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Was Mandrake Linux 9.1 released too early ?


Guest ndeb
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I have been looking at the massive update for LM9.1 in http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...e=MDKA-2003:004 and I am sure that none of the updates in:

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...tes.php?dis=9.0

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...tes.php?dis=8.2

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...tes.php?dis=8.1

http://www.mandrakesecure.net/en/advisorie...tes.php?dis=8.0

is as big as the latest LM9.1 update. So the first thing that comes to my mind is whether this was a suitable release in the first place or was a 9.1rc3 pushed out as 9.1-final just to compete with redhat and suse and to handle the bankruptcy problem ?

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Guest JaseP

OK, which begs the question,...

 

Are the fixes going to be on the released/boxed copy CDs or are they already being printed???

 

and,...

 

Does the update feature still pretty much suck???

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The most disappointing thing is...

 

approx. 50 updates so far...

 

approx. 25 updates are MDK developed software...

 

I agree there were many bugs discovered recently... But half the updates were about MDKs own software...

 

Disappointing... We shoul dbe doing more testing for MDK and they should give us more time to test and report bugs.

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I really got the impression it was rushed. Someone somewhere said "We gotta get it out tomorrow" and they did. I used to work under management like that... usually in a few days it would be... "where did all these bugs come from? I thought you said it was ready?" so on so on. :)

 

The old you can have it fast or you can have it right.

 

A sign at a manufacturing plant I visited (actually have been working in collaboration since 1997)

 

"Why is it we never have time to do it right the first time, but we always have time to do it again?"

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Guest JaseP

Again,...

 

My question is whether the 9.1 avaialble on the website is the one that's going to end up on the distribution disks.

 

????

 

Are the disks even available yet???

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It's anybody's guess, but I doubt that the boxed versions will include the updates unless the boxed sets are delayed in arrival significantly and I doubt they want to go down that road again. When I ordered my boxed set in March the delivery date was estimated as mid April.

 

As to the original question of whether 9.1 was released too soon, if you mean too soon for the delivery of a suitably polished end product, I think the answer has to be yes and I think it was something most of those involved in the RC process saw coming. However, given Mandrake's financial woes, releasing a product that was less than ready may have been necessary for it's economic survival. Releasing a new product is pretty much the only way they can generate any cashflow. It may have very well come down to we release it now, worts and all, and fix it latter or there won't be a tomorrow.

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I think it was rushed. The 9.1 installer can hang at certain locations, and then yesterday I found that inputting in Chinese does not work right. Well, I'll see if I can fix it. But Mandrake 9.1 definitely is different from 9.0 in many regards. If Mandrake can make it thru another release, I hope they can concentratre on bug fixing rather than adding new features next time.

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All this just makes me want to keep running and updating my rock-stable 8.2 install. Not much new in 9.1 I have any need for or interest in, and I have a very complicatied installation that takes a long time to get just right.

 

That said, after playin' around some with RedHat, Suse, and Debian on a spare machine, I still think Mandrake is the best overall distribution and I'll probably upgrade to the next release (although I'd really like to wait for the 2.6 kernel). But I will IF, and only if, they really concentrate on the bugs. I mean, I understand they really needed to get a new release out to stay alive, but I'm not buying this one (though I admit I downloaded it just in case it's the last Mandrake). It's not the money - I've been a Silver Club member for 2 years and bought boxed copies of 8.0 Standard, 8.0 PowerPack, and 8.2 PowerPack. But I'm not going through days of re-loading and configuring unless I know I'm gonna be happy when I'm done.

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In my opinion, LM9.0 was definitely more polished than LM9.1. In fact, my LM9.0 (with texstar KDE-3.1/qt-3.1.1) was much more stable. In fact I reported a bunch of repeated bugs in the RC1, RC2 and final stage of LM9.1. I can still see some 80% of the bugs just lying UNCONFIRMED. The question is that if mandrake does not solve these repeated bugs for the stable distribution (instead of wasting time updating their cooker), how can they expect to stay in business ?

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I haven't even bothered trying 9.1 (still using 8.1). But from what I've been reading, this is going to leave a bad taste in people's mouths again. I feel sorry for Mandrake. They just keep digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole. I guess maybe if they can hang in there long enough, then one day everyone will have fast broadband access and getting updates wont be an issue anymore.

 

Glitz.

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I have rarely seen such stupidity emanating from a company hanging by a thread when their own custom packages for configuring and running the distro are do full of errors that they have to post updates before the boxes hit the stores. This does not bode well for the future of Mandrakesoft. It would be interesting to see how many of the problems are of Mandrakesoft's sloppy quality control and how much is third party such as the security problems in KDE (which are not yet in Updates but are in cooker).

 

Adding to that is having would-be PR man Gael Duval shooting his mouth off that the Club is the most important revenue stream over Mandrakestore sales and retail sales on the open market.

( http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3131 ) According to him they are going to more subscription based services. I know have Knoppix and should that happen with downloads I'm gone to Debian.

 

Counterspy

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