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LinuxMandrake 7.0 ISO Images Available 215

Posted by CmdrTaco from the red-hat-and-then-some dept.
Marius Kjeldahl writes "I noticed a local LinuxMandrake mirror got the 7.0 directory a couple of days ago but without anything in it. Today I checked again, and there is an iso image for LinuxMandrake 7.0 there. " Gael Duval from Mandrakesoft sent us an overview of whats new and improved in Mandrake 7. Check it out to see if you really want to download a whole ISO ;) Graphical Install, Disk Manager, new config tools, compiled with pentium optimizations. Lots of nice bits.
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LinuxMandrake 7.0 ISO Images Available! More

LinuxMandrake 7.0 ISO Images Available!

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  • Re:well Microsoft can do it... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Uhh NO

    Slackware jumped from 4 to 7 and it had a very good reason, going from libc5 to glibc is a **HUGE** change for slackware!!

  • Re:I tried the beta. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Gee imagine that, bugs in a beta release... What is the world coming to.

  • Re:Huh? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Think of it as them having completed a fork - they no longer patch Red Hat to make it better, they have their own seperate base that they maintain (though they may still take improvements from RedHat and others).

    As someone who has used the Linux-Mandrake 7 beta (which I think is what people have found), I can say that they have made some radical changes from the 5.x and 6.x lines. Granted alot of the utilities and apps are just latest releases, the Mandrake part of the distribution - the part that makes it Mandrake is definitely a new generation. Lothar (Hardware detection), DrakX (graphical installer), DrakSec (security level chooser), XFDrake (X configurator), DrakConf (software configuration), etc...

    Mandrake has really set itself apart with this release - it is a big change in the distribution and deserves a major version number bump. Not because of a slightly newer kernel and XFree, but because of the software that they put around the kernel and X. Slothmonster, King of Lost passwords

  • Mandrake 7.0 uses gcc 2.95.2 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Mandrake 7.0 uses gcc 2.95.2... not pgcc.

    Not that I've ever had problems with pgcc on my systems...

  • This is Beta (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Unless this is a different image from the one that came out about 5 days ago, then this is a Beta of Mandrake 7. Also I downloaded the Beta image a few days ago and tried to make a CD from it, got errors when burning. Made a coaster in the process, but I finally got a working CD. What I'm tyring to say is that I think the image has some errors.
  • I've got a copy of the supermount patch for 2.2.14 final here:

    http://www.fargocity.co m/~ccondit/supermount-2.2.14-1.patch [fargocity.com]

    This is modified slightly from the original supermount code, which doesn't compile cleanly against 2.2.14.
  • Redhat 5.0->6.0 changed the kernel from 2.0 to 2.2. That's pretty major
    John
  • If your system locks up during a Win98SE install, then your hardware has a problem. No problem you ever have with your PC can ever be reliably blamed on the software, at least until you fix what is wrong with your hardware.
    While I haven't tried any Mandrake newer than 6.1, I've done maybe 75 installs of Win98SE, and never had a problem. *shrug*
    I'm sure my Mandrake friends will be happy to hear about this release, but I'll stick to Debian for now.
  • After 7 hours on the University's line and
    20 minutes to write the CD. 7.0 is out before
    I have instaled the BETA :(
  • Actually, when Mandrake first came out they publically stated that their version numbers were the same as the version of RedHat that it was based on.

    This was the case when Mandrake was simply RedHat with some additional packages added, but it hasn't been true for a while. Mandrake X.Y has not simply been RedHat X.Y with some added stuff since X == 5, and even that started to break down towards the end (witness the Mandrake 5.3 release while RedHat never had a 5.3). Mandrake 6.1 was released before RedHat 6.1, so certainly wasn't based on it (it was the second version of their update to 6.0 really).

    Nowadays, with 7.0, I'm not sure you can say Mandrake is based on RedHat any more than Caldera, SuSE, or any of the other RPM-based distributions are, except perhaps as a matter of historical trivia. Well, and also they stick with RedHat's directory structure and incorporate any updates from RedHat that they need in order to make sure any RPM that claims to be for RedHat also happens to work with Mandrake. Essentially, Mandrake has forked, and now maintains compatibility not by simply enhancing the latest RedHat but instead by tracking their changes and making sure they stay compatible. With this new methodology, the old version numbering scheme no longer makes sense.

    --

  • I've installed and used every version of Mandrake since 5.2. The first thing I do when I get it is recompile the kernel, since it never comes properly configured for my system. I've never had any problems, except once after a new Cooker install (Cooker is Mandrake's experimental distro, like RedHat Rawhide or Debian unstable), and the kernel RPMs from a few days later fixed it.

    --

  • Mandrake 6.1 to 7.0 - a new installer. whoo.

    First of all, there are a *lot* of differences between Mandrake 6.1 and 7.0, a heck of a lot more than there were between 5.3 and 6.0. It's *not* just a new installer.

    And secondly, who gives a fuck? People who obsess about version numbers need to get a life. There is one and only one requirement a good version numbering scheme needs, and that would be that the newer version numbers are greater than the older version numbers. Anything beyond that is unnecessary and not worth loosing any sleep over...

    --

  • Even Microsoft doesn't really follow the year scheme very well. Win95 came in a few flavors, the more recent of which (I forget the designation, something like OEM 2.0) used a new filesystem.

    Windows 95B, also known as OSR 2.0, included FAT32 support, as well as other things. The most recent version, Windows 95C, also know as OSR 2.5, included Active Desktop, among other things (it's the most visible feature, though -- your taskbar looks exactly like it does in Windows 98 and unlike what it looked like in previous versions of Windows 95 -- in fact, the differences between Windows 98 and Windows 95C are smaller than the differences between Windows 95C and Windows 95B as far as I can tell).

