MandrakeSoft released Linux Mandrake 9.0 about three weeks ago. How does this version compares to the also recent SuSE and Red Hat releases? MandrakeSoft sent us the Download Edition over for a review and here is what we think about it.
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XFS / works just fine. I got a server with 2 xfs partitions & no ext2. Boots just fine..Of course I use grub, but didn't they patch lilo to boot too?
All I know is that I did not create a /boot partition, but I relied on the / root partition to do the booting. I generally like XFS, so I picked XFS.
Next thing I knew is that Mandrake wouldn't load. I re-installed with the default option after that. Mandrake uses LILO. I have no idea if they patched anything or not.
I was going to try 9.0 after succesful runs with 8.1 and 8.1, however, the 700 MB ISO's prevented me from doing that. I simply could not burn them...period. No matter what I tried it wouldn't work. cdrecord, adaptec, nero....no dice.
Oh well, after I tried for two days to get good burns I gave up and got Red Hat 8.0. Love it....except that it doesn't have any useful multimedia stuff by default...easy enough to fix with a few downloads from freshrpms...but other than that I love it.
I think I'm done with Mandrake...at least untill they provide ISO's at 650 MB again.
You dont have to burn them to disk to install from them. You can install from ISO files as well. But you have to boot off a floppy. I had the same problem. But wasnt going to waste my time downloading 2 distributions. You could also just open the ISO files and extract the contents and install from the harddrive. Makes it easy when you want to install other software form the distro,, but it does take a little space to store the isntalls.
There is a very subtle bug in mdk. It makes compiling a lot of c++ stuff downright impossible..They just added the bug to their final..wasnt in the betas 
.
/lib/cpp link is b0rken..do ln -sf /etc/alternatives/cpp /lib/cpp to fix..
Basicly this makes gcc3.2 useless for compiling kde..it b0rks.
So poor suckers install gcc2.96(the evil one) and for some reason it compiles then..Anyway just my biggest annoyance with this release..a stupid stupid bug on their part...oh btw their network config tools suck, its a major pain to get eth0 to be internal nic or eth1 to be external..they just dont let you do that.
What is cool about mdk 9 is that when you use dhcpcd(or whatever it uses), it checkes whether the cable is plugged in first, and only then tries to get an ip....very useful feature.
Hy,
I've dlded the 3 CD's of Mandrake 9.
I burnt the 2 CD's with Easy CD Creator.
No problem to burn.
So, try to dlde again the ISO's.
I had some trouble while installing : 3 rpm's where bad, for KDE, so after installation, no KDE desktop running correctly.
I'm waiting for the box version...
>/lib/cpp link is b0rken..do ln -sf /etc/alternatives/cpp /lib/cpp to fix..
Wow, Taras!!! THAT WAS THE BUG we found that made my WindowMaker's menu not to work! After manually creating that link, WindowMaker was up and running again!
Hahah. Nice, now the trivia question is what does windowmaker have in common with the c preprocessor. 
Only the menus were broken. Not the whole windowmaker. When right clicking on the desktop, you would only see 5 very default options in the menu (e.g. xterm), not the usual long menu of Wmaker. And everytime Wmaker would load, it would give me an alert window saying that it couldn't find the menu. After manually adding that link, Wmaker was fine.
Actually mdk boot floppies can find the iso files on hd, so you don't have to extract it.
lol..I'm not allowed to post twice in 60 seconds. My typing skills might ddos the website
I have successfully booted systems with xfs on / for more than a year now. THere was not even a seperate /boot
So lilo (as well as grub of course) have supported booting from XFS for a great deal of time now.
Does any Linux distribution in the whole world come even close to the ease of use and compatibility of Windows XP? More importantly, is there something any Linux distro does that Windows does *not*?
BeOS, despite all of its shortcomings, did offer more functionality than any other OS. The attribute indexes and live queries made finding stuff a breeze. I think that is the biggest problem in home computing today - sifting through 20 GB of crap just to find the file you want. Couldn't something like this be achieved with XFS?
And why do distro makers feel the need to pack 5 CDs worth of stuff into their releases? Most of that junk is never going to be used anyway - like three different browsers? Who needs that? And all that crap in the KDE taskbar shouldn't be there be default, either. Remember the KISS principle and use it.
Every Linux distro I have tried has aimed to be a Win98 clone and each of them has failed miserably. Why replicate what has been done (poorly)? If you Linux guys really want to beat MS, show me something that hasn't been before. Until then, I am happy using Windows XP.
hmmm, didn't know that. I think I'll be sticking with Red Hat for a while though. It's actually quite nice, and once I get apt & synaptic going....I think it will be hard to beat.
* doesn't use Mandrake's default background
* use a mix of Mandrake's icons and Crystal icons. This is ugly and doesn't show the real desktop
* show linuxconf which is not installed by default and says that the stupid Linuxconf window is a Mandrake bug. This untrue. It is a Linuxconf bug.
hmmm, didn't know that. I think I'll be sticking with Red Hat for a while though. It's actually quite nice, and once I get apt & synaptic going....I think it will be hard to beat.
lycoris user <--lol @ lycoris part
Well mdk has a weak & somewhat buggy apt-get like thing called urpmi. But i preffer mdk cos it was my first distro that got me hooked ..and after 3 years of defiance in debian/gentoo..i'm back to mdk9
Mandrake's penchant for upping the major version number irritates me.
>doesn't use Mandrake's default background
Check the THIRD screenshot for the DEFAULT Mandrake at 800x600.
ALL the other shots are my changes, because as I CLEARLY said in the article, I had to waste lots of time to change the default look to something that pleases me.
>use a mix of Mandrake's icons and Crystal icons
The real one is worse.
>show linuxconf which is not installed by defaul
What DOES that suppose to mean? LinuxConf is included in the CDs!
>and says that the stupid Linuxconf window is a Mandrake bug. This untrue. It is a Linuxconf bug.
