"Mandrake Linux 8.1 represents a significant step
toward a serious, reliable alternative to Microsoft Windows' server
and desktop operating systems. This latest version offers numerous
server-based features that IT managers will find extremely
attractive, and invaluable support features for system
administrators, as well as an extremely user-friendly desktop
environment, loaded with numerous applications and utilities.
Mandrake 8.1 is one of the most technologically advanced Linux
releases on the market. The product uses the "enterprise" kernel
2.4.8 and supports SMP systems (globally limited to a maximum of 32
CPUs by NR_CPUS in include/linux/threads.h) and more than 1GB of
RAM. With these kernel-level features, Mandrake 8.1 can handle
computationally intensive tasks and can run on high-end server
hardware. (For compatibility with older applications, the 2.2.10
kernel is also available.)
If Linux is to make serious inroads in mission-critical server
environments, it must offer journalized file system (JFS) support.
A JFS is important for mission-critical business environments, as
it provides a high level of data integrity and helps to reduce
downtime due to data corruption or hardware failure. While other
vendors of Linux operating systems have been slow to adopt
journalized file systems, Mandrake 8.1 supports several, including
Ext3, ReiserFS, XFS and JFS . Such support gives IT managers who
are evaluating Mandrake versus other Linux OSes (or Windows) an
additional reason to chose Mandrake as a mission-critical server
OS."
