aRTee

?? How do you see that English is the most widely used? I seriously doubt that, unless you count all inhabitants of India in... I'd actually think that English is more spoken (i.e. more people can communicate in English) than other languages, but it's not more widely used (native language),... http://www.krysstal.com/spoken.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0775272.html BTW, I don't live in the Netherlands anymore, here in Switzerland tulips cost a fortune (relatively speaking), so they are a slight bit less plentyful... :( Sorry to take this topic o/t....

Quoting myself: I count the ones you list among those who contribute freely. Sorry if I wasn't explicit enough.... The latest Mac OS is Tiger. True, but for me as a user, I don't care. To get new users, sure it matters. BUT it's not said that letting the community in on the decision will lead to a better name - which is something you assume. I'd think the chances are slimmer to come up with a really crappy name, but possibly only slightly. Remember, the current community is (hopefully) not the same as the new users of tomorrow. Right now, it's just computer enthusiasts using Mdk or other linuxes. Tomorrow it should be loads of regular computer users, not just geeks. If you go by slashdot (which is about as geeky as the average linux user) you'd think that geeky products would actually sell to the general public. The way I see it the current community is not at all representative for the target audience of Mdk. So any say into the name by the community will have a geeky slant. In any case, there's other threads for the naming discussion....

Hmm, the most widely used language is actually Mandarin Chinese, and whilst typing that I actually typed "Mandrake" Chinese first.... Am I not objective? I think so.... Second is Spanish. I think. English? Who speaks English anyway..? :P Aside that, dexter is completely right - if the new name is a curse in english, french, spanish, chinese, portugese. german, italian and dutch, forget it. (Well, dutch only because it's my native language.. :D ) We'lll all have to change distro. Or wait! We can fork it! Then we have to take out the 'Mandrake' anyway, so we'll substitute it with whatever name gets the vote here! I propose MUBLinux.

:P Now that you mention it... :D Nope, the bank did make the mistake, and Mdk couldn't do much about it.... except exactly that. It would not just have been nice, it would have been proper business sense. Gowator, I see your point. I just think that at some point, what's in the past is in the past, and certainly Mdksoft is changing, especially now with Conectiva... What was that again about malice and incompetence?? :P Thanks for the other stories about good and bad customer support - remind me to come shop at your place as soon as you have one! :D Should be one of live's last true pleasures! :P Ehm, no, that's not what I meant. Free.fr just changed policy that one cannot create a new website without using them as ISP... But I can keep my site, no worries. The content will not go to waste - if only because the wayback machine somehow started tracking my site, it hosts a large variety of snapshots..! So my site will stay where it is, with the name/webaddress it has. Once people no longer search for Mandrake but mandriva or whatever, the address won't match the content anymore, ... but it will take sometime, I just got an email saying: So there, until the end of 2006 the name Mandrakelinux will be the official name. 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. Let's say I agree completely with the first part: I have nothing against Mdklinux. Like Gowator mentioned, there's lots to object in Mandrakesoft. There's a big fat reason why I never bought shares. 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 - I on the other hand, accept the current situation for what it is, and never expected more than I got. Not that I'm not picky as a customer, just that I have low (more realistic?) expectations in this case. As I've said before, I waited until Mdk/linux was good enough, after having tried, and then I forked some money. I made sure I'd be satisfied. Strike that. I made sure I was satisfied. Then I paid. Some people pay and then expect their hardware to become supported... True, good point. But then again, asking what packages people want (note: they now have a tool to check what packages people _use_ which is very cool for the 1984 non-believers) is delivering a service to ones customers, a name is just a name. Doesn't change anything in terms of how the product functions. OE, CE, Final, Limited Edition (or my abbreviation: limed05).... all the same to me. 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.

Dragonmage, I'm curious just like dexter11, what's that Chinese Coca Cola think??

when you get to the point of F1, try to hit f1 for more options, and choose alt1 to start the installer with an alternative kernel. Maybe this works.

500MHz K6 with 256MB ram should be fine. Did you try mplayer? What kind of video graphics do you have? Does it play fine if in a window, and choppy when fullscreen? Does hdparm confirm you have dma on? Lots of questions, without the answers there's too many things that may go wrong here...

Look at the top of each page here, it has the link: easy-urpmi. Click it. Follow instructions, in your case, choose 'cooker' as distro version. Add main, contrib, plf-free and plf-nonfree. then urpmi win32-codecs should do it.

Check my website, config page. It explains on how to use iso image, but you can modify for your needs with the rpm tree or whatnot.

