This is a critical review of the installation, setup and actual performance of the Mandrake distribution of the GNU/Linux operating system, version 9.1, and comes as a second part of OfB.biz’s Mandrake review. (You can see part I here.) The review will cover these areas: (1) Installation and install-related setup; (2) Post-installation system administration; and (3) System performance. The review will end with a general evaluation and will assign grades on relevant areas.
Mandrake Linux 9.1: A Free Desktop for Free People
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
Mandrake Linux 9.2: A Commercial Desktop for Formerly Free People … A critical review as to how to remove the adverts.
IMHO 10 second to remove the adverts is better then 10 hours to configure the Debian for desktop 🙂
Ps. Because the 9.2 coming soon, the 9.1 review seems a little bit outdated.
I don’t want to pay a distro to see lot of advertising around.
I don’t care I can remove the adverts within 10 seconds : Why not using Netscape 7 in that case ?
May be Mandrake user should look at SuSE or Redhat solutions that are free of advertising
Yes!! You can look at SuSE… for free???? If you pay for Mandrake you won’t get advertising! If you download it you will get some bookmarks preinstalled and advertising in the installation process… oh my god, what a pity, mandrake guys have sold out!! [/irony]
I recommend you read this article: http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid…
(by the way, excuse my poor english)
These ads are no big deal – just screensavers and bookmarks in mozilla. I thought that twas gonna be Poltergeist-like omnipresent ads but it is not.
However I still prefer to spend 10 hour to configure Debian fo r desktop.
“0) There won’t be any ad in the screensavers in Mandrake 9.2
There will be one paid-ad in the installation procedure, and a few paid-links in bookmarks.”
Read the rest at http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3
It’s amusing, really. Mandrake intend to have only adverts in the install procedure and useful bookmarks already in place for Linux companies. So maybe links to MySQL, IBM and people like that.
The adverts aren’t there in usual use, so there is no difference in user experience, in fact, the bookmarks are actually useful!
Compare this with web sites like OSNews, PCLinuxOnline, Newsforge and Slashdot, which sometimes have complimentary adverts, but sometimes have unrelated stuff, too. Personally, I’m never going to use the silly online photo storage thing that the advert for is currently running at the top of my open window for newsforge.
So all in all, I really don’t understand why people frequenting such sites, and being barraged by mindless, useless adverts every day are opposed to something which might actually be helpful to them.
Some while back we had the ludicrous situation of french fries being referred to as ‘Freedom Fries’ now the french distribution refered to as the ‘Free Operating System for Free People’ – take your ‘Freedom’ and shove it
as the subject…….
They didn’t come from France.
scheduled for 20 September. I don’t think it’ll make that, personally, but I might be wrong.
AdamW: I think it will end up meeting the September 20th date. I’ve been using 9.2 RC2 and it is nice and ready for full release in my opinion. I was really worried after trying out 9.2 RC1 because performance was highly jerky. Under RC2, my computer has never been snappier. What do you know, an OS that actually gets faster and uses less resources with each new version. Someone needs to explain how to do that to Microsoft.
(I say this because there’s no way you could run any recent MS OS on this box, a PII 300mhz, but yet I can use all the latest Linux distros. Yeah, yeah.. I know, I’m poor.)
Funny, I was watching a interview with an old timer giving France a hard time. Interesting that we don’t see any Americans thank France for their support during the revolution and the nice gift they gave to America afterwards, IIRC, Spain was also involved in the anti-English support.
two points:
* web ads are not OS ads. a web page does not run your essential services. or should not. your OS does. you don’t trust the contents of ean external web page. you should be able to trust your OS a little more.
* there is an argument against ads in the free version: most people will try the free version before they buy. i know thati didn’t buy the 9.1 release because having tried the 9.1 dowload, it had too many broken things in areas that were important to me. its not like M$ – where you buy on trust. linux was supposed to be different. if 9.2 download is good – i’ll buy the box.
do mandrake actually know the mechanisms behind their customers purchasing habits?
here in the UK the local pcworld store employee says that people buy the redhat boxes because they know what it is. they’ve played with it. and the want the non-commerical extras. he says theu don’t sell much suse because people don’t know what it is. there’s little/no free download for them to try. he suggests his suse purchasers buy it because it has a fancier design on the box!
May be Mandrake user should look at SuSE or Redhat solutions that are free of advertising
Could you be so kind as to give me the URL where I can download SuSE for free?
Easy. Here it is. Free ftp install.
http://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse/i386/current/
Mandrake 9.2, RH 10 and SUSE 8.3 (I think) are right around the corner, there’s no point in going back 6 months in linux development.
