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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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 is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available;

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

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: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.