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Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring Released
AdamWill writes "Mandriva is proud to announce the release of Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Download the hybrid live / install One or the purely free / open source software Free. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring includes the latest software (KDE 3.5.6, GNOME 2.18, Firefox and Thunderbird 2.0) and several major new features: Metisse, the most innovative accelerated 3D desktop technology; open source telephony with WengoPhone; Google desktop applications including Picasa and Earth; updates and improvements to many of the Mandriva configuration tools, and the brand new drakvirt for configuring virtualization; significantly improved hardware support, including greatly improved graphics card detection and support for several common laptop memory card readers; and a brand new desktop theme. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is available in the full range of editions, including the freely downloadable One and Free, as well as the commercial Discovery, Powerpack and Powerpack+. For more information see the Spring product page and the Wiki page, where you can find download and installation instructions, the Release Tour, the Release Notes and the Errata."
Let's write our own adds. Post below why you think Mandriva is good. What's its forte. What sets it apart. Why would I choose this distro? Be sure to post a soundbite too. for example "Ubuntu: it's the desktop linux for people who aren't experts". Or Debian "Steady and depandable, and an awesome package (manager)". etc.. Damn Small " Small and fast, in and out quickly".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Actually.. Mandrake used to be the "desktop linux for people who aren't experts." I remember buying my first copy of it in Best Buy about 7 years ago. Came with a good deal of documentation, and worked pretty well right outta the box. I think it was somewhat of a Red Hat fork at the time (it used RPM, and claimed to use DEB too IIRC, but I don't remember trying anything but RPM.) During the time when Red Hat was a bear to download (at my university connection, it would've taken me weeks to get the ISO) the next version of Mandrake was a quick 2-hour d/l away.
Anyway, I've always found Mandrake easy to configure (with their drake- graphical utilities). In some ways it was easier than Ubuntu. It certainly had a friendlier (though not easier) install process. Drakedisk was the most intuitive, stable, and asthetically pleasing graphical partition manager I've used. It was far better than Ubuntu's offering in that area.
The thing that Ubuntu did better than mandrake enough to make me switch though was package management. Mandrake had OK management, actually, good management for the pay-version, but the free version had to either hack something together to use their freely accessable but intended for-pay package servers or hunt down updates for every package manually.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Mandriva is a legitimate zero cost commercially supported desktop Linux distribution. There is only one other distribution in that category: Ubuntu. Having a bunch of distros in the same niche would be redundant, but having two is a good thing. Mandriva is definatly one of the major players, and they have been for a very long time.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Perhaps you could try... oh, I don't know, Mandriva?
I use it, wouldn't switch to a mac for the world. They don't even have the keys where they should be!
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.