I find very few differences, but the ones trhat do are pretty trivial, but none the less, pull me in different directions...

1) Mandrake does not force a root password, which i like, as my terminal is secure from the net, andi really can't be arsed to keep typing in a password. Course, i'd always have a password on my gateway, but here, i feel safe enough, and arse it.. on my own head be it if it does go astray....

2) Redhat Gnome logos are always so much prettier than Mandrake. Although Mandrake is more userfirendly, so many things like the gdm / xdm / kdm versions that come with mandrake always ming! but rdhat ones always look really nice.. god that's pitiful.. but really does bug me!

on the whole tho, mandrake does get it. doing hi level stuff in gnome etc.. there are so many little things to make things easier.. like drakfont.. automatically import ttf fonts.. .

I found that there's not really much to choose between RedHat and Mandrake. Sure Mandrake has an easier install, but not by much. If you had hardware like I used to, then it wouldn't matter which distro you used, you'd still have to get right into it up to yer eyeballs to get things sorted. I do regret not choosing a slightly harder distro (like Slack or Debian), but the first one I got to (on the cover of a magazine) was Mandrake 7.1, so I stuck with it. Will be trying Debian (Progeny) soon, so might have more to say at a later date.

Saying that is like saying redhat is based on slackware. Its true, but that is way in ancient history. Mandrake has been a fully-fledged distro for quite some years now.

but redhat isn't based on slackware.. and yes, originally it was developed and based off redhat, not ancient history, recent history. mandrake has matured to be its own now though, but it probably wouldn't have ever been created if redhat didn't exist.

IMHO, the only real point of distributions is to give you a starting point for building a linux system. Once you install a distro and use it for awhile, you'll do things like upgrade your kernel, upgrade XFree86, install new software, delete stuff you don't use, change your configuration files, etc to suit your way of working. The ability to do that kind of stuff is why we're all using Linux instead of Windoze.

Having said that, I chose Mandrake because of it's ease of set-up. When I started with Linux, I had quite a bit of Solaris experience, but I had never administered my own UNIX system. The Mandrake installation process went very smoothly on my OEM box which isn't suposed to run anything except WinME. I had dual-boot (with Win2k on another hard disk) set up in about two hours (including reading every bit of help). It took me 5 reinstallations to get the partition table and X the way I wanted them, but each of those installations was painless.

A month later, I've touched quite a bit of my installation in some way or other. It's still Mandrake, but the only ways that's obvious are HardDrake (an excellent hardware manager), and the fact that it says Welcome to Linux Mandrake on the rare occasion that I reboot (but only because I don't have time to fiddle with a new kernel at the moment).

I think most people think of Linux distributions in the wrong manner. In OSes like MacOS and WIndoze, installation is the last low-level interaction most people have with the OS. Therefore, it really matters which one you pick. With Linux, there is a certain minimal set of standards about how the OS works, and everything else is up to the user. As a result, installation is a step on the path to running the OS. If you don't like what the installation did, you go to linuxquestions.org to find out how to fix it, su, and tweak away. So instead of arguing over which distro is best, we should be discussing how to make the most out of each of them, since each has certain features that are useful to certain users.

Feel free to disagree.

<drops two cents in the bucket>

I'm a true compulsive... I had to try Linux (6 months ago after reading about red hat a few years ago)...
I bought suse and failed miserably... I tried redhat but wanted to kill the support people who were downright ude and arrogant and the I turned to the too cute lavender mandrake and must say was made whole.-)
I'm a newbie and with all the problems I'm having Mandrake is the easiest to use and damn easy to reload when I screw up.
I think Linux needs better support... Why does every damn program you download demand a differerent method/utility to open it? If Linux would provide just one simple little book to explain how to open each file..EG TAR.GZ "this is how you OPEN a TAR<GZ IS THE ANSWER Steps one to three...
etc etc...
Linux is really to hard for new people like myself who have alife (not much of one but, you get my drift)
I think in two years Mandrake will be ready for the people...
PS I hate to ask again but, how to I install Netscape 6.2 after downloading ?
LOVE

Ok, speaking as a newbie, i have tried 3 distros at the moment. Mandrake 8.0, Redhat 7.1 and even get this guys, Dragon Linux which uses Slackware. I am lucky and have the perfect hardware for linux. Almost everything is supported. Granted I have had to go in and tweak with the config files to get some things working properly. But, isn't that why I changed to linux in the first place? To get back into computing and really learning how an operating system works. Well, personally I have stuck with Mandrake 8.0 for its ease of use and if I screw something up, which I have, it is the easiest to reinstall. Although I do have a copy of Redhat 7.1 installed on another harddrive that I go into to learn more about it. For me I want to see how all the major distros work just so I can get the feel of what linux is all about.

