"Mike Proctor" <mike@nsmikeproctor.com> wrote in post
k8lYd.3221$ZB6.1459@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com on 3/11/05 11:08 AM:


Snit wrote:

First, thanks to all the people who suggested I look at Mandrake. Decided
to download it today.

Here's my suggestion:

Go here and download slackware

http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17


Then go here and download dropline

http://www.dropline.net/gnome/


Thank you... I appreciate it.

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:14:08 -0700, Snit wrote:


"Rick" <none@trollfeed.com> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.56.10.237143@trollfeed.com on 3/11/05 2:56 PM:


I agree... which is one reason why most of the free distros of Linux would
not suit the needs of the new user.


You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user'.

Do you believe those are "most" of the free distros, Rick? Let's start
there, and then we can look at the details of those distros.

You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user', if you can.

You are stuck in a loop.

I talk about "most" of the free distros... you point to *four* distros.

Even I, a new user to Linux, am well aware that there are far more than four
distros of Linux.


Yes, there are. Now tell us why the 'free' distros generally, and the
ones mentioned specifically do not suit the needs of the 'new user', if
you can.


Not only, Rick, is there no reason to think you know a thing about Linux
that I do not, you have just shown that at least in this one area you know
less than I do.


There is no reason to think you know anything about Linux.

How long have you been using it?


1998.

Snit wrote:

"Kier" <vallon@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.19.20.17.945979@tiscali.co.uk on 3/11/05 12:20 PM:


snip

Why should it not be popular, just because you have to pay? IMO, it's
worth the money for the extras, like drivers, and the manuals. But
you can
get most of what's on it for nothing, if you search around. A lot of
it's
convenience. A complete newbie would get on much better with a retail
box.



I agree... which is one reason why most of the free distros of Linux
would
not suit the needs of the new user.


Do Macs come with a manual? Mine didn't. Can we extend your argument to
include Macs not being suitable for new users because they don't come
with a manual?

"Rick" <none@trollfeed.com> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.53.05.293491@trollfeed.com on 3/11/05 2:53 PM:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:44:15 -0700, Snit wrote:

"ray" <ray@zianet.com> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.08.49.540694@zianet.com on 3/11/05 2:08 PM:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 12:31:44 -0700, Snit wrote:

"Kier" <vallon@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.17.50.14.480553@tiscali.co.uk on 3/11/05 10:50 AM:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:22:35 -0700, Snit wrote:

First, thanks to all the people who suggested I look at Mandrake.
Decided
to download it today.

Until I realized that Mandrake is not free.

Of course it is, if you get a download edition. Or a covermount. 10.1
Official is out on one of the magazines, and the community editon has been
on a couple of others recently.


Here we have what I understand is one of the most popular distros of
Linux,
and people are paying for it. What happened to the idea that the free
ones
are just as good? And for the $50-60 Mandrake would cost me, it does not
even come with a media player... though more expensive versions do. And
that is if I download it and burn it myself. If I want a boxed edition I
am
sure it costs more...

Where did you find that $50-60 editon without a media player? On the Linux
Magazine DVD of Mandrake 10.1 Official, I find listed under Multimedia:
Xmms and noatun, both of which are music players, and Xine and Mplayer,
which are DVD/CD/vidoe file players - you might need to download a few
codecs, or libdvdcss for DVD playing, but that's all. And once you set up
urpmi with the mandrake repositories, you have access to all the Official
distros software.

http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/101/comparison

The list there does not have a check mark for the cheap version.

If you pay for a boxed set, it shouldn't cost you the earth, and it will
come with a few nice extras, that's all, plus some manuals and support.
You're basically paying for the support, the manuals and the extra, some
of it proprietary, software, plus drivers like the nvidia drivers, all
conveniently put together.

Much of which you get when you buy XP or OS X.


What am I missing? If the free Linux distros are as good, why is
Mandrake
so popular? Is there a free way to download Mandrake that I missed on
the
site?

Don't get what you're driving at here. It's popular because it's good -
excellent for newbies, especially.

