The final beta/RC version for Mandrake 9.1, RC2, is now available. The final version of Mandrake 9.1 is expected between 15th and 20th of March.
Mandrake 9.1-RC2 Available
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Maybe FINAL isn’t the best word to use when mentioning the next version of Mandrake 😉
> Maybe FINAL isn’t the best word to use when mentioning the next version of Mandrake 😉
Not nice to say that. I dont know why, many people say that mandrake distribution is allways buggy, but I never found so much bugs… Of course, no more bugs as in Suse, or redhat, or other commercial distribution. Its because commercial distribution are in need of cash, that they cant take for ever to polish a distribution (like Debian).
Im using cooker for now, The new Mandrake is going to rock :-). I wish them a lot og luck ! 🙂
Is it supposed to be only one .iso?
is that they are publishing a book on how to use their distribution , see the press release in French : http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/press/briefs?n=/mandrakesoft/ne…
Hopefully this move will help mandrake with it’s financial problems.
Ludo
—
http://islande.hirlimann.net
Well, that was good for a short laugh, honestly, I just started out using MDK on my workstation from RH, and I just love it. I really wish MDK would overcome their hardships soon.
Is it just me or does it seem they are rushing the release of 9.1, more so that in the past? I have used Mandrake since 8.0 and from past experence the OS is still buggy until a few months after the ‘final’ release, there will be quiet a few patches..
-Masao
Very happy to see the new RC2, running 9.0 on main system, tried the rc1 on laptop and still had a few problems ( themes, there is not a themerc file ( when there clearly is on) and a few other small probs. PPPOE support is much better ( for the first time ever, configuring pppoe during the install works on my box ) and I’m quite happy to have an alternative to redhat, without loosing my rpm’s.
God bless urpmi
i just grabbed and burned RC1 last night…
I’ve used nothing but MDK and they’re having some major issues with zeroconfg, with menu rendering under KDE 3.1, and with the ALSA sound drivers. Even though these bugs have been reported back during RC1, they’re still there in RC2
Actually it may really prove to be the very final one…
their last version was my final version. i found OS X. hey whatta know the linux guys were right, unix can be both powerful and easy to use. it just isn’t linux that made it that way…….
There is always some unfinished setup or an annoying bug that enfuriates you on Mabdrake;
but I have to say, after having tried many distributions based on the Linux kernel, that Mandrake delivers a very complete and easy to maintain Operating System and it works as expected 95% of the time (can’t say the same about many Linux distributions.
And it’s free, averagely polished and configured, (You don’t need to re-write /etc/fstab at every hard reboot, and/or many other files); what more could ask ?
A lot of folks believe this is going to be the last major version for Mandrake. After 9.1 is out officially, there’ll be some bug fixes, but that’s it. At least that’s what many expect. Mandrake is going to take the 9.1 and try to survive on this until they’re out of bankruptcy, so basically they have an 8 month window, tops. If they can’t get their problems sorted out by the end of the year, that’ll be the end for them as a company, because you can’t ride on 9.1 without further development for more than the end of the year, or you are no longer competitive with major distros like RH, SUSE, etc. And you need serious money to keep the development going in the context of a company. So… either the 9.1 takes Mandrake over the finish line or not – if not, that’s the end of Mandrake. Or so the theory goes… of course, as they die, the linux community will be able to build on their work in 9.1, but most likely the fate is for developers to concentrate on distros that are alive. I wish Mandrake the best – it would be a real shame to lose them… for many newbies (and advanced users!) Mandrake was the ticket. So, anyone, do you think 9.1 has got what it takes to let it be competitive without further development (other than bug fixes) for the next 8 months or so? 9.1 would have to be awfully good to stand still for 8 months and still stand up to whatever RH and SUSE will be at by then… we’ll see.
i’m not a fan of the everything including the kitchen sink distros, but with a lot of slimming down in package selection you cna make Mandrake OK i guess. At least my via ac 97 sound works in mandrake….can’t say that for Red Crack, though I could always install ALSA < but that’s too much hassle.
ah well…Lycoris rules (for me anyway!)
One problem with this one, It gets to mounting the /dev/hda (root drive) then it kernel panics. None of the other RC’s did this. My configuration is a Compaq Presario 900 mhz Duron with 1 gig of RAM 2 75 gig Quantum HDs on a VIA motherboard. If anyone has any ideas drop me a line @ [email protected] , Also if you guys can point me to a place on Mandrakes site to report bugs in the RC let me know.
FINAL? FINAL? I have yet to use 1 COMPLETE distro as a desktop yet. RedHat, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slackware, or whatever bunches you want to call it.
Ah well. The distromakers and OSS community, are this close –> <– to having something with a “complete” desktop solution…
Though, I do like Mandrake’s way of doing things. Load more packages on 3 CD’s then most people will ever care to remember the names of, add their own theme to KDE/GNOME, slap in drak tools, and you got yourself a pretty easy to use Linux distro…
Redhat seems to be doing quite the opposite… Slimming down choices of available packages on CD’s (which could be a good thing).
Interesting to see both these companies approach. Heh. As a review in distrowatch mentionned, they even wanted to see a 4th CD for Mandrake… (eeek, too many CD’s).
I wonder how much of a hit Mandrake sales will take in the US considering the political situation…
I used mandrake during the 7.x series but the bugs in 8.x scared me away, I haven’t even tried it since.
lol
I would not even give the idiots boycotting french pastries that much credit.
That is an interesting point to ponder. Personally, it wont stop me from using their OS.
