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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."
Next time you have someone asking you questions about Linux not knowing whether they should try, you can just direct them to this article."
With all respect to Mandriva, I'd much rather just point them to ubuntu
(I feel I should make an OS X reference, but I just can't be bothered)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
It means no driver support, half-finished software, archaic text mode apps from the 1970s, a bloated buggy 2.6 kernel, definitely no games, and the idea that you're supporting a filthy French company.
That article is rubbish. Ubuntu is obviously the choice for first-time switchers, and is the most polished and accessible distribution for newbies and gurus alike. The article doesn't seem to have much of a grasp of the concepts of Linux, or say who would switch and why, and what they'd encounter. And as for paying for mandriva so that you can play DVDs. What the hell? Who wrote this crap? Sorry, nice idea, but better articles have been written before. I think a windows->linux wiki written by past, present, and future switchers would be a much more interesting idea.
Next time you have someone asking you questions about Linux not knowing whether they should try, you can just direct them to this article."
Oh, if only I could get back the time I've spent explaining Linux to neighbors and grandmothers! I've thrown away my life! I'll never get those preciouos 43 seconds back!
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
Linux Mandriva 2006 _is_ my home PC main operating system, i.e. the one that gets booted by default. That said, if this is one of the supposedly most "desktop friendly" distributions, i can't be very optimistic. For starters, 3D acceleration does not work. It's an ATI card, ok, but you can't dismiss what nearly half PCs use just by saying "buy supported hardware". You can blame ATI more than Mandriva, but it's a fact that the same hardware under SuSe worked with ATI drivers (other minor things didn't work, like booting reliably and not freezing). Then there's the myriad of little (and not so little) annoyances, like the KDE Control Center becoming suddenly empty. What would you say about Windows if the Control Panel icons randomly disappeared for no apparent reason? And how do you explain to your non-geek (but not illiterate) relatives that in order to download and install software it's not sufficient for the site to say "RPM - for Linux", but it must be pulled "automagically" from some repository holding just the right kind of RPM for the specific Mandriva release? IMHO, these are the kind of things that keep lots of people from using Linux on their home PCs, where things either "just work" or they are not worth fiddling in order to make them work.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
Next time you have someone asking you questions about Linux not knowing whether they should try, you can just direct them to this article.
My eyes! My eyes are bleeding!
Incidentally, the reason I left Mandrake 4 years ago for Fedora (core 2, i think) was that Fedora had better Japanese language support. I also didn't like MenuDrake.. too inflexible, iirc.
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:
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.
I generally agree that Microsoft has the monopoly and consequently it is very hard for Linux to mean anything to the home user but...
Lose the Microsoft Office Applications off of the Windows platform and the home user suddenly has less and less reason to be sitting on a MS platform. The Opensource movement can make a serious impression on the Microsoft world by pushing hard the alternatives like OpenOffice.org that the home user can really make productive use of.
Make a couple of apparently insignificant 'baby steps' away from the Microsoft applications and all of a sudden, you begin to wonder why you need Windows. I made the move to OpenOffice back in November 05 and I am now beginning to see the light and the possibility that within the next few months I may not need Windows at all. Without MS Office, there is almost no need to have Windows!
There are only two things that need to be fixed in the Linux world in my view for even greater acceptance:
* Vendor support for Printer drivers (eg: Canon)
* Mainstream publisher support from all the top games vendors.
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
I used to use "Mandrake" back in the day when Wal*Mart sold it. I was about 15 at the time (23 now) and loved it other than the fact that I had a winmodem and it didnt work for me to connect to the internet. I toggled back and forth with it as each release came out thinking each new release was a step in the right direction.
Then someone showed me ubuntu and I havent looked back, it does everything I've always wanted from a distro right out of the box with no tweaking necessary, at least in my case. I may start a virtual machine and load mandriva just to see if it has improved on anything, but right now I am content with the latest ubuntu
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
No disrespect to Mandriva, but their "model" doesn't sound that appealing. OpenSuSE will give you pretty well the same for free (fast downloads, too) while even the official version of SuSE with extra packages on the DVD is quite a lot cheaper than the Mandriva offerings. I hate to say it, but if I had to choose a distro that was losing out as the Linux competition hots up, it is Mandriva. That doesn't mean it isn't extremely good, just that its future looks dubious to say the least. The name changes, their financial situation and news of trouble at the top doesn't help either.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
http://www.phildev.net/linux/apt-quickref.html Below is a quick reference to cover some of the most commonly needed apt uses.
