You can disable core dumps entirely by sticking a line like this in/etc/security/limits.conf (or just uncomment the one that's there already, most likely):
I suspect you're actually running 2006 - that's the version that had an Xmas edition, and 2007 has Firefox 2.0 available as an official update.
2006 is really too old to be supported now. We have a 12-18 month support cycle. It's worth noting that Ubuntu's cycle is just the same, except for LTS releases. I expect you wouldn't have too much luck finding packages for two year old Ubuntu releases, either.
Well, let me give you more concrete examples, then - during the 2008 development cycle, I personally have gone through and rebuilt almost every package (there's a few which simply can't be built any more, but over 95%) in the main repository with a mdk* release tag (indicating that it hasn't been built since Mandriva 2006 or earlier) or a 2007.0* release tag (indicating it hasn't been built since Mandriva 2007), making sure they build, run, and are compliant with our current packaging policies. This has never been done for any previous release. I'm hoping to get quite a lot of the 2007.1* packages (those that haven't been built since 2007 Spring) before we ship, too.
As I wrote in the post to which you're replying, we provide up-to-date packages in the/backports repositories. These aren't part of the Club, they're alongside all the other public repositories on the official mirror sites. The Club is not really used for providing packages any more, except for a very few packages that are non-free and that we cannot legally redistribute to the general public for license reasons (the most significant here are Flash and Acrobat Reader). You absolutely don't have to join the Club to use Mandriva: apart from that small group of packages, everything is available to non-Club members.
The admin tools are written in perl for a couple of reasons: it's what our coders know, it works, and we have a rather neat system which lets us write the tools once and have them work in both graphical and console (curses-based) mode. Rewriting them all in some other language and toolkit would be a lot of work for no real return.
I find they generally work pretty well. If you find problems in them, please do file bug reports. We do fix the bugs, honest.:)
For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available.
We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.
Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.
Since 2007, we have official/backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring/backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with/backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.
so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.
On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.
They don't print a story for every rc, beta and official release. I should know, I've submitted a story for every 2008 beta / RC and this is the first one that got accepted.:D I think it depends on which editor reviews the story...and how nice they're feeling. It generally works out that I get a story printed for one pre-release and the final release for each cycle, which I think is about right in terms of not over-flooding.
Of course, Ubuntu get a story posted every time they sneeze. Sigh.
2008 should work with that chipset (we have the iwl4965 driver included in the kernel). I *think* it ought to work in RC1, but I'm not entirely sure. Give the live version a shot when it comes out.
Honestly, I've been copying and pasting the same release announcement since Beta 1 and I forgot to take that bit out.:)
Almost everything on that page is now included. However, it's true to say that Mandriva RCs are not really true release candidates - they're not builds that we honestly believe could be the final release unless someone finds a bug (well, the *last* one usually is, for 2007 Spring that was RC3, for instance). They should really be considered more as late betas. We didn't even hit version freeze yet (it's tomorrow). It's always been this way with MDV, it's a bit odd but we're used to it...:)
"The linked article reads more like a bug report. A badly-written bug report, too. Here's what will happen: The Automatix devs (or some other team under a different name) will fix the bugs and provide the software again."
Fixing the bugs would require a ground-up rewrite of the software. From the evaluation it's clear that its entire concept ("act like a package manager without actually being one or respecting the existing system packager in any way at all") is fundamentally flawed. These are not problems susceptible to one-line patches.
"To get Flash working on 64-bit Linux, try searching your distro's software repository for "nspluginwrapper". Technically it's a bit of a hack, but from a user's perspective it's fairly transparent at getting 32-bit browser plugins to work on 64-bit platforms.
Debian, at least, has it."
And Mandriva. Seeing as how we wrote it.:) (it's by Gwenole Beauchesne, who recently left MDV but worked here for years, including at the time he wrote nspluginwrapper).
Of course you didn't get any joy, because you're an end user, not a distributor.
