Mandrake Linux Development Process Changes 232
joestar writes "Just found at MandrakeLinux.com: 'MandrakeSoft today announced a major evolution in the way that future Mandrake Linux distributions will be engineered and released. The purpose of this new development process is to provide the highest level of new features, as well as maximizing the quality of new products.' In short: for each release, there will be a 'Community' release, equivalent to a common Mandrake release, with all latest features. Several months later an 'Official' release - based on the 'Community' - will be available. Both of them will be released publicly and supported. The new process will start with the upcoming Mandrake 10.0."
Wow.... (Score:3, Funny)
Joe
so how much (Score:3)
how big is the 'community' compared to the buyers of the 'official' release?
Re:so how much (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:so how much (Score:5, Insightful)
Note: (Score:3, Interesting)
I asked what they get.
It doesn't have to be cash. I feel this is an important point, because the drive that makes Linux great, may not be the same as today contributors get older, and the young tech see linux as something thats been 'done'.
Re:Note: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Note: (Score:2)
Actually, Mandrake is one the only (or maybe the only?) open source company that offers benefits to their developers and testers outside of a free product. About a year and a half ago when the company was in severe financial trouble and needed to raise cash, they started a special program where developers and testers could buy stock in the company at a discounted rate.
If you ever get involved with the cooker community and interface with the developers and corporate types at Mandrake, you'll understand t
Re:so how much (Score:2)
Everything they produce (including the 'Official' release), downloadable and useable for free.
Re:so how much (Score:2)
Isn't this what RedHat is doing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Isn't this what RedHat is doing? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not the same at all (Score:5, Informative)
2) Fedora is in fact the same as the Mandrake Cooker project, which started... 5 years ago.
So I'm afraid that *Mandrake* is innovating with this new scheme. Red Hat is just leaving its users alone...
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, leaving them alone. By hosting servers, paying employees to work on Fedora, and spending lots of other money on the project.
I feel so alone. Hold me.
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
> paying employees to work on Fedora, and spending
> lots of other money on the project.
Nice joke
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2, Funny)
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
No. Fedora is like Mandrake releases, though I think it also has a cooker-style release.
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
"An Introduction to the Fedora Project
The Fedora Project is a Red Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source project."
"For more information, refer to the Fedora Project website:
http://fedora.redhat.com/"
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:3, Informative)
1. Release beta 1 through 4
2. Release release candidates 1 through 4
3. Final release.
The process is usually around 6 months or so. There is a cooker freeze that takes place at some point during the process where all new packages get locked into a specific version number. This cuts down on problems later in the beta testing phases.
By summer Mandr
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
When the distro is ready, mdk10 will allow ISO downloads to club members FIRST, while everything is available via ftp mirrors. Next comes the shipping boxed sets, finally a box set on store shelves and freely downloadable ISOs. The boxed set/iso downloading scheme is new and while some people have complained, it's really in Mandrake's best interests to do it this way.
I'm not sure I completely understand what you said, but your summary of how they used to do it is correct.
If you recall, and I waited breat
Bzzzz Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope sorry Fedora is NOT the same as Cooker. Ever heard of Rawhide? Who is copying who again?
Second off Fedora releases go through a LOT of public testing unlike Rawhide and Mandrake Cooker. Fedora IS designed to be a stable release. Cooker, "Cooker is an experimental distribution, it's not for daily use!". Contrast that with "The goal of the Fedora Project is to work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software.". Pretty dam big difference.
The ONLY difference between Fedora and Mandrake's new "community" product is the respective QA of each company and how long the releases are supported.
Good Troll, but *Red Hat* is the one innovating here.
Re:Bzzzz Wrong (Score:2)
Re:Bzzzz Wrong (Score:2)
I don't know if mandrakes' is any better, and I don't know if their business model is going to prove any better in the long term either. But I can say I do not like Core-1 and can not aff
Red Hat is the one innovating? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll be sure to tell the Debian project that the way they've been doing things for the past 10 years [debian.org] is now an "innovation" from Red Hat.
Jay (=
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2)
Assuming my assumption that Cooker is an ever-changing set of newly created packages which have not been tested/approved/released is correct, than Cooker is the same as Red Hat's Rawhide, which has been around for quite a few years itself, the exact number of which I don't know. Neither Cooker nor Rawhide should in any way be considered actual releasable distributions.
