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Project: Linux  Reviews
Abracadabra! The magic of Mandrake 8.0
By Ramnath Shenoy <ramnath@freeos.com>
Posted: ( 2001-06-22 04:48:42 EST by )
Those of you, who recall our previous review on Mandrake 7.2, may remember our main grouse - a buggy and inconsistent install procedure. Now whether that was due to software bugs or a bad download was never resolved. We also got tons of comments from our readers some of who experienced the same problems. We faithfully forwarded the comments to the Mandrake team hoping for some reaction. Well, there were none forthcoming, however if this new release is an indication, it appears they do take their customers seriously. Mandrake 8.0, the Traktopel version is all that a newcomer to Linux could ask for and more. Who says the Linux desktop is dead!
As the previous Odyssey version, this too came in a 2 CD download. Minimum requirements apart from a Pentium or compatible processor, is at least 32 MB RAM (64MB recommended for graphical installation). Just as before, the installation process is easy with none of the problems faced last time. The key words in the installation being: Simplicity, Flexibility and Control.
There are four ways you can install Linux-Mandrake 8.0 (LM8). (We are not covering upgrades, as we never got around to keeping our buggy 7.2 installation)
1. Boot from the CD: As usual, you make your machine bootable from the CD drive, insert the first CD and roll away.
2. Start the installation from Windows: You should note the amount of free space and the modem port. The Installer will resize the partition (goodbye Partition Magic!). You should however first defrag your hard disk and back up important data.
3. Creating a boot floppy: Create a boot floppy under Windows using the Mandrake CD.
4. Alternative methods: Just as in Version 7.2, you have a variety of install options. Pressing F1 gives you info on available options or else the default install starts up. Apart from the usual expert and text based install you have:
'vgalo', for low resolution graphic installation,
'lnx4win' for standard graphic installation using Linux for windows
'all' for a complete choice of available installs, including a choice of install media, turning off auto hardware detection, etc.
We went for the standard install from the CD and minutes later got the usual Mandrake install screen. The left side of the screen has all the install steps, listed down. An orange star by the side shows the step you are currently in and green indicates completed steps Red stars show pending steps. You can jump back to any point at any given time. You can also change the color of the install screen if you do not like the default. (See image below)
(Graphics courtesy: MandrakeSoft)
Installation Class
This time around you have only 2 choices: Recommended or Expert. You can also upgrade from an older version at this point.
Recommended is of course the easiest. It first scans your machine and gives you a warning if it finds hardware it does not recognize, such a "winmodem" (no solutions offered here though). Next, you get to either use one of the existing partitions or use DiscDrake to partition/resize your hard disk. Again, all this is in a series of steps with lots of pop-up tips and help. Make your choice and format the partitions. Newbies can just choose the default choice for mount points or try auto allocate. Once again as in 7.2, you have a wide choice of file systems from ext2, ReiserFS. (See previous article for a write up on ReiserFS )
The next step is selecting the software packages (about 1200 numbers), which have already been sorted out in some groups depending on the application of your machine. The groups range from a typical office workstation to game, multimedia, Internet, network etc. type of workstation. Alternatively, you can set it up as a server with a few choices there too. A new feature is the warning you get if you select any server applications. Newbies now have a choice of staying out of these applications which otherwise would have been installed and started at boot by default.
You can also select individual packages within these groups. Installation time varies depending upon packages selected and your machine.
Expert: As usual, you get more flexibility. Drax scans your machine and asks questions about your hardware. You have to then select your mouse, keyboard, and security level. Rest is just as above.
Once installation is over, you get to the post- installation tasks
Adding Root and users
In LM 7.2 you could get away by avoiding a root password, LM 8.0 has the same silly feature. Instead a single user can be set to automatically login and be taken to the desktop.
Configure Internet/Network
This can be done using manually or auto detect wizard, which checks and finds your network parameters. You have a choice between setting up a normal modem connection or cable, ISDN, DSL/ADSL and a LAN. You can specify type of modem and ISP settings at this point.
Time zone: Select your country or the nearest time zone.
Boot Disk preparation: We recommend newbies to go through this one. If for any reason you lose LILO/Grub, the boot floppy is the only way you can recover your installation.
Install Grub or Lilo: Mandrake 8.0 offers you a choice of both Grub and Lilo to boot your system. Both are equally good. You can also set it to boot into Linux or Windows by default at startup.
You can also specify who to log in and which GUI. KDE 2.2.1 is the default desktop for Linux-Mandrake 8.0, but many other desktop environments and window managers are included. Choosing a different "Session Type" from the login window can access them.
Configuring X: Our monitor was auto detected. However, if you are in expert install, you will be given a choice of types, resolutions and number of colors.
To sum up
That's it! You have just installed Mandrake 8.0 successfully. Remove your install CD and reboot the machine. All that's left now is to tweak it to optimize it for your machine. These include optimizing the hard disk performance (see Previous Article), selecting Startup programs etc. This is where you swing into action with Linux Mandrake Control Center - a upgraded version of DrakeConf.
We will look at more features in Mandrake 8.0 in our next article. Till then…
Other articles by Ramnath Shenoy
Current Rating: [ 7.11 / 10 ]
Number of Times Rated: [ 104 ]
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