Penguin Liberation Front lair. I've been using Linux Mandrake since its inception years ago (1996?) and it has steadily grown in functionality. One of the difficulties in RPM-based distributions like RedHat and Mandrake is the nightmare involved in upgrading RPMs or installing new software dependent on other RPMs. Inevitably, the process of upgrading or installing software required one to fish around for the dependent RPMs, which is no easy task. Since Linux Mandrake's 8 series, a new tool was introduced called urpmi. I didn't bother familiarizing myself with this wonderful tool until Mandrake 9.0. Enter the usefulness of the PLF after learning urpmi. Adding new sources for software (for RPMs) is easily outlined in the PLF's frontpage. And when I'm ready to install new software, all I need to do is type something like "urpmi gnapster" and urpmi goes through the sources to find the gnapster RPM and its dependencies, downloads them for me, and installs them without requiring me to do anything more. This functionality is comparable to Debian's apt-get tool and ultimately makes installing software even easier than in the Windows 9x/XP world. PLF has all the nice software packages that any Linux user would ever want, on top of repackaged software that make Mandrake even better (such as the freetype package for better looking fonts). Quickly commenting on Mandrake 9.0, I find it faster than Mandrake 8.2, but still not as stable. The urpmi access to 9.0 packages through PLF makes upgrading or using Mandrake 9.0 worthwhile. In closing, all I'd like to say is that I can't wait until 9.1 is released.
Posted by johnvu at February 22, 2003 10:22 PM