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Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2 Released
AdamWill writes "The Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring Alpha 2, marking the first public pre-release of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2009. This alpha introduces several significant changes, most obviously the inclusion of KDE 4 — 4.1 beta 2, specifically — as the default version of KDE, and the latest development version of GNOME, 2.23.4. The kernel has also been updated to release 2.6.26rc7. Another feature of interest to many users will be the addition of orphan package tracking (and optional automatic removal) to the urpmi package manager. Of course, many applications have been updated (although the default version of Mozilla Firefox is still currently 2.0.x), and most of the distribution has been rebuilt with a new GCC version, 4.3. Mandriva warns that this is a true alpha, likely to contain many bugs related to the new version of KDE. Please install it only in a test environment, and especially do not use it as an upgrade from any earlier Mandriva Linux release."
Well, it is a special occasion since 2008 is the year of linux on the desktop.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Having taken a look at this latest release, I'm convinced that THIS IS THE YEAR that Linux will be the dominant desktop OS. Easy installation, advanced package manager, FREE!, and tons of community support; there's really no reason that it won't win the hearts and minds of users everywhere.
And with the cost of oil skyrocketing, people have less money to shell out to Microsoft, so a free OS is just what this ailing economy needs. It's surprising. Just a few months ago I was mentioning to someone just how good Linux was, but at that time he scoffed and said his grandmother still wouldn't be able to use it. However with this latest Mandriva Alpha (cool name) release, I think we're looking at a watershed moment here.
I'm looking forward to upgrading my systems post haste.
Would you be dicking around in a windows or mac alpha?
No, you wouldn't.
Back in the day, when I started using Linux, Mandrake (now Mandriva) was a great distribution that helped newbies like me hit the ground running. But now it seems like Ubuntu has gobbled up that market. Afaict, they don't have much of an "enterprise" market, and they don't have much of a "hacker" market... or am I wrong? What market is Mandriva serving these days?
http://mediagoblin.org/
isn't vista still at the alpha stage?
Not to start a distro flame war, but...
How is an alpha release of Mandriva news?
BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME! Name me another distro that:
- installs easily and with lots of options
- has integrated configuration utilities for GUI AND console that don't mind personal hacking of the config files
- has bleeding edge packages, if you choose
- doesn't exclude dev packages in pursuit of user friendliness
- has native packages for nearly every application you'll use
In other words, they provide a professional, up-to-date Linux environment that is simple enough for newbies, flexible enough for advanced users, and hassle-free for those of us who have no time to waste on configuration and compilation.
Also, it appears to be a rare example of a major distro that still supports multiple desktop environments out of the box.
I'm stoked for Mandriva 2009 and I'm glad to know it's coming...
That said, there's no way in hell I'm installing an alpha of it, so you may have a point. :) But at least I can start prepping my hard disk partitions! WOOO MANDRIVA FTW!!!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
One might if one ever got the chance to get ones paws on a win or osx alpha.
Which doesnt happen.
NO SIG
Have the definitions of alpha and beta changed? An alpha used to be an in-house test, while a beta was released to outsiders.
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how an open source project can have an alpha phase?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Well, it's like the first buds of spring! I always look forward to the Mandriva releases because it gives me an idea of the tone this release is going to bring to the Mandriva distribution.
Personally, I'm hoping to get better hardware support for my EEE in their *Free edition, faster boot times, a cleaner/more responsive KDE, and less overall bloat.
I'm going out for the weekend, but this news gives me something to check out sometime in the coming week.
Blessed with all the brains that God gave a duck's ass, and twice the charisma.
Instead of just releasing another hosed major version?
Anyone remember back when it was Mandrake and it actually worked?
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
Ubuntu?
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
Name me a modern distro that doesn't do all those things. Seriously, have you used Linux recently? OH, sorry, sorry, you were being sarcastic, weren't you? Damn, I need my humor sensors adjusted.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Congrats /. has really outdone itself now. Hmmm... Maybe I could submit a post about my pocket lint.
Yeah, who do they think they are, Ubuntu?
http://www.mhall119.com
was a jab at Ubuntu. I dont know if the latest release is the same, but i remember being flabbergasted because i get anything to install from source. I think i had to manually get something from synaptic (libc-dev, maybe gcc, I dont remember). Whatever it was shouldve been there by default.
How is all of what you hear about Windows 7 news? The fact is that progress of any new version of any OS is news. Do you complain when there is news about an upcoming yet unreaeased Mac OS?
If you made the same comment about a Windows 7 news item you would have been modded flamebait (not by me, mind you; I'd mod it as "overrated").
I'm excited about the progress; I use Mandriva dual boot; of the distros I've tried, it's my favorite. I haven't tried Ubantu yet, but that's only because I've been happy with Mandriva.
Oddly, I'm posting this comment on IE in Windows =(
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I've been able to put together a better gaming Linux setup on Mandriva than Ubuntu. Mandriva has alot of things Ubuntu doesn't.
