Mandrake Linux 9.1 Presentation & Features
Mandrake Linux 9.1 (Bamboo) is one of the most
advanced and powerful Linux systems available today, with cutting-edge
features such as Apache 2, NTFS partition resizing, ACPI
power-management, "Zeroconf" network support, WiFi support and much
more. Mandrake Linux 9.1 provides an unequaled level of comfort for
users with a simplified graphical installer, a brand-new "MandrakeGalaxy"
theme, stunning anti-aliased fonts, and of course the new KDE 3.1 and
GNOME 2.2 desktop environments.
System
overview
Mandrake Linux 9.1 features the following software:
Kernel
2.4.21
XFree
4.3
Glibc
2.3.1
GCC
3.2.2
Apache
2, Samba 2.2.7a, MySQL 4. 0.11, ProFTPD 1.2.7, Postfix 2.0.6, OpenSSH
3.5
KDE
3.1, GNOME 2.2, IceWM 1.2, WindowMaker 0.8, Enlightenment 0.16.5,
BlackBox 0.62
OpenOffice.org
1.0.2, KOffice 1.2.1
Mozilla
1.3, The GIMP 1.2.3, XMMS 1.2.7
Mandrake Linux 9.1 is optimized for Pentium and higher processors
(and compatibles), and therefore does not run on earlier x86 processors.
Mandrake
Linux 9.1's features...
New
and simplified installation procedure |
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Our installation process has long been the most
widely respected installer in the Linux field, yet we made it even
simpler and it looks even better! It also offers great new features such
as the capability to resize NTFS hard-disk partitions.
The
graphical installer now offers a more modern look & feel with a new
layout, new colors and anti-aliased fonts.
The
default installation process has been greatly simplified. The
individual phases are extremely intuitive, and most hardware devices
are automatically recognized and configured. Power users can access
advanced configuration options at any point of the installation.
The
'type' of installation can be a desktop or server-oriented system by
choosing from various package group categories.
Installation
is possible by various methods such as Network installation, CD or DVD
installation.
60
different languages are supported.
In
addition to being able to resize NTFS partitions, the installation
procedure provides many unique features such as offering various
filesystems (including journalized filesystems EXT3, ReiserFS, XFS,
and encrypted file systems), setting up RAID disks, and resizing
MS-Windows FAT32 partitions.
Various
network filesystems are also supported such as NFS, SMB and WebDAV.
The
upgrade mode is now trouble-free.
The
"auto-install" tool is a convenient way to effortlessly duplicate
server and workstation installations.
An
easy-to-use rescue mode is available in case of any problems with a
system.
Installation has been simplified and
is now mostly automated. |
But "expert" mode is still available and may be
selected at any point. |
The installation procedure supports an impressive
number of different languages. |
Click on Image to Enlarge
On the desktop: New "MandrakeGalaxy" look & feel with
anti-aliased fonts |
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Mandrake Linux 9.1 offers a completely new desktop
look & feel with the "MandrakeGalaxy" theme which provides visual
coherency between KDE 3.1 and GNOME 2.2. Attractive anti-aliased fonts
are also available in most applications. With its focus on usability,
Mandrake Linux 9.1 has all the potential to finally deliver Linux to the
widest audience of computer users.
New
"MandrakeGalaxy" theme provides visual coherency between KDE 3.1 and
GNOME 2.2. This new theme has been written from scratch to be fast and
light in memory.
KDE
3.1 and GNOME 2.2 are the default graphical desktop environments.
Mandrake 9.1 also features WindowMaker 0.80.2, IceWM 1.2.6,
Enlightenment 0.16.5, and BlackBox 0.65 as options.
High-quality
printing is a snap with the Common Unix Printing System.
All
Mandrake users will be pleased to discover that application menus are
consistent across the various graphical desktop environments.
The
"MandrakeFirstTime" wizard allows new users to easily configure a
graphical desktop environment and email client, as well as subscribe
to the MandrakeClub.
Unique
features make unique products: The Mandrake Linux desktops are
dynamic. This means, for instance, that when a new software package is
installed or removed, the corresponding icon appears or disappears
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.
