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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."
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.
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.
I agree, When they first pitched it, I was excited because they were talking about a $200 price point. That would have been possible if they kept the specs low, and stuck with Linux. However, they kept on upping the screen size, processor, and RAM. Now the higher end EEEs are almost on par with some of the regular notebooks, and the price seems to be ever increasing.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
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!
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.
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.
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).