Whats Superior About 9.2?
 

I haven't tried this version, and frankly, I'm planning on switching over to Gentoo, anyways (since you have all helped me learn the basics.) Mandrake is great, but it's too novice.

My friend - who isn't that much into computers - saw linux and wanted to put it onto his computer. Mandrake is a no brainer because of it's ease of use and overall development. But I'm just curious what 9.2 has over 9.1(besides updated packages), and if I should wait or install 9.1 onto his computer now?

What do you guys think?

Personally, as much as I love Mandrake...I think it's going the way of Red Hat. Not too soon, but I can see it happening. They need money.

Good luck on your switch to Gentoo. Please do write back into this forum in a while and let us know *your* impressions of the differences between the 2 distros.

"But I'm just curious what 9.2 has over 9.1(besides updated packages)"

I haven't played with the 9.2 RCs much yet, but on the Mandrake site they list as primary improvements:
-First version of Netprofile, the new network profiles manager designed for users who connect to multiple networks.
- Complete rewrite of userdrake (user management) in Gtk2
- New bootsplash (graphical boot) with graphical design
- Improved localization
- New font support for Indian
- Enhanced drakTermServ (terminal server configurator).

I'd be interested in hearing impressions from other users who have monkeyed around with it a bit.

"should wait or install 9.1 onto his computer now? What do you guys think?"

Well. If you are installing for a friend that you're trying to impress with linux, my vote is 9.1, as most bugs are worked out now. 9.2 still has some major polish to go (ie: getting all the *drake menus working... but I think in the recent release candidate versions they have).

"Personally, as much as I love Mandrake...I think it's going the way of Red Hat. Not too soon, but I can see it happening. They need money."

Yup, and that's why I joined the mandrakeclub. Did you? Please pass onto your friend 2 things for us. (1) the address of these forums so that he doesn't feel "stuck", and can try to solve problems himself; (2) explain the difference between "free as in speech" and "free as in beer", and encourage him to purchase or otherwise support his favourite distro.

Good luck!

Personally, as a newb(linux newb, not computer newb), I can't recommend 9.2 to other newbs - yet.

Why? It's beta, at least what I've got, and I wish I'd downloaded 9.1 instead. For someone that's trying out a new OS that is (admittedly) not as easy to get running like you like it as that other OS.

This was an experiment, and now I know, until I'm more comfortable finding all the various places that config files end up(funny story that), it's probably better (for me, and probably anyone else on their first foray into linux on the home desktop) to stick with a more stable, polished release.

That's just my opinion.

My first impressions of 9.2 is it's faster. After setting the sources sites to cooker I found more than 200Games for it and a little bit more stable. Other than than,, not much differences

I went out and bought an extra hard drive just to experiment with gentoo a few weeks ago. After spending hours and hours compiling updates and ending up with a system that was no better (in fact not as good) than Mandrake, I finally gave up and went back to Mandrake. I just can't see waiting all that time compiling programs that I can get pre-compiled. Joining Mandrake Club to have easy access to the binaries is well worth it. Guess I'm just getting too old for this s__t!

Re: Whats Superior About 9.2?
 

What is wrong with Mandrake being too novice?

:confused:

Re: Re: Whats Superior About 9.2?
 

We're Linux users. We should enjoy the pain :D

Seriously, though, a distro being too novice means to me that while doing simple stuff is easier, doing the more esoteric or "power user" stuff is more difficult. I haven't found this to be the case with Mandrake. I'm not aware of anything Mandrake actually stops you doing or doesn't support you doing that other distros allow.

Mandrake, novice?

I consider myself a complete noob to Linux in general, however, I am glad to announce I have been windblows free for approximately half a year. I have been using Mandrake 9.1. I do not find it all that difficult to use, sometimes I pulled my hair out on a few compilings that I did, but other than that, Mandrake and Linux isn't all that bad :cool: Actually, I can't wait to download Mandrake 9.2, I am just waiting till the rush is kinda over, and I will go and download me a copy.

Thanks Mandrake!

"I'm planning on switching over to Gentoo"


I'm coming from Gentoo actually, been running Gentoo for quite some time and loved it, but I switched back mainly because things are easier to do in Mandrake and I'm an impatient person. I was able to get everything running under Gentoo and emerge is great ...... but with proper tweaking my Mandrake 9.2 Rc1 was FASTER than my gentoo box with similar tweakage...... and of course your results may vary.

It really comes down to if you can wait the hours and sometimes days to install/compile things under gentoo or have them readily installed under other distros.

Just my 2 cents.

Re: Re: Re: Whats Superior About 9.2?
 

'Mandrake is too novice.'

I've never understood this belief. How is any of the 'power user stuff' more difficult from the command line under Mandrake? How is it any more difficult in an XTERM under fluxbox/blackbox/any other 'power' gui?

Working from the console, what does it matter (in terms of difficulty caused by the distro) if you're running Mandrake or Gentoo/Slackware/etc?

Mandrake provides GUI configuration tools. But you don't have to use them. Nor do you have to use RPMs. You don't even have to install XFree.

Gentoo has portage and other features, but this is a feature of Gentoo, not a case of Mandrake getting in your way. Surely Mandrake doesn't make getting and compiling software difficult!

If I'm missing the point, please enlighten me!