|  Mandrakelinux was created in 1998 with the goal of making Linux easier to use for everyone. At that time, Linux was already well-known as a powerful and stable operating system that demanded strong technical knowledge and extensive use of the "command line"; MandrakeSoft saw this as an opportunity to integrate the best graphical desktop environments and contribute its own graphical configuration utilities and quickly became famous for setting the standard in ease-of-use and functionality. With this innovative approach, MandrakeSoft offers all the power and stability of Linux to both individuals and professional users in an easy-to-use and pleasant environment. Thousands of new users are discovering Linux each and every day and finding it a complete replacement for their previous operating system. Linux as a server or workstation has no reason to be jealous of any other more established operating systems. The GPL license (General Public License) governs the development and redistribution of Mandrakelinux. This license provides everyone the right to copy, distribute, examine, modify and improve the system as long as the results of these modifications are returned to the community. It is this development model that allows Mandrakelinux Linux to collect the best ideas from developers & users from across the globe to result in a rich variety of techniques and solutions. |
| Installation, control and administration: Mandrake Linux uses the Mandrake Control Center for administration of Linux rather than using a text editor to change settings. It has many programs known as Drakes or Draks, collectively named drakxtools, to configure many different settings. Examples include MouseDrake to set up a mouse, DiskDrake to set up disk partitions and drakconnect (previously known as draknet but forced to change its name after a company of the same name complained) to set up a network connection. They are written using GTK+ and Perl, and most of them can run in both graphical and text mode. | Software: Mandrake Linux comes with several thousand software packages including many varieties of games, office software, servers, and Internet utilities. Optimization: From the ground up, Mandrake Linux was compiled for Pentium-class processors. As a result, Mandrake Linux provides more optimal performance to this CPU Architecture at the cost of being unusable by the 386 and 486 processors, a problem that rapidly faded out due to current CPU power and memory requirements of latest versions of the popular software. The provided kernel and glibc have enhancements for more recent processors. |