    Incidently, I still run Windows 95C. It's the last version of Windows I own a legal copy of. (In Minnesota, we consider a preposition to be a perfectly fine thing to end a sentence with. Apparently, this makes sense if you're Norwegian.)

    --

  • I read this too, but not until I'd successfully installed and run Mandrake 6.0 on my old 486/66. I have had only one problem so far where I didn't know what the cause was, but it seems to run just fine otherwise.

    I think that a lot of stuff (but not necessarily all stuff) compiled with i586 optimizations will still run on a 486, but not as fast as it would have if it was compiled for the 486 instead.

    --

  • You know, I may be nuts (that's another thread altogether), or maybe I don't push my machine hard enough, but on my Mandrake 6.1 box (k6-III/400) and the official (ftp.kernel.org) 2.2.14 source compiled with pgcc, I have no stability problems whatsoever. Now, if someone could give me a satisfactory explanation of the seemingly innocuous "neighbor table overflow" errors I get, I'd be a happy man.

    While I'm here, I'd like to say that I like Mandrake quite a bit, what with all of the windowmanagers and stuff (IIRC) RH no longer includes, like SVGATextMode. Hi-res 100x37 consoles ALL THE WAY!!!

    --Ben

    "Yes, wood is good food." -SpaceGhost

  • With this version of the Distro - I'd say that about the only thing in the Mandrake Distro that is RH like it the file-system layout nice and RH utilities (do like sndconfig ;-)

    Also - the new GUI install is NICE! I'd rank it 3rd behind Caldera and Corel as far as easy of use. The neat thing is it isn't totally dumbed down. They've also added there own disk tool, and new administration tools. Lastly - if I recall correctly, they are compiled for Pentium hardware. This is the distro for folks who know what they're doing - and want a nice desktop to boot.

    Also - I've looked at the new Suse 6.3 GUI -it's primitive and extremely limited. It won't install into a great variety of hardware situations ....stick with the original YAST install - don't bother with the new one!

  • Granted, I am not new to Linux, but I am not a guru either. However, one of the biggest things I feel that these distros should wait for before they reach the Big 7.0, is XFree86 4.0. I mean, isnt that comming out in about 2 months anyway? With that, games or any other 3D application will be possible for idiots (like me) to configure. Its a HUGE step (imho) that Linux will take, and 7.0 would reflect this change.

    My two cents.

    War Linux!

    Out.

    ++Om
  • Alright, I had to clear my name! :) At the time of writing my original post, the news release from Mandrake outlining the features wasn't out yet. I just finished reading the news release including the features and I now see the USB configuration utility thingy! Woohoo! I definately will try it when I get home.
  • Really!? Cool! I'll have to download the ISO and try it tonight. You better not be lying! :) As for the others. That's what I feared! :) I have a 2.3.x kernel compiled for my USB mouse, but I just wanted a distro. that had an option of using the devel. kernel so that it can pick up the USB mouse. It's not so much for me as it is for my friends which I help install linux on. I guess they'll all have to wait unless they want to compile their own kernel! :)
  • I was hoping that by version 7.0 (RedHat or Mandrake) that it'll be able to find my USB mouse upon setup. I didn't see word of that. Anyone know if/when/how this might ever be done?
  • Unless this choice of 7.0 is in direct response to Patrick Volkerding making comments to the effect of "leveling the playing field" with respect to versioning, I'm afraid the Mandrake team have just lost quite a bit of respect in my eyes.

    I am hoping that they will comment publicly to shed some light on this in the next few days. If not, by mid-summer I'm going to release a small distro loosely based on Slackware being recompiled with new targets (and most of the cruft sliced out) and just start the goddamn versioning at 12.4.

    (grumble grumble *schills* grumble)
  • Or the Windows version of Word: 1.0, then 2.0, then 6.0 to sync up with the version number of DOS-Word, then 97 because year-based versioning schemes are cool or something. *sigh*
  • This has been discussed to some extent on the Debian lists. Sure, you can wait for XFree86 4.0. And then you'll want to wait for kernel 2.4. And then you'll want to wait for GNOME 2.0, and this, and that, and the other thing. At some point you just need to sit down and say, "we're going to release with what we have", or else you'll never get a release out.
  • FWIW, egcs-1.1.2 is generally considered to be the most recent compiler available which should work safely for just about everything, including the kernel. Heck, if RedHat uses it as their default compiler, the advantages must outweigh the disadvantages of gcc-2.7.3.2. My own personal experiences reflect this.

    I've tried a couple of kernels with gcc-2.95, but every time I do, weird things start happenning after a day or so, so I revert back to the same kernel compiled with egcs-1.1.2.

    I wouldn't trust pgcc to compile my kernel unless it was a test machine where I didn't care how stable it was. It's good for squeezing the last ounce of performance out of a program, but make sure you benchmark!

    I used to keep gcc-2.7.3.2 around for testing certain things, but deleted it after it wasn't getting any use.

    My current setup now includes gcc-2.95.2 as the default compiler, and I installed egcs-1.1.2 into /usr/local/egcs-1.1.2/ for those kernel recompiles. Works great!

  • Also... (Score:1)

    by pen ( 7191 )
    Storm Linux [stormlinux.com] is also making their CD images available. You can get them from one of the mirrors listed at http://www.stormix.com/download/index_html [stormix.com].

    --

  • Why must it be a hardware issue? My MS mouse worked fine, but the logitech one was hostile towards windoze.
  • Cool. I'd take the special label in place of a beanie award. Can I? =)

  • RH safely compiles all their apps and kernel for i386 making it compatible with any iX86 machine out their. Mandrake re-compiled all the applications etc for i586 or higher, so while your not going to install it on that left over 486

    I read this too, but not until I'd successfully installed and run Mandrake 6.0 on my old 486/66. I have had only one problem so far where I didn't know what the cause was, but it seems to run just fine otherwise.

