Is Mandrake Linux 9 good for a Newbi?

[Fred Brown]

I came across Mandrake Linux 9. Is this a good product? Is it easy to use? Can it be used on the same computer as Windows 98? I havn"t downloaded it yet till I know a little more about it. Is there a better Linux out there? If I'm posting this in the wrong window, someone be kind enough to tell me which one I should post it. Thanks for any help.

[-DaRK-RaiDeR-]

Hi,

1) Yes, Mandrake it's really good and maybe the best, it's all a matter of different opinion. Although maybe you can find it a little weird at the beginning you'll see that is a really good and easy to use OS if you use the graphics interfaces.

2) Yes again, you can use it with Windows 98 too.

3) You could have posted this thread on the Linux forum... don't worry, you'll learn soon but it would be a good idea to look at the AO's newbies help section to learn faster.

Bye.

[roswell1329]

Mandrake 9 is a good introduction to Linux. It makes a good effort to provide you with many of the "wizard-like" tools of Windows, while giving you the functionality of a standard linux distribution. It will happily share a hard drive with Windows 98 (with some initial preparation of the drive). It does act a bit sluggish if you set up a fully-loaded installation, but that's understandable with the vast number of additional components that come with the kernel.

Overall, however, it's a strong Linux distribution geared toward the desktop user, and built for ease of configuration. I give it 2 Tux's up!

[TheFiend]

i agree, its easier than some, for me, id say if your new, go for that, some people say redhat is easy, but for me mandrake was easierall around, also, calsera open Linux was fairly easy to, and make sure you read the manuals first, i cant stress this enough, you wanna make sure you can get everything prepaired, and read how to partition word for word unless you know what your doing, but this can be a very hard thing for some people. and MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP ANYTHING YOU DONT WANNA LOSE. if omething does go wrong youll have a back up. if you get it installed and you like it and get good id reccomend trying a few other flavors of it, red hat for one is nice, and if you get good at that, you may even like a BSD to warn you though, installing FREE bsd can be a kick in the butt because its not all easy (at lest last time i checked anyway) but, then again, its also secured greatly. well whatever your choice goes for, read manuals first, buying a Linux book can help alot because you can read it as your installing, and usually it comes with an install CD. good luck, i hope everything worls for you

[IchNiSan]

Well, I haven't used Mandrake since I installed it once about 3 years ago, so, I don't know how the install goes.

But, I must say that SUSE the latest version has a very nice installer. It will automatically resize your windows partition, safely and cleanly, if you tell it to deal with the partitions automatically, and if your windows partition fills the drive. I don't know if any of the others will do this, as on my current dual boot laptop(Redhat 8), I specifically left space for the linux partitions when I installed windows. Maybe someone else can comment on other distros auto resizing your windows partition.

Mandrake probably is easier to use, as that seems to be the opinion that everyone has, but for a newbie, the install and dealing with partitioning is a big deal. You could easily screw up and delete your windows partition in most installs. The SUSE one on the other hand, will just automatically resize it for you.

[July]

Fred Brown I just moved to Mandrake 9 a couple of weeks ago. I was able to partition my hd correctly the first time.(very easy)
I am totally loving this operating system. It's not crashing, everything works. I'm finding it easier to use then windows. And with the great people of ao it makes life easier. Now this is the first linux I've tried so I hope that as I get better with the O.S. I will find more advanced versions of linux just as enjoyable. So I say go with mandrake 9.

[JockVSJock]

Yes, Mandrake is the choice install for Linux Newbies when we do our installfest with OLUG

I haven't used it since 2000, but it seems that alot of folks we start out with it are happy and I've heard very few complaints with it. Very easy to install and maintain rpms with and there is alot of support out there for it.

Hey, if you really want a challenge and if you got alot of time on yr hands, or if u get bored, try Gentoo

[Phat_Penguin]

Mandrake 9 is the distro of choice at home here, very easy to install and maintain. Great for newbies and experienced users alike. From a 65mb minimal install for the commandline freaks to the full blown desktop GUI - the choice is all yours.

Good thing about Mandrake is that is up there in popularity stakes with Redhat so there are many users out there prepared to offer assistance, contribute tutorials without getting to technical about it - which is great when you are starting out with linux.

Mandrake is the bleeding edge distro of the linux world which is good news if you are running new hardware. I recently installed a new 17" monitor, 32mb Riva TNT2 graphics card (stolen from the windows box on upgrade) and a Phillips (saa7134) chipset tv capture card (FlyVideo 3000) - all detected and running with the minimal of fuss.

It will survive comfortably alongside a windows partition, although I personally dont like this (I'm a bit of a purist here) but dont forget to defrag the hard drive before installing Mandrake. The install is very simple from this point on - insert the CD and just follow the prompts.

As any linux distro you have complete control of the machine - so can the hackers - so avail yourself of the AO tutorials to lock down the box. Mandrake comes with the msec (Mandrake Security) option which can do a lot of the work by default but somethings need to be known and tweaked to access the services and applications you want if it is set too high.

You can disable services you dont need - the Control Center in Mandrake can be used here. Some learning will be required on your part here. Mandrake run a forum on their site to assist in the installation and tweaking of the system to get the best out of your computer.

The best part of linux is there is hardly a day that goes by when I am not in the guts of the code, tweaking something to see what happens - great learning curve.

I dont think you will be disappointed with Mandrake 9 and unless you are a serious gamer I reckon it will take over that windows partition before long. Definitely the distro to cut your linux teeth on in my opinion.

[sweet_angel]

Yupe mandrake 9 it's good choice for newbie.. Phat_Penguin already explain it, but if you want try something else ..I agree with Ichnisan SUSE Linux(8.1) is good too it's very easy...to install and with YAST you can do alot things including resize portion for windows.
My personal laptop using dual Oses SUSE Linux 8.1 and Free BSD 4.7

Hey, if you really want a challenge and if you got alot of time on yr hands, or if u get bored, try Gentoo

The other Linux I like/love is Gentoo ...I have Gentoo Linux 1.4 rc1 on my other comp..it's very solid Linux distro very cool Linux (mmmmm...my friend said I am *nix geek now cause I am used to "party girl" ),but if you first time try Linux might be Gentoo little bit hard..

So try mandrake first and you can try something else..you can check out this site http://www.distrowatch.com/top.php you will find alot of Linux distro out there...

Wellcome to Linux world ..

[Fred Brown]

WOW!!!! Great feed back. Thanks to all. I put a 60 gb hard drive in not to long agoI'm still running the Windeath 98 on the 6gb that came with the compaq presario 5440. So, I was thinking about putting the Linux on the new HD. My compaq only partitioned 30 of the GBs, so I have anthor 30 to play with. Any words of wisdom?