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

Am I the only one who cares?

[linuxgeek64]

I actually really like Mandriva, unlike others here >_>

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[genericpoweruser]

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.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[Mursili]

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.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[amRadioHed]

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.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[travisb828]

> Am I the only one who cares?

There may be one or two others.

I learned long ago arguing over what Linux disto is best is like arguing about the best beer. Each one is unique and appeals to certain people. You have popular distos like Ubuntu and Red Hat/Fedora. Just like you have your popular beers like Budwiser and Coors. The users of the less popular distros usually look down on the users of the more popular distros. In the same way the drinkers of less popular beers look down on the drinkers of the more popular beers.

As for me, I'm typing this response into Chromium using Gnome that is running on Gentoo with special combination of USE flags that is optimized for my unique usage pattern of pr0n, Slashdot, EVE Online, TV/VCR repair, and database administration.

Also, thinking of beer made me get a Guinness out of the fridge before finishing this post.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[Sasayaki]

Here's to hoping Mandriva 2010 undoes some of the damage caused to the Linux image by the Ubuntu Karmic release SNAFU.

Everyone keeps saying that, but... for my home I upgraded a dozen total Ubuntu installs including desktop machines, laptops, virtual machines, file and database servers, MythBuntu frontends and backends... and encountered absolutely no issues. :/ The first I heard of any upgrade problems at all was on Slashdot.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[cbhacking]

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.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[Simmeh]

Budweiser and Coors are popular? You must be American.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[IrquiM]

I know a lot of European girls who drink those brands!

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

They seem to be the only ones who are doing a really good job with KDE4.

Every other distro I've tried has made KDE4 feel like the steaming pile of poo that everyone said it was, but Mandriva made it feel like a really good desktop.

I don't know how they've done that when no-one else seems to be able to, but it does prove that in the hands of a good distributor, KDE4 is actually a very good piece of software. If only the Kubuntu or Suse guys could put in the kind of effort that the Mandriva team have obviously made.

(the irony is that back in the day -- 2005-ish, when I tried Mandrake previously -- I found it one of the worst KDE distros from a look+feel perspective. I'm glad they've turned it around).

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[somersault]

Seems like even if only 10 people had issues, most mindless dotters would jump on it. What is the big deal with wanting to slag off Ubuntu? I really don't have any problems with not having to edit config files just to get my basic system set up. I don't have problems with editing config files either, I work as a programmer, and I enjoy highly configurable systems. Ubuntu is still much more configurable than Windows or OSX. I don't see what other things need to be configurable that I couldn't change if I wanted to. As far as being a desktop OS is concerned, it seems pretty much as close to perfect as anything I've ever used.

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[mcgrew]

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?

Re:Am I the only one who cares?

[mcgrew]

I learned long ago arguing over what Linux disto is best is like arguing about the best beer. Each one is unique and appeals to certain people.

Even moreso than with beer. My favorite beer is Killian's, but it costs too much and not many bars here carry it, so I usually just settle for Busch. With a Linux distro, price doesn't enter into the equation.

Some distros may work better on some hardware than others, some may lack features you need, if they lack features you don't need (but somebody else does) it's a non-issue to you, but not to them.

Re:Mandrake?

[emeraldd]

Well somebody told me You had a boyfriend Who looks like a girlfriend That I had in February of last year It's not confidential I've got potential

I used Mandrake for a couple of years before Mandriva lobotomized it.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[clang_jangle]

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.

Re:Mandrake?

[WaroDaBeast]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandriva

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.

I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[TihSon]

I have been using Mandriva since the days of Mandrake ... 8.1 specifically ... and frankly each time I have tried switching to any other distro I always find myself coming back. Not that the other distros are bad, but I honestly think Mandriva has the hardware detection down cold, and has been routinely better than any others. When the 'buntu showed up I tried switching, and every iteration had a deal breaker. I stopped trying at the LTS edition. Today the only other distro I use is Zenwalk, not some mainstream hotshot like Suse, fedora or Ubuntu.

I guess I am asking, why is it that such a good, arguably superior, distro seems to have to pull teeth just to get a few scraps of publicity, while some others seem to be living in some sort of reality distortion field?

