“My initial reaction to the Mandrake desktop was no different than before. The Mandrake desktop is fairly basic, maybe even ugly. First I installed the Windows fonts, then upgraded Freetype to enable the bytecode interpreter and things started looking a lot better. Then, I headed to pclinuxonline.com and downloaded some KDE and Gnome themes that Texstar has provided for Mandrake 9.0. KDE started looking as beautiful as my 8.2 install. To get a clean and consistent desktop, I use the Bluecurve theme that Texstar has provided from Redhat.” Read it at RatedPC.
(Yet Another) Mandrake 9.0 First Impressions
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Uhmm although i haven’t read the article yet, but i think when reviewing something we have to review it just as how it looks like without any changes….. I mean it’s not the original product itself. Anyway still struggling with my rh8 download. No broadband for me, so long live dial up
I can’t get anything above 3kpbs from various mirrors too.
—
On the article, best article about Mandrake 9.0 so far. But still waiting for a “review”.
Displaying your FTP login User and number of alphanumerics on a screen like that is just begging for someone to do the dirty.
tut tut.
Bit reckless if you ask me. Review is nice nuff though. Mandrake is my disastro of choice for a number of years now.
AdmV
One more review that brings nothing…
And just get the Source RPMS from the Nvidia web site, rebuild them and install them… I had them installed in 5mins.
Regarding the software available, the point is that there is so much GPL’ed software available that all distros have to apply a cut off point otherwise they would end up with 4+ CDs of binaries and in this type of situation there’s always people who are going to complain about what is or is not included in the distro.
Regarding the themeing well, even if Mandrake came up with a fantastic theme people would still bitch about it… that’s human nature, isn’t it?
What I want to see in a review is:
– Installation with Raid, LVM, different file systems on a variety of hardware (P2, P4, Athlon, USB devices, USB2 devices, Firewire devices, etc..)
– Put the Mandrake Control Center through its pace because that’s a center piece in LM9.0
– Use urpmi to get software from Contrib, Texstar and Plf
(freetype2 for better TTF rendering, sylpheed, gnome-multi-terminal)
And maybe people writting reviews should contact Mandrake in case they have trouble.
/Woollhara
Very good!
Interesting that this reviewer had similar problems configuring sound on his computer as I did (see my review of UnitedLinux beta). Similar in the sense that it’s not at all clear which utility you should use to do that.
Of course, I solved my problem by editing modules.conf, but I wanted to see if I can easily find a GUI tool that would do that.
The author seems to be very well-informed about various desktop configuration issues: including font setup, theme modification and installing drivers. The screenshots he posted look very good and professional; obviously he had done some serious tweaking and customization which (in my opinion) provide such a consistent feel and pleasure outlook.
I am actually even more impressed with his another article:
Linux On Desktop
http://www.ratedpc.com/article.asp?id=59
Beware, it is a long read with 21 pages.
does every distro version *.x that bad???
if it is so, probably I’ll try other distro while waiting for later releases. Well actually i really wanna try suse but since its iso not available for d/l (my machine is i386)…. so forget it, i don’t have broadband as well so ftp installation is not an option for me.
Ouch!
I didn’t notice that most of my login/pass is showing right there! Well well, let’s hope the site sysadmin (not me) has taken the required measures…
Thanks for your comments.
Reza Pakdel
My experience with Mandrake 9 (RC3 – haven’t had time to download the gold code) was mostly pleasent. Sound, broadband, and even my printer worked right out of the box.
The fonts in Konquerer I found acceptable, but fonts in apps like Xine and Crossover Office 1.2 are horrible.
Overall, not quite ‘there’ yet, but getting pretty damn close. If they manage to fix the font issues, streamline the app installation process across distros, add better samba integration into the GUI right out the box, and get a few commercial apps ported, this may just give Windows a run for its money
They need to add a DVD player into the mix that will automatically start up when I toss in a movie. I tried using Xine for this, but I apparently didn’t have whatever plugin it needed installed. Of course, the same thing happens to me in XP (no codec on install), but installing PowerDVD clears that problem right up
they can’t include a DVD player because of stupid laws. BUT …
http://plf.zarb.org/ you could find what you want 🙂
It was a good review, and stirred my interest in Mandrake, but I’m going to be a whiner. Why do I even know what “deuglification” refers to? Just how many ways are there to mess up the fonts in a linux distro? What good is a distro if they don’t try to set this up for you? I mean you might as well be installing lsf. Tip for the commercial players: make it possible to talk about your product without resorting to barbarisms. Okay, I have whined.
Why? The page’s background was killing me! Real smart, having visible horizontal lines streaking across the page.
Makes reading difficult.
Try #FFFFFF
“they can’t include a DVD player because of stupid laws. BUT … ”
Can they not or do they not include one in the commercial (boxed) version(s)? It seems like they should be able to purchase a license to include one (along with TrueType fonts) and pass the cost on to the users?
I have been a Mandrake user/ and fan since the beginning but
I think Mandrake needs to slow down their Beta to RC to Gold releases to give more time to “cook”. In my case, fonts are plain and simply UGLY (even with antialiasing on). All fonts show ghosting (shadowed fonts, triple vision) making the display look bad. (Using Viewsonic 17GA/2 monitor driver and Nvidia TNT2/64 video card, Xfree 4.2) Don’t have this problem with RedHat 7.3/8.0, Lycoris or Suse 8, so it most be a Mandrake issue.
I agree with other postings in terms of the general ugliness of the desktop. At 1024/768 resolution the desktop fonts are “too big”. Icons look flat. Menus need a major reorganization too. An Applications Menu but then there are Office and Networking Menus outside of it. Why is that? Aren’t Mozilla, GFTP, Open Office, etc applications?. Where is Komba2? It is so much better than Gnomba (which is included). Lycorix does a fantastic job at the desktop level.
