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Will you be installing 10.2/ Limited Edition2k5?


VeeDubb
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solarian: quite a lot of people run Linux on XBox. If you've got an XBox already it makes a great cheap HTPC; throw Linux on it and you've got a DVD / video / music player for zero dollars. Linux and the XBox software can coexist so you can boot to Linux for HTPC stuff or boot it normally to play games. People also used to use them as just cheap PCs, but this is not as great an option now as it was three years ago, thanks to the march of hardware improvement (the hardware in an XBox is so crappy by today's standards you could actually buy a PC for $200 which would be higher specced).

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gowator: I appreciate that's how you feel but, honestly, I really don't know what we can do about it, at least until the time_machine package is done ;). You feel that what we're doing now is too late and what we did in the past was bad; we can't change what we did in the past so I guess you're always going to feel that way. :(

 

 

I think what it needs is some really firm statements....

For instance just looking at the track record with PPC, XBOX doesn't give confidence in AMD64...

 

The point is I realise that times were rocky when the XBOX project support was dropped... but that honestly was the reason I tried Debian out...

Now I need a confidence booster because the track record has been so rocky but all I see is like Ix said elsewhere..MandX self-inventing a new metrhod of marketing, a new method of home delivery etc. etc.

 

Lots of people feel the same about community in MandX too... you can find them all over on Debian, Gentoo sites etc. but far fewer here because they didnt stick about!

 

What MandX need is some very firm promises...like we will support AMD64 up to ... 2007 or something...

The Website needs some serious guarantees for anyone who knows the history of Mandrake online sales... and they need a eMail address for those that don't arrive. I have seen people with outstanding orders of 6mnth-1yr which is ridiculous when the cycle was a 6 month cycle. Suse give me online tracking of the DHL package mandrake don't even acknowledge tyour order or give a return email add they just take the money form your acct.

 

This is not that unusual in France... Im sure even aRTee will agree on this point at least... but Mandrake are dealing with an international client base. The whole thing with the bank overcharging by 100x was regrettable but once again they thought they could deal with it by stonewalling.

 

Instead of denying responsibility they should have ceased it and sorted it out! Sure it was their banks fault but it ws to THEIR customers!

I know how crap French banks are.... but over this Mandrake should have had them in court paying damages to the customers....

if they want the customers to feel like customers that is.......

 

 

Non of these things involve anything but clear statements (and an email account) but mainly just saying what they are doing and promising to stick at it....

You can't build a business without it... or you just get one off purchases...

It would be like buying a 1 yr return ticket for 150% of the price of a one-way when you knew the airline might simply stop flying that route....

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solarian: quite a lot of people run Linux on XBox. If you've got an XBox already it makes a great cheap HTPC; throw Linux on it and you've got a DVD / video / music player for zero dollars. Linux and the XBox software can coexist so you can boot to Linux for HTPC stuff or boot it normally to play games. People also used to use them as just cheap PCs, but this is not as great an option now as it was three years ago, thanks to the march of hardware improvement (the hardware in an XBox is so crappy by today's standards you could actually buy a PC for $200 which would be higher specced).

 

 

Yep its still a great HTPC solution if you also want a console and you have space restrictions.... the TV out by default and Nforce2 surround sound is all great .. mine is networked and NFS mounts my server media disks so it acts like a MP3, movie player etc etc. Its plugged direct to a projector and they are really quiet ....

 

Mandrake were an original sponsor of the xbox linux project...

http://www.edv-buchversand.de/suse/index2.html

 

A second hand one is still a great buy though I haven't rebooting into XBOX console mode for a while now!

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Mandrake were an original sponsor of the xbox linux project...

http://www.edv-buchversand.de/suse/index2.html

 

 

That link goes to suse 9.3 in German. I thought you hate Suse and I didn't know you understand German :)

 

Anyway, what do you want to link to?

 

PS: Does Xbox run KDE and OpenOffice.org well? (Well as in comparable to a PentiumIII-500 with 192 MB of RAM). Since it's cheaper than even a used PC over here.. I could just buy a modded XBOX (easy to find in Indonesia), install Linux on it, hook it up to a TV and then tell the user to use this for their computer :)

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That link goes to suse 9.3 in German. I thought you hate Suse and I didn't know you understand German :)

 

Anyway, what do you want to link to?

 

PS: Does Xbox run KDE and OpenOffice.org well? (Well as in comparable to a PentiumIII-500 with 192 MB of RAM). Since it's cheaper than even a used PC over here.. I could just buy a modded XBOX (easy to find in Indonesia), install Linux on it, hook it up to a TV and then tell the user to use this for their computer :)

I hate suse for me but I can see its pretty good for some people.....

If my Dad was just a bit more interested for instance....

 

Real Link

 

Anyway, yep it will just about run it....

Personally I use Ratpoision and have icons for xine .. I use the Xbox joystick.... for a mounse and a USB keyb...

 

check the specs..(follow link) . its only 64MB RAM and that's the downer.....

You can get modded ones with more and this is good! KDE or OO are painfully slow but run!

 

CPU wise its fine for general stuff....

If you use a native partition its much faster because otherwise its a fat16 filesystem... or pretty close! which is really slow, especially for SWAP!

This also significantly reduces CPU usage...

 

Modded XBOX's can have bigger disks ...

if you aren't interested in Games then Freevo etc. are great o install native though you need a backend server or a modded one with a bigger disk...

mine is 100% unmodded but if i could be bothered I would mod it and add a alrger disk...

