dexter11

If nothing else works you can try mplayerplugin.

I'm from Brazil, the house of Conectiva. The Conectiva win a very bad reputation here with Conectiva 9 and 10. I can't see it as an option. Manectiva is very funny in portuguese, plese kill me first.

MandrakeSoft is in the deep end of the role. If you think deep... no name is good enough.

If Mandriva or Conectiva stay... what about the name of prograns... like drakeconnect and hardrake? Will be drivaconnect and harddriva? Or maybe tivaconnect and hardtiva?

And the RPM name? As in kernel-3.0-1mdk.rpm? Will be kernel-3.0-1mdv.rpm? Or kernel-3.0-1.cl.rpm, as Conectiva did before apt-get?

Oh my god, this is the bad part. If the Mandrake decide to jump to apt-get too? I prefere to die to use MDK with apt-get. I'll goo ... I don't know, maybe gentoo. But not apt-get in MDK or MDV or CON, don't know.

XXX Linux is a good name to my teaste. :-) Anyway is better then Mandriva.

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Guess the initials in the rpm files will be MDA.

The package manager in 2005LE will still be urpmi, in 2006 it will likely be smartpm.

What was wrong with Conectiva 9 and 10?

Any one of you have KDE 3.4 and I think this is perfect and beautiful one you ever have...

KDE 3.4

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That is nice wish it would be in the official.

The link is not working thou, 'http' is written twice. Just delete one of them and it'll work.

artee: "So there, until the end of 2006 the name Mandrakelinux will be the official name."

 

No, that's not necessarily the case. The roadmap used the name 'Mandrakelinux' throughout as that's the current name, but that doesn't necessarily mean the name is fixed. If we have to / decide to change the name, we'll change it, and that would include renaming any not-yet-released product.

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There should be a transition period in that too to really let people know about the new name. Send out news to every site: Mandrakelinux changing name to Whatever Linux. Maybe a counter on the official website would be good saying something like: x days left to Mandrakelinux officially change the name to Whatever Linux. And 10.2 would came out with the new name written everywhere inside the distro Whatever Linux (former Mandrakelinux).

This way the transition would be flawless. Everybody would know about it.

Now think about what they are really doing about it. A few letters on cooker list and a poll and a topic here. No word from the company. MandrakeSoft again...

The admin (scoopy ?) should put some notes about this poll on the index page cause noone seems to know about it.

Although this is a popular choice here... and on other website polls out there... I don't think MDK is gonna cut it in the end as a valid choice.  A set of letters such as "MDK" are, of course, known as acronyms and / or abbreviations... which are shortened versions of other words. In our specific case and with our particular product... MDK = Mandrake.

 

What is currently being decided by the courts is whether or not Mandrake can keep this name. So if Mandrake has to go... MDK won't work as its replacement, especially since MDK has been posted on websites stating it stands for... and is known as Mandrake:

http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?...m=MDK&Find=Find

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Beside that there was a game called MDK. It even had a second part. Look at this.

Well, they're only indirectly living from the community - they're directly living from the paying customers and members, and from those who contribute freely. Most of the community of Mdk users are neither.

What? As I said earlier in one of my posts: community is not only for giving money. They can help you write docs, draw better graphics (IMHO that is a must, the current look is ridiculous) and the most of all find bugs. The Download edition is the base for their boxed distros isn't it, it should be rock solid, so the more people are using it the more bugs will be found and corrected. Not to mention that the bigger the community the bigger the club. Bigger the community -> more the Mandrake experts -> better the distros image -> more customers. Yes it's not directly money but it is the future.

There's actually never been a true conversation; the recent club chats come closest, and so things are actually getting better of late....

I guess Gowator and you are displeased with this since you see how easy it would be to do better

Absolutely true in my case.

a name is just a name. Doesn't change anything in terms of how the product functions.

Disagree. A good product name gives a good feeling. Positive(!) and simple, easy to remember. Thats why MacOS 10.3 is called Jaguar (or Panther? Can't remember) and not just Yet Another OS 10.3. BTW before every release had its own name (vitamin, dolphin, five star etc.) they could ask their community to help them to choose one. Mandrakelinux is a commercial product so find a real name.