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[onefriedrice]

I guess I am asking, why is it that such a good, arguably superior, distro seems to have to pull teeth just to get a few scraps of publicity, while some others seem to be living in some sort of reality distortion field?

It's the name. Ubuntu is fun to say. Gentoo is fun to say. Suse and Fedora are fun to say.

Mandriva is painful to say.

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[greatica]

I've used Mandrake/Mandriva a couple of times too. Ironically enough a number of computer science peers jeered at it, calling it "n00b Linux".

You know, because we should all embrace distributions that are a pain to get working properly.

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[RAMMS EIN]

I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I can share my experience.

Back in 2001 or 2002 I bought a copy of Mandrake Linux. I had no Internet access (because I just moved) and I needed something for my new laptop, and I'd heard good things about Mandrake. I was sorely disappointed by it. It was heavy (taking a lot of disk space, memory and CPU time), and, apparently like every RPM-based distro at the time, had broken package management and bad quality packages (Mandrake managed to gain some fame for being unable to run Wine, for example).

I am sure Mandrake/Mandriva has improved since then, but it's been too late to keep me. I've discovered Debian, where time spent on system maintenance is minimal because its package management works, its packages work, they have a larger collection of packages than any other distro I've seen (meaning less time spent installing from source), and I feel safe upgrading my entire system in the expectation that everything will still work afterwards.

Even if Mandriva now provides all these things, that wouldn't compel me to switch, because I already have everything I care about.

I suspect it is the same way for others: either Mandriva doesn't offer compelling enough advantages over their current OS to make people want to switch, or people have had bad experiences in the past that make them want to avoid Mandriva. The fact that the project seems to have difficulty getting new releases out and the company behind it has been close to folding probably doesn't help, either.

(Just to be perfectly clear, none of this has anything to do with the technical quality of today's Mandriva. I am not saying it isn't an excellent product which deserves more attention. Just trying to explain why it isn't getting what it deserves.)

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[sorak]

Mandriva sounds like a terminal skin condition...

"Hey, did you hear about Elaine? She has a bad case of Mandriva. Dr. Kubuntu prescribed her 500 milligrams of Debian, but he is not very optimistic about it"

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[John Jamieson]

You ask a good question.

  Because of the hype, I have tried Ubuntu many times and keep going back to Mandriva.
I use Ubuntu studio weekly but the polish is not there, and they don't fix bugs quickly.
And give up on using KDE with Ubuntu, it is almost like they try to give a bad experience to bring people back to gnome.

With Mandriva I can use any window manager, I even use ICE every once in a while when I want a light weight GUI.

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[ReinoutS]

Difficulty getting new releases out? You mean that the 2010.0 release was two whole days behind schedule? Yeah, that casts a doubt over the entire distro.

Re:I think Mandriva is getting a raw deal from us.

[csartanis]

The reason they jeer is because if it is easy to set up it doesn't teach you jack about how it works.

Bootstrapping a Gentoo install will teach you more about how operating systems and computer hardware work than any class you'll take at university.

-Finally- out?

[atheistmonk]

It isn't even 2010 yet!

Re:-Finally- out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva and automakers run on Yearbuzz Saving Time.

Re:-Finally- out?

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's the OS development way: Linux is one year in front on releases, MS is one year behind.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[Stormwatch]

Oops, I forgot to mention: they also have a version named "Free", that includes absolutely no proprietary apps or drivers.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mandriva doesn't cost 60 Euro, so please stop the FUD. You can get Mandriva running perfectly fine by using "Mandriva Free 2010", and they have community repos for mp3 etc just like Debian has "debian-multimedia" and Opensuse has packman.

"Ubuntu is an modern day white trash word that means 'I can't fucking read'".

\suseuser

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[onefriedrice]

...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.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[the_womble]

Mandriva has a free as in beer one CD (like Ubuntu) version: you pay for the version that comes as a multi CD set (so you can install more on installation without downloading) and support.

In any case, the cost of an OS is trivial compared to its importance to most users: if 60 Euros gives you something better, spend it.

If you think you should adopt the most widely used desktop, you should logically use Windows.

Mandriva is a very good distro, and much more newbie friendly. It has better hardware detection, and is very easy to use. The only real shortcoming is that the software installer is not quite as good as Synaptic.

Re:Surprised

[amRadioHed]

Mandriva is quality free distribution.

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]

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).

