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Mandrake Linux 9.0 Beta 1 554

Posted by michael from the keep-both-pieces-when-it-breaks dept.
leviramsey writes "MandrakeSoft has released the first beta of the next version of its distribution. It features XFree86 4.2, KDE 3.0, GNOME 2.0, and is compiled with gcc-3.1, which (alas) makes it incompatible with a fair amount of commercial software."
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Mandrake Linux 9.0 Beta 1 More

Mandrake Linux 9.0 Beta 1

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  • Compiled with gcc-3.1 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rnturn ( 11092 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:22PM (#3938244)

    Well, someone had to be first to ship with this compiler. I wouldn't worry. Vendors will catch up.

    • I agree, if somebody doesn't step up and start using 3.x, we'll probably all be stuck 2.9x forever. Thank you Mandrake (and Gentoo).
      • Been using GCC 3.1 on my 7.3 SuSE Sparc install (sunblade 100) for months. They had the RPMS out for awhile, just upgrade and go, it even compiles the kernel. Very nice, alot of compile problems have went away with GCC 3.1.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:00PM (#3938592)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Microsoft, love it or hate it, understands that you can't expect vendors to support your product and customers to buy it if you regularly break their software with OS upgrades

        You mean like how they silently broke plugin compatibility with IE5.5SP2?

        Former Mandrake 8.2 user. Current Mandrake 8.1 user.
      • I'm curious what this "habit" is that you speak of.

        The only release issues that I know of that break some apps is releases that switch from gcc 2.95 to 2.96 or 3.x. Once does not make a habit. And these instances don't affect ALL apps.

      • well Red Hat ships "compat-libs" and "compat-gcc" for its previous series. That means all apps compiled for Red Hat 7.x should work on 8.x as well. Might need upgrading at 9.0, but that's a couple years away....
      • I'm not worried about vendors catching up. I'm more concerned about users. Until Linux gets out of the habit of breaking huge numbers of apps with releases, Microsoft will continue to own the OS market.

        Do you think Microsoft does any differently? I have Win2k apps that won't run on WinNT, WinNT apps that won't run on Win2k, nothing worked on WinXP, and don't get me going about all the applications I bought for Win95 (mostly games) where WINE is my only hope of ever using them again.

        If applications support Win95, WinNT, Win2k, WinME and WinXP out of the box it's only because the vendors went through trials that would have made Heracles cringe.

        If anything, I'm more impressed by the Linux camp because Linus refuses to change for changes sake and the libc guys are positively anal about backwards compatibility.

    • Actually, no one should be shipping with this compiler. The distributers on the GCC list - FreeBSD, Redhat, Debian and Suse, and I thought Mandrake was in on this - agree that some emergency bugfixes would be made to the C++ ABI, so it will be compatible with the 3.3+ C++ ABI, and this would be release as 3.2 (as there's an ABI change.) Apple was the only exception I knew of - they're going ahead with a release based on 3.1.

    • Re:Compiled with gcc-3.1 (Score:2, Interesting)

      by hawwy ( 235434 )
      Well, someone had to be first to ship with this compiler. I wouldn't worry. Vendors will catch up.

      no way. when i downloaded mandrake 8.0 it came with version 2.95 i believe of gcc, and it made a ton of stuff really hard to install. so much that i went with slackware. i got mandrake becasue even though i'm a little linux saavy, i wanted a trouble-free, easy-to-use solution that would stand up on its own. it's not what i got, and the gcc shipped with 8 got them quite a bit of flak. don't see why they'd do it again.

    • Mac OS X is compiled with gcc-3.1
    • Actually the RedHat Beta (we're still talking about Beta's here anyway) which was released last month uses gcc-3.1. As I recall, there was even a posting here so you people that don't read anything other than /. (that's me sometimes too) should have seen it.
    • Shouldn't it be possible to include both gcc-3.1 and gcc-2.95 libs so that both run? I really hope so, otherwise all my Lokigames will become worthless :-(
  • Now, will HardDrake support USB HomePNA devices or is that still left out in the dark?

  • Question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why dosen't Redhat complie for i586 like mandrake? Is there a difference?

    • Re:Question (Score:2, Informative)

      by FU_Fish ( 140910 )
      I can't believe that RedHat is still compiling their new releases for i386 either. They need to step up. It just seems like a waste to continue to release new distributions compiled for 386s.

    • Re:Question (Score:2, Insightful)

      by paladin_tom ( 533027 )
      The i586 family of Intel processors have additional features and instructions not found on the i386 or i486. A program using the i586's new instructions will not run on an i386.

      In addition, the most efficient way of implementing a given task may differ across the two platforms, so there may be a difference between "fast i386 code" and "fast i586 code", even if the code is compatible.

