Hi Chris! Welcome to Mandrake. I've been a Fedora user too, and I think you'll come to find that Mandrake gives you great consumer flexibility, while being a very powerful server as well. It's not better than any other linux distro, just different (as they all are).
I'll take your questions 1 at a time: Does mandrake have anything like yum? what is package CJB> management like and where can i learn more about it? Yes Very much! One of the best things about Mandrake is a tool called URPMI, which is a wrapper for RPM just like YUM. It maintains a list of available packages, and resolves those dreaded RPM dependencies automatically. The thing that sets URPMI apart is the fact that Mandrake mirrors maintain an hdlist of RPM headers, so instead of having to download every individual RPM header, they are all conveniently located in one file, which makes setting up installs a snap. You can have your mirror via FTP, HTTP, on a set of CDs, local to the hard drive, on an NFS share, even through an SSH tunnel. It has a lot of very powerful features if you want them, but the sum of it is this: man urpmi for more information, google for easy urpmi for quick setup of mirrors. One you're set up, when you know what you want to install (e.g. nmap), all you have to type at the shell is: urpmi nmap and it will take care of everything else for you. There is even a very polished GUI interface (rpmdrake) to URPMI similar to Windows Add/Remove Programs. This mini-HOWTO is good information too if you're not fond of those dense MAN files: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/eggnbacon/docs/urpmi-howto/ CJB> 2) related to #1 above, i noticed that mandrake 10.0 comes with CJB> kde-3.2. the latest version of kde is 3.2.3. is there any "easy" way CJB> to upgrade? Yes! New updates are released often, and to do an update of all your installed components, URPMI makes it easy. Just type this: urpmi.update -a && urpmi --auto-select and Mandrake will check for updates and automatically install them. You can even schedule this in a cron job (great for servers). If you like bleeding edge, there is the Cooker. Cooker is the development branch of Mandrake. By setting up URPMI to include the cooker mirrors, you use the same URPMI commands, but you get updates much more frequently. The downside is that they may be less stable, but I've rarely had a problem. CJB> 3) there is some issue about the new kernel and dual booting with winxp CJB> (i've read about it on the fedora mailing list). does mandrake have a CJB> similar problem? it would seem like the answer is yes, since its a 2.6 CJB> kernel problem. I'm afraid I can't answer this question for you, since I run only linux natively (I use XP too, just on a separate machine). I would assume since it is kernel related then there might be a problem, but Mandrake updates tend to get released much faster than Fedora, so it will probably be fixed quicker. You might want to check the Mandrake Bugzilla at http://qa.mandrakesoft.com and find the issue (or file one yourself), track it, and they'll let you know when a fix is found. CJB> 4) i'm tired of manual configuring things with vim...;) since mandrake CJB> is suppose to be the leader in "linux desktop computing", i'm hoping CJB> that there are gui configuration tools for pretty much >everything<. is CJB> this true? Mandrake Control Center is your friend :). While a lot of the server-related stuff is still relegated to $FavoriteTextEditor, There are tons of configuration tools for Hardware (harddrake), Networking (drakconnect), Software (rpmdrake, a GUI front-end for URPMI) CJB> thats all i can think of now. i guess my main reason for switching is CJB> KDE and i'm guessing that all of mandrakes configuration tools use the CJB> KDE (or QT) libraries. CJB> what do you all think? CJB> thanks for the insights and advice! Glad to help! Mandrake does focus on KDE, but all the other desktops are there if you want them :) Please post again with any other questions. Most of my knowledge is server-oriented, but I'm sure others can help you out with the more desktop-like tools :). ______________________________ Justin Grote Network Architect, CCNA JWG Networks Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove nospam-) SMS: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (remove nospam-) Phone: (208) 631-5440
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