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Mandrakelinux (formerly Mandrake Linux) is a Linux distribution created by MandrakeSoft. The first release was based on Red Hat Linux (version 5.1) and KDE (version 1.0) in July 1998. It has since diverged from Red Hat and has included a number of original tools mostly to ease system configuration. Mandrakelinux is also notable for compiling its packages with optimizations for Pentium-class and more advanced processors which are incompatible with older CPU versions such as 386 and 486. Mandrakelinux was originated by Gaël Duval, who was also a co-founder of MandrakeSoft.
The major features that Mandrakelinux has are:
Mandrakelinux supports over 60 languages
Mandrakelinux uses the Control Center for administration of Linux rather than using a text editor to change settings. It has many programs known as Drakes or Draks, collectively named drakxtools, to configure many different settings. Examples include such as MouseDrake to set up a mouse, DiskDrake to set up disk partitions and drakconnect (previously known as draknet but had to change its name after a company of the same name complained) to set up a network connection. They are written using GTK and Perl, and most of them can run in both graphical and text mode.
Mandrakelinux comes with several thousands of software packages containing many different varieties of software. They suit your needs from gaming, office use, servers, and internet use.
Mandrakelinux has a large of community of users, that provides help, support, and software to the user of Mandrakelinux.
Mandrakelinux is constantly in development. A development version of Mandrakelinux, known as the "Cooker" is publicly available, but it is not recommended for use in a production environment because of the constant changes going on in it.
Next to that, community members provide RPMs for the latest packages of popular software.
From the ground up, Mandrakelinux was compiled for Pentium-class processors, thus benefiting of a few percents of additional performance on these machines - to the cost of being unusable with 386 and 486, a problem that rapidly faded out due to current CPU power and memory requirements of latest versions of popular software.
The provided kernel and glibc have enhancements for more recent processors. For example, the glibc will load libraries from the special directory /lib/i686 if the detected processor is compatible.
Mandrakelinux is geared to use KDE or GNOME as the standard desktops, but includes others such as IceWM, Blackbox, Window Maker and Twm. A unique theme known as "Mandrakegalaxy" provides consistency between applications and desktop environments. Mandrakegalaxy debuted in version 9.1 and Mandrakegalaxy II appared in 10.0. A variant of Mandrakegalaxy is "Mandrakegalaxy Squared", which uses square window buttons rather than round ones.
Mandrakelinux uses a package manager called urpmi. It uses the RPM package format. It is similar to apt-get: it allows seamless installation of a given software package by automatically installing the other packages needed, possibly transparently over the network. Urpmi also has a front-end called RPMdrake, which the majority of users use to install software in Mandrakelinux. Although web sources for urpmi are not added on the installation of Mandrakelinux, they are available at , which allows the user to choose several different versions of 'RPM Tree' to utilise.
From its inception to version 8.0, Mandrake named its flagship distribution Linux-Mandrake. From version 8.1 to 9.2 it was called Mandrake Linux.
In February 2004 MandrakeSoft lost a court case against Hearst Corporation, owners of King Features Syndicate. Hearst contends that MandrakeSoft is infringing upon King Features' trademarked character Mandrake the Magician. The word Mandrake is not unique to the King Features character, and MandrakeSoft is appealing the decision. As a precaution, MandrakeSoft has renamed its products by removing the space between the brand name and the product name and changing the first letter of the product name to lower case, thus creating one word. Starting from version 10.0, Mandrake Linux became known as Mandrakelinux, and its logo changed accordingly. Similarly, MandrakeMove became Mandrakemove.
Prior to Mandrakelinux 10.0, there was one central distribution which was marketed to consumers and made available for download over the Internet (besides the offspring, detailed below). The development tree of Mandrakelinux has always been known as Cooker. When stabilised, this tree becomes the successor to the current version.
The latest version 10.0 Official Edition was released for download to Mandrakeclub members on April 14, 2004. The Official FTP tree has been released within a week, and public ISO images on May, 25th. This is in line with MandrakeSoft's new strategy of making releases available first to paying customers. In general, the Official Edition is intended to be more stable and well tested than the Community Edition.
