Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64

Posted Jan 7, 2005 9:31 UTC (Fri) by eru (subscriber, #2753)
Parent article: Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64

I feel this review was a unfair in reviewing what may, or may not have been the Community edition, downloaded from a mirror directory that may, or may not have been officially there. (Who knows, maybe the mirror directory was just in the process of being populated?). At least at the point when the reviewer noticed that Whoa, this looks like "community" even though the directory name said "official", he should have halted the proceedings and started looked for another, more certain source for the official edition.

I certainly have endured my own share of Mandrake bugs in various versions. Not having tried 10.1 on amd64 I cannot comment on the quality on that version, and it could be as bad as the review says. However, the "Community vs Official" is the company's attempt to do something about the quality problems. Those looking for a finished product instead of bleeding edge should go for Official, and I feel reviews should also review it, not Community, which really is a kind of public beta. Certainly no review should be published where the reviewer appears to be unsure which version is actually being reviewed!

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Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64

Posted Jan 17, 2005 9:46 UTC (Mon) by swbobcat (guest, #27315) [Link]

>>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.<<

This gets right to the crux of the matter: Mandrakelinux has been my preferred choice OS for the better part of 6-7 years -- I *HATED* Red Hat with a passion. If SuSE can release their x86-64, extention and Fedora, Gentoo, et al. Then Mandrake does not, it makes one stop and wonder: WHY???.

Like the reviewer I have been finding too many bugs that I have notified Mandrake about which have remained UNFIXED to this day. The last release that worked well for me in the 32 bit world was 9.0 -- yes I did say 9.0. with every succeessive release there seem to be more and more bugs, and with each release and the problems that I reported before have still not been fixed. I REFUSE to pay good money for a buggy product. As much as I like Mandrake, I have ditched it. I am in the process of building a 64 bit system with an AMD Opteron 144 processor. It is still not finished being built but we have enough parts for test runs. I tried Mandrake 10.0 64 RC1 and it stunk; I tried Mandrake 10.1 RC1 and it too stunk. SuSE 9.1 was also a non starter. To my great surprise Fedora Core 2 runs like a charm on a minimal system, though Fedora Core 3 not as well, but this may be because it is still a minimal system.

The truth of the matter is that Mandrake is making a GIANT mistake in not releasing ISOs for Mandrake x86-64. Can someone -- anyone -- tell us what the difference would between releasing ISOs for 32 bit systems and for 64 bit systems?? the answer is NONE!!! We are moving to a 64 bit future, and Mandrake is abdicating its LEADERSHIP ROLE in the Linux Community. When it comes to our collective 64 bit future, Mandrake will have become an "also ran". Fedora is becoming the New Mandrake at least in the 64 bit world, and it also seems to be the case in the 32 bit world as well.

If I could send a message to the management of of Mandrakesoft it would be this: Pull your heads out of your asses and wake up!!! Fine you have a right to make a profit, then why not release the LAST version of your 64 bit system. If people need the latest and greatest, they will be glad to pay you for the pleasure, those who can't afford to can use the "old" stuff. And there are also those of us who have been burned having bought the distro only to find that the bugs present made it a total waste of money. BUY Mandrake ?!? Not until I have TRIED it FIRST and make sure that it is going to work!!!!

I commend Mandrake on the idea of releasing both a "Community" and an "Official" release, as it is hoped that by the time the "Official" version is released, Mandrake has fixed some of the bugs found in the "Community" Release. In short the "Community release is simply NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME.

To the CEO's et al at Mandrake, you best start thinking about addressing the 64 bit question because if you don't you will be left behind. Linux users are NOT trapped to any SINGLE distro, and right now especially in the 64 bit space FEDORA IS THE ONE TO BEAT!!! It is the distro that Mandrake should have been.

Mandrakelinux 10.1 on AMD64

Posted Jan 18, 2005 12:08 UTC (Tue) by jadawin37 (guest, #27341) [Link]

I didn't try the MandrakeLinux on AMD64. I'm a user of Mandrake 32 bits since Mandrake 9.1. The last month I bought (54,00 euros) the Official Edition of Mandrake 10.1 (DVD), mostly because I enjoyed the 9.1, and wanted to upgrade.

9.1 edition was fine for me : every hardware was well recognized, there were some bugs, but minor ones. 10.1 is a disaster for me : my USB flash disk isn't usable, and I made an extensive use of it. All my hardware is the same as before, and everything was fine with 9.1.

I believe this as something to do with the change of kernel (2.6.8 vs 2.4.21). What really annoyed me is that I made a report with full informations to MandrakeSoft, and had no response. I made another one, no response... as usual. When I bought 9.1 18 months ago, I choose the PowerPack with 2 months of support (79,90 euros). I quickly get bored at waiting 2 or 3 days for an answer, written in bad french (SMS style), and most of the time not very usefull. Not to mention all the emails with no anwer at all. That's why I took the 54 euros DVD for 10.1.

I made a point to actually buy my distro, to give money to these projects. May be next time it will be another distro.