Most distros do not include the dev packages in an install unless you ask them to. There is no reason for most users to have dev packages on a desktop, and there is no reason for dev packages to be on a production server. If you want them, they are easy enough to install.
And they aren't excluded for 'user friendliness.' Most users would have no idea if a dev package was installed or not. If anything, since they are invisible to people who don't need them, the user friendly thing would be to include them by default.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
That would not happen in windows. It would be something like: "Error 0xFF3041123. Contact support.". On a pop-up. Without a close button. With "always stays on top".
alias possession='chmod 666 satan && ls
Yes, but the grandparent installs an ALPHA operating system and complains that it's buggy. WTF??? He needs to put that crack pipe away and get the hell away from the computer!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Honestly? I wish I knew the criteria. I submit every significant bit of Mandriva news. Almost everything gets rejected. For instance, Slashdot did not post a story on the *final* release of 2008 Spring - that one was rejected. So I just throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks. I didn't really expect this to, but we'll take it. I think it probably involves rubber chickens and stuff.
A beta version of KDE4? A development version of Gnome, and a RC of the kernel?
At least this is only an alpha.
Which makes me wonder how this got to the front page of /..
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I just came back from the Philippines last week where I set up an Internet cafe with Mandriva 2008.1 version Power Pack edition. During the winter this year I tried every version of the major distributions on my systems at home and chose Mandriva for the cafe because it is so well set up for administrative control, firewall control, etc .. I have been using SUSE for over 8 years and the Mandriva looks fantastic visually, has all the software you need and offers CEDEGA to run Windows based games for online gaming. I mention this aspect since all the main users there are young guys who play on line games in the cafes. Almost all of the MMORPG games were Windows centric and CEDEGA allows you to play them with Linux. This is a clear case for better Linux gaming capability needing to come about to make Linux a real options for game players who spend a lot of money in cafes in the Philippines. I was actually forced to creat dual boot systems with four of the computers with XP so that CONQUERONLINE would play on the machines. I was quite distrubed to be forced to buy XP for those machines but ECONOMIC REALITY overrode my real desire to have Linux only cafe computers.
Doesn't have anywhere near MDV's range of configuration utilities, which is what the OP was getting at. Also we'd argue our centralized backports repository system is rather better than Ubuntu's "seventy billion PPA" system, for bleeding edge packages. (Yes, for anyone who didn't get the memo yet, I work for Mandriva).
The name is too close to "Mangina" for my comfort.
Actually, that was a jab at Lycoris, a distro I tried and absolutely enjoyed until I couldn't find up-to-date dev packages I needed.
I tried Ubuntu once. I was not impressed. It definitely didn't seem as simple to install and configure as Mandriva is. Not to mention, it didn't have the choice to run multiple desktop environments if you so choose.
The thing about Mandriva is that it's kinda like Windows - it tries to be everything for everyone, and has the flexibility to do so, and indeed succeeds most of the time. Newbies, power-users, gamers, and server admins all wrapped into one.
My experience with Ubuntu was that it's more of a "install on your grandparents' old machine and forget about it" type of distro. Perhaps a lot has changed since then?
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
The main point is configuration utilities. Of the other mainstream distros, only SUSE's YaST has anything like the range of the Mandriva Control Center, but it doesn't take kindly to you altering the files it controls manually (it tends to just reset them, completely overwriting your manual modifications). MDV doesn't do this. That was what the OP meant with that point. Ubuntu and Fedora (and derivatives) have nothing like MCC / YaST.
In other words, they provide a professional, up-to-date Linux environment that is simple enough for newbies, flexible enough for advanced users, and hassle-free for those of us who have no time to waste on configuration and compilation.
That's it, in a nutshell. I've tried most distros, and I still find that for my use, Mandriva is the least hassle. There's always less annoying stuff going wrong, and their default selection of tools works well for me. Despite all the press and presumably developer effort that Ubuntu gets, I still think that Mandriva is nicer. YMMV.
No, it's not, which is why it's just as well the final release of this comes out in October, not now. :) By October we reckon KDE 4 will be in pretty good shape. If it's not we can still revert to KDE 3, but we don't think it'll be necessary.
And, yes, of course we're relevant. We're probably the fourth biggest distribution overall (behind Ubuntu, SUSE and Fedora / RH). We're the largest remaining independent commercial desktop Linux distributor (excepting Canonical, which is not really a conventional company but basically entirely funded out of Mr. Shuttleworth's pocket) - if you want a company that exists by providing Linux distributions to end-users (and doesn't do it as a loss leader or a development spin off), Mandriva is basically it. And 2008 Spring got probably the best overall reviews out of the crop released at the same time, as noted by Distrowatch this week.
Not to mention, it didn't have the choice to run multiple desktop environments if you so choose.
Wait, what? Any DE you install from the repos will show up as an option in GDM.