As for shareholders, I don't know. I actually don't mind Mandriva that much. But like I said, I'm not a shareholder, nor is it likely that I will be one.

And nor you are a native English speaker (sorry if yes). Well nor am I, but I read some of their posts about what they associated with driva.

Face it, no matter what you name your brand / company, there will be a language in which the word (or similar sounding name) is a curse word or something like that.

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Maybe it's true but it still matters that in which language is it a curse. The most widely used languages in the world are english, spanish, french etc. (not necessarily in this order). If the name is a curse in one of these languages then you can throw it away.

Gowator, ok, I hear you.

That clarifies lots - I guess to them (and likely loads of others) you're just the most difficult customer to deal with.

The point is, they'll never admit they're wrong, because if so, under law, they have to do something about it - and at this point they can't know if you will really just accept an apology and let things be.

So, tough luck on both sides, this will never be resolved.

 

Dexter, the point with the release cycle was that many were confused about Mdk products - I didn't care, and the execution was not bad at all, imho - 10.0 and 10.1 had CE release that were as good (or as bad) as any previous finals, and in most respects the OE releases were better.

Well I don't have anything against Mandrakelinux as distro, and I'm not arguing against MandrakeSoft technical decisions. I'm arguing with lack of conversation between them and the community. They don't seem to care about them/us. I think it's a big a disadvantage in a Linux distro manufacturer which is living from its community.

The name change is not a public thing.

I'm not a business expert so... why?

Just as the acquisition of Conectiva wasn't a public thing. They don't need to ask the community anything.

Has RH ever asked what the name for FC should be?

Did Canonical ask anyone what to call Ubuntu?

So what? Mandrake was the first or one of the first to ask which packages to put in the distro from users. They could be the first in that too. I can accept that the decision is their but at least they could ask what we like.

They owe discussion with the share holders, not the community. This is a company.

Do you think share holders will like Mandriva?

For me, a rose by any other name is still a rose.

Won't get rid of the thorns either.

 

BTW I can't get a new name for my website ending in .free.fr so I'll likely stop with my site when the name Mandrake gets out of use...

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The problem is that the name has to be trademarkable. If Mandrake doesn't base their image on Mandrake the Magician in the first place, Mandrake could've win this one (I mean, I am a comic book fan and even I am hard-pressed to remember Mandrake the Magician image, it's not that markettable today compared to say.. Batman).

 

While the name Mandriva is ugly, at least it's trademarkable. Face it, no matter what you name your brand / company, there will be a language in which the word (or similar sounding name) is a curse word or something like that. Remember the Chinese Coca Cola example?

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Mantiva is still a better choice IMHO, and it's trademarkable. And if it's all about trademarks then why not use Conectiva. Everyone knows it's a Linux distro Mandrake bought (merged) with them so I can't see any problems.

What was the Chinese Coca Cola example?

artee: yep, that's right, I've been with MDK a couple of months now. I heard about CE / OE through the Cooker list and the press releases. To be honest, I mostly agree with Gowator on the _announcement_ - it was badly botched, with not enough information available, and everyone was confused for a long time. What I think is good is the actual _arrangement_, the publicity around it wasn't great at first.

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Wasn't it the same with the release cycle? Only a confusing press release for days.

Isn't it the same with this name changing? No words yet. They maybe already made the decision, but didn't tell anything about it. I think they should have put the poll on their official website. Or if they made the decision then they should have put another press release.

It seems they don't learn from their mistakes.

Instead of Mandriva, I would suggest ...          MANDIVA.

I guess you didn't check www.mandiva.com.

Mandrake (the comic character) is a magician. I looked at distrowatch and ther is no Magician Linux though there is Magic Linux.

Another idea on this line is Wizard Linux. No Wizard linux on distrowatch though there is a Wizard Linux Team. I found them on Google. Don't know if they want to make a distro. If an italian speaker would be so kind to tell it.

Another idea Spellcaster OS. Didn' checked it.

"It was just an example. What I meant is Mandrake (and every other distro IMHO) should support the most hardware, even if there is no open source driver, out of the box."

