has anyone tryed mandrake 8.1? if what is it like? are there many improvements to mandrake 8.0?

i herd that there is a curser shadow like windows 2000?? is there?

what other cool stuff is there?

I was usen 8.1, my first time with Linux. Dunno if it's any better than 8.0 or not, I've heard it is though. just no drivers for my KyroII, so I uninstalled it, till drivers come out.



Stealth -



P.S.I love Linux!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i take it you liked it? if you need to see if stuff is supported check out www.linux.com

I downloaded and burned CD's of Mandrake 8.1 yesterday. I believe the official 8.1 was just released. Anyway, I had Mandrake 8.0 on my machine at work so I just did an upgrade. It took a little over an hour. That is much longer than a fresh install would take I believe. Until a couple weeks ago I swore by Red Hat. Then I just decided to try some different dists. Mandrake 8.0 was my first test. I was very pleased with it. Now I am running Mandrake 8.1 and so far it seems very nice. I will probably try RedHat 7.2 when it comes out but it will have to be very good for me to reload my machine.

No, there is no little shadowed cursor like in Windows 2k

Found that M8.1 works better than did M8.0.

For example, was running M7.2 and did a fresh install of M8.0, tried to recompile my kernel. It kept saying that some utility or other that was required by the compiling process had not been installed! Why? I installed all the packages! I wasn't prepared to spend a long time on-line at uni hunting down the rogue util, so I just went back to M7.2 until M8.1 came along. Seems to work a treat. As for fancy GUI type developments, not sure. I'm quite happy running a boring but functional desktop (I keep cocking thing up bigtime, so I stopped fancying my desktop as it took too long).

Mandrake 7.2 was my first fullblown Linux experience (I did play around with Corel Linux 1.2 for a day or two, but it had no decent software with it, so I didn't learn bugger about Linux that way). I found upgrading to Red Hat 7.1 to be a MAJOR upgrade; Mandrake 7.2 (and the MandrakeFreq I have, listing itself as 8.0) use a textmode GRUB bootloader, while Mandrake 8.1 uses a graphical LILO, which I like a lot better. Software installation works a LOT better on Mandrake 8.1 (For the first time, I was able to correctly install a tarball!). The big bonus of Mandrake is that it's bleeding-edge. If you're an early adopter, you won't be satisfied with any other distro.

That being said, I still haven't tried Red Hat 7.2 yet, but my discs are in the mail.

I was REALLY impressed by Mdk 8.1, after feeling let down by 7.2. As far as distro of choice is concerned, I still give Red Hat 7.1 a slight edge over Mandrake 8.1, just because I like the way it's organized better. Mandrake's menus are a little chaotic. I do like the desktop customization, though; The MWM window decorations (not available with RH7.1) look like a real UNIX system.

I guess it depends on your window manager, too. I'm pretty sure Mandrake 8.1's versions of GNOME and Nautilus are more up-to-date than 8.0. Plus, 8.1 allows the ext3 journalling filesystem.

In summary: if you're considering upgrading from mdk8.0 to 8.1, my advice is a resounding yes. If you're considering switching distibutions...well, you'll have to decide that for yourself, from the pros and cons listed.

If you are interested in a cursor shadow, you need to look
at alternative Window Managers in "X" and you don't really
need to update your Mandrake distribution.
I would do a Google search on the "Enlightenment" window
manager. It has several cool goodies, and you should
be able to switch to Enlightenment and try the new themes
from your 8.0 Mandrake Release.

-- Regards
Ross

I have 8.1. It's not bad, if you're after a desktop that looks really good, I'd recommend WindowMaker with a nice theme, or BlackBox. I use WindowMaker - I'd prefer to use BB because it gives my laptop display more room (the big WM dock icons), saying this though, I like to have docked apps without menuing. So until I can get docking happening in BB, I'll use WM.

I had never tried installing any distribution of Linux until about 5 weeks ago. I have heard alot about it and liked the idea of an operating system for the peole from the people. So I was at Wal-Mart and saw Mandrake 8.1 standard. I took it home and had it auto configure everything including the partitioning <yes I made a backup just in case>. After it installed <took about 35 Minutes on a Hp Brio, Celeron 500mhz 128 ram, 2 cd's, 10gb HDD, ALSO using Roadrunner Cable Internet with the 3com Shark looking modem> and when it rebooted and went into the Boot Screen, it defaulted to Linux, booted up right into Gnome and everything looked great!, I proceeded to startup Netscape for Linux and my internet was totally setup, it was fine, no problems at all. In the last 4 weeks I have used the RPM Drake install program to install the crap that i download from the net <games, apps etc..> and they install perfectly, I tried the cd burning software which worked great, better than NERO in my opinion.

I have completely removed MICROSOFT WINDOWS XP from my system and am very happy with Mandrake Linux. The system has not crashed once, no programs have crashed and it seems to be a hell of alot faster than Win 98,me and XP.

Pinball

I'm glad i am not the only one who thinks that way about Mandrake Linux 8.1 it simply r0x!

One more thing about Mdk 8.1.

It has a REALLY cool tool that lets you take all the fonts you gathered in windows and import/install them automatically in your linux mandrake installation!! all u gotta do is push one button.

I originally looked into Linux to have something to play with. Doing a little research I discovered that Mandrake 8.1 was suggested for a newbie like myself. I have not regretted picking it up. Installed easily in about 30 minutes time. It set up a dual boot that works smoothly. I have done nothing but rave about this to my friends and now they are looking at adding it to their home systems. I couldn't believe all the tools that came with it. My biggest testimony is that my wife has fallen in love with it as well. I just wish that the games I like to play were offered in Linux. I guess I will have to keep Winblows around a little while longer.

Like pinball, I bought my first linux at wal-mart, mandrake 8.1. Installed the "automatic" way, and everything worked fine.

The only thing holding me to my win98 dual-boot setup is that I like to download music & burn CDs (with Nero). Haven't checked in to how to do that stuff in linux yet. Any advice, pinball??

I found gtk-gnutella to be easy to install and use for downloading music. I haven't tried burning cds yet.