The held back Mandrake 9.2 ISO’s because of the LG CD-ROM issues, are now available for download. Anyone knows if the 250 MB of additional updates MandrakeSoft issued a few days after the release of the ISOs in the MandrakeClub last month also included in these download-edition ISOs?
Mandrake 9.2 ISO’s now Available for Download
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I am only seeing ISO image 1. Where are 2 and 3? I have been to several US mirrors and they only seem to have ISO 1. The mandrake site is giving MD5 sums for ISOs 1,2 and 3 so I assume that all 3 are required. Any idea what the problem might be?
Here’s a mirror that I use.
ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/OS/linux/mandrake/iso/
The isos are the same isos the member of the club have for weeks (ie with no updates)
Checksums (not present on some ftps) are :
40c8812dce7b9f8fb0a3b364af62b974 Mandrake92-cd1-inst.i586.iso
e07fe7b1474eb3ba35cac3dfd479777e Mandrake92-cd2-ext.i586.iso
2b6ffc5957533c927f14197ec99a0372 Mandrake92-cd3-i18n.i586.iso
Mandrake will release soon a second bootable CD ( CDn°0)
which will contain the updates, and will install the distribution.
Good news of the day (cooker mailing-list)
Dead LG’s drive are not so dead
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=106869574400002&r=1&w=2
LG has released updated firmware for mandrake as well as a method to rescucite the dead ones
http://us.lgservice.com/
Rubrique Device driver > cd-rom > mergency download for Physical Dead Drive from Mandrake Linux 9.2 Installation
This does not concern only mandrake users, since Gentoo and SuSE have the same problem.
Even windows user should update the firmware, since a virus with root priviledges can abuse the flaw in the ATAPI thing to destroy your hardware
You need DOS to update the firmware.
As an alternative, you can use the Free/Libre software freedos http://www.freedos.org
Take the floppy version, dezip it, and do
dd if=FDBOOT.IMG of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k
Then copy the two files from LG on the floppy, boot on the floppy, and read the README
Oh, last but not least, there is a .torrent
here http://www.mandrakelinux.com/download/MandrakeLinux-9.2-DOWNLOAD-3C…
(All my infos come from mandrakelinux.com and http://linuxfr.org/2003/11/14/14586.html )
yes they are, that’s why they release the iso late (they were supposed to be ready one week ago
No, you are wrong. Some of us have compare the md5sums with the earlier of the club.
The updates of the firmware are now here, that’s why they release the iso late.
Wait for the cd 0 of download the updates with urpmi.
“The isos are the same isos the member of the club have for weeks (ie with no updates)”
So they aren’t bothering to update it before releasing it to the public? Sheesh! Given all the problems with this particular release, that doesn’t seem to me to be a very smart way to win over new users! It seems to me that if they choose to withhold releasing isos to the public, and have over 200MB of patches and fixes, they should perhaps spin a new iso with the patches and fixes before releasing to the mass public.
The Internet is wonderful, but it also allows for urban legends to be formed at the speed of light. I must have heard this a thousands times and I want to put this to rest.
Get a CLUE! The 250MB of updates includes six 20MB kernels, and a 42MB kernel source. Let me do the math for you, that is 162MB of the 250MB total, out of which you will install at the most 62MB.
Most of the rest is a KDE and apache update, probably bugs that Mandrake has ZERO control over.
The toal # of MB is not a concern. A 62 MB update is rather large but perfectly acceptable. In fact, Suse 9.0 also needs to update Apache and KDE right out of the box.
Also consider how big is your average Windows service pack and that only covers the base OS? So let’s relax and enjoy the good thing we’ve got.
Perhaps you can wait 1 or 2 days that your new iso comes ?
