Mandrake 10.1 Community Released

MohammedSameer writes "Mandrakesoft released MandrakeLinux 10.1 Community, As usual it's only available first to the club members The new release features Kernel 2.6.8.1, Xorg-X11 6.7, KDE 3.2.3 with 3.3 as an install option,"

No longer a fan of 'traditional' distros

[tod_miller]

I would like to see a partial distro, a yoper like base, less packages, more configuration.

Then a hole chunk (SuSE like) impors of packages. All required development for simple confmakemakeinstall's and perhaps simple walk throughs for these common actions. For newbies trying to get onto the bandwagon, this would be a diamond!

What was the thing you got stuck on at first? write it down, and think how you could solve it for another newbie.

Out of interest Moore's Law finally buried? [slashdot.org]

Ok enough shameless plug, it was for a good cause.

acpi support for laptops?

[tongue]

Ok, I see that improved laptop support is one of the touted features here. My question is, how good is it?

I just switched back to windows (rather painlessly, thanks to the excellent QtParted [sourceforge.net] and, strangely enough, a windows ME boot disk [for an XP machine--needed to restore the MBR]). I can't tell you how greatly it pains me to do so--as far as i'm concerned, linux is ready for the desktop, and has been for some time. ACPI-based laptops though, are another story. I've been trying for weeks to get my battery life to come close to what's possible under windows, and while the Software suspend [sf.net] project seems to work for a lot of people, i could never get it to work on my laptop (or maybe just my kernel). I've tried various distributions, from suse to xandros to straight debian to knoppix and even the simpler ones such as DSL [damnsmalllinux.org] and none of them allow me to really use my laptop for more than about an hour (give or take a quarter) without plugging in, which is just unacceptable for my purposes.

So i finally gave up and dropped the linux partitions and reinstalled the boot sector (oh how that final 'fdisk /mbr' pained me!) but at least i can spend three and a half hours at a coffee shop without needing an outlet. cygwin takes the edge off, but its a bit like methadone if you asked me.

so anyway, for anyone who's tested and/or used the new version of MDK on a recent laptop, what's your experience with the ACPI support? Battery life? Suspend functionality? dare i ask--functional keys? (yes, i know that's not really related to acpi, but mandrake is generally pretty conscientious about things like that, i thought perhaps they might have integrated a solution.)

Community vs. Official

[Linzer]

I've been running the development version for a little time now, and AFAICS all show-stopper bugs have been properly squashed by now. It has been running quite smoothly for a few weeks now. However, as parent says: don't use it if you want something rock solid, wait for 10.1 Official. But if you want all the shiny brand new stuff, a streamlined install with an excellent hardware detection, and are not afraid of a few weird things happening now and then, then give it a try!

Xorg 6.8?

[Chuck Bucket]

Also, it's easy to update to Xorg 6.8 for MDK users, and I think it's worth the trouble, especially to see those dropshadows. I'm somewhat surprised that MDK didn't wait for 6.8 to go into 10.1, but the dropshadow business isn't completely stable outside of GNOME, and they have to make a cut off soon.

Regardless, MDK users can update rather easily, just update your YUM repository!

CBV

It has the potential to be THE distro for laptop

[gsasha]

If their claims hold water, that is...
1. Centrino wireless support integrated, Wi-Fi roaming.
2. ACPI support - finally! I'm sick with rebooting the laptop.
But, good as it sounds, I'm still waiting for the Official.

Re:The Club

[CmdrGravy]

I was in the Club as a basic member but forgot to renew my membership - I will though.

Yes it's worth it, largely just to support Mandrakesoft though, I have used them since 7.0 when it was the only distro which recognised all my hardware. You also get to vote for various things you want packaged and access to rpm mirrors.

Re:The Club

[grunt107]

I am a member and I like having the access to the Betas and early releases. I have a 'test' computer that I install various distros and see how they behave. My big server has MDK10 on it - no real reason. I also have the SuSe, Knoppix and MDKMove DoDs (Distro on Disk) that I pop in the laptop when I need to get 'Net.

Re:The Club

[rusty0101]

It kind of depends upon whether you think supporting Mandrake is a good idea, and whether you think that the OS is worth paying someone to continue working on their favorite distribution.

I have been a Club member in the past, and probably will be again. Asside from the default USB drivers not supporting the Via USB 2.0 chips, easily fixable by replacing the usb-uhci with huci-ohc (or something like that), I have had no significant problems with the 10.1rc1 package.