Patent law applies to distribution. Patents are licensed to distributors. There will be always be zero interest (and zero point) in licensing patents directly to end users.
There is no legal violation in receiving and using patented technology without a license, only distributing it. The only party technically in breach of patent law when you download a binary LAME in the U.S. is the site you download it from.
The biggest legally problematic packages are dvdcss (which is, as discussed, a clear breach of the DMCA and the EUCD), and win32-codecs / w32-codecs, which contains numerous files in clear breach of Microsoft's and other's copyrights.
You could all just use the standard and abundantly clear form of words the U.K. figured out to describe the N.H.S. several decades ago - "free at the point of delivery" - and SHUT UP ALREADY. sheesh.
I don't understand why *any* company would allow *any* employee to talk to the press without first making them endure an hour long talk which involved the employee, the PR team, and a large whiteboard with the following phrase written on it:
HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE = YOUR ASS IS TOAST
Most glaringly, point 10 directly contradicts point 5. I'd say point 10 is the more correct (most filesharing focuses on big, popular, commercial artists) - but that blows a hole in point 5, because it suggests the labels would do far better trying to sell innovative music with genuine artistic value to music enthusiasts, rather than trying to sell mass-produced pap to people who really just want some background noise and are happy to download it if that's more convenient than buying it.
Beyond this, the biggest obvious problem is the implication in point 7 that the music industry "create(s) jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth". I'd file this under 'unproven', at least in the sense under discussion here (piracy threatens the music industry's ability to create jobs, exports etc etc). The problem is that to prove this the music industry has to prove not only that people pirate music, but crucially also that the music they save by pirating music isn't just injected back into the economy in some equally beneficial way through some industry. If Joe Bloggs pirates five albums a week but still spends all his disposable income on movies, junk food and clothes, the overall effect on the economy is exactly the same as if he'd spent some of that money on buying the albums. The music industry is trying to dress up its own self-interest as the benefit of the entire economy, but they need more proof to succeed in this.
Oh, and point 8 is easy to blow away: Chinese living standards are still at the point where, in most of China, you need to be classified as middle- or higher-income in order for a CD player not to constitute a significant chunk of your income. And people who can't afford CD players are not likely to pirate CDs.
I was thinking of asking someone to let me know where Alice, Bob and Eve all live. I just bought a job lot of cheap resistors on eBay and I need to unload 'em in a hurry...
there's the SRPMS for the 7.2 updates. That release is six and a half years old.
I am entirely sure that any FSF representative, lawyer or reasonable person would consider our source availability to be beyond adequate and well into 'generous'. All the Mandriva public mirrors carry the source code for every package. What more can you realistically ask for? You seem to be just making trouble for the sake of making trouble.
MDV doesn't use *parted as the installer partitioner, never has. It uses diskdrake, our own in-house tool, which may look kinda like gparted from some angles, I guess.
For a start, you don't understand what 'source' is. The binary RPMs that make up the distribution you get on ISOs are not 'source', and that's what you're moaning about. The 'source' is all this stuff:
How long would it take someone who hasn't paid for Club access to find them?
Well, for a start, I don't see what paying for Club access has to do with anything. 'A mirror list' is not among the privileges of Club membership. So I don't know where you get that argument from. Second, when you Google for 'Mandriva Mirrors', the CookerMirrors page on the wiki is result #4, the 2007.0 mirror list on api.mandriva.com is #10, and the Club mirror finder (which works for non-Club members) is #6. So the answer to that would be 'not very long', I think.
The GPL has precisely nothing at all to do with the provision of security updates. That's clearly an absurd argument. You can release a product under GPL (or any other software license) and never update it. Notwithstanding, mirrors that carry the/old tree where old releases go to die have all the old updates available. http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/mandriva/old/updates / has updates back to 7.2. (In case you're wondering, I found that by Googling for mandriva-old : it was the first result).