Please stop with the “200 MO, man, the distro is really buggy”
Sure, it sounds impressive, but the truth is :
* The story with the LG drives is not their fault. The kernel was tested with some LG drives, and only more testers could have avoided that
===> 6 new versions of the kernel, it’s a bunch of mo
* A problem with kdebase which concern only asian people. 99% of the users are safe, but it represents too a bunch of MO
* For example, there was a security problem with SSL _after_ the freeze, and Mandrake have udpated the package. You don’t want them to make their work, like Microsoft who releases updates for IE every 6 months so you can think it’s not buggy ?
btw:
http://www.linuxtorrents.com
Sorry, leaving out the kernel-source is unacceptable. And if they’ve got KDE, Apache, and other important security fixes they should apply them to the distro and spin a new iso. It takes long enough as it is on dialup to download the 3 isos that one shouldn’t have to download another half-iso of stuff that should have been in there to begin with.
My point is simply this: if they have fixes and patches, why not just wire them into a new isos for download and not make people have to suffer through broken packages/missing kernel-source until they can download the patches themselves? If for no other reason, Mandrake should do it as a courtesy. It just seems to make good sense, that is all.
And the difference with SuSE is that sure the boxed version needs to be updated online right out of the box, but that’s because the boxes are made like 6 weeks ago, *before* the Apache/KDE security fixes. Same with the Mandrake boxed set. But we’re not talking about the boxed set here. We’re talking about downloadable isos. That’s a big difference. These isos sit on Mandrake’s server until they are farmed out to the mirrors. Mandrake could easily patch the isos before sending it out.
Understand the difference?
I wonder if they fixed this problem with these new ISOs
as well?
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/92errata.php3#pubkey
I don’t have a floppy disk drive with my linux box and
it makes the fix they suggested impossible. (On the other
hand, just why do we still need floppy disks for these
things? Nowadays a lot of computers don’t even come
with a floppy disk drive…)
I hope the retail packs will be available soon. I wanted to buy one a few weeks ago, but then the LG CDROM issue blew up… Does anybody know when they will be out?
eom.
So what’s the bottom line here? Am I better off waiting until “cd0” is available before downloading? Or is there going to be a 9.2.1 release soon that will superceed this release and update/patch/fix the problems discussed here in this forum? Or are these 9.2 ISO’s already fixed/updated?
Mandrake Linux 9.2 is available for free download, but the date of availability is several weeks after the release became available to Mandrake Club members. The timing correctly balances the need to increase user base–free (as in free food) software is especially attractive to many users–and the need to provide value to those who pay MandrakeSoft.
The FACTS are as follows:
1. No decent web-browser that works with all sites correctly.
True, the web-browsers in this and any other linux distro don’t work (as their creators intented) on some malicious web-sites (ref:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/…
)
2. No applications other than the same ole ones, like Open Orffice, Stoned Office ect…
I haven’t heard of Stoned Office before, do you have any links so that I can try it out. As for the other same old apps; they work fine.
3. X-Windows is a ram hog, it requires a lot of memory and large processor to work at any normal speed.
I think X-Windows works comfortably with at least 32 MB of RAM, but that also depends on your choice of Window Managers. Some require more, others less. As for the large processor; I don’t think physical dimensions of CPU have any effect on X-Windows’ performance.
4. No hardware support or drivers that come with devices.
I am sure you’ll agree that Mandrake 9.2, like any other software, runs on hardware. It will be some time until we crack that problem. As for the “drivers that come with devices”, most popular devices doesn’t require additional drivers (they are already in the kernel). For the new devices, you can try searching on the Internet.
5. No fucntionality of any sort, if you like (segmentation faults, no support, crummy apps, non-working devices, and just a bunch of problems).
I totally agree. No such functionality like segmentation faults, no support, crummy apps, etc. But I’m not sure why you’d want that functionality.
So to sum it up, nothing of any vaule for the end user.
Not sure about “vaule”. If you mean “value”, yes it possible to obtain these distros free of charge, however if you want to support your favorite distro, I’d recommend purchasing or donating some money. Then they will become more “valuable” for you or the end user.