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[plasticsquirrel]

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.

Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[Adam Jorgensen]

...needs to be shot. Mandriva is still the best desktop linux distro out there. Ubuntu is made of fail because it loves Gnomes. OpenSuse is made of fail because it's full of clunky "enterprise" (Another word for "crap") admin stuff. Fedora is made of fail because RedHat is more interested in RHEL than anything else. That leaves Mandriva. It's fast, it's free (Despite OP might think. Hint: Try visiting the Mandriva website and clicking on the Download link...), boasts great repos, wonderful configuration tools and is all round a top noch desktop experience. It's what I use at work because I need a distro I can rely on to install right, work properly and not throw up a fuss when it comes to installing software, playing music and getting things done.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[petrus4]

Mandriva is still the best desktop linux distro out there. Ubuntu is made of fail because it loves Gnomes.

The Ubuntu using moderators are really stretching, here. How exactly is this Offtopic?

Canonical are the collective village idiot of the entire FOSS community. Whichever members of the Lloyd Christmas demographic who use it and get mod points here, can mod it down as much as they want. They won't change the fact, and the fact is this:-

Ubuntu and Debian are both unmitigated garbage. I just installed Arch this morning. The install took three hours, and had none of the problems which I had constantly for six weeks with Ubuntu Intrepid.

Sound? Just works, with ALSA. Considering how bad my experience was with Intrepid, I was amazed.

Video? Nvidia drivers; just worked.

X? I could install whichever window manager I wanted at the outset, which means I wasn't left with struggling to either live with or somehow uninstall the rancid fecal matter that is GNOME.

No kernel panics. No flickering. No sound dropping out. It just works.

Mandriva was a good distro too, last time I used it.

I'm fed up with Ubuntu users. If it was just your obscenity of a distribution that was a problem, I could cope with simply not using it. That isn't my biggest issue, however.

You insist on lying and engaging in denial about everything that is wrong with it, and suppressing complaint about said problems in any way you can. I know how this post is immediately headed for -1, and the reason given doesn't matter at all, does it?

Go ahead; do it. Bury what I'm saying here, and what EVERY ONE else, other than you, is saying about Shuttleworth's miscarriage of a distribution. Ubuntu is falling apart. Karmic was supposed to be a fix for Jaunty, and now it's giving everyone hell to the same degree.

You can't bury the truth. You can either keep burying your heads in the sand until Canonical go under, and Mark Shuttleworth ends up potentially worth nothing more than the shirt on his back, or you can actually start trying to change things.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[jimicus]

I wouldn't describe Debian as unmitigated garbage - if you use it for a server you have no need of a flashy GUI or top-notch video and wireless support and it excels there. That is, after all, the core focus of Debian.

Ubuntu, OTOH - I can take it or leave it. I've spent the last two days wrestling with Ubuntu myself for a specific project and I'm just about ready to jack it in and run Mandriva.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[tokul]

Ubuntu is made of fail because it loves Gnomes.

I think it comes from their ancestors. Debian always preferred Gnome.

Preferring Gnome over KDE is not a failure. It is only something that does not match your desktop environment requirements. Some people like Gnome. Although you might not like KDE either. I don't think that it fits your "rely on to install right, work properly and not throw up a fuss when it comes to installing software, playing music and getting things done" requirements.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[Dude McDude]

I'm fed up with Ubuntu users. If it was just your obscenity of a distribution that was a problem, I could cope with simply not using it. That isn't my biggest issue, however. You insist on lying and engaging in denial about everything that is wrong with it, and suppressing complaint about said problems in any way you can. I know how this post is immediately headed for -1, and the reason given doesn't matter at all, does it?

Well fucking said! *applauds* Ubuntu users are the Scientologists of the OSS world.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[Draek]

Or you could learn some statistics and see why an anecdote does not constitute universal data.

Face it, dear Troll, most people are using Ubuntu just fine just as most people are using Mandriva, Fedora and SuSE without problems. People with problematic hardware have long been a minority, and regardless of how angry you may be at being part of it, that won't make them a significant majority nor anyone who hasn't had a problem with it a "fanboy".

But don't worry, one day you'll grow up, get out of your momma's basement and be enlightened (in more ways than one) as you see the whole wide world open to you, filled with people who don't give a fuck about the problems you have with your computer. One day.

