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Mandriva Linux 2006 Review
Anonymous Coward writes "In light of the many misunderstandings about Linux, software repositories and installation of packages, part one of this season's Mandriva Linux 2006 review includes an extensive background article about it. It explains why the nature of Free Software leads to a more userfriendly software installation setup for Linux distributions in general, as compared to proprietary systems such as the current desktop market leader. The process is illustrated with Mandriva Linux tools. This first part of the Mandriva Linux 2006 review also contains information on the installation and benchmark figures against previous Mandriva/Mandrake products and much more"
I thinks it's a very good idea to describe the softwares installation process under linux, which may be puzzling at first to grasp when coming from windows but is really a no brainer afterwards.
As for the online documentation that the article describes, it is contained in the distribution, just install with the "Software Packages Installation wizard" those packages :
mandriva-doc-Starter-fr
mandriva-doc-Drakxtools-Guide
mandriva-doc-Command-Line
mandriva-doc-Server_Conf_Guide
The first 2 being the most importants for the beginner. Once installed, they will be accessible in the documentation menu.
Also, if you need help and support afterwards, go to the mandrivaclub forums, you don't need to be a paying member to post there, you just have to register a login as in any online forum.
It is a community driven forum, yet with the en/us forum admin being a paid mandriva employee, an uber help machine and an "original doom" speed freak.
http://forum.mandrivaclub.com/
The process of installing Windows is long and complicated compared to most Linux and even BSD distros I've tried.
And instead of getting easier with each new version its getting more difficult. The last time I installed it a few months ago I had to spend 10 minutes on the phone punching codes in and then listening to a voice generate me an activation key. And since I called from Sweden the message was in Swedish. Nice one. You think normal serial codes are annoying? Now that was annoying. Enter your serial code, Bork Bork!
What's more, Windows typically does a worse job at auto-configuring than Linux. I remember a few months ago I couldn't even install Windows XP SP-1 which cost me $300 on a machine because the new hard drive I bought were serial ATA and I didn't have a floppy drive to load the 'special drivers'. Since it was a computer I was building on a budget, I refused to buy a floppy drive just so I can load some whack drivers. I mean, I haven't used a floppy drive since 1996.
Guess what... a standard Debian Linux CD-ROM which I downloaded and burned for free could see and format the Serial ATA drives with no problem. It got all my drivers right as well because it just automatically downloaded the latest versions as necessary from one of about 100 mirrors around the world.
As for software, a Windows installation can take a whole day and cost thousands of dollars as you install your productivity applications and whatnot each of them with a separate serial code and a reboot of your computer. With BSD or Linux distros you just pick the apps you want and they install and auto-configure along with the rest of the operating system. I think I rebooted my Debian box one time when I was editing my FSTAB file.
That, my friend, is what is so unfriendly with a Windows install. It takes longer, it is tedious, and loads up a bunch of marketing crap that maybe 5% people think they want. Oh yeah, and you have to speak Swedish if you install Windows in Sweden. So no traveling, okay?
OK, I hope you're not serious about this (or trolling, for that matter)... Linux does EXACTLY the same, if not even more so: most distro's confront you with a text-based installation process at the beginning as well and don't even get me started about partitioning, because that is one of the most terrifying things someone new to Linux can be confronted with (the partitioning part of Windows XP is far less complicated than the partitioning part of the installation of an average Linux distribution).
I don't see a lot of difference on a new install with fresh software, in fact Windows has the advantage because it usually installs and just plain works with no treaking. If everything works without tweaking, a Linux install can be easier, but in my experiance, there is usually some piece of hardware that causes headaches in a Linux installation. It doesn't matter that the reason for the problem is lack of drivers from the hardware manufacturer, all that matters to the user is that he has problem that he didn;t in Windows.
On the 2nd, 3rd, 4th ... time the OS is installed, Linux installations start to have some real advantages. I just reinstalled Orifice XP in a 4 year old notebook computer for the 3rd or 4th time, this time because I replaced the hard drive. Everytime, it gets to be bigger job. It's re-enter the silly bazillion digit authorization number (assuming you can still find it), download and install a big arsed batch of updates, dowload and install a 90+ meg service pack 2, then download and install the next big batch of security patches etc. Then search the web to find out how to get rid of some of the crap the XP automatically loads and starts running for you.