 

No. This would not motivate any manufacturers to make open source drivers possible.

True, but will every driver or software be open sourced if we force the companis? I doubt. They want to keep their secrets as long as they have profit from it e.g. Nvidia will not put a "Howto manufacture GeForce chip" doc on the web because every chip manufacturer would make and sell its own GeForce chip instead of buying it from Nvidia. I think it's pretty obvious. You want to force them or ATI or any other company using closed source drivers? How? You use video cards I'm sure. What I'm trying to say here is sometimes it's inevitable to use their products because there is no other option but to use them or not. Maybe it will change in the future but today these are the facts.

 

"Well I do, and I guess a lot of people here do that too. And whatabaout newbies? This distro is ideal for them. A lots of them don't know how Microsoft maintains monopoly. Not everybody has enough money to buy new hardware to a new OS (a lot of people leaving Windows because of this)."

 

True. But then, those newbies are going to be upset about not having their favourite software, etc.

Then that is the perfect time to tell them to go back to Windows.

 

One reality with Linux that people will have to accept: it's different, and change needs time and accepting mentality.

True, but sometimes it takes too much time to understand that you can't have a fully functional computer because of pride.

 

"MandrakeSoft is a company which earns most of its profit from a Linux distro. Linux is about being open and being in a community."

 

Disagree. For me, it isn't. It's about being free, independent, in control. Instead of controlled.

Lack of openness is present in any company. Management doesn't have to justify to anyone but shareholders. That's the way it works, in the end.

But for a Linux manufacturer company: it gives the more info the better (IMHO of course). Sometimes it's understandable that they just make a decision sometimes not. The don't have to justify anything, but they better do.

 

They have to think things over and discuss behind closed doors. If you want something completely open, move to debian. Get away from a company owned commercial distribution.

Maybe I will. I can't decide because of the lack of info. The most important to me is public updates between official releases. The press release was 10 days ago and there are still no further words. edit: thanks to artee it's settled now.

 

On the topic of closed source drivers: if manufacturers fail to assist the development community, I think they should not be rewarded with having their hardware supported in all or any standard distributions.

I sincerely hope that some day soon, even graphics cards with respectable specs will have open source drivers.

Maybe your dream is closer than you think click. As about closed source drivers true that companys should not be rewarded for using them but if there are no alternatives then one have to face the facts. Until that video card is not out on the shelves, there's no point in abusing ATI or Nvidia. Linux market is small for them comparing to Windows market. They can turn out just as easely they turned in. After the alternative (that open sourced video card) has born, ATI and Nvidia drivers could be thrown away and you can encourage everybody to use that and only that video card.

 

I know you don't care about this (yet), but open source-ness is very important.

I care about it but not over usability.

 

The GPL is, in the end, more important than Linux.

Anyone tell me why the forum engine is not drawing those boxes around the quote texts?

 

[formatted by spinynorman]

Dexter, it is easy to get the latest release free.  When I first came over to MDK, I grabbed 10.1  Then I needed technical help - I got all the tech help I could everl hope for from mandrakeusers.org - fantastic, helpful people there, and i quickly got into the testing loop and am running cooker-current - can't get any more current than that!!!.  All free.      Yes, I did pay $66 for a standard membership, but I won't truly benefit from that until 2005LE goes final.  Being on limited income (my waistline still doesn't quite attest to that) I can't do the silver membership, and being just a home user, I don't need the power packs.

Well Mandrake official is current enough for me. I don't like bleeding edge distros but I like to work with the latest stable. I know it's free now but will it remain free (I mean the updates between the annual official releases)? I don't know and I think noone (or very few) knows yet outside the company. This is related to what I think one of the problems of MandrakeSoft : the lack of conversation between them and their community/fans outside the club. I'm sure there are wonderful people here but there's no relation between them and the company.

  But I am having a ton of fun with this and feel I have gotten more than my money's worth from club membership (Just this weekend, we could help folks on the club forum when Chris' server hickupped (more profuse thanks to Chris.