Well, at least I like its simplified interface; this is the second Linux distro (RH Bleucurve was first) with a professional default interface and simplified menus. I have yet to explore it further; just finished installation. But, there’s one bug I have noticed with partitioning; when you select a manual partitioning, delete/select filesystem, if you click the last “Ok” button and move the mouse, system freezes a while and comes back into action with the mouse permanently not moving. This bug has been with Mandrake since version 8.1 (the first Mandrake I attempted).
Have just discovered; there’s no browsers menu in the Gnome “Networking” menu. The Xfce that comes with Mandrake 9.2 is way too old; it’s version 3.x. The plugins (java vm & flash) are missing.
I am a MDK linux (also Gnome and Kde) contributor (a translation team coordinator) and it’s been 3 days I’ve been using this latest release.
Here are my first impressions and disappointments:
1. Great apps do not ship: anjuta, rox-filer, nano, gdesklets, abiword, xmms (ships old version), rhythmbox,
poedit, gtranslator, gpg, gimp-devel, gnome-system-tools, xfce 4, no plugins and winmodem drivers.
This is the first time I have no choise in translation software except Kbabel and I don’t use KDE.
Being a dial-up user you can imagine that pain to get all of them. Some distros even include Gimp-devel version, but
not Mandrake.
2. Improved graphics (quite good), graphical boot and desktop polish. But again it does not catch up
Suse’s boot interface I sow nearly 2 years ago on Live CD
Also menus in Gnome and KDE are
still cluttered. I was amazed by the menu structure I saw yesterday on TurboLinux screenshot.
3. Ovarall improved speed and responsive ui but not hardware detection. MDK 9.2 couldn’t detect my Diva usb mp3 player
(I was using that one on 9.1) no matter what I do, found but could not configure Epson Perfection 1670 (I was not
expecting it to configure it because the scanner is pretty new and I checked the Sane site, it has support for
it in CVS), and of course I could not manage to use my Apache HCF 56K modem
Will try HCF drivers some time later.
4. Gnome 2.4 really rocks in speed, much faster than the previous one. But absence of unicode fonts prevented
Gnome and KDE to look good. I had to install Tahoma and Arial Unicode MS.
5. Discovered 2 bugs in keyboard definition file. (I had reported one of them, easy to fix but still bug)
6. While playing songs with Xmms bass just gives distortion. I played with settings but no way. MDK 9.1 did not
have this. Totem for example plays music good and clear without bass distortion.
7. I could not manage to install and run File Runner and Gdesklets. Here are the errors I got:
[matt@localhost matt]$ fr /file-runner
/usr/bin/fr: line 3: exec: wish: not found
[matt@localhost matt]$ gdesklets
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/bin/gdesklets”, line 4, in ?
from main import HOME
File “/usr/share/gdesklets/main/__init__.py”, line 39, in ?
import gnome.ui
ImportError: No module named gnome.ui
8. There are too many Gtk1 apps that have Gtk2 alternatives. (see image magic-gthumb-eog) and they
look really ugly.
9. Bug with displaying ugly and big fonts when using unicode locale with Gtk1 apps is still there
10. OpenOffice is RC4 and is DOG slow ! Really. Menus open for3 seconds on my 1.7 P4 and 512 Ram box.
I think I can find some if I play some more. But I think it’s enough to think that MDK just put this distro out without
any QA
Sorry for not giving KDE comments. KDE is the same and I don’t use it so much. Anyways XFCE 4 rpms for MDK 9.1
still work here and I am glad. I just wish Nvidia drivers get updated and I could play Quake 3…
So what should I do? Wait for next Fedora? ‘Novel?’ or what?
Metin Amiroff
I’ve also encountered some problems with this distribution:
1) If you try to install nvidia drivers for your graphics card, you will be promted with some kernel issues. I searched in some forums and saw a couple of ways to work it out, but I’m still stuck with it. I hope those who payed for it (mine is just the download edition) get some fix from Mandrake to make it easier to install them.