  • They have been saying "Red Hat Compatible" for the last few versions. I believe that started with 6.0 IIRC. They stopped being a Red Hat knock-off after 5.x
  • Check out the main page: http://www.linuxmandrake.com.

    As of today (Jan. 14, 2000), Linux Mandrake 7.0 is available for download, with a boxed version appearing in February for $55 US dollars.
  • Mandrake 6.0 is my distro of choice, but when Mandrake is using RedHat as a base, they should at least use a similar versioning system.

    I've got RedHat 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, and 6.1 yet I still prefer Mandrake. I was NOT bashing mandrake.

    LK
  • For older machines I use RedHat. 5.2 was wonderful on older slower machines.

    Then again, I didn't use 6.0 or 6.1 on anything slower than a PII-300

    LK
  • You won't be able to use your USB mouse with a distribution until the distro rolls in Kernel 2.4, (whenever that is released - I hear the target is like mid feb.) Because the 2.3 (Pre 2.4 devel kernel) kernel is the only one with USB support that REALLY works - and all distros right now are based on 2.2

    My guess is that Mandrake is going to release 7.0, and then add Kernel 2.4 & XF86 4.0 to 7.1 - so (This is purely conjecture, so take it with a grain of salt) you will probably be able to use your USB mouse with Mandrake 7.1

  • I don't see how you can use this news item to infer that Mandrake continues to become less stable. The post to which you're replying describes this as alpha software; there's no reason to think that the released Mandrake 7 will be as bad.

  • I'll echo that non-trouble report: K6-2/350, 2.2.14, Mandrake 6.1 ==> no problems. I did get kernel oopses at the end of the init 0 sequence with the 2.2.13ish kernel that came with the 6.1 release, but after moving to 2.2.14 even that works fine. My only complaint is that Linux+X+KDE w/o any extra themage+Netscape and no servers running still uses about 56M of my 64M of memory, so it swaps a little too much. But another 64 or 128 that I've been planning on should fix that.

  • I had a USB mouse, and it worked fine with redhat 5.1 and up, until the mouse or the port broke, and it wouldn't work under linux or windows. I think it was like an emulated PS/2, but it was still a lot more accurate than the current mouse I have, a microsoft ergonomic mouse, connected to a comm port.
  • I may be wrong, but I believe you may be refering to the MacMillian 6.5 relase, which uses Linux-Mandrake.

    This version uses the 6.0 (6.1?) release of Linux-Mandrake. MacMillian just refers to it as 6.5 for some reason unknown to me.
  • Does anyone have some idea of whether Mandrake 7 (the real one, not the
    beta) is better than its predecessors in the bugginess department? I like
    Mandrake for a number of reasons, but the last one was disappointingly
    buggy. For example, the floppy tape driver was broken, XEmacs' info-mode and
    gdb-mode were FUBAR-ed, the glibc reference went AWOL, an X server was
    miscompiled and IBM's JDK did not work. I would hope that this version is
    less buggy, as I am reluctant to go through that pain again.

    Chris
  • Frankly, I'm not particularly fussy about version numbers on distribution releases. Once upon a time, version numbers actually meant something; given the way things are going, it's fast becoming that the only thing sticking to a sane versioning scheme is the Linux kernel itself.

    Frankly, I'm not going to make a choice of software simply because Mandrake is at version 7 and Red Hat is at version 6.1. I'm going to look at the software on each, where they differ, and which one is more apt to suit my needs. Based on that, I'll choose a distribution.

    Further, just to due to my personal preferences, neither Mandrake nor Red Hat would be on my list of distributions. I'm currently attempting to decide between Slackware and Debian - and the vast disparity in versioning numbers between them has absolutely nothing to do with my decision. :)

  • A lot of BIOSes have legacy support for USB keyboards/mice. They just emulate the PS/2 variety.
  • "Pgcc is just an excuse to make something that isn't compatable with others machines."

    Ten years from now, when Itaniums are obsolete, will distros still be compiled for a i386?

  • Re:pgcc and the kernel? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If the kernel panics it's the users fault.
    If the user panics it's the kernels fault?
    ;-)

  • Re:pgcc and the kernel? (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You must have erred in someway... I'll refrain from calling you an idiot, but as anyone on slashdot knows, Linux is perfect and if the kernel panics it must be a problem between the chair and they keyboard.

    :)

  • Re:FR1ST PS0T AGAIN! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I think it's time for some new moderation labels:

    • FirstPost -1: self-explanatory
    • Loser -1: reserved for "First Post" in message 2 or higher
    • Katz-bashing -1: self-explanatory
    • Katz-bashing +1: sometimes needed
    • Signal11 +1: dear lord, this guy's been moderated up so often he deserves his own label
    • KarmaWhore -1: see above :-)
    • Beowulf -1: for clueless references to Beowulf clusters
    • Whiner -1: for people who complain publicly about a lack of options on Slashdot - oops, I guess that would be this post!
    I think these new labels would allow moderators to express their true feelings, instead of having to deal with generic labels such as "Interesting", "Off-Topic", and "Funny".

    Seriously, though - one change I would like to see in the moderation system is to allow users to set their own bonus/penalty values to labels. For instance, those with a humor impairment may define "Funny" as a 0 or -1. I wouldn't mind being able to set "Troll", "Flamebait" and "Off-Topic" as -2 or more.

    (P.S. - Signal11 - only kidding! Keep up the good work!)

  • Windows 95.

