaps this is directly involved with 1..

    4) GOOD sound support-- How come even with Creative Labs cards I still have trouble getting sound to work, Redhat included? Does everyone else have the same troubles?

    Thanks for any answers!

  • I started working on an FTP install of 7.1 beta this afternoon. It looks great. Zope is included. And they've also added gnucash which I was never able to get running on my 7.0 system.

    I found one bug in the installer, however. About halfway through the process of picking packages to install, the checkboxes to select or unselect a particular package suddenly disappeared. At that point I had to simply proceed, assuming that the default selections would work out.

    Always fun to be on the bleeding edge.

    -Tim

  • As someone Who has Used many distros (Score:3)

    by isolation ( 15058 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @06:06PM (#1110201) Homepage
    Slackware rocks if you like BSDish systems or are a true unix die hard. I Run it on my laptop as well as my parents box.

    Debian is a good full system and if your a Purist as many of the Nviidia post seem to be then its for you.

    Redhat is nice for Newbies but every relase after 5.0 has been buggy as all hell.

    Linux-Mandrake is simply put the Redhat that works. Plus its got a tun of other cool stuff.

    I've used other distros plus *BSD's but for most people I think Mandrake or Slack is the best bet
  • method by which you can get your patch's. (ie dont have to have a serial code to access there ftp server, just need a bug that needs fixed and your in).

    The fore thought that goes into the lib's and apps that dont turn out 6 months latter to be bug ridden and poorly implimented.

  • Re:Mandrake strong points... (Score:5)

    by ninjaz ( 1202 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @06:08PM (#1110203)
    Mandrake's primary strong point is that they seriously push the envelope when it comes to "Real User" stuff. The linked download instructions to 7.1 provide some details of what's in 7.1 -

    Some highlights:

    • If Windows is also on the computer, DrakFont gives the user access to his Windows fonts under Linux.
    • Enhanced USB support for modems, printers, Zip drives
    • i810 based video cards now supported
    • ATA 66 (UDMA 66) interface
    • For professional environments, now shipping ReiserFS, a new journalized file system
    • All Helix Code GNOME improvements incorporated

    Some of the stuff in the previous version (7.0), was framebuffer support, SuperMount (which automatically mounts removable media), security levels (eg., 4 & 5 default to no externally accessible services - you have to turn them on yourself), and DiskDrake, which allows you to resize fat/fat32 partitions at install time (and is FREE!).

    They've always been pentium-compiled and have always had a strong focus on shipping with a slick KDE desktop. They also appear to have more solid releases than Red Hat, and release often, so you can run stable-but-recent (as opposed to Debian, where you've got a years-old stable release system or recent unstable system).

    There's a good article at LWN - http://lwn.net/2000/features/Linux Mandrake.phtml [lwn.net] and, of course, information all over Linux Mandrake's website. ;)

  • You only need a serial code to get into Red Hat's "priority" FTP server. There's no difference in content, it's just that the priority server is restricted to distro buyers so they can still get updates if updates.redhat.com (the public server) is swamped by people looking for a brand-new ISO.
  • Yep, it still has the ANSI art..., but you can
    change that. Also, the distrib comes with WM
    which is what I always run.
  • What do you mean by, "dont have to have a serial code to access there ftp server?"(sic)

    If you're referring to bug fixes, RedHat publish their bug fix RPMs on updates.redhat.com where you need no special code to gain access.

    If I recall, Mandrake is based on RedHat. So if you have a bug in RedHat you're likely to have it in Mandrake too.

  • The last time RedHat vs. Mandrake came up, RedHat was bashed for having some older packages that were a revision or two behind.

    Simply put, unlike Mandrake, RedHat actually takes care to make sure their OS is stable. If this means using somewhat older, less cutting edge but tried-and-true stuff, than so be it.

    I can't have any respect for a distro that's putting X 4.0 into any sort of release. Despite the fact that it's versioned as an actual release, the general consensus is that it's still beta quality w.r.t stability, and it definately is missing support for numerous cards, such as the I128s that are in the lab where I work on my current research project. Including X4 in a distro at this point is stupid. (Even a beta - why have your beta release held up until whenever X4 catches up to X3.3.6 in stability/card support? Who knows when that's going to happen?)

    Also, on a similar note, if you have the slightest bit of flakiness with your hardware, Mandrake will die, and die badly. One of my friends was trying to set up IP Masq, and was using Mandrake. It was doing some sort of "ide optimization" crap that did only one thing - render the system unusable/unbootable. (hung during init cycle). Gave him a copy of RedHat 6.1, installed and ran like a charm.