Fedora is not remotely like either of these. It
Re:It's not the same at all (Score:2, Interesting)
Cooker was from the begining available in real time on Internet (mirrored every hour) with a transparent development scheme (CVS, mailing list, changelog altert) while Rawhide was only available from time to time and with no transparency.
Additionnaly Cooker is useable. There is many people who are using it on their Desktop. This make the strenght of the system.
Re:Isn't this what RedHat is doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this what RedHat is doing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Right... It looks more like an admission by Mandrake that they are unable to address the QA problems that have plagued their distro for years. Rather than putting even more effort into testing, they're just going to wait for all the major bugs to hit the folks that download before pressing CDs.
It's a good strategy on Mandrake's part since it's cheaper than hiring add
Interesting... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
For a business, a smoother cash flow has got to be good. The Mandrake Club might also help with this.
Overall, I think it's a great idea.
Is this going to help? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, they are breaking the final release into "Community" and "Official" branches. Won't the "Community" release eventually become synonomous with "beta." In the end, fewer people will run this community release, and fewer bugs will be found in it. If this happens, problems will undoubtedly creep into the "Official" release and only be found then because more people are running it.
Anyway, it seems to me they are just trying to rename the word "beta," which is not a solution to the problem they are trying to fix.
Read the PR... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Read the PR... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:5, Insightful)
Stable == Official
Unstable == Community
Testing == Cooker
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2)
If I mixed up Unstable and Testing, please do not flame me, just post a single correction.
Thank you.
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2)
I was just about to flame you, silly git.
Yes, you did mix them up.
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2)
Anyway, they will have a couple of months of extra freeze time to iron out the bugs. It would kinda defeat the whole purpose of it, if they would make major upgrades to the packages in the time between the community and official releases, now wouldn't it?
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the main things I like about Mandrake is the up-to-dateness of everything in a standard release. I disagree about it being a renamed beta. After all, a beta can (and does) have changing versions the included software prior to release. Also, with betas, you're using software that is subject to serious change without much suport going from point A to point B. From what it looks like, this will be more like the FreeBSD -release branch, where only bugfixes and security updates are made to the previous release. And, there is a continual update path - just apply the update packages and you're there. No need to run the installer to install/upgrade each time as with a new beta.
I think this move helps reconcile the differences between catering to people like me, who use Mandrake at home and don't mind a few rough edges here and there (which I didn't even notice this time around) in order to get the latest and greatest with serious computing environments (i.e., servers) that need stable, tested software in order to effectively serve their purposes.
I think no matter what amount of pre-release testing they put into a release, it won't become seriously stable until it has been in the wild serving real-world needs. This just acknowledges that reality and solidifies it into a process.
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2)
Re:Is this going to help? (Score:2)
heck, look at debians 'unstable', thousands of possible users won't touch it because they think their computers would explode with it or that it wouldn't stay up for more than 15 minutes at a time. yet it is pretty stable and pumps out pretty new software that runs quite reliably(very reliably).
OT,but someone has to make the [NO CARRIER] joke (Score:3, Funny)
Idea (Score:3, Funny)
Great move! (Score:5, Informative)
I think it's a very smart understanding of a community project, and I think Mandrake can be thanked for its continued sense of innovation since 1998...
After the recent and excellent financial from MandrakeSoft, this is all good news!
Re:Great move! (Score:3, Informative)
Mandrake: Hey community, here is the community version, try it it out, it's pretty stable, we've beta tested it and everything.
Community: Hey, there are bugs X,Y and Z here
Mandrake: Oh, our bad, well we fixed all those bugs and updated the security patches, you subscribers can go ahead and download the new version while we are getting the cds stamped and the manuals printed.
*Boxed se
What this really is (Score:5, Insightful)
I honestly don't think it sounds like that bad an idea. Most home users don't need the testing and would like the features. With easy updating most home users can afford to use a less tested package. And for those who do not like the idea, they can wait for the official release. It gives them a situation akin to Debian's unstable/stable development where the stable branch is solid but aged, and the unstable branch is usable but current.
Re:What this really is (Score:2, Interesting)
And since, unlike debian, stable releases will be regular (probably two per year), stable will actually be sort of current!