By comparison, to reload a Linux flavor after a hard drive change, you get the revision of the distribution you want and just load it. Chances are it, unlike Windows, will be easier to reload than it was the first time because Linux distros are fairly rapidly improving their user freindliness while Windows loading is a bit more user hostile than it used to be. Then on top of that, office software and a bunch of other usefull stuff gets loaded in less time than it takes to just get the Windows OS loaded.
There _are_ repositories for the main and contrib packages for mandrake 9.2 on most mirrors; for e.g. mirrors.usc.edu still has mandrake 9.2 packages. However, no official updates exist from mandriva for versions older than 10.0.
Windwos XP install is not directly unfriendly, but compared to Mandriva Linux install (and most other distros), a couple of issues stand out:
1. Time to install; Windows XP takes on average ~1-2 hours to install the OS and install all the drivers for motherboard, graphics card and so on. Mandriva takes on average 20 minutes, and is then configured with all drivers including NVidia/ATI 3d drivers and everything set up to go.
2. User interaction required; XP requires constant interaction during said install, to enter information, make choices, reboot and insert CDs. Mandriva requires a few choices first, the installation starts, and you can go away for 15 minutes and come back when everything is all set. One reboot to be up and running.
3. Functionality; XP, after said install, has the bare minimum requirements for an OS. If you want any more functionality, you need to spend lots of extra time and effort to install lots of software. Mandiva is all set up with office software, photo-software (manipulation and album software), games, calendaring, messaging, email, internet and most everything you need. All included in the 20 minutes (you can manage to make the install take up to 40 minutes, but then you install everything you can including server software and all).
All in all, I have installed quite a few of both, and I do not think you can compare the two. Setting up a windows machine is half a days work, while Mandriva is maybe one hour for everything including updates. In addition, the process of upgrading / reinstalling is much easier because of the separation of user data in the home folder.
...and in those cases, there is Autopackage.
The difficulty in installing some software is not the fault of Linux - it's just that maybe the developers haven't got around to making a decent distro-agnostic installer. Oolite-Linux is *not* distributed with any Linux distro, but it is very easy to install - download the autopackage, and run it. An Autopackage is basically an archive wrapped in a shell script that bootstraps the entire process - including getting the autopackage management infrastructure if your distro doesn't have it, and resolving dependencies if there are any to be resolved. Autopackages can either be installed in a GUI or in a terminal window. Superficially, it looks similar to the InstallShield-style Windows installers (but it does quite a bit more, such as dependency resolution, and can install programs quite happily as a non-administrative user where this makes sense, for example, you can choose to install Oolite-Linux system wide or in your home directory).
Autopackage is fairly new, but it's picking up popularity:
http://www.autopackage.org/
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The bigger issue here is that most people re-installing WinXP these days on personal computers do not use a standard hologram CD. They use a OEM customized recovery CD or recovery partition hidden on their hard drive. In those cases the OEM has already made most of the difficult decisions, and the user may be asked only to pick a timezone and an initial password - nothing but that. The perception of Windows being easier to install persists for this reason.
This is not a defense of Microsoft, but if we're going to argue that Windows is just as hard/easy to install as Linux, we should take into account the experience most end users actually have and frame our arguments in that context.
I really have to come to Mandriva's defense on this one. My experience was completely the opposite of yours except for one point: I too installed Mandriva 2006 on my laptop (a Compaq Presario X1030US) mainly because of the advertised support for Centrino. It installed very smoothly, and the Centrino does indeed work wonderfully (even though I did have to point it to the correct file first).
KDE looks great with the included interfaces, WINE runs c-evo (my favorite strategy game) nearly perfectly with a single interface tweak (see the September/October forum for details) and all the other software I use (OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Gaim, Dia, Netbeans, etc.) was either included with the install or installed and worked with minimal effort. Battery life seems comparable to running under Windows and my widescreen display (1280x800) was correctly detected during installation. The system is quite responsive and runs speedily enough for me.
So I'm guessing your problems are laptop-specific and, I propose, not representative of Mandriva 2006 as a whole. I'm sorry you had such trouble, but I hope that others aren't turned off; it's working great for me. :-)