./configure or make) and have all necessary packages installed as needed:
Download and install package:
apt-get install package
Update apt's list of available packages:
apt-get update
Upgrade all installed packages with upgrades available:
apt-get upgrade
Upgrade to new distro, or in general upgrade anything available for update including core system packages:
apt-get dist-upgrade
Uninstall package:
apt-get remove package
Uninstall package, and its config files, and don't leave it in the database as 'uninstalled':
apt-get --purge remove package
Search for a package like pattern:
apt-cache search pattern
Get information on installed package:
dpkg -s package
Find which installed package file belongs to:
dpkg -S inetd.conf
List which files are in package:
apt-file list package
Find out what packages provide file:
apt-file search file
Run a command (such as
auto-apt run command
Unless specified, the package in reference doesn't have to be already installed for these to work... but the database needs to be updated. You can update the appropriate database via:
apt-get update
or
auto-apt update
or
apt-file update
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I'd much rather a good solid Slackware-style distribution (preferably my own, of course, but there are other good ones, too). From what I've seen, they tend to be a hell of a lot faster, easier to configure – imagine a world without those horrible RPM's! – and probably a bit more secure as well. So far I've got everyone in my family hooked on my distribution, which is saying quite a bit actually since most of them were fighting tooth and nail just to keep Internet Explorer for a while...
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Why would an average PC user make the effort to change over to Linux?
Unfortunately, the average PC user running Windows Whatever doesn't even know what Linux is.
As user friendly as distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva are, I personally have not seen many people "making the switch". I am not the type who goes out and attempts to "convert the masses", but most people do know that I use Linux at home regularly.
The only person who has approached me for help with Linux is a fellow programmer who is learning web-based languages. He was looking for a way to host a website for free off of his home network, and said it was a good excuse to get exposure to other OSes. So, I hooked him up with one of my Ubuntu CDs (which I received for free in the mail), and showed him the goodness of LAMP.
Other than him, nobody I know really seems to give a crap. They know Windows is insecure by default, but don't want to have to jump through hoops to chat on AIM, or post on MySpace. I don't see any of these people spending the time to learn the basics of an entirely new OS to be completely honest.
While I can appreciate the ease-of-use that these distros have, I almost feel (from how they are advertized) as if they are trying to wage war against Microsoft. Instead of focusing on the unwashed masses, maybe these distros would be better marketed towards those who are fed up with Windows and looking to try something new?
Registered Linux user #421033
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.
Exactly you don't need to "open a shell" to install Mandrake.
Well, go to a home banking website and witness what being in a fringe group means when they reject your not-so-IE browser (this is improving, admittedly)
Yes it is getting better. Here in Canada most home banking sites will work with Firefox on Linux. The Canadian Government is different, many of their sites are deliberately blocking Linux even though they are using Java technologies that should be cross platform (deliberate deprivation of civil rights).
Watch a CSS-encrypted DVD.
Imstall the software from PLF (as easy as installing Windows software) and you have no problem.
Open a Word document (without having to completely recreate the formatting)
Never had to reformat a Word document sent to me, when I open it in OpenOffice 2.0x
Install Skype
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/ - Yes whats the problem ? There is a Mandrake RPM and it is included with the Mandrake 2006 distribution.
I'm not a big poster but read slashdot daily. I had to post about my weekend with ubuntu... Let me first start by saying that I am a linux newbie. I'm a windows admin beginning to dable with ubuntu. I've been comfortable using Ubuntu as the default on my home laptop for about a month now. Over the weekend I decided to get the wireless card working, I had tried breifly before without success and decided to give it a real go. To make a long story short...I've read every how-to/wiki/forum on how to get wireless cards working and 2 days later I still don't have wireless. The point: With windows I would plug it in, it would ask me for the drivers and I would point to the correct folder. On Ubuntu I have spent 2 days at a command prompt typing all sorts of stuff and it still doesn't work. Linux has a way to go before it is ready for the average joe user.
This article is actually a good introduction to Linux, though perhaps not in the way it was intended. As a competent, grammatically correct translation from another language into English, but by someone who is not a native speaker of English, it has a certain awkwardness to it, requires that the reader take a little more time to figure out what it's saying, and leaves the reader with a feeling of discomfort about just how well-polished this Linux stuff really is. If someone is put off by that, then they probably shouldn't try Linux; if they're not, it might be a good move for them.
Understand: I'm not criticising the translator; his English is far better than any second language of mine, and better than a lot of translated-into-English I've read over the years. Just an observation.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I can't blame just Mandriva, Wireless networking moved too fast for the Linux Distros and all of them seem to be "klunky" when it comes to Wi-Fi, but things are catching up.
Try downloading the latest Network Manager, which seems to be a lot better (I am gonna try this tonight)
Not only should you warn your friends:
Those games you love to play on Windows? GIve them up.
