Mandrake is a relatively recent distro which has fastly gained a good public response mostly for its ease of use and graphical oriented nature. First released the 23rd of July 1998 as the personal effort of Gaël Duval, based on RedHat Linux, is has gained immediate attention, enough to convince him to found Mandrake Soft in November 1998.
Besides the new releaes presented, freely downloadable for the Community Edition and commercial for the boxed or server editions, there is always an "under developement" snapshot called "cooker" which is nightly updated.
Mandrake Soft is quoted at US OTC market and the Paris Euronext Marché Libre, it has suffered a terrible 2003, risking bankruptcy, but after dramatic cost cuttings and better focus of high margin products and services, it seems to have recovered from the critic status and in March 2004 has exited from Chapter 11 like protection.
Chronology of Releases
Mandrake 5.1 Venice, 1998
Mandrake 5.2 Leeloo, 1998
Mandrake 5.3 Festen, 1999
Mandrake 6.0 Venus, 1999
Mandrake 6.1 Helios, 1999
Mandrake 7.0 Air, 2000
Mandrake 7.1 Helium, 2000
Mandrake 7.2 Ulysses, 2001
Mandrake 8.0 Traktopel, 2001
Mandrake 8.1 Vitamin, 2001
Mandrake 8.2 Bluebird, 2002
Mandrake 9.0 Dolphin, 2002
Mandrake 9.1 Bamboo, 2003
Mandrake 9.2 FiveStar, 2003
Mandrake 10.0 Community and Official, 2004
N/A N/A Cooker
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