"Is this any better now? Do you still have to hunt for 3 hours on the interwebs to figure out how to install anything that didn't come with the distro?"
No. No, you don't, and you haven't for several years, as I said. Please read:
"A great percentage of the complaints against Mandriva stem from their maze of homepages and subverted, hidden or missing download links. It's just not completely obvious where to get Mandriva. It should be."
as I said, we're still working on the new page. once that's completed it'll be as easy as you can wish.
I mean, go to www.mandriva.com . Note the gigantic green button marked "Download".:)
The Free x86-64 edition is available, from the download mirrors or at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public . There's no x86-64 One at the present time, I'll have to update that text.
If you get to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , that means you hit a broken link. We just changed www.mandriva.com , concurrent with the 2008 release, but the new site is still having some kinks worked out. www.mandriva.com/archives/ is the old version site, preserved for now in case we need it. As it's the old site and it won't be used any more, nothing on it was updated for 2008. We are currently sending all broken links under www.mandriva.com to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , on the basis that whatever you were looking for is probably still in there somewhere. As we get all the kinks worked out of the new site, you won't see this happening so much. We would've liked a few more days to polish the new site, but we couldn't push 2008 release without the new site, and we didn't want to delay the release solely to finish the website.
Slashdot initially ran this story with a broken link to www.mandriva.com/download.html (should have been www.mandriva.com/en/download.html ), so you may have got to the/archives page that way.
as I said, that vulnerability does not affect Linux. See the advisory, http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-28.html :
"On his blog Petko D. Petkov reported that QuickTime Media-Link files contain a qtnext attribute that could be used on Windows systems to launch the default browser with arbitrary command-line options."
(my emphasis)
grub has been default since 2007.1 (since it has a better graphical mode, lilo's graphical mode was a horrible hoary patch we didn't feel like keeping on life support any longer). lilo is still available as an option, of course.
You never actually had to do that to install software on Mandrake / Mandriva, though some people got the idea that they did. Ever since the very early releases Mandriva has had a dependency resolving package manager, urpmi, and a proper set of online repositories. For information on how the system works in the current release, see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software .
2.0.0.7 included only a security fix that is not relevant to Linux users. Since we were already in version freeze, it would have been silly to break it in order to include a package that has absolutely no benefit.
We give you the choice. The One and Powerpack editions include non-free stuff for convenience. For those who value free software principles, the Free edition includes nothing but free software. if that's your preference, use the Free edition.
It's not the main feature of 2008. We just mention it because we know it's important to many users. The 3D desktop stuff in 2008 just an incremental upgrade over previous releases - we had Compiz, then Compiz and Beryl, now we have Compiz Fusion.
Metisse is still there. You can choose between Metisse and Compiz Fusion with drak3d.
Mandriva has shipped Compiz since the release of 2007. 2007 came with Compiz. 2007 Spring came with Compiz, Beryl and Metisse. 2008 comes with Compiz Fusion and Metisse.
Yes, I submitted a correction to the story about five minutes after I submitted the story. The editor obviously missed it:(. That is indeed the correct link. There are also torrents at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public .
The installation of Mandriva is not solely (or even by default) internet-based, so I think you probably are downloading the wrong ISO - I suspect you're using either boot.iso (which is simply a bootstrap for a hard disk / network based install) or the Mini ISO (which is a very minimal single CD intended as a base for futher customization).
The editions we recommend for the general public are Free - a full disc-based distribution on a single DVD - and One - a full live distribution on a single CD (there are KDE and GNOME versions) which can also be installed to the hard disk. With either of these editions, you do not need to use a remote repository to do the installation, it's fully self-contained. If you're a Club member, you can also get the Powerpack edition, which is also a complete and self-contained distribution.
You certainly don't need to re-install if you find you're having trouble with your repositories. You can just use the repository configuration tool - 'Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system' in the Mandriva Control Center - remove the troublesome repositories, and click the 'Add...' button to add new ones.
To keep a stable release up to date with security and bug fixes, you simply need to run MandrivaUpdate regularly - nothing more than that.
You can indeed upgrade from a previous version to a later one. Simply download the later version (you need one of the regular installer editions - Free, Powerpack or Powerpack+ - not One), boot the installer, and you will be given the choice of a fresh install or upgrading your old installation.
Upgrading from 2007.0 (which you have) to 2007 Spring (A.K.A. 2007.1, the current stable release) generally goes very well, from the reports I've seen.
You can also do an 'Ubuntu-style' upgrade simply by using a mirror finder like Easy URPMI - http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ - to configure repositories for 2007 Spring, then either using rpmdrake's facility to upgrade all available packages, or using this command at a console as root:
urpmi --auto-update -v
However, the installer is able to resolve conflicts and migrate settings that this method sometimes is not, so we recommend less technical users and those who just don't want hassle to use the installer upgrade rather than the urpmi / rpmdrake upgrade option.
