Mandriva 2009 Spring Released

Frederik writes "Mandriva just released the 2009 Spring version of its distribution. Highlights of this new version include vastly improved boot times thanks to Speedboot, KDE 4.2.2, GNOME 2.26.1, XFCE 4.6 and LXDE desktop environments, a completely rewritten Mandriva Security Centre and improved firewall and network configuration tools, OLPC Sugar environment, QT Creator development environment, Songbird audio player, ext4 support and many more. Check out the release tour and release notes for more information or immediately start downloading it."

Comments

Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[MindlessAutomata]

Since I use Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope, can someone outline the big differences between that and Mandriva? It's been a long time since I used Mandriva, way back since it was still called Mandrake.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[webheaded]

Me too. Been quite a while for me. This distro seems pretty much irrelevant nowadays. It's never been more than a slightly friendlier Redhat and nowadays I don't even think they can lay claim to that.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Warlord88]

Excerpt from distrowatch.com:

"Mandriva's web presence is a messy conglomeration of several different web sites, while its "Mandriva Club", originally designed to provide added value to paying customers, has been getting mixed reviews. Although the company has been addressing some of the criticism, it continues to face an uphill battle in persuading new Linux users or users of other distributions to try (and buy) its products."

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Tibor the Hun]

they're the Opera of Linux.

Really nice, and the reason why some of us experimented with leaving the conventional, but then dumped for a new hotter gal.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[rolfwind]

It's been a while since I used mandriva, here's a review of the latest:
http://adventuresinopensource.blogspot.com/2008/11/distro-review-mandriva-one-2009.html

And more timely reviews here under 2009:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandriva

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[BcNexus]

they're the Opera of Linux.

They make an internet browser that runs on many non-traditional devices like the Nintendo DSi? Cool!

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[MindlessAutomata]

Hah! Couldn't have said it better myself.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[pm_rat_poison]

Madriva uses rpm packages. Ubuntu uses deb packages. While ubuntu is mostly optimized for GNOME (with kubuntu being an official derivative), I THINK mandriva is mostly optimized for KDE. For major package version differences, check out here for mandriva and here for kubuntu In Mandriva you can have a root account, while in *buntu you "can't" (or, to be precise, it's strongly advised not to)

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva's Control Center is way ahead of Ubuntu, and Mandriva does a much better job of working from install -- no further twiddling required.

But that's it. They've both very good distros. If you like Ubuntu, by all means do stay with Ubuntu. Mandriva's simply done a better job of being the distro you can hand to a neophyte and walk away. With Ubuntu you still have to twiddle for a couple of evenings, in my experience.

YMMY due to hardware variations, and I have not upgraded to Jaunty yet.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Fallingcow]

Yeah, that's how I remember it. Used it because it was better than Red Hat and I didn't understand Debian yet.

I dropped it around version 9 when it became completely horrible. Started going downhill in 8. Haven't been back since--moved on to a combination of Debian and Gentoo, then eventually to Ubuntu.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[gujo-odori]

This doesn't really answer the question.

RPM Vs. Dev, and all, is under the hood stuff that is almost certainly already known by the person asking, since (s)he states previous use of Mandrake. An important difference would be something like msec, the Mandriva Security Center, which has no good equivalent in *buntu AFAIK. I don't know what "optimized for GNOME" is supposed to mean, but Ubuntu comes in the GNOME flavor (default Ubuntu), the KDE flavor (Kubuntu), and the XFCE flavor (Xubuntu) that I know of. LXDE is also in there, but I don't know if there is a seperate version for that or not.

WRT the root account, *buntu does have a root account, The root password is just disabled, so if you want to become root you have to use sudo su, but the root account is there if you want it. I sometimes use it. I haven't bothered to see a root password, but it can be done. Discouraged? Yeah, but so what? It's probably a good idea for many inexperienced users, and even experienced ones. More than a few of us have executed a command as root that we really shouldn't have, then said "Oh, crap!" as we realized it :)

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[MindlessAutomata]

the ol' rm -rf * in the wrong directory eh?

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva's simply done a better job of being the distro you can hand to a neophyte and walk away.

Not only that, but Mandriva is the only Linux distro which has been working to create a completely usable Linux Desktop. These days I have better things to do that to keep tweaking my desktop months after the install. Many call Mandriva the neophyte distro - and while its true, its also the Linux Desktop distro you can simply install and use without screwing around with it weeks after the install.