I can’t run a full ftp install if my wireless card driver is included in the ftp install bootup(need to setup it up after install). How do I install if I can’t connect?
I can’t run a full ftp install if my wireless card driver is “not” included in the ftp install bootup(need to setup it up after install). How do I install if I can’t connect?
It strikes me as odd that almost every couple of days there is another review of the same Linux system being posted, whether it be Mandrake, Redhat, SuSe or whatever. Why don’t people write weekly reviews of Windows XP? I think the answer is the reason Linux isn’t ready for the desktop for most people. Everyone’s experience with it is slighly different! Oops, need this driver, hey, that isnt supported. With Windows, MS has done a good job of making everything extremely consistent (and this includes Windows crashing for the same reason on multiple PC’s). Anyhow, just my two cents….
I guess you don’t understand Free Software philosophy. Mandrake is a 100% Free Software desktop, so it makes sense to call it a Free Desktop for Free People. That’s what it is, and we commend it for being that (unlike SuSE, which is very nice but not a Free Software desktop).
I can’t believe all of the complaint about this. Tell me in one other area of life you’d expect a company to give you something for free without advertising or some other kind of catch. This is absolutely crazy.
Mirror the entire SUSE 8.2 directory to a local ftp server at your house and do it over Ethernet. Other than that, buy it. I bought SUSE and regretted it. Now my servers run Debian and Redhat, my desktop is Mandrake, and my firewall is OpenBSD. I bought every one except Mandrake but I will be buying 9.2
I can’t believe anyone gives a hoot about having ads shown during installation (look the other way!!) and a few web links left over when its done that take second to delete. Big deal.
If it was spyware being installed, that would be another thing. But it isn’t.
“I guess you don’t understand Free Software philosophy. Mandrake is a 100% Free Software desktop, so it makes sense to call it a Free Desktop for Free People.”
Sure, provided that you don’t actually want anyone to take it seriously. Shouting “FREEDOM!” at the top of your lungs is going to have far less success in converting people than simply touting the products on its own practical merits.
Besides, you’re missing the point. Just go to http://www.distrowatch.org and you’ll have no difficulty in finding other distributions that are wholly Free (by either the Debian or FSF definitions, or even just Open Source if you like, whichever wets your whistle). This is really not that much of a differentiating feature, and does not deserve repeated mention throughout what claims to be a critical review. It certainly shouldn’t be in the title, either.
“Shouting “FREEDOM!” at the top of your lungs is going to have far less success in converting people than simply touting the products on its own practical merits.”
Okay, to be fair, the author *does* examine the distro on its practical merits as well. The (really) poor choice of title pretty much demolishes the piece’s appeal to anyone else but an already-initiated Linux user, but other than that I’d say it’s a pretty good review, especially considering that most others just cover the install and leave it at that.
It’s well-researched, detailed, and backed up with plenty of well-chosen screenshots. Great work overall. It’s just a shame that no-one who doesn’t already know all about the Free Software philosophy is going to want to read it.
I don’t see any isos in that ftp folder – not quite the same thing, now, is it?
And i really didn’t like it. To me its alot like caldera linux (hopefully it will go away like Caldera linux).
Oh and when you get a chance try typing in “french military victories” in to google and click the im feeling lucky button…..nuff said!
heh, I use Cooker. There’s still plenty of bugs in RC2, count yourself lucky you didn’t meet ’em
well, because Windows XP was released two years ago. There were still reviews of it coming out six months after it was released. Mandrake is released every six months; thus, you get virtually perpetual Mandrake reviews.
its simply the best for the people and the
source is always with u
so please quit whining and complaining. maybe someone
can do another review on red hate and then the
people will be happy.
>>.. Why don’t people write weekly reviews of Windows XP?..<<
It’s already there around the nets. Too bad that those people write weekly reviews of Windows XP’s viruses
>> Mirror the entire SUSE 8.2 directory to a local ftp server at your house and do it over Ethernet. Other than that, buy it. I bought SUSE and regretted it. Now my servers run Debian and Redhat, my desktop is Mandrake, and my firewall is OpenBSD. I bought every one except Mandrake but I will be buying 9.2
If he had a network card which was supported Linux (i.e. the kernel and therefore all distro’s out of the box), that he could use for a local FTP install, surely he would be using that for the regular FTP install.
MattP, you can download the files you think you will need (e.g. leave most of the 3 GB of source) to your harddisk and install from there, or you can burn them to DVD-R. Or you could even buy a wireless adaptor that works ‘out of the box’ with SuSE (they support quite a few).