Filelight's fine, I think. Etherape hasn't been built since 2007.0, I'll give it a kick today to make sure it's okay in 2008 final. Rhyme does not appear to be packaged, I'll look into that.
I'm not surprised, as you sound like a desktop end-user. PCLOS is more single-purpose than MDV (Tex would tell you the same) - it's aimed particularly at 'normal' desktop home users. So a bunch of packages that are really only of interest to servers, for instance, are left out. Mandriva is a general-purpose distro - it's intended to be usable as a production web server, for instance, as well as a regular desktop - so it has all that stuff.
That would suggest a bug in the build - that path is the temporary fake 'root' where files are installed during a Mandriva package build, and should never show up in the final package. I can't seen any such problem in the spec, though. If you give me more context I can figure out what happened.
The 2.3.6 thing I just fixed: there was a perl substitution command lying around in the spec to convert all occurrences of 2.2 to 2.3 in configure. I guess it was something from years ago to fix a Python 2.2 / Python 2.3 issue, or something. I've taken it out.
2007.1 (latest stable release) had 2.2.6, yes. That was probably the latest version when 2007.1 was released. 2.2.8 could be sent to/backports, but it depends if the maintainer chooses to...we don't backport *everything*. This is pretty normal, I don't know why you find it so terrible.
Slashdot Mirror
"Is this any better now? Do you still have to hunt for 3 hours on the interwebs to figure out how to install anything that didn't come with the distro?"
No. No, you don't, and you haven't for several years, as I said. Please read:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software
it explains it all rather clearly.
Thanks a lot. :)
:D
I'm Adam Williamson, my official tagline reads:
Mandriva community representative | Bugmaster | Community newsletter editor | Proofreader | Packager
basically, I have SVN and SSH access to break just about the entire company, and none of the required formal training to use it.
No, it's not. You're being petty.
"A great percentage of the complaints against Mandriva stem from their maze of homepages and subverted, hidden or missing download links. It's just not completely obvious where to get Mandriva. It should be." as I said, we're still working on the new page. once that's completed it'll be as easy as you can wish. I mean, go to www.mandriva.com . Note the gigantic green button marked "Download". :)
The Free x86-64 edition is available, from the download mirrors or at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public . There's no x86-64 One at the present time, I'll have to update that text. If you get to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , that means you hit a broken link. We just changed www.mandriva.com , concurrent with the 2008 release, but the new site is still having some kinks worked out. www.mandriva.com/archives/ is the old version site, preserved for now in case we need it. As it's the old site and it won't be used any more, nothing on it was updated for 2008. We are currently sending all broken links under www.mandriva.com to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , on the basis that whatever you were looking for is probably still in there somewhere. As we get all the kinks worked out of the new site, you won't see this happening so much. We would've liked a few more days to polish the new site, but we couldn't push 2008 release without the new site, and we didn't want to delay the release solely to finish the website. Slashdot initially ran this story with a broken link to www.mandriva.com/download.html (should have been www.mandriva.com/en/download.html ), so you may have got to the /archives page that way.
as I said, that vulnerability does not affect Linux. See the advisory, http://www.mozilla.org/security/announce/2007/mfsa2007-28.html : "On his blog Petko D. Petkov reported that QuickTime Media-Link files contain a qtnext attribute that could be used on Windows systems to launch the default browser with arbitrary command-line options." (my emphasis)
grub has been default since 2007.1 (since it has a better graphical mode, lilo's graphical mode was a horrible hoary patch we didn't feel like keeping on life support any longer). lilo is still available as an option, of course.
You never actually had to do that to install software on Mandrake / Mandriva, though some people got the idea that they did. Ever since the very early releases Mandriva has had a dependency resolving package manager, urpmi, and a proper set of online repositories. For information on how the system works in the current release, see http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software .
2.0.0.7 included only a security fix that is not relevant to Linux users. Since we were already in version freeze, it would have been silly to break it in order to include a package that has absolutely no benefit.
We give you the choice. The One and Powerpack editions include non-free stuff for convenience. For those who value free software principles, the Free edition includes nothing but free software. if that's your preference, use the Free edition.
It's not the main feature of 2008. We just mention it because we know it's important to many users. The 3D desktop stuff in 2008 just an incremental upgrade over previous releases - we had Compiz, then Compiz and Beryl, now we have Compiz Fusion.
Metisse is still there. You can choose between Metisse and Compiz Fusion with drak3d. Mandriva has shipped Compiz since the release of 2007. 2007 came with Compiz. 2007 Spring came with Compiz, Beryl and Metisse. 2008 comes with Compiz Fusion and Metisse.