I must say, the only real problem I've had with Mandriva is the install with odd non-ordinary configurations. That is, using LVM + RAID or LVM + DM or LVM + LVM DM/RAID often results in many explicatives, rescue booting, and the command line to work around their bugs. But for most people, there isn't an easier distro to install and run. Each release gets better. Hopefully they've fix their issues here.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[V!NCENT]

sudo su

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[CastrTroy]

That's one thing I've always liked about Mandriva. Much easier to configure everything through the GUI.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[gbarules2999]

Screwing around with your install? What kind of installs do you need; or more specifically, what do you need that takes a few hours in Ubuntu that Mandriva works with OOTB?

The only thing I can think of is maybe a bit of codec installation, which takes a few key presses in Synaptic and a half an hour wait on a slow internet connection. DVD takes an extra repository addition. For newbies, I do this all in front of them and explain what I'm doing as I go, which is handy for future references.

Maybe Mandriva works better on your computer; sure, that happens (on mine, MEPIS-based distros cannot work, and PCLinuxOS never boots properly). But other than sheer hardware compatibility, I honestly cannot fathom what takes a couple of evenings in Linux-land, in any newbie distro such as Ubuntu, Mint, or Mandriva these days.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Ponga]

First thing I do after installing Ubuntu;

$sudo passwd root

sudo is for n00bs and lusers :D

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Xtravar]

All of Mandriva's system utilities use GTK.

I've been using Gnome on Mandriva for years, so apparently their support for both environments is acceptable.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds similar to my own timeline of linux usage, except I went SuSe for a bit between the Mandriva and Ubuntu phases. Stayed there about 3 years now :)

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

of course it is grandpa...

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[waferhead]

Mandriva ....works?

Been using Mandriva for years/hated 2009.0 until I installed KDE3...

I've been following cooker for a few months, KDE4.2 has been working nicely for awhile... D'Ld ONE-KDE and installed it on all 3 machines here already, no unusual issues
(I have yet to be able to say that about ANY Ubuntu release)

Currently works flawlessly as far as I can tell.

The only standing "issue" I've run into is mythbackend seems to spin for some reason when started as a service, runs fine run in a shell. (PLF version, haven't worked it yet)

This is a showstopper for me and 2009.0 is staying on THAT box until fixed... likely an easy fix, just figured I'd mention it.

2009.1 still wants to turn on 3D on a Radeon Mobility 9000, which causes X to spin it's wheels/hangs machine (Xorg issue, hits ubuntu etc as well). ...Booting to runlevel 1 or 3 and running XFdrake/turning off 3d THEN telinit 5 gets you a nice installed system. (This chipset appears to have been borked on ALL distros since late 2007)

---begin troll
Installing Ubuntu always eventually makes me want to start throwing stuff due to random stuff that Just Doesn't Work, like wifi configuration.
---end troll

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[taylortbb]

I think that's exactly it, things like adding extra repositories, installing packages for really basic stuff. I find Mandriva just has that extra bit of polish in working right out of the box.

It has its rough edges in other areas, but on the whole I quite like it for desktop use. I'm technical enough to have no issue with a much more technical distro (and use them all the time for servers), but for my desktop I really like Mandriva's polish. The polish might be comparable to Ubuntu (not a ton of first hand experience), but it's vastly superior to Kubuntu, and I'm a KDE person.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[arkhan_jg]

Hah, that describes my experience with mandrake exactly.

Mandrake were my first full-time distro as primary boot; I'd experimented with caldera, redhat and SuSE 7.3 (all retail distros available in the shop, back when I only had dialup - I still have those SuSE discs!).

Mandrake got a lot of things right back then, it was the first distro that 'just worked' for me, without needing manual package compiles to make up for missing apps.

I remember switching because their funding worries made it look like they would go commercial only, and even then may not survive, and I didn't want to get stuck on a dead distro.

After looking at the debian forums, I ran screaming to gentoo instead. The distro itself was ok (but flexible!), but the user community was great. I eventually got fed up with the declining quality of the ebuild library, and the increasing problems with having to upgrade everything constantly, with ever growing risks of breakages when you applied a security fix, if you didn't keep up with the changes on a regular basis.

And there was ubuntu. The forum support of gentoo, with the famous debian package library, with a pretty interface on top.

I did think of going back to mandriva, after gentoo - but that was right after the mandriva 9.2 'cd drive killer' kernel bug. OK, it turned out to be LG's fault in the end, but it did rather put me off!

Perhaps it's time to have another look, see if KDE 4 is anything like usable yet; I always did prefer KDE to GNOME, but the switch to 4 has been pretty crappy.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[arkhan_jg]

Kubuntu is not great. It's basically the vanilla KDE packages with a couple of basic QT apps thrown on top; the real love, and bulk of development, goes into the ubuntu GNOME side, and GTK apps for everything ubuntu specific.