 

To me, it all comes down to what the community can /is willing to/ give to me to get me up and running.   Xandros was a great first distro cause it all looked like windows and I could learn a bit of Linux slowly.  But I outgrew it.  MDKsoft distros were easy to install and help was easy to come by.  So here I am.  I've been doing computers and PCs for 40+ years.  I'm damn lazy!!!!! 

Stick around!!!

Kristi

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Clubmembers get access to java - which one cannot distribute normally, check the SUN license - some other non-open source things like Opera, some CAD progam, etcetc.

 

Next, they get some closed source drivers, for ATI, NVidia, and then some - yes, this includes some adsl modem drivers.

 

Then they get to vote on what new software should be packaged for some version of Mdk - usually the latest stable version.

 

 

I checked, forcedeth driver is included in the regular kernel. I haven't the faintest idea why you thought that it is not included in Mdk??

It was just an example. What I meant is Mandrake (and every other distro IMHO) should support the most hardware, even if there is no open source driver, out of the box.

Without modem drivers for Linux, one can't get onto the web? Whatabout windows?

Who cares about Windows? I started this because I'd like to see my favourite distro to improve. It could be better than Windows in that too.

Or, if one doesn't have windows, why does one have a winmodem????

Because one didn't know there are such things like this.

Buy Linux compatible hardware! That's the only way to improve - Linuxcompatible with open source drivers, that is!

Well I do, and I guess a lot of people here do that too. And whatabaout newbies? This distro is ideal for them. A lots of them don't know how Microsoft maintains monopoly. Not everybody has enough money to buy new hardware to a new OS (a lot of people leaving Windows because of this).

 

Yeah community members could do a lot of things to improve Mandrakelinux, but if you really want to be a community member at Mandrake you have to pay for it first. I think it's a huge holding back for the distro and the company.

Ehmm, how so?

What I wanted to say that I don't feel I am really a member of a community here. When I used Yoper, Andreas and the other developers were writing to the same forum and it was a good feeling, not to mention that they had a forum accessible to anyone on they official website and not ""only"" (no offense) a fan based one. There is no place,forum or anything where MandrakeSoft employees would meet their community/fans except the cooker mailing list, don't know about the club though. But community is not only developers and club members. I think all I wrote here worths nothing because their not reading it except adamw but he's a "semi-insider" thousands of miles from them.

I have paid out of free will, not for any of the benefits of the club. And for my translations I have gotten a VIP membership, giving access to Silver level stuff.

I don't see why you think one has to pay to become a member of the community around Mdk..

Good to hear and congratulations. So if somebody does something remarkably good for the distro, he might get a reward. That's really good to know.

 

 

I'll never understand that, why private? Is it a secret? Maybe someone from the outside could give an idea now in the designing phase that could improve a lot. It would much better now than rewrite it later.

 

MandrakeSoft is a company. No need to disclose everything. Heck, look at SUSE - I posted a bugreport and haven't the faintest idea if anyone ever looked at it. I included the fix that Mdk's buglist had for it, so it should be easy for them to fix it, but that's all.

For all I can see, lots of Mdklinux is much more open than RH (not talking about FC here!) SUSE and other commercial distributions (heck, xandros, linspire etc even include proprietary software).

MandrakeSoft is a company which earns most of its profit from a Linux distro. Linux is about being open and being in a community. And as I said before I'd like to see my favourite distro improving so I don't care about negative examples so let's just talk about FC or Gentoo or <put your favourite distro here>. And heck Mandrake includes propietary software, only for club members but it includes, and guess what I like it, maybe some other people do. But what I really like is that I have an option (like everybody else) to use them or not.

 

There are certainly things wrong with how Mdksoft is executing (or hopefully, has been executing) their stuff, but the points you mention are hardly the large stumbling blocks.

Well I think it is. Mandrakelinux with a good and bigger community... Maybe I should open a new topic for that "Ideas about building a better community around Mandrake" because its really offtopic here.

 

I'd say treating amd64 versions differently than regular i586 is imho the major point, next up are the bad marketing (or lack thereof), low visibility, etc... which hopefully the new release cycle will address.