    No, not the operating system, the version number. Sure, to some extent it's a cynical attempt to make it sound modern at launch time but out-of-date when the next version rolls around. But:

    * unlike most version numbers, it means something
    * it can't suffer from version inflation
    * it means you don't forget when it was launched.

    I think it would have caught on if it hadn't been the Evil Empire behind it...
    --

  • Hmmmm.... (Score:2)

    by jd ( 1658 )
    Does this mean Mandrake is "seperating" from Red Hat, to become a wholly independent distribution? Or are there "betas" of RH 7 in existance, with Mandrake 7 based off those?

    Personally, I think if Mandrake has produced a viable fork, it's a Good Thing if they stick with it, rather than re-sync with Red Hat & have to do all the hard work over again.

  • Mandrake says that supermount has been integrated into kernel 2.2.14. Does anyone know where the patches are for this so that people don't have to download Mandrake to get this incredibly useful technology?
  • Yes I can say that when I ran Mandrake 6.0 (last week) odd things would happen. The kernel would panic more so than I have ever experienced. Other programs would freeze alot more. It was just an odd sort of experience. While things ran a alot faster on my ancient P200 I still would rather stability over speed.

    Oh yeah and cxreg likes to wear his mom's bra.
  • I would suggest *not* using pgcc on anything but completely "experimental" machines right now. I have yet to see it build a version of glibc-2.1.2 that will pass it's own test suite. Apparently I may be a bigger compulsive compiler than the guys who put pgcc together, since I've gotten no responses to my emails to them asking for confirmation of this, and that was well over a week ago. (Boy did they get enough detail on what I was doing. Heheh.)

    Anyway, if it can't build glibc, then I would not expect to be able to safely use it on the kernel at all. (Well, it compiles, but the self-tests that come with glibc fail miserably--and although it did build 2.2.14, it did not appear to be stable. Could be a K6 "thing", but I doubt it.)
  • Here's a list of Mandrake mirrors. I checked a random one, and the ISO was there. PLEASE USE A RANDOM MIRROR, NOT THE FIRST ONE ON THE LIST!

    http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftp.php3 [linux-mandrake.com]

    --

  • Err... except for the fact that there are so many releases of a Linux distribution that the "yearly" numbering scheme just wouldn't work when it comes to telling "how different" one release is from another.

    For example, Mandrake '00 would be basically Mandrake '99r2 (or was it r3?) with a new installer. Then, maybe mid to late in the year, their next release (00r1) would probably have the 4.0 version of XFree, the 2.4 kernel, and who knows, possibly one of those journaling file systems. Now, that seems like a pretty major leap to relegate to a 'r' release.

    Even Microsoft doesn't really follow the year scheme very well. Win95 came in a few flavors, the more recent of which (I forget the designation, something like OEM 2.0) used a new filesystem.

    For some things, it does work. Quicken, for example, has yearly releases.

    I think, overall, the idea behind the whole "year" numbering scheme is more marketing than anything sensible. Intuit would like me to believe that using the "old" 98 version of their product is bad. Since we're in 2000, I should be using the 2000 version! It's a way to fool people into forking over money on a regular basis. It's one step closer to that Big Corporate Software Holy Grail: software subcriptions.


  • It's great that Mandrake can get to a higher version number than the distro that it's "Based" on.

    LK
  • I don't know who proposed it first, but it certainly wasn't Microsoft's idea. The idea of using year-based version numbers was kicked around in the PC press for a number of years before Windows 95, and I think even some HCI expert proposed it in one of his books.
  • PowerQuest have a patent (1 [ibm.com], 2 [ibm.com]) on the partition resizing method used by PartitionMagic.

    Does the method used by Mandrake for resizing partitions infringe on the patent? This could be a problem for distributing in the US.

  • Huh? Have you actually used Redhat 6.1. KDE works great. You don't have to *do* anything to get it to work. Either install as a KDE workstation or do a regular install and select KDE as your desktop from gdm.
    ----
  • With each release since about 5.3, Mandrake has gotten worse and worse in terms of producing a stable product. I love what they are doing in terms of the sort of packages they include, the fact that they are branching out from Red Hat, writing their own installer, and coming up with some great new ideas like Lothar [sunet.se] and MSEC [sunet.se], for hardware detection/configuration and security levels. But Mandrake has been extremely buggy. They are too quick to release, and do not test adequately. Mandrake has so much potential, I hate to see them ruin it.
    ----
  • I hope for the best, but I fear the worst. If they iron out the bugs in 7.0 and test adequately, it should be a fine product.
    ----
  • I keep hearing people complain about Mandrake's versioning and stability, and I just want to make a few comments. First of all, given the number of changes made in 7.0 compared with 6.1, I think the jump to a major number is logical. 7.0 introduces a graphical install utility, DiskDrake for handling partitions (including resizing), Supermount, DrakConf, Lothar, MSEC (a security level chooser), a Mandrake Update agent, and other improvements. This is a major overhaul. Definitely worthy of a major number change.


    However, having said that, I think what Mandrake should have done is released an incremental release, 6.2, with minor changes. Basically iron out bugs in 6.1, update some packages, that sort of thing. Then they'd have a rock-solid release to spring off of. All the while, they could be thoroughly testing the 7.0beta. Then in a few months it would be ready for the world. As it is, I think releasing 7.0 in the state it's in is a mistake. I don't think it's ready. I hope I am wrong...
    ----
  • I'll have to disagree with you on the worst example. My choice is Microsoft's habit of clumping a group of programs together into a "suite" and then matching up the version numbers of all the components. For example, Visual J++ (an abombination of a name in and of itself) leaped from something like 1.1 or 2.0 to 5.0 when it was thrown into Visual Studio along with Visual C++ 5.0. Similarly, I believe Visual InterDev leaped from 1.0 on its introduction in Visual Studio 97 to 6.0 in Visual Studio 98.
  • Not saying there aren't problems with Mandrake (in my experience Mandrake's been rock solid), but generally when one sees numerous kernel panics one is looking at *bad* hardware. If I were you I'd start checking my components -- start with memory, then drives and controllers, NICs, video, and then the motherboard. Do it under another distro or OS if you think it's Mandrake specific.