I haven't tried mandriva lately, but they've always been a KDE-lovin' distro with all the management utils etc written in QT. From a quick browse round their site, they still look like the emphasis for distro custom apps being in QT.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Lennie]

or:

sudo su -

to get a fresh root enviroment.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Fri13]

Mandriva is a KDE distribution. Altough the KDE does not get more attention than GNOME. Both are very well supported and if weighted Ubuntu and Mandriva with KDE and GNOME support, Mandriva wins, because of Kubuntu quality.

And Mandriva takes the security very seriously and use root account correctly. It use sudo too, but it is used just how it should be used, to defined a specific permissions for specific users and only for specific tasks. It does not make the same idiotic act like canonical with sudo using it wrong, by making first user almost exactly as root user.

Sudo was never meant to be a root replacement. It was meant to allow root to give specific people a specific rights for system settings, while root could do still all things and manage all sudoers.

Now Ubuntu is terrible in security. It teach wrong idea that user should have one password only, what is most likely to be a very short/dictionary word what is easy to hack. And the username ain't hard to quess. By default Ubuntu place username as the users first name. Social hacking is just too easy.

I have got inside of most Ubuntu users computer just by using their first name and quessing few times their password, from very typical sources (birthdays, midlename, school, mother/fater name etc) and it's done.

And usually you can even get the password by asking them (hey, usually they are your friends and clients!) and while they give you their userpassword, you get the root password on same time and you can do what ever you want.

No one of many Linux users who understands the root/user difference, has not gaved to me the root password when I have asked that. I have got the user password but never the root. They understands THE root password is needed to keep in their self and not any one else.

Ubuntu is coming more and more samekind like Windows. Most users are from windows and that's the reason why Ubuntu teaches wrong and unwise security for it's users.

You can even now found out on Ubuntu forums in small periods commands for helps what does something "evil" to executers computer. Normal Ubuntu users does not think much what they type to the commandline, it is just 'sudo this' and 'sudo that' and there we go...

I have seen so many normal users to type all commands on commandline with sudo. The sudo comes to their typical prefix for all commands, even when they really dont need to use it!

Ubuntu's one good security is that there ain't services listening network. But same thing goes for other distributions. They have firewalls and disabled connections and especially root logins etc. Ubuntu ain't on special situation on that either.

When comparing Ubuntu for other distributions what takes security wery sesiously, they are almost bottom of line. Only distributions what only runs all software as root, are below Ubuntu...

We could argue how much we want about sudo vs root. But we can not argue about how Ubuntu is using sudo by wrong way. Or we can not argue how Ubuntu teaches for new users the totally wrong password usage. And not the correct one where you need to have different passwords for different places and usually even different usernames.

Ubuntu is trying to get there where the window is low... that just means the thief's are getting inside always sooner or later because of that.

Even Microsoft has learn since Windows Vista that computer need to have at least two passwords, one for user and one for Admin.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

When I ran Mandriva (yes, I'm another Ubuntu traitor) the management utils were written in perl + GTK.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[amn108]

Actually both of them suck, but sudo sucks less.

Apparently, nobody understands the big difference between temporarily elevating own privileges versus becoming another user (with everything that comes with that).

The problems people usually encounter are 1) Why do my GTK applications look weird when I launch them with "administrative privileges", to which experts simply explain that settings for root are not settings for their other user account, hence different theme etc. Even though the answer is correct, the problem is much worse. Impersonating a different user brings about alien setting values, not to mention stupid things like "Cannot find display" error when launching GUI applications from exactly same terminal on exactly the same hardware with exactly the same screen in front.

As you can see the difference is quote noticeable and annoying.

Microsoft, despite its braindead strategies over the years and the general and utter failure that is Vista, got it right thinking in the right direction when they understood the difference between forcing users to run applications as Administrator (thus subscribing them to a whole another environment) and elevating privileges of the SAME user account they are used to. Of course UAC that implements their vision is full of holes, but the idea is noble.

I am sure somewhere in Linux world the same technique exists, but I am not aware of it. Nor does my Ubuntu use it as far as I can see. As soon as I sudo, I become root. I dont want to become root, I just want to have root's power for a while.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[buchanmilne]

Actually both of them suck, but sudo sucks less.