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Club members and paying customers have a choice: they can always _choose_ to download the entirely free distribution and use that. The only things you can get in the Club and commercial version that you can't get in the free version with urpmi are the non-free packages, everything else is just stuff from contrib.

I always thought club members get more official packages and support with it.

Contrib isn't an option as it too has to be free. Now I suppose plf could make an nvidia package and put it in plf-nonfree, but I guess they don't want to hurt the Club.

Since my last post I found nvidia and fglrx driver packages in Thac's reposytory so it's not an issue anymore. As I wrote I'm not talking about only video drivers. They're needed only for 3D, and everybody has a videocard therefore video drivers are the easyest to install and setup from their original source. What's more important IMHO are drivers like forcedeth and Smartlink modem drivers. They truly affect the usabilty of the distro, e.g. without modem drivers one can't go out on the net where he can get help, so it really should be on the install CD.

My job has nothing to do with determining the distribution of Mandrakelinux, unfortunately. Believe me, if it did, the *first* thing I'd do is decide that the future interim releases will be publicly available (the second thing would be to make it a policy to have the x86-64 release made freely available on the same schedule as the x86 release - I honestly don't know whether or not this is the policy for 2005 right now). I've always believed it's a *big* overall benefit to MDKsoft and MDKlinux that we have a good, popular and complete product available entirely for free; I know way too many valuable contributors and customers who've started out on the free edition to think otherwise. (As a personal example, I've never actually *paid* a dime for anything to do with MDK, though if I billed all the time I spent volunteering on Cooker at my average hourly wage it'd come to a tidy sum, so I don't feel guilty :>).

Yeah community members could do a lot of things to improve Mandrakelinux, but if you really want to be a community member at Mandrake you have to pay for it first. I think it's a huge holding back for the distro and the company.

The degree to which free and non-free releases are separated, the ways in which they're made available and the exact way in which the Club members should be given privileges over regular downloaders are a lively topic of debate within MDKsoft, for sure, but perhaps it should be left at that :)

 

and always remember, I'm only a 'semi'-insider. I work several thousand miles from the MDKsoft head office, and physical presence counts for a lot in a small company. I'm obviously not exactly at the executive level of the company either, so I'm sure I miss a lot of high-level discussion. Though we're a small company and I can always bug Gael or Fred L. by email if I really *need* to. :)

I've found this. If I can recommend something put the URL of your blog to this síte and your signature here. AFAIK you are the only MandrakeSoft employee writing here or is there anybody else?

Oh, as for work on urpmi / smart, it's not happening on Cooker as it's more or less at the theory stage right now. There's some discussion about smart and urpmi on Cooker (mostly from last month), but AFAIK what's happening right now is private chat between the urpmi and smart maintainers to see what they think is the best way forward.

I'll never understand that, why private? Is it a secret? Maybe someone from the outside could give an idea now in the designing phase that could improve a lot. It would much better now than rewrite it later.

They seem to get along pretty well so I expect the result will be cool.

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I understand that MandrakeSoft needs money, I just think it's not a good idea to charge for something that other distros give freely. At some distros you don't even have to install it. See Yoper.

Second : I think if people need to choose between ideals and usability they choose the latter, and I don't have to say which way brings more money to Mandrake. Not to mention that this driver issue is not only about video drivers. Some things don't work without forcedeth or anything else. If they don't put it in contrib then they should put it in a different directory or anything just make it freely available. What I mean that Mandrake should be a fully functioning distro in every way (that includes drivers).

Yep, I'm not in customer service and this ain't what I get paid for, so I can't give the Official Word. But believe me, MDKsoft listens to what people are saying :).

 

There's an update on the PR at the Club:

 

http://www.mandrakeclub.com/article.php?sid=3539

Good news. Thank you for the info.

To summarise, there will be several non-'Official' releases per year in addition to the single official release. They will be made available to the Club initially. I don't know if they will be made available to the public later, but it's possible.

I think it should. I wrote at the end of my previous post why. I don't want to pretend that I know your job better than you but I think: big community -> better image -> bigger club -> more income any ways.