From the VERY MOMENT Mandrake includes this application to their OS, this BECOMES Mandrake's bug.
Do not think as a geek please. Think as a reviewer of A PRODUCT. The whole added value of Mandrake is to make sure that everything works well together. They are packagers and OS developer company. They have to make sure that everything WORKS well. Either that, or they should NOT ship that app.
Read here for more:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1842&offset=135&rows=150#...
And yes, I have already discussed these issues already with a MandrakeSoft's representative.
It makes a brute force attack take much longer.
I would hesitate before doubting Mandrake's research. A prettier UI does not equal a better UI. The two are completely independent. Most businesses are still using Windows 9x, NT, or at most Win2K. All of those are drab and grey, and undistracting. I think what's worst about Mandrake isn't so much the default look, but the default organization. The KMenu is unnecessarily Kluttered and the item names are far too long. Add to that all the crap on the desktop, and it's no wonder people think Linux is ugly/unpolished.
>A prettier UI does not equal a better UI
Of course not. I agree with your comment.
Mandrake is no longer good as it used to be, when SuSE and RedHat found the market of friendly user as for desktop and business. Makdrake needs to learn how to change, instead being same as an old dog.
Password delay is _only_ good if you enter an _incorrect_ password. Otherwise it is a bug.
Mandrake upped the major number because it changed from gcc 2.9x to 3.2, so that's reason enough.
> Makdrake needs to learn how to change, instead being same as an old dog.
Exactly!
>it changed from gcc 2.9x to 3.2, so that's reason enough
SuSE did so too. They didn't go from 8.0 to 9.0. Neither Gentoo did.
Red Hat did go from 7.3 to 8.0, but they had many more changes made to their OS.
jetexas, it depends on how you look at it. If you mean buying a PC with XP installed, then obviously Linux is more work because you (usually) have to install it yourself.
You have to check your hardware to make sure it's compatible, so that is extra work.
But, beyond that, I have found that doing home/office type default installs of SuSE 8.1 and Red Hat 8, for example, leave me with a very well set up desktop with everything working with no problems and real ease of use.
In another direction, going the Lycoris and, yes, even the Lindows route can provide real ease of use.
Many OS News posters are people who like to tweak their systems, push the envelope, try things that ordinary users would never try. But, default installs of the Linux distributions I mentioned are very stable and easy to use.
Although you are seem to be a troll, I will try to take a stab and replying to this.
More importantly, is there something any Linux distro does that Windows does *not*?
I can tell you what Linxu doesn't do. It doesn't require that you submit a cryptic cd key, it doesn't require you to register the machine with the company from where it came. It doesn't lock you into on company's vision of standards.
And why do distro makers feel the need to pack 5 CDs worth of stuff into their releases? Most of that junk is never going to be used anyway - like three different browsers? Who needs that? And all that crap in the KDE taskbar shouldn't be there be default, either.
Once again, they allowing the individual to make the choice instead of some marketing rep. at the corporate office.
Every Linux distro I have tried has aimed to be a Win98 clone and each of them has failed miserably. Why replicate what has been done (poorly)?
It's not really a clone of Win98. It was an attempt to align things. The prgrommers on the various desktop projects obvisouly thought somethings like the menu were a logical way to approach it. Also, Win98 was broken from the first release. Constant crashes with the BSOD. So the sentence should read, 'Why replicate something that was done poorly in the first place?'.
Does anyone know where I can find the bluecurve theme? You guys are giving Mandrake more criticism tham what Red Hat recaived. I'm sure we can all just get rid of a bunch useless menu entries on K. Think about it.
mandrake installation does not even start on my computer because it can not identify ATI radeon 9700. Screen goes blank after perssing enter on the first screen.
Though I am not a linux user, but all I care about is GUI, which seems the same on all linux distribution for the past many years.
Navjit
>Does anyone know where I can find the bluecurve theme?
http://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/contrib/texstar/
linux/distributions/mandrake/9.0/rpms/freecurve-artwork-0.47-1tex.i586 .rpm
>You guys are giving Mandrake more criticism tham what Red Hat received.
Yes, because Red Hat worked better. And SuSE received more critisism than Red Hat did, but less than Mandrake 9. Because SuSE worked better overall than Mandrake 9.
At least over here, on these machines.
The overall rating on the three reviews I did, reflect that very clearly.
>I'm sure we can all just get rid of a bunch useless menu entries on K.
If that was the only problem of Mandrake, I would have switched to it, full time.
As a long time Mandrake fan, I am very diappointed in 9.0. As Eugenia said, it feels dated, several thing are broken (Evolution won't work right about 1/3 of the time -- it won't go to the Inbox and shows -1 emails).
The control center is nice, but the wireless scripts are broken. I have an orinoco card that Mandrake and kept wanting to load the wvlan_cs driver. There are even types of "orinoco" in some of the scripts. When I would finally get my wifi card working ok, I would click "OK" in the Network module of the control center and it would reset all my settings, which would crap out my card.
I like the company, and I like what they've done in the past, but after trying both RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.1, they're now in third place.
>Does any Linux distribution in the whole world come even >close to the ease of use and compatibility of Windows XP? >More importantly, is there something any Linux distro does >that Windows does *not*?
I know you where trolling be heh i could not resist..
Windows XP vs Linux is like a Yugo compared to and Maybach
in this little and not even technical compare i assume
Linux is a distro like Debian, Slackware or RedHat.
Windows XP is not Open or Free, Linux is.
Windows XP is not real STABLE, Linux is.
Windows XP looks ugly, Linux CAN look even more ugly.
Windows XP is a a virus dream, Linux is its enemy.
Windows XP is a crackers dream, Linux is its enemy.
Windows XP is created by Microsoft, Linux is not.
Windows XP sends information to Microsoft, Linux does not
Linux can run in X or in terminal mode, Windows XP cannot.
Linux is fun, Windows XP is not.
Linux has a great mascot, Windows XP has not.