Why are you trying to run a random copy of Firefox out of your home directory instead of just using the packaged copy like everyone else? And how the hell do you not have libpango0 installed? Just about nothing will work without it these days, and that's the package with libpangocairo-1.0.so.0 in it...
I LOVE PCLinuxOS, but am seriously checking out MDV2008.1 Spring FREE (and, that could be where my problems lie...). However, NONE of the current kernels intercepts the shutdown/suspend buttons on my laptop to do proper/graceful shutdowns. PCLOS (from 2007) does, and my VirtualBox install runs just fine...
I am having a HELLUVA time getting MDV 2008.1 to run my .mdi files as my own user account. I can open another user account, open konsole, su to myself, and THEN run my VirtualBox instance of vista, so, after a few days of head-banging, i've decided i must create a new instance of my user account, copy the .vdi in, and re- chown -R (just in case) my VirtualBox files, and then try again. Failing that, reinstall Vista and all my apps and re-register them. Presumably that is all unnecessary.
Likely, my problems also lie in minor changes tween VirtualBox 1.5.4 and 1.5.6, like in Free there is no set of extensions readily apparent. I had to copy them from my other drive.
But, I am reallllly tempted to plunk down for the Powerpack. In my past experiences with MDK/MDV, the Powerpack tended to resolve in one go all my issues with Free.
Another potential area of my problems is that the install disk that came with Linux Magazine might be damage, or it could be my wonky DVD burner, since the install aborts EVERY SINGLE TIME at the same place, forcing me to copy the entire DVD with auto-skip-on-error of a file copy. After that, I managed to create a local repository from which to install and upgrade in place the Mdv 2008.0 Spring I installed back around February.
Not knocking Mandriva. But one of the best personal reasons for me to avoid Free is I am sick of the crippling of the rotating background, and when I show off Mandriva, I hate having the Free background overriding the settings i made.
Nicely, the 3D Compiz works, tho, humoursly, Metisse DOES NOT, on my laptop. I ran a DVI (Azumi 2 for those interested) in LinDVD (which, now makes me care less and less whether it's Xine or VLC or Kaffeine as long as I can damned watch damned legally-paid for DVDs, and as long as having LinDVD mitigates or obviates the fracking risk of the federales confiscating my laptop for having dvdccs on my machine JUST to watch DVDs I legally paid for.)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Okay, thanks for trying to answer that because I was wondering what the point of Mandriva was now. But...
I'm not seeing how putting the two together can win a market for Mandriva. Although variety is good -- If Ubuntu screws up, there's an easy option for all those people to shift to. But counting on Ubuntu screwing up isn't enough to make a reasonable business plan.
I read the Wiki article, and I'm still not sure how Mandriva's making money right now. Do they have a big enterprise licensing income from something?
Don't know why you were marked troll, should have been something else negative :) Ubuntu is a PITA when it comes to configuring it in that the online documentation is poop. If you don't already know how to do what you want to do you have to go find out in the most gruesome manner possible. With that said, Ubuntu mostly does things in pretty standard ways (with some exceptions in driver-land) so you can usually adapt the means of fixing a problem on many other distributions to Ubuntu.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know about an alpha, but I did run a prerelease build of Windows 95. I got it on 21 floppy disks from a guy who ran a local 'elite' BBS. It was better than Windows 3.11...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
SUSE. I've used both; OpenSUSE kicks Mandriva's arse. It has all that you mention and is more stable and has better packages to boot.
I have come across several packages with minor problems (such as missing dependencies) which has hardly ever happened to me with Ubuntu. RPMDrake is also not as good as Synaptic, or even Adept, but I have complained about that before on the Mandriva forums.
The problems with packages is something I have come across more recently. I hope it is just a bad patch rather than showing an underlying lack of QC.
One more thing Adam, you and a few other people do a great job on the forums. Thanks.
How is all of what you hear about Windows 7 news? The fact is that progress of any new version of any OS is news.
Yes, it's news, but is it worthy of Slashdot or not? The market adoption do have something to do with it. Really. But yes, Mandriva is pretty popular -- on the other hand, this isn't even a beta release. Windows 7 though, that's the sequel to the most common line of desktop operating systems in the world.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
When you find a package with an error like that, please report it on the forums or (preferably) to Bugzilla - it'll help in getting it fixed. It does happen sometimes, mostly to contrib packages when the package gets rotten (because a maintainer leaves or stops maintaining a package for some reason). For 2009 there should be no such problems within the /main repository, we are working on ensuring that at present.
installs easy? maybe now, but it wasn't too long ago when mandrake's install was craptastic. thats when i decided never again to use mandrake. so, with all of those perks you mention, you must be praising slackware, right?
Yeah it isn't completely stable but I never found KDE 3.5 nor GNOME that stable either.
What is the point of using a computer that works all the time? That wouldn't be fun in my opinion.
It's redhat enterprise 4WS.
It does usually happen in contrib not main. Unfortunately a lot of useful stuff is in contrib.
Name me a distro
Slackware.
DOH!!
See my post further down this thread, addressing that question.
Do you have any reports like this ATM which don't seem to be getting addressed? If so, email me or PM (on the MDV forums) and I'll take a look at them myself.
I gave up on mandriva about when it made the name change (I switched sometime late 2005/early 2006) mainly because I wanted to give the new ubuntu thing a try. I don't remember what it was, but it stuck (even gradually pulled me from kubuntu to ubuntu)
Bottles.
No need to get defensive ;) I wasn't saying it was better, just named another distro with all the features the parent was so excited about.
I've used Mandrake for a couple of years before and then the first Mandriva, so I know you've got some superb configuration utilities. The only reason why I switch to Debian was the packaging system, and I just loved apt-get. And today I'm pretty happy with Xubuntu.
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
On the distribution front, we have had the pleasure of seeing new releases from all major Linux makers. Once again, Mandriva seems to be a winner here, earning high marks from both the reviewers and the users on various forums for its 2008.1 release. ...SNIP... Still, it seems that Mandriva was the distribution that found the best balance between features and stability. Despite that, the company continues to struggle as its flagship product still lacks the mindshare and popularity of the other three distributions.
Since April I've done fresh installs of the latest versions of Mandriva, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, opensuse11, sidux & Debian testing Lenny (and was scared off from Fedora 9 by the lousy reviews), and I have to say I was most satisfied with the Mandriva process and result.
That said, the Mandriva upgrade process has always been kind of rocky for me, particularly if I try to skip a release or two, and Mandriva only supports its free product with "base" upgrades for about 18 months and "desktop" updates for a paltry year. I hate reinstalling, so I prefer a rolling release like Debian or a release with relatively longer shelf life, like Ubuntu LTS or even opensuse's 2 years of support.
That said, like someone mentioned above, I have been impressed by the efforts made by the Mandriva staff to help me through the bumpy stretches on their forums. I'm secretly convinced that this so-called "Adam Williamson" character is just a code-name for about 50 hard-working guys.
Ubuntu lacks good OS and System configuration tools.
All tools what Ubuntu offeres, are mostly from GNOME. Mandriva has own great tools what are used on other distributions too, example a PCLinuxOS. Other great distribution offering good tools is OpenSuse (Suse).
That's why I dont recomend ubuntu for novice user because almost all littlebit advanced configuration needs commandline, sudo this and sudo that and sudo gedit this and that.
If Ubuntu would get MCC/Yast, it would be good distribution for novice, not it's just for those who are happy what ever they get or real experts who knows how to "code" what is needed.
I don't know either, wasn't trolling, just answering the parent and expressing my honest opinion.
Anyhow, I've got to agree with you, documentation is not only a poop, but practically doesn't exist. You've got to use the forums. But when it comes to configuration... I don't know, may not be as smooth as on Mandriva, but was straightforward... at least for me.
"It would be wrong to refuse to face the fact that everything is fundamentally sick and sad."
I've been running Mandriva since MDK 7.2, I had a few issues with 8.2 but everything "just works".
Yes I've tried Ubuntu, it's very shiny but I can't get into the guts of the beast; besides I'm better at using Mandriva.
What I really like best is I can use my Power pack (yes I'm a silver member) or I can use Mandriva-mini and, once I"ve set up the repositories, I can type "sudo urpmi mythtv-backend" and it all goes and works.
To me, that's a pretty damn neat trick. That's a lot neater than going down to Best Buy and buying whatever TV tuner they've got and trying to make it work on Vista.
MCC and Yast just rocks. Altought I like more MCC because it is cleander and more simpler to do with easy-to-use wizards.
I'm hoping that someday, there would come Qt version of MCC so GTK+ could be forget, because sometimes I run to that point when I run MCC, it gets nonkind theme from GTK+ and it is ugly. But it is small price about the tools.
I hope that MCC could be ported to other distributions too because it would bring GNU/Linux even wider area, currently all other (excluding *suse and MDV based distributions) distributions lacks such intuitive and easy-to-use tools :-)
I'm currently using OpenSuse 11.0 and MDV 2008 Spring on two machines. What I like is one-click repository management on OpenSUSE, but I more like the "easy urpmi" site what is needed to run once. On OpenSuse I run all place the web to find where is packages etc. Samething goes sometimes with Mandriva when Ubuntu has most of packages but I just get newest usually for MDV what I need. There is few packages what I would like but I get them more easily with SVN ;-)
I like OpenSuse but MDV just has my heart.
By crippled background I meant the LOGIN screen. It's REALLY kewl to me when in public having my login screen up, but in the background having the images rotate every 60 seconds. This is neat advertising of Linux when in kiosk situations.
Usually, when it comes time to upgrade, I usually do a quick assessment of what I could not handle having broken, and then i often go ahead with a complete new install. Often, for me, things are just "cleaner" that way.
As for VirtualBox, I found that one of my Lotus Approach "apps" I created is running gnawed-dog-slow and now I have a reason to miss Win4Lin in my previous installs on my desktop. But, on my laptop, Win4Lin (3x) won't run in the latest kernels. And, installing win98 in VirtualBox is painful in the end because the f*ker refuses to STICK with 1020x768. Same ole crappy problems I hated win98 for in the past when I was in IT. Sucker only sticks to 640x480.
So, I cannot fall back on win98 for its relative leanness and speed over vista when running Lotus SmartSuite. (No, there is NO WAY IN HELL that anything in OpenOffice can one-for-one replace my Lotus SmartSuite addiction, functionality, or other aspects that make SmartSuite a smart suite. It's aged, but SmartSuite is what IBM should have morphed into Symphony, and it would have paid a helluva better homage to the lineage of Lotus when it was cutting edge.
Now, I'm contemplating having to plunk down some $170 for xp pro cuz vista just PLAIN SUCKS. Well, so far. I probably will see gains if I get ahold of a patch to it, but I only want the patch if it's not requiring me to hook my machine (vista) to a LAN. I only want a single download, and I hope the bandaid/patch is under 500 MB, or something REASONABLE.
After all, on my Gateway having an extremely (relatively) limited Intel i810 chip with a max of under 300 MB shared RAM, the speed gains from using XP in VirtualBox will trump anything Vista Home claims to offer. Moreover, the Compiz 3D graphics on my laptop are spiffy, impressive, and snappy and offer more than Vista does for the eye candy sugar's worth. Now, if only Compiz didn't compress KDE multiple desktops into ONE desktop. It should automagically create the number of cube sides matching the number of virtual desktops already present, and then match them to the cube's sides. I am suspecting that many of my past and current issues in Compiz have something to do with .kde config files being munged here and there.
Xrandrtray was crashing on EVERY SINGLE BOOT of KDE, well, until this AM, when I chose a different Mandriva-modded kernel from the Grub list. I was surprised to see KRR running without crashing. Interestingly, my virtual desktop display was behaving as if ~~2000x6000, because it was HUGE, but I right-clicked and disabled auto start of KRR, and reduced it to my preferred 1440x900.
Some of you might have issues where Vista DOES start, but then your disk just thrashes for 4 hours (mine did for longer, and when I woke up I had to shut it down so I could bag up my lappy and head for work) with sluggish mouse response, where 10 seconds would pass before the mouse would move. VBox menus didn't respond, so maybe 5 times in the past 4 days I had to reboot the laptop. But, for $80, before I pay for MDV 2008.2 Spring, I sure as hell want a FULL install (maybe timed demo modded disk) that I can put thru the motions and then send in the USD $80. I'm all for rooting around in Linux, but mostly at the power user, but not hacker or anywhere NEAR hacker level.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Didn't Mandriva absorb Lycoris?
Mandriva is great. It is quite smooth. Suse is the only other distribution that it can be compared to. Graphical interface for configuring everything on a Linux desktop. Ubuntu does not have that. Samba works better out of the box than it does out of Ubuntu as well as zeroconf. It connects well with OSX.
However, it does have it's own quirks. I haven't been able to run it on my laptop since the 2007 release. I have to recompile the kernel to get it to run smoothly. Mostly because I have a craptastic hardware in my laptop. On the other hand Ubuntu runs quite well on my laptop. I'm not quite sure what the difference is since they use similar kernels.
Adam, on the subject of packaging, can you tell me if there are any plans to re-introduce some of the functionality that has been removed from the Mandriva package management/update utility in the last couple of releases?
I wrote about this last October:
I've been using Mandrake/Mandriva for years, and I clearly remember their package manager/update utility used to show you the size of all packages selected, how far it had progressed on the packaged currently being installed and the overall progress. As it is now, it only shows you a progress bar indicating how far along you are on the current package but nothing on your overall progress.
Why have they made this regressive change?
I apologize for throwing this at you on Slashdot, AdamWill, but judging from the other comments in this thread, it appears that you are somehow associated with Mandriva. Can you offer any insight in to why this change has been made, and whether there are any plans to return some of the functionality that we used to enjoy?
I don't care why you're posting AC
It's not that there's anything wrong with the tools Ubuntu *does* have (actually, they're mostly well designed and work well) but it just doesn't have the range of tools that MCC and YAST have. Among the tools you likely won't find on Ubuntu (I didn't check for a couple of releases) - fax server setup, UPS setup, network profile manager, internet sharing wizard, Windows font import tool, log viewer, backup tool, snapshot tool, SMB and NFS server and client setup tools, firewall, parental control, bootsplash configuration tool.
But, I am reallllly tempted to plunk down for the Powerpack. In my past experiences with MDK/MDV, the Powerpack tended to resolve in one go all my issues with Free.
I will never ever spend money to buy an upgrade because it fixes a bug.
I have in the past made contributions to software, and will do so again. I may even pay for targeted bugfixes. But this just doesn't seem right.
Incidentally, Metisse is pretty nifty-looking, but it doesn't support GL redirection and it's unclear when that is coming. So don't be too sad. Compiz is more important. Ever tried to build Metisse? It's exciting and the instructions don't work. (The authors of Nucleo and Metisse, however, are more than willing to provide assistance on the mailing list.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Thank you from mandriva, I'm a huge fan of mandriva.
I agrea totaly with what you say, ofcourse mandriva dosent hav the power bost the blogs about how mandriva is nor the capital to move half the comunity across the globe for some pseudo developers meeting.
Mandriva is a honest distro trying to make a honest living. Thank you!!!
On the contrary, I was clicking around in a Windows alpha: Vista, pre sp1!
I just checked Distrowatch, you appear to be at number 9.
With OpenSUSE, I have never had to modify any configuration file for most of my server/client/desktop activities either at work or at home. I use 10-15 OpenSUSE machines almost every day. How would one compare Mandriva with OpenSUSE?
As exciting as eating 3-day-old/room-temp mayonnaise? Hehehe.... Somebody left some out here at work, and one co-worker said, "Anybody eat that and they will have a REAL exciting night..."
Actually, I saw Metisse work in 2006 Nov on a card i "rented" (bought/returned) from CompUSA, and in my old Gateway Select, 800 MHZ CPU/256 MB RAM, ~64 MB (I think it was 64 MB) PCI card, got Metisse... I showed Metisse and Compiz to the Comcast technician who was inspecting my cable (i think I was having probs getting TV out of the cable). Needless to say, he was bedazzled by KDE/Compiz/Metisse/Linux...
I think before I buy Mandriva 2008 I need to get another, bigger laptop drive. I have a 160 GB and an 80 GB, and PCLOS is on my 160 and it's nearly full, what with having the recovery version of vista in a partition, and all my Linux and other files in another partition.
-----
Oh, boys & Girls, if you're looking for Linux-friendly CAD that is quite like AutoCAD, see:
http://www.bricscad.com/en_INTL/bricscad/features.jsp
The Linux version, as can be expected, lacks some of the windows version's features, but.... Well, I still like Punch! ViaCAD. And BricsCAD is out of my budget limits. Still, it's nice to see Linux-supporting companies out there....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Just a shot in the dark here, but it might have something to do with the repository mirror you are using. Let's say for instance that it's an FTP mirror. Well some FTP servers return really weird directory listings that the system can't end up parsing, and there are a bunch of ftp servers that don't support the non-standard SIZE command. You see, FTP was originally meant to be done via a command line and be human readable. So they didn't put anything in there that made it easy for a computer to parse and figure out information about the files. So sometimes servers return unparsable data back, that the ftp code can't handle, and most of the time, it fails to get the size of the file. This is why for years, IE wouldn't tell you the size of the file you were downloading if it happened to come from an FTP site. I think it's specific for you repository mirror, because my copy of Mandriva 2008.1 shows me file sizes and a progress bar for all my updates.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll experiment with the mirrors.
I generally use easyurpmi and try to select mirror sites that are close, but it could be I am selecting repositories that are not sending the necessary info. I've also used club repositories. I don't know. I can't recall getting that kind of info regardless of the mirror I was using since installing Spring 2008.
I don't care why you're posting AC
I'm glad Mandriva is around. Ubuntu seems to have more momentum (and I use it a lot too), but what if Shuttleworth stops his efforts and some follower tries to cash in or make deals with companies which are less philanthropic, but help to control a competitor. We have seen other distributions like RedHat, Suse make rather drastic changes in the past and not all to the benefit of the distribution community. Its good to have choice and I found Mandriva an excellent distribution too which minimizes the amount of time to spend with sysadmin work.
sounds like you were lucky, i bought a tv card cause some guy said it worked with linux, and apparently he had the earlier (like 6 months, damn it!) version than me and the current one has no linux driver yet... all i can say is the neighbors are now well aware of my swearing like a trooper capabilities.
This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
I've used it on my laptops (Dells and Thinkpads) for about 3 or 4 years after getting impatient with Red Hat's slowness in releasing packages and lagging hardware support. MDV tends to be months ahead in this regard. Always seems to have some kind of installer bug or other but so far nothing that can't be overcome with my quite shamefully minimal Linux juju. Ubuntu's really nice but I find Mandriva more convenient. Perhaps that's just a case of the devil you know. They're a good bunch and I pay for Silver just to help them keep on keepin' on.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Well, it is a special occasion since 2008 is the year of linux on the desktop.
What, Mandriva is a year behind you say?
I have been a Mandriva (Mandrake) user for years. The thing that bothered me the most in recent years is the bloat of the distribution. I finally turned in Mandriva for PCLinuxOS and have never looked back. Small to the point packages that just work, with the ability to add on as needed. Mandriva had been throwing everything including the kitchen sink in to their default install, and that has increased instability. It has become increasingly hard to run it on older computers without problems. PCLOS gives us all the benefits of what works in Mandriva, without the experimental stuff (unless you add it later). It is what Mandriva should be, and what Ubunto never will be. Everything to all people (new users, geeks, servers, and so on).
Living in Chile
Mandrake was the first distro that really worked for me. I started with Debian but it's not good for beginners. It's too easy to mess things up. apt-get hose-my-computer happened a bit too frequently so I switched. It worked great until a new KDE came out and then OMFG it was a nightmare trying to get it upgraded. I've used several different distros since then and they all have their good and bad. My favorite by far is Ubuntu and that's what I run on my server. I don't have the time to fuck with it. I want something that is there and if not up to the minute, at least reasonably close without me having to hunt anything down. I run two commands and my system gets upgraded, keeping me with newer versions of everything I need. Contrast this to my experience with other distros... went something along the lines of, oh look XYZ has shiny new feature that would really help in this situation. I'll update my system... ok, that's all done, oh look, I'm a full major version back on XYZ. That's ok, I'll manually upgrade it. Three hours later I'm still trying to get all of the rpm dependencies taken care of. It's nuts. I don't know how things are on the desktop as I haven't had the time to use Linux on a desktop in a couple years. I need Windows for a few things and I just leave it at that. Once you get married and have a kid your fucking around time is completely shot to hell. On servers though, it's Ubuntu or bust for me.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
It may also be to do with the downloader you have selected. urpmi can use either curl or wget. You can set this in the repository management tool's Global Options window. Try switching and see if it increases the info you get.
It'd be strange for PWP to really resolve a bug in Free, because the only difference is that PWP includes non-free and commercial packages. All the non-free (but redistributable) stuff is available from the public /non-free repository, so the only packages you actually can't get anywhere but the PWP are commercial packages - ones we aren't legally allowed to distribute to the general public. It's a very short list, these days - basically Cedega, some Fluendo codecs, and stuff like Acrobat and RealPlayer that you can get free from the original creator anyway.
Usually when something seems to be 'solved' by Powerpack it comes down to someone not realizing that Free doesn't include any non-free drivers (but you can easily get them post-install), or just that they happened to make some change during the install process.
If you're talking PHR, we're #6 on the six month measurement (which is the most reliable as it maps to the release cycles of the major distros, so it smooths out the bumps), and have been going up for the last two years. However, I don't think Mint or PCLOS are actually as widely-used or important as Mandriva - that's my honest personal opinion. If you disagree, that is of course your right. In the absence of solid metrics, we'll have to agree to disagree :)
However, I now realize I obviously should have said fifth biggest distro. By any reasonable metric I'd have to admit that Debian is up there.
Ubuntu and Fedora (and derivatives) have nothing like MCC / YaST.
Thank god!!
When I used YaST it took years to do everything because of the "high level programming guidelines" of Suse. I remember waiting seconds for every operation to take place in the configuration.
With ubuntu, every operation is fast, and I love it.
Name me another distro that:
- installs easily and with lots of options
- has integrated configuration utilities for GUI AND console that don't mind personal hacking of the config files
- has bleeding edge packages, if you choose
- doesn't exclude dev packages in pursuit of user friendliness
- has native packages for nearly every application you'll use
openSUSE.
it doesn't take kindly to you altering the files it controls manually (it tends to just reset them, completely overwriting your manual modifications).
I call BS - this is simply not true, and I hope you were just misled by somebody into believing this rather than posting a blatant lie.
Distrowatch just tells how much what distro is being checked out, not installed or used.
Ubuntu has got lots of press in few years but I think it is still behind other distros like Mandriva or Debian. Mandriva had weak points when it was about to get closed but it survived and it's now getting again more users.
Distrowatch graphs shouldn't be watched as truth, but as just what is intresting people.
Like if Debian had 5 million users when Ubuntu released, in few years Ubuntu gets 3 million users and Debian only 1 million, Debian is still leading in user count. Same thing goes to Mandriva, OpenSuse etc, they had big user base before ubuntu and they still gets lots of new users.
What makes this very dificult, is marketing. If all press speaks only about Ubuntu, almost everyperson tought that ubuntu is most popular, even that it wouldn't have none new user.
And we cant calculate the user moves what happens when people starts trying Ubuntu, does not satified with it and moves to OpenSuse or Mandriva. Distrowatch does not calculate this kind things so easily, because most other distro suggestions can come on distro's forum, IRC or by friend.
Actually only way to calculate popularity, is get every distro to ping distro's servers, but there is LOTS of problems to solve that could be trusted. Actually, it should be one server where all distros ping and send HW information what is used to calculate the user amount. It would calculate them even you would use multiple distros on machines, because it should inform the server on every update. And then think about privacy, no way we would like that!
I dont know than few (4) Ubuntu users in Finland or sweden, but I know Mandriva users about 30 and about 15 OpenSuse users. Most users has started with Ubuntu but moved to these two, even that Ubuntu is on magazines and others almost all the time. How do I know these? Because I'm the person who installs and maintain Linux on their machine. Just avarage joes, age ranging from 12 to 70.
Ubantu?
OMG ponies!! Another distro to try!! ;o)
But seriously, I was a rabid Ubuntu user until about 4 hours ago when I d/lÂd Mandriva 2008.1 and my heartiest congratulations go out to Adam Will and the team there for a top-notch distro.
IÂm typing this on my girlfriends hp pavilion ze4315ap which is 7 years old and is the most Linux resistant computer I have ever had the misfortune to use, even ubuntu just doesnÂt quite work right on it, ever. Mandriva on the other hand is working like an absolute fucking charm and I had it up and running, wireless net, browsers and email all configured in ~45 min.
I can see Mandriva and I having a very long term abd satisfying relationship, sorry ubuntu, but youÂre only good for the latest compiz with spheres and cylinders ;o)
Debian FTW
"sudo apt-get install mythtv" or if you want to dedicate the machine for mythtv stuff only.. you can use the packages mythbuntu-desktop / mythbuntu-diskless-client / mythbuntu-diskless-server / mythbuntu-diskless-server-standalone / mythbuntu-live depending on what you need.
Or if you prefer, download the specific Mythbuntu ISO images (it uses the ubuntu repositories for everything, it's just a different 'default setup' ISO).
I used to be a silver member in Mandrivaclub (two years back I think) - but I got a bit fedup having to pay for access to repositories that provide DKMS versions of proprietary nvidia drivers and such and I didn't like the 3rd party repositories for that stuff because they were messy. I stopped my subscription when I just got fedup of the whole thing and did my own packages. Then just started using Kubuntu instead of Mandriva on my desktops because installing those things was just a simple apt-get install command or using the graphical adept manager.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Ubuntu and Fedora (and derivatives) have nothing like MCC / YaST.
Thank god!!
When I used YaST it took years to do everything(...)
Your experiences with YaST don't tell anything about the efficiency of MCC. I suggest you try it before boasting about how fast your pet distro is.
Well, it was my experience with SUSE every time I tried it, and it was clearly what the OP of this thread meant by his comment so I figured he had the same experience.
What I found is that if you make any manual modification to a configuration file that YaST controls, and then you run YaST (even for something unrelated), on quitting YaST it re-creates all the config files it controls, including the one you made a modification to, and removes that modification. It seems like this is also what the OP meant.
If this has been fixed with recent releases (I think the last time I tested SUSE was 10.0 or so), that's great.
Just for the record - non-free packages that can legally be redistributed to the general public (including NVIDIA and ATI proprietary graphics drivers) are now in a public repository, /non-free . They're also included in the One edition of Mandriva. Not trying to argue you out of Ubuntu or anything - just posting for the record in case anyone thinks things are still as they were when you left. :)
I used to be a silver member in Mandrivaclub (two years back I think) - but I got a bit fedup having to pay for access to repositories that provide DKMS versions of proprietary nvidia drivers and such and I didn't like the 3rd party repositories for that stuff because they were messy.
This policy has been abandoned. All repositories except the commercial software ones are available to all at no charge. That includes the repository with the proprietary drivers.
We're probably the fourth biggest distribution overall (behind Ubuntu, SUSE and Fedora / RH)
Hahaha, you deserved a +5 Funny.
Thanks for all your work in the past.
May I vent?
No questions, Mandriva was light years ahead of everyone else.
Then came 2008.1!
What is with bug 39925? How could a distro even be shipped with something like this? How could it not be fixed in days?
My commitment to mandriva has been shaken by this. (Ya, and my wireless connection got scrunched in the same "upgrade" and I have never gotten it back up, I've tried messing around a bit with ndis, but I have not spent enough time I guess. Chipset - Intel 3945ABG , and yes, this is the last Intel I will buy if I can help it)
If you can, make sure a 2008.1 NEVER happens again. It would be better to never release than to do that.
BTW, if someone has the knowledge and the time, how about LTSP support, no better way to introduce the masses to Mandriva? (And I would even love to run it in my home. What could be better?)
This might not be a big news, but if you do try out the distro then you will know how impressive it is. I am very excited about the final release and am planning on replacing my Ubuntu 8.04 installation on my laptop to Mandriva 2009, as I find Kubuntu Remix 8.04 a bit buggy (this might changed with 8.10 release). The theme for Mandriva 2009 just looks very good and really give out a very good impression.
PCLinuxOS 2007.
I have used Linux for several years, and have tried several different distros looking for the best and easiest to introduce newbies to Linux, and as of today, I have not found any distro that even compares to the ease of use PCLOS has.
And EVERYTHING works from the get go even wireless and graphics which seem to be the main prob with others including Ubuntu.
Especially since being in the Pc repair field, I come on contact with alot of people who I can introduce to Linux, and I have not been let down yet by PCLOS.