I agree.. (Score:5, Insightful)
For those posters complaining about the new 'Official' release being out of date, bleeding edge will *still* be in the community version, nothings changed. I'd guess the 'official' version will focus more on thier new Corporate desktop push and configuration/usability technologies. Makes perfect sense to me and maybe we can see some more serious usability enhancements (DrakConf is great, but not much has changed lately) now that some of their costs will be more focused (if the community comes together, which seems pretty active already in the club).
Re:What this really is (Score:2)
Here's how it's going to match up:
Cooker's going to stay Cooker, and it's equivalent is Debian Unstable if you're looking at the Debian model.
Official is going to become Community. It's about at Debian Testing
Translation for the short-attention-span-equipped (Score:4, Funny)
Translation from Long Marketingspeak: We'll take Cooker and freeze it, and then a couple months later, after we've fixed everything, it will be released. By which time it will be completely outdated, of course...and you won't be able to install (insert KDE or GNOME package here) because it needs version 3.4.2.5.34, not 3.4.2.5.33...you'll have to wait for the NEXT release(which will be unusable of course until -it- is sorted) to get .34....
Boy, they're right, that does sound nicer :-)
That's a nice chance ! (Score:2)
I always want to convince my self to buy a Mandrake pack, but I can have it free
Now, I will have a reason
Anyway, I hope, they will find a way to upgrade application for end user more easy that the current shame. I never able to upgrade the mozilla 1.4 of the 9.2 to the new Mozilla 1.6 with scapping a reverence to XZY !
If you can't beat them, join them? (Score:5, Interesting)
Certainly Debian's release schedule could be improved, but Debian is hard to beat in "stuff just working" when it is released.
Re:If you can't beat them, join them? (Score:2, Informative)
The difference between the Debian release cycle and the Mandrake release cycle is that Mandrake is much faster to include new features/easy to install. This idea behind this new process is to add an additional cycle with a stable branch. So increase the stability while keeping the cutting edge.
Re:If you can't beat them, join them? (Score:2)
My first thought was that they were going Redhat's biz model, not Debian's. I immediately thought "OK... how long before they start charging more for the polished version?". Paranoid? Perhaps, but I have Redhat to thank for getting me to think it.
But debian-unstable scares me on bugreps (Score:2)
The last recent one -java code (in Ant) that was doing a touch wasnt working. The cause? the c library code to set the filetime was broken. Fundamental things like that going wrong worry me.
Still, it is easier to replicate a debian-unstable build than a redhat enterprise system -if someone files a bugrep on the latter, I cannot just bring it up in a VMware window for a closer look.
Re:If you can't beat them, join them? (Score:2)
I think the problem with this scenario is that Debian's developers do what they want to, and can't just be "utilized" by a company. From what I saw in my years as a Debian user, Debian is more developer-oriented than user-oriented. For instance, NM
It's for the money.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The main change here... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The main change here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Old New
Alpha Beta
Beta Community
Stable Official
what they are doing is adding a cycle after the release "goes gold", which to me is an excelent idea.
They basiually did the same thing for Mandrake Club members where they took 9.2 and all the errata and did a 9.2.1 ISO release.
This truely provides the best of both worlds. If you want the latest kung fu, and can deal with a few bumps and bruises, go for it, but if you're waiting for enlightenement (not the window manager), wait for the Official, which might be a bit behind, but will have the last of the bugs hammered out of it.
Re:The main change here... (Score:2)
Different than Fedora (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think it's not a bad model for getting higher quality on a shoestring. I don't think Mandrake is out of the deep water yet, so I definately commend their ability to find innovative solutions to providing higher quality in their products.
Fedora seems to be a sort of less public version of this policy. Fedora (Community) users add features and test the Beta quality software. The cream is incorporated into RH products and put through traditional QA testing, which is probably a much larger operation than what Mandrake can muster.
Just my 0.0160900 EUR on the announcement.
Re:Different than Fedora (Score:3, Insightful)
So we have to wait another 2 years before Mandrake 10.0 comes out?
Surprise (Score:3, Funny)
I'm glad this was clarified. One might have thought the opposite.
But.. (Score:2)
I mean really, who *doesn't* want to spend a week identifying and ironing out all the bugs, and downloading several hundred megabytes of patches as soon as you install Mandrake Linux?