Another
advanced feature in Mandrake Linux 9.1 is "supermount" which lets
users access removable media (CD-ROM, floppy, Zip, etc.)
instantaneously and transparently without having to use the
traditional "mount/umount" commands. Supermount has been greatly
improved with a focus on performance and stability.
KDE 3.1 |
GNOME 2.2 |
The new "MandrakeGalaxy" look& feel |
Plug in a USB device and an icon appears... |
Click on Image to Enlarge
Improved
configuration, extended hardware support |
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For years Mandrake Linux has been a premier
distribution in regards to supporting the largest variety of available
hardware and with its capability to automatically detect and configure
new hardware devices. With the new "HardDrake2" hardware
configuration/information utility, the wide range of supported hardware
has never been greater.
The
Mandrake Control Center provides a single location to access all the
important 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 email server, Shorewall
firewall utility, and many others.
Webmin
1.0.70 provides the ability to safely configure a Mandrake system
remotely through a secure web interface -- even through the Internet.
USB
2.0 support has been added.
Many
of the latest printers are supported with the Common Unix Printing
System (CUPS).
Hot-plug
support allows you to plug in new hardware and have it automatically
recognized and configured while the system is running.
ACPI
support for better power management with laptops.
Zeroconf
allows two computers running Mandrake 9.1 to automatically configure
their network settings.
Support
for a number of WiFi devices.
Additional
drivers for NVIDIA-based videocards are available in Mandrake packs.
Additional
drivers for Winmodems such as Conexant® and Alcatel Speedtouch® USB
are available in the PowerPack and in the ProSuite.
A complete list of supported hardware is available on our
Hardware Page.
Mandrake Control Center (MCC):
a single place for hardware and system configuration. |
Security configuration in the MCC. |
Software configuration in the MCC. |
Configuring mount points in the MCC. |
Simplified
System Maintenance |
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All operating systems require a certain level of
maintenance to remain clean and up to date. Mandrake Linux 9.1 provides
many tools and associated services to facilitate the most common system
administrations tasks.
Our
set of URPMI tools (urpmi, urpme) combined with the Software Manager
and MandrakeUpdate provide everything needed to easily install and
uninstall software packages either with a few typed commands or with a
few clicks of the mouse. The Software Management System solves
software dependencies automatically and performs system security
updates through the Internet. Both the Software Manager and
MandrakeUpdate have been completely reworked to provide the easiest
software management system ever.
URPMI
has also been enhanced to perform dramatically faster and now has a
distributed mode which can securely and remotely update a large number
of systems at once.
The
Mandrake Control Center includes DrakBackup, a utility for backing up
important data and for scheduling jobs that must run periodically.
Locating and installing a new application
is easy with RPMDrake. |
Registered Club Members can install a number of
commercial applications over the network. |
Extensive
collection of Office applications |
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OpenOffice
1.0.2 is a full-featured office suite that includes a word processor,
spreadsheet and presentation applications. OpenOffice is available in
many different languages. This Office suite can read and write most
types of Microsoft Office documents such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint
files.
KOffice
1.2.1 is another full-featured and fast office suite designed for the
KDE desktop.
Take
your choice of several full-featured web browsers such as Mozilla 1.3,
Konqueror 3.1.0 and Galeon 1.3.3.
Mozilla-mail,
Kmail 1.5 and Evolution 1.2.2 are world-class email clients that now
support email encryption for enhanced privacy and security.
GnuCash
1.8.1 is a great personal finance manager, compatible with
applications such as Quicken, Microsoft Money or MoneyDance.
Many
additional office applications are provided, including calendars such
as Kalendar and Gnome-Calendar, address books such as KAddressBook and
Gnome-Card, project management applications such as MrProject, and
more.
Make
the most of the Internet with handy utilities such as instant
messengers compatible with AOL, Yahoo and MS, along with a selection
of IRC utilities.
Flash®
player, Acrobat Reader® and RealPlayer® are included in Mandrake Linux
packs.