      If RedHat is compiling for i386, it's probably to make their distro better for people who're slapping Linux on an old 486 to use as a server. Mandrake targets the desktop, hence most of their clientele will be using the newer i586 chips.
    • If you are worried about compiler options go with gentoo linux [gentoo.org]. You get to compile the whole system specifically for your hardware.

      Which is great because if you use Gentoos up an coming 1.3 release (in beta right now - should be released soon) you can use the gcc athlon flags to go with your AMD chips - to get the very most out of your system.

      Gentoo is way fast - don't just take my word for it - try it, you will never go back!

      Derek
      • Gentoo 1.3 wouldnt install on my AMD. I had to drop back to 1.2 gentoo to get it to install. BTW, every try to install a gentoo system over a modem? They need to put gentoo distribs on cd/dvds for the average 56k'er.

        Side note, I keep a mirror of gentoo on my server so I dont have to download over the net on installs. Then when I update, it only takes an hour or at night when Im asleep.. Noticed they put CounterStrike in the distribs, 150 megs, that took a few minutes. (-;

      • Re:Question (Score:2, Informative)

        by skidgetron ( 593733 )
        Actually, they aren't releasing a Gentoo 1.3, thats just testing, it will be 1.4 when it's stable. Just like a kernel.

      • Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)

        by Azar ( 56604 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:23PM (#3938771) Homepage
        >Gentoo is way fast - don't just take my word for it - try it, you will never go back!

        That's not necessarily true. I tried it and I went back (though not to Mandrake). Don't get me wrong. Gentoo has a -lot- of cool things about it. But it's not for everyone. Here are the biggest pitfalls, IMHO, about Gentoo that may or may not apply to the original poster.

        1) A reasonably new processor is a "requirement."

        Since Gentoo compiles everything from source it can take a long time on a slightly older processor. At work, I have a PIII-450 w/192MB of RAM. It took 3 days before I had the base install, XFree86, Gnome, KDE, Mozilla, Evolution, etc... all compiled and setup properly. That's a lot of wasted productivity time. But it is worth the trade off if you're a total speed/performance nut.

        2) Broadband/High speed internet access is a must.

        If a user does not have Cable/DSL/whatever that can download all the packages he needs in a reasonable time, then Gentoo may not be the right choice.

        3) Packages are updated frequently and only the most recent versions of software are available.

        This is really a double-edged sword. How quickly Gentoo updates it's available packages is awesome. However, you may not always want the latest and greatest, bleeding edge version of software. There are times when you want to install a version that you know works and may have bugs that you know how to work around.

        So Mandrake may be the better choice for his needs.

    • Re:Question (Score:4, Informative)

      by max cohen ( 163682 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:04PM (#3938630)
      Red Hat offers RPMs in i686/Athlon flavors where the arch difference gives the most benefit, namely glibc and the kernel. In most of the other cases i386 is used to ensure operation on most systems.

  • Heh.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by iONiUM ( 530420 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:24PM (#3938259) Journal
    CD switching during the installation causes some problems. When a new CD is requested, clicking the "cancel" button may lead the installation process into an infinite loop.

    I'm glad they tell you this, basically once you start installing you're getting linux whether you change your mind or not ;-).

    Oh well, it's better than a lot of microsoft's installs at least, where it does this with the "next" button instead of the "cancel" button.

  • Glad to hear (Score:3, Informative)

    by dciman ( 106457 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:24PM (#3938261) Journal
    I'm always glad to hear about a new release from Mandrake. Although I personally use Debian, Mandrake has always done an excellent job of promoting useability with their distro. Not to mention what is often the best hardware suport out of the box that I have seen. Granted it isa bit bloated unless you do the expert instal. But I think it is targeted at exactly the right market, and is an easy way for people with out lots of experience to get some of the newest goodies out there.
    • Okay, let me be clear from the beginning: I'm not a Linux user. I've only got so much computer hardware, and most of it is old Macintoshes with puny hard drives. I now have Mac OS X on my newest machine, and if I ever get the urge to start tinkering with UNIX goodies that's where I'll begin.

      So I don't own, or use, Linux. But I've resolved to make Mandrake my distro when and if I decide to give it a try.

      Not just because Mandrake's got a nearly-current PPC distro to go with their Intel-compatible ones, although that was what got their name to me in the first place. It's because they're packed with features, lots of options, both GNOME and K desktops, and an easy installation. If I were to put a Linux machine in front of my wife or daughter, it would be this one.

      And now they've got v9.0 coming out the door. Nice. I know that you can't do everything with Linux that you can with a current Mac or PC; everyone knows that. But it looks like Mandrake covers all the essential bases -- internet, office, customizability, multimedia. I could give a family member this distro and they'd be able to do just about everything they needed.

