My new blog is now online!

---

My OLD BLOG:

Homepage of Gaël Duval, creator of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux) - Creator of Ulteo

My PC is 100% Microsoft Free - and you?

What do you expect to find here? :-)

If you are interested in operating-systems, go to www.mandrivalinux.com and www.mandriva.com - it's about the Linux distribution that I created in 1998 [I have retrieved the original announce on the KDE mailling-list and the original announce on Slashdot]. It's the best Linux solution to replace Windows (Me, 2000, XP...). It runs on x86 architectures (PC), and PPC (mostly Apple iMac/iBook). I'm sure you're going to love it! Here are some thoughts about Mandrakesoft's purpose...

"Gaël was part of the team that helped make GNU/Linux useful as a desktop operating system for ordinary, non-geek people like me. He's still one of the staunchest and most realistic Linux advocates I know, and deserves a lot more praise than he gets for his role in spreading the use of Linux and free/open source software in general." -- Robin Miller, Editor in Chief at OSTG.

"Mandrake wasn't the first Linux distro I tried, but it was the first one I bought in a box from the Co-Op in Austin and the first one which went easily onto my computer of the time. Making Red Hat Linux (and Free software generally) easier to install and use was and is a brilliant idea -- thanks, Gaël, for both producing and inspiring change in this regard. Red Hat and every other distro has benefited from it, too." -- Timothy Lord, Slashdot Editor.

"Gaël understands one thing that most FOSS leaders don't - "how to scratch his brothers itch". His vision and leadership at Mandrakesoft, as a champion for the user, raised the bar for the entire movement. Users and businesses around the world owe him a great deal of gratitute for his amazing contributions." -- Henri Poole, Member at CivicActions LLC, Board of Directors at Free Software Foundation, Board of Directors at Affero Inc.

