“I have tried for the last three weeks to generate a review of Mandrake 9.0 without much success. Not that I have ever been accused of being at a loss for words, but this particular release has left me speechless. I can’t think of much to say about this release that hasn’t already been said about several other Linux distributions.” Read the review at LinuxLookup. In other news, both MandrakeSoft and SuSE have new CEOs since today.
Mandrake Linux 9.0 Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I posted some RH 8 impressions a while ago on this site. I recently got a new job and the new company doesn’t really like Windows… So they stuck me on redhat (what a nightmare). Nothing worked, nothing compiled, and no updates ever installed correctly.
Another guy there said they didn’t really care what you used as long as they didn’t have to pay for it, so I tried Mandrake… what a welcome change! Although some things still don’t work correctly (RPM hell, STILL, even using their automated tools… can’t get a new RPM for evolution, dependencies fail, etc.), most of it does work correctly.
Everything compiles (what a nice change!), the system is a lot faster (although the CPU I’m using is a lot faster so that’s why), and all the menu items work in all the desktops.
The fonts are a bit uglier, but big deal… at least I can use the system. Also, I have found that help is infinitely more accessible… Every problem I’ve ever had has been solved within a few hours on the mandrakeusers.com forums. Thank goodness for helpful people instead of elitist bastards that only want to insult you for not knowing as much as them.
Thanks Mandrake, I’m free of Windows (at least at work) and your OS works.
I have been using Linux for about 3 years now and have always have a standalone machine on which I could install any distro I wanted without bothering anyone else in my home. For about 2 weeks now I have been running Mandrake 9.0 (alone without windows) on the main machine in my home. At first I thought my wife would flip but she hasn’t said a word! She can read/write emails, print and use openoffice without any problems. Everything just works great. What a change from the earlier versions of Mandrake. I am very impressed. Finally windows free!!
What do you mean updates never install correctly? Are you using RPM for your updates? If not then that’s your problem…you’ll break almost any packaging system by not using it to install software
RPM works great, and I recommend installing apt-get for RPM it gets rid of dependency hell
and if you like a front-end for it…get Synaptic
and to be honest…i have yet to find a package that’s not available in RPM format somewhere on the net
the beauty of Red Hat is that if Linux can do it, Red Hat can do it…it’s the platform of choice for many developers for compatibility purposes
First, I had some problems making my mobo work. It’s one of those cheaper onboard types. I chose to buy more RAM, a faster HD and better video.
Problem was: Mdk 9 configured the wrong sound drivers (modules) for it (something like “snd-trident” instead of the right one “trident”). A visit to Mandrakeforum cleared up things (but it wasn’t easy to find!).
Still, some serious problems linger:
1) I’m having a hard time in listening to linuxradio with xmms (it _maybe_ a sampling rate related hardware problem, but Mdk could configure this from the start… then again, this maybe connected with the driver confusion).
2) quakeforge is mute. This also may have to do with hardware, I don’t know yet… Also, maybe it works with ALSA :-))
3) it seems the onboard modem won’t work together with sound — or so the modem FAQ says… 🙁 Well, it’s Linux, so I’ll wait 🙂 In the worst case, I’ll use another compatible cheapo modem… slots abound… besides, I use broadband via ethernet: modem is a fallback alternative.
All in all, Mdk is really very well done.
For quakeforge… (isn’t that like QuakeWorld?…) load the Open Sound System emulation drivers: snd-pcm-oss and snd-mixer-oss. Put the following lines in your /etc/rc.d/rc.local:
modprobe snd-pcm-oss
modprobe snd-mixer-oss
<snip>
>> and to be honest…i have yet to find a package that’s >> not available in RPM format somewhere on the net
Try to download and compile something that has not been packaged into RPM yet. I went on a search for hard disk sound recorders one night, and finally gave up on having one for now. Too many headaches compiling for all the different dependencies. I would get one requird lib compiled, and then run into insurmountable obstacles with the next. So, I will wait until somebody prepackages a custom RPM for my distro and version.
You remember .DLL hell? Well, Linux has .so hell. I am not a programmer, so what I am about to say may not be practical, but dynamic libraries are a POS. Stacically compile it. Hard drive space is plentiful nowadays, and even if it were not, maybe it would force these dippy programmers to make more efficient code. Why should I have to donate 750MB to the purpose of a system that could still use quite a few programs installed? I had to wipe out mdk8.2 because I ran out of room on a 2GB partition.
Why should I have to download and compile 4 little ibraries or whatever in order to even be able to compile one bigger program? And what if you then want to download and compile another program and you have to updgrade one of those other little libs? I know they can be renamed and symlinked and all, but that is just a damned headache. Linux will not be widely successful until all of its bits and pieces are more unified(like, why is the joystick driver no more part of the sound card drivers…? and stuff like that).
Wow, this was a particularly content-less review. I didn’t really learn anything valuable from it.
“What do you mean updates never install correctly? Are you using RPM for your updates?”
Of course I am. The problem is that it never automatically downloads the required packages… it just says, ‘The following are not installed.’ prints a list, then quits. And I can’t find an rpm for mandrake for 1.2 of evolution… there is one on ‘textar’ but it won’t install. I also can’t find a decent rpm for quanta… most require OLD libraries, and a few require NON-STABLE ones… And I tried to compile it, which worked (after installing some headers mandrake didn’t by default) but now it just crashes when I try to run it (it worked the first time I ran it, but now it just crashes all the time).
I suspect I saw that “snd-pcm-oss” (can’t check it right now), but probably it is misconfigured. Thanks, BTW, because now I undderstand the issue a lil’ better.
Quakeforge and Zquake are two popular Quakeworld versions.
I’m curious about the very low rating on documentation. It seems to me that most Linux distributions are pretty weak on unified documentation. Mandrake includes a few hundred page user manual a reference manual a few websites and then just has the docs for the individual apps, all Linux howtos… Do any of the other distributions do anything else (like a fully unified documentation or a really strong collection of docs)?