    Mandrake's got some impressive things going on. But they take too many risks for a distro that's supposedly targeting newer desktop users - they're just asking for a support nightmare.
  • 1) XFree86 4.0 (How can the Mandrake page get away with saying their 3.0 is the "latest"?)

    From the mandrake website:
    Now includes brand new XFree 4.0 servers, with new modular architecture.


  • Ha, same thing happened to me with the 7.0 distro during install. I found I could move the scroll bar up and down (or visa-versa) and the checkboxes reappeared.

    The only thing that bugged me (about the 7.0 install) was that it doesn't keep a running total of how much space it needs for the install in expert mode. I only have a 1GB drive on my Linux box (yup, I know, big drives are cheap, I'll get around to it) and all it says is "not enough disk space", so I go back into the package installer and remove some more packages and try again, "not enough disk space" and repeat until it fits.

    Aside from that, I was very impressed.
  • Now includes brand new XFree 4.0 servers, with new modular architecture.

    Hmmph! I must have looked at the wrong page!

    Still interested in answers to the other questions though...
  • I could have sworn that the OS was called Linux, and the name was by the kernel version...

    blarg.

    Click here [mulletsgalore.com] for a great web site on mullets!

  • Read my post up above - I've had NUMEROUS occasions where Mandrake was far less stable than Red Hat, mainly due to their insistence of including packages that are not yet stable. (Such as X 4.0, which supports fewer cards than 3.3.x and is less stable, they should wait for it to stabilize. Also some voodoo IDE optimization crap that is likely to fail as it did on a friend's machine on which RH 6.1 ran flawlessly.)
  • I always thought it referred to the comic character Mandrake the Magician (hence the top hat and magic wand), which begs the question, when will we see something from the Mandrake team named 'Lothar' (Mandrake's trusted offsider in the comic strip)?
  • Sorry for the mistaken post

    This [linux-mandrake.com] page was what confused me... It is the page linked to by the "Features" button in each page's header... I found what are apparently the most up to date release notes on the download page [linux-mandrake.com]...
  • 2. It's now shipping with RieserFS.

  • way to go (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I feel that Mandrake is a great distro. I have tried suse, redhat, slackware, and finally made the changeover to linux when I encountered Mandrake. The fact that they compile everything with pentium optimizations was what struck my curiosity and prompted me to give this distro a shot. It feels exactly like redhat, but I could do more. The installer was much better and hardware was suddenly relatively easy to manage. (I cannot say this for the ide-scsi stuff in 7.0, though. Hopefully they have some of this worked out in 7.1) Supermount liberated me from having to use the mount command to read a floppy. I mean, I absolutly love linux, but I really feel that you would have to be a serious geek with the intention of making life hard if you enjoy using the mount command to access a CD-Rom, Zip, floppy, etc - (I can see an advantage to this on a server environment, though) All I am waiting for now is DGA support for my ATI card, linux 2.4 and KDE 2.0 (oh yeah, and a verion of mozilla that actually slams IE5.01) but time will eventually provide all of that. Even though mandrake is my distribution of choice, I am still interested in trying Debian and even reading up on how to roll my own linux distro so that I can achieve a better understanding of how the library system and environment in general work. One thing is for sure: there will never be a linux distribution that will please everyone. That is the very beauty of linux (and unix in general) We cannot please EVERYONE with just one product - therefore we can create several variants to appeal to different preferences and needs. Hell, we even mold what we have to conform to what we want - Mandrake is targeted for the desktop, but I run two servers just fine with it.
  • Mandrake offers versions of their distro for x86 processors and also for sparc and alpha. No one is limited to a pentium or greater. Usually the non-pentium compiled versions are released long after the pentium version though.
  • You apparently don't read the Mandrake site, ever. If you did, you'd notice this:

    March 24 2000 - Mandrake 7.0 for i486. It's been requested and awaited for a long time, now it's available: Linux-Mandrake 7.0 ISO image for i486 and compatibles machines can be downloaded from Tucows. You can now use your old machines again!

    http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/fnews.ph p3 [linux-mandrake.com] will take you to the news page. Click on the download button on the nav bar for a list of mirrors which have the i486 ISO for download.

    Also, you can get Mandrake for Sparc and Alpha too.
  • Okay, I do not think that you are understanding the situation perfectly.

    Pentium optimised distros will provide performance boost on any intel or non-intel pentium-class or higher CPU, including the AMD K5, K6, K6-2, K6-3, K7, as well the the Cyrix 6x86, M-II and M-III.

    Now, the only CPUs that won't benefit from pentium optimisation are lower than pentium CPUs. Those are 486es and 386es. How many people want to run a graphic-intense distro on such CPUs ? Not many. The thing is, mandrake is aimed at users with powerful machines, not at users with old junk they're looking to reuse for free.

