Eduardo Sanchez is a contributing editor and senior international correspondent to Open for Business. Eduardo’s background includes studies in theology and law; he also has a great appreciation for Renaissance sacred music. He resides with his wife, Gloria, in Asunción, Paraguay (South America).
As many of our readers already know, I use GNU/Linux as my sole
desktop operating system on a daily basis. I use it not only at home,
but also at work, in a very demanding and performance-driven
enviroment that sometimes moves at breakneck speed. And as usual,
GNU/Linux delivers. The old, tired FUD sayings such as "Linux is
not ready for everyday desktop use," "Linux is OK for servers,
but [Windows/Mac OS X] are for desktops", and "Mac OS X is the only UNIX desktop
worthy of consideration" are not operational here. For my favorite
operating system, desktop usage is business as usual, and I'm glad it
is.
This is a critical review of the installation, setup and actual
performance of the
Mandrake distribution of the
GNU/Linux operating system, version 9.1, and comes as a second part of
OfB.biz's Mandrake review.
(You can see part I
here.) The review will cover these areas: (1) Installation
and install-related setup; (2) Post-installation system
administration; and (3) System performance. The review will end
with a general evaluation and will assign grades on relevant
areas.
In this second part of the
OfB Distribution Shootout, Eduardo Sánchez
considers the distribution who nabbed our first annual
Open Choice award last July -- Mandrake Linux. After finding Mandrake Linux 8.2 quite possibly the best
GNU/Linux distribution ever released, Sánchez probes deep into its successor to see if it
is a worthy replacement.