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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."
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
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Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
A lot of linux distros do stuff like this though... I use fedora (although if I'd have had perfect knowledge at the start I might have chosen Ubuntu) and in that you can't read/write NTFS, you can't play mp3, you can't play comercial dvds... why don't they just say on the site that they are opperating under Russia (or a country with even less regulations about copywrite) law and then have done with it, making a really good, usable out of the box distro
That would be SimplyMEPIS. Seriously, it's Ubuntu with all the propietary stuff.
I personally don't care, becaue i don't think it's hard at all to enable MP3s, DVDs, etc. Just a couple checks of EasyUbuntu, or some copy&paste from the Ubuntu wiki and you're all set.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
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.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
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"