  • It's all marketing.

    This was all very clearly explained when Slackware made the jump from version 4 to version 7. Patrick Volkerding made the huge number leap because of all the people who kept asking him if why he wasn't supporting (at the time) "Linux 6," and who basically didn't understand that distribution version numbers and Linux versioning numbers were two separate entities. You can read the statement he made about it [slackware.com] on the Slackware web site [slackware.com], under the FAQs section.

    Perhaps, because Slack jumped ahead of all the other distributions, others felt it necessary to "keep up with the Jones" and match the version number.

    *shrug*
  • Linux Mandrake "6.5" is Macmillans version of mandrake 6.1 but renumbered by Macmillan and other than being based off the Mandrake distro really has nothing to do with Linux Mandrake directly. Also the install interface between Mandrake 6.0/6.1 and 7.0 is completely different with the Drak install routine. I've been running 7.0 beta 5 now for about 4 days and am highly impressed with all the Drak programs for system configuration etc available on the system now.

    As far as differences between Mandrake and RH go? well at version 5.2 of both the only difference was that Mandrake included KDE as the default X Window enviornment while at the time RH said they would refuse to use it at all do to the QT license at the time.

    6.0 still pretty close in what apps they carry etc though Mandrake throws in a few extra I believe. A big difference here is that RH safely compiles all their apps and kernel for i386 making it compatible with any iX86 machine out their. Mandrake re-compiled all the applications etc for i586 or higher, so while your not going to install it on that left over 486 computer on penitum class machines there will be some speed improvments over standard RH. Another difference again is desktop enviornment RH still concentrates on Gnome + Enlightment and inlcudes KDE as an after fact, while Mandrake bascially reverses that. This lets Gnome people have a preferable distro while letting those people like me who actually like KDE have a distro we can enjoy.

    6.1 small improvments by both company's to their own distro's. Note though that at this point Mandrake is no longer just copying and building off of RedHat (in fact they released 6.1 before RH did in this case), but is now concentrating on making their own quality distro in their own right. At this point they've opened up development of the upcoming 7.0 distro to beta tester's and the public allowing the community itself help desinge and build it.

    Mandrake 7.0 (beta 5 since that's what I'm actually running until I download the new ISO):
    While Mandrake still shares base filesystem etc compatibility with RH this just means that rpm's made for each distro are very compatible with each other. 7.0 comes with a whole slew of new tools for installing and managing the computer, the Drakconf and drakxtools packages are by far the easiest things I've seen for changing system settings. Also comes with kernel 2.2.14 and X 3.3.6 so there's some nice improvments their right out of the box.
  • I've tryed the beta, and would have to say that this deserves a major version number. I believe the ISO is just the beta ISO (I hope) as I downloaded it and found quite a few problems, but overall was very impressed with the improvements made to the install process.

    The diskdrake program was fantastic. Great interface, and easy to use. I may actually use that over fdisk.

    The install actually detected my Voodoo Banshee and X worked without any modifications on my part, very nice.

    The install detected my ESS Maestro Soundcard and sound worked out of the box... Normally I have to get AC's beta stuff to make this thing go...

    There were some bugs with the actual package install, sometimes it would bomb out or sometimes it would report that it was going to install more (MB) than it should have. And the mouse left me after the X install... Kinda nasty...

    IMNSHO, I think that this could be the release of a Linux Flavour that really opens up the desktop market (provided they get the bugs out of the install). Its not intimidating, and just about anyone should be able to handle a install. All they need now is a prettier version of LILO (even something like the BeOS loader would be cool) and I think they would have some real success selling to the average joe... Back to the point... It may not be a new kernel, but the Install is what can make it worth a new Major version... or at least a 6.5...

  • "Slack jumped ahead of all the other distributions, others felt it necessary to "keep up with the Jones" and match the version number."

    If you look at the number of actual releases Redhat made versus the number Slackware made, you'll understand why Slackware should really be at version 42.

    And perception is everything. A neighbor wanted to try out Linux, so I gave him SuSE 6.0. He had a rough time of it and wanted to know if there was something easier. I had just got a Caldera 2.3 disk in the mail so I gave it to him. He replied "don't you have anything newer?"
  • "MNDRK seems to be after the almighty buck and that's about it."

    I'm starting to question whether you even live on the same planet I do.

    At the last LWCE in San Jose, Redhat had a glitzy marketroid booth staffed with drones. Mandrake had a stool in a corner of someone else's booth (PickSys?). Didn't even have free demos to pass out, only photocopies of an info sheet. The Mandrake "booth" even made the Slashdot compound look like Las Vegas casino in comparison. Guess who won distribution of the year there though?
  • Actually, with a new graphical installer, disk partitioner, and hardware manager, as well as numerous other major changes, I would think that Mandrake deserves a major version change. A 6.1->6.2 just doesn't cut it.

    And moreover, I think that this is the version that will make Mandrake more than just a Redhat clone.

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by QuMa ( 19440 )
    I thought mandrake was a redhat derivative? How can they go to 7 while redhat's at 6?
  • Well.. thre is an announcement there now...
  • Word95 was almost identical to Word 6.0, except it was recompiled to support all the shiny new Win32 stuff and supported long filenames. Yippee. Probably the absolute worst version number change possible.
  • I don't particularly care if one particular product decides to accelerate their versioning, but it's a bad trend for the industry. Espcially with lay people read version numbers (higher is better!) compared with techies reading the same numbers (ah, this is a point release, a minor upgrade).