      If there's any Linux that's ready for the consumers, it's this one. Mandrake deserves to be known as the hardest-working distro development company as far as sheer user-friendliness is concerned. I'm glad it's free, but they're clearly worth the money.

      • Re:This is good stuff (Score:4, Funny)

        by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:55PM (#3938560) Homepage Journal
        Let me get this straight: you don't use Linux, let alone Mandrake, yet you're spouting off on the benefits of Mandrake...

        Your stated benefits for Mandrake also apply to several other distros. Did you just not get the time to read the back of their boxes as well? Mandrake might be the best Linux distro for you. But there is no way you can tell until you actually have some experience under your belt.
        • all right, just to help the clueless.

          Look at the parent post about "I use debian, but I like mandrake, blah, blah, blah".

          Then, look at the follow up - "I use OS X, but I like mandrake, blah, blah, blah".

          It's called "joke" or "sarcasm".

      • Re:This is good stuff (Score:5, Funny)

        by disappear ( 21915 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:57PM (#3938576) Homepage

        So I don't own, or use, Linux. But I've resolved to make Mandrake my distro when and if I decide to give it a try.
        Translation: I don't have the slightest idea what I'm talking about. But I've made some decisions.

        they're packed with features, lots of options, both GNOME and K desktops, and an easy installation
        Translation: I can read the website, and this is what it says.

        The fact is, any mainstream general-purpose Linux distribution has both GNOME and KDE, tons of features, and tons of options. While Mandrake's installer is nice, it's not worlds ahead of anybody else's anymore. (OK, it's ahead of Debian's in terms of user-friendliness, but what isn't?) Heck, even the Red Hat's installer is friendly these days.

        Nice. I know that you can't do everything with Linux that you can with a current Mac or PC; everyone knows that.
        Translation: I'm a troll. Don't take me seriously.
    • I use Red Hat personally (I know, boo, hiss), but I have used Mandrake and I believe it will eventually be far and away the best desktop distro.

      It's true that the install is somewhat bloated, but then again it seems like most desktop OS's are -- they tack on a lot of functionality that you might need just in case, sometime down the road, you do need it. IMO, this isn't such a problem with incredibly large desktop hard drives being so inexpensive.

      Besides that, though, Mandrake has always seemed to have the end user in mind -- they were the first with a nifty GUI update feature, they were the first to introduce some of the simple programs to update config files (what can I say, vi scares some people), etc. Hopefully, in the longer run, this sort of emphesis will pay off on the desktop.

      Remember: Just because Linux sucks on the desktop right now doesn't mean that it always will. Linux is an evolutionary product, and as such should eventually adapt to fill all niches (although not necessarily in the same form).

    • Re:Glad to hear (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Emrys ( 7536 )
      No one ever notes this, but Mandrake isn't just for newbies. It's actually a very good distribution for experienced sysadmins. Yeah, I know the've made their big rep on the "user friendly" front, and most people assume that a distro can't cater to both newbies and sysadmins... I used to think that, and never cared about giving Mandrake a look.

      Then I got tired enough of trying to find a distro that really was what I as a sysadmin wanted (after trying redhat, slackware, debian, and suse, which back then were the main options), so I went ahead and gave Mandrake a whirl. I was very pleasantly surprised. Not only have they made sure the experienced users can disable the GUI stuff and not have it break the distro, they actually do active development in the areas that sysadmins care about. And their cooker development area is full of lots of good action for the bleeding edge types, whether you care about the latest GNOME & KDE or just ncurses & xterms.

      Not to be flamebait, but I found in a nutshell that they contained all the source-y and sensible goodness I expected to get from Debian's policies and package management (the meatspace components of it, not dpkg itself), without some of the stuff I didn't like (which will remain here unnamed to avoid a distro war).

      Mandrake was good enough that when I switched years ago I was able to use it as a base to compile everything on my home box from scratch and go from there ("why?" because it was there). Now that Gentoo & others are around, I'm planning to check those out and probably move on, but at least time when I switch distros it won't be because the one(s) I'm leaving behind are inadequate for someone that wants lots of control over their system.

  • java (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dlb ( 17444 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:25PM (#3938265)
    * Java support is broken. Reason: The currently available Java is not compiled with GCC 3.1 and therefore does not work with our packages.
    What is so imperative about going to gcc 3.1 that you have to break java?
    • Can't Java be compiled against 3.1?

    • Re:java (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Clue4All ( 580842 )
      What's is so imperative about Java that you don't want to use the best version of GCC out there? (They're actually using 3.1.1 and will have the final release in 9.0)

      • Re:java (Score:4, Funny)

        by mosch ( 204 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:02PM (#3938609) Homepage
        nice link, jackass. FYI, moderators, the link is designed to crash IE.

