How did you meet Mandrake Linux ?

[ramfree17]

a friend once game me his redhat boxed installer (6.x i think) since he doesnt have time to learn it. i installed it , and i didnt know what to do with it. i dont have internet connection by then.

 

i ender up reformatting my harddrive a few hours later and ended up cursing linux because i cant seem to recover my harddisk space with (windows) fdisk. i ended up doing a low-level format instead. (damn you linux, damn you!)

 

then a year or so later my officemate who is into unices borrowed it but then left it in their province. since he doesnt go home frequently, he bought me a replacement, a *bootleg* copy of mandrake8.0, download edition. the only thing is it only had disc 2.

 

i went back to the bootleg market (which i frequent then for pc games and software) and got the first CD, installed it in my pc and since then have never looked back. i still had windows on dual-boot (my brother is bigger than me so i cant force him to use linux ) but i only use mandrake when im at home.

 

i loved it so much that i installed it in my office workstation (to the dismay of our *mediocre* network admin since he doesnt understand what i was putting in my workstation). i dualbooted mdk with win98 while my friend dualbooted with solaris x86. we were the only ones working when the iloveyou and slammer viruses hit the office.

 

now i only use mdk. i hope that if i get some time i will branch out to some other distro but i dont think mdk will be replaced in my heart in the near future.

 

ciao!

 

[edit] and its been almost 3 years that i have been to the bootleg market. almost the as long as i have been using linux.

Edited August 10, 2004 by ramfree17

[Havin_it]

I got fed up of my well-meaning Linux-based friend telling me my web content looked crooked in Konqueror. Went to newsagents, Linux Format magazine with 10.0 Community on the cover. Words 'idiot-proof install' much to my liking. And has been as good as its word, networking hardware issues notwithstanding...

 

Mandrake

And

N00bs

Don't

Ruin

All

Kernels

Everytime

 

(and it got me into the fun world of recursive acronyms)

[Qchem]

I did a computational chemistry option module as part of my degree in 2000 which involved working on SGI machines running IRIX. I decided I liked this command line way of working and asked a comp sci student more about it. He pointed me in the direction of Linux and I bought RedHat 7.1 from a bookstore.

 

I then found a free copy of mandrake 8.2 on the front of Linux Format and decided that was much better suited to my desktop machine.

 

Started working in Quantum chemistry as my degree project (and as my PhD since then) in which I was exposed to Tru64 UNIX and two machines running redhat. As I picked up a little sysadmin skills from the redhat boxes I decided that I should also run redhat on my new laptop.

 

Redhat 9 broke loads of compatability with the fortran compilers I needed to run so I switched back to Mandrake (with 9.2).

 

I've moved on a bit since then, but you get the idea

[tyme]

I haven't contributed to this thread yet, I don't think, so here's my story:

 

I started with Linux after getting interested in "hacking" (which I later learned is correctly identified as "cracking", since "hacking" isn't necessarily illegal). before this point i was one of those people who knew how to do "nuke" someone (manually) and did it for fun (I was 15....young and stupid). I didn't have my own computer at this point, so I tried a version of Linux that was loaded from a floppy (much like a live cd, only...a lot worse). I got a command prompt - it was useless to me, I was still used to the GUI way.

 

So Linux stuck in the back of my mind for a few years. As I was going off to college, my dad decided to purchase a computer for me to take along. I had received something in the mail which offered Red Hat cd's (I forget what version...5 maybe) for some cheap price, along with some extras. I purchased it, and off to college I went, Linux in hand. I attempted to install Red Hat and failed miserably, so I tried Caldera OpenLinux next (not sure how I found it, searching the web I guess). I used that for a while, until my brother introduced me to Mandrake. I started with Mandrake around 7.2 I believe, back in 2000. Stayed with it for a while, dual booting until about a year and a half ago when I experienced Gentoo Linux and then started using Arch. Now I switch between Arch, Gentoo, Mandrake, and whatever else.

