Mandriva Linux 2010 Is Finally Out

ennael writes "We finally did it. Mandriva Linux 2010 is out and comes with many improvements and innovations. We still go on supporting in the same level of integration GNOME 2.28 and KDE 4.3.2. Support for netbooks is improved as users can now easily test Moblin 2.0 environment. 'Smart desktop' coming from European research is now fully integrated and is the first real working semantic desktop. Mandriva Control Center also brings improvements in tools: a new netprofile management tool, a GUI for Tomoyo security framework, and parental control. A big thanks to our community, who worked hard and made this release possible."

Comments

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[Stormwatch]

...considering Mandrivia costs 60 euros...

Actually they have a gratis version (One) and a commercial version (Powerpack); they're almost the same, but Powerpack includes some non-free software.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[MacroRodent]

Mandriva is very easy to use, but also has all the power user features you can wish for easily available: by default there is a root account you can login to directly, unlike in Ubuntu. Installer supports more file system choices than most other distros (been running XFS at home for a long time).

Hardware support is good. My gut feeling has been it is better than in Ubuntu, but this is just personal experiences with some boxes that ran Mandriva but not Ubuntu, several years ago, and may not apply to latest versions of both.

Software versions in Mandriva are usually very fresh. It also seems to have better good 32 and 64 bit interoperability than most. I have been running the 64-bit version, yet I have not seen the 32-bit Flash troubles that users of other distros report. Just install the plugins and tell nspluginwrapper to update its information. I guess the fact that the author of nspluginwrapper used to work for Mandriva shows!

One good thing in favor of Mandriva is the PLF ("Penguin Liberation Front") repository that you can use to easily add software that the patent-encumbered in some parts of the world.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[cbhacking]

It's not for those whose primary concern is an idealistic and uncompromising free OS though

Why not? They release a "Mandriva Free" ISO with every release, which contains only F/OSS software. You can install the proprietary stuff yourself if you want to, but the install media is about as "idealistic and uncompromising[ly] free" as any Debian GNU/Linux user could want.