Thanks Antonie B-J for the e-mail. The first beta of Mandrake 8.2 has not caused too much damage, and in fact proved to be quite tame, but still far from what we want to see under the name "8.2 final".
Very few "really ugly" bugs have been found in the first beta, and we have been able to concentrate on hardware recognition, improving the *drake* tools, and updating the packages. For more details about what has changed since the beta1, and what should be tested, please wait for the articles in the "test this" serial.
Special thanks goes to users who downloaded and tested the first beta, and reported the problems (and lack of problems) they found. Your contributions have been very helpful, and we are looking forwards to hear more from you during the second beta testing cycle.