Distribution Watch: A Month Later with Linux-Mandrake 8.1
A Month Later
Brian Proffitt
Friday, January 11, 2002 01:38:55 PM
It has been over a month since I first installed MandrakeLinux 8.1 Gaming Edition on my
primary home machine and after a grueling month of use, I am here to report that Mandrake
Linux has been surprisingly deft and convenient to use.
Admittedly, in the past, I have always been a little suspicious of Mandrake
Linux. Indeed, some of my direct experiences with this distribution have left me feeling a
bit shafted and wondering if Mandrake Linux was some joke the French were paying back on
me after I ticked off their customs officials back in 1987. I immediately discounted this
theory when I realized the obvious: everyone ticks off the French customs
officials, so it wasn't just me.
Still, when Gael Duval released Mandrake Linux 5.1 back in 1998, this distribution had
some major obstacles to overcome. A derivative of Red Hat, Linux-Mandrake was always
targeted at the home user, a target Red Hat itself seemed to briefly flirt with back in
the late Nineties until Bob Young decided to shift the focus of Red Hat to the more
lucrative (and less mercurial) server market.
This decision by Red Hat may have done Mandrake Linux a huge favor--by separating
itself from the home market, Red Hat's departure left the field relatively clear of
competitors for the French distribution. The only major challenger thus far is SuSE Linux,
which still maintains its Personal Edition. But even here, there is a caveat: SuSE's own
marketing statements push their Personal Edition towards "the advanced home
user."
Mandrake Linux has no such compunctions. They unashamedly want to kick Windows off of
users' desktops and be a direct replacement for the Microsoft operating system. And while
one would expect that this would be a laudable goal in the minds of most Linux supporters,
in actuality Mandrake Linux's goals have frequently landed the distribution in hot water
with many in the Linux community. Critics of Mandrake Linux have cited that it is a
distribution that tries to out-Windows Windows. And while world domination isn't far from
the minds of the Linux faithful, taking on even the appearance of the Opposition is
apparently enough to attract venomous statements.
It didn't help, certainly, that MandrakeSoft, Mandrake Linux's parent company, was one
of those Linux distros that puts a lot of funding and personnel resources into KDE. Given
the amount of controversy that surrounded KDE before its developers released the desktop
environment under the GPL, this was not the most popular horse for MandrakeSoft to bet
on. Even today, Mandrake Linux takes quite a bit of heat for its KDE support from users that
don't like KDE because it's (a) not GNOME, (b) an anti-GPL, anti-freedom environment
that's all part of a plot by TrollTech to rule the world, and (c) not GNOME.
These particular criticisms are no less than any of the other distros get, but Mandrake
Linux seems to be the brunt of a huge Linux user pile-on for vehemence. In the end, much
of the unique displeasure for Mandrake Linux appears to be the fact that it is
trying to be the "easy" Linux distribution--something that many hardcore Linux
user can't help but find offensive.
Through all of these storms, Mandrake Linux had its own internal battles to fight. To
be easy, the developers apparently recognized that this would have to be a piece of cake
to install, for a tough installation is the bugaboo that will scare off Joe User faster
than KISS showing up at a tent revival. Until Mandrake Linux 7.0, installation was
something Mandrake Linux had a lot to work on. With 7.0, the DrakX installer seemed to
turn around. Things were picking up for the rest of the packages, too, though the 2.4
kernel, KDE 2.0, and GNOME 1.4 were still a ways off. When these milestones arrived on the
scene, all the pieces seemed to really fall into place for Mandrake Linux.
Mandrake's partnership with Macmillan Software as its U.S. distributor hasn't hurt the
distribution a bit. Macmillan, now called Pearson Education, had a nice little toehold on
the U.S. retail channels already from its sales of second-tier games. This is the match
that led Mandrake Linux to show up on the shelves of Wal-Mart. Odd sight that it seems,
this channel hasn't seemed to detract from Mandrake Linux's success. [Author's
disclosure: I am a former employee of another division of Macmillan, Sams Publishing. I
currently perform freelance editorial work for Pearson Education.]
In Mandrake Linux's continued quest to soak up as much of the home user market as it
can, it is concentrating on that all-important arena of home use: gaming. And, working
with TransGaming Technologies to integrate WineX into Mandrake Linux, MandrakeSoft has
released the Gamer's Edition of Mandrake Linux 8.1.
It was this version of Mandrake Linux that I set out to live with on the 350-MHz Pentium
II machine that serves as my primary work and test platform.
Next: Beyond the Initial Installation »