IMHO, not the way Ubuntu sets it up by default. Blanket sudo is almost as much as a risk as running shells as root.

sudo should be used to give access to commands you trust yourself with. I don't see that Ubuntu has actually supported this idea at all, on Mandriva, rurpmi is available as a restricted version of urpmi, where no dangerous options are allowed (you can't accept unsigned packages, install local packages, force package installation without dependency checking etc.), specifically so it can be used relatively safely via sudo.

The other method Mandriva uses for provided access as root (natively, as evidenced by the password prompts when running Mandriva Control Center) is console_helper (which is what Fedora/Red Hat have traditionally used).

Apparently, nobody understands the big difference between temporarily elevating own privileges versus becoming another user (with everything that comes with that).

That's a bit of a rash statement.

I am sure somewhere in Linux world the same technique exists, but I am not aware of it. Nor does my Ubuntu use it as far as I can see. As soon as I sudo, I become root. I dont want to become root, I just want to have root's power for a while.

It's called PolicyKit, and is the replacement for console_helper. It is shipped in Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Mandriva, but not necessarily well integrated into all the applications (yet).

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[buchanmilne]

I did think of going back to mandriva, after gentoo - but that was right after the mandriva 9.2 'cd drive killer' kernel bug. OK, it turned out to be LG's fault in the end, but it did rather put me off!

Ironically, Gentoo had killed a lot of drives with the same patch months before (in their live Gaming CD), but didn't manage to figure out the cause, and left lots of toasted drives behind.

In fact, it was Mandrake (at the time) that tracked down this bug, got a resolution from the hardware vendor to restore drives to a working state, and ensure that the packet writing patch could get into mainline with some testing.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[gujo-odori]

Really, now? I've been using Linux since 1998 and was a Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris x86 admin from 1999 - 2003, when I shifted to the email security industry. I have been using Linux as my exclusive home desktop since 1999, and exclusively at work most of the time since 1999 (currently 80% Linux, 20% Mac), and primarily at work all the time since 1999. Even when I worked for Microsoft. I'll hazard a guess, based partly on your /. ID and partly on your comment, that your credentials are something less than this.

I use sudo all the time. A basic point of security is using the least amount of privilege necessary to get the job done. Using sudo and its GUI counterparts is a textbook example of that, and is well-implemented by the various flavors of Ubuntu, and also well-implemented by Apple.

Even Microsoft was smart enough to go that way in Vista. It was poorly implemented and pissed of users, sure, but the basic idea of having it was not wrong.

Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu

[amn108]

I am not entirely sure you got the point. The point is sudo and su do not elevate privileges of the user calling them who needs to do some administration tasks. Instead they impersonate another user, usually root. The problem is, this impersonation naturally (it is impersonation, right?) brings with itself personal settings of the user being impersonated, usually root, which messes up the human computer interaction. Because the user using the system is still the very same person, only with a strong need (and hopefully access rights) to do whatever root can. He/She wants the privileges root has, not to become root, because becoming root has the already described adverse effect of negating their personal preferences with regard to screen, input devices, home folder, command input history etc. Same person needing elevated privileges very much wants to have the same environment as before, with the same personal preferences he or she always had, they just want more power temporarily. Neither sudo nor su by their very nature and by nature of UNIX systems accomplish this. They just do the easy thing by substituting the user with another user. Which is where the 'su' comes from. Which is fine for the sake of a good name, but there still no way to stay yourself. My user is say, 'owner' but both 'owner' and 'root' are me.

I have taken a look at PolicyKit and after reading a bit, cannot seem to find any relevance to the subject. PolicyKit DOES address some of the other dinosaur issues, but there is not a word that gives hope that like I said, anybody sees the important difference between user impersonation and privilege elevation. PolicyKit does not seem to be addressing the problem, although it does appear to address some of the other important problems.

Besides, and this is an important one, the difference between user impersonation and privilege elevation does not and should not affect application code AT ALL. This is to address your quote "not necessarily integrated into all the applications yet". I think the responsibility is that of the kernel, and its process/thread and security facilities, not individual applications. If a certain Gtk application breaks because it cannot access a resource that for one reason or another can only be accessed by root, the only hope lies in the kernel, because kernel assigns the privileges, not applications.

Re:Who cares?

[caubert]

Yeah, the first install of previous Mandriva distro ended up with fucked up keyboard settings. Instead of Estonian Mandriva thought it's cool to produce vietnamese or god knows what characters

Mandriva 2009 Spring Released

[Penguinclaw]

I have tried the previous version on my eeepc 701 and kde4 rocked with it!!! I am experimenting with Slackware for now, but I may go back. Everything works out of the box.... not bad for a non eeepc specific distro. I would certainly recommend to someone fed up with the default Xandros install.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It is actually not such a bad distro

[an.echte.trilingue]

I have been using Ubuntu since 5.04 and Mandrake since 9.1. Mandriva's implementation of KDE (3 and 4) is one of the best around. It is certainly better than Kubuntu. If you want an easy but reliable desktop Linux based on KDE, Mandriva is the way to go. Mandriva has better gtk integration, better update notification, and better a better configuration center than any other kde implementation that I have seen.

