Anyone here a Mandrake fan?

Just downloaded the 9.1 Mandrake Linux software, I must say I am quite impressed with it, me being a Microsoft guy and all. And the beauty about it is, it is FREE! Having some problems with the apache web server and mail server, but I am learning slowly but surely. Wanted to know if any of you are playing with it? I understand the 9.2 beta is out, and well I hate beta software so I am staying away till the final release comes out.
Total different ball game than Exchange and ISA servers, but I do like the resources that it uses, and how it functions. Just learned where everything is is just a challenge to me.
Wanted to know how many of you are familiar with it, just in case I need some help ha ha... Na just kidding, I like figuring things out myself, I would like to think with my smarts, I can, but just in case....
Just goes to show you, you can teach an old dog new tricks, myself been a dedicated certified Microsoft guy for about 6 years now, but now I am considering Linux just cause Microsoft hates them so much. Therefore I had to ask myself, "why do you think MS hates them". Well namely cause it is free, and it has THOUSANDS OF FREE SOFTWARE INCLUDING OFFICE SUITE SOFTWARE THAT WORKS WITH ALL MS OFFICE SUITES. Gotta love that. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

bumpity bumpity bump

Mandrake is great. My uncles used it for a very long time and I've tried it and liked it. I'm using Redhat though :dg:

I have read about many many bugs in the newest Mandrake-- I personally havent used Mandrake in uhmm have to be 4-5 years but for a workstation it seems to be one of the better linux distros out there..-- shiat.. just realized that you said 9,1 and not 9.2..
well in the latest version if you have a LG-based CD-ROM drive the install can fry it.. pretty crazy that an OS or random software can fry the firmware on a cd rom drive. here is a page for 9.1 bugs http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/91errata.php3 .. just be sure you update it ASAP and here is the bug page for 9.2 http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/errata.php3

Anyways this thread any a discussion of what is the better distro and this forum i doubt is a place for that so i wont troll suggest any others :)
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also im pretty sure i can and maybe couple of others can help you out w/ any problem which may occur.. just post and hopefully somone will see it

I actually like it, I have an added firewall. Trying to learn the OS and where everything is can be a challenge. Man the freaking free software that comes with it is unbelievable.
I finally got my apache server working, now if I can just get my email server working I will be in good shape. I like the remote admin stuff, and the servers it has with it.. I may just be a linux fan by the end of the year..

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Originally Posted by Sicilian30

Just downloaded the 9.1 Mandrake Linux software, I must say I am quite impressed with it, me being a Microsoft guy and all. And the beauty about it is, it is FREE! Having some problems with the apache web server and mail server, but I am learning slowly but surely. Wanted to know if any of you are playing with it? I understand the 9.2 beta is out, and well I hate beta software so I am staying away till the final release comes out.
Total different ball game than Exchange and ISA servers, but I do like the resources that it uses, and how it functions. Just learned where everything is is just a challenge to me.
Wanted to know how many of you are familiar with it, just in case I need some help ha ha... Na just kidding, I like figuring things out myself, I would like to think with my smarts, I can, but just in case....
Just goes to show you, you can teach an old dog new tricks, myself been a dedicated certified Microsoft guy for about 6 years now, but now I am considering Linux just cause Microsoft hates them so much. Therefore I had to ask myself, "why do you think MS hates them". Well namely cause it is free, and it has THOUSANDS OF FREE SOFTWARE INCLUDING OFFICE SUITE SOFTWARE THAT WORKS WITH ALL MS OFFICE SUITES. Gotta love that. Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

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I have used Mandrake in a lab environment, but never in a production environment, but here are some of my observations. Mandrake Linux is a very capable OS and is perhaps one of the more user friendly flavors of linux. It has a lot of built in services like, apache, squid proxy, and it uses IPtables with a nice gui called MNF for firewall rule building. And I think it is a somewhat secure "out of the box" OS. The only problem I have with all of the linux flavors is they seem to be VERY bloated. They install a lot of services that need to be turned off in order for the system to be secure. Mandrake seems to have a few limitations in terms of what the firewall can do. Which I believe is due to the implementation of the MNF. With all that said I believe Mandrake Linux is better suited as a workstation then webserver or firewall. However, I am not one of those guys that likes to argue one OS is better then another. I know guys that are using (only god knows why hehe) Novell to do everything a windows or linux server is doing. I love Unix myself, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD, ect. If I was asked what OS would I use to secure my network, I'd pick either FreeBSD or OpenBSD. If I was asked what OS would I use for my web or email server I'd say FreeBSD hands down. However, it really all comes down to what you prefer to use and what you are most comfortable using.

Peace,
CC

BTW Sicilian30 I think it is really cool you try other OS's other then MS. I know you are a MS guy and it seems like a lot of them are dead set on only using MS stuff. Thumbs up to you bro for being open to new things!

