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Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64

January 5, 2005

This article was contributed by Ladislav Bodnar

Continuing with our review series of distributions for AMD64 processors, the next product we tested was the 64-bit edition of Mandrakelinux 10.1. Unlike the previous three distributions (see Debian on AMD64, Fedora Core 3 on AMD64 and Gentoo Linux on AMD64), Mandrakelinux 10.1 for X86-64 is not readily available for download, and even the Silver-level members of Mandrakeclub were only given access to the ISO images some 6 weeks after the official release on November 10th, 2004. That said, we noticed that, just before Christmas, the x86_64 directory on Mandrakelinux mirrors was populated with RPM packages together with a small installation ISO image, so rather than asking Mandrakesoft for a review copy, we opted for a network install instead. As always, the boxed edition of Mandrakelinux 10.1 for X86-64 is available from Mandrakestore ( €119.00).

First, the system specifications: AMD64 3500+ processor (2.2GHz), K8N Neo2 (Socket939) mainboard from Micro-Star International, 2 GB of DDR SDRAM, 2 x 120 GB Maxtor hard disks, Plextor PX-712A DVD/CD rewritable drive, and NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. The monitor was a standard 19 inch LCD from Mozo International.

We downloaded the 4.5 MB install.iso image from a mirror site. Although the ISO was in the /official/10.1/x86_64/ directory, it turned out to be just a generic installation image with no built-in specifications that would indicate its architectural affinity. After detecting and loading the correct network card module and confirming that DHCP should indeed be activated (other options included static IP and ADSL), the installer asked to specify the installation method (FTP, HTTP, NFS or hard disk). It continued with a request to type in a preferred FTP/HTTP server and a correct path to the install directory. Since the installer itself does not include a list of available mirrors, you need to look up the information before starting the installation. After the usual partitioning and package selection screens, the installer was ready to begin downloading and installing the new operating system.

From this point on, the installation proceeded without much human interaction. As with previous three distributions, we chose a complete workstation with GNOME and KDE, as well as a handful of server applications. The local mirror delivered the packages at the maximum available connection speed which meant that the installation completed in less than two hours. After a few more screens helping to configure the boot loader, X server, security settings, adding users and specifying the root password, we were presented with an option to update the system with security and bug fix updates.

And this is were we spotted the first bugs, or more precisely, some amusing geographical anomalies. This time, the installer did supply a list of available update servers, neatly arranged by countries in which the servers were located. However, only a dozen or so countries were on the list, while the remaining update servers, be they in Brazil, Hungary or Japan, were all listed under "United States"! The next geographical mishap happened on the survey page, where we decided to let Mandrakesoft have our hardware data. But when we got to the drop-down list from which to select our country of residence, we noticed that a number of big populous countries, such as China or Japan, were not listed at all, while Antarctica or Pitcairn (a tiny Pacific Ocean island of less than 50 inhabitants) did appear on the list. Since our country of residence wasn't listed, we pretended to be descendants of those famous mutineers on HMS Bounty and registered Pitcairn as our country of residence.

Of course, these are no showstopper bugs, just something for the Mandrakelinux developers to polish before 10.2. However, worse was to come.

The first surprise came after logging into KDE, which greeted us with a desktop background that proudly proclaimed "Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community". Community!? But we had pointed the installation sources at the "Official" directory, so how come we ended up with the Community edition? We rushed to check the "mandrakelinux-release" RPM file, which confirmed that what we installed was indeed the "Community" edition, despite it having been placed in the "Official" directory (the same RPM package in the official/i586 directory correctly indicated the "Official" status of the i586 branch). A quick question on the expert mailing list brought dead silence - a marked difference from our earlier experiences with the Debian mailing lists and Gentoo forums, where questions were answered and problems solved with much more enthusiasm.

After coming to grips with the fact that nobody really knew what edition of Mandrakelinux we had installed, the next logical step was getting product updates. Based on experiences with Fedora, SUSE and other distributions, we expected to find a "Update" icon somewhere in the KDE system tray and we weren't disappointed; there it was - the "Mandrakelinux Updates Applet". A double-click brought up a dialog, which... well, before turning this experience into a long story, let's just say that, after having made the effort to configure the applet and register for an update account, we still weren't able to get any updates - that's because this is a paid service, only available to Silver-level members of Mandrakeclub. It would have been nice if the applet had informed us about this fact beforehand, but it wasn't the case.

Surely, there is another way to get updates - through the good old Update module of the Mandrakelinux Control Center. Unfortunately, this turned out to be another frustrating experience - no matter how many times we tried to configure the update sources, the application kept displaying an error message claiming that it could not find any available mirrors, most likely, it said, because our installed architecture was not supported by Mandrakelinux updates. But upon examining several mirrors, the update directory for x86_64 was available and populated with RPM packages, so why the misleading message?

And this is what we thought was possibly the biggest problem with today's Mandrakelinux - because of the distribution's increasingly commercial nature, we were often unable to determine whether a particular feature was disabled in order to make the user join a premium service, or whether it was deliberately crippled so that the user doesn't easily find a way around the club membership net. Either way, the experience was not pleasant. Of course, there is always a possibility that these were just bugs. But if that were the case, there were already too many of them, even before starting to use the distribution proper.

Eventually we found a way to configure the application to get updates - by resorting to the command line and using the "urpmi.addmedia" command. Unfortunately, by that time we started having serious doubts about the quality of this distribution, where lack of attention to detail and various "joined the club" tricks seemed to be the order of the day. In a way, Mandrakelinux 10.1 started to resemble LindowsOS 4, which installed a bunch of flashing and rotating icons of various other Lindows products into the system tray, all screaming "buy, buy, buy". Not quite as bad, but close enough for discomfort.

In all fairness, once we got through these early troubles, the distribution turned out to be a pleasant product. The hardware autodetection was flawless, the applications we tested behaved as expected, and Mandrakelinux Control Center is a friendly utility for most general configuration tasks. Like in Fedora Core, many 32-bit applications and libraries were installed on the system alongside the 64-bit ones - the 32-bit libraries (referred to as lib*) are in /lib, while the 64-bit libraries (referred to as lib64*) are in /lib64. On the download server, the two branches are stored in two separate directories - main and main32; the main directory lists a total of 3,875 packages, while the main32 directory lists 573 packages, including OpenOffice.org and MPlayer. Interestingly, the popular PLF site hosting third-party Mandrakelinux packages now has an x86_64 directory with over 100 RPM packages, including many multimedia applications and codecs which cannot be legally shipped with Mandrakelinux.

Is Mandrakelinux 10.1 (X86-64) worth €119? As we did not test the commercial edition of the product, we cannot really answer the question, but the FTP edition has given us enough warning signs to put any recommendations on hold. Frankly, it is hard to see how Mandrakelinux will compete with other 64-bit distributions on the market, especially with the likes of Fedora, but also Debian or Gentoo, which are free of cost and available for download immediately after release (or continuously updated). Additionally, all three of them have more up-to-date packages (Mandrakelinux 10.1 ships with GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.2.3), fewer bugs (especially when compared to Fedora Core 3), and more responsive mailing lists and user forums, actively monitored by the distributions' developers. Mandrakelinux 10.1 X86-64 is not a bad product, but it is marred by lack of polish and some unnecessary commercial tricks.

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