The Community Edition, effectively an early release for the Official Edition, was released as ISO files on March 4, 2004 to Mandrakeclub Members and the ISO files were made publicly available less than two weeks later. The Community Edition can be updated to the same software as in the Official Edition using the urpmi update tool. In general, the Community Edition is intended to more quickly incorporate new versions and new packages than the Official Edition.
The Free Edition contains some advertisements in the form of bookmarks in the web browser and slides during installation, to help cover the costs of producing the distribution.
| Year | Number | Name |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | 5.1 | Venice |
| 1998 | 5.2 | Leeloo |
| 1999 | 5.3 | Festen |
| 1999 | 6.0 | Venus |
| 1999 | 6.1 | Helios |
| 2000 | 7.0 | Air |
| 2000 | 7.1 | Helium |
| 2001 | 7.2 | Ulysses |
| 2001 | 8.0 | Traktopel |
| 2001 | 8.1 | Vitamin |
| 2002 | 8.2 | Bluebird |
| 2002 | 9.0 | Dolphin |
| 2003 | 9.1 | Bamboo |
| 2003 | 9.2 | FiveStar |
| 2004 | 10.0 | Community and Official |
| N/A | N/A | Cooker |
Distributions that are based on Mandrakelinux, some by MandrakeSoft itself, others by independent projects. Some maintain compatibility with Mandrakelinux, so that installing a Mandrakelinux RPM also works on the offspring.
Linux Mandrake 7.2 had a version tailored specifically for use as a firewall, known as Single Network Firewall (SNF). Its successor, based on Mandrake 8.2, was titled Multi Network Firewall (MNF). The third iteration will be based upon Mandrakelinux 10.0.
These firewall distributions are designed to provide security for computer networks, and can be administered remotely via a Web browser based interface or ssh. There are two versions. The Download Edition contains only free software and is freely downloadable via the Internet. The corporate version has added functionality and comes with support from MandrakeSoft.
Mandrake Linux 8.1 had a Gaming Edition, which was a game oriented Linux distribution. It had a port of The Sims and used the Transgaming WineX technology to support some games produced for Windows.
CLIC (aka Cluster LInux pour le Calcul) is a dedicated version of Mandrakelinux created by MandrakeSoft specifically for clustering environments.It was sponsorised by the RNTL, others partners are ID-IMAG, BULL and Mandrakesoft. This project's aim was to produce a HPC Linux Distribution for 32 & 64 bits processors.
The objective of project CLIC is to allow the realization of large scientific computers while being based on software known as "free" (i.e. under licence GPL or comparable). The objective consists of the realization a GNU/Linux distribution for clusters of machines, meeting the needs for deployment, administration and programming of clusters within the framework of exploitation for intensive calculation.
It features an automated installation of a full cluster using the Ka tools, urpmi and the clusterscripts.
This project was finished on 1 December 2003 and Mandrakesoft decided to continue that project with a product called Mandrakeclustering.
You can find more details on http://clic.mandrakesoft.com
Based on the CLIC project, this distribution allow you to setup a cluster in a few hours. This product includes Drakcluster (GUI) for a better ease-of-use. You can add/remove nodes with only two questions !
This product is dedicated to the HPC market but it could be use also (with some modifications) to all kind of clusters (High Availabilty, applicative, grid, ...). This platform give you the tools you need for a day-to-day administration of hundreds of nodes. Parallel commands (bash, copying tools), deploiement (disks), software upgrade/downgrade (urpmi parallel), monitoring (ganglia), etc.
Mandrakeclustering is available on x86 & x86-64 architectures.
More informations at http://www.mandrakesoft.com/products/clustering
A LiveMove is the set formed by a LiveCD and a bootfloppy or USB key.
Mandrakemove is a MandrakeSoft product that benefits from a Mandrakelinux LiveCD which doesn't need to be installed to run on a computer, and a USB key that automatically records bootloader, hardware configuration and personal data.
The first version of Mandrakemove was released in December 2003 (but only distributed to customers in January 2004, due to production delays - a problem very common to Mandrakelinux releases, unfortunately). It brought two main innovations compared to competitors:
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