Here’s a review of MDK 10.0 Official Powerpack with screenshots.
Mandrake 10.0 Powerpack 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
Here’s a review of MDK 10.0 Official Powerpack with screenshots.
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The contant comparisons to Windows in the review miss the many features that Mandrake Linux offers that Windows doesn’t.
Can Microsoft office use an ssh connection to edit a document in a remote server? Well, Koffice can.
Can Internet Explorer make a nice image gallery out of all youur pictures with just one click?
Well Konqueror can. I could go on and on. The reviewer showed that for all his years of Linux use, he still has a huge cognitive dependence on the way that things are done in Windows, so much so that he is missing many of the incredible features that Mandrake Linux offers him.
Mandrake’s 10 best features are speed and stability.
I recommend all newcomers to Linux to make the effort to stay within Linux for a month so that they may go cold turkey and overcome the initial inertia to expect everything to work as in Windows. Having said that, I believe Mandrake 10 sets a new milestone for ease of use and stability.
I think “constant comparisons” is a bit harsh. I made links to Windows when a particular feature in Mandrake _didn’t_ work (eg: dual head setup, install/remove programs) and suggested that the Windows way of doing it was probably better.
I never said, “well you can do this in linux, but I prefer the Windows way.” Mandrake is my primary desktop at home, so why would I?
Good to see that Mandrake 10.0 iso’s are now available, as I do want to try it out before I buy it. It is amazing to see the difference from MDK 7.0 and 8.1 to today.
I just wish the page would load…
Getting about 240 B/s load, and mostly stalled out..
Must be because I’m using the windows box tonite. LOL
Oh great, seems its getting public Dos’ed. Anybody care to provide a mirror of the article?
For mirrors see Distrowatch.com
Feels like I’m wasting my 10 MB/s connection if I can only download at 2.5 MB/s because of slooooow mirrors.
Premature submit.
I meant to also ask if there is an “GetRight” equivalent for KDE.
>I meant to also ask if there is an “GetRight” equivalent
> for KDE.
DownloaderX
>Feels like I’m wasting my 10 MB/s connection if I can
>only download at 2.5 MB/s because of slooooow mirrors.
Are you still on 10mbit??
Feels like wasting my 100 gigabit backbones if clients can only connect to 10 mbit.
Be glad somebody is providing you bandwidth and downloads without asking for money. fool
There’s KGet for downloading.
Feels like I’m wasting my 10 MB/s connection if I can only download at 2.5 MB/s because of slooooow mirrors. By Anonymous (IP: —.client.comcast.net)
So… in what world are you living in exactly? 10 Megabytes per second would be taxing a 100MBit switch almost full (about 2MB/s less then maximum theorhetical). Furthermore, I wasn’t aware Comcast offered speed past 5 Megabits, and thats for $200/mo to business customers… which is still about 9 1/2 Megabytes too slow.
seems too many people are trying to see it
The review felt more like a review of mandrake 10 than a review of mandrake 10 Powerpack. For being a review of mandrake 10 powerpack it spent very little time focusing on the powerpack aspect. Basically why shoul I part with my hard earned cash instead of simply downloading (other than “supporting the comunity”)?
I’d like that information as well…
what does the “Powerpack” offer besides a corporate buzz-word?
I mean that’s a lot of cash to part with.
“JuK” isn’t a good name? It doesn’t mean anything? How about a “JuKbox”. I find JuK a great name. And it’s under the multimedia section on the menu, so you know it’s about multimedia.
On the windows world this has to be a little different because the Windows menu sucks and it doesn’t have categories, so you may never know what it’s about.
I think having different applications for managing add/remove/configure software is good. Have you ever used Synaptic? It sucks, because it’s got everything on a single application, it’s just too much buttons.
On the windows world this has to be a little different, because on windows you don’t have the “packages’ repository” concept.
You can’t compare apples with oranges.
Victor.