If suse works well up to 9.2 (latest freely available for the time being), then why do you say that Linux has catching up to do? If anything, it sounds like Mdk has catching up to do with SUSE in terms of supporting your hardware, not Linux compared to MSWin.

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. The name change is not a public thing. 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? They owe discussion with the share holders, not the community. This is a company. 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...

Draconect

Gowator, I see you point. Some things I'd still like to remark: this happened to you, when? You mind lots about 80 being 'lost' to Mdk - where it still went into development of Linux/FLOSS, yet you don't have second thoughts about buying a laptop with WinXP preloaded, and just tossing the system. This has me wondering the most - WinXP on the cheapest preloaded systems cost around 45$ to the vendor, he'll have his margin. And if you're not Michael Dell, that 45$ is likely closer to 60 or 80... similar to the money you lost on Mdksoft - however, in the latter case, at least the money went to a good cause. In the former and _your_ case, your money went to supporting and accepting an illegal monopoly maintained by the evilest company in IT: MS. That being said, yes, it sucks if one gets conned into spending money and doesn't feel to get any value for it. However, isn't it time to bury the axe? On a side note, I've never trusted any marketing as far as I could throw it, I just see paying for Linux/mdk (or whatever) as giving a tip to a waiter - only to be done if one is satisfied.

I agree with most, except the last part: they don't need someone who understands the Linux community in marketing, they need someone who can get Mdk preloaded. The first distro to get preloaded from lots of places is going to hit the bigtime. Think about it, it's no longer about getting a Linux fanbase, it's about getting MSWin converts. Mdk is set for that.

Ubuntu is the first company supported fully free distro based on Debian. WIth good right it made a stir. I don't think it's there just yet (ran it until the rc's for mdk10.2/limed05 came out), but it will be hot before the year is over. If you would have asked me where I'd go in case Mdk would kick the bucket a year or so ago, I'd have said: don't know, SUSE? Debian? FC? Today, it would be Ubuntu. No doubt about it. Then again, Mdk hasn't kicked the bucket just yet... :D

arctic, I know, that's what I call the Magician thing. If you look up the related thread here, I even mentioned I contacted the son of the original Mandrake the Magician - there was a guy who did the act 'Mandrake the Magician'. I asked his son about this copyright stuff, and he confirmed that his dad had gotten permission to use the name... interesting... Something with style? Hmmm, nah, they'll never think that would be good. Look at the new starry eyes penguin head of the installer.... Which, btw, my 14 year old nephew really found cool. Note: he only got to see it because I've been too busy with other things to take it away..!!

I saw that one coming weeks ago - check the monthly ratings and you'll see what I mean. Ubuntu has the most traction - it's got loads of debian people waking up to the new millenium! :P All in all, it doesn't matter much. I never went to distrowatch until after finding it in looking for places to pimp my website. Mandrake doesn't need users who go to distrowatch, they need users who buy their preinstalled machines. I mean, honestly, distrowatch is too technical for most regular computer users. It may well be spot on for current Linux users with interest in technicalities, but that's all.

*disclaimer* The short reply of adamw related to words I put in his mouth does not imply that all other words I put in his mouth are now confirmed to be true! Use at own risk, we are not liable for any damages, etcetc... :P