You are also badly misreading it in terms of where the source code is to be made available. The paragraph you quote is not compelling the source to be made available in the same place as the binaries. It's saying that if you, say, sell a GPL-covered product as a time-limited download, then it's OK to provide the source in the same place; you don't have to make it available permanently as a non-time-limited download, and if the buyer doesn't download the source at the same time as they download the binaries, hard cheese. In other words, it's entirely irrelevant to the situation we are discussing.
I'm sorry, but it's getting to the point where it's hard to assume good faith on your part. And your understanding of the GPL is clearly sorely lacking.
Slashdot Mirror
actually, apt-rpm is in the Mandriva repos for anyone who feels like using it. As are smart and yum. :)
You can disable core dumps entirely by sticking a line like this in /etc/security/limits.conf (or just uncomment the one that's there already, most likely):
* soft core 0
I suspect you're actually running 2006 - that's the version that had an Xmas edition, and 2007 has Firefox 2.0 available as an official update.
2006 is really too old to be supported now. We have a 12-18 month support cycle. It's worth noting that Ubuntu's cycle is just the same, except for LTS releases. I expect you wouldn't have too much luck finding packages for two year old Ubuntu releases, either.
Mandriva 2008 introduces Suggests: support, actually. :)
Oh, and I forgot to mention: we've had a PHP5 package since release 10.1:
c h=php5&st=fuzzyname&submit=Submit+Query&qcount=20
http://sophie.zarb.org/rpmfind?mversion=10.1&sear
10.1 came out in October 2004.
Well, let me give you more concrete examples, then - during the 2008 development cycle, I personally have gone through and rebuilt almost every package (there's a few which simply can't be built any more, but over 95%) in the main repository with a mdk* release tag (indicating that it hasn't been built since Mandriva 2006 or earlier) or a 2007.0* release tag (indicating it hasn't been built since Mandriva 2007), making sure they build, run, and are compliant with our current packaging policies. This has never been done for any previous release. I'm hoping to get quite a lot of the 2007.1* packages (those that haven't been built since 2007 Spring) before we ship, too.
/backports repositories. These aren't part of the Club, they're alongside all the other public repositories on the official mirror sites. The Club is not really used for providing packages any more, except for a very few packages that are non-free and that we cannot legally redistribute to the general public for license reasons (the most significant here are Flash and Acrobat Reader). You absolutely don't have to join the Club to use Mandriva: apart from that small group of packages, everything is available to non-Club members.
:)
As I wrote in the post to which you're replying, we provide up-to-date packages in the
The admin tools are written in perl for a couple of reasons: it's what our coders know, it works, and we have a rather neat system which lets us write the tools once and have them work in both graphical and console (curses-based) mode. Rewriting them all in some other language and toolkit would be a lot of work for no real return.
I find they generally work pretty well. If you find problems in them, please do file bug reports. We do fix the bugs, honest.
Thanks for the good luck wishes.
As I mentioned, in our defense, we've been doing it this way for *years*. Mandriva - ahead of the curve as always! ;)
Where are you?
/ mandrivalinux/devel/iso/2008.0/ . In South America, ftp://ftp.c3sl.ufpr.br/MandrivaLinux/devel/iso/200 8.0/ . In Europe, ftp://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/Man drivaLinux/devel/iso/2008.0/ , or ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/Mandrakelinu x/devel/iso/2008.0/ if that one's slow.
In North America, I'd recommend ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions
We don't do torrents for beta releases as the demand is not usually high enough to warrant it - the FTP mirrors usually cope with the demand easily.
For all those who haven't tried Mandriva in a while, quite a lot has changed. It'd be great if you could try Mandriva again before posting comments. For instance, managing remote repositories is far easier than it used to be: you can configure a full set of official repositories from within the Mandriva package management tools. Instructions are at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available .