For me it’s essencial to have this driver installed, becaused it’s the only way to avoid having the display moved to the right (so there’s a part of the desktop that I don’t see…) It also happened to me in 9.1 until I installed the nvidia driver.
2) Audio wasn’t working. I had to specify an Audigy driver (though my sound card is just a Sound Blaster Live!) and play a lot with Kmix settings…
3) I can’t update anything. It simply says there are some dependencies that couldn’t be resolved because one of the packages couldn’t be installed…
4) I can’t find Epiphany on Gnome, just Galeon… and Totem gives me an error message each time a play something, although it just keeps on playing… until it crashes when I try to close it.
On the other hand, and considering that I got this thing for free and that my experience is very limited, I like it. The issues I mentioned made me return to windows until I find I way to solve them.
I specially like the new menus, the boot up screens and thousands of other details
“1) If you try to install nvidia drivers for your graphics card, you will be promted with some kernel issues. I searched in some forums and saw a couple of ways to work it out, but I’m still stuck with it. I hope those who payed for it (mine is just the download edition) get some fix from Mandrake to make it easier to install them.”
that’s because mandrake chose not to include the kernel-source for some insane reason. you need to download and install that before your nvidia drivers will compile.
this is exactly what some of the other posters have talked about. mandrake could have fixed this by patching the isos to include the kernel-source so people don’t come away with a bad impression of 9.2, but instead they chose not to do so. dumb move, I think. they should have fixed the isos before releasing them into the wild.
Well, regarding the Nvidia driver issue, I went to the Linux forum that Nvidia has (or at least there is a link in their page) and I saw a message with the same problem. They told him to update the kernel to kernel-source-2.4.22-10mdk.i586.rpm, which is what I’m doing right now, and seeing that you say the same here, I’ll probably be able to fix it.
I really, really like this Gnome 2.4 desktop. Until now I had always used KDE, but now that I’ve played a bit with Gnome settings I’m starting to enjoy the simple interface of this DE.
And, a as side note, the translation to Spanish of the whole distribution is very accurate (hey, I come from windows so I’ve got the right to be surprised by this kind of things
I just got it installed on my Dell Latitude D800. Out of Fedora, Knoppix and Suse, it was the first to come close to setting everything up correctly (namely the 1900X1260 display).
It looks nice to me, so far.
Yes !!
Someone on #mandrake, and someone else here http://linuxfr.org/comments/300166.html were able to give a second life to their LG cdrom drive, althoug it’s a bit complicated.
the thing is to
* plug the cdrom on the second IDE (and don’t plug the electricity),
* put the jumper of the cd, like it’s writtent on Dead.gif
* boot on DOS,
* when you have booted, press the eject button of the CD, and while you keep it pressed, plug the electricity for CD (yeah, it’s hotplug). you will see the LED of the cd
* wait some seconds
* launch xferlg (name of the firmware)
* shutdown the pc
* put the jumper of the cd in its original state (master or slave)
* should work
If not, post feedback, both here and to LG.
If yes, post feedback here if you want.
Links :
http://us.lgservice.com/ you need Dead.gif, and the flasher corresponding to your CD ( zip file with xferlg.exe and the firmware
, that you have to copy on the DOS floppy you get here )
http://utils.skull-tech.com/bootdisks/boot600.exe
it’s not bad. Having to Google for the kernel source was a pain. I tried urpmi, but I got a “bad signature” error and it wouldn’t install. Anyways, got the kernel source and the nvidia driver was like butter. Losing the Kmenu sucked and having to run update-menus -v was a pi$$er. But, after getting everything setup, it’s alright. A lot of needless hassles just for some upgraded packages (KOffice is pretty sweet, and it saves to the OOo format). If you have ‘drake9.1 set up the way you like, 9.2 isn’t worth the hassles. Too bad really, from 8.2 -> 9.0 -> 9.1 Mandrake just got better and better. 9.2 seems like a step backwards.