Also, Mandriva's fonts are the best I have seen in Linux. I don't know why everybody else does not do whatever it is that they do, but they are smooth as silk.

Re:It is actually not such a bad distro

[gbarules2999]

Mmm. It's alright. I played with the 2009 (not Spring) version and it seemed like a mess at the time, but 2008 was fairly decent. Their switch to KDE 4 was a tiny bit premature, but they plugged ahead just like everyone else. I personally prefer my KDE through Debian, but Mandriva isn't too bad.

It's a pity that PCLinuxOS 2009.1 was such a dud. Now THAT was Mandriva done right, back in the good old 2007 version days. Now Mandriva actually has to be good on its own merits.

I might have to check it out, but we'll see. Fedora 11's preview is my most recent tester, and I don't know if I can take to RPM distros in a row without exploding outright.

Mandriva is still a great distro.

[gukin]

Yeah I'm a fanboi and I have tried ubuntu but found it to be a little too dumbed down for my likes.

The Powerpack is a really nice package due to it having some things that are really really nice. Trying to install the Citrix client, you'll need Motif 4, which is included in the power pack.

Want to run an ATI card with xorg 1.6, the Power Pack comes with working drivers.

Want to run Firefox plugins on x86_64? Mandriva got that one right too.

Want to D/L the MS and Real codecs for mplayer? You can get them from the Penguin Liberation Front at http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

Want to set up a mythtv backend? Let Mandriva look for updates during an install or tell it to add "Distribution Sources" and all you need to do is type: "urpmi mythtv-setup mythtv-frontend mythtv-backend" and follow the instructions.

Mandriva is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available; and yeah, I'm going to pony up the pesos to buy the PowerPack.

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva has had the best new user experience of any distro, and still does.

They were/are THE best at x86_64; Flash and Firefox "just worked" back when Ubuntu x86_64 still had three different "howtos" on the topic.

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available;

Not to be rude, but there's this thing called Gentoo...

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I'm a fanboi and I have tried ubuntu but found it to be a little too dumbed down for my likes.

The Powerpack is a really nice package due to it having some things that are really really nice. Trying to install the Citrix client, you'll need Motif 4, which is included in the power pack.

Want to run an ATI card with xorg 1.6, the Power Pack comes with working drivers.

Want to run Firefox plugins on x86_64? Mandriva got that one right too.

Want to D/L the MS and Real codecs for mplayer? You can get them from the Penguin Liberation Front at http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

Want to set up a mythtv backend? Let Mandriva look for updates during an install or tell it to add "Distribution Sources" and all you need to do is type: "urpmi mythtv-setup mythtv-frontend mythtv-backend" and follow the instructions.

Mandriva is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available; and yeah, I'm going to pony up the pesos to buy the PowerPack.

I agree with you. I have installed Mandriva at work and i laugh all the time because of co-workers that have Ubuntu giving them configuration nightmares.. Mandriva Control Center is light years ahead of anything Ubuntu can throw in....

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Flexible... hmmm, if you like flexibility, you should try archlinux before saying Mandriva is the most flexible distro available.

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Growlor]

Are you saying they found a way to make older ATI cards work with xorg 1.6??? I thought ATI was not going to support that for anything but the very shiniest, newest chips. If so, that's a pretty compelling reason for me to try the Powerpack right there (now if only they could do something about this ATH9K disconnect issues I keep having, I'd be a really happy camper.)

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but it is still compiling.

Re:Mandriva is still a great distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

I always keep a VM with Mandriva handy - I've found that SMB4K is super easy to use on an AD Domain for simple file sharing. And everything always works smoothly, so I've kept it as my main Linux distro.

Re:You keep using that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

From wikiepedia:

Implementation is the realization of an application, or execution of a plan, idea, model, design, specification, standard, algorithm, or policy.

I'm pretty sure that an.echte.trilingue's use of the word is correct. Thanks.

XFCE?

[Lord Byron II]

I see a download option for KDE and an option for Gnome. The summary says XFCE is available. What do I download if I'm a XFCE user who uses Gnome plugins (nm-applet, etc) and KOffice?

Re:XFCE?