I have been searching for a good distro of Linux that will work for
newbies... and now I am finding that for newbies Linux may not be free...
depending on their needs.

Please define 'free'. If you have a broadband connection you can indeed
download, burn the CDs and install for free. If not you can get it pretty
damned cheap at linuxCD.org. You can do a 'free' install (download or ftp
install) of virtually all the major Linux distributions -
www.distrowatch.com will help you find out where. You can order a two disk
set (Live CD + install CD) for free (no shipping costs either) of Ubuntu
Linux from the ubuntulinux.com website.

Then why do people pay for Mandrake? What is the advantage?

They get manuals.
They get support.
They get the satisfaction of financially supporting Mandrake.

You parrot other answers well.

Snit wrote:
"Mike Proctor" <mike@nsmikeproctor.com> wrote in post
k8lYd.3221$ZB6.1459@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com on 3/11/05 11:08 AM:


Snit wrote:

First, thanks to all the people who suggested I look at Mandrake. Decided
to download it today.

Here's my suggestion:

Go here and download slackware

http://linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17


Then go here and download dropline

http://www.dropline.net/gnome/


Thank you... I appreciate it.



So, why do you bother? You're downloading all the linux distros, and
you are spending no more than a couple of hours to determine their
'quality' level.

There's NO WAY you can look at all the features in such a short period
of time.

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:10:50 -0700, Snit wrote:

"Kier" <vallon@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.58.30.6192@tiscali.co.uk on 3/11/05 2:58 PM:

Depends very much on the user.

Fair enough - I am thinking of terms of the non-techy new users... they
type
I see all the time in classes and work with as clients.

Mandrake would still be a pretty good option. A paid version would be a
'safer', simpler option, perhaps, but it would depend on what help they
could call on if anything went wrong. Set-up aside, Mandrake isn't hard to
use. Certainly no harder than XP, and lots of people seem to manage fine
with that.

The latest SUSE would be another reasonable choice, IMO.

Perhaps I am asking for too much... something easy enough for a non-techy
user, something that is as consistent as OS X, something that is free...

Perhaps, to some extent. But Mandrake, IMO, even a free version, will come
close to what you want. And even a paid version of Mandrake, SUSE, etc
will be cheaper in the long run than XP. No virus problems, and more apps
than you can shake a stick at

You could easily set up a PC to demonstrate several different
environments/window managers, picking and choosing suitable apps for each
one, available at a click on the panel or desktop, to gauge the
reactions of your non-technical users.

You might be pleasantly surprised.

In article <pan.2005.03.11.21.53.05.293491@trollfeed.com>,
Rick <none@trollfeed.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:44:15 -0700, Snit wrote:


Then why do people pay for Mandrake? What is the advantage?

They get manuals.
They get support.
They get the satisfaction of financially supporting Mandrake.


It's funny that people have criticized people who choose Macs, using
that logic as an argument.

The accusation is that Mac users allegedly care more about Apple's
profits than their own needs. Oddly, I can't think of a single Mac user
who ever took that position.

Here we see the Linux fans actively admitting that they are sending
money to their OS company out of the kindness of their heart.

Amazing that it's a terrible thing when Mac users allegedly do it (even
though I can't remember a single case where it's actually happened), but
it's a great thing for Linux people to do it.

In article <pan.2005.03.11.21.53.05.293491@trollfeed.com>,
Rick <none@trollfeed.com> wrote:

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 14:44:15 -0700, Snit wrote:


Then why do people pay for Mandrake? What is the advantage?

They get manuals.
They get support.
They get the satisfaction of financially supporting Mandrake.


It's funny that people have criticized people who choose Macs, using
that logic as an argument.

The accusation is that Mac users allegedly care more about Apple's
profits than their own needs. Oddly, I can't think of a single Mac user
who ever took that position.

Here we see the Linux fans actively admitting that they are sending
money to their OS company out of the kindness of their heart.

