[ Thanks to BeOpen
for this link. ]
“On June 6, 2000 after three beta releases MandrakeSoft
officially released their latest GNU/Linux distribution:
Linux-Mandrake 7.1 (Helium). GNULinux.com did a review of the
installation routine in the 2nd beta release and we were quite
impressed. So, when we heard (the day before) that the final
version was starting to appear on Mandrake mirrors we fired up the
cable modem and ftp clients. After several attempts we found a
mirror that was in the process of uploading the iso’s. To say
we were anxious is probably an understatement. However, this is
definitely no YAGROM (Mandrake’s own acronym that stands for “Yet
Another Good Review of Mandrake”)“
“The first thing we tried to look at with the final release of
7.1 was the automated upgrade. You’re supposed to be able to
upgrade Mandrake from distros dating back to the 5.x series. But,
this turned out to be a disappointment because the estimated
installation time climbed to over 11 hours. Thinking there might be
a flaw in the routine that estimates the time we let it run
unattended while working on another computer. After 20-30 minutes
we realized there was no flaw. Our upgrade had only progressed
about 5%. (Note: After some discussion amongst the GNULinux staff
it seems that this is common among most distros.)”
“Okay, by now you probably think we really hate Mandrake, right?
We still like their distro and have never had problems like this
with any of their previous releases (even the betas). So, a few
days later we did another fresh install. Guess what? We had none of
the problems listed above. So, we maybe we can chalk all this up to
bad luck.”