[DimmO]

mandriva-linux-free-2009.1-i586.iso has all desktop environments in it (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE).
Mandriva One isos have only one DE (KDE or Gnome)

Re:XFCE?

[James Ray Kenney]

Download the "Mandriva Free DVD" not the "Mandriva ONE KDE" or "Mandriva ONE GNOME"
The ONE editions are LIVE CDs that you can install from if you really need to.
The free DVD edition contains MUCH more software, but more importantly, it contains the REAL Mandriva installer program, that lets you chose anything you want or need.
It will handle what you wanted, either by selection XFCE and the Gnome apps you want, or just select both and after your first boot, just select XFCE at the log-in screen and it will default to it the next time.
I usually install all of the desktops, so that I can try out the others.
After you go online and go to add software, it will set up the repositories you need to download almost anything you could want, including a LOT of different desktop environments, like Enlightenment, IceWM, and almost any other you might want.
The really nice thing about Mandriva is that when you add a program, it shows up in the menus of almost all of the different desktops, so you do not have to set each one up separately.

Re:XFCE?

[Lord Byron II]

Cool, thanks a ton for the info and the reply.

Re:XFCE?

[buchanmilne]

I would consider getting the mini dual-arch CD.

During installation, you can add network media, and you could add the 'task-xfce' package to your installation list. Or, you could install (which will give you IceWM), and after installation, add network repos, and then install the 'task-xfce' package (e.g. 'urpmi task-xfce').

However, the Mandriva XFCE community team usually ships an XFCE live CD a few weeks after the release though ... see devel/iso/contrib/2009.0 on any mirror (like http://mirrors.telkomsa.net/pub/linux/mandriva/devel/iso/contrib/2009.0/ ).

Re:You keep using that word...

[V!NCENT]

KDE is a DE. How well that environment is integrated, thus implemented, into everything else varies highly. It's not about configuring but intergrating.

Re:You keep using that word...

[QuoteMstr]

KDE is none of these things. KDE is a piece of software. It is a thing, neither a plan, nor an idea, nor a model, nor a design, nor a specification, nor a standard, nor an algorithm, nor a policy. Saying Mandriva implements KDE makes as much sense as saying you implement a sweater when you put it on in the morning.

Excellent Distro

[Ponga]

I've previously been a big Mandriva fan having it installed on many machines over the years. It was "Mandrake" back in the day, now Mandriva. I've never been disappointed with the distro, never. It's solid and has always been a worthwhile install.

I have since converted over to Debian for my servers which I absolutely love. Then, just to keep my distro's somewhat similar, I started using Ubuntu (debian based distro) on my workstations. And so I've been using Ubuntu ever since.

It seems like everyone is running Ubuntu these days.. perhaps it's time to cut back to Mandriva, just for that very reason. I hope Mandriva continues to have success in the future, they do a lot for the Linux community at large and that's commendable.

--ponga

Re:Excellent Distro

[davidsyes]

"It seems like everyone is running Ubuntu these days"

Seems....

I ran Mandrake/Mandriva from 1999/2000 to 2006, using Win4Lin to run w98. I then switched to PCLinuxOS in late 05 or early 06 when I kept having issues with Mandriva. When i got my new laptop in Dec 08, i found that i was not going to run Win4Lin (personal choice pains from 05) and win98 (new CAD apps not running on w98), and since my laptop came with vista, i upped the RAM to 2GB and upped the hard drives to ~160 GB and ~250GB (two drive bays) from the sold 80GB drive.

If i'm not running Mandriva, I run PCLinuxOS. Now that PCLOS 2009 is out.... and money's TIGHT... but ...

I like CompizFusion and KDE4 enough to not likely use PCLOS until/unless PCLOS goest to KDE4.2.2 (polished/distributed)...

Now, i'm running Mdva 2009.1 with KDE4.1. What i DON'T like, however, is that across reboots (at least in the Spring/Free version):

-- KDE4.2 does NOT remember my last used browers/apps and i have to manually re-run them (KDE3.5, OTOH, still works as expected)

-- KDE4.1 does not allow CUSTOMIZED multiple desktops, whereas KDE 3.5 still does.

What IS really compelling is getting VirtualBox 2.2. What i want to find out is whether i can use a 32-bit system to run vista or even the win 7 or 64-bit win7 in VBox. I'll have to read to find out if VB HAS TO BE 64-bit VB on a 64-bit machine, or if a 64-bit VB can run on a 32-bit machine AND still run 64-bit apps in some reduced functionality mode. Might not, i suspect. But i guess really i need to find out if the 64-bit VB on a 64-bit machine can run 32 bit apps instead of my having to use still-flaky 64-bit versions of apps i know work (for now) more stabler as 32-bit.