Amazing that it's a terrible thing when Mac users allegedly do it (even
though I can't remember a single case where it's actually happened), but
it's a great thing for Linux people to do it.

Rick wrote:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:14:08 -0700, Snit wrote:


"Rick" <none@trollfeed.com> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.56.10.237143@trollfeed.com on 3/11/05 2:56 PM:


I agree... which is one reason why most of the free distros of Linux
would
not suit the needs of the new user.


You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user'.

Do you believe those are "most" of the free distros, Rick? Let's start
there, and then we can look at the details of those distros.

You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user', if you can.

You are stuck in a loop.

I talk about "most" of the free distros... you point to *four* distros.

Even I, a new user to Linux, am well aware that there are far more than
four
distros of Linux.


Yes, there are. Now tell us why the 'free' distros generally, and the
ones mentioned specifically do not suit the needs of the 'new user', if
you can.


Not only, Rick, is there no reason to think you know a thing about Linux
that I do not, you have just shown that at least in this one area you know
less than I do.


There is no reason to think you know anything about Linux.

Actually Snit is an expert. He's downloaded and installed 12e3 distros
in 3 days... LOL

Rick wrote:
On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 15:14:08 -0700, Snit wrote:


"Rick" <none@trollfeed.com> wrote in post
pan.2005.03.11.21.56.10.237143@trollfeed.com on 3/11/05 2:56 PM:


I agree... which is one reason why most of the free distros of Linux would
not suit the needs of the new user.


You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user'.

Do you believe those are "most" of the free distros, Rick? Let's start
there, and then we can look at the details of those distros.

You may now tell us why White Box,Fedora, Ubuntu, or the community
Mandrake does not suit the needs of the 'new user', if you can.

You are stuck in a loop.

I talk about "most" of the free distros... you point to *four* distros.

Even I, a new user to Linux, am well aware that there are far more than four
distros of Linux.


Yes, there are. Now tell us why the 'free' distros generally, and the
ones mentioned specifically do not suit the needs of the 'new user', if
you can.


Not only, Rick, is there no reason to think you know a thing about Linux
that I do not, you have just shown that at least in this one area you know
less than I do.


There is no reason to think you know anything about Linux.

Actually Snit is an expert. He's downloaded and installed 12e3 distros
in 3 days... LOL

Until I realized that Mandrake is not free.

Here we have what I understand is one of the most popular distros of
Linux, and people are paying for it.  What happened to the idea that the
free ones are just as good?  And for the $50-60 Mandrake would cost me, it
does not even come with a media player... though more expensive versions
do.  And that is if I download it and burn it myself.  If I want a boxed
edition I am sure it costs more...

What am I missing?

Actually Snit is an expert. He's downloaded and installed 12e3 distros
in 3 days... LOL

Hey, now you be nice to our troll... he's only on loan, you know! If you
guys have any thoughts about keeping him show some respect, dammit:)

Until I realized that Mandrake is not free.

Here we have what I understand is one of the most popular distros of
Linux, and people are paying for it.

What happened to the idea that the
free ones are just as good?

And for the $50-60 Mandrake would cost me,
it does not even come with a media player

[snips]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 10:22:35 -0700, Snit wrote:

Until I realized that Mandrake is not free.

Actually, Mandrake isn't _universally_ free; it has several options, free
and not. Use the free one, if you want.

Here we have what I understand is one of the most popular distros of
Linux, and people are paying for it.

True, they are. And for RH, and SuSe, and many another.

What happened to the idea that the
free ones are just as good?

They are... with a proviso. Due to licensing issues and the like, the
free ones generally can't bundle certain things (flash players, for
example, IIRC) whereas the non-free ones can.

If you don't need that sort of thing, or are capable of downloading and
installing it yourself (doesn't take any particular genius, even DFS could
do it), then the free ones are as good as the non-free ones. They don't,
however, include the support that the non-free ones generally do, which
may be a factor in choosing one over the other.

And for the $50-60 Mandrake would cost me,
it does not even come with a media player

Huh? I thought it came with several, including, among others, Amarok.