    Same with the floppy friendly nature of distros. I think that floppy friendlyness should be an afterthought. I mean, who wants to install a linux distro from floppies, and why ? It doesn't make sense, as most machines out there have got a CD-Rom drive. Those without a CD-Rom drive can either go with copying the files over the network, or taking out the HD for installation on another box.. but a floppy install should never be required, nor should it be something developers waste time on when doing a distro. It's waste of time, it's boring work..

    Linux isn't just for the old machines you don't want of anymore. It's for the brand-new K7 or P-III you've got as well.
  • From what I saw on the Reiser page they have two file systems, one is journaling, one is not. I'm guessing Mandrake has the non-journaling one which apparently is still faster than ext2.

  • which begs the question, when will we see something from the Mandrake team named 'Lothar' (Mandrake's trusted offsider in the comic strip)?

    http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/demos/Presentat ion/

    • DrakConf also includes the new Lothar utility which is a set of tools that offers auto-detecting and configuring of additional hardware devices such as sound cards, network cards and many others.
  • Just wondering if X 4.0 is stable enough for every day use. I heard the original release was not quite there yet, but it got better since then. So, can anybody comment on stablity?

    ___

  • I disagree. I think it's a great thing. I also think that Alpha and PowerPC optimized distributions would be great things as well. The nice thing about having many Linux distributions is that each can cater to a specific niche. My favorite feature of Open Source software is that I can tailor it to my own needs; optimizing a Linux distribution to a specific processor seems like a natural outgrowth of this feature.

    (I wanted to state this more eloquently, but I've been helping a friend with her laptop all night, and I'm beat.)

  • As a Long standing user of Redhat, even so far as starting to create a i686 optimised version of the RedHat dist, I tried Mandrake 7.0, I installed it on my workstation, as well as redhat 6.1 (and 6.2).

    I just keep coming back to the Mandrake installation.

    Redhat is moving towards removing a lot of packages, and taking a minimalist approach to their distribution (ie, spend more $ for the more feature complete dist (ie inc powertools etc).

    Whereas Mandrake just keeps getting better, and doesn't remove packages to a "seperate" pay for cd.

    I *like* the way mandrake set up their distribution, and find it to be *faster* overall than the redhat dists.

    My 4c

    Allen
  • I'm sorry, this kind of attitude of competing version numbers really annoys me. I mean, look at how M$ jumps through layers of version numbers just to catch up with its predecessors when its diving into yet another market niche.

  • In the ancient world, mandrake root was used as a talisman for fertility. In fact, they're mentioned in the Bible for that purpose (sort of) - Genesis 30:14-16.

  • An amusing (but slightly OT) story (Score:3)

    by Lord_Sloth ( 101482 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @06:55PM (#1110227) Homepage
    OK, to start this off and burn lots of karma (if I had any to burn) - I am not a serious linux user. Whoa! look at that karma burn A few weeks ago I installed Linux mandrake on my computer 'cause a friend asked me to, I put the CD in, rebooted my computer, and much to my surprise IT WORKED INSTANTLY, all I had to do was say how I wanted my hard drive partitioned (4GB Linux, 128MB Swap, 16GB FAT32 (far all my Windows games)) yes, I use windows - there goes more karma - why do I use windows? because I want to be able to break things and kill people without having to learn more stuff about computers Anyway, back to the story, I partitioned my hard drive, said yeah, ok, I'll take the recommended install, and let it do its stuff, a while later it had detected and set up all my hardware, Voodoo3, Creative Sound card, Intel Network card, etc with no intervention from me, all I had to do was stuff around with my IP address, point it to our webserver and it was working, well it was working until about half an hour ago, I brought my computer into work (mainly to pick up the LOTR quicktime thingy I downloaded at work), and turned on my computer (with a few of the microsoft worshipers looking on) to show off the beauty of linux, I am running mandrake 7.0 (I think), I got just past the colorful ascii-art penguin which comes up just before it switches to GUI - then - the screen went blank, the litle orange light came on which means no signal input, after a few seconds I figured out why, the resolution had switched to 1600 X 1200, my 19" monitor at home can handle this, a puny 15" monitor can't, Linux didn't detect that there was a different monitor which windows would detect(much to my disgust, and Bills evil Acolytes delight (who were looking on)) How do I switch resolution without access to the GUI???? mandrakes reputation is at stake(at least to 2 or 3 people)!!!!
  • Godamnit, why doesn't my Ferrari get 35 miles per gallon!

    Mandrake is specificly targeted as a pentium optimized, latest & greatest desktop distro. Don't complain because it isn't targeted for low end hardware. There are many distros & mini-distros targeted for such things.