Yes, I submitted a correction to the story about five minutes after I submitted the story. The editor obviously missed it :(. That is indeed the correct link. There are also torrents at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public .
If they'd bothered running the site name past someone passingly familiar with the rules of English before going live, it'd be called FewerWatts. sigh.
The installation of Mandriva is not solely (or even by default) internet-based, so I think you probably are downloading the wrong ISO - I suspect you're using either boot.iso (which is simply a bootstrap for a hard disk / network based install) or the Mini ISO (which is a very minimal single CD intended as a base for futher customization).
a lling_and_removing_software contains a lot of useful information on installing software and managing repositories in Mandriva.
The editions we recommend for the general public are Free - a full disc-based distribution on a single DVD - and One - a full live distribution on a single CD (there are KDE and GNOME versions) which can also be installed to the hard disk. With either of these editions, you do not need to use a remote repository to do the installation, it's fully self-contained. If you're a Club member, you can also get the Powerpack edition, which is also a complete and self-contained distribution.
You certainly don't need to re-install if you find you're having trouble with your repositories. You can just use the repository configuration tool - 'Select from where software packages are downloaded when updating the system' in the Mandriva Control Center - remove the troublesome repositories, and click the 'Add...' button to add new ones.
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Inst
To keep a stable release up to date with security and bug fixes, you simply need to run MandrivaUpdate regularly - nothing more than that.
You can indeed upgrade from a previous version to a later one. Simply download the later version (you need one of the regular installer editions - Free, Powerpack or Powerpack+ - not One), boot the installer, and you will be given the choice of a fresh install or upgrading your old installation.
Upgrading from 2007.0 (which you have) to 2007 Spring (A.K.A. 2007.1, the current stable release) generally goes very well, from the reports I've seen.
You can also do an 'Ubuntu-style' upgrade simply by using a mirror finder like Easy URPMI - http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ - to configure repositories for 2007 Spring, then either using rpmdrake's facility to upgrade all available packages, or using this command at a console as root:
urpmi --auto-update -v
However, the installer is able to resolve conflicts and migrate settings that this method sometimes is not, so we recommend less technical users and those who just don't want hassle to use the installer upgrade rather than the urpmi / rpmdrake upgrade option.
Well, I packaged Rhyme, but it doesn't work!
;)
[adamw@lenovo rhyme]$ rhyme orange
Finding perfect rhymes for orange...
2: orange
see, useless
okay, okay, bad joke. All three packages will be fully up to date and working in 2008. Thanks again for the suggestions.
Filelight's fine, I think. Etherape hasn't been built since 2007.0, I'll give it a kick today to make sure it's okay in 2008 final. Rhyme does not appear to be packaged, I'll look into that.
Have you tried the Mandriva GNOME live / install CD lately?
contrib is an official Mandriva repository.
Just in case you don't know, since 2007, ISOs are once more available to everyone (Club members and the public) at the same time.
I'm not surprised, as you sound like a desktop end-user. PCLOS is more single-purpose than MDV (Tex would tell you the same) - it's aimed particularly at 'normal' desktop home users. So a bunch of packages that are really only of interest to servers, for instance, are left out. Mandriva is a general-purpose distro - it's intended to be usable as a production web server, for instance, as well as a regular desktop - so it has all that stuff.
That would suggest a bug in the build - that path is the temporary fake 'root' where files are installed during a Mandriva package build, and should never show up in the final package. I can't seen any such problem in the spec, though. If you give me more context I can figure out what happened.
/backports, just for you. :) You can then just direct people to: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Advanced_use:_Backport s_and_candidate_updates to enable the /backports repositories, and they will find 2.2.8 available (from tomorrow or so, it takes a few hours for packages to propagate out).
The 2.3.6 thing I just fixed: there was a perl substitution command lying around in the spec to convert all occurrences of 2.2 to 2.3 in configure. I guess it was something from years ago to fix a Python 2.2 / Python 2.3 issue, or something. I've taken it out.
I'll push a build of 2.2.8 to 2007 Spring
Mandriva's repos are actually rather larger than PCLOS'. PCLOS drops a few thousand packages that are in MDV.
[adamw@lenovo drbd-utils]$ urpmq -r gramps
/backports, but it depends if the maintainer chooses to...we don't backport *everything*. This is pretty normal, I don't know why you find it so terrible.
gramps-2.2.8-1mdv2008.0
[adamw@lenovo drbd-utils]$
2007.1 (latest stable release) had 2.2.6, yes. That was probably the latest version when 2007.1 was released. 2.2.8 could be sent to