Mandrake Linux 9 makes a move to Eastren Countries

AT last Mandrake 9 is officially available throughout Pakistan at a price which is the lowest anywhere (Rs90 — or $1.50 — for a 3-CD set). No reason now for not trying out!

Mandrake is one of several available flavours of Linux which has held a long reputation for its user friendly installation and operations.

The latest release maintains that long standing tradition of ease in installation and use. As a beginner, if you ever tried to have Linux on your machine but failed to carry out successful installation then you need to try Mandrake Linux 9, it has excellent documentation, designed for the beginner.

While it is appealling for anyone who is not familiar with Linux OS and wants to learn it in a short time, Mandrake Linux 9 also offers features that the advance users and administrators will appreciate. It provides a complete graphical user interface (GUI) for novice users that allows them to manipulate the system as they learn more and more. For free support you can visit Mandrake's local website .

We installed Mandrake's standard edition minus commercial applications and its 30-day technical installation support. Its Power Pack edition costs $69 (shipping included) and has some supplementary applications, installation source code, a reference manual and server guide in PDF format with a 60-day installation support. For server environment a ProSuite edition is available for $199. It is exactly like the Power Pack edition with the only difference in server application and utilities.

First conceived in 1998, Mandrake was developed specifically to make the Linux experience more comfortable one for people used to other desktop operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS. Early versions of Mandrake seemed to be mostly add-ons to Red Hat Linux. While that lineage persists today, Mandrake offers a number of features that set it apart from other versions of Linux, Red Hat inclusive.

Mandrake offers a great variety for users to choose from several desktop environments and window managers that are not available in the Red Hat distribution. Its default KDE and GNOME desktop (the two major GNU/Linux desktops) comes with different window managers including fvwm, twm, IceWm, BlackBox, Enlightenment, XFCE, and others. The XFCE window managers besides KDE / GNOME offers the real experience of using Linux.



Features

Mandrake version 9 offers some noteable features which have been added or enhanced since the previous, release Mandrake 8.2, and these include: Kernel 2.4.19, Xfree 4.2.1, Glibc 2.2.5, GCC 3.2, KDE 3.0.3, GNOME 2.0.1, IceWM 1.2, WindowMaker 0.8, Enlightenment 0.16.5, BlackBox 0.62, OpenOffice.org 1.0.1, Koffice 1.2, Mozilla 1.1, the GIMP 1.2.3, XMMS 1.2.7.

Mandrake distinguishes itself from other distributions by offering the following features:

Friendlier desktop: Mandrake Linux desktops are dynamic. This means, for instance, that when a new software package is installed or removed, the corresponding icon will appear or disappear instantaneously in the application menu. This same "dynamic" feature also applies to hardware devices: Plug in a USB scanner or WebCam and a corresponding icon appears automatically on the desktop.

The "MandrakeFirstTime" wizard allows new users to easily configure a graphical desktop environment and email client, as well as register for MandrakeOnline — a MandrakeSoft service that provides personalized security and software update notifications.

Quick start-up: In Mandrake 9, previous users will be pleasantly surprised to see how quick it is to log into KDE 3.0.3 and GNOME 2.0.

Task-oriented menu: A new look is available throughout the system which MandrakeSoft calls "more homogeneity, less futility." Mandrake Linux 9 is an excellent choice for both individual use and corporate deployments. The task-oriented menu is the most efficient way for users to locate and run the applications that they really need.

Mandrake users will be pleased to discover that application menus are consistent across all the various graphical desktop environments.

Easy accessibility: Another advanced feature in Mandrake Linux 9 is "supermount" which lets users access removable media (CD-ROM, floppy, zip, etc.) instantaneously and transparently without using the traditional "mount/unmount" commands.

The Mandrake Control Centre provides a single location to access all the necessary hardware and system configuration utilities. The Mandrake Control Center includes an extensive selection of graphical utilities and wizards for quickly and easily setting up many popular services, including the Apache web server, Postfix e-mail server, Shorewall firewall utility, and many others.

Hardware support: It provides hot-plug support that allows you to plug in new hardware and have it automatically recognized and configured while the system is running. USB 2.0 support has been added to this version of OS.



Installation

Before you rush ahead to try installation, it is important that you know about a few basic things. First is your computer's BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The option to look for is often called PnP (Plug and Play) OS installed. Set this option to "No" and the BIOS will then initialize any PnP devices. That can help GNU/Linux recognize some devices on your machine, which it would not otherwise be able to initialize.

On beginning installation process you get an option, "Automatic" or "Recommended" form of installation. I would suggest the "Recommended" installation option for most users because it allows users to make reasonable choices, particularly for the beginner. However, if you are expecting to partition your system a certain way or if you specifically want a certain package of software, you'll either have to use the Control Center to modify your choices after you install or you will have to learn enough about the installation process to use the expert installation.

During the "Automatic" setup, the user must pay attention to the left-hand menu, which describes the accomplished steps and those remaining. For instance, while installing with the "Recommended" installation class, many options listed will not be presented to the user, such as the choice of filesystem type and the creation of a boot floppy.

It is a good idea to create a boot floppy, even though the Mandrake installation CD has a rescue boot mode. In case you make a disk partition error, install a different kernel, damage your system's Master Boot Record (MBR), having a boot floppy disk will come in handy, particularly, if you do something to render the CD support inaccessible.

If you already have an empty partition on your hard drive, you may easily choose the "Recommended" installation. If you have at least 3GB of space that you can devote to the Mandrake disk partition, then I would recommend you to install all package categories on the left side of the display and all three choices for graphical environments as shown on the right side, if you're planning to use your system in a desktop configuration.

You need to select additional groups of packages in case you wish to set up a server configuration instead or in addition to your desktop configuration.

You will not regret choosing many package categories and individual packages, particularly from the "Other Graphical Desktops" menu. The only categories in which you may require to exercise restraint is in choosing server packages. Why? Because server packages, by nature, are used to make various services accessible over the internet. While these can be useful, these can also open up your system to unintended intruders. Unless you know what you are doing, best to hold off on adding server packages.

When finishing the installation, you are presented with the summary screen that provides a small synopsis of your mouse, time zone, and printer, if any. Clicking the printer gives you the choice of using CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System) or lpd for print services.

The CUPS is a cross-platform printing solution for all UNIX environments. It is based on the "Internet Printing Protocol". CUPS provides complete printing services to most PostScript and raster printers. Lpd is the line printer daemon (spool area handler). It is the default print handler used by many Linux and UNIX systems. Lpd traces its origins back to the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) of UNIX.

The sound card is also displayed, but with no way to modify it during the installation. Mandrake's default graphical system configuration interface is one of the easiest to use. The system presents an easy entry into using GNU/Linux software, but this does not mean that the learning process is over. If you're so inclined, you will eventually learn how to use command line interfaces to perform powerful commands, install applications, and modify various internal functions. Mandrake has made it easy to learn, and easy to get started.

You must be wondering that I have not mentioned anything about "Most suitable Linux Distro for Arabic script-based languages" which, in simple words, means if you need to read and write Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Sindhi, Pushto, etc, you have better luck using Mandrake 9.0 than any other OS.

Before you try out what is available on CD and complain about problem with Urdu display not being proper remember that beta release of Mandrake 9 was out in Sept 2002. There had been lot of work done since then, you will need to download some fonts and latest versions of some small kilobyte-sized packages to make your life hassle free.