March 16th, 2006 - Update - Last message about Mandriva - Here is an explanation about the situation. Mirror if needed. I want to thank all people who are sending me support messages. Sorry I can't answer to everybody, but I'm reading them all! Now, I'm going to concentrate on my new project Ulteo, you can write to me at gduval at ulteo dot com. Important update! my former CEO François Bancilhon has asked that all my email messages received at gduval@mandriva.com should be redirected internally at Mandriva (without noticing me at all), so I can't read them anymore. Please use my new email address instead.
March 13th, 2006 - Update - Since the information has leaked, I will post a message in the next few days on this website (or mirror) about why this is the end of the Mandriva story for me, and what's next.
February 8th, 2006 - Need a good Linux laptop? - It's not easy to find a good laptop: some of them are quite expensive and not powerful at all in the end. Some others are nice and affordable! On the other hand, a laptop is of course better when it's fully supported by Linux :-) I was quite disapointed one year ago with a 1500 euro/1800 USD laptop which is not as fast as its 2,4 Ghz P-IV should be. Recently, I looked for a laptop for my wife who is studying neurosciences and basically needs it for ImageJ, and office applications. As she is very used to Linux, Openoffice.org and Firefox (eh eh :-)), she wanted a nice and not expensive laptop with full Linux support. After spending hours looking for the best model, we finally choose the Acer 3003 wlmi which can be found for around 800 euro/1000 USD with either 512 or 1024 MB RAM, a nice wide-screen, DVD Dual layer burner and a Ultra ATA hard-disk. I installed Mandriva Linux 2006 with a bit of anxiety, but finally, everything worked out of the box and fast! Only the Wifi support seems to need a little work with NDiswrapper, but she doesn't need it. And ACPI support is broken but a workaround is available. So after a few hours playing with this affordable laptop, I could really recommend it. Only two cons: it ships with Windows XP by default (we have to find a way to get it reimbursed!), and there is no DRI (Direct Rendering) support for its videocard (bye bye TuXRacer!). By the way: we had considered two other options with - apparently good Linux support: the TOSHIBA M40-331 (looks like performant, but a little too expensive), and the ACER 3613WLMI 80 (a little too cheap though).
February 2nd, 2006 - Kama sutra virus: the ultimate and free solution - Best wishes with the Kama Sutra virus to all Microsoft Windows users: the 3rd February is going to be a great party for you! Anyway, the good news is that an ultimate anti-virus against Kama Sutra (and all other viruses) is already available... Don't delay Update quickly and you won't ever have any issue with viruses (and it's free)!
October 19th, 2005 - my own Mandriva's FAQ is available online. If you have other questions, ask me (gael at indidea dot org) and I'll answer them in this document.
September 22nd, 2005 - Geomarketing GeoIP is a great tool to convert an IP address to a country. On a webserver it can help generating dynamic content accordingly to the visitor's country, for instance to adapt a commercial offer or the language to use for the visitor. GeoIP was already easy to handle through PHP, but for systems such as Oasis (a banner server for the web), it's needed to get through Apache logs to get the country information. As a result, I recompiled and adapted a mod_geoip module package (initially designed for RH) for Mandriva LE2005. After a few tests it seems to work correctly. Here you can get the packages as binary RPM, and source RPM. Maybe it will go to Mandriva contribs soon. By the way, in contribs there already is an geoip module but it seems to be very outdated and doesn't seem to be designed to work with Maxmind database. Aditionnally I didn't succeed to make it work :)
August 19th, 2005 - D'ya need a Kat? Kat (like Beagle) is an indexer for your Linux system. It will index all your documents and let you easily retrieve them through a Google-like search engine. Kat is likely to appear on the desktop of Mandriva Linux 2006 which is scheduled for september 2005. But if you run LE2005 and want to try Kat, I compiled the package for you: kat-0.6.2-4mdk.i586.rpm (binary, needed for installation), kat-0.6.2-4mdk.src.rpm (initial source), libkat0-0.6.2-4mdk.i586.rpm (binary lib, needed for install prior to the main binary package), libkat0-devel-0.6.2-4mdk.i586.rpm (for devel only).
April 12th, 2005 - the coolest toy on the earth? Do you know the x-UFO ? It's a new toy, designed by two young German guys. It's a 4-fan vtol R/C machine, for only 129 euro! Will be available by the end of May, pre-orders are opened at Amazon.de.
April 8th, 2005 - "Mandrake" July, 23rd 1998-April 7th, 2005 "Mandrake" is dead, long-life "Mandriva"! Due to the recent merger with Conectiva, and to escape the threat of Hearst Corporation who sued us since year 2000 because they own the trademark "Mandrake The Magician" (!), Mandrake Linux is now Mandriva (pronounced "Man-dree-vah"!) Linux/ Some people are unhappy with the new name, but it's very natural: at the begining, many people complained about my choice of the "Mandrake" name because it sounded horrible for them. David Coursey, a writer for ZDNet, even wrote "who would use a Linux distribution called Mandrake?" (he said the same for KDE). So my bet is that Mandriva naturally become associated with our Linux products, and that people will get used to it very quickly! Who would have bet on "Apple", "Sun" or... "Micro-Soft"?
