Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
I think the main reason I stick around is this list. Its just too entertaining and interesting! So much so its addictive! ROTFLMAO! -- John Willby Registered Linux user number 321644 ICQ: 92791912 Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] YIM/AIM: vicarofwibley Linux is like a wigwam - No Gates, no Windows, Apache inside. 06:12:10 up 1 day, 19:47, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
RE: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
Actually, I stay for steve's sigs ;) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Inhabitant of Zion Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 10:14 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake I think the main reason I stick around is this list. Its just too entertaining and interesting! So much so its addictive! ROTFLMAO! -- John Willby Registered Linux user number 321644 ICQ: 92791912 Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] YIM/AIM: vicarofwibley Linux is like a wigwam - No Gates, no Windows, Apache inside. 06:12:10 up 1 day, 19:47, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00 Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 16:23:39 -0700 Brandon Vanderberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: (No flames please 1999-today and no blue screens or major issues) Must...resist...urge...to flame...summon...all...strength... Aaarr! You fsckin' traitor!! I'll kill you! I'll (pops a coupla pills in between shuddering fits of rage)...oooh, ok, I'm calming down now... -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ In the long run we are all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 04:56, HaywireMac wrote: On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 16:23:39 -0700 Brandon Vanderberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: (No flames please 1999-today and no blue screens or major issues) Must...resist...urge...to flame...summon...all...strength... Aaarr! You fsckin' traitor!! I'll kill you! I'll (pops a coupla pills in between shuddering fits of rage). Takes HUGE hit from bong :-))) ..oooh, ok, I'm calming down now... Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On 04 Sep 2003 02:48:34 -0700 Aron Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: Takes HUGE hit from bong :-))) Oh don't man, I'm so poor right now... -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering. -- Cato Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
urpmi works just as well as apt for package management. To configure it, go to http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/urpmiweb.php and follow the steps. Mandrake's automated security system is called msec. If you don't like it you can turn it off. More info at http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/docs/msec.php On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 17:31:54 +0300, Anarky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I (of course?) am quite excited about Mandrake ... told somebody about it .. and that person gave me this stuff ... I was wondering what people think about it: (from here on it's not my stuff anymore) - I like Mandrake a lot. We're currently running 9.0 and 9.1 on a few of our machines, but we're slowly moving over to Debian based distros. I'll give you a quick run down of why. 1. We're sick of RPM. We've hard RPM break on a few machines already (I think the RPM database becomes corrupted if I remember correctly). Needless to say, it's hard to upgrade your machine when your package manager goes kaput. APT/debs are SO much easier to deal with anyway. 2. Too much crap! Literally, Mandrake has TOO MUCH crap these days. I know Debian is hardly innocent, but the dependency train for whatever reason seems to be much more palatable when using Debian as opposed to Mandrake. Maybe it's all the package/package-dev combo packs that the Mandrake/RedHat people like, I'm not entirely sure. It's just too much honestly. Let me install mySQL and be done with it. 3. The big reason (for me personally), the Mandrake security model is totally whack. Once upon a time, Mandrake used to just run a nightly script which would email an audit of your system to the Administrator letting you know what was wrong. That's all it did, and that was nice. Now there's a set of different (horribly documented) security models that have all sorts of (horribly documented) behavior. I don't mind the security model idea, what I do mind is my system doing things for me (such as changing file permissions) without being explicitly told when and why this is going to happen. This has caused major problems for us on a few occasions and it's simply unacceptable. Maybe we haven't looked in the right place for the documentation, but I've tried to find it in the past with little success. I should have to go reading scripts to find this out. What I've found is that with Debian I have a much better idea what's going on inside our systems. There are no surprises, things so far just straight up work the way we expect them to. We're competent programmers and system administrators, so this is great for us. If I were a newbie, I would definitely still recommend