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On Monday 16 Dec 2002 8:40 am, christopher j bottaro wrote: > hello, > i've been a redhat user for like 2 years now. i'm a big kde fan and i've > always kind of disliked how redhat is geared towards gnome. finally > redhat 8.0, they mucked up some xft2 and freetype stuff that won't allow qt > to compile with xft support without some hacks and now i'm ready to find a > new distro. i've looked at gentoo, suse, and mandrake. i ruled out suse > cuz i don't think its that popular and i think i'd have a hard time getting > support. gentoo is neat sounding but also sounds like kind of pain in the > butt at the same time...;) mandrake is very similar to redhat, no? so i > should be very comfortable moving to mandrake, right? > Mandrake is ReDHat based, with a lot of extra goodies you might like.It is similar enough for you not to feel lost. > i have a few questions. > > 1) i usually compile from source when installing stuff, but i do use rpm > sometimes when i'm in a hurry or its something small that i'm installing. > i usually use rpmfind.net to get the packages. when i search rpmfind.net > for a package, i usually get a list and i select the one that corresponds > to "redhat 8.0". i noticed that the mandrake packages on rpmfind.net > aren't associated with distro versions...whats up with that? i mean, if i > download a "mandrake" package off rpmfind.net, will it work with mandrake > 8.0, 9.0, etc? > Rpmfind will show you packages from Mandrake 'current' (9.0) and Mandrake Cooker (for developers) You cannot assume 9.0 packages will work with older releases. There are other mirrors with packages for older releases. Mandrake also has something called 'urpmi' which is like apt-get for RPMs. By defining a list of mirror sources you can download and install the latest version of an application and all the dependencies with a single command. Like for example 'urpmi mozilla' http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3558 > 2) i get most of my linux questions answered on the redhat mailing list. > things get answered there very quickly as it is an extremely high traffic > list. is this mandrake list as popular? what about the "expert" list? > i'm not a super hardcore linux guru expert, but i can manage pretty well. Trust me. This list is pretty active ;) There is also www.mandrakeusers.org www.mandrakeuser.org and lots of other sources of info. You might like to subscribe to 'expert' as well, but use this list for the dumber questions. > > 3) whats with "mdk" packages? It is a package made for Mandrake as opposed to RedHat. RedHat packages usually work, but they do not handle menu entries the same way, and may be compiled with different libraries. > > 4) is mandrake biased towards either kde or gnome? i noticed on the > mandrake info page, it says that mandrake makes using linux easy to use by > offering gui frontends to lot of administrative tasks. are these just x > applications or are they either kde or gnome/gtk specific? Neither and both. All Mandrake tools use a gtk toolkit because it is smaller and easier to use than qt, and will not oblige the lighter window managers like Blackbox or Xfce to keep the QT libraries loaded. Mandrake includes (I think) 11 different Window managers as standard, and you can use whichever one you please and select which at boot time. Menus are consistent across them all, so installing an RPM in KDE will give you a Fluxbox menu entry. > > 5) as i said before, i get most of my rpms from rpmfind.net. i tried > searching for qt and gtk packages for mandrake and didn't find much...whats > with that? Well of course there are packages for qt and gtk. > > i have more questions, but i can't remember them now...=) > > thanks for the help/info, > christopher You are welcome. I hope you give Mandrake a try. Iso's are available for free download, and the community is welcoming. derek -- ---------------------------------- www.jennings.homelinux.net
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