Is Mandrake Linux also free ? You can't download it from their site unless you are a Mandrake Linux Users Club member. But you can download it from linuxiso.org How does that work then ?

Go to www.mandrakelinux.com. The link to download for free should be in the menu to the left

It is not mandatory to join the Mandrake Club, but it has a lot of worthwhile benefits.

Under products|downloads I get this page asking you to become a member to download. Please post the link where you can download it free via www.mandrake.com

Thanks

Mandrake first releases new versions of their software to Mandrake Club members. Then, some time later, they release them to the public. That page you linked to, just click on the secong green button and you will be sent to the download page.

BTW, the Mandrake download edition is all Free software, that's why you can just get it from linuxiso.org

Mandrake software is 100% GPL (the software they code themselves is released under the GPL license), they say so on their sites. However, they DO release their newest versions to their club members first...only a little while in advance. It gives club members a little bonus for the fees they pay (on top of a few other little extras).

So its definitely free as in freedom, and soon after its free as in beer.

Mandrake is actually a combination of GPL and non-GPL software. The non-free version includes commercial software as well. The free one excludes the commercial software.

Yes, but everybody does that, JaseP-- if Mandrake, SuSE, RedHat, Xandros, et. al. had to pay for Crossover Office/WineX/pre-compiled nVidia and ATI drivers/name your non-free bells and whistles-- then so must the user.

That's only reasonable.

What I meant was the code that Mandrake created (ie: the draketools, the installer and such).

I mean, yes, the commercial distro has commercial code. For some of the goodies they distribute, you can't avoid that (somebody mentionned the nvidia drivers, there's also the real-audio stuff I think, among other things) but on their site they make their commitment to the GPL quite clear.

I find that reassuring personally.

That's the one thing that Mandrake has over SuSE,...

that their tools (DiskDrake, etc) are GPL. SuSE's tools (Yast2, etc.) are generally closed source, while the distro itself is open source,... hence why you can't download a full version of SuSE.

What I wanted to emphasize was the fact that if you think you're getting what others get in the store-bought version, online, you are mistaken.

Well, if you'll take some time & read about their release schedule it will all become clear to you...

I download Mandrake Linux 10 from one of their servers, afte waiting 24 Hours and 15min burning the ISO's I installed it over my suse installation and found it to be very good. Mandrake is free but all the commercial apps/drivers like:

ATI
Nvidia
Adobe Apps
Opera
Flash Player
Sun Java

have to be manually installed and configured. This could be hellish for example I went back to SuSE Linux because in Mandrake I wasn't able to successfully install the NVIDIA Drivers.

So without all of the commercial apps or drivers Mandrake is free. But you won't have any fun Updating, that must be a Club Member Privelage. On SuSE there is Nvidia Drivers in RPM form and the Update does work. All the Mandrake Servers don't work, and you can't change them to update from another location.

webterractive... what are you talking about? Update works fine and Mandrake Servers work great. You can use the Software Package Manager to add / edit / delete sources for updating / installing from. The NVidia drivers are actually quite simple to install, get the kernel source then do the install... not too difficult. I find updating quite fun - I have kde 3.2.1, kernel 2.6.5custom, Java SDK w/ JVM 100% configured, Flash Player, and Adobe Photoshop 7 all working :-)