What Can Mandriva Linux 2006 Mean for Home Users?

sitor writes "What can Mandriva Linux 2006 mean for home users? is an article giving an extensive explanation about the pro's and con's of using a linux distribution such as Mandriva Linux 2006. It was written with people in mind that are in doubt whether linux might be something for them or not. It aims to inform them in a neutral way, understandable to newbies. Next time you have someone asking you questions about Linux not knowing whether they should try, you can just direct them to this article."

Comments

Re:With all respect to Mandriva....

[ajs318]

The problem is that Fedora is distributed from the USA, which allows stupid things to be patented. In Europe and Britain, the MP3 patents are null and void; and it is quite OK to distribute MP3 playback and recording software in those places. {As an aside, if they ever do allow software patents in the UK or Europe, all the illegally-granted patents won't automatically come into force: patent holders will have to reapply for them, and may not get them on the grounds of prior art or obviety.} Likewise in Europe and Britain, if you own a DVD then you are legally entitled to do whatever is necessary to watch it on your own equipment.

Too early for Monday

[tacocat]

Oh God!! I was't really prepared to wade through a flame war over distros this morning. What a bunch of freaking zealots! You distro fanatics make me want to puke.

I started on Slackware because someone said it's a good distro to use if you want to learn what's really going on. I stand by that statement today. If you want to learn Linux then don't use some mamby-pamby cute distro. If you want to be a user of Linux then use whatever most resembles whatever floats your boat. Some might argue it's best to use something that looks most like Windows. Some wouldn't.

I ran into an intersting discussion in the real world this week that I thought pertinent. The conclusion goes as follows:

• If you want a great GUI, use Mac OS-X as there is nothing even close to it.
• If you want a simplified server then you can choose from RedHat, SuSE, or a dozen others.
• If you want a highly customizable server then you can choose from the less pretty distros of Debian, Slackware, Gentoo where changes are tightly controlled and lightly managed by the package manager.
• If you want to have a workstation (any OS) that is both a simplified interface and ultimately customizable then you won't find it.

From a practical point: most *nix servers that are not Linux based (HP/Sun/IBM) have little in the way of cute interface management tools. On these heavy lift platforms the configuration tool of choice seems to be vi more than a GUI. I don't think anyone has been able to surpass this customization and I'm not certain that it is a requirement that they do. If you don't understand the workings of the applications then a GUI interface will only permit you to do damage.

It's very likely that my proposed list of distro's will create a lot of controversy, but first consider where you sit on the spectrum between ultimate customization of the machine and "I'll take what I get" user.

On my new centrino notebook, everything worked.

[gukin]

Six months ago, I bought a Toshbia tecra S2 (it had a wicked 6600 Go video card!) and before I even booted M$, I installed Mandriva 2006 December edition (I'm a club member) Here's my experiences:

1. Boot it up, resize the NTFS partition; windows still booted afterwards.
2. Install the usual stuff.
3. Observe that the wireless NIC, the wired NIC, the video, the sound AND the modem all work under mdv2006.

No hassles, no "recompiling the kernel", no endless searches on line; install and go.

Yeah I can just boot-n-go with M$ but I happen to like Linux, I don't like windows.

If someone had the same laptop with a dead HDD, they didn't have recovery media and they didn't want to spend $150 on a new OS, mandriva would at least get their laptop functional.