Re:You keep using that word...

[QuoteMstr]

Integration is a fancy word for installation. It's not implementation. If you allow OP's use of the term, it's perfectly fine to say "MyDistribution implements JoeWebServer, which implements HTTP 1.1." That's obviously nonsense. The two "implements" in that sentence refer to completely different concepts.

Thats weird...

[Anonymous Coward]

They actually released the spring version in spring!

Re:You keep using that word...

[noddyxoi]

he means that kde is better integrated into mandriva, it makes mandriva tools easily acessible in the menus, and mandriva tools also affects nice with kde.

Thank you Mandriva !

[noddyxoi]

Thanks for making me have pleasure in using computers since Mandrake 7. Thanks for making the easiest OS to use even better !

Just some suggestions: 1) make zsh the default shell, and 2) use the smart installation system because rpmdrake only allows for rpm installs 3) switch your tools from perl to python ! Love you !

I have it running great on 40+ systems now

[alexmin]

Including 30+ production servers. Love it for the driver support and all latest packages. Had very few problems over the course of 6+ years, mostly with packages broken upstream. Looked on few occasions at Fedora and Ubuntu but always came back. As for desktops, PLF (non-free codecs and libs like libdvdcss2) is a real kicker.

Re:I have it running great on 40+ systems now

[arkhan_jg]

Do you use the enterprise server or powerpack (or free!) version for your servers?

Any issues with samba integration with windows desktops, if you use them? (been having some crashes and performance issues lately with ubuntu LTS server tied into our AD doing filesharing)

Re:It was their ball to drop and they did.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you be a little more vague? All this detailed info about your problems obscures your point.

Re:You keep using that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a new moderation category like Grammar Troll, Grammar Nazi, or Language Douche.

For the LDAP and Kerberos Junky..

[Zombie Ryushu]

I'm the local LDAP and Kerberos Junky.

Something I've always loved about Mandriva is that it can use Kerberos to disseminate packages and streamline installations in a LAN. Not to mention this new version adds an LDAP schema to urpmi meaning you can control urpmi repository configuration through LDAP.

Now this is what really caused me to almost shit myself when I saw it. Mandriva is coming out with something for their corporate line called Pulse 2. Pulse 2 allows for the Cataloging of the installation of applications on other Distributions of Linux, AND Windows. Again, also centralized by none-other than LDAP.

Doing well with what they have!

[Lorienthin]

I've been a short time Mandriva user, and most of the problems I've noticed with the distribution have had to do with KDE issues. The distro itself seems stable, easy to use (complex when you need it), and easy on the eyes. Not only that, but the upgrade to 2009 Spring was just a matter of replacing a few repos and letting urpmi do its thing. I'm running Spring now about 1.5 hours after I started the switch, and everything is working great, even KDE 4.2. I'd say the distro is doing quite well, given what they have to work with

Zealotry vs practicality

[Growlor]

In purposely very broad to illustrate the point terms, Ubuntu comes off as being open source to the point of zealotry. I find it much more difficult to do things like run ndiswrapper or ATI/NVidia's drivers, etc in Ubuntu. I think Mandriva has the best practical balance of any Linux distro in this regard (note you can get a purely open version of Madriva and you can also find ways to load the non-open stuff in Ubuntu, its just that he asked for the difference and in my experience this is it.) Also, for a long time, Mandiva was the preferred distro for Linux gaming. I don't think that is still the case though. As for what I use now, I have mostly settled on Ubuntu. It seems like Ubuntu is where the momentum of desktop Linux is going, and I find it easier to locate online solutions and updates for it now.

what? it's not ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that /. only covered Ubuntu releases. A bit odd to see a different distro featured here.

I stop reading Linux news when Ubuntu has a release. Talk about fanboi party...

Re:what? it's not ubuntu

[Lennie]

I think it might be because Slashdot runs on Debian-servers ? This shows the editors bias towards Debian (based) distro(s). I could be wrong ofcourse.

Re:what? it's not ubuntu

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian is the greatest distro in the known universe

Re:what? it's not ubuntu

[Lennie]

I think you misread the title of their website:

"The Universal Operating System" ;-)

Re:You keep using that word...

[ianare]

You're saying a piece of software is not an idea turned into a designed algorithm, based on specifications and standards ?

Re:You keep using that word...

[QuoteMstr]

Of course it's an idea turned into something: it's that difference that counts. A particular sweater is the idea of a sweater turned into something too, isn't it? Does that mean you implement a sweater when you put it on? Come on.