Linux is build-in lots of distros, Windows XP is not.
Linux has the biggest community, Windows XP has not.
Linux runs on mainframes, Windows XP does not.
LInux runs on wristwatches, Windows XP does not.
Linux get lots of simpaty, Windows XP get none.
Linux keeps on running, Windows XP does not.
Windows XP needs to reboot, Linux does not.
Windows XP has no webserver, Linux has.
Windows XP has no wordproccesor, Linux has.
Windows XP has not image editor, Linux has.
Windows XP has not terminal, Linux has.
Windows XP is only for home users, Linux is not.
etc...etc...
Why not try and actually use Linux or FreeBSD before making
such low-level and stupid comment?
Bas
Some of your paradigms are just personal opinions, or even wrong. Some of your wrong ones:
Windows XP is not real STABLE, Linux is.
Windows XP is a crackers dream, Linux is its enemy.
Windows XP is created by Microsoft, Linux is not (so???).
Linux is fun, Windows XP is not.
Linux is build-in lots of distros, Windows XP is not.(so???)
Linux has the biggest community, Windows XP has not.(so??? why do you need a community to use a PRODUCT? I am not in any community for my microwave brand)
Linux get lots of simpaty, Windows XP get none. (this is because people like you are trolling)
Linux keeps on running, Windows XP does not. (I crash Linux more than I crash my XP)
Windows XP has no webserver, Linux has.(oh yes, it does. My XP PRO does)
Windows XP has no wordproccesor, Linux has. (depends what the PACKAGER has put in there)
Windows XP has not image editor, Linux has. (depends what the PACKAGER has put in there)
Windows XP has not terminal, Linux has. (XP does have command line)
Windows XP is only for home users, Linux is not. (this is wrong. XP PRO is a workstation. .NET SErver and Win2k are the server products.)
What's now Eugenia's favorite, RedHat 8.0 or SuSE 8.1 (FTP version outstanding)?
And to counter balance your blinded zealotry:
WinXP has very good hardware compatibility. Linux has not.
Administrating and configurign the OS is easier on WinXP.
The UI of XP is way more integrated to the OS and to the different toolkits.
WindowsXP has way more software than Linux has.
WinXP has more games and better 3D compatibility.
WindowsXP supports a better office suite than Linux does.
> What's now Eugenia's favorite, RedHat 8.0 or SuSE 8.1?
I am inclining mostly on Red Hat 8. But very minorly. As you can see from the rating on their perspective reviews, Red Hat got overall a 7.9 and SuSE 7.8. The battle is still big among these two. Mandrake is third IMO.
I imagine that Mandrake didn't use QT because it is not free software. Gtk lisencing just makes it less of a headache.
So you don't like Mandrake. It's plain to see but do we have to turn this into a religious war? We have a bigger threat from Redmond to be squabbling amongst ourselves. You may not like Mandrake 9.0 but I do. I think it is their best release yet. I had NO troubles on installation or usage.
-The default KDE looks nice and clean feel to it.
-Menues are not confusing, but laid out in a logical format.
-Mandrake Control Centre is well laid out and the improvements to Software Management make things clearer and more straight forward than previous versions.
-Mandrake actually recognized my GForce card during installation. Although it didn't install the binary drivers, I did not have to modify the XF86Config-4 file by hand because XFdrake generates it properly.
-The programs I installed work (I installed everything but the server specific packages) and I have had no trouble with them (admittedly I have not tried all of them but the most important, desktop publishing, drawing, DVD viewing, music, photo editing, scanner, printer, finances, etc... have given me no trouble.).
Mandrake 9.0 is as user friendly as you can get. At some point the user has to take response ability for their actions. So for all of you out there who dislike Mandrake, choose a different Disto, there are plenty. Incidentally, I once tried SUSE 7.3 during the MDK 8.1 fiasco and found supermount was not included in the default installation. Does it include it now? Does Red Hat? This is a big deal if you want to appeal to the desktop user because the vast majority do not want to manually mount their CD's. Mandrake provides a consistent, predictable, and boring feel, which if you are trying to get any real work done is a plus.
There is not need to reinvent itself every year or so (like some distributions) because everything that is needed, is right in those friendly CD's. Is Mandrake geared for servers? Yes. Is Mandrake geared for the Enterprise? Yes. Is Mandrake geared for the Desktop? Yes. What makes the difference is the packages you put into the system, not the label on the box it came from. From that perspective, Mandrake has it right.
>WinXP has very good hardware compatibility. Linux has not.
Wrong. its hardware support is mostly build on 3th party drivers.
>Administrating and configurign the OS is easier on WinXP.
Really? I fully disagree.
>The UI of XP is way more integrated to the OS and to the >different toolkits.
Luckely that is not the case with Linux
>WindowsXP has way more software than Linux has.
Agree.
>WinXP has more games and better 3D compatibility.
Hollywood disagrees.
>WindowsXP supports a better office suite than Linux does.
I dont think MS Office is etterthat OpenOffice anyway Crossover also runs MS Office.
More points?
Bas
>So you don't like Mandrake.
I don't like this particular version, no. It just did not work well for me.
Things have changed in the landscape of Linux. Mandrake 8.0 was great, but it is not April 2001 anymore. Red Hat and SuSE now offer what Mandrake used to offer last year, when Mandrake was "the" distro. In some areas, RH and SuSE are offering even more, in some areas less. The problem here is that Mandrake does not realize that times are changing, and Mandrake Linux should change as well. A change to a more modern OS.
And they should also realize WHO are their competitors: Red Hat or Windows? Judging from their actions and their OS, they only seem interested in keeping the current userbase, not expanding it. They should think out of the box and offer a better experience for Mandrake 9.1.
Well said Wanker...
Eugenia, I think over time Mandrake will get to where we want it to be. All we need to is give it some time.
Please don't blame Mandrake for bugs in gtk,qt,gnome,kde or 'what is not perfect' parts.