Surely thats part of the 'Mandrake user experience' that makes it such a wonderful product.
Great move for Mandrake (Score:3, Interesting)
Hopefully this will finally make Mandrake suitable for corporate use (since Redhat Enterprise did the same thing against regular Redhat and now Fedora and Debian does a similar but MUCH slower version).
I hope that source based distros start to find a similar solution ie. Gentoo and Gentoo"Stable" (well mirrored and tested) so that they can reach a more mission critical set of users. I use ROCK Linux and they have been trying and failing to bridge this gap. It is important especially if distro makers want big contracts.
Smart move by Mandrake (Score:4, Insightful)
Dare I say, but it sounds very like the Debian way of doing things (unstable - testing - stable).
But there's a double-edged sword with doing things this way , in that you'll never have the bleeding edge stuff in a "Community" Mandrake release.
But then, if you want that
imho,the Community thing is more aimed at the general casual Linux user - a bit experienced
As an example on why they had to introduce this (possibly), the much advertised MandrakeMove Live CD doesnt even recognise some PCMCIA wireless cards in laptops. A bad oversight.
A MandrakeMove community edition would have helped in identifying this glaring omission.
Overall, it's a big big thumbs up from myself - well done Mandrake for introducing the Community Edition idea.
Pay for Linux... (Score:5, Interesting)
What gets you stoked about Linux? The price tag? Quality? Security? or the fact that it isn't M$.
I'd be willing to pay for a distro like SuSE (or whatever) if I knew that the quality was uber-superb. But even my latest go-round with RedHat 9 has left me fairly unimpressed... Maybe I just love OS X too much?
Re:Pay for Linux... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pay for Linux... (Score:3, Funny)
What gets you stoked about Linux? The price tag? Quality? Security? or the fact that it isn't M$.
I'd like to answer that question: Yes.
I paid this time around. (Score:2)
The way I see it, they deserve some support for services well rendered. I downloaded 8.2 and am still using it. (Very good release overall.)
9.2 was a bit of a wash for me. Lots of new stuff, but some rather annoying bugs. The 9.2.1 iso looks to be well worth the club membership. (When I get to downloading it that is..)
B
Change that name: MandrakeClub (Score:3, Funny)
No way I'm going to enter bills for Mandrake Club Services from a French company into my books.
I do not want to explain to the accountant and the taxman that Mandrake Club is not a parisian brothel.
For gods sake, choose a professional, if boring, name.
Big picture: (Score:2, Informative)
Gentoo (Score:2, Informative)
If you guys would just shutup and install Gentoo [gentoo.org] you wouldn't be having these stupid distro discussions.
Gentoo is simple, one install per machine for life.
Put this in your daily cron to keep the whole system up to date:
emerge sync
emerge -pvu world
Then every morning you can see what new stuff you may want to update that day.
Look for new software with:
emerge -s whatever
Remove software with:
emerge -pvC whatever
Unless you have and run exactly what chipset and compiler flags your "distro" based binarys ar
Re:Gentoo (Score:3, Informative)
On Mandrake also, except it doesn't take a week to get a functional system.
Put this in your daily cron to keep the whole system up to date:
emerge sync
urpmi.update
emerge -pvu world
urpmi --auto-select --auto
Then every morning you can see what new stuff you may want to update that day.
On Mandrake it's already updated for you, you don't have to wait the rest of the day for it to compile
Look for new software with:
emerge -s whatever
u
Re:Gentoo (Score:3, Insightful)
Debian does. Has for a long time. It has a lot of company sponsored servers for just about everything, as well as mirrors. Plus there are university sponsored ones, and a few private machines out there as well for development tasks.
Wow, that makes me trust your opinion. The compile time really is an issue with gentoo. If
The litmus test for any 'Desktop' solution: (Score:2, Insightful)
One of the major problems with any Linux distro is the designers (nerds) make it for themselves. XP isn't dominant because of a monopoly, it's dominant because it's so damn easy for even the most inept of users. People could care less about security holes, instability, support-a-coroporate-monolith, if it means they can actually get their computer to do what they want it to.
You can be a Linux eli
Hrm... (Score:2)
Of course, the only difference seems to be that Mandrake's "official" releases are still targeted at the consumer with download editions, while the "official" fedora releases are meant for corporate consumption.
