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Mandriva Linux 2008 RC 1 Released
AdamWill writes "The first release candidate of Mandriva Linux 2008, codenamed Galilee, is now available. The release notes are also available via the wiki. A guide to major new features (some of which are not yet implemented in this release candidate), and the detailed technical specifications are also available. This release candidate is available as a three CD or one DVD Free edition (containing no non-free software or drivers) for the x86-32 and x86-64 architectures, with a traditional installer, and as a mini-CD edition for both x86-32 and x86-64 architectures. A One combined live / install CD edition will be released in the near future (problems with unionfs prevented the One edition from being release at the same time as the other editions)."
I've been using Mandriva for 6 years and I am thoroughly unimpressed with Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, and all the other Linux distros that seem to be garnering so much attention. Ubuntu especially unimpresses me because it's supposed to be some big jump in desktop usability, but doesn't seem to offer anything that Mandriva doesn't offer, and actually tends to be lacking in quite a few areas.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I can tell you why I switched to Kubuntu after six years with Mandr[ake,iva]:
1. 64-bits was relegated to very-low-priority (an inordinate number of supposedly-supported 64-bit packages had dependency failures)
2. A large percentage of bug reports would lie untouched not just for months, but for years. I have within the past couple of months received acknowledgements for bugs that I filed nearly two years ago -- and those acknowledgements basically came down to "this bug report is filed against a version that is no longer supported".
3. When a bug report was acknowledged in a timely manner, it was almost always to the effect of "this bug does not exist in 32-bit version; unable to test 64-bit" (or the fact that it was filed against 64-bit was simply ignored)
4. Official update mirrors would disappear for weeks at a time
5. Security updates would be made available weeks after exploits became known.
My experience with Kubuntu has not been painless, but I have found none of the above to be true for Kubuntu. It was with considerable reluctance that I switched, but in any case those were my reasons.
YMMV, of course (and probably does).
major new features (some of which are not yet implemented in this release candidate)
How does that work?
I used Mandriva for a few years and switched, eventually to Kubuntu. I tried Suse, Fedora, and Mepis. I really liked Mepis (based on Ubuntu) but switched to Kubuntu based on a sound driver problem. The switch was almost effortless. There is no question Mandriva is a polished distro. Desktop usability is certainly it's forte. My problem with it was package availability, especially when it's popularity began to slide. I ended up running cooker to try to keep up to date and try packages that were not available as stable. Switching to Mepis, based on Ubuntu, solved that for me. The management tools are not as good or as complete as the drake tools, but they are generally sufficient. I can't say though that I recall desktop usability being a strength of Ubunutu's. It's for everyone, as in many languages and affordable to all. If Mandriva gives you what you need, VERY COOL! If something isn't there, doesn't work, or isn't being kept up to date, a switch to Ubuntu will probably solve the problem.
I read the headline first as "Microsoft Linux 2008 RC 1 Released" and nearly spat my tea out at my screen...
4. Official update mirrors would disappear for weeks at a time
What drove me away from Mandrake (as it was then) was that every time I wanted to install a new package I'd have to spend a couple of hours:
1. Searching for the new location for the repository. They seemed to constantly change the paths arbitrarily every few weeks or so, apparently because they 'decided' that the old path wasn't a good naming convention or something.
2. Downloading the updated package info.
In Debian/Ubuntu an apt-get update takes a little while, maybe a minute or so. In Mandrake the equivalent to apt-get update (using urpmi) would take an hour or so. On the same internet connection. Which was 100M.
I used the 'easy urpmi' site to keep track of the repositories but it was still very very slow and painful work.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
NO, I don't like the French either.
This one sentence made your entire post utterly infantile. You don't like an entire nation??? Has every single person out of 60 million Frenchmen done something nasty to you so that you dislike them all?
Sorry for being off-topic, but I'll just never be able to understand how a rational, intelligent and Linux-using human being can make such statements of hatred on a public blog, which proudly displays his/her nickname and web site. Crazy...
For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .
/backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring /backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with /backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.
We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.
Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.
Since 2007, we have official
so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.
On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.