OpenOffice can read write and most types of
Microsoft Office documents. |
Mozilla, the famous web browser. |
KOffice is also a complete office suite. |
KOrganizer is a calendar application
that includes a task-scheduler. |
GnuCash is a full-featured personal finance
manager. |
Multimedia
and Games |
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GnomeMeeting
0.96.1 is an H.323 compatible videoconferencing and voice-over-IP
telephony application compatible with Microsoft Netmeeting®. It also
supports PC-to-Phone over Internet by registering to MicroTelco
Internet telephone service.
Gphoto
and XawTV lets you use digital cameras with Mandrake Linux.
Xine
0.9.18 is a video player for viewing unencrypted DVDs.
The
GIMP 1.2.3 is the latest version of this world-class image editing
application.
A
large selection of scanners are supported which can be easily utilized
with XSane, The GIMP and Kooka.
Kontour
is a vector drawing application similar to Corel Draw and Adobe
Illustrator.
XMMS
1.2.7 is a premier multimedia application that supports many sound and
video formats such as MP3, OGG and MPEG-video.
Grip
3.0.5 and KAudioCreator are easy-to-use programs for ripping audio CDs
Cdrecord
2.0, XCDRoast and K3B are available for burning CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
FrozenBubble
is a highly addictive arcade game. Definitely worth a try.
Chromium
is a fast paced, arcade-style, top-scrolling space shooter with fine
graphics.
Tux
Racer is a classic 3D racing game featuring Tux, the Linux penguin.
The GIMP, a world-class image editing
application. |
K3B is great tool for burning CD-Rs. |
GnomeMeeting lets you phone over the net! |
Servers,
Internet and Intranet services |
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Mandrake Linux is widely known as a reliable, secure
& easy-to-configure system that is becoming the system of choice for
Internet and Intranet servers. Mandrake Linux 9.1 includes everything
needed to easily install and deploy professional network services, such
as the Apache 2/AdvancedExtranetServer.
Enterprise
Linux kernel 2.4.21 provides native support for Hi-Memory (> 1024 MB)
and SMP (Symmetric Multi Processing).
A
special Mandrake feature, DrakGW, allows users to easily configure
Internet Sharing so that several machines can utilize a single
connection to the Internet.
Apache
2/AdvancedExtranetServer includes "out of the box" support for dozens
of modular extensions including mod_perl 1.3.27, mod_ssl 2.8.12 and
many others. As a unique Mandrake feature, Apache2 comes with a
special upgrade/downgrade mechanism to allow smooth transition from
Apache 1.3.x.
The
PHP 4.3.1 scripting language contains built-in support for LDAP, MySQL,
PostgreSQL and Unix-ODBC.
Samba
2.2.7a is the famous SMB file-server.
MySQL
4.0.11a and PostgreSQL 7.3.2 treat you to the best Free-Software
databases.
PHPGroupware
0.9.14 is a full-featured groupware server.
SpamAssassin
2.44 is an efficient SPAM-filtering service.
Also
available, and easily configured with the Mandrake Control Center, are
the world-renowned servers ProFTP, Postfix email server (Sendmail also
available), OpenSSH server, DHCP server, Bind DNS server, NFS server.
Apache 2.0/AdvancedExtranetServer
is the default web-server. |
Servers can be easily configured in
the Mandrake Control Center (through MandrakeWizards). |
Do you need a Windows File/Print server?
Configure Samba. |
Easy
Printing with CUPS |
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The Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) is the
standard printing system for Mandrake Linux which offers great printing
rendering. CUPS 1.1.19 supports more printers than ever in Mandrake
Linux 9.1: over 1000! In addition to the impressive number of supported
printers and extended configuration options, CUPS is extremely easy to
configure and allows any networked machines to access printers on a CUPS
server over the local network without any configuration. Mandrake 9.1
offers one of the best print rendering solutions currently available
under Linux.
TCP/Socket (ethernet-connected and HP JetDirect)
printers are also detected, as well as printers available through SMB
(Windows-servers).
Top-level
Security |
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Mandrake Linux has a long tradition of security. 9.1
provides several features that make it one of the most secure operating
systems currently available.
