Mandrake 10 Beta 2
 

Mandrake 10 Beta 2 just released, as reported by:

http://www.distrowatch.com/?newsid=01322
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/story26248.html
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5893

Ironically, there's no mention of this on Mandrake's own news page. :(
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/fnews.php3

Apparently it's top secret information available only to club members. :o
http://www.mandrakeclub.com/article.php?sid=1650

As much as I like the distro, they need to realize that a download privilege from the club isn't worth diddly squat to the majority of the world still using analog modems. Everyone doesn't have government sponsored DSL like they do in France. Don't get me wrong, I paid for my copy of MDK 9.2 and will probably buy a retail copy of 10 when it's stable. There's just no incentive for me to join a club I can make little use of without broadband access.

First of all -- thanks so much for this news. Someone in an earlier thread mentioned beta 2 and so I went to the Mandrake site to see if I could dig up anything about it. They still only mention beta 1 :) So very useful... thanks!

I for one appreciate the download links. I do happen to be on ADSL, and therefore appreciate the links. I'm bittorrenting as I type this. I do own the boxed 9.2, and I'm also a member of the club. I see the club membership for two things (1) I get to vote on what I want to see in future versions of Mandrake, and get to more easily participate in this process; but really (2) my membership is mostly an expression of my financial support for Mandrake. I stronly believe in supporting "free" software, even though I could get it (and often do) for "free as in beer". So look at the membership not for the perks (although there are a few) but rather as one more way to support Linux / Open source. I encourage people if they don't want to support Mandrake specifically, to donate to a few of their favourite projects (mozilla and KDE spring to mind).

Funny story - I went into a Best Buy up here (Toronto) just to see what distros they carried. The sales clerk asked if he could help me, so I asked him to point me towards the Operating Systems. He said "finally moving to XP eh?" Uh, nope. I'm looking for Linux. His response? "Why bother, you know its freeware don't you?"

Interestingly enough though, there were 2 other people listening in on my conversation, so I took a moment to explain the difference between freeware and linux philosophically, and then talked to the other 2 about linux, and gave them my card if they had any questions. This was about 2 weeks ago. I never heard from them... but yesterday got an email from one of them thanking me for turning him onto linux, and saying that he's really happy (told him to try Mandrake 9.2).

That reminds me, I gave him this forum as a resource, so if you were recently in Best Buyand someone told you to try out Linux, why not take a few minutes and tell us about your transition in the "successes" forum! :)

I pre-ordered 9.2 power pack direct from MandrakeSoft. I don't mind paying for what I use, in fact, I insist on it. What bothers me is they're trying to force people to join a club when it provides little to no value unless you have broadband. I'm using the word "force" quite deliberatly. They recently announced updated power pack ISOs would be available ONLY to silver club members. These have fixes for bugs that should never have made it into the retail product. Rather than make me join the club, they made me decide to never pre-order a retail copy again.

Well stated Crito. I understand the point. I was under the impression that the bug-fixes are nothing more then what has been regularly released through "mandrake update". I know that some of these fixes are quite large though, and I sympathize that without broadband this is a pain.

I know this is more work for you, but I bet if you wrote Mandrake and explained that (a) you already bought 9.2, and were an early supporter; (2) you don't have broadband, they might be able to come up with an alternate solution for you. You might even want to ask them to mail you the updated CDs, or offer to pay for postage if they will send them to you.

Good luck.

The LG CD-ROM bug can only be fixed with an updated install disk. Since this bug destroys hardware, I'd say it's a major exception. Otherwise you're right, the rest of them can be applied through their update utility.

Update methods...
 

This doesn't help for Mandrake, but KRUD Linux is a monthly subscription disk created off of Red Hat (soon to be off Fedora). This includes the latest updates and bug fixes. A year's subscription isn't any more than a single personal edition of Red Hat used to cost, back when they offered it. (Look up htttp://www.tummy.com is you're interested.)