 

that's my story.

[Sarissi]

It is interesting how we all got bit by the Linux bug.....

[jimdunn]

I'm a Systems Admin for a medium sized company - always had a fascination with all things to do with computers.

 

In order, I've owned:

 

Sinclair spectrum

 

Commodore 64

 

PC with Dos 5

 

Win 3.11 - 95 -98 -2000 -XP

 

I even used CP/M back in the early days of my career (with 20 Mb hard disks the size of a car wheel...)

 

 

Now I administer a whole bunch of Windows servers and workstations, but I guess windows has always frustrated me, and I'm a control freak so I love the flexibility of the CLI.

 

Installed Mandrake (7, I think) a way back, and have stuck with it ever since, through to version 10 - for home use and gradually for a few work boxes too, now.

Edited August 10, 2004 by jimdunn

[Paxx]

Im just getting into linux now... Windows is giving me way too many troubles, and my friend reccommended linux. I looked through the docs of some other distros, and Mandrake seemed the best for me :D

 

Im still downloading Mandrake 10, though

 

Paxx

[spiedra]

I'm a Systems Admin for a medium sized company - always had a fascination with all things to do with computers.

 

In order, I've owned:

 

Sinclair spectrum

 

Commodore 64

 

PC with Dos 5

 

Win 3.11 - 95 -98 -2000 -XP

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Ahhh, Commodore 64 I have to say my favorite pc i've owned along with the VIC 20. The good old days of saving data onto a tape drive or a 5 1/4 floppy. Wrinting games in basic. I'd love to have one again.

Edited August 11, 2004 by spiedra

[jimdunn]

Ahhh, Commodore 64 I have to say my favorite pc i've owned along with the VIC 20. The good old days of saving data onto a tape drive or a 5 1/4 floppy. Wrinting games in basic. I'd love to have one again.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Even more fun on the Spectrum, with little rubber calculator keys, and about 4 different variants of "Shift"

[Crashdamage]

When I first started to hear about WinXP and just how screwed it was likely to be, I knew I'd better make a move then 'cause M$ lock-in was only gonna get worse. Did some studying on the Web, and it seemed Mandrake would be the best place to start. So I went to the local CompUSA, snagged a boxed copy of just-released 8.0 Standard, went home and did a fresh set of backups just in case. Then I took a deep breath and started installing. Had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I was like a lost puppy those first couple of weeks (months?) and I'm sure some here can remember some really dumb-ass posts from me. Took me a while to stop the Win-think and "get" the Linux way. Some here may think I still don't and they could be right.

 

Anyway, I was lucky I guess - everything worked pretty well right off except the Lexmark printer and HP scanner I had at the time. They soon left for more Linux-friendly Epson models.

 

I've never looked back since, never had any regrets, never considered going back to being a Winidiot for a minute. And even though I've played with other distros and these days I really use Linux more like a Slackware user, I still like Mandrake the best. Flexible enough to use it any way I want, lotsa software available, and urpmi kills any other rpm management system.

[reb2]

i was working in a computer repair shop and just got plain bored working on broken winblows machines (the shop was a cowboy outfit, not that i realised it at the time).

 

picked up a copy of a magazine which had mandrake 7.2 on it, took it home and installed it on 2nd harddrive (6gb wow).

it worked but the dial up modem was a bit tricky to get configured (kppp).

but got it going and quite liked the different environment (it was refreshing).

tried to let the boss know that this could be the next big thing and he completely blanked it (he didn't know windows! and didn't want to have to learn something else (what a muppet)).

 

then i purchased a version of suse (6.1 i think), and tried that (again the modem was a bit tricky, but i got it going).

 

next was red hat, but redhat and me just didn't get on (i can't remember which version).

 

so i figured it was time to purchase a new up to date version of something and plumped for mandrake 8.0 powerpack, wow this was good and i have used mandrake ever since.