Four
easy-to-setup security levels are available to choose from -- from
"Standard" to "Paranoid" -- depending on the intended use of the
system.
Shorewall
1.3.14 is a comprehensive firewall system which can be configured with
just a few clicks in the Mandrake Control Center.
Extensive
cryptography support is provided with GnuPG, OpenSSH, SSL certificate
management tools, a special Linux 'Kernel Secure', encrypted
filesystems, and email encryption.
Authentication
is supported via local files or through authentication servers such as
LDAP, NIS or Windows NT Server.
Everything
for Development |
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Develop applications quickly and efficiently:
GCC
3.2.2 features C, C++, Fortran 77, Objective C, Java and Ada 95
compilers.
PHP
4.3.0, Perl 5.8.0 and Python 2.2.2 scripting languages are also
available.
Gtk+
2.0 and Qt 3.1.1 libraries - along with KDE and GNOME libraries - are
available for developing graphical applications.
Java
bytecode can be run with Kaffe 1.0.7.
Kdevelop
2.1.5 is an Integrated Development Environment.
Quanta
Plus 3.1 is an HTML Integrated Development Environment.
Choose
from a large selection of editors such as the popular Vim 6.1, Emacs
21.2 and XEmacs 21.4
Creating webpages in Quanta Plus. |
Kdevelop is a complete Integrated Development
Environment. |
Available
in 60 languages |
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Since Linux is truly an international effort,
Mandrake has always encouraged localization and internationalization.
With version 9.1, Mandrake Linux supports the largest number of
languages ever: The Mandrake installer and the Mandrake configuration
tools completely (or partially) support 60 different languages, from
Afrikaans to Wallon.
Many other applications, such as KDE, GNOME and
OpenOffice.org, also support a wide variety of languages.
A wide variety of languages are supported. |
Linux
Standards and Free Software |
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|
|
The
Mandrake Linux 8.2 ProSuite Edition was the first Linux distribution
to become Linux Standard Base (LSB 1.2) certified. Mandrake 9.1 also
complies with LSB 1.2 specifications, and the next Mandrake Linux
Corporate Server based on Mandrake 9.1 will be LSB 1.2 certified.
MandrakeSoft is committed to the Linux Standard Base which is an
essential step for ensuring compatibility between the different
Linux distributions. It also ensures that Mandrake Linux will be
compatible with the greatest number of leading enterprise-class
applications such as Database, CRM, and Accounting. |
Since Netscape and the last few remaining proprietary
applications have been removed, Mandrake Linux 9.1 is a "100% Free
Software" product. This means that everyone is granted the right to
access the sources, modify and redistribute the software. This also
means that Mandrake Linux 9.1 can be deployed on as many machines as
desired.
Recommended
hardware for Mandrake Linux 9.1 |
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A complete list of supported hardware is available at
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/hardware.php3
Processor:
an x586-class or above processor is required. This includes Intel
Pentium I/II/III/IV, AMD K6/II/III, AMD Duron, AMD Athlon/XP/MP.
Multi-processor machines are supported. (*)
Memory:
at least 64 MB is required; 128 MB is recommended.
Hard
disks: IDE and SCSI hard disks are supported. Most SCSI and RAID
controllers are supported.
Hard
disk size: At least 100MB is required, 1GB is recommended.
USB
and USB 2.0: most USB devices are supported.
CD-ROM
and DVD-ROM drives and burners: Most IDE and SCSI models are
supported.
Graphic
cards: Most ISA, PCI and AGP cards are supported, including 3D
hardware acceleration.
Network
adapters: Most ISA, PCI and USB network cards are supported. Most
modems, RNIS and DSL devices are supported.
Printers:
Most Inkjet and Laser printers are supported. Most "WinPrinters" are
not supported.
Sound
Cards: All SoundBlaster-compatible soundcards are supported.
Laptops:
Most laptops are supported.
Misc.:
Numerous TV cards, graphics tablets, scanners, webcams, digital
cameras and FireWire devices are supported.
(*)A version of Mandrake 9.1 for PPC-based personal
computers, as well as IA-64 and AMD-64 versions, will be released later.