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[petrus4]

But don't worry, one day you'll grow up, get out of your momma's basement and be enlightened (in more ways than one) as you see the whole wide world open to you, filled with people who don't give a fuck about the problems you have with your computer. One day.

Ah, the other half of Slashdot's population have woken up. Morning. ;)

You know, one of my other posts in this thread was at 5, Insightful over night. It's the way it normally happens. My perspective resonates with the few other people here with a brain in their heads, for a couple of hours; and then in the morning there's the arrival of what I'll charitably refer to as, "the blue pill demographic."

Enjoy your 8-16 hours stuck in a 4 foot cubicle. I might even think of you at some point during the day; right before I roll over and go back to sleep. ;)

Re:Whichever moron tagged this as "irrelevant"...

[dissy]

Ok, All fairly good points.

One of the main downsides to Debian is that it is expected you will do everything 'the Debian way', and if you don't, expect Debian to step on your toes.

I too came from a Slackware background, and you are right they are based off totally different systems.

I don't know if you ever plan to try Debian again (It sounds like you already found the solution(s) that work best for you, and that is plenty of reason to continue as you are)

I've had apt delete half a running system on two occasions when trying to uninstall OpenOffice in particular; it is tied in for some reason with almost the entire rest of the system. Apt/dpkg is particularly bad for having false dependencies associated with packages, although rpm is generally not immune to that problem either.

I do fully believe that case. I've only run a single Debian system with X11 installed in my life (10+ years for using Debian on headless servers, still to this day) and yes the X11 dependencies are very messed up.
That bit was actually one of the few improvements Ubuntu had over Debian. Effortless X11 auto detection and such (Which Mandrake does have too ofc)

The only time I ran into a similar issue was a console app that had some X-lib listed as a dependency, which itself of course had the rest of X11 as a dependency.
Sadly, that is still the cream of the crop of package management these days :/

DKMS I find to be a complete mess; I've never been able to get a kernel compile to work on any Debian-based system; I always get tangled up in the jungle of perl scripts when I've tried doing it by the book. I should probably have just done it manually.

The 'debian way' is to use kbuild for your custom kernels. After a fakeroot compile, you end up with a .deb with the version number set as such to never be replaced by an official kernel.

I do admit that was an insanely poor documented process however. It some times IS easier to compile your own kernel manually and just exclude kernels (via apt pinning) from upgrades.

However, once you get used to and start using the kbuild setup, one main advantage is that it integrates very nicely with ksplice (Updates not just the kernel file on disk and package, but modifies the running kernel in memory with the same patches, so no reboots are required.)

To some, that is worth the pain of kbuild.. And there are of course other deployment aspects it makes easier, if one needs such features. If all you want is to get a custom kernel up quickly however, it can be annoying.

The init system I found almost incomprehensible, coming from a background primarily of Slackware and LFS; although I eventually figured that out.

Ahh yes. That comes from Debian using the SysV style init, and Slackware using the BSD style init.

That init system has been in use in SunOS (now Solaris) for a long time, and some other Unix OSs (AIX comes to mind) have used SysV as well.

As I came from a Slackware and BSD background, the SysV init system was a major change to me too, however I had to learn it for running a SunOS system, so was sorta set when I moved away from Slackware.

It's also worth noting that Slackware is the only major Linux distro to still use the BSD style init system. Of course the 'roll your own system from scratch' methods could very well use it too, but they are hardly major ;)

I have to say however, once I figured that out, I do prefer SysV style setups.
Debian and Ubuntu have a 'both' feature as well. You still have SysV init at the core, but that system then runs /etc/rc.local just like the BSD scripts would use. You can still put a simple one-liner in there to start something instead of making a Sxx-name.sh script if you wanted.

The fourth thing was that with virtually every application I tried to install that had dotfiles, there seemed to be two; one which was hardwired in by Debian in the location

Re:Surprised

[molnarcs]

"Quality free distributions" - are you trolling? Mandriva is free. Yes, they have a commercial edition (powerpack) that comes with some proprietary software, but they offeer completely free editions (Mandriva One, Mandriva Free) that are just like any other free editions. And about quality - Mandriva 2009 spring received glowing review, and having used it for a few months, I can confirm - it's probably one of the finest distribution, especially if you look at their KDE implementation. Which reminds me - since when can you mention quality and ubuntu together when it comes to KDE?