  • mandrake made a break from redhat at 6.0, mandrake does not equal redhat any more.
  • I saw that during the install with NO explanation whatsover about what it does. I simply didn't check it and told it to do a "developer install". Now I'm no coder but I like to be able to compile at least SOME packages without playing a game of let's find the missing header file. It works great on my K6 200, ATI All-In-Wonder, IDE drive setup.
  • ...you have a stange definition of flattering
  • Hydrogen just sounds a little too explosive to me.

    Maybe they should try something inert - like Helium =)

  • My understanding was that the optimizations only helped on P5's, and that for Pentium II or III they didn't help at all because of better pipelining or somesuch. If that's so then aren't these "optimizations" just hype?
  • Run XFdrake as root in console mode and select the type of monitor you intend to run X on. It's a nonglamorous text menu but it's simple to use.

  • Actually, if you know a lil about the history of Mandrake, it's KDE heavy because it was first cooked up as a Redhat distro with KDE integrated when Redhat still shipped with FVWM95 as default.

    As for servers, Mandrake ends up being my first choice for a Linux server, as it has everything I want to use... including Apache, mod_perl, mod_php, etc. And it comes up all configured, maybe need to uncomment a line here or there, but I usually have a usable server within 15 minutes, given fast drives. :)
  • i actually use mandrake as my primary distro now. Why? well, i need redhat compatibility (ie, rpm) for certain hardware-specific issues on my box, so i used to run redhat. but when i found mandrake 6.1, it converted me. i never liked mandrake's admonishment that they were the "easiest to use" && the "linux for beginners" because they sell themselves short to those who are linux professionals. Mandrake, in my opinion, is Redhat with all newer packages, better adherence to the "release early, release often" addage, and simply more good packages than redhat. want Xemacs rather than emacs? with redhat, it's a download. with mandrake, you choose one or both at install. the new install is pretty dang good-i'm a die-hard text-mode install fan, or at least i was, but the mandrake install in 7.x is wonderful. the only problems i have with it are 1. the pesky tendency of myself to click on one of the heading package categories and selecting the *whole* category (sucks if you accidentally click on "libs"-but i finally learned that the right button is handy during this procedure) and 2. there's a bug in the installer where during package selection, every once in a while you lose visual in the package window. by scrolling up and scrolling down you get it back, but it's annoying. other than those problems, the installer works wonders.
    one of the things that irked me the most with RedHat 6.2 and its contemporaries are their tendency to include an *old-school* version of Enlightenment-redhat 6.2 comes with E bloody 0.15.5! mandrake 7.0 came with 0.16.3, and i believe 7.1 will have 0.16.4. i usually find every time i am about to do some package maintenance/accounting, Mandrake releases either a new version or a new beta. it's wonderful.
    i do like debian, don't get me wrong, i'm not a mandrake-only person, but for my desktop box right now, Mandrake is simply the best choice.
    oh, and by the way, the hardware detection is *exquisite* for a linux installer. got everything first try for me, and for my friend's box, which has the most diverse selection of parts i have seen in some time. Mandrake gets bonus points for this.
  • Yes, in the Mandrake Install
    it says 'IDE Optimization' is experimental and may cause crash :)
  • Umm... Then don't try installing Mandrake on anything other than an Intel machine. :) There are others. But if you *do* have a P5 and above, the optimizations are GREAT.

    As for detecting CDROMs, I've installed Mandrake on dozens of machines, some even having the dreaded funky old Creative Labs CDROM connected to the sound card trick. (I have a lot of OLD hardware) And when none of that works, I always have a network card it can detect for a LAN based install.

  • Hi,

    Sorry I'm writing you from windows (was playing starcraft again :) )

    Anyways, you can reconfigure X w/o X easily.

    1) boot into run level 1. At the lilo prompt type "linux 1"
    2) When you are in console mode backup your existing XF86Config file "cp /etc/X11/XF86Config /etc/X11/XF86Config.old"
    When you get back home just copy it back to haw it was before.
    3) The you can run: Xconfigurator, or XF86Setup, or xf86config .. I think that's it. One of the first two are the best anyways.
    4) After that's done and X is configured type "telinit 5"
    That'll switch you to run level 5 and start the graphics logon for you. If for any reason it died it's b/c you either
    a) screwed up on your X configuration or
    b) the font server didn't start. (you can start it by hand by typing "/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs start" as root.

    Cheers,
    GeekBoy
    *************************************** *****
    Superstition is a word the ignorant use to describe their ignorance. -Sifu
  • Pentium optimised distros will provide performance boost on any intel or non-intel pentium-class or higher CPU, including the AMD K5, K6, K6-2, K6-3, K7, as well the the Cyrix 6x86, M-II and M-III.