Mandrake, Suse, Redhat ... are just trying to make a "linux package" alias a distribution.
A linux system is nothing more than packaged "free software", it's not a product, even if big companies are trying to fix the problems/bugs in order to make it works better. Don't blame linux distributors / packager about bugs, it's mainly the fault of the developper of the apps themself.
But you know what? These developpers are just creating ,for free, code named "free software" and they really don't care about what you think; they are not creating a product but apps they like to create and improve as they want.
It's a strange world, no?
Regards,
Guillaume
>Some of your paradigms are just personal opinions, or even >wrong. Some of your wrong ones:
No not wrong ones, you find them wrong that is something different.
>Windows XP is not real STABLE, Linux is.
Windows XP is not stable! period!
>Windows XP is a crackers dream, Linux is its enemy.
read the security boards..
>Windows XP is created by Microsoft, Linux is not (so???).
Lets say Microsoft is not really famous for its good/quality
product but off course you disagree.
>Linux is fun, Windows XP is not.
Linux is more fun than Windows XP as an OS.
>Linux is build-in lots of distros, Windows XP is >not.(so???)
So? that means you have choice...i like choosing
>Linux has the biggest community, Windows XP has not.(so??? >why do you need a community to use a PRODUCT? I am not in >any community for my microwave brand)
Easy but bad point..you will get to know the importance of a community once you are an developer. I forgive you.
>Linux get lots of simpaty, Windows XP get none. (this is >because people like you are trolling)
I am not trolling somebody asked me to give a few points i did..Microsoft is evil period.
>Linux keeps on running, Windows XP does not. (I crash Linux >more than I crash my XP)
Thats why you use Windwos XP because you do not really understand Unix. Believe me Linux is far more stable than Windows!
Windows XP has no webserver, Linux has.(oh yes, it does. My XP PRO does)
Sure keep on dreaming..
Windows XP has no wordproccesor, Linux has. (depends what the PACKAGER has put in there)
So?
Windows XP has not image editor, Linux has. (depends what the PACKAGER has put in there)
So?
Windows XP has not terminal, Linux has. (XP does have command line)
Terminal is not a command line..
Windows XP is only for home users, Linux is not. (this is wrong. XP PRO is a workstation. .NET SErver and Win2k are the server products.)
We where comparing Windwos XP and Linux why talk about
wk2 and crash.NET?
Bas
Bas, we better stop this kind of OT discussion. This is not a Linux Vs Windows news item, it is a review of Mandrake Linux, specifically. You will need to specifically compare Mandrake to XP if you want, not generic stuff please. Not on this story.
>Please don't blame Mandrake for bugs in gtk,qt,gnome,kde or 'what is not perfect' parts.
I am sorry, it does not work that way in the consumer world.
>Mandrake, Suse, Redhat ... are just trying to make a "linux package" alias a distribution.
No, these companies are pitching themselves as OS companies. Hence, the critisism.
> I imagine that Mandrake didn't use QT because it is not
> free software.
The reason why Mandrake's developers used a Perl binding for GTK+ for their Control Center GUI has been already posted multiple times on other Mandrake threads on this fine news site here. It had nothing to do with any license stuff but rather with the knowledge and personal preferences of the developers as with the existence of a usable perl binding for the choosen GUI toolkit (Qt had none at that time).
Also note that the free version of Qt is licensed under the QPL and GPL and thus meets the "free software" definition from the FSF.
Cheers,
A.
Eugenia,
I agree but its good to compare and look at the weakness of an OS i am a Linux/FreeBSD only user and i am sure i will miss all the neat and nifty features Windows XP and Mac OS offer.
But i am sure its the other way around also..
Anyway Mandrake is aming at places i will rather not go..
Bas
picked from various comments:
> WinXP has very good hardware compatibility. Linux has not.
Wrong. MS doesn't write most of hardware drivers, it's the hardware's manufacturers who write the drivers (unlike on Linux).
> Administrating and configurign the OS is easier on WinXP.
A small fraction of Windows is configurable and administrable. This is much more a drawback than Linux mere texte files configuration is. With Linux you can _really_ administrate your computer, that's an essential point.
> I crash Linux more than I crash my XP
Linux as a kernel (what it really is) is much more stable than its windows counterpart. If your point is about a whole OS environement, then pick up a well-built distribution like Debian and u gonna notice how Linux can be good and reliable (remember as Linux is open source, it can be made terrible or terrific).
Debian GNU/linux is a terrific Linux distribution, until you haven't used it, you can't really judge what this whole Linux thing is. Installation and configuration is maybe mostly done manually, but at least it rocks without a doubt.
I have this little laptop, a PII 223mhz. Its a great (if heavy) little workhorse. I dual boot it into Win2k and a linux distro. I have tried to put Redhat 7.2, 7.3, and 8.0 on this laptop and frankly the speed was unuseable.
I have 192 megs of RAM in this machine, but I find redhat hitting the disk a bunch. So when MDK 9 was available I decided to install it to get the very noticeable speed increase. When I got the laptop it had MDK 8.0 on it. I quickly changed it to the Redhat of the day. It was impossible to use.
I almost gave up on the laptop (not being a big fan of MDK anyway) but I installed Win2k on it. The laptop sprang to life.
So anyway, I had to reinstall MDK 9.0 yesterday because it was having trouble with a new orinoco. The install was fine, everything was great. But this morning, KDE segfaults on startup, I get no other choices for windows manangers once I get to KDM, and if I log into default, I get a term and a black screen.
I reinstalled all the X and KDE packages to no avail. I am ready to go back to Redhat, but I need some tips on how to speed that dang thing up so it works on my laptop. As stated, it is impossible to use.
Gentoo of course would be sweet, but I dont have all the time to have the damn thing compile on that machine.
Any tips on Redhat?
">Linux keeps on running, Windows XP does not. (I crash
Linux >more than I crash my XP)
Thats why you use Windwos XP because you do not really understand Unix. Believe me Linux is far more stable than Windows!"