    It's just a bad trend that I don't want to see used in the future. I think Linus has it down pretty well, with many releases between whole number changes. The differences between 2.0 and 2.2 are actually pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but the actual number of differences are staggering. This is more the idea I want to enforce.

    And if you don't care what I think, *shrug* life goes on.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • What I was pointing out is that higher numbers get noticed as more developed by people who just care about the name on the product, not what it actually does.

    Newbies to Linux can look at all the distributions and go: "Hrm, Mandrake 7.0, Slackware 7.0, RedHat 6.1, SuSE 6.2, ... whoa, Debian 2.1 and OpenLinux 2.3 are way behind!" They won't take the time to consider the two low version numbers...

    This is how version numbers are designed to be used, and when we have distributions totally running wacky with their version numbers, the other distributions will try to keep up, just so they can appear to be current, even if they are just doing point releases on incorporated products.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • So you're saying that people who don't care about technology don't need to protected from companies such as microsoft?

    Or that standards that have been in place for a long time that are getting ignored were not put in place for a reason?

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • If the change of kernel's from 2.0 was to 2.2 required a whole number change, why didn't Linus change 2.0 to 3.0? I mean, if it was that major of a change?

    And I don't think the people at RedHat know Linux better than Linus.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • Once again, if there was a change from glibc 2.0 to 2.1, and it required a whole number redhat change, why didn't they change glibc from 2.0 to 3.0? Obviously the glibc people didn't feel it required a whole number change.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau
  • glibc changed from 2.0 to 2.1.
    Obviously a minor change. only a .1 change for the glibc people.

    And they added GNOME.
    A new X component. Which could have been added by an RPM.

    I stand by this example.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • See, that's my arguement.

    The numbers should not matter, but they are still taken into account by users. For instance, someone telling me redhat was more developed because they were already up to 6.x.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • ugh. this is more an aspect of the fragmentation of Linux than a version inflation issue.

    I don't believe the addition of a few installation scripts warrant a whole version number. And yes, that might be what makes Mandrake unique, but doing things in custom ways is another 'issue' i have with the linux community.

    I guess I feel they should abide by the 'release early and release often' philosophy, because a decent linux installation should be upgradable between the different versions. And you won't get 10 billon small changes incorporated into a major release, and 10 billon things that can go wrong.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • Actually, this page [linux-mandrake.com] is the real explanation of what is new and improved in 7.0. Pretty cool stuff, I can't wait till I can get my CD-RW to work so I can install it.
  • There is no text based installer.


    According to the INSTALL file [sunsite.uio.no] there is a text based install:

    -----------------------------------------
    Text Install
    -----------------------------------------
    DrakX supports a text mode installation. To use it, type :

    linux text

    at prompt of syslinux. (it's on the boot just after the graphical
    logo). If you want to use the old text mode install use :
    txt_bootnet.img:
    install from FTP and HTTP
    txt_boot.img:
    install from CD-Rom or Hard Drive


    And farther down:

    ================================================== =================== =
    TEXT INSTALL INSTRUCIONS

    1 - insert your installation floppy disk and your Mandrake CD (if
    needed) in your drives and restart your machine.

    2 - press 'enter' until the 'boot:' prompt appears and carefully
    follow the instructions which appear on the screen.

    3 - after having chosen the installation language (such as French) and
    the keyboard (such as fr-latin1), chose " Disk Druid " in order to
    create/chose your Linux partitions. The minimum requirement is to
    create at least two distinct partitions:

    * your main Linux partition, which will need to be loaded on " / "
    ("Mount point : / "). This will be the root directory (" root
    directory "). The size of this partition will need to be at least 300
    Mb. More experienced users may load the /usr and /home directories on
    supplementary partitions.

    * a swap Linux partition. This partition will need to be equal to
    approximately twice the size of the available RAM (Random Access
    Memory), or more for a server.

    4 - after the installation of all the partitions, you may configure
    your machine. Carefully follow the instructions and don't forget to
    correctly install LILO (Linux Loader) on the MBR (Master Boot Record)
    of your hard disk.

    5 - when the installation is complete take out the floppy disk and the
    CD-ROM and restart your machine.

    6 - Linux should start. " Log in " as " root ". If X-Window is
    correctly installed, you should be able to start up KDE by typing
    "startx " on the command line.

    Important note : the " root " account will give you unrestricted
    access to your Linux system. Do not use it except to configure or
    administer Linux. For every day use, use a normal user account with
    the " adduser USER " and " passwd USER " commands.


  • Its nice that there are distro[s] out there using pgcc to get the performance boost but I work with a guy who has tried several versions of Mandrake on different machines, and when
    he compiles the kernel it invariably causes some problem. It may go weeks or even months without problem but then just crashes for no apparent reason. The linux-kernel guys say
    not to use pgcc on the kernel because its known to be unstable when you do. However if this is the compiler that comes with Mandrake how are you expected to safely upgrade your
    system?!

    Mandrake uses rpms right? Well so does Red Hat and they don't force you to use the pgcc compiler so therefore the simple solution is to just drop in the standard gcc compiler (make sure it's the older 2.7.3 version because egcs can also make havoc on your system at least back in the 2.1.x days when I compiled kernels and 2.2.x as well) and then do the compile. Pgcc is just an excuse to make something that isn't compatable with others machines.
  • Why is everyone questioning the versioning?? Mandrake is *not* RedHat -- they're a very different distro and just because they were originally *based* on RedHat does not mean
    we should treat them as followers forever. Moreover, they're advance in numbers was nothing like Slackware's. Mandrake went from 6.1 to 7; that's pretty normal versioning. Slack
    went from like 4.0 to 7.0; that's padding.