This is in reference to JuK not being a good name. I agree it isn’t a good name. Maybe if it WAS JuKbox or even JUKE, most people don’t and usually won’t associate it. I have installed 3 copies, legally, on my family’s computers for their main use and so far only I recognized from the start what it was.
What about Outlook? Does it sound like an email client? Don’t see people complain about its name.
Victor.
I don’t have a problem with the name JuK. I mean really, I could care less what you call your application/technology.
My point was that if you’re going to be introducing something to an audience you should introduce it by explaing what the hell it is. Just because it’s under the Multimedia menu doesn’t mean I know what it is.
I’d feel the same way about Totem if it just had “Totem” on the menu, but it has “Totem Movie Player”. If they do it for Totem, why don’t they have “JuK Music Database” or something? (a) it’s inconsistent, (b) it’s hard to tell what things are.
Oh well. You don’t see “Outlook Express Email Client” on Windows, and i don’t see ppl complain about it either.
Actually, on the Windows world, that kind of naming is very uncommon (usually you just see the application’s name: “MS PowerPoint”, “MS Access”, and so it goes).
Now, i agree with you that “Totem Movie Player” is better than “Totem”. But i’d just like to point out that Windows isn’t that great on these stuff too, although Mandrake is compared with Windows on many parts of the article.
Victor.
I’m not seeing where the mirrors are on distrowatch. Presumably, you go to the MandrakeLinux site and down to reviews, but none of those are mirrored. Is there another place to be searching
I’m comparing with Windows because that’s the most common alternative. It’s funny that people complain when you compare linux to Windows, but never when you compare linux to OS X.
And I *do* see people complain about cryptic application names in Windows, which is why you’ll notice the Win XP start menu now has extra information. It says “Email” in bold letters, and then “Microsoft Outlook” in grey underneath. Microsoft is still refining to make their interface more user friendly. My point is that the linux interface can be more user friendly, and this is a great way to do it.
Windows multi-screen has serious flaws as well. I have these problems :
– On a portable with both LCD screen and a plug for an external monitor, some apps remember the window positions from previous sessions and try to open their windows in the disabled external screen. No way to grab the windows.
– I have a PC with both a fixed frequency 20″ SUN monitor and a 15″ PC compatible monitor. The 15″ is needed for booting. Even after moving the deskbar to the big screen, all apps first appear in the small monitor which is the primary.
X windows desktops doesn’t have these bugs.
IMHO this was quite a fair review. This verifies that Mandrake still has too many quirks/issues in its default installation form.
Where I disagree is that most of the mentioned issues could be corrected and are due to (1) poor QA or testing, (2) poor engineering, and (3) a lack of understanding of what’s needed for a desktop system.
For example, how could they miss that konqueror needs the full path of the Java executable for Java to work? I mean, yeah this is trivial for a geek, but it clearly demonstrates the lack of attention in testing. Furthermore, if Mandrake provides a tool for font installation, it should just work (poor engineering). From my experience, many of the tools provided by the Mandrake Control Center were either too simple and incapable of doing what I want or just plainly broken (poor engineering). As for usb digital cameras, the system should detect the camera when it’s plugged in, and if the driver does not exist for that camera a nice dialog should be displayed telling the user this. If the camera is supported, a dialog should appear informing the user that the drive is mounted and an icon should be placed somewhere on the desktop or under “My Computer” or something like that. This should really go for any pluggable device. The user should receive feedback, even if the device is not supported. Also, I agree with the other about the program names in the menu. Juk should be “Juk Music Player and Organizer”. All of the above can be done with the current technology for Linux.
I liked the review. I liked the troubleshooting approach the writer took in criticizing Mandrake.
I am in agreement on the naming conventions. Who the hell would know what half of the apps are with non-descriptive names like that? Applications for Windows XP may not always follow suit, either, but if you hover your mouse over the windows default shortcuts in the start menu for a sec, ALL of the default shortcuts will display an alt-text giving a nice little description of what the app does. The only place I have found Mandrake 10 to do this is in the few links in the taskbar. Would be nice for noobs.