Just my opinion.
snowdog
I used to be a dedicated mandrake fan, until I tried SuSe 9.0.
Just a few things :-
1. The installer is incredible – Yast2 is the most powerful and configurable I’ve yet seen and ALL my hardware is detected and configured correctly, including network cards (which mandrake has often messed up for me in the past)
Mandrakes installer is klunky and ugly by comparison.
2. The software selection is really detailed for the pro version – altho I’m sure the Mandrake box set is also very full features
3. X runs faster – there’s no dought in my mind about this, KDE and Gnome are both far zippier than Mandrake (or RedHat for that matter)
4. Polished desktop appearance. While Mandrake is starting to ‘get there’ in terms of Desktop Appearance, SuSe is streets ahead. I’ve not seen such a polished default desktop since BlueCurve.
5. After install configuration – an absolute breeze with Yast. I had SuSe up and running on my windows network in seconds.
Yes, there are some drawbacks – getting the Nvidia 3D drivers installed is buggy until you find a fix – took me a good while to find a forum that had help which worked, but then, installing Nvidia drivers has always been dodgy for many distros, however, there is an option to ‘update’ to the Nvidia drivers after install – I haven’t tried this, but perhaps it functions without the problems of a manual install.
Overall, I would recommend SuSe 9.0 above Mandrake 9.2 for a Linux box set purchase.
> Anyways, got the kernel source and the nvidia driver was like butter
Dude, could you give us some info on where to get that rpm and what to do after? I really have no internet connection to investigate
Thanks !
Ignore my last post. Here it is:
http://rpms.mandrakeclub.com/rpms/mandrake/9.2/i586/Mandrake/RPMS/k…
–Metin
Yay! I got my Apache HCF modem run after installing two rpms from MDK club and configuring it manually from command line.
Kudos !
–Metin
Sorry, I may have given a false information.
There was a lot of talk about a CD n°0 in the cooker mailing-lists, but it seems that there is now no need to release another CD.
The real fix is not to produce new isos, but to correct the firmware.
The other problems can be solved by the usual infrastructure (ie: run MandrakeUpdate after the installation )
If you want to share mandrake with people with a slow internet connection like me, you can alwas download all the tree of the updates.
Something like this :
$ wget -r ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/Mandrake/updates/9….
Burn it, you have your cd with updates.
After the install, just add your new CD as a source for updated packages. I don’t use Mandrake in this moment, but it can be done within Mandrake Control Center, and should be something like this on the command line.
$ urpmi.addmedia –update 92updates removable:///mnt/cdrom/RPMS
Hope this helps.
i just got it up & running in an extra disk partition, so far it is running good here, one thing i thought was cool, i looked in /mnt to see my Windoze FAT32 disk partitions and they were all labeled the same as how i labeled them in Redhat, so the Mandrake installer must have read Redhat’s /etc/fstab file to do that.
Mandrake-9.2 gets a thumbs up from me :^)
>I looked in /mnt …
The same here. It detected the mount points I had on my previous MDK installation even though I did a clean install. Good!
i’ve been using dos and then windows from the early 90’s and started to use linux on 1998. While i have to admit that linux has made great progress on the client side, it’s still got a lot to go before even thinking of being a real trat for windows, and the new mandrake, with tese bugs, is no exception.
This could never happen installing windows xp, and after 12 years linux still doesnt have a rational way to install/uninstall programs and drivers with a click of the mouse (and for all the raging “linux “purists” out there: we are in 2003, not in the friging 80’s…).
And please let’s stop this old story about “windows insecurity”: it all depends on the user: you just have to set up a good firewall, an antivirus and little else and you are done. I’ve never had any intrusion problems since i started using windows on the net in 1994.
Sure, the dumb user could have problems but the pc is not and will never be a domestic appliance. It will required always a bit of brain. Sorry about that but it’s the reality.
So, up to now I think we have to admit that windows is still light years ahead on the desktop.
Regards