Well, I suppose if you can't run Windows XP without crashing it (as many, many people do), then I think it is also fair to assume that you don't understand Windows either. When I installed Mandrake 9 and tried to run a game and had the whole screen go blank (no amount of CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE did anything to save it), what's there to understand? It crashed and required resetting, plain and simple. That has NEVER EVER happend to me in Win2k or WinXP. So you can talk all day about how stable Linux is until you're blue in the face, but it really all comes down to what you do with an OS that depends on how stable it is. For example, I can run a few Windows apps (not even at the same time) using Wine and bring XFree to its knees in a very short amount of time.
You might argue that the Linux KERNEL is more stable, but who the hell (besides programmers) uses just the kernel?
"I am a Linux/FreeBSD only user and i am sure i will miss all the neat and nifty features Windows XP and Mac OS offer."
Yes, and the fact that you're a Linux/FreeBSD only user is quite evident, as you obviously have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
(Eugenia, sorry for going OT again, but I couldn't resist!)
Jay said:
>jetexas, it depends on how you look at it. If you mean >buying a PC with XP installed, then obviously Linux is more >work because you (usually) have to install it yourself.
>You have to check your hardware to make sure it's >compatible, so that is extra work.
>But, beyond that, I have found that doing home/office type >default installs of SuSE 8.1 and Red Hat 8, for example, >leave me with a very well set up desktop with everything >working with no problems and real ease of use.
I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here. I bought XP because ME was so bad, so I had to install it from (one) CD. Basically the CD booted up, installed XP and I was good to go in about half an hour. The last Lycoris install I tried made me manually repartition the HD including a swap partition and I also had to select the monitor I was using. All of these things were handled automagically by XP. But, if Linux offers no tangible advantages over XP (which is usually preinstalled), why should I go through all that trouble in the first place?
Please stop being off topic. Any more such XP Vs Linux comments will get you moderated down. No other replies on the matter please. This is not the right story to discuss these issues.
"Debian GNU/linux is a terrific Linux distribution, until you haven't used it, you can't really judge what this whole Linux thing is. Installation and configuration is maybe mostly done manually, but at least it rocks without a doubt."
So essentially what you're saying is that in order to make Linux stable, I have to grab an outdated distro and install/configure mostly everything manually? Yeah, ok ... where do I sign up *pffffffffft*
Sorry Eugenia, didn't see your last post until after I had finished mine
I've played with the newer versions of Both Mandrake and Redhat. I run a dedicated server for web hosting. Its nothing big, just for my clan web sites and personal web sites (I use the web sites to host wedding pictures for clients). I wanted to upgrade for the newer features. I upgraded from RH 7.3. However in the upgrade on both versions, they DO NOT include Apacheconf. I use this app to setup my virtual hosts and configure Apache. While I lost this app, I was hoping the claims of "easier to use and modify" would be more apparent. I couldn't find Apacheconf, nor did I find any good substitutes for it. In the new version of Mandrake, the control center makes things easier, but it doesn't go far enough. simply turning on the web for internet or intranet doesn't cut it. I ended up going back to RH 7.3
When are the linux Distros going to learn, you need to make it easier for the end users!
So essentially what you're saying is that in order to make Linux stable, I have to grab an outdated distro and install/configure mostly everything manually? Yeah, ok ... where do I sign up *pffffffffft*
Well, if i answer you, I'll be moderated down as my post is gonna be off topic (which is true). There's also other reasons not to respond... I'm not sure according your comment that you can evaluate them... sorry
In the few times I have read reviews here, I have only ever been disappointed by the reviews. The intuitiveness of this site is worse than any piece of software they have reviewed here. First, I would like a preview button .Yes, different sites do different things different ways. You don't use a standard blog (nuke clone, slash clone etc) so I have no way of knowing how my post will come out until it's up. Then, how about threading? There are hundreds of blogs out there that support threading (even ZDNet does). Anyway, I will make do with the limitations of your site for the moment, to see if it gets any better (which it seems you are incapable of doing with an OS ;-)).
1)XFS
YOU chose to do an expert install. This means you should be able to do things like decide whether the features available in XFS are worth the possible complication. There is a warning for XFS, which is that you should not install LILO (doesn't matter where your /boot is, it's where LILO gets installed to that matters) on an XFS partition. There is and never will be patch for this (unless you convince SGI to cease support for IRIX disks under linux).
2)Wheel mouse.
Some common PS2 wheel mice have problems, which is why the instructions on the screen at this stage tell you to scroll your mouse wheel. Did you???? When I have such a mouse, scolling the wheel immediately gets it working right.
3)diskdrake
Funny, other *commercial* *proprietary* software uses a very similar interface. I am talking about Partition Magic, and Windows NT Disk Manager, Windows 2000 Disk Management etc. I have never had problems understanding diskdrake (except during a text mode install ...). Your comments on it are ridiculous (ok, so the labels on the tabs could maybe be changed, but for anyone who knows what hdX means, it's more efficient than "First disk on primary IDE channel", which probably wouldn't help a non-technical user much either).
4)Booting
You're the one who installed the software (you did an expert install, remember?). You were given an opportunity to disable it. Did you?
5)Only time I have seen Mandrake take a while to authenticate is when I have set it up with LDAP. Don't have any ideas here.
6)Default theme
I really don't see how a theme makes a better UI. In some respects less eye candy is better, I find Mandrake's theme quite a bit snappier than something like keramik or liquid. And I don't think corporate users will be limited by what any distro uses. We are standardising our linux desktops on qnix, we have a whole bunch of custom stuff (nfs mounts, custom configs, boot themes, login manager backgrounds) which we deploy via our configuration RPM (which also sets up automatic updates etc), and one of the things we do is standradise the theme.
There is more to desktop functionality than a good default theme.