Re:You keep using that word...

[Fri13]

But that is what KDE people does, not Mandriva.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the first install of previous Mandriva distro ended up with fucked up keyboard settings. Instead of Estonian Mandriva thought it's cool to produce vietnamese or god knows what characters

Sounds like user error. Only way that would happen is if you selected Vietnamese.

Re:You keep using that word...

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

KDE is none of these things. KDE is a piece of software. It is a thing, neither a plan, nor an idea, nor a model, nor a design, nor a specification, nor a standard, nor an algorithm, nor a policy. Saying Mandriva implements KDE makes as much sense as saying you implement a sweater when you put it on in the morning.

Years from now you'll regret that post when your Mandriva issued android overloads (running KDE) read it from some archive on the internet.

Re:You keep using that word...

[gadabyte]

Language Douche

-1 Ignatius J. Reilly

but then you'd also need

+1 Ignatius J. Reilly

Re:You keep using that word...

[noddyxoi]

Or another, like high noise to signal ratio. Like your comment. But hey the internet is made for douches so who cares right.

Re:You keep using that word...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you're an idiot. Well, I'm sure your mom's real proud of you, regardless.

Re:It was their ball to drop and they did.

[ErroneousBee]

Ive stuck with MDK/MDV since MDV8.1, but I do understand GPs problem.

Every now and then Mandriva produce a bad release, 2005-LE was peculiarly odoriferous, 9.2 and one of the 2007 releases were also rather poor. 2008.0 and 2008.1 were good (apart from an ugly backport of Firefox when FF2 went out of service), but then they went to KDE4 far to early with MDV 2009.0, which hasn't worked too well.

FWIW, Im thinking 2009.1 is going to be one of the better releases.

The Mandriva website really was useless, I couldn't even re-find solutions to problems I'd previously had solved (e.g. an odd xorg.conf for my monitor). Its a lot better today, but there is still an odd gap between the main site and the place all the really useful information is kept.

What I really dont get is this love for Ubuntu. Its about as good as any other distro.

I vote with my pocket

[12357bd]

Since Mandrake times, I buy every new version Mandriva sells.

It's open source, and free, so I vote with my pocket. Good work Mandriva!

Re:You keep using that word...

[hesaigo999ca]

I know, some people are just retards when it comes to understanding english speak,
seriously, even I could have figured that one out....and I am french canadian.

Re:It was their ball to drop and they did.

[buchanmilne]

but then they went to KDE4 far to early with MDV 2009.0

As opposed to many other distros that shipped KDE 4.0 as the only option 6 months earlier, where 2009.0 shipped 4.1 by default, but still had 3.5 available?

I couldn't even re-find solutions to problems I'd previously had solved (e.g. an odd xorg.conf for my monitor). Its a lot better today, but there is still an odd gap between the main site [mandriva.com] and the place all the really useful [mandriva.com] information is kept.

Well, you should have been able to find a bug report ... and these days the forum is open to anyone, or, what do you think should fill the gap ?

Lost interest in distro wars long ago, however ...

[wdef]

I think I could work routinely with any simple understandable linux distro as long as it runs fast.

That said: a friend showed me his Mandriva install a year or two back. I was most impressed with how snappy it ran kde, ease of use, at the selection of apps etc. It shat the pants off that fat old canker slug Fedora (which I keep on my laptop for a "fat" system option against better judgment).

My impression was of a thoroughly well done piece of work. I would have no issues using it.

Re:You keep using that word...

[V!NCENT]

Ofcourse not. Imagine Ubuntu with it's feature set, yeh?, and do sudo apt-get install kde-base etc.. Wow you got KDE4 running, very nice... Now how about the integration of all it's enduser features into KDE? Like a QT security app or something?

Now how about the integration of the new notification system? Oh wait...

Upgrading Mandriva

[Dollyknot]

Hello,

Have just upgraded, it used to be a right rigmarole, now it couldn't be simpler.

The Mandriva server sent my desktop a message saying the upgrade was available would I like to proceed? I indicated yes, my system automatically downloaded the upgrade, took around 3 hours and considering it was an over 3 GB upgrade package not bad.

Upgrade package downloaded, it asked me was it OK to reboot "yes" I indicated.

One reboot later and I'm running the latest KDE and the latest Mandriva with no pain, no CD or DVD burning, usually for reasons unbeknown to myself, upgrading would involve reinstalling whilst keeping my original home partition, and getting everything working again usually a painful and frustrating process, it seems like those days are done!

Well done Mandriva, I will most certainly be spending some money in you're shop.