 

i just love the ideal that linux strives for (by the community, for the community).

i just wish i knew more about how linux ticks, but it works well enough for me.

now i dual boot win millenium (win3.1 updated lol) and mandrake 9.2

40gb windows (just for games and other junk) and 20gb mandrake.

i guess i am just a "user" but i am learning slowly (maybe i'll be able to update my kernel in about ten years) roflmao

[mystified]

I was sick of Windoze like a lot of people and I had done some research on the web without much luck. One day I decided to take the step so I went to Best Buy's online site, found the cheapest linux distro and went to the store and bought it. I'm really glad it was Mandrake cause it made things so easy for me. Now I've moved onto Gentoo but I'll always be fond of Mandrake.

[idud]

Introduced to linux in a course (actually I'm not in that course for budget lacks, but I act as an intruder and learn something in that course), all box using Mandrake. I don't know the version but I'm pretty sure that it's the newest Mandrake version per September 2000.

 

Tried Mdk-8.2 and SuSE-8.0 in around 2001-2003.

 

Finally bought my own box at December 2003. Installing Mdk-9.1. And now I'm using Mdk-10-OE.

[Sarissi]

I had some Mainframe experience back in the 1970s, and it was an NCR Century Systems, Model 100 with 32 KiloBytes Memory (maxed out too), and an 80 column punch card reader (Hollerith - EBCDIC). Certainly not UNIX! Never had any Unix exposure. So Linux was totally new for me.

 

Curiosity is the one thing Microsoft can't stand........ :D

[Padma]

First, some background. ;)

 

Back in the mid-80s, I was tasked to become an administrator for a bunch of new Unix SVR2 machines we were receiving. Having never used Unix, I quickly ran down to the bookstore and picked up a copy of O'Reilly's Unix in a Nutshell.

 

Fast-forward to 1998. Retired from the military, I was now working on Sun/Solaris machines, as a software developer. At home, I was running that *wonderful* new OS: Windows 95. My daughter's boyfriend had picked up something called Mandrake Linux (release 4, IIRC), and said, "this looks like the kind of stuff you use at work."

 

I installed it on my machine, in the "run from within Windows - trial" mode. Neat. Sure *looked* like Unix. But having to essentially reboot to get to it, and not being able to really *do* anything with it, proved to be a liability, and I eventually removed it. After all, Windows did everything I needed, right?

 

Still, the idea of running *nix on my home PC intrigued me, and as time went by, and I upgraded my computer, I kept picking up (or downloading, sometimes) new versions of Mandrake, and playing with them - 6, 7, 8, 8.1. Each release seemed to be getting better. I also checked out RedHat and Suse. I was now installing to a separate partition, and booting to it occasionally to play around. By the time I loaded 9.1 and then 9.2, I was starting to think that this could be a serious contender for my desktop. But Windows Me was still doing fine for me. It did everything I needed.

 

Then my Hard Drive crashed. (Fortunately, *most* of my data I had backed up.) I bought a new drive, and this time, I installed Win2K Pro. Finally! A (reasonably) stable OS! Everything on my rebuilt machine just worked. None of this having to hunt down Linux drivers for anything, and maybe recompiling the kernal, etc. Win2K just worked right out of the box! :D Except.... I had to have MS Office to interact with other people I had to work with. (God! Is that expensive!) And I had to buy a virus-scanner, and keep it updated. And I had to get some anti-spyware software, and run it often. I *knew* Outlook/OE was dangerous, but what choice did I have? And I kept hearing bad things about IE. And why can't I set up my desktop the way I want it? Etc. Etc. My gradual drift out of the MS-camp was picking up speed.

 

I thought I'd take another look at Linux, just to see how it was going. Mandrake 10CE, with the new 2.6 kernel, had just come out, so I downloaded the ISOs, and installed it.

 

Holy Crap! This stuff is COOL! Why hadn't I reinstalled Linux earlier?!?

 

I no longer run windows with an occasional foray into Linux. I run Linux, and boot into Windows on increasingly rare occasions. :D