Hello,


I was just wondering how long some of the people who use this forum have used mandrake? I always hear that mandrake is for a noob and I just wanted to say I really like it and it does what I need it to do just fine and I am not looking at other distros.

Just would like to know!

used mandrake off and on for couple years kept going back to xp but finally said no more and know im runing slackware. Mandrake is a nice distro.

Hi,

A few years of Red Hat and Mandrake and, before that, I used to be sysadmin for AIX systems (it is IBM's UNIX branding). As far I could say, I think that all the linux distros are kind of alike in a way, just different flavours of packaging... Now I know that, for some people (not to say many...), it is kind of like a religion, meaning that our religion is always better! For me, it is just a tool and if it performs to my satisfaction, then I stick with it.

Right now, I am using Mandrake 9.1 and will move to 9.2 as soon as they clean up their ISOs. I never upgrade core systems, I prefer to do clean installs in order to avoid any potential problems associated with upgrading OSs...

Regards,

mishmash

I've been using mandrake for a little over a year, and like it alot, and still learning alot,
and planning on trying mandrake 9.2. Once I get another box would like to try out slackware and debian, just to see if I like it better than mandrake.

I started with mandrake 6.0 back in 99. Also used debian and slackware.

The only difference between linux distros is the tools, the source code all starts out the same, some distros like mandrake and suse tweak it. Slackware trys not to touch the code that developers have released.

With Slackware you learn how to do things by hand, the other distros you learn how to use the tools to do things.

Mandrake is desktop oriented, red hat is server oriented.

It dosent really matter what distro you are using, they all do the same thing, only the themes are usually slightly different. And you can customize a theme to look like anything you want it to, even windows xp.

Check out this article about package managers, its a easy read.
http://lwn.net/Articles/49967/

When you decide what distro you like, buy a boxed set, or send the company a few bucks so they will be here tomorrow, unless of course you would rather have windows as your only OS choice in the future.

That was a great article.

And, BTW...I have been using Mdk for a good part of the last 3 yrs. when I first installed Version 7.1 then took it back & returned it to buy the newly released Version 7.2 "Complete" (Now Powerpack)...

In the interim I have also installed & tried several other packages...the most troublesome install was Debian...it gave me fits, and didn't seem all that great.

I am probaably going to try Slack & Gentoo soon.

almost one year now
and i've had less crashes, less problems and more fun than in the previous 2.5 yrs on windows


i intend to buy Mandrake 9.1/2 a.s.a.p
these people are producing a reall really cool OS, the other distros I have tried (various redhat releases and slack9) just don't come close

something worth supporting i reckon

Hi!

I got a pc XP fitted a year ago. 5 months later I installed mdk9.0, 9.1 later. I had some trouble in printer and modem setting, now it runs. I'm trying Knoppix, but I shall not change.

since one of the first versions...
at that time it was very very similar to redhat and not much tweaked yet!

That was a good article, and I have to agree with how good urpmi works with mandrake, once you get it configured properly.
Haven't tried debian yet so can't comment on apt-get, but hopefully will be checking it out soon.

I've been using Mandrake for about 2 years. I started on Red Hat, and moved to Mandrake on a whim one day because of on-going small annoyances I had with RH (which btw I think is(was) also a fantastic distro).

I'd say I'm now _well_ beyond the stage of needing to rely on Mandrake as a "newbie" distro, however I still choose to keep it, use it, and support it (just got my 9.2 PowerPack btw Why?

1) Firstly out of gratitude for getting me into Linux when other less simplied distros were discouraging;
2) Secondly because I feel if new users are going to get into Linux that Mandrake is almost certainly the gateway, and I want to support and encourage that;
3) Thirdly, I love the community. We (as all distros do) support each other and contribute our time/energy to helping others;
4) Most importantly, I'm just very happy with the choices Mandrake makes, they are in most cases what I would have "custom" changed to. I love the tools, urpmi and *drak are great. And I just like it. I enjoy tweaking and custom building like most linux-geeks, but I also appreciate having my system up and running when I need to use it. Mandrake offers the security, flexibility and robustness that I want.

Truthfully, if I have the money, I'll continue to pay to be in the Mandrakeclub even if I decide to switch off Mandrake, simply because I want to continue to support what Mandrake stands for.

Hello all,

Thanks for the replies. The whole reason I started this thread was the other day I went into my local computer shop, there was another customer there and he wanted a video card, he kept saying to the sales man he needs something that works with linux so the sales guy told him to hold on went to the back so me being a fellow linux user asked what flavor of linux he uses he told me slack then asked what I used and I told him mandrake and he said "mandrake is for idiots and told me as long as I used it I was not gonna learn a thing". I have to admit it really is easy to use but I like it and in no way consider it to be for idiots. If it were a total full proof os there would not be a forum with users.

I just thought the guy was down right rude and I just wanted to see who after there "noob" stage stuck with it.

Hi,

You are right! He was rude and full of himself. Remember my comment up there about "...being like a religion...". That is exactly it.

Truth is that Mandrake is kind of easy to use but it does not stop somebody from learning about linux. In fact, no matter the linux distros you are going to use, you can (and will) learn only if you want to and only if you put the extra efforts to it. All linux distros can be "tweaked" on the command line. Remember, there are people building tools and there are people using tools, both sides need the other...

Regards,

mishmash

Hi all,

I'm a brand new DBA for a Japanese telecommunications company. I've been using Mandrake 9.1 since June and just upgraded to 9.2. I tried to install Gentoo a few times on my Dell here at work but I keep messing up Lilo.

My supervisor has been in the IT field for about fifteen years, has certifications for Windows, Solaris and Cisco and he loves Mandrake. He has used just about every distro of linux and prefers Mandrake and Gentoo to the rest. Right now he has Mandrake 9.2 with out GUI options on his laptop and uses it to administer to our many Windows 2000K and Solaris 9 servers. If I remember correctly had a negative comment about Red Hat, much in the same context as that guy in the computer shop except put in a much nicer way


Tammy

mandrake is easy?
you mean it works out of the box

(you mean you don't have to spend 3 hours hacking obscure sys files to make it work...where do i sign up?)

this is really silly
why this downer on mandrake?

it's got just about everything on 3 cd's
it's stable, efficient, fast, well thought out, it's aimed at pc users who want to be in control
as opposed to redhat (captialist corporate sellout)
slackware (we burn wizards)
and other more (currently) obscure versions (undead linux, phat linux, et al)

one could be forgiven for thinking that because mandrake appears to have reached a pretty impressive level of stability and content
that everyone's gotta throw stones at it

mandrake is what windows would have been if ms hadn't gotten greedy and paranoid

it's Linux
and it's probably the best distro thus far (imo)


bottom line

attention geeks/h4ck3rs
there are new linux users in town
they're not hackers
they don't want to outsmart everyone they meet
they're not elitist types with political agendas
they're not terrorists
nor are they IT phreaks who can porgram an electric toothbrush to get mozdev
(nods in respect to anyone who fit's the above...but)

they're just ordinary folk who have discovered a beautiful way of "crunching the numbers"



you did want Linux to grow right?