MandrakeSoft co-founder Gaël Duval has announced the release of Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community. In his announcement, Thursday, Gaël Duval noted that Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community is:
Designed for those who want the best and latest software and want it as soon as possible, Mandrakelinux 10.1 Community is our most advanced operating system to date. This new release includes many advances, and especially in support for mobile devices.
According to the Mandrake 10.1 press release,
enhanced usability, hardware support and performance make this release a milestone on the way to widespread Linux adoption.
And to us, widespread Linux adoption is for the most part tantamount to saying migration from Microsoft Windows to Linux.
Mandrake has been doing more than its fair share of making Linux suitable for converting Microsoft Windows users to Linux for some time now. Mandrake 9.x already was a Linux distribution that out of the box was very suitable for migrating from Microsoft Windows to GNU-Linux.
Moreover, Mandrake's Gaël Duval has been a great and enthusiastic evangelist for the GNU-Linux operating system.
In the Mandrake 10.1 press release, MandrakeSoft CEO François Bancilhon states,
The wonderful thing about Linux is how fast and how regularly it keeps on improving, while other systems stagnate or even regress. We pride ourselves on being one of the forces behind that. This new release shows how far Mandrakesoft's continued commitment to an open development process can bring our products.
We have not tried Mandrake 10.1 yet. However as mentioned above, Mandrake 9.x already was a Linux distribution that out of the box was very suitable for migrating from Microsoft Windows to Linux.
Additionally, we have been using 32-bit Mandrake 10.0 PowerPack+ on our Pogo Linux Altura64 Workstation for an applications-testing platform for several months now. And, along with our Mandrake 9.0 installation running on a 1-GHz Pentium 3 (P3), we also have been using 32-bit Mandrake 10.0 PowerPack+ running on the Pogo Altura64 for many day-to-day productivity, Internet, and multimedia tasks too.
The Pogo Linux Altura64 Workstation is built around the AMD Athlon64 64-bit processor. It runs both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.
Looking over the information about Mandrake 10.1 and adding that to our hands-on experiences with Mandrake 9.x and 10.0, Mandrake 10.1 ought to be a product that will help to promote the migration of MS Windows users to GNU-Linux. Please see our article Gaël Duval Tells Why Mandrake Linux Is Better Than MS Windows.
Perhaps the most important change might be in the X Window system from XFree86 4.3 in Mandrake 10.0 to Xorg 6.7.0 in Mandrake 10.1. The X Window system is what is used to provide graphical display for the grapical components, including keyboard and mouse functionality, of the GNU-Linux operating system such as the GNOME and KDE desktops.
According to the Mandrake Linux 10.1 Web pages and the 10.1 Community press release, Mandrake 10.1 includes:
- Linux Kernel 2.6.8
- Xorg 6.7.0 (Mandrake10.0 uses XFree86 4.3, thus a major change from Xfree86 to Xorg.)
- Glibc 2.3.3 with Native POSIX Threads Library (NPTL) support
- GCC 3.4.1
- Apache 2.0.50
- Samba 3.0.6
- MySQL 4.0.18
- ProFTPD 1.2.9 *
- Postfix 2.0.18 *
- OpenSSH 3.6.1p2 *
- KDE 3.2.3 and 3.3
- GNOME 2.6
- IceWM 1.2.13 *
- OpenOffice.org 1.1.3
- KOffice 1.3.7 *
- Gnumeric 1.2.6 *
- Mozilla 1.7.2
- The GIMP 2.0.4
- XMMS 1.2.9 *
[ * These items are based on what's in 10.0. Unfortunately, at press time the Mandrake 10.1 package information was very sketchy. We will update these items as soon as we are able to get more info about them. - MA]
A word of caution, if you are using a pre-Pentium level system you are out of luck. According to a note on the Mandrake Linux 10.0 features Web page, "Mandrakelinux 10.0 is optimized for Pentium and higher processors (and compatibles), and therefore does not run on earlier x86 processors." The Mandrake 10.1 supported-hardware Web page says that an x586-class or above processor is required. This includes Intel Pentium I/II/III/IV/Celeron, AMD K6/II/III, AMD Duron, AMD Athlon/XP/MP.
There is another caution that should be made here too. The Mandrake Linux Community editions are more in the nature of public preview releases of the upcoming Official editions.
On one hand, the Community editions appear to serve several nice ends. For example, they give experienced Mandrake fans and users the opportunity to grab an early release of the latest Mandrake OS package.
Also, they help to provide a more steady stream of income for MandrakeSoft too. Sales of Community editions provide new-release income before the final Official versions become available. Moreover, the Community editions are made available for downloading at no charge to Mandrake Club members, thus encouraging people to buy Mandrake Club memberships.
Because the Community editions are previews of the upcoming Official versions of Mandrake Linux distributions, they provide for large-scale, community-based quality assurance testing. Thus most bugs and problems that slip through the cracks during the beta and release candidate stages are detected and solved before release of the corresponding Official editions of Mandrake Linux.
And therein lies the caution. In essence the Community editions have not yet been as comprehensively polished as are the corresponding finished, Official, editions.
If you fall into the geek, software developer, Mandrake enthusiast, or so forth categories you likely can handle bugs and problems that might have slipped through the cracks during the beta and release candidate stages of Mandrake 10.1 Community. If not, you might want to consider waiting for the more polished Mandrake 10.1 Official editions.
According to the press release, Mandrake Linux 10.1 currently is available for pre-ordering on DVD for $60 from MandrakeSoft. It is available for downloading now by Mandrakeclub members.
For more detail about the nuts and bolts of Mandrake Linux 10.1, please check the Mandrake Linux 1.1 features Web page.
