is mandrake free?
 

Hey is Mandrake free? because when i go to their site they are talking bout ordering and i dont like to pay lol

here ya go http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftp.php3

do you recommend mandrake over Redhat?

yes/no
 

yes and no
free if you dont want all the drivers.
you have to pay if you want all the drivers.

Yes, Mandrake is free. I just checked out thier download page and I see they just recently changed it. It is now a little less than clear as to where to link to the free three cd download version. Look at the red link that says "Download via public mirrors(3-CD only version)" it is near bottom of page just above the bold "Note : The free Download version doesn't include the additional software and services mentionned above."

Club membership is optional. I have been using Mandrake for a few years now and always downloaded the free version. I did as of last week send a check for club membership, but that was for no reason other than they make a great product and I have been using for years. Figure it is about time I contribute financially so they stay afloat. I use other distros now aswell, but Mandrake was my first, so I feel I owe them. Download it free, try it, learn it, as you are already finding out in this forum, they have a great user community that is more than willing to help. Maybe down the road, you will feel you want to support them. They don't force it.

is mandrake better or suse?

Is distro a better than b?
This is simply opinion, usually, you will notice the distro people claim is best is the one they feel most comfortable with, look at the distro mentioned under their user name and usually by coincidence it is the same as they suggest. All the major distro's are good. Mandrake is considered good for starting out as is Suse etc. About the only time I find any real difference is if you need something for older hardware. Example: all major distro's run like a tortoise on my 266mhz laptop with 64megs ram, but Vector Linux is designed for older pc's and runs really fast on it. By and large what makes Mandrake stand out is the Drake tools. They will help you set things up without needing to know the command line side of things.

awesome thanks, im downloading Suse 9.1 and Mandrake 10.1 as we speak. so i can test out both (or just have them both on some cds) How do i use Partitionmagic 8.0 in my Windows to partition my harddrive so i can Install Mandrake (and or Suse) on my other partition. I dont want to make my windows unbootable (this happened to me last night and i had to reinstall everything)

If you use partition magic make sure your xp partition is not listed as "hidden" before you quit the program. I have not used it myself in years as I no longer use pirate ware or windows (I never could afford all that good stuff that I used with Windoze). For partitioning, I use qtparted. It is on many live linux cd's such as Knoppix. Always good to have a "knoppix" or "systemrescue" cd around. Qtparted is free, and looks like a clone of partition magic. Also, Mandrake install cd has a very good partitioning utility it will present to you during set up, used it many times. I expect Suse as well, but haven't tried it as I have only used the live Suse dvd.

will the partitioning utility on Mandrake's install cd, reformat my entire harddrive before making the linux partition?

Only if you ask it too. ;)

lol i personally dont recommend either redhat is not supported any more and mandrake is bloated like forget about it i recommend ubuntu or any other debian based distro

More seriously, it will give you several options, one of which is to install Mandrake in the free space at the end of the Windows partition. If you choose this, it will partition off space for itself, and format *those* partitions, leaving your Windows a little smaller, but otherwise fine. :)

(But, accidents *do* happen, so it always pays to be prepared!)

Edit: Speel: WHAT isn't supported anymore? Mandrake is supported, and QTParted was supported last I looked. Suse is supported. I don't know what you are talking about.

It only gets bloated if you give it too much to eat.

so mandrake isnt supported any more?