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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."
I use Debian myself, but started out with Mandrake (which became Mandriva). It's a very nice distro actually, more polished than Ubuntu. Also I believe it comes with codecs and other non-free stuff as well as pretty good support so the buyer does get value for their money. For someone just switching from Windows who wants a higher degree of "fit and finish" it's a solid choice. It's not for those whose primary concern is an idealistic and uncompromising free OS though.
Caveat Utilitor
No I also like Mandriva. Here's to hoping Mandriva 2010 undoes some of the damage caused to the Linux image by the Ubuntu Karmic release SNAFU.
I wouldn't mind seeing Mandriva gain some ground, and some new packages in the process.
A fool and his lamb are worth two in the bush.
No, I care too. I have been running it continuously (as in 24/7/365) as a mail and webserver since 2002. Upgraded repeatedly without major difficulties from Mandrake 8.2 to Mandriva 2009.1. Ubuntu is currently as easy to install and use, but there was no Ubuntu back in 2002 and Mandrake's hardware detection and auto-configuration were top-notch. I've stayed with it because none of the upgrades broke anything I couldn't fix in half an hour.
...considering Mandrivia costs 60 euros and has a MUCH smaller userbase than Ubuntu, which is free and is the de facto desktop distro winner. Shouldn't a linux newcomer just adopt the most supported distro aka Ubuntu?
Mandriva is free, too. Otherwise, you may be right. Ubuntu may be a better distro for a "Linux newcomer". On the other hand, getting support for other distros is not wildly different or inherently worse than getting support for Ubuntu. I hope you realize that Ubuntu might not be everybody's cup of tea, and not everybody is new to Linux. While Ubuntu may be the most popular choice for Linux on the desktop, it is by no means the only practical or best choice for everyone.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
It had a few questionable releases around the Mandrake/Mandriva switch, but it's very very good now. From what I've seen it's probably one of the best distros for KDE, better than Fedora and Kubuntu.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Umm... Mandriva is free. You *can* buy it boxed and get some support,etc., but for the average home user it doesn't cost a penny more than Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse, or FreeDOS.
It's also still a fairly dominant distro, and in my opinion is a better place to start if you don't want your OS to treat you like a total moron (every time I try and use Ubuntu, it just feels like it's insulting my intelligence). Mind you, for some people that's probably the appropriate design for an OS, but I'm personally quite happy with Mandriva (one of my computers is running 2009 Spring, I may try upgrading it).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I do too; it makes it easy to do the kinds of things a home user wants to do, without insulting your intelligence, requiring crazy and arcane knowledge, or being overly pushy with the Free Software approach (they offer a F/OSS-only download, but they also offer an ISO with the useful free-as-in-beer proprietary stuff bundled). Their releases are more frequent than openSuse's, I've never had the instability problems that I get with Fedora (seriously, Fedora 10 crashes whenever I manage to connect it to my network, haven't bothered trying it again since then), and I massively prefer its design philosophy and UI over that of Ubuntu.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
For those of you who jumped onto the Linux boat in the Ubuntu era, Mandriva / Mandrake is mostly a hold-over from the days when Red Hat Linux was the biggest Linux distribution around. Red Hat was still a little difficult for some users, so Mandrake was based off Red Hat with more of a focus on polish and ease of use for desktop systems... Maybe similar to the relationship between Ubuntu and Debian. Like Ubuntu, Mandrake was very important, and if someone needed an easy Linux distro, Mandrake Linux was almost the standard.
I still remember ordering Mandrake and Slackware CD's through the mail because they were too big to download on a 56k connection. For a few dollars any number of companies would burn disks as send them through the mail. It wasn't standard for everyone to have broadband, or to be able to do updates through the Internet. In retrospect, Linux was certainly clumsier, rougher, and less stable on the desktop. A quick spin with Mandrake Linux 7 can show you how radically the Linux desktop experience has changed in the last nine years.
This clumsy user experience was also responsible for turning many Linux geeks away from the "bloated" desktop environments and more toward bare metal distributions such as Slackware and Debian, along with minimalist window managers, xterms, and other such tools. In my case, after struggling with Red Hat and Mandrake, I found the simplicity of Slackware to actually be easier, and lived over in that world for the next 7-8 years until Ubuntu really started to shine. I am sure there are many other Slashdotters who have had similar experiences in their years with Linux.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
Out of curiosity, does kdesu (the graphical privilege-elevation dialog) work yet? The last Kubuntu build I tried had kdesu set up to use `su` not `sudo` (it's a configuration option). Since [K]Ubuntu's root account is disabled by default, it doesn't matter what password you enter - su won't work.
This was a blatantly obvious showstopper bug that requires literally a minute or two to fix. The fact that it shipped in a release version of Kubuntu was where I lost all faith in the distribution's QA efforts.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Mandriva has been my OS of choice since it was Mandrake. I haven't tried Ubantu, hated Fedora (but haven't tried it for a long, long time). Suse was ok but I far prefer Mandriva to any distro I've tried.
I think what I like best about it is the "Mandriva Control Center", they tout it as new, but administration has been easy as pie for years anyway. It just works (at least on hardware I've thrown it on).
I'm leery of the "Smart desktop" technology; if I don't like it I hope it's easy to remove or disable. It's GNU so it probably is, and who knows, I might like it anyway! TFA was really light on details, can anybody here shed more light on what it is, what it does, and how it works?
Free Martian Whores!
Currently about 40 server boxes, about dozen of workstations. Tried other distros many times since 2002, always switched back.
Good job, Mandriva guys!