February, 6th 2005 - Always a lot of work for Mandrakesoft. The past 4 years have been hard, very hard sometimes, but this time, a reward has come since the company is really going better with numerous development opportunities. The initial purpose of Mandrakelinux was to provide a Linux alternative to Windows (on the desktop), as easy to use as possible. A this time, in 1998, it was still only a dream and Microsoft was just mostly ignoring Linux. Times have changed a lot as Free Software improved in many ways on the desktop. The biggest satisfaction now is to see all these "kids" jumping into the Linux & OSS wagon! They can learn a lot and improve quickly by themselves, thanks to all the Free toolkits/documentation, and Internet. Back to the 90s, this was typically a difficult side of computing, when under DOS/Windows and Mac you couldn't gain access easily to development tools or technical books. It's been very frustrating for me and my generation when I was 15, and as a result, this has been a key factor factor which lead me to Linux and Free Software, and then which encouraged me to create Mandrakelinux and Mandrakesoft. Therefore I'm really very pleased to have taken part actively to this adventure, although it's obvious that a lot remains to achieve in this field where expectations from users and customers are huge, and Mandrakesoft - and others as well - keep on working hard to improving the product & service offer to fit the needs, by sacrifiying nothing or the least possible to Free Software ideals. Nevertheless, by looking at and helping people who are using personal computers (under Linux or Mac/Windows...), I've been more and more convinced that there is a big issue with the way/the concept the computer has been used for 30 years, unless being a specialist. This is true in particular for basic uses of PCs and well-determined tasks. These thoughts lead me to a few simple ideas that I will soon start to experiment through a new project of mine. To be continued.
Jan 11th, 2004 - Lot, lot, lot of work as usual for Mandrake, but things are getting really better. In 2003 I also imagined a new Mandrakelinux product/concept: Mandrakemove which is curently gaining a good popularity. This is the first time I really design a new product since the first releases of Mandrakelinux. It's an interesting product because really everyone can use without any learning phase. It's also a new way of thinking computer use because with MandrakeMove, you bring your system (OS on the CD + data on the USB key) in your pocket, and benefit from any PC you meet on your road. It's a light and inexpensive replacement for a laptop! ;)
Aug 5th, 2003 - Mandrakelinux has quietly turned 5 on july 23rd. Happy birthday, Baby! :-)
May 29th, 2003 - For us, European people, a page of history is currently being written with the creation of a Constitution! Historical fact without any doubt, and everyone can follow this process which is certainly going to strongly influence our destiny: http://european-convention.eu.int/.
January 6th, 2003 - Here is a great article about Windows & Microsoft products. All Windows XP users should read this article.
September 10th, 2002 - Recently I had an interview with Timothy R. Butler of "Open for business". It's a special interview because Tim brought points and paradoxes that nobody dared to ask me before :-) Read it and you'll learn much about Mandrake's beginning - it's just been published.
October 23rd, 2001 - I've not written anything here for a long time! Not too much time since last march when we found out that we could have gone bankrupcy if we wouldn't have reacted quickly. It's hard to say that but we have learned one thing: never trust anybody to manage the company you have created. Now fears seems to be away. Mandrakelinux 8.0 and 8.1 have been good successes, we have refocused the company towards its original purpose : build a graphical-oriented and easy-to-use Linux system to the masses and earn money by selling services around. Also we went public on 31 july [see http://www.boursorama.com and look for symbol 4477] and it's a "funny" experience to watch the last quote of MandrakeSoft everyday. Actually I've learned that stock markets have nothing in common with reality. It's just group psychology and trends. Hey guys! Everybody says that MandrakeSoft is the nicest company in the world - don't you know that yet??? By the way, finally 28 years old is actually too young to write memories. I'll wait to see where we go with Mandrake, and I'd like to write a novel [you will never know about what :->] and come back more to music before.
August 24th, 2000 - Tired by the GNOME vs KDE wars, I have written an article called « Mandrakesoft calls for a cease-fire in the GNOME-KDE war: diversity is strength of Free-Software »
August 14th, 2002 - Months are going on, I've already turned 29, next time I'll abandon my twenties :-( It's not particularly the best time in my life. Many things have became difficult the latest 12 months, I mean mostly in my head. I don't know if it's me or the bad economical climate, all this blood around the world, all these children who die for no reason. This world seems to have entered a dark area. I hoped the beginning of the 21st Century would be more fun. Actually it's kinda boring for now.
February 09th, 2001 - Just received today is a book called « Rebel Code - Inside Linux and the Open Source revolution » written by Glyn Moody (the book is for sell here on Amazon.com). This book describes the Open-Source (silent) revolution and reports many anecdots about Linux, GNOME, KDE, Apache... I highly recommend this book - it shows exactly what Free-Software and Linux are and what the implications are. It's also very easy to read and has two pages about Mandrakesoft's early story :-)