7)Menu
No, Mandrake hasn't *just* reorganised the menu, they have made a consistent menu across the board (ie all WMs) containing all possible programs (not a subset), but along the lines of Redhat's bastardised limited menu, have a menu where people can find the best-of-breed tools. Many people have commented that this is a good feature, and makes Mandrake easier to use ...
8)You problems with control center were I assume mostly due to supermount. Supermount worked quite well in RC2 (IIRC), but there was one small bug. That bugfix caused some problems, and currently a lot of people suggest not using supermount. You would have had better success if you had had any CD/DVD in your drive ...
9)/lib/cpp issue
It seems there are some small issues with the alternatives system, and some of these bugs were reported too late (post-RC3 IIRC) to get fixed. Most cooker users didn't notice, and some of them only appear after an upgrade. Without knowing what you installed originally, I can't guess what went wrong.
10)Focus
Many people seem to think that because Mandrake is a desktop-targeted distro that that is the only target. You may have noticed, but Mandrake is growing very fast as a web server. Mandrake probably has the best samba support around (including ACLs out-the-box on ext2/ext3/XFS partitions). All the software? Well, someone (often not Mandrakesoft employees) took the time to either request it or package it, so it must be of use to someone, probably a paying customer.
11)GTK tools
People seem to miss the following facts:
-Qt is much larger than GTK, do you really want to have to install 50MB extra libraries so you can run a graphical config tool on a server? GTK is smaller, and a lot of it's libraries are required by other apps, like linuxconf and many others.
-Mandrake writes mostly in perl, and there are good mature bindings for GTK, while the Qt ones are not really stable. Give them good Qt perl bindings, and maybe they will switch.
-There are 11 desktops/WMs available in Mandrake. 1 uses Qt. Quite a few use GTK.
-GTK starts up much faster than Qt, so someone using a non-Qt non-GTK desktop will find GTK stuff more responsive.
12)Lack of review of any of the other features.
I would have expected an "expert" reviewer to notice some of the new features. Like the possibility to join a windows domain during installation (along with other choices for local files, LDAP, Kerberos etc). Or how about the terminal server (if you know it exists).
So, it seems there were really only two bugs of real significance here, supermount, and the alternatives (oh yes, licq also, which the maintainer uses fine, but also very late bug reports showed there were problems).
Maybe you should give Mandrake a few more days, and consider it then ....
IMHO, there is no perfect OS, but Mandrake really creates a good distro. Things that will take you (post-install) many days to set up with another distro will take you almost no time with Mandrake.
>Then, how about threading?
It is my design decision to not support threading. I wanted to add it, and lots of people emailed me asking me to NOT to. So, I will leave it as is.
>Anyway, I will make do with the limitations of your site for the moment
The preview button is something I considered doing. For the next version of the forum, not this one.
>In the few times I have read reviews here, I have only ever been disappointed by the reviews.
You mean the Linux reviews? Maybe because Linux is not ready to compete with OSX and XP. Just maybe.
>There is more to desktop functionality than a good default theme.
Nobody said the opposite.
>Like the possibility to join a windows domain during installation (along with other choices for local files, LDAP, Kerberos etc).
I don't do any of that crap here. Our main server is a FreeBSD one, and I exchange files between machines via FTP. It works for me.
>No, Mandrake hasn't *just* reorganised the menu, they have made a consistent menu across the board
The same menu across WMs, yes. Consistent and nice? Hell No.
>You problems with control center were I assume mostly due to supermount.
I don't care what it was. The whole point is that there IS a problem.
> Diskdrake. Funny, other *commercial* *proprietary* software uses a very similar interface.
Too bad for them too.
>There is a warning for XFS, which is that you should not install LILO
>which is why the instructions on the screen at this stage tell you to scroll your mouse wheel.
So, you are telling me that everytime one has to install this OS, HAS to read the instructions at the bottom of the screen, for each and every step? I am sorry, but this is _stupid_.
The reason I chose Expert because I HAD TO. I wanted MAndrake to install itself to a prearranged partition and to NOT overwrite my bootloader. These TWO options I needed, were not available via an Advanced button during the Standard installation mode. I NEEDED these two features.
> I am sorry, but this is _stupid_.
Installers should be bug-free and intuitive enough. Personally, the BEST installer I have used under Linux so far, is Xandros' installer, based on Corel's.
And yes, it should be like that on the Expert Mode as well. Because if "expert users" are the ones who can go around bugs and bad interfaces, does NOT make this very interface any better.
I liked your review. In my opinion Mandrake 9.0 is just beta software.
>>Like the possibility to join a windows domain during installation (along with other choices for local files, LDAP, Kerberos etc).
>I don't do any of that crap here. Our main server is a FreeBSD one, and I exchange files between machines via FTP. It works for me.
OK, so you're telling me that integration into a windows enterprise network is crap???
Mandrake is aimed at the corporate desktop (and the server). One of the ways of getting there is by integrating with windows networks.
You can give Mandrake 9.0 to an MCSE, and tell him to join it to his multi-domain windows/Active Directory-based network, and anyone with a domain account will be able to log in after reboot.
Say you don't want it to be a desktop, it can be a file/print server, authenticating domain users *with no extra setup*. Or, providing a secure web server to people in the company.
OK, so this happens to be one of my favourite features, but I can't see how you can displace MS on the server or the desktop without making them obsolete by undercutting their own technology.
And I don't think displacing MS (whether on the desktop or the server) is crap. And RH 8.0 and SuSE 8.1 can't do it. Mandrake 9.0 can.
IMHO, this one feature is worth more than slightly better fonts and a theme. I see people on the samba mailing list every day who are trying to manually do this with RH or SuSE, and they take days to do what takes a few minutes in the Mandrake install.
One of my buddies and I downloaded Mandrake Linux 9.0 the first day it became available for download! Not bad, once I finished modifying everything to my tastes. Anyhow I'm gonna try out Xandros Linux (www.xandros.net) when it comes out later this month. The screenshots I've seen are quite impressive, and Corel had already fixed most of the problems Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote about (Xandros Linux is based on Corel Linux 3.0, in case you folks don't know...).