    This is untrue. Anything above the pentium leve (ie, P2s and P3s, PPros, newer AMD chips, etc) will *not* benefit from Pentium "optimizations". Clone chip performance is usually below normal.

    Even on actual Pentiums, the real-world performance increase is usually negligible. Only a few programs get a real speed increase.

    pgcc (which is used for these Pentium "optimizations") doesn't compile all programs correctly, including at last check the kernel (which is interestingly enough reliant on some assembly bugs to compile).

    What it comes down to is that this Pentium optimization crap is over-hyped and fairly ridiculous, and is generally perpetuated by people who want to seem like they really know their shit but who don't actually have their facts straight.
  • you have too much time on your hands.

    nice work, though

    -Andy Martin
  • He seemed to be under the impression that people would care enough at his mentioning that he used windows in a relatively unextrodinary, though somewhat long winded post to use their moderation points on him.

    Not a big deal either way, but I do find the people who continiously make comments about "man, I am going to get moderated down for this one..." for no apparent reason somewhat annoying. Not enough to use my moderator points on them, though :)
  • #1: I don't think so. I'm currently using SuSE 6.4, and it's still using 3.3.5, however, it has 3d acceleration for my V3, so it's an improvement over older versions, however AFAIK, no DRI (answer to 3)

    #2: SuSE has ReiserFS support, though you need to make a small /boot partition (a good idea anyways) as E2FS, or it pukes on you.

    #3: See above

    #4: Most current distros have support for the SBLive series (I've got one myself, kick@ss card), and for the older ISA cards, the distros usually have a tool to do the voodoo to get everything working. I've had probs with a few audio chipsets not working, but those are more cause the vendors have closed specs than anything else.

    Take it from a guy who's used probably every major distro at some time during the past year (RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake, Corel, Slackware, etc), hardware support has gone from basically nonexistant, to mediocre, to pretty decent in the past few years.
    Best of luck!

  • Re:The definition of mandrake (Score:3)

    by Our Man In Redmond ( 63094 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @07:51PM (#1110244)
    Both of the above, plus back in the 40s and 50s there was a comic strip called "Mandrake the Magician." I tend to prefer this interpretation for two reasons:

    1. Mandrake-the-distro's motif is a magic wand and top hat. Well, Mandrake-the-Magician didn't have a magic wand (he "gestured hypnotically") but he did have a top hat. It wasn't blue, though.

    2. Mandrake-the-Magician had an assistant named Lothar. Mandrake-the-distribution includes a program called Lothar which bills itself as "the hardware central configuration tool." Superficially it looks a lot like Windows 98's Device Mangler; I haven't tried it to see how it works.
    --
  • I remember compiling some arbitrary precision c++ code I wrote with various -O(some number) flags using pgcc, and getting differing behaviors with differing optimization levels. I wonder if this would still be the case with a current version of pgcc...

  • >> I hate to sound like a jerk... but if you don't have a pentium class computer right now you are either too stubborn to give up your 386SX/16 or too dirt poor to own a computer in the first place.

    If you hate to sound like a jerk, why spout such drivel? slashdot-terminal is a highly paid sysadmin who is trying to make use of PC's in his network that only need to run in text mode.

    or maybe hes trying to donate a usable computer to someone who can't afford it. Not that you care.

  • > They DON'T relate any more than Slackware v.X relates to Debian v.Y.

    Slackware and Debian don't use the same package file format (.deb vs .tgz), whereas Red Hat and Mandrake both use rpms. What would be more accurate is to say that Red Hat and Mandrake are no more alike than Caldera and SuSE, which both also use rpm.

  • This sucks (Score:3)

    by akamil ( 142336 ) on Tuesday April 25, 2000 @08:03PM (#1110248)
    Oh, great. I started downloading mandrake 2 days ago, and now when I'm 64% done, they tell me there's a new version. Dang.
  • Mandrake Linux and the people who run it have real balls. They dont fsck around like a lot of companies.

    ResierFS? Pentium Optimizations.

    Yes.. They do this. Good Bad? Who knows at least they have the kahunas to step up to the plate and give these products a chance on their distro. Do you see this? They are willing to push their distro to the limits

    Okay... Everyone else is staying a bit more conservative right now. Not Mandrake. Give emm a little respect. Not to mention I hear Mandrake is pretty nice (office mate installed it recently) Okay.. I just wanted to say that :) Flame at will.

    Jeremy

  • I really think that the concept of having a pentium optimied distro really cheats most of the people in the computer world who either don't own a pentium level x86 machine and or don't own an intel machine.

    The whole point of having a multitude of Linux distros is that they are targeted to different uses/users. Linux is different things to different people, and highly configurable. Revel in that! Versatility and variety are strengths, not weaknesses.

