[olug] Mandrake 9.1

[Robert A. Jacobs]

On Sun, 2003-06-08 at 08:00, Brian Roberson wrote:
> Various off/on topics - Just my ramble....
> 
> So I decided to install Mandrake to get up to speed for the
> installfest... I am so used to server oriented distro's that
> make you use your brain when you install... this thing is very
> user friendly ; I think I may be changing my opinion of Mandrake.
> I used to not like it, but when I thought about it, the reason I 
> did not like it initially was the fact that it was(is?) solely based
> off of redhat with just recompiled i586 packages. I have not hit the
> website to really do some digging, does anyone know if this is still
> true? I have not been outside the realm of SuSE for over 3 years....
> I guess once you get to a comfort point, you just dont want to move.
> I must admit, this distro really opened my eyes. I even installed it
> over a previous SuSE instal, complete using reiserFS and Mandrake 
> allowed me to keep the fs's I wanted to  intact, I did however end up
> just formatting all partitions except my /home ; it even left them all
> reiserFS. - very nice. Does anyone else have any feedback on Mandrake as
> compared to other distro's? I must also admit that I have had my head
> stuck in an M$ environment and found it much easier to just conform
> rather than rebel ; especially when I am the one supporting it. I know,
> that sounds like bigotry, however over the last year I have came to a
> new level of respect for the term "single seat management" ; It does
> work.
> 

I ran Mandrake (I want to say 8.0) for about six months.  My only
problem with it was the feeling that I was not in control the same way I
am when I run my Debian box.  Coulda been that I didn't give it enough
of a chance, though.

Every Mandrake user I knew was doing a reinstall from disk every six
months or so i.e. whenever Mandrake released a new version.  Definitely
was not appealing to me.  The main complaint they had (and that I had)
was RPM-hell and a general feeling of not being in control (feeling like
they had to rely on GUIs more, etc.).  In the end, it was just easier to
re-install than try to upgrade.  I realize Mandrake and Red Hat can use
apt4rpm but the impression I've gotten is that it is not quite up to par
with Debian's apt-get.

My initial perception of Mandrake, however, was the same as yours:  very
impressive.  If I could have gotten over the rpm-is-not-deb thing, I'd
probably still be running it (there are times, however rare, that I
truly desire anti-aliasing and other perks without having to run Debian
unstable).  Before this post can be used to spark a .deb versus .rpm
flamefest, I'll drop it there.

Not that it matters but after Debian, the next distro I'll probably try
is Knoppix (Debian-based, for those who may not know) or Gentoo
(optimized for your system and only for those with gobs of time to do
the install -- wife is expecting twins so that is probably not me!).

robert.a.jacobs