>OK, so you're telling me that integration into a windows enterprise network is crap???
No, I am telling you that *I* DON'T have any use for it, neither I have such facilities to test here. Most people don't anyway. OSNews is not a company with a big Windows network to test such things. Our only server (serving as a gateway) here is a lowly AMD K6 running FreeBSD.
She is just so damn picky. I always get the feeling that she would be so critical at the dinner table that you'd never want to make her food again. Besides that, the spelling sucks. PLEASE, use kdict or dictionary.com
"Unoticed" is not a word.
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=unnoticed&r=2
>She is just so damn picky
When it comes to OSes, yes, I am.
>she would be so critical at the dinner table
Not really. 
>Besides that, the spelling sucks
I DON'T care.
I have installed Mandrake 9 and my G550 works only in default what mandrake is selected , which is 1024 by 768, I cannot adjust it to 1280 by 1024, it just go blank, even if I adjust it manually. This have been like this since 8.2 and still haven't fixed. When it come to desktop its usual default by what Kde's default. Mandrake looks good only if you install
Textars rpm thems for Kde. It is very slow in start-up and accessing the file system especially if there is a disc in the cdrom drive.
I'm quite surprised how this review turned out. I'm really fond of this site and I keep coming back for the last couple of years, but I never saw Eugenia so unprofessional like this time. Here are just a few inconsistencies:
When you choose expert install, you should forget about writing as a normal user experience. You are warned that choosing expert means you know what you're doing.
If you want to write as a normal user, you should give Mandrake a fair go and use clean hard drive just like you did with RH and SuSE.
I don't want to go into "RH tools are better than Mandrake's" debate because that's your opinion and I respect that. I don't want to argue about your problems (I believe they are real),it's just that the tone of the review was just plain mean.
The thing is I think that for some reason Mandrake was not reviewed the way RH, Xandros or SuSE were. Maybe you expected more or maybe not, but I know you could have done it better.
My take on mandrake 9: This is just another distro created to appeal one group of users. It is never meant to be one distribution for all and you knew that before writing this review. It seems to me that if distribution is not ready to be on the desktop (in your opinion) it's bad. That's not true. This is OS related site and every OS should be reviewed accordingly. What would your review of FreeBSD looked like? "That default black (console) look is just ugly"
From my personal experience with Mdk 9.0 so far is that, DAMN is it fast. After mucking around with various flavors of linux for awhile, it's quite a speed demon. I had Gentoo installed on this same partition compiled with all the right cflags, etc.. and it's nowhere near as snappy. IMHO, that is what Mandrake brings to the table in this round of releases. Unfortunatly, that's about it. The included apps mandrake release behave just like they should, it's just that their additions seem not quite ready for prime time.
Like the damn CD access Eugenia had. Take a look at your /mnt directory, access.. try to install a new rpm, acess... Like a previous poster said it's because of their 'supermount' kernel patch and you can fix it by turning it off, but it's still amazing this slipped by them.
Also I've had random crashes in some tools, notably when trying to change boot loaders. I go to Mandrake control center, boot, then change the boot loader. This will bring me to the screen where you can change what the boot menu points to. Every time I modify one, the darn screen will dissapear and I get stuck with nowhere to go. Did it change anything? Can I boot it? Kindy off a scary position to get stuck in.
The NFS auto search has never found my Redhat NFS export on another computer, and there's no way in that tool to type in an address of the server and pick some options to add to fstab. It either auto finds it or you do it manually. I hope you know how to do it manually
The default fonts are, exscuse my french, ASS. And I don't think I know enough french to be able to explain how the default Mozilla fonts look like ;-) I've fixed them and I've got a purty desktop niw, but anyone straight off the street looking at this distro will be running scared after spending a little time with it.
Just a couple of differences in opinion with the review though. The diskdrake (partition manager) IMO is pretty good. Easy to navigate and use. Point on a partition, or empty partition, and you get a nice little menu list of what to do with it. It lets you resize even. I can use it as well as partition magic, it's about as good as you can get on linux that I've seen so far.
And the what to do menu is laid out pretty well. Whats so bad about--- What to do-->Admin, Enjoy music and vid, read documentation, etc.. and easy Redhat'ish lists afterwards. Great for doing some common tasks that you aren't sure about where to go to do. The menu's are the least of the faults in Mandrake, they're setup pretty well.
All in all, my experience has been that's it's snappy as hell, but quirky and by default ugly. It's fast enough though to justify me spending the time to fix it and use it as my primary OS. Apt-Get and synaptic and Tex's RPMS and knowledge of how to stuff by hand and you'll be good to go (no much of a ringing endorsement eh?).
Good review Eugenia, but I wish you laid into them a little more about the general bugginess of their apps
>I never saw Eugenia so unprofessional like this time.
My review was the same as always.
> Mandrake was not reviewed the way RH, Xandros or SuSE were.
OH, YES IT WAS. And it screwed up on my machine on bugs that other users have CONFIRMED (MandrakeSoft told me that the control center bug is confirmed by others too).
EVANGELISM is NOT the reviewers problem. It is the fact and a review is nothing more but a written presentation of an EXPERIENCE. I have nothing against any of these companies. I write WHAT I SEE.
This is a negative review of a fine ditribution and I find myself torn between a like of your honesty and and a dislike of your forcing this OS to conform to your obviously nonstandard configuration. Most of the things you are so negative about are personal opinions and shouldn't enter into a review. The fact that you, personaly, don't care for Mandrakes choice of theme shouldn't enter into this review unless you found that you were unable to change it. Your obvious misconfiguration of the default desktop environment has lead to these ugly screenshots posted on this site and should be considered a laughable attempt to skew the readers perseption. I would suggest that you let the readers descide if the default desktop is ugly by showing it to them. Your choice of blasting Mandrakes configuration modules is pretty peculiar as Mandrakes tools all start with Drak* and the tool your using is linuxconfig. Maybe you should do a review of linuxconfig instead of Mandrake as that's what seems more important to you.