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[molnarcs]

...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?

Well, if said newcomer desires KDE, the answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. Kubuntu, for the past 4 releases (basically, since Feisty) have been alpha quality. They ship with broken packages, zero customization, and bugs that would be considered by any other responsible vendor as showstopper (for instance, wireless that broke most people's Internet connection after updating to Jaunty). Besides, as other pointed out, Mandiva has free editions.

And expect Penguin Liberation Front uo update too

[Antique Geekmeister]

There is a wonderful location for software whose licenses make it difficult to include in Mandriva, such as libdvdcss for reading DVD's in the USA, emulators for game consoles because Mandriva won't incorporate them directly to avoid US DMCA legal issues, and Dan Bernstein's oddball tools whose licenses used to prevent rebundling. It's called the Penguin Liberation Front, it's built around Mandriva, and its source RPM's are convenient for any RPM based distro that wants access to these tools.

I find it extremely handy because it has old, weird tools like xv and vtwm for which I sadly miss development.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[GeorgeS]

This sounds very much like my own experiences with Linux.I had a friend/co-worker help me setup a Debian system many years ago but, I never quite "got" Debian and it was very frustrating for me. I continued to run the Debian system for several years and I even tried out Corel Linux with similar results but, after reading about Mandrake(the name back then) I figured it couldn't be any worse so I gave that a try and WOW...all my hardware magically started working and it wasn't too hard for me to setup the system and use it.
Now several years later I use Debian on my servers and I'm learning to use the KDE that comes with Debian but, I mostly just the shell/Xterm/CLI on those systems.
This is great timing too because my wife just mentioned earlier tonight that she'd like to try out a Linux system on an old laptop we have here and I have a pretty good idea which Distro we are going to try first :)

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.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[cbhacking]

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.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[darthflo]

Ubuntu does XFS, (as well as ext*, JFS, MurderFS and so on) through the standard installer. mdraid, lvm and truecrypt only work through the alternate installer disc (but the curses interface ain't that much more difficult than the GUI, so it oughtn't be an issue.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[xtracto]

"Ubuntu is an modern day white trash word that means 'I can't fucking read'".

That's not what I've heard.
p.s. No, I didn't change my sig to fit the comment.

The sad fortune of distributions...

[tjstork]

I remember when, for a time, Mandrake was -the- Linux to get. Now look at them, practically off the radar.

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[imakemusic]

How should one go about finding the best choice of distro for their needs without trying them all out? This is a serious question...

anyone installed it?

[mxh83]

from the posts, I can't find anyone who actually installed it. So how is it?

Re:Mandrake lived and died by RPM

[buchanmilne]

Mandrake lived and died by RPM

As much as Debian died by dpkg, in other words, not at all. I guess you didn't try urpmi (which was in a released version of Mandriva before apt was in a stable release of Debian)?

Mandriva's not even run by the guy that founded Mandrake. So everyone that remembers the old Mandrake should remember that this is just somebody else with sorta the same name doing the distro now.

So, when no more founders of Microsoft are employed by Microsoft, they should change their name, or their customers should consider switching?

What really made Mandrake, and continues to make Mandriva, is not one person, but the combination of employees and contributors. While many of both have come and gone, a lot of the contributors from the Mandrake era still use and contribute to the distro, and new contributors join quite often.

If you bothered to look, you would probably find that Mandriva is more open than Ubuntu or Fedora (not sure about "Open"SUSE).

Hoping for great things

[Lemming Mark]

2009 Spring with the KDE4 desktop has given me an excellent experience on my Eee 701 with 2GB RAM (tried it with 512MB RAM, it was crashy and slow due to out-of-memory, though Mandriva includes a couple of lighter weight desktops which might be worth trying if you don't have KDE as a requirement!).

It works out-of-the-box on Eee 701 with the hardware well-supported without manual fiddling (a few magic function keys don't work, oh well). It looks nice, it's KDE implementation is nice and polished. It's like running a modern desktop OS, really excellent. My main objection is simply that it doesn't have a vanilla (x)nethack package :-(

I'm very excited to see 2010 and will upgrade to it after giving early adopters a chance to shake out any release bugs ;-)

Mandriva 2008 Spring was the best yet...