Oh, and before you bought that laptop, you had no way at all to get onto the internet? Sorry, but realistically, you could have bought a laptop with open source drivers for your modem, you could get a serial port modem, you could connect to adsl with an adsl modem and connect to that via ethernet, etcetc. Why didn't you just buy a preinstalled laptop? Errex sells them in France. If you are so disgusted with MSWin, you could do more to support the competition, no? I'm sorry, but if you were in trouble, it was just because you didn't have a well though over strategy. Sure, Mdksoft could include all closed source drivers, and all other stuff they may include (java, etc) but then, your wish may well come true and they may go bankrupt. To include that stuff is a service that _you_ frankly, as a non paying user, cannot expect, require or demand. Well, that's not what I said; it was clear, as clear as could be, to me, with the regular press release. It was just not clear to all, since some interpreted things wrongly. and shouted their incorrect interpretation all over the various forums. Nothing to do with being an insider (I'm not one - and at that time AdamW wasn't one either, he followed the cooker list and stuff as an interested outsider - correct me if I'm wrong Adam - but you understood it the same way as I did, which is the way Mdksoft intended, AFAICS), nor with being a clubmember, I read about it in the press release, not on the club nor in clubmember email. WRONG! I though they included mp3 ENcoding, which they don't; but mp3 playback is included in main, see here: ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mand...123-0.59r-23mdk and there are more packages that indicate mp3 playback. It's just lame that is in plf-free. Regarding their open/closed source stance, you're one of the few that's in the unclear about it, even though adamw and I have indicated the very easy to follow stance - from a different perspective though. adamw makes the point that for license issues and various other reasons, Mdksoft doesn't include any non-free stuff. I put it differently - imho they just leave out the non-Free stuff so that they deliver some extra comfort to add to the paying members and customers. Both adamw and I agree that Mdksoft don't include any non-Free stuff in the download edition so that it's really clean and Free in the GNU sense. adamw, please correct me if I'm wrong - I don't want to put words in your mouth you didn't say, but from your reactions this is what I 'read' as being your point of view. In any case, it's up to Mandrakesoft to decide what they include and what they don't include; and they have made a fully free download edition from day one, which they have also stated and which they stand by. If you don't like it, tough luck. There is very little unclear about it. So please, go back to your (rightful) gripes about imperfect customer service and bad marketing (or lack of marketing) - plenty of sucky things to complain about that everyone can only agree with. BTW you may say you think Linus is correct in his feelings about subscriptions not being a successful business model - for the time being it works wonders for MS, RH and Mdksoft. (Yes, MS is using a subscription model - it's called licensing 6 if I'm not mistaken..) In time, I think the proper model is a preloaded one. This will come, but today is too early, Linux must be more known and used. Yeah, but sometimes I feel you're just a critic who holds a grudge. You got away from Mdksoft before 10.0. Things change. Mdklinux is for birds of all feathers, and the ones that Linux needs now are those who don't care about the technical details as long as it works. It will always be the case that people move from mdklinux to some other flavour, like gentoo, debian, ubuntu, etc. And that's just fine. As long as enough people start with linux (suse, mdk, ubuntu and then some) and leave mswin behind.

They're in a hot spot at the moment. Mandriva leans towards man drivel. For an editing company, not too good - for a linux distro, don't know... The difficult part is: they have to change their name, for reasons of the Magician thing, and for the developers of Conectiva, in numbers they're not far behind the original Mdksoft.. On the other hand, they do have to create a name that connects the old distros to the new one; Fedora Core had everyone going: what the ???? Sure, a fedora is a hat, but how many people who's native language is not English know this? I didn't. Mandriva, no matter if you like it or not, sure makes a clear reference to Mandrake and to a lesser degree to Conectiva.