No free updates -> smaller community which leave when became more experienced -> same amount people leaves the club the same amount comes -> no development -> MandrakeSoft stays where it is, while everybody else grows.

Maybe it's not the way things really are, but I think this is logical.

Another important thing from that post is that LE 2005 *WILL* be getting security updates.

That's really basic.

On Conectiva - this was covered in Fred's online chat the other day. At the moment, the technologies we're looking at are the smart package manager and some kernel work Conectiva have done. Rafael is working with the smart author on coming up with a way to combine the strengths of the two (smart's dependency resolution logic, urpmi's supplementary features).

Again thank you for the info it's already much more than in the press release. Hope more comes, even if it's not your job. I can read the technical details in the cooker newsletter but I couldn't find anything about the merging anywhere.

But nothing is stopping you updating KDE yourself ...

in fact its even done and packaged for you....by mandrake.

 

It just doesn't come as part of a CD set.... 

First: is that freely available?

Second: I'm not talking about only KDE and I'm not talking about only now. What I'm concerned about is freely avilable feature (not only bugfix and security) updates in the new release cycle.

I assume adamw is a Mandrakesoft employee.

Yep but while he is here his views are very strictly his own.....

Well he's an insider. He can provide some more info what's not in the press release or on the website (which looks very chaotic to me so maybe just I can't find it).

Only in this topic 3 or 4 people wrote that they will leave Mandrake if this happens.

 

Yep but lots already leave when it doesn't work.....

That's the real sad thing I mean it's totally acceptable when somebody leaves because he just didn't liked it. But when somebody leaves because it didn't work.. well the newbies ask help from the more experienced and they say don't use Mandrake so it ruins the image of the distro which is already not the best on the forum where I normally write.

Experienced people leaving Mandrake is normal...especially since they broke compatibility with webmin and linuxconf. 

 

Debian is still the largest distro ... and woody is 3 years old.... 

Why?  Because it provides a stable base and bleeding edge ...

 

Mandrake is going more in this direction.... OE and CE ...

3 people might leave but if Mandrake address the webmin and linuxconf issues then this one would come back!

The Linux market is constantly growing or that's what I've been told, so it's not enough any more the some people comes some people goes attitude. More people should come than leave. That's why I think a non-club member community should be kept well, first of all with info and the feeling that they are a part of a community and a good distro a constantly updated one. All of us know community is not just for giving money. They could help in a thousand way where Mandrake needs improvement.

HI everyone! It's my first post here.

I've read through this topic and thought I can add a few things.

First about the new release cycle. I'm one of those who like stability over features, therefore I dont mind that Mandrake is already outdated comparing to other distros. I'm not glad but I don't mind. But one year without feature updates (e.g. from KDE 3.3 to 3.4) is a bit too much. I'm talking about public updates since I'm not a club member. I think no public updates means no community sooner or later. I understand that paying customers get everything sooner and get everything more and better, but there are some limits because it's Linux. Only in this topic 3 or 4 people wrote that they will leave Mandrake if this happens. I know that this wont bring Mandrake back to bankruptcy if there are some people who take their place. But are there? Or will be? Abusing your community is a suicidal thing in Linux.

Next: about the merger agreement. Its more than a month now and I (and I gues a lots of other people) dont know who bought who (I know its merging but why did they pay then?), what tecnology will they use from Conectiva and what will be at all. If no decisions are made then what are the options?

I think that one more way to keep the community alive and well is to give them a lot of info and all we got is a press release that creates more questions than anwsers (for me). This whole topic was born because there is no info, and the main reason to reg here was I'd like to get some answers. I hope somebody from Mandrakesoft is reading this, I assume adamw is a Mandrakesoft employee.

One more thing about the drivers that were mentioned before. I think the reason you gave, that the distro won't be Free then, is fake. Since club members can download it, do they deserve a non-free distro and non club members deserve a totally free distro? I don't see the logic behind it, unless if you say it's for getting more club members. If you really serious about it then put the drivers in the contrib.

Second I think that most users just want the most out of the box and don't give a damn about if it's free or freely downloadable and distributable. AFAIK Nvidia license permits to bundle it with a distro, correct me if not.