since 7.2. I've been lucky with my 2 machines. Mdk always spotted everything first time. I've never had the urge to do more things command lline, although I am competent at it, thanks very much.

I got used to this autistic company, that only communicates with its user base through better releases (first ones to really care about things like fonts, office apps, support for consumer hardware and so on)

Looking back, I just wish the distro was debian based.

just a few thoughts after so many years of use:

sure, mandrake is not the perfect distro but no other distro is perfect either.

i believe firmly that mandrake-like distro are the future of linux. whatever linux gurus might say about it, its getting as close as it can to windows in terms of installation/automation.

saying that its a distro for newbies is plain stupid... keeeping linux in a niche as "the os for gurus (slack?)" will kill it!!!

About a month

I started with 8.1 and have progressed to 8.2, 9.0, 9.1 and now with 9.2 on this Athlon machine. My K6-III 450 is still on 9.1 and has two actual windoze boots possible. One is workless as it only workes for about 2 min, then crashes. The other works, but thus far I only use it for Real networks a few times a year.
Other than that, baby, it's been pure Mandrake of one flavor or another. This rig is a an Athlon 1600+, Shuttle AK35, ATI Radeon 7000, 30 meg IDE boot and two three-drive scsi Raid-5 arrays. I'll be adding a spare drive to each of the arrays some time. Yes, it's a BIG case, an Enermax CS-1018 case that's nominally a (4) 5-1/4, (2) 3-1/2 front bays and six! internal 3-1/2" drive bays. I'll probably add another internal 3 bay 3-1/2 cage.

It's a bit noisy with the six fans, but another three fan bays are still open.

about 1 week.

About two weeks...started with 9.1, then 9.2 RC2 and now 9.2. I didn't have a lot of heartache re-installing as I have tried to learn a bit during each install and configuration.

I tried Red Hat a few years ago, paid for the retail box and support. Everything went well except for my video card (Diamond Stealth) which would not co-operate. Email to RH tech support netted me a URL where I was supposed to find the workaround. But it gave me the "access denied" screen. Further email to Red Hat got me jack sh*t. Oh I did get a few messages asking me to evaluate the support but never did get my answer. I tossed it in frustration.

So I am VERY happy with Mandrake's install. It found everything, every time. The one thing it hasn't worked with is the Homenetwork adapter on my wife's machine. I does see the device and identifies it correctly, just doesn't work.
I have looked at several other distros and so far Mandrake is as close to a no-brainer as it gets, IMHO.

I couldn't have said it better myself.




I've been using Mandrake for 2 weeks. I have no prior Linux expierence. I have a LOT of Win expierence and am glad to leave that world behind. I'll spend time fixing my friends Win systems, but now I don't have to worry about fixing my own.

I am with you completely.

Just a reminder that there are really good hackers (not me unfortunately) spending a lot of time working on mandrake. The number of available packages is a statement of that.

Thanks guys and gals

MANDRAKE IS SO DAMN GREAT
one month....i've tried it last month, not just tried it....i've installed it.
after little problem with the sound system....mandrake runs smoothly.
Oh yeah...i've used mandrake 9.1

one thing that's so great about mandrake
1. it's LINUX
2. It's easy (you don't have to be a master or GURU to run it or compile a kernell)
3. Because it's LINUX...that mean...TONS OF SOFTWARE
4. runs smooth and stable
5. beautiful and eye catching
6. did i've mention easy ?
7. finally, the reason that make me cried in happiness....the group, the people, the forum.....they really help us, really2 help us

OK, those gurus or whoever thought they were master about LINUX said that mandrake is for newbie....ok, maybe they were right, but DONT FORGET THIS : i've fall in love to LINUX because of MANDRAKE (and not just me) and i intend to study more about kernell, java, C++, perl or other programing language that could help me develop LINUX.

And after a month.....windows XP is a history......i feel great and will always using Mandrake (maybe red hat or debian, or SUSE, or slacware in the future after i really2 understand the basic of LINUX)
USE MANDRAKE (9.1) and FEEL THE POWER.


Note : u can buy really2 really2 cheap software in jakarta, INDONESIA, the place called MANGGA DUA or GLODOK. imagine.....Windows XP profesional edition for only US$5 and other software for only US$1.5
try it if u come to INDONESIA

used mandrake starting at 8.0. then went back to windows 2000 (my favorite OS). winxp on my laptop started crashing so i tried 9.2 and liking it. gonna stick with mandrake 9.2 on the laptop and after years still using 2000 on my main box. best of both worlds =)

About a year for me. I tried Slackware first. I had a job teaching students who hadn't even heard of Linux. There we were using Mandrake 9.0 to teach getting started in Linux.

I have tried Redhat on two different occasions, and had several problems. I went to Mandrake 9.1 when it came out. I'm now downloading the ISO's for 9.2. The only reason for the upgrade is I can not get my compact flash reader writer to work under 9.1. This forum has many threads with people like me fighting it. 9.1 will not create a /dev/sda1. End result is, you can not mount the device. 9.2 is supposed to fix it. If it wasn't broke, I wouldn't be upgrading.

i've been on mandrake and linux for almost about two weeks now and have had no major problems....i also feel like i have learned quite a bit about linux in that time as well. as for it being a newbie distro........i agree that just because it runs pretty much out of the box doesn't mean it is easy or newbish. i'm new to the linux community but i would think that it would mean the opposite.........that it has a large user base that has figured out ways to get their hardware to work on it and have submitted their packages back to mandrake to be included in future distros. am i totally offbase here? eitherway i have no complaints!

ive used mdk 9.2 for about one week now. I have no prior Linux experience. I finally got this bug to just install it on my amd system. I took one of my partitions of xp and made it smaller, i have 15 gigs to work with on mdk now. I installed it. first time - poof - i had a nice desktop to work with, no command line interface, no hassles. now I can browse the web on my new linux machine, learning how to do things on this beast- AND now ACTUALLY DO commands.. learn how to install, complile, tweak... etc etc etc as I READ IT..... because i have linux installed finally.

I have seen so far the Linux community in general ARE VERY KIND AND HELPFUL - I cant stress that enough. thank you all.

I've been on Mandrake since 6.0...started using it for a gateway/firewall when it hit version 7.0...

Before that I had tried linux a few times (Red Hat, 4 and 5) but RH had major problems with my Matrox Millenium and I could never get X going...so I kept giving up.

It wasn't until I got a Mandrake CD from a friend that I really got into linux...the rest is history I guess. I've used (and still use) debian, slack and knoppix but I always come back to mandrake on anything I use day to day.

Just got 9.2 up and it didn't disappoint.

Something like mandrake won't necessarily stop you from learning, but it can put you off the task. I've had mandrake since v7.0 and each time I've tried a new version or dabbled with it, I never learnt a lot. It was easy to install, no difficulties. I was bored, so I went back to windows each time.

Then I came to trying gentoo. At this point I was less than a newb in linux terms. The only command I knew was probably df -h and I have to say, I learnt more, just on the installation than I did with my entire time using mandrake. Because I also had to work at getting gentoo the way I want it. By no means will I speak down of mandrake though. Different OSs suit different people...

And I have to say now, that I have eventually given windows up. It still exists on it's own little partition just for the rare occaision I need to use the audio recording software... but linux is my desktop machine and server machine

I have spat out the spoon that mr. gates was feeding me with