    Mandrake's distro happens to be targeted at newer x86 boxes with bootable CD-ROM drives. If that's not what you have, then Mandrake may indeed be a poor choice for you. But where does the "cheating" part come in? Who gets hurt?


    ---
  • First off, you'd be better off setting it to "not" go to the GUI after boot. First off, if you ever (as you learned) would switch a monitor or even video card around, you're SOL. (for a newbie anyway) Windows is the same way if you say, have a new PnP monitor and then go to a 15" non-plug'in pray one. (anyone that's had to go from a 17" at 1024x768x32 and then it pops up with a 640x480x16 knows what I mean;) It's just a RPITA, since that elusive "OK" or "Apply" button is way beyond your reach, unless you know the shortcut key, which you better..., "before" the change. (granted, you can find this out also but...) In a nutshell, you could fire up your system, go on the Internet and download something large, while you compile an entire program and play a game, and not have a corrupt download. ;)
  • Mandrake is similar to RedHat in that it uses the RPM packaging scheme and has all of its /etc files in the same place RedHat does (unlike Debian and possibly others). It is NOT similar in that it has a number of tools that don't appear in RedHat (yet), and it's graphically-oriented. By default Red Hat 6.1 and below boot up in a text console; Mandrake boots up in a GUI logon screen. It still allows you to get to the consoles with Ctrl-Alt-F[1..6], it just starts you off at a GUI instead of making you run startx to get into X windows.

    Oh yeah, there are a lot of places where you can definitely see the RedHat influence. The Postscript printer test page is one outstanding example. :)

    I've been using Mandrake for about six months and I like it a lot. I would recommend Mandrake for people coming in from Windows who want a friendly environment, and people who like having a GUI available so they can do more things at one (I fall into this category). I would recommend RedHat to people with older and more confined systems, or who really enjoy tinkering with their X configuration.
    --
  • I have two I-openers.

    I have Mandrake 7.0 installed on one...

    ...and Redhat 6.2 installed on the other.

    I've decided that the best distro is the first one that I can get USB ethernet working on. I've already run into some problems with Mandrake, so now I will try it on Redhat for a while.

    Oh yeah... Mandrake has the advantage of Xemacs included on the cd, but they both have wonderful installation programs, and installed flawlessly for me.

    --
  • Who wants an inert OS?

    The bus came by and I got on
    That's when it all began
    There was cowboy Neal
    At the wheel
    Of a bus to never-ever land

  • Bochs (Score:1)

    by ash5g ( 167601 )
    Anyone know if this will ship with bochs, since mandrake is now funding them?
  • >I really think that the concept of having a >pentium optimied distro really cheats most of >the people in the computer world who either >don't own a pentium level x86 machine and or >don't own an intel machine.
    >PPC is nice but what about the plethora of other >processors?

    Mandrake has ISOs for Alpha, i486 and Sparc.

    Nobody is hurting for non Intel linux distrobutions. Red Hat supports Sparc and Alpha. Etc...

    What else is there? Z80? :)
  • Thanks to all the people who replied to my original post, I couldn't figure out how to edit the /etc/X11/XF86Config file, but while reading thru it I saw this line about disabling "CTRL + ALT + -", the solution was pretty easy to find then...
  • I just tried to install 7.0 and now after futzing about for half an hour I see there is a new version available. 7.0 failed for me cause it couldn't find a partition... Well it never even asked me how to partition the drives. Most likely having both IDE and SCSI drives in the system confused it. This has seemed to confuse other releases. Hopefully in this version they got their install scripts working properly.
  • Umm, I think it's to signify the beta nature... Mdr7.0 was called Oxygen, and it's beta was called... well, I don't remember, but it wasn't inert like oxygen :)

    So, I think gases are Mandrake's thing, and the use explosive stuff for betas. Or something :)

    Someone pick on me if I'm wrong.

    Anyway, I know I'm downloading 7.1 right now, and after installing NVidia's new beer stuff, and Bero at RH's KDE2 rpm's, i'm gonna be a happy little user :)
    [/me hugs Red Hat compatibility, I can use their own experimental rpm's :) (Sorry Bero)]

    Sorry about this rant, it's been a boring day ;)
  • To avoid whining dumb fucks hanging around.
  • There is no way to program the fourth button useful AFAIK. it's not the same button as fourth. I use a MarbleFX, couldn't get it working.

    for a color postscript, you can get buy.com Lexmark Optra 40.

    as of other stuffs, go read how-to's. i.e. RTFM!
  • install everything you asked.

    D U H !