Mandrake. Whatever the security scripts are doing, it IS making the system more secure, but sometimes you don't want that. If I wanted Mandrake to do one thing (short of switching to .debs) to get me back on the Mandrake train: Please explain in absolutely explicit detail the difference between your security modes. You *HAVE* to do this during the install process as well. If I'm rebuilding my firewall, for instance, I don't have the option to go out to the internet to find out what these things mean. This is a very important critical decision that should not be taken lightly. The only way we can properly make that decision is if the knowlege is made available to us when we need it most. -- Sridhar Dhanapalan [Yama | http://www.pclinuxonline.com/] {PGP/GnuPG: http://dhanapalan.com/yama.asc 049D38B4 : A7A9 8A02 78CB AB1B FCE4 EEC6 2DD9 249B 049D 38B4} That's just incestuous. And we all know where incest leads. Hereditary insanity. -- Linus Torvalds pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 17:31:54 +0300 Anarky [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: I (of course?) am quite excited about Mandrake ... told somebody about it .. and that person gave me this stuff ... I was wondering what people think about it: I once made the same bitchy comments about Mandrake and dependencies. The reply I got was: A poor craftsman blames his tools. and you know what? He was right. urpmi has worked flawlessly for me for a couple 'o years now, no shit. So if he's havin' probs, I can only put it down to 2 things: 1. User error 2. An accident/glitch Neither of which is a valid slight against Mandrake. Is the RPM model getting dated? Sure. But it works, and it works well for the average user. What most people forget is that the *whole fscking reason* there are different distro's is that different people have different needs. Those doing heavy development might want Debian or Gentoo to get around the GLibC barrier, but that can be done on Mandrake too, maybe not as easily, I don't know. Tom would prolly say no problemo. This debate has been raging on and off for years, Debian is falling behind IMHO, due to Gentoo, so they're getting a bit uppity, but it's nothing to spend any serious mental effort on. Whatever works for you, great. The best thing I can say about Debian is their *absolute* commitment to Free Software, whereas Mandrake obviously is following a more mixed path in that respect. I have to say though, I see Debian people *all the time* on various mailing lists complaining of build issues. I very rarely see that from Mandrake users, and when I do, the sol'n is simple: http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/index.php -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign. -- Anatole France Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
Gentoo is about 4 light-years ahead of the stable Debian. I agree with that. Emerge and Portage is a way better system than apt and .deb because it uses source in a simple, uncomplicated and efficient way. Personally I hate debian with a passion.. yes, sorry to say it, I _don't_ like it at all. I don't like it either. I have it on my Sun Ultra 5 because its the only version of Linux that works and runs well on it. No but seriously, to get back to the question, what is the so-called link between these two distros? I'm interested / confused. I think they are clubbed together just because they take the non Redhat RPM route. However it has to be said it is theorectically possible to use Portage on any Linux system. Can't comment on the security thing as I know nothing about it! -- John Willby Registered Linux user number 321644 ICQ: 92791912 Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] YIM/AIM: vicarofwibley Linux is like a wigwam - No Gates, no Windows, Apache inside. 16:44:46 up 1 day, 6:20, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.00 pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 11:04:31 -0400, HaywireMac [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is the RPM model getting dated? Sure. How's that? Miark Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 23:33:50 +0800 Anguo [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: Either that or this person pulled someone else's comments because he didn't have any opinion of his own? Pretty safe bet... -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ If you put it off long enough, it might go away. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:33:01 +0200 Ralph Slooten [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: No but seriously, to get back to the question, what is the so-called link between these two distros? I'm interested / confused. Well, from what I understand, which obviously is much less than you (no sarcasm intended), there is the ability to get past what I have heard referred to as the GLibC barrier very easily for developers or those who always want to run the latest bleeding-edge software. Did I misunderstand something? Of course the two distros are vastly different in most areas, that was the only reason I compared them. -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ If something has not yet gone wrong then it would ultimately have been beneficial for it to go wrong. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 11:58:04 -0400 Miark [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: How's that? Dated, not broken. As I say, it works and works well, but as has been pointed out below, the emerge/portage system is quite a bit more advanced, allowing more flexibility and customisation, no? -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ Nothing is ever a total loss; it can always serve as a bad example. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wednesday 03 Sep 2003 3:31 pm, Anarky wrote: (from here on it's not my stuff anymore) --- -- Not to repeat comments from other on rpm etc., 2. Too much crap! Literally, Mandrake has TOO MUCH crap these days. So who makes yoiu install it? I had a choice about what I installed, didn't he? 3. The big reason (for me personally), the Mandrake security model is totally whack. Documentation may not always be in the obvious place, but it does exist, and explains well. Perhaps the guy has a low reading ability? What I've found is that with Debian I have a much better idea what's going on inside our systems. Yup - you've had longer to find out. All the Debian systems I've seen are still using versions of desktop and programs that are way behind Mandrake's. If I wanted Mandrake to do one thing (short of switching to .debs) to get me back on the Mandrake train: Please explain in absolutely explicit detail the difference between your security modes. Get reading, dude. If he wants to go to Debian, he's no great loss. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:23:13 +0100 Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: Yup - you've had longer to find out. All the Debian systems I've seen are still using versions of desktop and programs that are way behind Mandrake's. If I wanted Mandrake to do one thing (short of switching to .debs) to get me back on the Mandrake train: Please explain in absolutely explicit detail the difference between your security modes. Get reading, dude. If he wants to go to Debian, he's no great loss. Whoa! Nag mode off, sharpening-the-knives mode on, eh? -- HaywireMac Registered Linux user #282046 Homepage: nodex.sytes.net ++ Mandrake HowTo's More: http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org ++ My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed. -- Christopher Morley Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Wednesday 03 Sep 2003 6:03 pm, HaywireMac wrote: On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:23:13 +0100 Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] uttered: Yup - you've had longer to find out. All the Debian systems I've seen are still using versions of desktop and programs that are way behind Mandrake's. If I wanted Mandrake to do one thing (short of switching to .debs) to get me back on the Mandrake train: Please explain in absolutely explicit detail the difference between your security modes. Get reading, dude. If he wants to go to Debian, he's no great loss. Whoa! Nag mode off, sharpening-the-knives mode on, eh? Sorry. You're right. I just react to those who bad-mouth without bothering to find out about something first. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
RE: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
Having installed Mandrake (v7-9.1) about 30-40 times on various boxes in both personal roles and for professional use - including high security roles, I would offer that my initial reactions to these issues were similar to those of your friend. I'd run into one or another of the issues mentioned below and get discouraged. Many times, I'd find myself on distrowatch and FreeBSD's site considering changing. But each time this happened, I thought I'd challenge myself to learn one more thing about mdk before switching. As an example, I became frustrated several times with the amount of 'stuff' that got installed w/ mdk. I experimented with minimal installs and spending literally hours researching and selecting only those packages in the install that I really needed. One of these attempts left me with a system that ran very well with only a P200, 48MB RAM, and a 6GB disk. But I found that adding new apps later required much more tweaking (and reading) to get running correctly than if I had just let mdk install them in the first place. Research and experimentation told me that doing a larger (though not full) install and then removing extra packages gave me the best results as far as functionality and easy of use/installation. RPM database corruption is another issue I've run across. As maddening as it is, it can be resolved. And the documentation on the security models could definitely be improved, especially at install, but it (and all the individual settings that make up each level) are so easy to customize afterward, that I don't see it as a major problem. Obviously, it's up to your friend/company to decide which distro is best and why. Best wishes, Brandon 1. We're sick of RPM. We've hard RPM break on a few machines already (I think the RPM database becomes corrupted if I remember correctly). Needless to say, it's hard to upgrade your machine when your package manager goes kaput. APT/debs are SO much easier to deal with anyway. 