I wonder how much of a hit Redhat sales will take all over the world considering the political situation…
well i hope people won’t take these things into consideration, especially since France and the US are democratic countries and should respect deferences in opinion (also people’s opinion, not just politicians)
i look forward for Mandrake and Redhat
Does anyone else get this feeling of waiting, anxiety and breath holding? I mean it’s with Linux and everything related to Linux. First thing it’s the kernel. All the hype about the new scheduler in 2.6 and how things will become SO much better for the desktop user when 2.6 is released – faster VM, lower latency, better responsiveness, ALSA in the kernel, etc, etc. And then we have KDE. Well, 3.1 was supposed to be THE release but it’s not quite there yet for me. And Gnome 2.2… I dont know about that yet, It’s happily compiling away in the terminal window here. And then there’s all the RCs and betas/alphas of upcoming releases which seem to be the bread and butter for every journalist and “journalist” out there.
What is really needed is a very radical approach – some distro maker needs to dig in, fish out all the upcoming goodies and put them together. I’m quite frankly getting a bit tired of waiting. It’s starting to remind me of the OpenBeOS’s release schedule. With less hype of course. A lot of good things are in store for the community but they wont appear any time soon – in terms of quality, can they stand against Longhorn? I do hope so.
World has always been changed by radical thoughts – we need one soon!
http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=38151
I stopped reading right, about….. here….
“The Linux development process is also a problem.”
I tried Mandrake 9.0 and like it overall. But I always had problems trying to download the software updates and never got even one patch installed. Does anyone know if they are working on fixing this problem? Or maybe it was just me…
..but I couldn’t update LILO for some reason. I installed it to the MBR, as it has worked with every other version of Linux I’ve ever used (RH, Debian, Knoppix), but running lilo wouldn’t affect any changes.
Also, I couldn’t find the Galaxy theme. Where was it?
Cheers.
Try running MandrakeUpdate from the console. It might tell you what is going on.
Using kde? Galaxy in rc1 is incomplete for kde right now. However you can still get the rpms if you want from cooker here:
http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/index.php
select cooker.
Please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
🙂
Has the problem with Radeon driver been fixed? On MDK 9.0, my radeon 7500 just won’t work.
vive la France… et vive le Mandrake!
@ Roberto J Dohnert
the right place to submit bugs about beta’s from mandrake is http://qa.mandrakesoft.com/ though if i got it right you’re supposed to submit bugs about running releases in the fora (which seems a little silly imo when you have a bugzilla running)
@ kly:
“But I always had problems trying to download the software updates and never got even one patch installed.”
it seems to work for most people, i would guess the problem is with your configuration. are you sure you’r proxy is set (i guess you’re using root’s profile when running updates), otherwise maybe try a different mirror (http/ftp)
I have 9.0 and 9.1 RC 1 running perfectly on a Radeon 7500. The installations detected the card and picked the right resolution and bit depth. Zero problem. They also run my i810 audio (RH didn’t till the very latest beta). And typefaces are crisper and *much* easier to read on Mdk than on RH, which makes text looked fuzzy. And I can’t find anything in RH as powerful as the Mandrake Control Panel – HW, networking, fonts, etc etc, all in one place, and it just works. I was tempted to write a piece on why I prefer Mandrake, but now you know – better display, better audio (including MP3 support), better system management. I have found almost zero bugs in 9.0, and 9.1 RC 1 is stable on my desktop machine (known video bug on my laptop). And when you report a bug to Mandrake’s bugzilla, you get a helpful reply from a real human usually within 24 hours. Based on my personal experience with both distros, I don’t see the attraction of RH. The power of marketing?
“I used mandrake during the 7.x series but the bugs in 8.x scared me away, I haven’t even tried it since.”
Really? I’m using 8.2–have since last August (I think). I haven’t had any problem with bugs. Which ones did you encounter?
This article was neither interesting nor informative. The author boldly states that UNIX “was on the way out” a decade ago (strange) and that Linux is “a mess.” He provides absolutely no facts, though, not even what in the world he’s talking about. I’m a little surprised he was published at all.
How many people here will support Mandrake assuming reviews on 9.1 are pretty good? I mean it’s nice that Mandrake offers .iso images for free, but seeing the shape they are in…how many people will cough up the money and actually help support them financially?
I’m also curious if people will go for the Personal or Workstation package (or even the ProSuite versions). Never having owned a ProSuite version, are they worth it?
Sean : this time there will not be free iso on day 1. First, iso will be released to club members only, and CD/DVD will be sent to people who want to order them. Only when the boxes hit the shelves, maybe after several weeks, the isos will be publicly available.
I will not boycott Mandrake, AAMOF, I am planning to download RC2 and then buy the final, if it is at least as good as 9.1. The french political posturing pisses me off, ’cause I hate gutless liberals, who would let mad nazis(or whatever) walk over them, or ppl that would take murderers off death row…
Now that I think of it, there was the mandrakeforum.com post where some euro-boy was complaining that the “conservatives were taking over” and “you better vote the way you feel” to keep them from taking over.
I *almost* went to CompUSA to buy RedHat after reading that, but I wrote the post on the forum off to the mad ravings of one illiterate and intolerant liberal/socialist democrat and thought no more of it. Anyway, next version of Mandrake is sold, as long as they don’t try to be international asses any more than they already have
Only when the boxes hit the shelves, maybe after several weeks, the isos will be publicly available.
That sounds like a good attmept at a realistic business model, but what’s keeping Mandrake Club members from making copies of their isos publicly available early?
It’s bound to happen.