Im in quite lucky position since the game i most played in windows was Targetware, which as i noticed runs much better on linux (better fps, lot smoother) It made me really wish more games would be made for linux due to obivious benefits of better memory management (you need less physical memory for similar performance as windows tends to swap too easily). So i want to add in what you say. Very likely, but not necessarily.
But also:
Those mp3s and DVDs? Don't expect them to play out-of-the-box. I'm serious.
It doesn't take more than few minutes (or few seconds using a script) to get them working and it's not really that hard. Installing codecs is overall easier than installing additional audio/video codecs to play most DivX and Xvid content on windows platform.
Though it would be good idea for ubuntu devs to add the script on desktop of new ubuntu install so users could just click on "Add non-free software repositories & Install commercial codec support" icon and be done with it.
Right now, for a casual computer user there isn't any. For me, the difference between Windows and Linux is in the shape of the "effort vs. results" curve. If you aren't a heavy computer user, Windows will give you results at a lower effort. But if you really need or want to use computers more, on a daily basis, then it pays to learn Linux. It may be something you don't realize at first, but the time you spend now and then in Windows trying to download drivers, anti-viruses, messing with the registry, etc adds up in the end. After you spend some time learning the basics and a little bit more, using Linux is a *much* smoother experience.
It's intersting that where I work I adapted my desktop to use Linux almost exclusively; almost every day I see the people around me complaining about "the network", but for me the network runs fine. The difference is that applications in Linux are more robust and don't fail at every hiccup in the network.
Now, for the other points you raise, I feel it's much a question of degree:
1. Fear of an uncomfortable user experience because it is different to what I'm use to.
The difference between XP and KDE is about the same as between XP and win98, and certainly less than that between win3.1 and win95.
2. The value of software to a user is relative to the number of users. What value is there in becoming familiar with a niche product with out a specific need to?
With the internet that's fairly irrelevant. I never had a question I couldn't solve in a few minutes of Google. In some ways, a smaller and more focused group of users is better. Look for an installation or setup problem in Ubuntu, for instance, and you'll almost certainly get the answer you need in the first page of Google. Look for an equivalent problem in Windows and you'll probably have to navigate through page after page of sites trying to sell you utilities you don really need and lists of people with the same problem and no solution.
All software I've dealt with is never perfect. If they're both designed to do the same thing, why change from what you're familiar with?
But some software is less perfect than others. Overall, knowing both systems, I feel that using Linux is a much better experience. However, I agree with you that, without a compelling reason, you don't need to switch. That's why, after getting used to Linux, I haven't the least inclination to try any Windows software anymore. I have no reason to switch back to an inferior system.
As Elaine Benes once said "Absolootely nuttin".
Hi,
:)
Considering the hoops that I had to go through to make Mandrake do multimedia AND DVDs, your friend might as well be as skilled as 'Mr. decss' Johansen to get video or music playback.
I am not as skilled as Mr decss Johansen. Nevertheless, I got multimedia AND DVD reporduction very easily.
One option, is to buy the boxed version, which comes with support for all the proprietary stuff. I don't know if you know, but "Mandriva Free" only includes free (as in Freedom) software by design. This option (boxed version) works great for people not that expert in Linux.
Another option is to do what I did:
I went to Easy URPMI website, selected the PLF repositories, configured follogwing the instructions on that page (copy&paste), launched the GUI install program, searched for "codecs" and all the other files that had "mp3", "ogg", "dvd" , etc in the name , installed them all, and presto!:
* multimedia works like a charm: mp3, ogg, avi, mpeg... (using amaroK and gmplayer), even web-embeded content.
* I view my legal (read, protected) DVDs easily, with gmplayer or kaffeine or...
It is very easy, really. Even I can do it
I used the info found in this link. I found this link at "Mandriva Linux" entry on Wikipedia. All is explained very well.
Peace!
First of all, even on Ubuntu, which is the easiest I have found, it *does* take more than a few minutes, and who in the world knows how to write a script or even what a script is? If Ubuntu, Mandriva, et al. want to get an actual stake in the desktop market they need to remove "script" from all but their most advanced vocabulary. Oh, sure, if you are familiar with the documentation or know where to look on the wiki, then it just takes a few minutes copying and pasting code to make everything work. This is still a few minutes too many and does not include the time it takes to figure out that things aren't working, figure out it isn't in the included help topics that come with the OS and search the internet for a solution.
Having said all of this, tools such as EasyUbuntu and Automatix are really coming along, and this problem may be close to being solved. I agree with you, there should be an icon on the desktop when the system is first installed, and it should point to a installed-by-default version of EasyUbuntu or Automatix or whatever Mandriva alternative there may be.