      • Re:java (Score:2, Funny)

        by pmz ( 462998 )
        Well, since I am actually a department store mannequin, I see some retarded browsers, who faithfully listen to salesmen, and some not-so-retarded browsers, who reflexively say "I'm just looking". Anyway, I'm glad that they put me near the PC sales rack, so I can post to Slashdot when no one is looking ;)

    • Re:java (Score:2, Informative)

      by spencerogden ( 49254 )
      The most important difference is that 3.1 does a much better job at c++, which makes a huge difference in KDE
      • The most important difference is that 3.1 does a much better job at c++, which makes a huge difference in KDE

        In theory yes, in practice unfortunately it seems that it doesn't. I saw some statistics for 3.1, it takes TWICE as long to compile, and the resulting binaries are slightly slower at linking. The reason KDE seems slow is due to start up time, caused by inefficient linking, so 3.1 doesn't seem to improve KDE at all. Apparently it now requires an improved glibc, but I may be wrong here.

        Anybody care to correct me on this?

    • You still have two options -- get the powers-that-be to compile and release a VM with gcc-3.1 compatibility, or don't use Mandrake 9.0b1. It's the same situation that Windows users find themselves in all the time, but this time it happens in the Linux world and we wonder what the fix is....
    • Who runs java apps, anyway?

    • Re:java (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dave Yearke ( 130479 )
      For some of the gory details on the GCC 3.1/Java/Mozilla incompatibilities, here's a link:

      http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=116444 [mozilla.org]
    • What is so imperative about supporting proprietary software? Specially from a third party?

      If the java community really cared, they'd be pressing sun to make java GPL, instead of whining about the evolution of Free Software... Now... THAT would rock...
      • If the java community really cared, they'd be pressing sun to make java GPL, instead of whining about the evolution of Free Software... Now... THAT would rock...
        It is unlikely Sun will GPL their JVM implementation, if only because they are probably using third-party code here and there that they have no right to release as Open Source.

        A much better solution is to use and support Kaffe [kaffe.org], a free GPL'd Java runtime environment which as of late has been under very active development.

    • I would tend to agree, although it is a very nice feature about current linux distros that there can always be one or two 'pushing the envelope' like this. Alas, I wouldn't be one of the people trying out Mandrake 9 anyway and lack of java support is just one of the many reasons.

    • Re:java (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bollie ( 152363 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:27PM (#3938806)
      * Java support is broken. Reason: The currently available Java is not compiled with GCC 3.1 and therefore does not work with our packages.

      What is so imperative about going to gcc 3.1 that you have to break java?

      Not to harp too much, but I've got a shiny new Gentoo system compiled from scratch with GCC 3.1

      1) GCC 3.1 makes bigger code
      2) GCC 3.1 makes faster code (most of the times)
      3) GCC 3.1 actually tries to conform to a standard other than "just GCC"
      4) Binary compatability is ONLY broken for C++ (maybe some other languages, but definitely not C)
      5) Java (Sun's JDK) works if you compile it from scratch.
      6) Plugins with Mozilla is a bit tricky.
      7) In order to maintain Red Hat compatability they HAVE to use GCC 3.1
      8) The GCC team will shortly break binary compatability yet again (by renaming the GCC 3.1 branch to GCC 3.2).
      9) My is fine. Maybe not stable, but much nicer for a desktop.
      10) Once more people jump on the GCC 3-series bandwagon again (They jumped off when Red Hat did the gcc 2.96 doodoo) GCC will have a nice, stable ABI that won't be broken anytime soon.

      Damn. Harped too much... oh well...
  • preorder a DVD and get a free hat... Doesn't sound like a bad deal to me. http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/90dvdedition.php3
  • Just as I am about to go on holiday without a single computer in sight, Mandrake release a new beta.

    How can they do this to me?!!!

  • Which apps won't work with gcc-3.1? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Archie Steel ( 539670 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:26PM (#3938281)
    Is there a way to find out? I know it's still early, but I just want to find out if I should be excited about Mdk9.0 yet...

    • Re:Which apps won't work with gcc-3.1? (Score:4, Informative)

      by nev ( 25438 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:57PM (#3938572)
      Check out the Gentoo GCC3 forum [gentoo.org]. They have been playing with GCC 3 for a while now and the forum has good information on getting various programs to work with it. Problems seem to come up in two places:
      • The compiler can't compile a program due to the source not being compatible with the new GCC.
      • Commercial binaries are not compatible with libraries compiled with the new GCC. This affects things such as Mozilla plugins (Flash, Acrobat).

  • Wow, 9.0 so soon? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by colmore ( 56499 )

    I feel like 8.x went by as I blinked.

    they've really been churning them out lately.

