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 :)

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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...

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...

[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.