dexter11, Well, no, that's something altogether different. I want (would like) them to open the spec of their chips so that open source drivers can be made that make full use of their chips. Compare it to AMD making the instruction set known to their AMD64 chips. Have they done that? Yes. Can gcc compile for AMD64? Yes. Can others easily reproduce amd64 chips? No Trust me, I'm a chip designer. I work in a team that makes chips for mobile phones. We actually give our customers all specs, and they make phones with them. I doubt that from the spec they can recreate our designs (actually, I'm sure that they can't. And those that can could have done it even without our specs). Compare it this way: giving the spec is giving the manual to a device: it tells you how to use it. So if you get the manual to a car, telling you exactly how to use it, this will allow you to use it. It doesn't tell you too much about the engine, so only those who are really in the know in terms of engines could create a similar engine. But then, they were already in the know. Actually, you're right in the sense that practically, there's no way around it. But look at it this way: all X crashes I had were related to my nvidia drivers (yes I have nvidia, at least they beat ati by a mile) - I don' t have any other problematic stuff on my work machine. One comment though: complain what you want about Intel, but they currently have the fastest open source 3d graphics; unfortunately they're not so fast and only in integrated chipsets. But the drivers are fully open source, so no 'your kernel is tainted' business and lack of support from kernel developers.... The point of not having open specs allows companies to bullshit about what their chips really do, and what gets solved in the driver (and so is done by the cpu, not the gpu). And then some stuff, but really, it can all be reverse engineered. BTW recall the various driver cheatings - google for it and you'll find loads... No, they should never have left it. A long long time ago I wrote my switching article, it's amazing how relevant it still is today: http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/switchsuccess.html Heheh.. if you read that link, you'll even find a commentary of mine in there (buried on 2nd or 3rd page) - this was actually what I was hinting at before.. :D BTW NVidia won't turn support off, they design most of their stuff on Linux systems nowadays. And they have the high end market in 3d stuff on Linux (think quadro and such), which is growing. it's easier to keep the market than to gain it. adamw, veedub is somewhat right, although I would tend to agree with you.... Check the old threads on the subject, ... to me it was clear what CE and OE were meant to be. But on this and other boards there was a lot of confusion. It's irrelevant why there was confusion (imho some who didn't get it started shouting wrong ideas, and stuff..), it's just relevant that there was confusion. Which was not good. I hope they do better with Limed05 and Ed2006.... Gowator, Open Source / Free Software means making money off services. The only thing they can do is charge for those things they do extra, which means they hardly have a choice but to charge for the packaging of the non-FLOSS stuff. BTW read the Sun java license, and tell me it's dishonest. I thought the same, until I read it. One cannot distribute it. Mdksoft must have a deal under which they are allowed to do so. Please tell me what other business model they should use. With examples of successful companies that use same business model, of course. This is nonsense, one can use XP without activating, it will just remember you about it, and only after 30 days you get into trouble. Realistically, no one has no internet access who needs the closed source drivers. Case one: those who have a pc with win who want to put linux on it - no issue, they can download with windows. Case two: those with a preloaded linux machine: the machine should be fully functional, else the shop should take it back. Case three: those who assemble their own machine - they need to be picky about the parts, so they should get a real modem, not a winmodem. Case four: those who get a machine without an OS - same as case 3. You're just looking for excuses. To complain and to bash. I frankly don't see the point. Well, the day you found your company that does everything so perfectly, let me know. For now, all I can say is: dishonest marketing, does that classify as a pleonasm? Think back of what the RH CEO said about Linux on the desktop about 2 years ago: better stick with MSWin. How's that for backstabbing? But anyway, back to marketing, please give me an example of a company that hasn't exaggerated on the marketing side. Lying on the powerpack on dvd playback? Who knows, never seen that, nor has anyone else I know; the powerpack I mean. BTW is that still on the latest powerpacks, I actually did see those, didn't notice anything wrong. Doc withholding - not really. The stuff people can't get at without being a clubmember is clubmember contributed. I'd hardly call that docs. Oh, and they will likely open up all stuff, but I think it's better to have a fully community driven wiki. About the kernel stuff - see adamw's comments. That you don't know how to get it is your problem, that they didn't tell you is also _your_ problem. Stop bitching. The kernel source rpm is out there. [edit before final posting - our messages have just crossed...] True, I tried this too. However, the kernel source is not claimed to be the exact source of the running kernel - the kernel src.rpm is; enjoy: ftp://sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch/mirror/mand...-1-1mdk.src.rpm as an example of the source of the latest limed05rc2 kernel. Well, yes, since that does make life easier. And it's worth paying for to some degree to some people. There's nothing wrong with that; as a clubmember, one can still just use the download edition; don't forget, the regular member level clubmember isos don't have the non-free stuff either - that's downloaded separately; only silver members and up get the iso's with all proprietary stuff. No, nobody is making a real fuss about it, except you. You're a small minority. Not part of a large group of people who have problems here. Sometime you manage to get people on your side, and I'm not saying you're 100% wrong (au contraire), I'm just saying that you're blowing up these issues or at least some of them. Finding out what CE and OE were was really easy, I read the press releases and it was clear to me. It only became a problem once others thought they'd understood started shouting their (wrong) interpretation that people got confused. That there was confusion was due to Mdksoft leaving room for confusion - not due to them not being clear on what CE and OE were. I'd like to repeat what I said in that other thread: don't attibute to malice that which can adequately be explained to incompetence.

I've been happily running rc1 and since Sunday rc2 on my laptop, and am now configuring my desktop. Please, any problems you find, check if a bugreport exists on http://qa.mandrakesoft.com and if so, vote for it; if not, report the bug! I've noticed that suspend to disk no longer works (found references on the web that swsuspend has been messed with quite a bit, so not sure if this is due to mdk developers or general issues), but in exchange now suspend to ram / standby works. My wireless usb dongle no longer works, no clue why - the driver is there and all... I've noted some more smaller things, on the whole it will be nice, but I can already hear people complaining that there is no kde 3.4, no gnome 2.10 and no OOo 2.0. Ah well....

The updates will be free too. Remember, if they are not free, this is GPL software, anyone with acces can take the srpm and recompile and make the rpm available. If that is not MdkSoft itself, that other party would gain momentum. They know they don't want upset people to fork mdklinux...

Darn, I tried to find an email with inline image, but found none. I did found that evolution does render html mail, it's merely set to not download images from the web... Sorry about the messup...

I'll have a look - in any case, I have set up Evolution to not render any html, I get the code as plain text. In that particular email I didn't see any html code. But like I said, I'll have a look...