Overall, I think Mandrake did a pretty okay job with 10 though.
Could you try that “keep password” (apparently broken) feature on Gnome? I have the impression that once when i tried it on Gnome, it appeared a “key” applet on the gnome tray, that would remember the password while the applet was there (it would last some minutes).
Victor.
for cameras that function as mass storage devices, Mandrake does exactly that (using hotplug). When I plug my Sony camera in, I get an icon on the desktop and it’s mounted under /mnt/camera, no mess no fuss. The reviewer’s camera is a Canon which doesn’t use mass-storage mode, and so needs a dedicated app like digikam.
yes, I meant to mention that. I think the reviewer expected the feature to work permanently; that’s not what it does, it simply remembers the password for a few minutes (under both DEs). Additionally, ISTR once reading it doesn’t work under KDE unless some KDE component is installed that may well not be, but this is only a vague memory. I’m a GNOME user.
The font installation tools works perfectly. Learn to use it.It’s the only way to have all your fonts available in all environments.
Another great tool is Mandrakelocale which allows you to change the language of all apps (GNOME, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla) with one click. No other distribution provides this.
Mandrake 10 rocks. Most of the problems encountered by the reviewer are not real problems, unless he implies his inability to get the function to work as a problem. With the exception of the dual monitor setup, I can confirm that everything else works.
Mandrake makes playing DVDs damn easy . Add plf, then urpmi libdvdcss, stick a DVD in the drive and it plays. Stick a CD in the drive and it plays.
I suggest people give it a go and make up their own mind about it.
yes, I meant to mention that. I think the reviewer expected the feature to work permanently; that’s not what it does, it simply remembers the password for a few minutes (under both DEs). Additionally, ISTR once reading it doesn’t work under KDE unless some KDE component is installed that may well not be, but this is only a vague memory. I’m a GNOME user.
Does anybody knows what component is needed to install to make it work on KDE?
Victor.
The quotation in the sample Open Office document screenshot tends to diminish the professionalism of what is otherwise a reasonably well prepared article.
Where can I go to read this article? I have been trying for 3 days to read this, but the site is down. Is there a mirror somewhere?
I downloaded MDK 10 official from Mandrakesoft and upgraded by 10.0 community edition insllation. After the upgrade I ran the update from MCC and 494 files were updated. Now when I do cat /etc/mandrake-release it shows Mandrake 10.1 (cooker). And it is very stable as well.
Did this happen to anyone else?
anonymous: you probably still have the urpmi sources set up when you installed CE, which may well now point at cooker. mandrake-release gets changed from “STABLERELEASEVERSION (Codename)” to “NEXTPLANNEDRELEASEVERSION (Cooker)” very early after Cooker is unfrozen following a release; that doesn’t mean Cooker actually *is* the next version (10.1 in this case), rather that what you have is Cooker working *towards* 10.1. It becomes the next version when mandrake-release is changed again to read “NEXTPLANNEDRELEASEVERSION (Codename)”.
To check if you’ve actually ended up with Cooker, look at the version of your KDE or GNOME packages, assuming you have them installed. If you have KDE 3.2.1 and/or GNOME 2.6, you have Cooker, not 10 CE or 10 OE.
I have Gnome 2.6 and KDE 3.2.2 on my system. That means I am running something that is not 10.0 Official, although I downloaded it from one of the 10.0 mirrors. In fact, when I burned my CDs and started the install, the install program asked if I wanted to install or upgrade to 10.1 (Cooker). I was puzzled by that, but went ahead with the install. After install I pointed to the update server using MCC, so it was not from my CE installation.
I think Mandrakesoft has their mirror pointing to the wrong version. This is the mirror I downloaded from
ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/…
that’s….really weird. can you look at your urpmi configuration and see what mirrors you have, please? check their actual paths. 400+ packages sounds like too many to be a “normal” update to 10.0 Official, so I still think you ended up with the wrong mirrors somehow…