  • I remember installing Slackware back in 1993 using floppies on my parent's 486sx33. It only took a few floppies and you were up and running. I didn't put a CDROM in it until OS/2 v 3 came out. Slackware 7 still has some floppy support so you can get a base install up with networking.

    I still have that machine (sitting in the closet) and with Mandrake's 486 release I think I'll see what that old machine can do today. Of course I'll have to use a boot floppy.

  • I found Mandrake 7.0 to be by far the best distro yet. It's easy to set up, and easy to use. Not that I care, I'll tweak it until the cows come home. But, my neighbour is a Linux newbie. He loves it, he can point and click and has since caught the Linux bug. I love it because it does everything I want.

    We are both at either end of the Linux user spectrum, I develop, he tinkers. We both love it.

    My gripe with installation thought is annoying. You can't set up dial-up and LAN through the installer, only one or the other. Fine for me, but annoying for my neighbour who has a small network in his house, and needs to alos dial out. He got a bit muddled up altogether trying to get pppd working. (Yes, I know you can use kppp, but I don't like it)

    But, on the other hand, if this is my only real gripe about it, it's pretty amazing!

  • A lot of work has been in the creation of update packages (MandrakUpdate is nice-ish), so why each time there is a point release of a distro do we have to download the ISO or buy the CD.
    What I'd like to see is the possibility of upgrading using only the package differences.

  • Re:Mandrake strong points... (Score:3)

    by JSG ( 82708 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2000 @12:52AM (#1110266) Homepage
    As to whether it is server or workstation "optimised", this is down to you. I run MD 7.0 both at work and home. The home setup is a wks with a small subset of servers running for the other PC (Win 98) and is very good - lots of toys etc etc.

    The work box does a goodly amount of file serving. I use Samba to dole out antivirus updates (Sophos) to 3,500 NT PCs - this it does in an hour or so at 2-10Mb per client. This doesn't raise the run averages over 1 (it is a dual PIII 500 + 2Gb RAM). It does 802.1Q with a kernel patch to seven VLANs. There are normally up to 5 remote X sessions running and quite a few other things going on as well (eg NT server in a VMWare box). Up time is 80 odd days (I rebuilt the kernel to add VLAN tagging)

    The point of the above diatribe is that I believe I have tested both sides of the coin and not found it wanting. Then again, if you spend long enough with any distro. or hand craft your own set up you can get all the bits together you need. However I have spent some time with other distros (admittedly older ones) and not found them to be so complete in terms of sensible customisations already applied out of the box.
    There are, of course still a few rough edges but these are surprisingly minimal.

    Another point I would like to make is that none of the bleeding edge stuff in this distro have caused me problems (what does a kernel oops look like anyway ?) The only apps that have dumped core on me are stuff that I have applied and KDevelop (which I had given a hard time)

    Finally, why not trundle over to http://lwn.net - they have links to virtually all (sensible) distros and possibly links to some reviews as well as on goig developments.
  • I agree that version numbers are out of control. I think it started around Red Hat/SuSE 6.0 time frame. Then, suddenly, it seemed SuSE (or Mandrake), released an iteration *above* the forthcoming Red Hat release. (Actually, come to think of it, has Mandrake actually released 7.x versions before 7.1? Or should it be more like 2.x release?)
  • By default Red Hat 6.1 and below boot up in a text console...

    The Red Hat install lets you choose if you want a GUI at startup, or a console (i.e., runlevel 5 versus runlevel 3). It's a nice checkbox called "use graphical login". You can see it here [redhat.com] as well as the GUI X configuration during the Red Hat 6.2 install.

    In short, Red Hat has a lot more than most happy Mandrake users seem to think... ;)

    Kudos to Mandrake though, they're now including Helix GNOME! My biggest gripe about Mandrake was always that GNOME never seemed to work flawlessly - there were always issues with GNOME in Mandrake (like the i18n in GNOME wasn't working no matter how hard I tried, although the rest of my Mandrake test system was internationalised).
    Maybe it was just that KDE gets a lot more tested than GNOME in Mandrake. Many KDE users complain about the reverse situation in Red Hat - there's always issues with KDE in Red Hat. I don't know, since I'm a happy GNOME user.

    I hope though that they dont include the Helix with the latest development gnome-core 1.1.9... Virtually all other gnome-cores in the devel 1.1.x series I have tested were really, really stable, with the notable exception of 1.1.9, which has a big nasty memory leak =(

  • Okay, everyone has there preference for one or the other distributions. Why can't people use that choice as its intended ? i.e. obtain , try , keep or try another .. All of them have their merits and pitfalls , sometimes I wonder that some people don't wish to put the effort in and expect one install to be the "be all and end all".
  • I'm using XFree 4 since it was out, and I have yet to get it to crash... It also has many advantages over 3.3.x like:
    - Truetype fonts support out of the box (or out of the .rpm)
    - 3D support, including DRI and if you have a voodoo3, you can now get 3D in a window (at last)
    - It's fully modularized: One example, when X Free starts up, it loads a module for scanning the PCI bus to find graphic cards, and when the scanning is complete, it just unloads the module... So memory usage is lower than 3.3.x and it also has the effect that X starts really faster...