[AlgorithMan]

kde 4 really kicked mandrivas usability... I currently use 2009 Spring and kde 4.3 is a big improvement over older kde 4 versions, but quite often I regret switching from 2008 Spring. many features, that worked in 2008 spring are now broken

• akregator and kmail now have problems with some servers
• kile and kate's scripting feature don't work anymore
• kaffeine can't handle non-square pixels anymore, so DVD playback is stretched on my 16:9 TV - and my bugreports are just ignored)
• i get errors from PulseAudio all the time
• I cant mount encrypted harddrives at boot-time, not even with initscripts or using crypttab (i have to mount them manually after booting

the one thing that's really improved is kdenlive)

I tried to install Mandriva 2010, but aparently its installer doesn't think my SSD is a harddrive... although all previous mandriva versions installed on it just fine... maybe I'll switch the ports where my harddrives are plugged in - that may change something, but then again i'll have to reinstall grub manually (mandrivas bootloader repair tool never worked for me)

mandriva 2009 was completely unusable with kde 4.1... I think what I'll do soon is using mandriva-online to update my system (although I'd prefer a fresh installation) and if it goes bad, I'll switch back to 2008 Spring...

Re:Mandriva 2008 Spring was the best yet...

[buchanmilne]

kde 4 really kicked mandrivas usability... I currently use 2009 Spring and kde 4.3 is a big improvement over older kde 4 versions, but quite often I regret switching from 2008 Spring. many features, that worked in 2008 spring are now broken

• akregator and kmail now have problems with some servers

I've been using kmail quite a bit, and haven't had problems. I don't use akregator much ...

kile and kate's scripting feature don't work anymore

I think it should be back in KDE 4.4, but this is of course an upstream issue.

kaffeine can't handle non-square pixels anymore, so DVD playback is stretched on my 16:9 TV - and my bugreports are just ignored)

i get errors from PulseAudio all the time

dragon player is working quite well for me on KDE 4.2 on Mandriva 2009.1. The only thing I am missing in dragon is a decent playlist.

I cant mount encrypted harddrives at boot-time, not even with initscripts or using crypttab (i have to mount them manually after booting

If this is your bug, it may have workarounds for 2009.1, and is fixed in 2010.0 by the switch to plymouth (splashy was the cause in 2009.0 and 2009.1). If you have a different bug, you need to provide means to reproduce it ...

the one thing that's really improved is kdenlive)

I tried to install Mandriva 2010, but aparently its installer doesn't think my SSD is a harddrive... although all previous mandriva versions installed on it just fine... maybe I'll switch the ports where my harddrives are plugged in - that may change something, but then again i'll have to reinstall grub manually (mandrivas bootloader repair tool never worked for me)

I didn't try 2010.0 on my Acer Aspire One, so I can't comment here, but I didn't see any bugs filed on this.

mandriva 2009 was completely unusable with kde 4.1...

Which is why KDE3 was still available for it, unlike other distributions that were released at the same time.

Re:Mandriva 2008 Spring was the best yet...

[ReinoutS]

By any chance did you use the "dual" (works on both i586 and x86_64) iso for installation? It's made for a minimal install, but you can simply setup the software repositories with rpmdrake and install anything you like (KDE is under the task-kde metapackage).

Re:How does it compare to Ubuntu?

[buchanmilne]

Ubuntu does XFS, (as well as ext*, JFS, MurderFS and so on) through the standard installer.

XFS has been available on Mandrake/Mandriva since Mandrake 8.2 if I remember correctly. Since that time it has been possible for users to resize system filesystems (e.g. /usr) using a graphical interface. This is still not possible on many distributions.

mdraid, lvm and truecrypt only work through the alternate installer disc (but the curses interface ain't that much more difficult than the GUI, so it oughtn't be an issue.

The Mandriva installer supports RAID, LVM, and LUKS encryption in the graphical installer. This GUI tool is also available after installation.

Creative X-Fi

[EdgeyEdgey]

Do any versions support the Creative Labs X-Fi sound cards?

Using mandriva since 2002

[alexmin]

Currently about 40 server boxes, about dozen of workstations. Tried other distros many times since 2002, always switched back.
Good job, Mandriva guys!