The Linux-Mandrake distribution started as an offshoot of Red Hat’s distribution, with a few enhancements and KDE thrown into the mix. But where it started is one thing, and where it’s going is a completely different matter. Mandrake has grown into a full-fledged distribution in its own right, and it is now giving Red Hat a run for its money. While still maintaining “Red Hat compatibility,” Mandrake has some features that really set it apart from most of the other major Linux distributions.
The Installation
As soon as Mandrake 7.1 was announced, it was available for download over the Web. Mandrake is still available as a one-disk install, but they also provide a second ISO of “extras” if you want them.
The only way the installation on this distro could get any easier would be if they actually sent someone to your home and did it for you. Otherwise, Mandrake’s installation is among the best that we have ever seen, and puts Linux on equal footing with any other consumer operating system.
The only real problems we encountered during setup were involved with XFree86 (go figure). During installation, we had selected the “Try XFree86 4.0″ option, and afterwards found ourselves wrestling a bit to get XFree86 up and running at all. Both xf86config and XF86Setup bombed out after complaining about card data not being in the database. At this point, it remains unclear whether this is a Mandrake issue or an XFree86 issue.
One of…
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