    BTW for those of you using a SuSE distro, rpm updates are available on ftp.suse.com

  • and if you need help with it ... (shameless plug) (Score:3)

    by belbo ( 11799 ) on Wednesday April 26, 2000 @02:32AM (#1110271)
    ... spend MandrakeUser.Org [mandrakeuser.org] a visit.

    100 pages about the ins and outs of LM, a user forum, an offline edition and a news letter.

    cu
    tom, MUO-webslave

    --

  • Mandrake is RedHat (my distro still says RedHat in some places) with a butt-simple install program, obviously aimed at the end user/desktop market. Its painless to install, and autodetected all the funky hardware I had on the box I have it on.

    -=Bob
  • What's in the Ext file that is with the distro?

  • I too have had the 7.0 crash on installs, but that was only on one (maybe 2) computers, thats a result of a bug that was fixed for 7.0-2

    Frequently Mandrake crashes at the shutdown, this occured in both 6.1 and 7.0 for me

    The other problems you've mentioned though, i have not had any problems with personally, however some of them may very well be a result of a frankenstien system. Then again, my system is made from various parts as well.

  • Xfree86 4.0 is not very stable. XFree86 4.01 should come soon with lots of bug fixes, and DualHead support for Matrox G400 (thank you Precision Insight).
  • I use the original release every day at home, compiled & installed from source, on a Celeron 266 with a TNT2u (and 96meg of RAM), running Slackware 7 and Enlightenment 0.16.3 and it's been fine. Well, it's run fine; I had a few hoops to jump through when I installed it, of course :-)

    Cheers,

    Tim
  • Actually, I think it would just have to be too
    stuborn, as you can get a pentium system for $100
    or less (I know, I just picked up 2 IBM P133
    systems to fill out some specific functions on
    my home network)

    .technomancer
  • Wait 'til they actually release 7.1 final and not just the beta, and then check out EverythingLinux [everythinglinux.com.au]. It'll be there ASAP - CDR for about $AU 10-15 I imagine. Or have a look at the Mandrake mirror at aarnet [aarnet.edu.au] which I imagine will have a download soon.
  • Man, I think Slashdot needs a new feature, a "Peanut Gallery". It could perhaps be a slashbox or something like the top 10 posts box. I think we really need to save the hilariously worthless posts. The ones that are so stupid and meaningless that they are actually funny. I'm not sure if it would work just to take the /lowest/ scoring posts, because then you'd get tons of completely irrelevant and humorless posts...but the unique and mind boggling non-sequitors and detritus need to be captured I think in some sort of bin people can gawk at. Throw this guy in. Throw OOG in. Throw Natalie Portman's petrified first post grits in.

  • AHA! (Score:2)

    by VAXGeek ( 3443 )
    This is JEFFK! I know it is. If anyone else wants to know what I'm talking about, check out:

    Jeff K's website [somethingawful.com]

    I am virtually certain that this is the same guy.
    ------------
    a funny comment: 1 karma
    an insightful comment: 1 karma
    a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
  • I can't have any respect for a distro that's putting X 4.0 into any sort of release. Despite the fact that it's versioned as an actual release, the general consensus is that it's still beta quality w.r.t stability, and it definately is missing support for numerous cards, such as the I128s that are in the lab where I work on my current research project. Including X4 in a distro at this point is stupid. (Even a beta - why have your beta release held up until whenever X4 catches up to X3.3.6 in stability/card support? Who knows when that's going to happen?)

    I'm running X4 on 2 boxes (personal workstation at home, and my workstation at work) on top of mandrake 7...works like a charm, haven't had it crash yet...and I installed it 2 days after it came out.

    Besides...mandrake 7.1 has both X3.3.6 and X4 and lets you choose during install....don't bash that which you don't know.

    Vox, who wishes he had the bandwith to be dlding beta ISOs


  • Yeah, Supermount is built into the STANDARD kernel, but I installed the high security form of 7.0 and it seems Supermount support isn't built into that kernel. Sigh. (Is there a good reason for this? And the fact that /etc/fstab isn't globally readable, which screws up the gnome file manager for regular users?)

    Mandrake doesn't seem as thoroughly tested as other distros, but I still use it on my workstation machine 'cause it's got so much cool new stuff... Of course, my server's another story.

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