I guess anyone who chooses expert intall mode needs to be an expert, which obviously your not. You like how I keep using the word obviously? I'm doing it because it's quite obvious that when you intentionaly try to break something you've proven it's quite easy. Your lack of knowledge is astounding. It's not Mandrakes fault that a professed expert doesn't know the limitations of XFS and lilo, or that said expert is too selfabsorbed to read the instructions at the bottom of the mouseconfig page.I really think asking any OS to contend with 8 operating systems being intalled on a machine is a little much, maybe it's time to invest in a test machine that has room room for the OS your installing. How can any OS compete fairly when it has to make concessions for 7 others. Your review is faulty, biased, skewed and plain wrong.
Oh and whats with bashing slackwares installer, it's my favorite of all of them, fast and efficient.
/dTd
In my opinion Linux is just beta software. But at least the community understands that. Eugenia, I'm glad you don't feel like part of our community. Until you have the experience of supporting all these OSs discussed here in a corporate environment I think your comments as an end user are sufficient. Thanks for the review. Your opinions have been noted.
That being said I've used all the OSs mentioned except some of the BSDs and I'm not a debian expert. I am, however, a Linux expert.
Stability:
Linux is stable. The kernel is not 100% stable, but 2.4 has reached a level VERY close to 2.2. The end user will not notice the difference. Of course the GUI can crash and leave you in a state where you might not be able to get a console on the system without plugging in a serial cable or sshing across the network. However the underlying OS will most likely be fully intact, even if you have some minor hardware failure. Usually it takes a power outage to crash my systems, and I run RedHat, which is rather unstable for Linux, IMO. I watched my / drive cough up failures for weeks before it finally took down my fileserver, I was just lazy and didn't care, I had a backup of the only file that was important and my raid is still intact.
Administration:
Unix, and to a far lesser extent Windows, can be fully automated across a network. Unix, however, can be automated quickly and efficiently with simple shell scripts. I did a network migration, reconfiguring over 500 various unix boxes. It took me less than a week of preparation (collecting system info, getting new ips and writing the script) and less than 2 hours to complete without affecting any users currently using those systems. All unix systems, including Linux, are multiuser, except maybe Lindows. This means many people may be using the same computer even though they are no where near it phsycially, which is why stability has been such a high priority. Every client is also a server. But one thing you can't do with windows is setup an automated configuration system to handle all levels of system maintence, monitoring and configuration remotely. Why can't you do this? Because computers don't understand GUIs, and I doubt you want to monitor a few thousands systems yourself, let alone reconfigure them through the GUI. That's my biggest complaint about windows, and its honestly total BS, because with perl you've been able to fully automate everything for a few years now.
In short I'm just too fucking lazy to waste my time with Microsoft software anymore. I have better things to do, my time is more valuable than that. At least the time I spend on Linux teaches me a LOT about how things really work, instead of provide me yet another abstraction layer or excuse. There are no more excuses.
>Your lack of knowledge is astounding. It's not Mandrakes fault that a professed expert doesn't know the limitations of XFS and lilo
READ THE FREAKING REVIEW. I **know** about the Limitation. STOP WRITING such crap over here please.
I am running Gentoo with XFS on my / and ext3 on /boot for God's sake. For months now. **I** know about the limitation. I wrote this about the OTHERS.
I am so freaking pissed off now, people are taking things out of context and they don't really understand.
> Your choice of blasting Mandrakes configuration modules is pretty peculiar as Mandrakes tools all start with Drak* and the tool your using is linuxconfig
I AM USING the Drake tools. I just ran LinuxConf because it WAS THERE. It is not that I use LinuxConf as the default.
JESUS.
The reason you were having problems burning the 700 MB images is that you were probably using 650 MB CD-RW discs instead of 700 MB CD-R discs. When I pulled down RC2, I tried a number of times to burn onto 650 MB CD-RWs and it kept failing. I ended up wasting two 700 MB CD-Rs and they burned fine.
It was kind of a waste of time anyway since I decided to stay with Mandrake 8.2 for a while longer.
>I really think asking any OS to contend with 8 operating systems being intalled on a machine is a little much,
WHAT are you talking about? They are all laid out on different partitions, some on different drives. All Mandrake has to do is just install its / root partition on the partition I will show it to do so. And Mandrake did so FINE in this respect. On the Expert mode that is, because the Standard mode does not allow you to do that.
I don't understand what the difference would have been if there were ONLY 1 more operating systems there, or 100. As long there is a bootmanager and an available partition, Mandrake and ANY other OS, should just load fine. AND IT DID LOAD FINE.
From all the other OSes I have here, the only OS that has special needs is QNX, which needs to be on a primary partition only. ALL the rest of my OSes are flexible enough to install anywhere. Even WinXP.
I really don't understand your stupid claim.
>maybe it's time to invest in a test machine that has room room for the OS your installing.
This machine has ALL the room Mandrake needs. I gave it a 6 GB partition.
>How can any OS compete fairly when it has to make concessions for 7 others.
Write your crap ELSEWHERE.
If an OS can't be installed when another OS is installed there, then that OS is *b0rked*. Mandrake isn't.
>In the few times I have read reviews here, I have only ever been disappointed by the reviews.
You mean the Linux reviews? Maybe because Linux is not ready to compete with OSX and XP. Just maybe.
Why the hell should Linux be always compared here as a desktop OS to compete with Windows and Mac ?! There's not such a comparaison when it's about QNX, AtheOS or any of those alternative OSes.
Let's compare Lycoris with XP and OS X if you want (Lycoris is targeted to that), but generalizing it to all Linux distributions is not a good thing. For instance, it's possible to install Mandrake as a server without any GUI whatsoever that would outclass a server install on XP or OSX. When I think there's still many people working with DOS and