On Tuesday 27 May 2003 08:16 pm, rikona wrote: > > What's the best way for newbies to get complete packages and/or > support? Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to how these pieces go > together.
As I understand it, there are many ways to get *support* for Mandrake Linux Mailing Lists hosted by MandrakeSoft that are strictly user-to-user. Some MandrakeSoft employees monitor the lists and contribute, but there is no guarantee and it is not in an official capacity. MandrakeExpert is a site where one can get paid for support, where a MandrakeSoft employee or support representative is assigned to your incident and hopefully provides a solution. I do not believe that closed support incidents are available for browsing through, although I think they used to be. You buy your incident and then open it at MandrakeExpert. MandrakeClub forums are user to user help forums in a web interface as opposed to an e-mail interface. Same type of support as Mailing Lists. Alt.os.linux.mandrake usenet newsgroup is not monitored by anyone from MandrakeSoft and is strictly user-to-user, or sometimes troll-to-troll. Various other support communities like pclinuxonlice.com and mandrakeusers.org are around the internet and provide unendorsed free user-to-user support. As for RPMS, the ones built for MandrakeClub end up on the Mandrake-Devel mirrors after they are released from testing, so they are available to non-Club members. The point of this part of the Club was for members to request RPMS and for volunteers to package them if enough people ask for them. It is supposed to be a value added service that you will be willing to pay for. I personally join the Club and skip the boxed sets because I have broadband and I don't need the manuals. All commercial RPMS are available on Club Downloads, and Contrib and SRPMS are available on all the mirrors. Other people in the community build updated RPMS. Ranger updates Samba, Texstar updates KDE and the eye-candy as well as some multi-media stuff, Mandrake updates some stuff for unsupported release, and then there are the official updates. Any which way you support Mandrake, by buying a box, joining the Club, purchasing incidents or making a donation, it all goes to support an excellent software product and helps to keep development going. -- Greg
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
