Mandrakelinux Community Newsletter #101

Mandrakelinux and Conectiva announce merger
The biggest news this week is the merger of Mandrakesoft with the #1 South American Linux vendor, Conectiva. Mandrakesoft is buying all of Conectiva's shares in a stock swap which will create a new, truly international Linux vendor. Conectiva's enterprise connections and know-how in South America and particularly Brazil will give a strong boost to Mandrakesoft's enterprise development, and its research and development abilities will combine with Mandrakesoft's to produce a strong source of open source innovations. Decisions have not yet been made on the form of the product line-up that the new company will produce, nor on the name it will take, but we'll be sure to bring the news to you as soon as it's available. You can read the announcement of the merger here.

Mandrakelinux 10.2 Beta 3 released
The development of the new Mandrakelinux continues with the release of Mandrakelinux 10.2 beta 3. A third beta was not originally planned, but has been added to further ensure the stability of the release. Important things to test at this point include the automatic mounting of USB devices, and Chinese and Japanese input. You can read the announcement on the Mandrakeclub here and get downloading by FTP or BitTorrent.

Mandrakelinux 10.2 Beta 1 for PPC
PowerPC users don't need to feel left out of the 10.2 development process - thanks to the hardworking PowerPC contributors, beta 1 of Mandrakelinux 10.2 for PowerPC is available too! Lots is new with this release, most significantly support for the new G5 Macs. You can read the release notes here and get downloading in the usual places. And anyone out there who's been tempted to try out the new Mac Mini but is worried about leaving their Mandrakelinux behind should be happy to know that both 10.1 and 10.2 run well on the little machine!

The media on the merger
The Mandrakesoft / Conectiva merger has been widely and favourably reported in the media. CNet says "the consolidation will help give the combined company more heft". The UK magazine PC Pro remarked upon Mandrakesoft's "Phoenix-like rise from the ashes" and said "The deal also improves the company's standing in comparison with its bigger brothers Red Hat and Novell's SUSE". The deal was reported on many other high-profile sites including Linux Today and Slashdot.

Linux Format picks Mandrakelinux 10.1 for best distribution
The UK magazine Linux Format rounded up fifteen distributions for its January issue. The winner? Mandrakelinux 10.1! The article itself is not online, but Distrowatch has a detailed write-up of the write-up here. Mandrakelinux was picked out for having "the best installation and configuration tools on the market" and because "we can breeze through a Mandrakelinux install with our eyes closed". We can only agree!

Working on Mandrakelinux
The popular site NewsForge has been running a series called 'My Workstation OS' encouraging people to write in and describe their favourite operating system to work in. Gary Maxwell picked Mandrakelinux, and his article is here. His reasons? "For ease of use, excellent support, and up-to-date packaging, Mandrake is the best desktop going."

Mandrakeclub interviews Wobo
Following its interview with Warly last week, this time the Mandrakeclub interviewed Wobo - otherwise known as Wolfgang Bornath, one of the longest standing Mandrakelinux contributors. Find out more about his history with Mandrakesoft, his life, and his secret past with OS/2 Warp over on the Club.

Perl.com interviews Rafael Garcia-Suarez
In case you didn't know, Rafael Garcia-Suarez maintains perl and the urpmi tools for Mandrakelinux. As you can imagine, this makes him something of a perl guru, and perl.com decided to pick his brains for the benefit of its readers. Rafael has a sharp sense of humour, too - when asked what tools Mandrakesoft uses to do automated testing of graphical Perl applications, Rafael's answer revealed the secret of Mandrakesoft's success: "Er, interns?" Read more shocking revelations on the life of a perl hacker here!

New Country Manager in Italy
Hervé Jezequel has been appointed as Mandrakesoft's new Country Manager for Italy. He brings with him more than twenty years of professional experience in the IT sector, of which the last fourteen have been with Prologue Software. Hervé has a strong background in sales and international experience, including eight years of experience as Italian affiliate manager and ten years of experience in channel sales development. Mandrakesoft believes that Hervé's experience in dealing with the Italian culture and developing channel sales, along with his presence in Italy, will allow us to have a better feel for the market and help us be more responsive to the needs of Italian customers. Good news for Hervé, Italy and quite possibly the world! Send any questions about Mandrakesoft products in Italy right here.

Mandrakesoft at the Linux Days trade show in Germany
From March 10th to March 14th, the Linux Days trade show will be held in Lörrach, Germany (near Basel on the French / Swiss / German border), and Mandrakesoft will be there. Mandrakesoft's Till Kamppeter will be at the Mandrakesoft booth on behalf of Linux printing, and Wolfgang Bornath - alias wobo - will be at the booth presenting Mandrakelinux and Move, including an early peek at Mandrakelinux 10.2. Members of the Mandrakeuser.de community site will be helping out with the booth and installing Mandrakelinux for visitors, and many products including Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official and Move will be on sale. Make sure to visit! You can read more about the show on the official site, here.

Protect your Mandrakelinux!
As always, regular upgrading is essential to keep your Mandrakelinux system healthy and happy. Since the last newsletter, packages including KDE, squid and PostgreSQL have had important security fixes, so make sure to run MandrakeUpdate regularly! And of course, there's always Mandrakeonline for automated and scheduled updates. Laziness and security - who could resist that combination?

Get your retail therapy here!
And finally, Christmas bonus still burning a hole in your pocket? Or is your wallet full of little red envelopes from the Chinese New Year? Whatever the source, where better to spend your money than the Mandrakestore? Currently, the GlobeTrotter - a Lacie mobile hard drive with Move preinstalled - is available at a special discount for just €149.90! Hurry over to the store now to find this and many other bargains.