If you think that it is worth purchasing, to the point where you would pick up a copy at your local computer superstore whenever they get around to carrying it, joining the club gets your money to the developers at a much higher percentage of what you spend.

There are other advantages as well, which you can read on their web page if it really interests you. If not, then the above probably won't be of much interest either.

-Rusty

Re:2.6 kernel may blow away NTFS.

[Dot.Com.CEO]

This is most definitely NOT a problem with the 2.6 kernel since things work fine on both gentoo and Suse with a 2.6 kernel. It is most likely a problem with the implementation of grub or lilo in these distros. And, in my opinion, it is totally unacceptable.

Re:2.6 kernel may blow away NTFS.

[jlseagull]

I have no idea whether this is an RPM based distro problem. That may be the case, as gentoo and Suse might not be tied into that, I don't know.

I've tried Slack 10, and had the same issue. If LILO or GRUB were installed as the bootloader in the MBR, the NTFS filesystem dies.

Yes, I'm sure that's the right filesystem. There are other associated BIOS issues (for example, Logical Block Addressing must be turned on), but they don't apply in the majority of cases.

What FS is on your laptop?

No flammage here, just trying to inform

Re:The Club

[JSkills]

Thanks dude. I've been going back and forth on Linux distros for a while now. I've found Mandrake to have some real merits, so if it's what I settle on I probably will follow your advice and do the Right Thing.

Re:Financial situation?

[waterwheel]

Mandrake seems to be pulling itself up by it's bootstraps financially. Which is great - because I think Mandrake is Linux's great hope to take on MS.

And they're doing that by doing what MS does - but based on a stable OS. With Mandrake you can get install your desktop from a couple of CD's, with about as much tech knowhow as you need with windows. With Mandrake you get a nice looking desktop right out of the box. And now with Mandrake you can spend $25 a year and get a windoze like auto-security-update feature.

Sure - you can get scatterings of that in other distro's - but not in a format that is good for non-tech loosers such as myself. Mandrake seems to be the last prominent distro that is really focussed on the desktop and doing it right (i.e. dumbed down, but still working.

even their auto updating feature is a fabulous. Yes, we all know you can get that elsewhere - and for free - but by charging for it like MS would, there's a lot more going on. First loosers believe there likely to get a fully tested easy to use product (heck - I believe it myself, I'm just waiting for their server version - and if you think people won't buy the server version of this, then you don't understand why people by MS), and secondly it focusses attention on it - people will buy it just because it's offered and it's a good idea. Offer it for free and it's hard to see the value in it.

And before the purists hack me to tiny little pieces, I'm speaking as a tech manager type who uses mandrake on their desktop. I'm the next wave of converts, and Mandrake is going to do the converting

Re:Also, let's not forget to thank Texstar...

[mrscorpio]

Texstar has his own distro now :)

http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/index.html [pclinuxonline.com]

Re:All I want is a pony

[The Slashdot Guy]

More crying, "I want kde 3.3, but not enough to actually do the work myself."

It's all about priorities. If homework and your job are more important to you than having kde 3.3, which they should be, then do your fucking homework and go to your fucking job.

I concede, you're the smarter jackass.

Re:Does it matter?

[opkool]

Right now, Mandrake 10.1-Community is already out there for anyone to use it. Yes, you either need to do a network install or create your own ISOs.

But in about a week (give/take a couple of days), ISOs (or an official .torrent) will be available at all official mirrors.

So Club Members get a "download without slashdot effect" time, with noce download speeds using dedicated .torrents.

Peace.

Re:acpi support for laptops?

[chundo]

I've got Mandrake 9.2 running on my Dell Inspiron 8600. Works great. A couple things I had to tweak though:

• It screwed up the acpi detection on install, so I had to manually add "acpi=on" to my lilo.conf
• Installed acpid [sourceforge.net] to capture events from my hardware buttons / functional keys. All buttons work for me.
• Althought suspending to RAM (sleep mode 1) works, it didn't shutoff my screen or backlight before doing so. I had to write a custom script to do that.
• Suspend to disk doesn't work for me. At all. Didn't spend much time on it though since it's not a big deal for me.
• Installed cpudynd [mnm.uib.es] to manage CPU power consumption. My laptop easily lasts 3-4 hours on one battery, with WiFi.