[TriLUG] Mandrake business server- opinions?

[Jason Tower]

virtually all of my clients are currently (or soon will be) running 
mandrake.  after using redhat for a couple of years, i switched to 
mandrake and have been extremely pleased with it, both as a desktop and 
a server.  it has proven to be stable, secure, and easy to manage and 
update.

- excellent implementation of KDE (unlike rh/fedora - i don't care for 
gnome and i don't care for bluecurve)

- standard command line tools work as they should, unlike suse (witness 
the useless useradd command, among others)

- a huge collection of RPMs are available, most of them right on the 
CDs.  *WAY* more than rh/fedora deliver

- a "loaded" kernel with lots of available modules (when trying to 
rescue a client's mac hard drive a few months ago, mandrake was the 
only distro that could read the HFS+ filesystem out of the box)

- urpmi, though a tad difficult to get working sometimes, does a great 
job of handling updates, rpm dependencies, etc

- a fast, flexible, powerful installer.  far more flexible than 
fedora's, and accomodates network installs much better than suse's

i've tried almost all of the major distros out there and mandrake has 
the best pro/con ratio (debian was close though).  and this isn't just 
an academic discussion for me either, my business depends on my ability 
to install, configure, and manage linux servers.  if they fail - i 
fail.

jason

On Sunday 11 July 2004 20:36, Michael Hrivnak wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> In conversations here and elsewhere, it seems to me that Mandrake has
> been labeled a good competitor for the desktop market, but I rarely
> hear them mentioned or considered for use in business applications. 
> Since I know many of you are involved in making decisions about what
> software a business will use, I'd like to hear opinions on Mandrake's
> business server software.  For a refresher:
>
> http://www.mandrakesoft.com/businesses/
>
> So, what has your experience been?
>
> If you don't have any experience with it, why have you chosen other
> solutions instead?
>
> I'm just looking for some productive discussion about the ups and
> downs of why Mandrake does or doesn't get used in business settings.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael