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Mandriva Joins Ubuntu With a Linux For Netbooks
Slatterz writes "Linux publisher Mandriva has unveiled a version of its platform designed specifically for the new breed of mini laptops. Mandriva Mini features a fast boot-up, comprehensive connectivity support and multimedia codecs, and is adapted to work on key netbook platforms such as Intel's Atom. Mandriva previously offered a customised version of its 2008 Spring release for the Asus Eee PC, and was a distributor of Linux for Intel's Classmate PC initiative."
Your effete codecs and desktops are a drain on the minds of millions! Mental resources they could use to learn simple tools like Lisp and Haskell! Is time actually cubical in nature? Your 3D desktops and games and iTunes and shallow interfaces hide the true power, elegance and beauty of the command line! The One Dimensional Desktop, with infinite compactified dimensions hidden inside like string theory - intuitive and obvious! I wrote an Emacs macro that plays one of my Ogg Vorbis sound files any time I like! How is iTunes easier than that? What is the "4" in MPEG-4? 4 simultaneous 24 hour Days within only 1 rotation of 4 quadrant Earth! Educated evil and stupid! LINUX SHALL TRIUMPH! ... I'm sorry, I meant GNU/LINUX SHALL TRIUMPH! (Sorry, Richard. Sorry. Sorry.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
will they sell when no one can print their family photos from one ?
The final frontier for OSes is netbooks and smartphones. Everyone has to go there if they want good growth. The smart phone war is a 4 way contest between Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone with only (hopefully) Linux based contest coming from (yet unreleased) Android.
So, as far as the OSes go the only open race is in the netbooks and it is good to see Linux distros coming good in this category.
I was exited when I saw the Eee-PC first. With a large install base of the same hardware base Asus could have built a new iPod revolution and break with the limitations of conventional operating systems because it was made-to-measure. But after a few month Asus blew it. At the CeBit they presented the Eee-PC with an unusable Windows XP configurations and a lot of extenions that did not or did not fully support Linux. Today there are hald a dozen Eee-PCs and I guess a hundret other netbooks with different screen sizes, hard drives, chipsets.
There really isn't much difference in a customized "netbook" distro, so we'll soon be seeing many more.
The minor list of customizations needed for a netbook (besides making sure everything just works, as on all laptops):
1) fast bootup. in order to reach a sub 30 second bootup you need only two things: a lighter kernel, and pruned system services (no crond, nfs, etc). /tmp and /var/log. firefox cache in tmpfs too.
2) optimizations for SSD. i.e., noatime in fstab for ext3/2, use of tmpfs for
3) lighter application and OS defaults. i.e.: XFCE instead of gnome, and abiword instead of openoffice.
btw - check out http://onelinux.org and #onelinux on freenode for an ubuntu-based distro tailored just for 'best' netbook currently available - the awesome Acer Aspire One.
so far no word when we'll be able to get this mini distro. guess they want to synch the release with 2008.1 in october?
Mandriva touted their Spring 08 release as being perfectly suited for the EEE. The only problem was that the partitioning step of the installation only provided journaling file systems; EXT2 was not an option, and with the limited number of write cycles with the SSD in some models, you want to avoid any unnecessary writes. I hope this new release allows EXT2!
You are full of s***.
Not true. While it doesn't have the penetration of Ubuntu, It's still consistently in the top six or seven downloaded from distrowatch. http://distrowatch.com/stats.php?section=popularity Try it. It's way better than SuSE. I have The 2008 PowerPack, It includes LinDVD already set up, it has nVidia and ATI drivers avalable on install, it's the only distro that picked up my no name StarLogic 1680x1050 monitor and set the resolution correctly. Mandriva is flat out slick.
Enjoy Every Sandwich
Mandriva is a very strong distro. It has a long history, great hardware support, nice GUI install, refined GUI and text admin tools, a huge repository of packages, and several versions to meet just about any Linux need. They were the first (besides Debian) to have automatic package dependency resolution, the first to have 586/686 optimized kernels, and they still treat Gnome and KDE as equal citizens within a single distro without splitting things up. It isn't as popular as it used to be, but that is not because they are doing anything "wrong", there are just more strong players in the "market" now (which is a good thing).
Distrowatch has not been proven to be a reliable indication of number of users of any distro... although it can be a useful statistic. Personally, I known more people that have gone from Mandriva to some other distro (like Ubuntu) and then returned to Mandriva, than those who have left and stayed gone.
As for a "netbook" specific flavor of Mandriva- I think they did the right thing at the beginning, which was to just have the mainline iso (2008.1) adapt the install when it senses it is being installed on a netbook (like an EEE). Adjust screen res, adapt the draketools, change sync strategy, etc. I am not sure having a separate iso just for a single type of install is a good idea. It is more to maintain, more to download, etc.
Awesome, aside from Ubuntu the other distro I really like is Mandriva. I wonder if they are going to use LXDE as the desktop environment.
Did you get the webcam to work with Mandriva, I'd like to find out. And if so, what model netbook are you using?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Troll!?
Seriously?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
As for a "netbook" specific flavor of Mandriva- I think they did the right thing at the beginning, which was to just have the mainline iso (2008.1) adapt the install when it senses it is being installed on a netbook (like an EEE). Adjust screen res, adapt the draketools, change sync strategy, etc. I am not sure having a separate iso just for a single type of install is a good idea. It is more to maintain, more to download, etc.
One thing I never figured is why you need to download a different disc for installing Ubuntu via the command line. In an earlier version I wanted some options that weren't exposed through the GUI, but still essentially install the desktop distro. It's not like the text-based install can take much space, so I guess it's loaded up with other strange things. Plus even if you want to install a server, if you got an Internet connection it might be just as easy to use the normal one to get you booted and installing. I'm not sure what an UMPC adds of extras but it could be something of the same.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
with the limited number of write cycles with the SSD in some models, you want to avoid any unnecessary writes
I've heard this said often, but the only time I've seen any actual numbers crunched, the conclusion was that it wasn't worth worrying about:
With the Eee PC SSD, a typical user (6 hours/day, 10% write rate) will write for 36 minutes per day resulting in a useful lifespan of ~25 years in the worst assumed case [only 50% effective wear levelling, 100k writes to a sector before failure].
Besides, even if that wasn't the case, one of the things about the Eeepc is its moddability -- back up often (which you should be doing anyway), and then if/when the SSD drive goes, swap it for a new one. It'll also probably be a nice upgrade over the smallish original, given the speed that SSD drives are improving in capacity and speed.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
I suspect that Distrowatch which AFAIK has no non-English pages will show a lower hit count for such distros. Is there any other good reason for the now dated but English based relative of Mandriva, that is PCLinuxOS, to show a higher hit count?
Thanks for the support, Mark. :) The Slashdot story actually missed the most important thing about Mandriva Mini - there isn't an ISO. Well, not for you to download, anyway. This is an offering intended for OEMs, not end users. We want to sell Mini to system manufacturers and redistributors to be the pre-installed distro on the system. We're not targeting it directly at end users. The idea for end users is still that if you as an end user want to install Mandriva on your netbook, use the main distribution, as you suggested you thought was the best idea. We continue to set a high priority on customising the kernel and MDV tools in the main line distribution to work well with the most popular netbooks (2009 should work well out of the box on all currently available Eee models, the Aspire One, and the MSI Wind, to name a few).
2008 Spring was in fact the first major distribution to be specifically designed to work with the Eee (701) out of the box. Mandriva was ahead of virtually every other distro.
Mandriva was the best distribution ever until 10 fucked it up. I was a long time user and their newest version was so buggy it was like going back five years...
worked OK on a netbook :)
On my eee, the screen darkens, and I think some flash tries to load but doesnt.
Great!
Yes I know they're not working on a joint system but did anyone else think of names a joint Unbuntu-Mandriva Linux might use?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
A: "with the limited number of write cycles with the SSD in some models, you want to avoid any unnecessary writes"
B: "I've heard this said often, but the only time I've seen any actual numbers crunched, the conclusion was that it wasn't worth worrying about [eeeuser.com]:"
Me: Just to add my experience with flash memory here.
This may be different, but as far as I know, all flash memory is basically the same, so...
I have a Sony digital camera, it's 6 years old now, and my rough calculations tell me that it's life cycle was less than 64,000 cycles (Shoot image, download, delete) before the drive started failing.
Perhaps flash memory is more stable now, and these older memory sticks don't have the wear leveling algorithm, of some such, but that doesn't seem like too many cycles to me.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Their website, mailing lists, documentation and most of the forums on the Mandriva club site are all in English. There are some French forums on the Mandriva club site (along side the English ones) but that's about it. There're also plenty of 3rd-party English speaking sites, eg. http://mandrivausers.org/
I don't speak or read a word of French and I've never had a problem.
Pre-canned Evolution Links for all those Slashdot holy wars.
I tried 10 and couldn't even get it to boot - the bootloader install process didn't work properly. I've heard good things about more recent versions though and would be prepared to give it another go.
I'm a Linux newb who's just bought an Aspire One. I'm interested in getting Mandriva now I've heard good things about it here. Wouldn't it make sense for me to try Mini? If you're saying I should just get the main disto, well fine - I'll do that, but in that case why do the Mini distro at all? Why not built any customizations etc into the main distro instead - wouldn't that save you work, and end users confusion?
Sorry if I'm missing something here.
> I have a Sony digital camera, it's 6 years old now, and my rough calculations tell me that it's life cycle was less than 64,000 cycles (Shoot image, download, delete) before the drive started
>failing.
>Perhaps flash memory is more stable now, and these older memory sticks don't have the wear leveling algorithm, of some such, but that doesn't seem like too many cycles to me.
It's usually write cycles - reading doesn't count, so in your example it'll be just shoot and delete. And delete won't write to the card either, other than to an index of what file is there - it won't physically write zeros to every byte taken up by every image you delete. This is the main reason it's trivial to undelete files from most storage media.
64,000 writes is quite a low figure compared to other flash memory specs I've seen, but it should be years before it fails. I recently bought a 4 gig compact flash card for my camera for £20 (including postage). In 5 years time you probably won't even be able to buy cards that small, and they'll be cheap, so I'm not bothered if it fails around then.
the Gdium
It's not specified whether Mandriva Mini is being used, although is highly probable.
One interesting thing is the Longsoon MIPS processor, which probably contributes to the purported 4-hour battery life
I was not suggesting that there is a problem. I was suggesting that a significant proportion of its users may not visit English language websites.
"64,000 writes is quite a low figure compared to other flash memory specs I've seen, but it should be years before it fails."
Yes... it did take years, but 64k writes is tiny, so it seems like a potential problem to me.
And it happened to both of my SONY cards so it's not an isolated incident.
Perhaps my real world testing trumps lab testing, for real world results?
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
> And it happened to both of my SONY cards so it's not an isolated incident.
> Perhaps my real world testing trumps lab testing, for real world results?
I don't know the details of your card failing, but it might have failed for reasons other than too many writes to the same place. It's hard to imagine you've filled it up 64,000 times. It could have been static damage, or you stamped on it or something. It's not guaranteed to work for ever. A hard drive doesn't have a known limited number of writes but they don't go on forever either.
In that case those 19 users are myself, my wife, and my 17 classmates in graduate school whom I have converted to Mandriva. I never knew we were the only users in the world.