January 30th, 2001 - It's been a long time I did not upgraded my homepage. I was very busy with several projects the last months. So just a few news: as I was requested often recently, in a few days I'm gonna put here the first part of the official Linux-Mandrake/Mandrakesoft story.
November 16th, 2000 - Last night I discovered that. You won't believe it: it's a real jet-turbin for R/C aircrafts! Price: around 3000 USD
November 9th, 2000 - I just received the NeXT Cube'030 (more than two months overseas!). First impression: the hardware is incredibly well designed. One power plug for everything, you power on/off with a key on the keyboard, you can extract the motherboard and the disks-rack very easily... PC hardware makers should take some lessons from this machine! The bad thing is that the B&W 17" screen is on its way to die. Another bad thing is that the HD doesn't want to boot and there is a very repetitive bad noise (BTW you wouldn't believe the 340Mb HD size: the biggest HD I ever seen!). So I plan to change the disk and reinstall trough the network using bootp/tftp. After all it's a Unix machine and has built-in ethernet port so it should work. The current problem is that I don't have any archive of the NeXTStep OS. It's not sold anymore of course and I can't find it anywhere on the net. So if anyone knows how to find that... If I don't find a NeXTStep (I'll do), I will have to boot NetBSD or Plan9 ;) (no way to use mklinux on this hardware with 68030 Motorala processor). Wait and see.
October 25th, 2000 - I discovered two very exciting things recently: The YOPY - It's an incredible PDA with a GSM link, a MP3 player, a DV camera, and... it's running Linux! Yopys are now available in Europe through TuxMedia. The flying-scooter is a project initiated by the NASA. I want mine :-)
September 29th, 2000 - I found an interesting tutorial about the « Strings » and « Superstrings » physics theory. As we all know, there are currently two main theory in physics: the relativistic theory (initiated by Albert Einstein) and the quantum theory (initiated, among others, by Louis De Broglie). But we are still missing a general theory that would unify all those theories in only one. The strings theory states that quarks would be composed of very small vibrating strings. A bit like a piano or a guitar string! This theory is beautiful but it has not been proved yet. In addition to this nice tutorial, there is an interesting website related to superstrings.
September 25th, 2000 - I took a small jet plane (the one on the picture here). Very cool at the beginning at take off and above the clouds, not very confortable *inside* the clouds...
September 21st, 2000 - I went to London for a meeting with journalists. I took the Eurostar (and I drunk a beer under the sea).
August 05th, 2000 - Just installed DSL today with an Alcatel speed touch modem at home. Works really great indeed! Had to use a patched pppt for this purpose. Of course I did not have any help from France Telecom: "We do not support Linux". I get more than 300 kbps for download, a permanent connexion and I can still use my phone line at the same time!. Not bad isn't it? :-) Also looked at some NeXT Cubes for sale at ebay.com. Maybe the dream will soon become a reality: I want to own a NeXT Cube! Update August 06: I've won the auction! NeXT'030 complete system with 17" monitor for around $200! :-)
September 18th, 2000 - I publicly replied to Bill. Once again Bill had some bad words for Linux & open-source software. As Linux exists because many of us - in the Linux community - think that Windows & Microsoft are bad, it was a good time for a reply. Here is my « Response to Bill Gates regarding ease-of-use with Linux and the Open Source model ».
August 04th, 2000 - I learned how to use ssh keys to connect to usual servers without entering a login/password each time and use is with XEmacs. Not very easy to set up but a real confort of use. (BTW, Thanx Chmouel!)

I love music and especially:

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Téléphone, Police, Cure, Air, Rolling Stones, Placebo, Belle and Sebastian, Stereolab, early Dire Straits ("Dire Straits", "Communiqué"), early Smashing Pumpkins ("Siamese dreams"), Sloy, Candie Prune, early David Bowie (until 80's), John Lenon, Jamiroquai...

I like Arts and abstract/modern Art in particular (Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rothko, Münch, Olivier Debré...)

I'm a big fan of Porsche 911. I also like very much the Peugeot 406 Coupé, V6 powered. Have a look at it, you will love it.

I'm also a big fan of french planes with « Delta wings »:

Concorde, the French/English world's fastest commercial plane, and also the most beautiful place ever built.

Mirage III C and Rafale... [DISCLAIMER: I'm not confortable with all uses made of those flying machines]

I have launched Cosmosonic.com a music-oriented discussion website (the English section is missing someone to manage it, contact me if you are interested) which is in fact a small company dedicated to music production.

The first band which has been produced by Cosmosonic is and electro-rock band called "Tokyo/Overtones". Their first record, called "the polar E.P." is for sale on Cosmosonic/eShop. You can also buy it and listen to extracts at Fnac.com and Amazon.fr.

You can send me an email in English or French.

lena a ab