Peace,

CC

LOL Thanks carbon, after I just got my hands on the new MS Exchange and Small Business Server and what MS is doing for guys like us who are certified by them, (they are really kissing our asses), they are making it hard to try other OS's.
I think MS is really starting to think that Linux is a threat to them. The last MS conference I went to, they were hammering Linux bad. Amazing how MS immediately takes the threat to keep their 99% market and tries to crush the competition. As if Mr. Gates will be hurtin if he looses alittle market share.
MS is really pumping up guys like us who are certified with them. They are giving us tons of free software, and sending us to training for free on their new products.
I see that Linux is starting to advertise. I think MS may feel a bit threatened and wanting to keep guys like us from straying away. LOL. Makes things very interesting.
Have you guys tired to open office software yet? It is really cool. It is completely compatible with MS word, front page, excel, and presentation software. And it is free!
Works pretty darn well. If you guys need to link to download let me know.
Thanks again for the compliment Carbon from one computer guru to another. LOL

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Originally Posted by Sicilian30

LOL Thanks carbon, after I just got my hands on the new MS Exchange and Small Business Server and what MS is doing for guys like us who are certified by them, (they are really kissing our asses), they are making it hard to try other OS's.
I think MS is really starting to think that Linux is a threat to them. The last MS conference I went to, they were hammering Linux bad. Amazing how MS immediately takes the threat to keep their 99% market and tries to crush the competition. As if Mr. Gates will be hurtin if he looses alittle market share.
MS is really pumping up guys like us who are certified with them. They are giving us tons of free software, and sending us to training for free on their new products.
I see that Linux is starting to advertise. I think MS may feel a bit threatened and wanting to keep guys like us from straying away. LOL. Makes things very interesting.
Have you guys tired to open office software yet? It is really cool. It is completely compatible with MS word, front page, excel, and presentation software. And it is free!
Works pretty darn well. If you guys need to link to download let me know.
Thanks again for the compliment Carbon from one computer guru to another. LOL

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I couldn't agree more with what you are saying bro! BTW I've used open office (just messing around with it) and couldn't believe how well it worked. I was looking at my word doc's, excel spread sheets, and was amazed how well it was able to convert everything. No wonder M$ is worried!! hehe. I am no where near being a guru, but thanks for the complement! ;)

yeah I actually love Open Office, hell it does everything then some. I love the feature of converting documents, spreadsheets etc to PDF's. With MS products you would need Distiller to do that. Totally awesome. With the Mandrake CD, it is loaded with literallly thousands of software. Only bad thing about most linux products and freeware is that they are Open source. Which can be good and bad.
Yes Open Office is awesome and can't beat the price either! FREEE

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Originally Posted by Sicilian30

Man the freaking free software that comes with it is unbelievable.

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Welcome to Linux...=)

Personally, I'm a Redhat fan and I am currently using Fedora Core 2. I tried Mandrake 10.0 and honestly, I found it be to unpolished (talking about some of the GUI setup programs). One great thing about Redhat is their unified theme for both KDE and Gnome programs. That way, Gnome programs don't look out of place on a KDE desktop and vice versa.

Like CarbonCopy mentioned, Mandrake is a desktop OS, thats its main focus. If you really want a stable, mission critital server, you're going to have to shell out some bucks for Redhat Enterprise Linux...or you could just use Debian or some other such distro that is renoun for its stability.

Now to rant at how awesome I think Linux is. I've been using it as my only OS for about 4-5 years now. I'll never go back to Winblows. The concept of spending money on software is now ludicrous to me. Here is a small list of my favorite Linux softare:

KDE (the best desktop environment ever)
OpenOffice.org (extremely professonally done MS Office type suite)
Konqueror (KDE's web browser)
Firefox (Mozilla's web browser)
Kontact (KDE's Outlook clone)
K3b (KDE's CD/DVD burning suite, beats the crap out of Nero)
giFT / Apollon (file sharing program that can connect to every major network at the same time, Apollon is a KDE frontend to giFT)
KDevelop (some say its better than Visual Studio .NET)
MPlayer (movie player, ok this one has some bugs :( )
Xine (movie player, also some bugs :( )
Kaffiene (KDE front end to Xine)
KPlayer (KDE front end to MPlayer)
Gimp (Linux's Photoshop)
Juk (KDE mp3/audio player with awesome builtin search capabilities)

Oh, I could go on and on.

One time my mom told me that she spent $30 for a DVD codec for Windows Media Player. My brain couldn't even fathom the concept of having to pay for your computer to be able to watch DVDs... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by clockworks

Konqueror (KDE's web browser)
Firefox (Mozilla's web browser)

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What!? No Opera!? :D

Heck even on WindozeXP I almost exclusively use Opera...

You must be bored btw... look at the age of this thread :D

Red

Ugh if you want to learn Linux don't use Mandrake, its so far from linux now you'll just throw yourself off, consider it its own OS with no real value in the linux community other than something for a good laugh. If you actually want to learn something useful try checking out Slackware, Gentoo or Fedora (slack being the closest distro to its Unix roots).

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Originally Posted by Red Ketchup

You must be bored btw... look at the age of this thread :D

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Hehe, yeah. I considered starting a new thread, but decided this will get more views (since most people use the auto reply notification)...=)