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gowator: well, x86-64 is a completely different situation from PPC and XBox (and Sparc and all the other crazy archs we've supported at one time or another); they were all clearly minority niches that were going to stay that way, whereas x86-64 is the future of the PC market. Intel's taking its mainstream processors to x86-64, AMD pretty much already did; stopping supporting x86-64 would be sheer craziness as in a couple of years it'll be at least 50% of our market. So I really wouldn't worry about this. PPC and XBox were obviously very different as they're tiny (in Linux terms) niches that don't make any money compared to the effort needed to support them, so when someone's looking to reduce costs, they're obvious low-hanging fruit. In fact, even though I'm sure you know I can't possibly have the authority to make a clear statement about it, I'll happily do it cos I know it's true: WE WILL SUPPORT x86-64 UNTIL AT LEAST 2007. There. :)

 

As for the other stuff about customer service - I have no experience as before I started working here I never actually _bought_ anything physical from MDK (my father bought an 8.1 box set and got it with no problems, IIRC). However, I agree with you that the situation as reported is pretty crappy, and I try and do my bit (when I see a complaint about customer service I try and relay it to someone who is concerned), but it's not really a lot :|.

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@adamw....

I realise the difference but what happens if Intel pull out a new better chip....

 

PPC and sparc really aren't that crazy... especially SPARC is half the reason Mandrake lost an order for 300-400 installs in my company. (the other half is one of our SW vendors won't support it)

 

However we need the same distro on the desktops and servers and we have shedloads of Sparcs lying about... and a few AIX/IRIX...

 

Hmm all the IBM stuff runs RH .. including our clusters which are in the top 50 worldwide... but we will probably go to Power5 for them later...

 

Missing out the G5 was therefore a big mistake....

we can consolidate on Debian, RH or Gentoo...

 

I actually got called by Mandrake personally asking if we wanted free consulting for inetgrating AMD64... and although I passed on the call I know the answer was don't be stupid until you support Sparc and Power4. (Wira ??)

 

The problem with 'customer service' is .... well you don't get treated like a customer. i.e you buy a powerpack but when you have problems its just ignored and since you know you can just dload for free it becomes very tempting!

 

Mandrake needs a clear development plan on its front page... at least showing what will be supported etc. if it is aiming for the professional market ...

 

For the home market it just needs to give credit to the community and make it feel like a community. Some stupoid stuff like community voting over the name goes a long way! Like you say on your BLOG, lots of people are against it... in a wquite illogical manner but ... and this is the important point... logical or not they are the customers!

 

The present 3 month membership of the club is kinda a start but it just feels like your being trapped....

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gowator: Intel already did pull out a better chip, but no-one gives a damn as it's too expensive. (From your post I'm sure you know this, though. :>) Talking in practical terms, hardware in the mass market is all about momentum; x86-64 has all the momentum now, chip development is insanely expensive, there's not a whelk's chance in a supernova that anything else will go mass market for the next five years at _least_, IMHO.

 

Of course there's a market for PPC and Sparc. It's just nowhere as big as the x86 market. Big companies and small specialists are much better suited to go after niches like that than a small-medium size company like us. If we don't focus, we die.

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Gowator, MDV supporting SPARC and Power4?

Pass me whatever you're taking, it must be good :P

Next you'll want Itanium(2) and ARM support - hey, it's both from Intel, and they're the leader!

 

On the other hand, good that your company is consolidating on one platform on all architectures, because that more or less implies Linux... :D

I'd make sure to have _two_ software suppliers, heterogeneity is key. Having two out of RH, Debian, Gentoo, and heck, why not SUSE/Novell LDS or even Sun JDS...

 

There's only one thing MDV has to do, more than anything else (including making clubmembers happy enough to continue subscription): get preloaded systems out there.

Look, MS makes 45USD on any Dell system, lots of people buy one every 5 years, and still they're raking in bigtime. If MDV loses all clubmembers but gets the preloaded market, they're set to be big.

 

Preloaded, the only way to compete with MS and Apple.

Granted, Linux isn't quite there, but it's on its merry way....

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest Trak
I already tried 10.2rc2, but I installed back to 10.1, because the 10.2 kernel is not yet supported by VMware (and I need vmware), so my plan is to skip 10.2 and wait for the next Mandriva release.

 

If you patch it with the vmware-any-any (89 or 90) it will work just fine. Just run the runme.pl

 

You can find it here

http://ftp.cvut.cz/vmware/

 

 

Trak

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I know about any-any, but it doesn't work for me on .11 kernel (it works on .8 and .10).

Maybe there's a newer version for any-any? I shall have a look. (don't remember about any-90)

thanx! I appreciate your help!

Edited by solarian
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I' m sure I'll eventually install it. Right now I'm enjoying Mepis, my second attempt at a debian based distro. (why are there so many people using debain based vs. debian? sorry I digress...) I like Mepis, but what usaully happens is I'll run a non-mandrake (eerrrr, MANDRIVA) disstro for aabout a month, then go baccck to mandrake simply because I like it and it works.

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what usaully happens is I'll run a non-mandrake (eerrrr, MANDRIVA) disstro for aabout a month, then go baccck to mandrake simply because I like it and it works.

ditto, same for me, I always return to Mandrake, because it works best for me and my needs.

Sure, other distros may be more hardcore and leet, but my wish is to enjoy my OS and system as a whole, not battle it. This is where Mandriva does that best.

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