N.B.: These people build this to support their business, and selling the CDs is mainly to recover the costs for work they need to do anyway. They maintain Linux servers under contract. This probably means that there would be a significant delay if you're not in North America. It would still be a monthly subscription, but there'd likely be a delay of a week or so. (What IS transAtlantic shipping time these days?)

P.S.: I never did mention the main idea. Perhaps you can find someone more local who does something similar (or would be willing to do something similar) for Mandrake. Do note, of course, that they can't include anything with a restrictive license.

I'm a club member. I joined to support Mandrake, because I use their products. I didn't join to get an early crack at their downloads. Nobody is forced to join. Make your own decisions.

I've had very good luck so far with 9.2, but it doesn't do everything I need for a complete desktop replacement. If 10.0 has all the goodies I'm looking for, I may be able to totally migrate over. I would join the club if I intended to use this for my main desktop.

Hey sick-o-windoze, what goodies are you looking for? The only thing I have that I consider "irreplacable" in windows is Flash, and perhaps to a lesser extent Fireworks and Photoshop. I'm not a gamer though...

USB support! Have you seen the posts on trying to get a USB wheel mouse to work? Pen drive. DVD authoring. It's going to take a while.

Sure I know some people have had problems. I know lots of people in Windows with the same problems. For what its worth, this is one of those "your milage might vary" things.

I'm writing this on a system with a USB MICROSOFT mouse, with a functioning USB pen drive in the front. I've also used USB keyboards on it... and for what its worth my HP psc750 printer is also plugged into a USB port in the back :)

I have a DVD burner, that I've used to burn many, many times, but these have always been data-backups (I've never tried burning a movie with it).

Oh yeah, Mandrake 9.2 PowerPack boxed set, and ALL of the things I listed above worked out of the box, including the DVD which I put in after the fact (hardDrake detected and configured it, no troubles). Oh yeah, and the kicker, its an LG DVD burner ;) I've even tried my camera, except that my Kodak wasn't supported when I tried it (well truthfully, my model was in "test"). What else, my Bell sympatico high speed works, but that DID take a bit to work. That said, now that I know what I'm doing I can re-set it up in less then 15 seconds. In fact, there is literally nothing I can think of that hasn't worked on Mandrake 9.2 The same system with Red Hat 8 didn't get my sound card properly, but Mdk always has.

Cool, looks like I'm the exception that proves the rule!

I am a clulb member, I got 30 days free trial with my boxed set of Mandrake 9.2, that allows me plenty of time to decide if I want to join on a more permenant basis. For me. it's been the hardware issues. (well ok I wished Kdevelop would have been part of the release and not on the Powerpak). I haven't got my printer to work in Linux yet, did finally find an external modem that worked but the LT winmodem acts like it wants to work but couldn't get it to connect. My camera does all kinds of wierd things, A Vivatar, a cheap one to be sure but, I'm still hoping to get Wine to read the driver CD. As to Mandrake 10 I will probably wait until it comes out in regualr issu.e. I just don't want to have to deal with those pre-release bugs.

I tried to join the club. Paid my money with credit card. Got the bill. Never got a user id or login instructions. Tried to get in contact with folks and no luck. So I figure i paid for it and so i download what i can find when I can. Its an AOK system but missed me on the customer service side.

I guess I'm another exception. I have been running Mandrake for some time. When they came out with the club I joined. I build quite a few servers and use Mandrake as exchange and NT4 replacement boxes for medium clients. I have had no real problems. The LGDrive problem was LG's fault. I really like mandrake. And with the new Release schedule for 10.0 we are really going to have a winner. If you complain about the 9.2 release then prevent it from hwppening again. Download and test the 10.0 betas and RC's(if you can). The more testers there are the more bugs get reported.

www.linuxloader.com

I've got another PIII system I can load, so I guess I'll try 10 beta 2 tomorrow and test all my USB stuff on that. It's running some flavor of the Voodoo 3 graphics chip in that too. That'll be a good test.