    I actually thought that slackware's major problem was a smoth upgrade (or any upgrade at all). I ran slackware from 3.4 to 3.6 and each and every time I had to blast away the partition and do all the manual configuration and such. Nothing like 10+ hours of swearing at your computer to get you into the mood of getting another upgradeable distribution.
  • They have been saying "Red Hat Compatible" for the last few versions. I believe that started with 6.0 IIRC. They stopped being a Red Hat knock-off after 5.x

    Well if we assume that businesses are the main target of redhat and that most of the really neat commercial packages are produced with Red Hat in mind then therefore we have to believe that compatability with Red Hat's commercial partners would be a very smart thing to do to increase a customer base.
  • FWIW, egcs-1.1.2 is generally considered to be the most recent compiler available which should work safely for just about everything, including the kernel. Heck, if RedHat uses it
    as their default compiler, the advantages must outweigh the disadvantages of gcc-2.7.3.2. My own personal experiences reflect this.

    I took my information from the last look at the Linus Kernel Mailing list faq at lkml faq [tux.org] Apparently the fact that egcs was not stable for a long time I guess influenced the decision for not having it being in more common use for kernel compiling.
  • Perhaps, because Slack jumped ahead of all the other distributions, others felt it necessary to "keep up with the Jones" and match the version number.

    At least debian is sane enough to not do that. I want logical version numbers not marketing trash. My opinion of Mandrake has been lowered if they think they really need to just up the version number. Does Mandrake such that much in terms of Red Hat?
  • Newer kernel than RH 6.1, newer drivers than RH6.1, newer utility builds than RH6.1, newer X-Server than RH6.1... et.c. Plus their use their own installer et.c.


    Are the packages for RH and it's upates newer or older in general to Mandrake? You have to look at this and ask which is really better? I would think that if updates were newer Mandrake would be better.
  • Version numbers are not terribly informative. In many companies they are nothing more than a marketing tool. Mandrake may have a cool explanation for going to 7, but there's no
    rule that says they have to stick to some one else's scheme.

    If you don't think version numbers matter just look at debian. I can't stress this enough there is usually a difference (as seen in debian changelogs) between linux-package-3.4-56.deb and linux-package-3.4-57.deb even in commercial software the differences between version numbers are important enough because they usually involve change in the user interface or added bug fixes or design improvements. If you want support from the vendor or the community a new version is usually a must and this includes linux.
  • This is a FINAL release of Mandrake 7. It isnt the beta anymore. The beta RPMS was released officially last month. User created ISOs followed.

    This version is in fact FINAL. They still have many bugs to fix, but they are releasing it anyway.

    Everyone here seems to think this is an extension of the beta program. It is not. They are going to use the ISO images they are distributing now in the retail copies they will start selling in february.
  • That not the first time an ISO image is available on an FTP (and its mirrors) before the official announcement. Sometimes it is the real thing, sometimes it is not.

    I'll wait one or two days for an official announcement on http://www.linuxmandrake.com [linuxmandrake.com] before downloading it. Safest.

    Stéphane
  • what about fips.. its been around for god knows how long.

  • Have you tried THIS release? (Score:3)

    by DiningPhilosopher ( 17036 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @09:51AM (#1372838)

    Are you commenting on the Oxygen beta or on the actual 7.0 release (dated yesterday, Jan 13 2000)?

  • Re:I love it. (Score:3)

    by Foogle ( 35117 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:44AM (#1372839) Homepage
    Although true a year ago, that statement is just FUD now. Mandrake has come into it's own as a distribution - they're *way* more than just RedHat + KDE now. Have you run Mandrake 7? Do you know for a fact that it's nothing more than RedHat 6? Give these guys a chance; they've done great work in the past.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Re:I, too, question their versioning (Score:3)

    by Foogle ( 35117 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:47AM (#1372840) Homepage
    Why is everyone questioning the versioning?? Mandrake is *not* RedHat -- they're a very different distro and just because they were originally *based* on RedHat does not mean we should treat them as followers forever. Moreover, they're advance in numbers was nothing like Slackware's. Mandrake went from 6.1 to 7; that's pretty normal versioning. Slack went from like 4.0 to 7.0; that's padding.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Re:quickie review (Score:3)

    by RNG ( 35225 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @08:52AM (#1372841)
    Hmm, my experience with Mandrake has been quite positive. I started using them with verion 6.0 because they were Pentium optimized and have not regretted it.

    Right now I have 2 machines running Mandrake 6.1: my development machine were I surf the net and code as well as my web server, which also doubles as a firewall for my cable modem connection. Uptime on the 2nd machine just recently jumped the 100 day mark and the system is rock solid.

    Of course your milage may vary, but I have found Mandrake to be a very nice/good distribution for my needs (which is basically surfing the net, hacking code and producing some documentation in various formats from time to time (as well as playing Civ:CTP from time to time)).

  • Explanation! (Score:4)

    by Thrakkerzog ( 7580 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:30AM (#1372842)
    http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/oxygen beta.php3 [linux-mandrake.com]

    Here's a link about what this really is. It's a beta.

  • quickie review (Score:4)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:41AM (#1372843)

    A word of caution --

    Unlike many betas us linux geeks use, this one is not ready for general use. It's not even really ready for your personal use. Think "Windows 2000" here. The installation has many bugs and large chasms with a sign before it that says "your code here".

    The rpms themselves are fairly workable, but there are simply too many things in this distribution that require tweaking to get yourself a useable system. Hell, it took me 5 attempts to get a *bootable* system.

    I don't have time for a complete review for slashdot, but here's what to look forward to, and what to avoid:

    Pros --

    - New partitioning utility. Worked great, and seemed faster than partition magic. Didn't get a chance to test it on NTFS but it worked flawlessly on FAT32.