2. Too much crap! Literally, Mandrake has TOO MUCH crap these days. I know Debian is hardly innocent, but the dependency train for whatever reason seems to be much more palatable when using Debian as opposed to Mandrake. Maybe it's all the package/package-dev combo packs that the Mandrake/RedHat people like, I'm not entirely sure. It's just too much honestly. Let me install mySQL and be done with it. 3. The big reason (for me personally), the Mandrake security model is totally whack. Once upon a time, Mandrake used to just run a nightly script which would email an audit of your system to the Administrator letting you know what was wrong. That's all it did, and that was nice. Now there's a set of different (horribly documented) security models that have all sorts of (horribly documented) behavior. I don't mind the security model idea, what I do mind is my system doing things for me (such as changing file permissions) without being explicitly told when and why this is going to happen. This has caused major problems for us on a few occasions and it's simply unacceptable. Maybe we haven't looked in the right place for the documentation, but I've tried to find it in the past with little success. I should have to go reading scripts to find this out. What I've found is that with Debian I have a much better idea what's going on inside our systems. There are no surprises, things so far just straight up work the way we expect them to. We're competent programmers and system administrators, so this is great for us. If I were a newbie, I would definitely still recommend Mandrake. Whatever the security scripts are doing, it IS making the system more secure, but sometimes you don't want that. If I wanted Mandrake to do one thing (short of switching to .debs) to get me back on the Mandrake train: Please explain in absolutely explicit detail the difference between your security modes. You *HAVE* to do this during the install process as well. If I'm rebuilding my firewall, for instance, I don't have the option to go out to the internet to find out what these things mean. This is a very important critical decision that should not be taken lightly. The only way we can properly make that decision is if the knowlege is made available to us when we need it most. Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
Brandon Vanderberg wrote: snip woow ... I really appreciate your experience oppinion ... you've obviously done lots of installs ... I've done a couple too .. but mostly advertising linux to friends or stuff ... and none for companies or stuff ... I'm wondering ... what features made you stick to mandrake not switch? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 00:31, Anarky wrote: I (of course?) am quite excited about Mandrake ... told somebody about it .. and that person gave me this stuff ... I was wondering what people think about it: (from here on it's not my stuff anymore) - WHACK Well, good thing is, there are many different distros. Mandrake ain't the one-and-only - and if they're too lazy to fix the RPM database, maybe they're not so savvy in the first place? stephen kuhn == illawarra computer services a kuhn media australia company http://kma.0catch.com - * This message was composed on a 100% Microsoft free computer * - Most of us, when all is said and done, like what we like and make up reasons for it afterwards. -- Soren F. Petersen Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
RE: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake
Well, I think the main reason I stick around is the comparative ease of use. -On the business side Some of the companies I deal with are a little skeptical of Linux. Fear of the unknown I suppose. Anyway, they are at least familiar with Red Hat. I tell them that Mdk is very much like RH only (imo) more user friendly. That has more than once, been the deciding factor in letting me bring a box in. I show them that even after I leave, they can continue to easily manage the box. That usually works for the execs. The techs are usually dying to try it out anyway, and it does make an excellent learning platform. This even worked for a company that already had RH. When I showed them the new box, they agreed that it was simpler and easier to use. (I'm not knocking any other distros at all.) -On the personal side I still consider changing now and then. I'm buying a new laptop soon and plan to make that slackware. But for my home/business server, Mdk just does the trick. My desktop is still W2K Pro, and will be till I find something better. (No flames please 1999-today and no blue screens or major issues) Brandon -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Anarky Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2003 3:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] somebody disliking mandrake Brandon Vanderberg wrote: snip woow ... I really appreciate your experience oppinion ... you've obviously done lots of installs ... I've done a couple too .. but mostly advertising linux to friends or stuff ... and none for companies or stuff ... I'm wondering ... what features made you stick to mandrake not switch? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com