  • mirrors (Score:3, Informative)

    by dotgod ( 567913 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:35PM (#3938365)

    Australia

    ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [planetmirror.com] (Brisbane)
    Austria

    ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/systems/linux/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ [univie.ac.at] (Vienna)

    ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [tuwien.ac.at] (Vienna)
    Belgium

    ftp://ftp.belnet.be/packages/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [belnet.be]
    Costa Rica

    ftp://ftp.ucr.ac.cr/pub/Unix/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [ucr.ac.cr]
    Czech Republic

    ftp://ftp.cesnet.cz/OS/Linux/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2 /i586/ [cesnet.cz] (Brno)

    ftp://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [fi.muni.cz] (Brno)

    ftp://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/pub/linux-mandrake/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ [fsv.cvut.cz] (Prague)

    ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [redbox.cz]

    ftp://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/OS/Linux/Dist/Mandrake/m andrake/8.2/i586/ [mff.cuni.cz] (Prague)

    http://ftp.fi.muni.cz/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [fi.muni.cz] (Brno)
    Denmark

    ftp://ftp.dkuug.dk/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [dkuug.dk] (Koebenhavn)

    ftp://ftp.sunsite.dk/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [sunsite.dk] (Aalborg)
    Estonia

    ftp://ftp.aso.ee/pub/os/Linux/distributions/mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [ftp.aso.ee]
    Finland

    ftp://ftp.song.fi/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.song.fi] (Espoo)
    France

    ftp://ftp.ciril.fr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ciril.fr] (Nancy)

    ftp://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/unix/linux/distribu tions/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [club-internet.fr] (Paris)

    ftp://ftp.info.univ-angers.fr/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [univ-angers.fr] (Angers)

    ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/distributions/mandrake /8.2/i586/ [lip6.fr] (Paris)

    ftp://ftp.proxad.net/pub/Distributions_Linux/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ [proxad.net] (Paris)

    ftp://ftp.u-strasbg.fr/pub/linux/distributions/man drake/8.2/i586/ [u-strasbg.fr] (Strasbourg)

    ftp://linux.ups-tlse.fr/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ups-tlse.fr] (Toulouse)
    Germany

    ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [fht-esslingen.de] (Esslingen)

    ftp://ftp.de.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [uu.net]

    ftp://ftp.fh-giessen.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ [fh-giessen.de] (Giessen)

    ftp://ftp.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/pub/os/linux/mandrak e/dist/8.2/i586/ [fh-wolfenbuettel.de] (Wolfenbuettel)

    ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.gwdg.de] (Goettingen)

    ftp://ftp.join.uni-muenster.de/pub/linux/distribut ions/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [uni-muenster.de] (Muenster)

    ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/unix/linux/Mandrake/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [leo.org] (Munchen)

    ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ [tu-chemnitz.de] (Chemnitz)

    ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ [tu-clausthal.de] (Clausthal)

    ftp://ftp.uasw.edu/pub/os/linux/mandrake/dist/8.2/ i586/ [uasw.edu] (Wolfenbuettel)

    ftp://ftp.uni-bayreuth.de/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i 586/ [uni-bayreuth.de] (bayreuth)

    ftp://ftp.uni-kassel.de/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ [uni-kassel.de] (Kassel)

    ftp://ftp.uni-mannheim.de/systems/linux/mandrake/8 .2/i586/ [uni-mannheim.de] (Mannheim)

    ftp://ftp.vat.tu-dresden.de/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [tu-dresden.de] (Dresden)

    ftp://ramses.wh2.tu-dresden.de/pub/mirrors/mandrak e/8.2/i586/ [tu-dresden.de] (Dresden)

    ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/ mandrake/8.2/i586/ [rwth-aachen.de] (Aachen)
    Greece

    ftp://ftp.duth.gr/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.duth.gr] (Thrace)

    ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.ntua.gr] (Athens)
    Hong Kong

    ftp://ftp.wisr.eie.polyu.edu.hk/linux/mandrake/8.2 /i586/ [polyu.edu.hk]
    Hungary

    ftp://ftp.linuxforum.hu/mirror/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [linuxforum.hu]
    Ireland

    ftp://ftp.esat.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [esat.net]
    Italy

    ftp://bo.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [mirror.garr.it] (Bologna)

    ftp://ftp.edisontel.it/pub/Mandrake_Mirror/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/ [edisontel.it]
    Latvia

    ftp://ftp.latnet.lv/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [latnet.lv]
    Netherlands

    ftp://ftp.nl.uu.net/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [uu.net]

    ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/Man drake/8.2/i586/ [nluug.nl]

    ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrake/M andrake/8.2/i586/ [surfnet.nl]

    ftp://ftp.wau.nl/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.wau.nl] (Wageningen)
    Poland

    ftp://ftp.ps.pl/mirrors/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.ps.pl] (Szczecin)

    ftp://ftp.task.gda.pl/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [task.gda.pl] (Gdansk)
    Portugal

    ftp://ftp.dei.uc.pt/pub/linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8. 2/i586/ [dei.uc.pt] (Coimbra)

    ftp://tux.cprm.net/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [cprm.net]
    Russia

    ftp://ftp.chg.ru/pub/Linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.chg.ru] (Chernogolovka)
    Singapore

    ftp://ftp.singnet.com.sg/opensource/linux/Mandrake /8.2/i586/ [singnet.com.sg]
    Slovakia

    ftp://spirit.profinet.sk/mirrors/Mandrake/8.2/i586 / [profinet.sk] (Bratislava)
    Spain

    ftp://ftp.cesga.es/pub/linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [cesga.es] (Galicia)

    ftp://ftp.cica.es/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.cica.es] (Sevilla)

    ftp://ftp.rediris.es/pub/linux/distributions/mandr ake/8.2/i586/ [rediris.es]
    Sweden

    ftp://ftp.chello.se/pub/Linux/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [chello.se]

    ftp://ftp.chl.chalmers.se/pub/Linux/distributions/ Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [chalmers.se] (Gothenburg)

    ftp://ftp.du.se/pub/os/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.du.se] (Dalarma)
    Switzerland

    ftp://ftp.pcds.ch/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ftp.pcds.ch] (Neuhausen)

    ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mandrake/8.2/ i586/ [cnlab-switch.ch] (Zurich)
    Taiwan

    ftp://linux.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/pub/Mandrake/mandrak e/8.2/i586/ [nsysu.edu.tw]

    ftp://linux.csie.nctu.edu.tw/distributions/mandrak e/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [nctu.edu.tw]

    ftp://mdk.linux.org.tw/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [linux.org.tw]
    Turkey

    ftp://ftp.ankara.edu.tr/pub/linux/dagitimlar/Mandr ake/8.2/i586/ [ankara.edu.tr] (Ankara)
    United Kingdom

    ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [mirror.ac.uk] (Canterbury)
    United States

    ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [gatech.edu] (Georgia)

    ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [ufl.edu] (Florida)

    ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/pub/Linux/Mandrake/mandr ake/8.2/i586/ [buffalo.edu] (NY)

    ftp://ftp.nmt.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [nmt.edu] (New Mexico)

    ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [orst.edu] (Oregon)

    ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/distributions/mandrake/8.2/i 586/ [tux.org] (Virginia)

    ftp://ftp.umr.edu/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandrake/8.2/ i586/ [umr.edu] (Missouri)

    ftp://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i586 / [indiana.edu] (Indiana)

    ftp://linux-cs.tccw.wku.edu/pub/linux/distribution s/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [wku.edu] (WKU-Linux, Western Kentucky University)

    ftp://mirror.aca.oakland.edu/linux/mandrake/8.2/i5 86/ [oakland.edu] (Michigan)

    ftp://mirror.cs.wisc.edu/pub/mirrors/linux/Mandrak e/8.2/i586/ [wisc.edu] (Wisconsin)

    ftp://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/Mandrake/8.2/i586/ [anl.gov] (Illinois)

    ftp://mirrors.ptd.net/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [ptd.net] (Pensylvania)

    ftp://mirrors.secsup.org/pub/linux/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [secsup.org]

    ftp://uml-pub.ists.dartmouth.edu/mirrors/ftp.mandr akesoft.com/pub/Mandrake/mandrake/8.2/i586/ [dartmouth.edu] (New Hampshire)

    ftp://videl.ics.hawaii.edu/mirrors/mandrake/Mandra ke/8.2/i586/ [hawaii.edu] (Hawaii)

    http://mandrake.dsi.internet2.edu/Mandrake/8.2/i58 6/ [internet2.edu] (For Internet2 academic institutions only)

  • I could be wrong about this, but I was under the impression that gcc-3.2 will be incompatible with 3.1, and therefore it seems strange for me for Mandrake to make the switch so quickly, when there are still some issues with 3.1 and it's more or less a dead-end in terms of compatibility. Hopefully they'll use 3.2 (scheduled for release within the next week according to the site [gnu.org]) on the final version.

    Oh, here's the quote from GCC's page [gnu.org] about 3.2 incompatibility:

    GCC 3.1 [sic, should be 3.2] has a number of C++ ABI fixes in it which make its C++ compiler binary incompatible with the C++ compilers found in earlier GCC releases, including GCC 3.1 and GCC 3.1.1
    .
    • I'm still waiting for the day when the GCC crew gets a clue. Proper prior planning prevents perennial problems. There's absolutely no reason for this incompatibility.

