A First Look at Mandrakelinux 10.0

A "Community" edition of Mandrakelinux* 10.0 was released late last week, first to members of the MandrakeClub and later also to public FTP servers and mirrors. Some critics will argue that, according to the recently announced development model, the "Community" edition is nothing but an extension of the distribution's beta program on the road to Mandrake Linux "Official", to be released some 2 - 3 months later. Nevertheless, the differences between the "Community" and the "Official" editions are limited to bug fixes and security updates, rather than new features or major software upgrades. As such, it is worth taking a look at the new Mandrake release, especially since it is the first major Linux distribution shipping with kernel 2.6 and KDE 3.2.

Perhaps the most noticeable new feature of Mandrakelinux 10.0 is speed: "The speed of the KDE 3.2 and the new kernel is awesome, compared with my Mandrake 9.2, you can feel it everywhere. Konqueror is cleaner and faster than ever. All the interface interaction is more satisfying using the same hardware," writes Luis Alves in one of the first reviews of Mandrakelinux 10.0. Indeed, the responsiveness of the KDE desktop is impressive, achieved not only by including the latest kernel and KDE, but also a pre-release version of glibc 2.3.3 with Native POSIX Threads Library (NPTL) for optimum threading performance. Compared to Mandrake 9.2, or indeed to any other current distribution, this is one of the most pleasant surprises found in Mandrakelinux 10.0.

There is a lot to like about KDE 3.2 in general, and Mandrake's own customizations compliment the excellent desktop. The main menu, consistent across all desktop environments, has been simplified with only 5 entries: "Office", "Internet", "Multimedia", "System", as well as a "More Applications" entry with further sub-menus. One of the new packages in the latest KDE is KDE Wallet Manager, a system tray utility that stores and manages user names and passwords throughout all KDE applications. Both KDE and GNOME, the two main desktop environments, share a unified theme called "Mandrakegalaxy II". The desktop experience is further enhanced by "MagicDev", a new tool seamlessly combining automount with application launcher based on the content of the inserted CD or DVD. For IBM ThinkPad users, Mandrake provides several packages that make use of the special keys found on the ThinkPad notebooks. All these enhancements make for a very pleasant desktop experience.

The Mandrake Control Center has been redesigned. The changes won't please everybody - the interface has changed from what used to resemble KDE Control Center with a navigation pane on the left, to a browser-like interface with previous/next buttons as the only way to navigate around the application. New tools include the "DrakConnect" wizard for managing all types of Internet connections in one central location, and "Mandrakeonline", a security advisory and update notification service, similar to Fedora's up2date (requires online registration).

While Mandrakelinux is often perceived as a distribution with a desktop focus, it can function as a server just as well. Thanks to the inclusion of the new kernel, the system is now a lot more scalable with support for over 4 billion (!) unique users and groups (will anybody ever need to create user accounts for two thirds of the world's population?), with up to 1 billion concurrent processes. Those wishing to deploy Mandrakelinux 10.0 into mixed networks should benefit from features in the new Samba 3.0 as well as read/write support for NTFS file systems. The usual exhaustive range of server applications is all there, including a mechanism for a smooth upgrade from Apache 1.3 to Apache 2.0.

A distribution shipping on 4 - 5 CDs cannot possibly be without bugs and Mandrakelinux 10.0 is no exception. Some users reported problems with the detection and module loading of USB mice and keyboards, while others have complained about instability of certain applications, notably KDevelop, Quanta Plus, and XMMS. Although power management reportedly works, there are still unresolved issues, possibly related to the use of the hotplug kernel module. Several users reported complete system freezes while running the 2.6.3 kernel, and also during the package installation stage of the initial system install. A possible workaround for those experiencing hardware-related problems is to boot the 2.4.25 kernel, which is provided as a second choice.

Despite the above mentioned problems, the overall experience of users, as expressed on public forums and mailing list, seems to be of delight over the speed improvements and the general look and feel of Mandrakelinux 10.0. Those with "unlucky" hardware combinations resulting in system crashes, will have to wait and see if the problems get fixed in Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official coming out in May, or look elsewhere - possibly wait for the new SUSE LINUX 9.1 (expected in April) or Fedora Core 2 (scheduled for release in early May). But for the majority of users, Mandrakelinux 10.0 is a superb distribution, with dramatic performance enhancements, well-designed, highly usable desktops and convenient configuration tools and wizards. A solid 8 on a scale from 1 to 10.

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* Note. The official press release, as well as the features page refer to the product as "Mandrakelinux", rather than "Mandrake Linux", as was the case with previous releases. Although MandrakeSoft has yet to make any official announcements about the product's name change, this has presumably something to do with the recent trademark dispute over the use of the word "Mandrake". Therefore, in this article we shall refer to the MandrakeSoft's latest release as "Mandrakelinux".

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