I like that I don’t have to drop to root to do many things (inside the GUI) sinc it asks for the root password and let you move forward.
> I am actually even more impressed with his another article:
>
> Linux On Desktop
> http://www.ratedpc.com/article.asp?id=59
Thanks for the link zero. Excellent article Reza, Thanks!
Btw, the fonts that Mandrake comes with (like Nimbus sans on 8.2) look pretty darn good to me when they’re antialiased. (They’re not truetype are they? PS type1?)
I tried MDK9 as well (the final release).
Tried to install it on an HP Netserver LC3.
It installed the files (XFS filesystem), then put the bootloader in the MBR without giving me an option not to (I use masterbooter to boot all my OSes and like to keep each OS in its own partition).
Anyway, I did that but the machine couldn’t boot.
Tried again, used GRUB this time and ext3 and made a boot floppy. I can still only boot from the boot floppy!
Redhat 8 on that box works fine.
Anyway, in general it didn’t give me a polished feel, and it doesn’t seem to like to coexist with other OSes all that much.
Plus, what’s with all the complexity of the latest Linux releases? Crap all over the place. Much prefer FreeBSD but I’ll give slackware a try when they’re done.
D
Looks like Keramic and not blue curve to me.
The screen shots are definitely keramic.
You know I’m sick and tired of people complaining about things not working on linux. Linux is like windows.. if you buy generic, cheap hardware you are going to get the equivalent in performance and support. I have an MSI KT333 mobo. 512meg pc 2700 DDR ram, Abit siluro geforce4 ti4200, SB live, Lite-on 40x burner and dvd, and ata133 Maxtor drive. I have had ZERO problems with any linux distro including the GREAT mandrake 9.0. Installation went fine! detected everything even then logitech mouse + canon s300 printer on my usb 2.0. I ran to nvidia site where i downloaded the 2 nvidia tar files in within 5 mins i was up and running fine. Quake3 up in 20 mins and to me it looks better than in windows specially 2000 + xp. You get what you pay for. When i had no-name crap i couldnt get anything to ever install. So next time someone wants to do a review on mandrake 9 while running their pentium 2-400, 128 megs, and a JoeMoe 16 meg video card that is “geforce compatible” dont be posting it. You need the high end resources and memory to run it right. I have zero complaints. Keep up the good work Mandrake team. The next time you complain.. open up your system and look inside. There lies your problem.
Hmmm, I think I have pretty much standard hardware
Asus A7V266E
Athlon XP 1600
256MB Samsung PC2100
40GB Maxtor D740X
SB Live!
Geforce 2 GTS Pro
Samsung 181T
HP CP1160 Printer
Intellimouse Explorer
Nothing cheap nor no name…still Mandrake 9 did not detect my sb live! and did not install my mouse as a wheel mouse. But fixing these took only a few minutes. I still ain’t bitchin…
It probably is something with the asus board. I read too many problems with people trying to install different distro’s with asus 266 and 333 chipset. I’m not saying all have problems, but enough to give me a reason to chose MSI kt333 (almost bought the gigabyte). I know gigabyte usually is a good board for linux too.
It is odd that your sblive was not detected. Was PNP aware OS enabled? Is that an “MS” intellimouse explorer? I dont think I need to say much there ;-)A few too references to another OS. Maybe its trying to tell you something 😉 Buy a logitech. Even solaris detected my logitech mouseman USB haha. My only problem thus far is getting quicktime4linux or Openquicktime to work. Had to boot to Winblows to view the two towers trailer haha.
I had Mandrake 8.2 loaded on an Asus A7M266. No problems except a known bug in hwclock. Redhat 7.2 has the same issue. If you shutdown the computer by force, then the Linux clocks (the time Linux think it is) and the hardware clock get scrwed up. The bootloader will sit and wait until the clocks get synched (which may be years). The only way to fix that has been rebooting into Windows (see, no name calling). Note that this is a documented siftware bug in hwclock.
Hmmm, personally I don’t go with anything other than Asus. I don’t consider MSIs as a high-end boards. First price. Asus only uses high-end components in their motherboards and cost more than other brands. Asus boards don’t have a lot of overclocking facilities, but they are usually faster, yet more reliable than others. You see, I run a hardware site and I’ve worked at a computer shop, so I’ve seen a thing or two.
Your comment regarding the Microsoft mouse is absurd. Microsoft mice are known to be the best mice in the market. Secondly, this is a standard PS/2 mouse and even my stock Windows 98 can detect it as a wheel mouse.
well not only mandrake has probs with hardware detection, i just manage to d/l rh8 first CD and sadly it couldn’t probe my monitor (Acer 77c), but my monitor is recognised on rh7.0-rh.73…… strange isn’t it?
I’m not sitting here saying ASUS is a bad board. It’s a decent board, but compared to others it does not rank high with linux. People have a tendency to jump to Asus since Tomshardware usually gives it high rankings. Before i purchased the MSI board I was a tomshardware only guru.Come to discover upon reading about 50 other website reviews and visiting several computer stores in the RTP (in raleigh), and talking with people who have upgraded, I went with the MSI. It has high end parts– the price speaks for its self, a quick glance on pricewatch still shows mine is 30% higher than the asus 333 chipset 😉
My comment about MS mouse is absurd? Maybe you need to read it again. I never said anything about an MS mouse not working in windows. Duh, that would be similar to saying a SUN mouse that has problems in solaris. I was making the comment how it is kind of funny that he’s complaining that his “Microsoft” mouse wheel did not work in linux. I was not aware that linux guru’s or Bill gates himself are sitting around vigorously trying to write drivers or modules for MS hardware to run on linux hehe 😉