      ISO Standard C++ is not changing, so there's no reason to change the ABI. If you have to change the ABI it can only mean that they did it wrong the first time. They *know* that G++ is eventually going to be 100% standard C++ compliant, so they should have finalized the ABI as soon as possible after the standard was released.

    • I wouldn't worry too much, really. After all, this is only the first beta, and will hopefully have some time to switch to GCC 3.2. Such a change should be pretty smooth, given that the only item in the list of changes on the page you mentioned is:

      • The C++ ABI now conforms to the V3 multi-vendor standard.

      I sincerely hope that GCC's C++ ABI remains stable from here on. It has been, IIRC, the single biggest source of incompatible GCC version issues.

  • Another GCC nightmare ahead (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jmv ( 93421 )
    I've seen the beta ships with gcc 3.1.1. If this holds for the release, that means there's going to be yet another C++ ABI incompatibility when gcc 3.2 [gnu.org] comes out. I just hope RedHat 8.0 and Mandrake 9.0 both ship with the same compiler.

  • If you are interested in purchasing this CD-r set: (Score:5, Informative)

    by pheph ( 234655 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:44PM (#3938464) Homepage
    A company I do work for is selling (3) CD-r sets of this distribution for $2.49. $0.50 is donated to misc. Open Source and $0.50 is donated directly to Mandrake for their hardwork in creating this distribution.

    If you are interested, please see Open Soars Mandrake Linux 9.0 Beta 1 Product Page [opensoars.com].

  • Linux Useability (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Parsa ( 525963 )
    We always ask questions and ponder why Linux isn't more prevalent on the desktop. I think this post and thread is a perfect example of why it isn't.

    Look at all the fuss over gcc 3.1 not being compatible with Java, other software packages and even 3.2 that is suppose to be out soon. The average user doesn't want to have to deal with that.

    I myself have used Mandrake for about 3 years now and love it, and will buy the retail package when it comes out in stores. But I don't expect my 70 something year old grandfather to deal with gcc version compatibility when all he wants to do is email and look up stuff he watched on Discovery or The History Channel.
    • There's a lot of truth in what you say. But it isn't the fault of Linux, it's the fault of the distros. Mandrake (and most of the other "friendly" distros) are living on the bleeding edge. What is needed for greater acceptance on the desktop is a distro that is as conservative as Debian but as "friendly" as Mandrake. But while such a distro will be good for the newbie, it won't be accepted by the community.

      Case in point: Corel LinuxOS. It was exactly what the newbie needed, but it was panned out of existance for not being a power-user's distro.

  • Mandrake all the way. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by $criptah ( 467422 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @12:51PM (#3938524) Homepage

    Although I am a FreeBSD [freebsd.org] dude, I loved my workstation running Mandrake. I think they do an excellent job by trying to make the system more optimized for an end user, rather than a professional sys. admin. For a while, I thought that RedHat was the most user friendly, but I was wrong. The installation process was very smooth and clean, that's where most of Linux distros lag behind. With this in mind, I am thinking of getting the latest Mandrake release and putting it on my moms computer. I've heard that she is sick of 'those blue screens' :)
  • froze instantly as soon as I put in my Orinoco wireless PCMCIA card. =(

    That and it didn't have accelerated ATI Radeon 7500 Mobility drivers.

    Maybe these issues will be fixed now?
    Please? *cries*
  • Since my other post was under a bunch of score:1 posts:

    To compile your own 3.1 Java (wahoo, a JVM w/ optimizations!)

    http://hints.linuxfromscratch.org/hints/javafrom sc ratch.txt

    Also, you CAN get flash to work, there's a post in gentoo's message boards on how to do this:

    http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=4753

    Hope this helps.
  • It would be nice if they included KDE 3.1 (alpha) [kde.org]. That way I can try and break 2 birds with one stone.

    Of course I could install it seperately but I'm lazy
  • I am a long-time Redhat user, and am curious as to what might persuade me to switch to one of the other RPM-based distributions such as Mandrake. Can anyone out there list the main differences?
    • I've only seen a couple. Mandrake includes these features that I haven't seen in Redhat (notice I'm not saying "aren't there", just "I haven't seen", so correct me if Redhat contains these):
      • Installs updates during installation
      • Drakfont - gui for importing fonts from windows
      • Devfs, can tell easier if a device is actually there
      • Drakgw - gui for configuring a firewall/connection sharing machine, it works very well
      • urpmi - like apt-get for rpms, VERY nice (I know a long time redhat user who switched to mdk because of this)
      • Minimal install - you can install a very stripped down system (65mb mandrake claims)

        There's no doubt more than this, this is all I could come up with of the top of my head.

