[ Thanks to Phil
Lavigna for this link. ]
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Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter
Issue #71 Thursday, 12 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:
* Newsletter Notice: HTML version now available
* Special Promotion: MandrakeSoft launches "OS Refugee Offer"
* What's Cookin' at MandrakeSoft? PPC Cooker marches on
* Financial Corner: Financial Summary for 2001/2002
* Mandrake in the News: MandrakeSoft CEO is glad to learn about Open Source
* MandrakeClub: The Latest "Ask Mandrake" series, plus Club Discount
* Business Case of the Week: Texas University adopts Mandrake Linux
* Software Updates: python, arts, devfsd, more
* Headlines from MandrakeForum
Newsletter Notice
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The Mandrake Linux Community Newsletter now offers an HTML version.
If you'd like to receive an HTML version of the newsletter in your
mailbox twice a month, just click the appropriate link at the bottom of
this page and we'll see that you receive it for the next issue.
Special Promotion
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MandrakeSoft launches "Operating System Refugee Offer."
For a limited time only, licensed owners of any PC operating system can
receive the #1 rated Mandrake Linux operating system for only $12.50
USD or 12.50 Euros.
Choose from either a complete 8.2 (or 8.1) PowerPack, or a Mandrake
Linux 9.0 Installation CD. Both offers include a voucher for $12.50
good towards the purchase of the complete Mandrake Linux 9.0 PowerPack
at MandrakeStore.com.
This is a great opportunity for folks who'd like to "test-drive"
Mandrake Linux before splurging on the most recent PowerPack.
What's Cookin' at MandrakeSoft
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Mandrake PPC marches on.
On December 5th, a new Installer ISO was released for PPC Cooker. The
graphical installer is now based on XFree4 in either native or
framebuffer mode. A number of modifications have been made to
accommodate OldWorld machines.
MandrakeSoft developer Stew Benedict adds: "Between my machines and
some data the folks on IRC provided with a small test program I put
together, we should have fairly good coverage for a number of machines.
Your feedback can help expand that coverage."
This is a nice chance to take an early peek at KDE 3.1 RC3, GNOME 2,
Mozilla 1.2, Evolution, OpenOffice 1.0.1, and many others.
Financial Corner
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MandrakeSoft Annual Financial Summary for 2001/2002.
MandrakeSoft has released its annual financial summary for the 2001/2002
fiscal year. During fiscal year 2001-2002, the company generated
consolidated revenues of 4.7 ME -- an increase of 31% over the previous
year. Online sales at MandrakeStore, OEM revenue, and revenue from
Mandrake Linux Users Club accounted for 42% of consolidated revenue,
compared to 11% in fiscal year 2001/02.
The complete announcement, including timeline charts and a short
analysis, is available online.
Mandrake in the News
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NewsForge.com -- MandrakeSoft CEO is glad to learn about Open Source.
NewsForge hosts an informative interview with MandrakeSoft's new CEO
François Bancilhon:
"Bancilhon is very much an experienced daddy.. uh...chief executive; he
founded and ran two technology companies - Arioso in the United States,
which is still in business, and O2 in France, which was acquired by
Ardent which was acquired by Ascential. He is a very smart man; he has
a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Michigan and he is big
into object-oriented databases. He started a research consortium that
built the O2 object-oriented database system and he is the author of
many books, articles and reports."
MandrakeClub
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Interviews: Ask Mandrake: François Bancilhon is our new CEO.
Thanks for all the great questions -- our latest interview "Ask the
CEO" is now closed. We'll post François Bancilhon's answers as soon as
they become available (most likely early next week).
Virtual Hosting, Collocation, and Dedicated Servers with 20% discount.
The New York Internet Company (NYI) is giving a 20% discount on Virtual
Hosting, Collocation, and Dedicated Servers to all Club members. This
offer is only valid for one month, so check out this story for
all the details.
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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Education/Research: Texas University uses Mandrake Linux in six
different areas.
Lee Burnside from Texas Tech University writes: "We use Mandrake Linux
for a variety of different functions, and although many departments
here still use RedHat, a lot have switched to Mandrake Linux in the
last year."
The University uses Mandrake Linux in the following areas:
1. WWW and FTP servers
2. Email services - Both secure IMAP and ESMTP, plus webmail
3. Mac, Windows and UNIX file and print services
4. Teaching - instruction in numerical analysis and physical modeling
5. General computing - open computer labs for the use of faculty,
graduate students and undergraduates.
6. Parallel computing - a few Linux Beowulf clusters used for research
in AMO physics (positron scattering), biophysics (cholesterol
diffusion) and solid state (defect studies in silicon lattices).
For many more examples of Mandrake in the workplace, see MandrakeBizCases.com.
Tip of the Week
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Most people are familiar with the Mandrake Software Manager for easily
installing and removing software packages. But many power-users prefer
the command-line version of this utility which can be much quicker to
use.
The commands for installing and removing software packages from the
command-line are: 'urpmi' (the 'i' is for 'install'), and urpme (the
'e' is for 'erase').
Example: In a terminal, use the 'su' (superuser) command to grant
yourself 'root' privileges. Then, to install the graphics preview
application 'gqview', enter 'urpmi gqview'. The CD tray will open and
the terminal will prompt you for the required CD. Then the package
is installed.
To remove that same application, enter 'urpme gqview'. In a matter of
seconds, the application is removed from the system without a trace.
For more information about this great utility, see MandrakeUser.org.
Software Updates
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9.0 software updates have been released for:
python -- fixes local arbitrary code execution vulnerability
arts -- fixes problems with destructive upgrade
devfsd -- fixes problem with mylex devices
windowmaker -- fixes buffer overflow vulnerability
galeon -- fixes problems in fullscreen mode
lm_sensors -- fixes off-by-one error
sendmail -- fixes smrsh insecurities
everybuddy -- fixes MSN and Yahoo support
View the complete list at MandrakeSecure.net.
Headlines from MandrakeForum
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Merging MandrakeForum and MandrakeClub.
The big discussion last week centered around Deno's plans to merge the
MandrakeForum and MandrakeClub websites. Learn about what he's got
planned for the near future:
Hey buddy, can you spare a cycle or two?
'neognomic' posts an update on the Folding@home and Genome@home teams.
"A short post in the MandrakeSoft Forum was all it took (Thanks Doc).
It appears that all that was needed was just to let you good folks know
about the University of Stanford's Pande Projects. Now, there are new
members joining almost every day. [...] As new members continue to join
and everybody continues to 'build', by Christmas, it could be 50,000 or
more completed work units!"
ATI eXpands Linux Driver Support.
'neognomic' writes: "A little while back I went to the ATI site to see
what support they had for Linux drivers. I had recently read a pretty
good review about the AIW Radeon 8500 but knew that Linux support from
ATI was sketchy at best even though XFree was doing a pretty good job
on their own. I was not disappointed as the support was still dismal. I
promptly and politely complained. This past week I went back to check
something(static) and everything had changed."
Read these and other stories at MandrakeForum.