[wellylug] Ruminations

Damon Lynch damon at photo.geek.nz
Wed Apr 14 11:58:56 NZST 2004


On Wed, 2004-04-14 at 11:44, David Antliff wrote:

> Correct me if I'm wrong please (I haven't used Mandrake for years) - my
> understanding is that Mandrake actually consists of two different versions
> - a 100% 'free' version (the online downloadable edition) and the
> commercial distribution, which contains non-free code. I was referring to
> the commercial version.

That is correct.  

> 
> Non-free programs are also available for Gentoo/Debian etc of course, so I
> should not lump 'free' Mandrake in with Xandros/SuSE, which do contain
> closed-source programs as part of the base installation (there's no option
> to leave out these components when installing, as far as I know).

Yes, please do not lump them in together (although hasn't Suse changed
recently? :)


>  however one reason I like Gentoo is
> that it gives you much finer-grained control over what you have installed.
> This fits my own personal definition of 'bloat avoidance' and why I find
> Mandrake and many of the 'desktop' distributions 'bloated'.

I think it is a "personal definition".  Like many other distros, it is
possible to install Mandrake in minimal way, with no Gnome or KDE for
instance.  The Mandrake config tools do not depend on them (they depend
on largely on perl/GTK).   Personally I find the installer and the urpmi
family of tools give me enough control over what I want to install or
not, but I understand that this will not fit everyone's desires or
needs.  And that of course is a wonderful attribute of free software --
the ability to choose and deviate from the norm or mainstream.  On this
I hope we totally agree :)

Damon





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