    - Installation - I gotta love how this auto-detected my PS/2 mouse and gave me a graphical installation which looked kinda nice. It also let you go back in the steps to re-do something if you decided you didn't want to do something. W98-SE, for comparison, locked up during install - I could not use a mouse for my W98 install. Just think about that. =)

    - Fast. Very fast. They recompiled alot of stuff for speed and it shows. My system boots faster, X-windows renders faster, etc.

    Cons --

    - Installation can be painful. think "windows 3.0" painful. When it goes bad... *it* *goes* *bad*

    - their lilo installer can fail for any reason or no reason. I like having a system that boots.. even if the installation aborted. The common one was pointing it to an empty partition and saying "windows will go there".

    - support. The cooker list is high volume, and cries of "it won't work!" are common. While the mandrake guys do respond thoughtfully, there's just too much stuff to search through to see if your question was previously posted. It doesn't help that it's an open list and spammers have found it.

    That about does it for now, hope you found it useful. - Sig11

  • Version Inflation (Score:4)

    by GoNINzo ( 32266 ) <GoNINzoNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:58AM (#1372844) Journal
    This is a rant.

    I am so freakin' tired of people using a poor numbering scheme of their products! Numbers do help keep people notified of which version they are using, but they are also used to signify just how different the product is. For instance, if I'm using version 3.0 and version 5.0 is out, there should be some signficant differences!

    Good examples:

    • Redhat 4.2 to 5.0 - glibc2
    • Triarch 3.0 to 4.0 - Completely different distribution method
    • GameSpy 2.1.8 to 3.0 - Back and front end revolution
    • Linux 1.2.13 to 2.0 - completely reworked
    • Solaris 2.7 to 2.8 - IPv6 added
    • NetHack 3.1.1 to 3.2 - Monsters, code, and items reworked.
    • Half-Life 1.0.0.6 to 1.0.0.10 - bug fixes

    But many people in the industry have forgotten this fact. They put out a new release all the time, and just name it whatever. and what's worse is that people use these numbers to indicate how much more advanced it is! I was told that RedHat was better than Debian just because it was on version 6.0 already and Debian was on 2.0!

    Bad Examples:

    • Mandrake 6.1 to 7.0 - a new installer. whoo.
    • RedHat 5.0 to 6.0 - new X components. whoo.
    • Windows 1995 to 1998 - was this really revolutionary?
    • Windows 2000 - ugh. I hate year based distributions of all sorts.
    Worst example:
    • Solaris 2.6 to Solaris 7 - Sun is forced to keep up by redoing their numbers. ugh. This is the absolute worst example I can think of in this 'Version inflation'.

    Now, I know that all you Zealots out there have your arguements of 'major changes' in the way your favorite product handled it's numbers, and quite a few relgious pamphlets to give me about it, but the fact of the matter is there are very few people who are following the correct versions for products any more, and we should encourage correct usage of the version schemes we have been using for years.

    --
    Gonzo Granzeau

  • This is old news (Score:4)

    by pyrosoft ( 44101 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:41AM (#1372845)
    Mandrake 7 ISOs have been available for at least a couple of weeks. rpmfind.net has 'em, sunsite has 'em, everybody has 'em. Individual RPMs are available for download as well. This is the start of Mandrake beginning to pull away from a mere "Redhat with extras" and actually put some original stuff in the distro. I quote from their website:

    • New perl/gtk based graphical installer Drakx, including many languages support and DiskDrake partitioner (lets one change the size of Ext2, FAT... disk partitions).
    • Use of supermount (integrated in kernel 2.2.14) in order to suppress the need of mount and umount for most removable medias (cdrom, floppy, zip): Mandrake easier to use than ever!
    • Several security levels that let you use your Linux box like a jail (extremely high security, restricted use), or like a very common proprietary OSes (very poor security, no constraint in use). Default is medium security level like in most standard Linux distributions.
    • Improved desktop integration with new tools like DrakConf and rpmdrake that let the user manage its Linux-Mandrake box like a charm.
    • New hardware configuration tools like lothar and XFdrake.



    So that's about it...I can't wait until this is stable...from the packages I've installed already, this is going to be awesome.

    Matt

  • pgcc and the kernel? (Score:4)

    by cxreg ( 44671 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:30AM (#1372846) Homepage Journal
    Its nice that there are distro[s] out there using pgcc to get the performance boost but I work with a guy who has tried several versions of Mandrake on different machines, and when he compiles the kernel it invariably causes some problem. It may go weeks or even months without problem but then just crashes for no apparent reason. The linux-kernel guys say not to use pgcc on the kernel because its known to be unstable when you do. However if this is the compiler that comes with Mandrake how are you expected to safely upgrade your system?!

  • I tried the beta. (Score:4)

    by lubricated ( 49106 ) <michalp@gmaiMENCKENl.com minus author> on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:32AM (#1372847)
    The beta that was there a couple weeks ago sucked. First of all the required desktop for all users was kde. I hate kde. /usr/local/bin/ is not in the path!! Editing /etc/profile doesn't do anything. lothar crashes alot. XFdrake doesnt work. Good thing I backed up my XF86Config. kdm was the default startup. That wouldn't be so bad but kdm didn't work neither did xdm. Only gdm. I posted these bugs to their mailing list and had not heard anything.

  • Mirror sites (Score:4)

    by dsplat ( 73054 ) on Friday January 14, 2000 @07:54AM (#1372848)
    Mandrake's site is swamped right now. The official list of mirror sites is here [linux-mandrake.com]. The ones listed as doing hourly updates are:



    I haven't gotten through to any of those servers to find out if they have 7.0 on them yet, but I expect they will soon.

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