First with partitioning utility? (Score:2)
In fact, I still use fdisk in conjunction with Anaconda's GUI to GNU parted; when one is fussy about the positioning and naming of partitions on disk, one have to.
To their credit, Mandrake has one of the more powerful GUI partitioning utility around. Apart from that one release (9.0 IIRC?) where you could not enter the partition size manually and have to use sliders!
drat (Score:2)
Maybe they're saving that for a later release? Doubt it, personally. You'd think they'd make the change, though - package management is much easier with debian than with an RPM system.
Are you another clueless Debian user ... (Score:3, Informative)
package management is much easier with debian than with an RPM system.
So I'm guessing you use dpkg to install all packages on your Debian box? What, you don't???
Just as I don't use rpm to install all RPM packages on my box, I use urpmi for 99.9% of them, I only use rpm when I want to revert a package to test scripts in an upgrade scenario for the packages I maintain.
Re:Are you another clueless Debian user ... (Score:3, Informative)
And what precisely is different about deb's that prevent this? How does a deb package on it's own avoid problems RPMs have??
It doesn't.
There are a few things you can't do with RPMS that you can do with deb's (like suggested packages), and there are a few things you can't do with DEBs that you can with RPMS (AFAIK you can't
Re:Wait a minute? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait a minute? (Score:2, Funny)
To begin: it was the sharp new management that came in and began a buying binge that put Mandrake into a dangerous financial position. This group too was pulling Mandrake from their Linux roots. Only after returning to the original lead and those roots did its financial status and product quality improve. Moreover, Mandrake moved from loses into a profit this past quarter.
Since you are using the SCO mo
Fedora = Cooker... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fedora = Cooker... (Score:2)
Re:Fedora = Cooker... (Score:2)
Cooker has generally been about as bleeding edge as Gentoo...
Re:Reminds me of something (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, comparing the Mandrake download version with what you get with RHAS is a disingenuous comparison at best. They simply aren't in the same league.
Re:Reminds me of something (Score:2)
But I was comparing the development model, not the quality of the distributions. RedHat releases a 'community' version to people who want something relatively recent. Lets the community fix the bugs and then releases a 'stable' version. Mandrake now does _exactly_ the same.
Re:New version strings: (Score:2, Interesting)
No, it just means that you're incapable of looking at it from the perspective of anyone who uses Mandrake.
Re:Mandrake missed the boat already.. (Score:2)
Re:Mandrake missed the boat already.. (Score:2)
I guess some of this is driver related, but things like that make a big difference. Your point about newbie-ness still holds though; I felt the installer was overhard and took me four reinstalls
Re:Mandrake missed the boat already.. (Score:2)
Re:Version 10.0 (Score:2)
or perhaps 8? 16?
dear god, somebody tell me the base!!!
You want to tlka about version inflation? how about windows 2000? now THATS version inflating.
THANKS YOU, I'LL BE HEAR ALL WEEK! don't for get to give some karma to the wait staff!
Re:Version 10.0 (Score:2)
The transition from 9.2 to 10 is a major one. Included will be kde 3.2 and kernel 2.6.x. Mandrake 9.2 has kde 3.1.3 and kernel 2.4.22-10mdk. The step up from kernel 2.4 to 2.6 warrants a new version number in Mandrake's methodology.
I've run Mandrake since version 6.5 and this is how they've always done it. Each year gets a new version. Once you understand it, it makes sense. From a purely l
Re:Version 10.0 (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:3)
Sounds like they are copying what everybody else does.
Already been in use internally .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Mandrake already maintains internal trees of some of the releases. For instance, HP has a version of Mandrake 9.1, 9.1.2, which has all the fixes for 9.1 plus some customisations for HP.
So, now we're just seeing this externally
You may also be old enough to remember Mandrake 7.0.1
Re:For those french speakers out there... (Score:3, Funny)
Mais a partir de maintenant, une seconde version "solide comme du roc"...
Hell, if I had put a translation like this in an assignement my English teacher would have skinned me alive !
Think of a L'Oreal effect here. What do you think came first, "Because I'm worth it" or "Parce que je le vaux bien" ?
Only difference is, you don't get the sexy Laetitia Casta shots as a bonus - yet
Thom