Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- Issue #72

[ Thanks to Phil Lavigna for this link. ]

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               Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter

               Issue #72  Friday, 27 December 2002

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Welcome to the Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- dedicated to 
keeping you up-to-date with the latest Mandrake-related news & info.

In this issue:

 * Top Story: MandrakeSoft's Future
 * New Product Release: Multi-Network Firewall
 * Upcoming Event: Desktop Linux Summit
 * Mandrake in the News: UnixReview.com and OFB.biz
 * MandrakeClub: Interviews -- Thus spoke François Bancilhon
 * BizCase: Donato's Pizza completes Mandrake Linux rollout
 * Tip of the Week: Easy URPMI configuration
 * Software Updates: MySQL, wget


Happy Holidays from everyone at MandrakeSoft!


Top Story
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MandrakeSoft's Future.
Despite the financial challenges of maintaining a fully open
source business model, MandrakeSoft has always followed the Free
Software approach, and will continue to do so. After strenuous efforts 
over the past 12 months, MandrakeSoft's business model is more solid 
than ever with a number of new announcements and exciting 
developments on the horizon. But while the medium and long-term 
prospects for the company are very good, we are experiencing short-term 
cash-flow difficulties which are impacting the progress of the upcoming 
release.
 
What can you do? If you haven't yet signed up for MandrakeClub, now is 
the perfect time to do so. The MandrakeClub offers great value with 
special services such as Java, Flash & StarOffice downloads, discounts 
on product and services, access to hundreds of commercial programs, 
plus much, much more. Please see this link for a detailed 
description of Club benefits.
 
We're also trying to complete our Increase of Capital. Please take a
moment to read this important message at the Mandrake Linux website.
 
We hope you consider purchasing a Club Membership for yourself or as a 
gift. With your help, 2003 can be a  great year.


New Product
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Multi-Network Firewall has been released.
MandrakeSoft's new Multi-Network Firewall (MNF) is one of the most 
feature-rich firewall products currently available on the market.

This all-in-one, easy to use package offers high-end features such as:
- Firewall
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
- Intrusion Detection
- Traffic Management functions

Learn more about the Multi Network Firewall.
MNF is available now at MandrakeStore.


Upcoming Event
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Desktop Linux Summit.
MandrakeSoft is proud to be a sponsor of the upcoming "Desktop Linux 
Summit" which will be held in San Diego, CA from Feb 20-21, 2003.
Produced by the good folks at desktoplinux.com, the summit is billed 
as "The First Conference devoted to Linux on the Desktop."

The Desktop Linux Summit is the inaugural multi-vendor event that was 
developed to serve the informational needs of those exploring a switch 
to Linux on the desktop - for corporate and home users. This group 
includes IT and business executives/managers, academic leaders, open 
source community members and home users. This conference is geared to 
decision makers who are currently evaluating Linux for use in their 
home, schools and businesses.

Learn all the details.


Mandrake in the News
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UnixReview.com -- Review: Mandrake Linux 9.0.
The famous Marcel Gagné takes a look at 9.0:
"It is easy to install, easy to use, and friendly. With its great 
collection of games, desktop productivity and office applications, as 
well as 3D and multimedia support, it makes the transition from Windows 
pretty painless."
"For the businesses out there, the friendliness of the Mandrake desktop 
makes it a great transitional tool. Given that Mandrake Linux is Linux, 
it's also an excellent server solution."

OFB.biz -- Duval Clears Up MNF Controversy.
The "Open for Business" website hosts an interview with MandrakeSoft 
co-founder Gaël Duval:
"Newsletter72Translations/Timothy R. Butler: What would you say are the key advantages of MNF 
over other firewall solutions such as Smoothwall or SuSE Linux Firewall?
Gaël Duval: Compared to both these products, Mandrake Multi Network 
Firewall is a more up to date technology. For instance, it's based on 
Linux 2.4, not 2.2. The MNF also comes with VPN and proxy in [the] 
standard [setup]."


MandrakeClub
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Interviews: Thus spoke François Bancilhon -- CEO of MandrakeSoft.
Recently posted are the responses to your questions from last week's 
"Ask Mandrake" session with François Bancilhon.

Donators are dead, long live alumni!
MandrakeClub recently introduced a new category of users called 
"alumni"Newsletter72Translations/. Alumni users are MandrakeClub members who don't renew their 
membership. All former members can now keep their alumni membership 
as long as they keep coming to MandrakeClub from time to time. Merry 
Christmas from MandrakeClub!

Not yet a Mandrake Club member? To learn more, please visit:
http://mandrakelinux.com/en/club/


Business Case of the Week
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Donato's Pizza completes rollout of point-of-sale applications.
At Donato's Pizza Inc., a 150-restaurant chain based in Columbus, Ohio, 
the cash registers, along with the terminals used to take phone orders, 
have been running Linux since February.

"Newsletter72Translations/Early in 1999, the pizza chain began testing the Mandrake distribution 
of Linux. 'When that passed with flying colors, Donato's ported its 
homegrown point-of-sale application to Linux, a process that took two 
programmers a couple of months', says Randy Cuckler, Donato's manager 
of technical services. He said that they have just completed a rollout 
of their point-of-sale application on MANDRAKE Linux. They purchased 
the package at a retailer in the US, and decided to use it for their 
new platform. Service calls have been reduced by 75% per day with the 
new Linux system."

For many more examples of Mandrake in the workplace, visit MandrakeBizCases.


Tip of the Week
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Easy URPMI configuration.
Have you ever wanted to add a new source of Mandrake packages, but 
weren't quite sure of the exact commands? An automated web-based tool 
is now available to give you the correct syntax for setting up URPMI 
(the automated software management system).

1) Head on over to http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon/urpmiweb.php
2) Select your Mandrake system version number (7.2 - 9.0)
3) Select a source (official and unofficial packages) and a mirror
4) Press 'send'
5) The exact command for adding the package source is displayed at the 
bottom of the page
6) Paste the command in a terminal (after logging in as root with the 
'su' command) and hit 'Enter'
7) Open the Software Installer in the Mandrake Control Center and 
browse the new packages that are now available for installation
8) Have fun!


Software Updates
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9.0 software updates have been released for:

MySQL -- fixes multiple vulnerabilities
wget -- fixes directory traversal vulnerability

View the complete list at MandrakeSecure.net.

Related Stories:

• Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- Issue #71(Dec 22, 2002)
• Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- Issue #70(Dec 02, 2002)
• Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- Issue #69(Nov 25, 2002)
• Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter -- Issue #68(Nov 18, 2002)