p.s. I just got a copy of SUSE from my uncle so I will be installing that one over the weekend. Who knows, I might be a SUSE convert.

that's why I use mandrake when i could do the spod thing and use slackware or something. Everything works fine, and when i want it to be easy, it is very easy. well.. mostly. Yeah it's big and fat, but it does everythign fine

Why do you feel the need to keep saying this, especially given it is an innacurate statement.





Mandrake was based on Redhat but it is not anymore.

I like them both, MDK has more bells and whistles, RH seems a bit more solid.....

Well I have used almost every US version of Linux there is at least once and I have found Mandrake the most easy to use. At one time Mandrake used to distribute Redhat before it split off and started putting out it’s own version. Everything in Mandrake and Redhat are laid out the same the biggest difference is the kernel! The cool thing is that almost anything written for Redhat can be in just a few commands be recompiled for Mandrake. (Like I just did for the event viewer tool called SNARE from www.intersectalliance.com)
They use the same directory lay out so with RPM you are money when do an install! And their installer tool is super easy!

The one thing I like is Mandrake has worked harder on things like USB and DVD playback laptop installs etc (Multimedia) (Things that most people use windows and/or Mac OS for) Also Mandrake gives you a larger slection of file systems to use (Like several journaling file systems.) Also the Tiny Firewall it comes with is good basic quick protection of lower ports. It's askes you a few questions like: Do you want telnet open, do you want FTP open, do you want Imap or pop/smtp mail open. You answer the questions yes or no and it opens or blocks the ports! Also configuring things like network printing is a breeze. It's just like in windows (Yuck) just quick point and click then choose the server or port to print to then choose from the 100's of printer drivers! Sweet!

I saw that some one on here said that you have more control over your Redhat machine then Mandrake? How can that be? You can still use the old Redhat tools; you can use the command line and make any changes you want! The thing I like about Mandrake is that when I can’t remember that obscure command to do something they most likely have an easy point and click too handle it. (Like when I want to quickly restart a nic card or something) But I don’t HAVE to use the tools.

Also I like Mandrake’s website, much more info for the non technical user then Redhat! And a lot of teaching tools unlike Redhat. I don’t dislike Redhat but I think they have a ways to go to reach the workstation market unlike Mandrake. (Like the fact that Mandrake puts all of your programs in nice neat directories like it’s done in windows, still sometimes in Redhat there will be programs included that just don’t work or icons that do nothing. In mandrake almost all programs installed work and they are easy to find.)

Ummm.. you already quoted me twice on the same post, as I haven't kept saying this, only once dude. and its not an inaccurate statment, mandrake was based off of redhat, as were many other distros.

I think this is the best response I have read yet.

I am currently Linux-less, having had to re-appropriate the Mandrake partition I was running. (I wasn't really doing anything with it anyway.) But, I've got my eye on a friend's 486/25 w/16MB RAM and 800MB HD. I'll put Mandrake 8 on it and begin setting up the services I want. From that point on, I hope to become a serious student of the different parts of Linux and tweak things according to what I want or need. A year from now, hopefully what I run will not resemble any existing distribution.

lhoff:

well, if you're going for the very basic approach you're suggesting, then i'd wonder why you weer goign to use mandrake. Mandrake tends to be a pretty topdown kinda distro, and you almost get teh feeling it doesn't want you to mess around. Also i'd doubt it'd suit a 486/25 at all. Actuallly... i don't *THINK* md will run, as it's compliled for i586, not i386... am i right?

i'd suggest takign teh more hardcore approach, as that seems to be wherer you want to end up, and try slack.

I prefer MD, but i'd recommend slackware for that. how's that for unbiased?

...Just because it's what I have lying around.

If you are right about Mandrake not installing on a 486, then I'm in trouble. I hate, hate hate working with a command line when I'm new to something.

If I have to use Slackware, can you recommend some good help resources? Is there a good Slackware book? Or a good book on setting up web servers? (I know there's one out there that a lot of people said was bad -- I forget it's name but it was some "Illustrated" or "Step-by-step" book by a Japanese author.)

Help me study effectively, please.