Mandrake Is On The Move

What's New

So far, it's been a banner year for MandrakeSoft, makers of Mandrakelinux. In January, they announced a return to profitability, followed by a return to the stock market in mid-March. Sandwiched between these two significant business events, MandrakeSoft released Mandrakelinux 10.0 Community, an early-adopter's release of Mandrakelinux 10.0 Official, due out in May. Even though it's only a public beta, the newest Mandrakelinux is definitely worth the download, some rough edges notwithstanding. Here's why I think so.

In a phrase, Mandrakelinux 10.0 is chock-full-o-Linux goodness. The default kernel is 2.6, which gives you a responsive desktop thanks to kernel preemption. Mandrakelinux also includes the latest releases of KDE (3.2) and GNOME (2.4); a very attractive default theme, Mandrakegalaxy 2; a reorganized menu structure; and a new control center, Mandrakelinux Control Center. Another handy improvement is Magicdev, which provides auto-play functionality: insert a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM and Magicdev launches the appropriate application.

If you need a server-class installation, Mandrake boasts numerous server-friendly features:

• MySQL 4.0.18
• PostgreSQL 7.41
• Apache 2
• Samba 3.0
• Support for Windows' Logical Disk Manager
• Read/write support for the NTFS file system

NOTE: As this article went to press, MandrakeSoft released Mandrakelinux 10.0 Beta1 for AMD64 (Opteron) platforms. More details are available at the Mandrakelinux 10.0 for AMD64 Beta information page.