  • Proprietary, not Commercial (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cyclops ( 1852 ) <rms@140[ ]rg ['7.o' in gap]> on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @01:06PM (#3938646) Homepage
    To the article poster and to all who can't distinguish, here is a rule that you should learn:

    Proprietary Software != Commercial Software

    It's proprietary software (regardless of being commercial or not -- realplayer is proprietary but free of charge) that will not work. This is due to the usual bad support that proprietary software vendors inflict upon the consumers.

    With Free Software (regardless of being commercial or not -- Mandrake cd's can be bought), you can recompile (if someone's not done that for you already) in order to have it work on this new environment, regardless of the wish for profit of the vendor. If you don't have the expertise, you can ask someone else to do it for you (either gratis or for some amount of money).

    So remember kids:
    There is Proprietary Software which is not commercial
    There is Free Software that is commercial
    Proprietary has nothing to do with Commercial

  • Why gcc 3.1 ? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by unixmaster ( 573907 )
    Save that I dont use Mandrake and still love my Slack but its nice that Drake guys used gcc 3.1 . Why ?

    Benchmarks ( http://www.coyotegulch.com/reviews/intel_comp/inte l_gcc_bench2.html ) showed that gcc 3.1 produces killer c++ code as intel's compiler and msvc++.

    C++ code was a bottleneck for gcc 2.9x series thats why our pretty Mozilla is slower than its is on Windows. But with gcc 3.1 and upcoming gcc releases this is no true anymore. After this we will have killer c++ code . So this means faster kde & mozilla etc etc.

    And gcc 3.1 is more ANSI/ISO C++ compliant see http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-3.1/changes.html

  • why does GCC 3.1 break stuff? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ender Ryan ( 79406 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @02:20PM (#3939223) Journal
    Hmmm... I don't understand why compiling things with GCC 3.1 breaks commercial programs. Is it due to incorrect versions of the libstdc++.* libs? If that is the case why not ship the distribution with both compilers installed?

    Currently I have about half the stuff on my system compiled with gcc 3.1 and have not had a problem.

    Someone who knows more about this please explain.

    • The C++ ABI changed. So only C++ programs will break. C stuff should work fine. It's not really a matter of shipping with two compilers -- C++ programs compiled with one compiler will not be able to use C++ libraries compiled with another.

    • Re:why does GCC 3.1 break stuff? (Score:4, Informative)

      by elflord ( 9269 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @11:11PM (#3942308) Homepage
      Hmmm... I don't understand why compiling things with GCC 3.1 breaks commercial programs. Is it due to incorrect versions of the libstdc++.* libs? If that is the case why not ship the distribution with both compilers installed?

      Currently I have about half the stuff on my system compiled with gcc 3.1 and have not had a problem.

      The submitter doesn't have a very good grasp of the issues. The compatibility issue is that gcc 3.1 uses a different ABI to older gcc versions. That is, C++ functions need to have their names "mangled" to handle C++ features such as function overloading, namespaces, and templates; and the name mangling scheme changes from compiler to compiler (largely because they're still trying to get it right) This means that C++ programs compiled with older compilers will not be able to link against C++ libraries (such as libstdc++) compiled with gcc 3.1. In practice, this is not a problem-- most commerical applications don't dynamically link against any C++ libraries except libstdc++, and Linux distributions typically ship multiple libstdc++ versions. The libstdc++ that ships with gcc 3.1 has the soname (the name that the runtime linker cares about) "libstdc++.so.4" by default, so it will not collide with older versions of the same library (which are named differently)

  • GCC 3.1 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Junta ( 36770 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @03:43PM (#3939842)
    I've been running gcc 3.1 compiled gentoo for a while now. Very nice and offers some tangible speedups. However, the costs:

    Browser Plugins:
    Flash plugin required me to write a small compatibility library to mimick some the old libstdc++ mangled memory allocation schemes. This will probably not appear in a Mandrake desktop, as they will likely provide a -compat library without the user knowing.
    Never have gotten java plugins to work... Just haven't figured it out for blackdown, ibm's, nor suns.... Realplayer plugin problem same as Flash. Right now I am just lacking java...

    Build:
    Some programs won't build out of the box. Some due to bad code, but mostly due to strange build configuration. For example, basiliskII's build fails at one point when gcc is used to link object files generated by g++ and bombs because some g++ symbols are unknown to gcc, switching that gcc to g++ makes that step go by... Others I've had issues with include PixiePlus, mame, and openoffice.

    Others may have issues. I don't use crossover as vanilla wine fills all my needs, and I have nothing in the way of commercial software aside from games, which all *worked*, (every quake, civctp). The biggest problem I've had is again, c++ browser plugins...

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