/backports repositories (in 2007 Spring and later, these are configured when you set up repositories, but not enabled by default for stability; you can enable them with a single click in the repository configuration tool). These contain up-to-date versions of popular applications. For instance, the 2007 Spring /backports repositories have amaroK 1.4.7, Compiz Fusion (0.5.2), VirtualBox 1.5.0, k3b 1.0.3, pidgin 2.0.1 (will update to 2.1 soon), avant-window-navigator latest SVN, brasero 0.6.0, deluge 0.5.4.1, gimmie 0.2.7, jokosher 0.9, mediatomb 0.10.0, miro 0.9.8.1, ntfs-3g 1.516, powertop 1.3, seamonkey 1.1.4, smplayer 0.5.21, tovid 0.30, transmission 0.72 and a *huge* amount of other updated packages (these are just some examples I picked). These are not officially supported, but they *are* built in a clean environment on the official Mandriva buildsystem and all built against each other, so they represent a contiguous set of packages that you will never have trouble using together, which is far better than the case on many other distributions where you have to use dozens of single-purpose or tiny third party repositories that are unofficial, not necessarily cleanly built, and often conflict with each other. There's a couple of other distros with /backports repositories to my knowledge, including Ubuntu, but Mandriva's are far bigger than any other distro and include far more useful packages.
We've made big improvements in overall polish and stability since the releases that many people remember badly (2005, 2006). 2007 Spring looks much better, has far fewer package quality problems and runs more stably than those releases on most systems. 2008 will be better again, there's been a lot of work done on improving overall package quality, and it includes a very good and recent kernel build with very good hardware support. For instance, we have probably the best graphics card detection and configuration system in a major distro. I'm pretty sure that 99% of cards from major manufacturers (Intel, NVIDIA, ATI) will be correctly detected and configured in 2008. Our support for VIA / S3 (Uni)chrome chips (which are used on VIA's popular mini-ITx motherboards, for e.g.) is better than any other major distro to my knowledge.
Since 2007 Spring, we have a public non-free repository (that is configured when you set up repositories following the instructions above), so it's easy for anyone to get stuff like the NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Sun Java and so on. For instance, for the NVIDIA / ATI drivers, just enable the repository and then re-run the graphics card configuration tool, and it will give you the option of using the proprietary driver.
Since 2007, we have official
so, yes, Mandriva is changing, quite a lot in fact. It'd be great if you'd give us another chance with 2008, read up on the forums - http://forum.mandriva.com/ - and the Wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/ - and see if your issues aren't improved.
On the Bugzilla situation - N7DR is not at all wrong in his criticism as it relates to earlier times. During the 2008 release cycle, we created a Bug Squad and I was appointed Bugmaster. The Bug Squad now triages all bugs reported, which has helped immensely with the response rate and time for newer issues.
They don't print a story for every rc, beta and official release. I should know, I've submitted a story for every 2008 beta / RC and this is the first one that got accepted. :D I think it depends on which editor reviews the story...and how nice they're feeling. It generally works out that I get a story printed for one pre-release and the final release for each cycle, which I think is about right in terms of not over-flooding.
Of course, Ubuntu get a story posted every time they sneeze. Sigh.
2008 should work with that chipset (we have the iwl4965 driver included in the kernel). I *think* it ought to work in RC1, but I'm not entirely sure. Give the live version a shot when it comes out.
Honestly, I've been copying and pasting the same release announcement since Beta 1 and I forgot to take that bit out. :)
Almost everything on that page is now included. However, it's true to say that Mandriva RCs are not really true release candidates - they're not builds that we honestly believe could be the final release unless someone finds a bug (well, the *last* one usually is, for 2007 Spring that was RC3, for instance). They should really be considered more as late betas. We didn't even hit version freeze yet (it's tomorrow). It's always been this way with MDV, it's a bit odd but we're used to it...:)
"The current design of Automatix"
Read, these are not errors in the implementation of the design philosophy. The design philosophy is flawed.
Implication, the only way to fix these problems is to change the design.
That's not saying they can't be fixed. It's just saying that fixing them requires a fundamental change in how Automatix is designed and works.
"The linked article reads more like a bug report. A badly-written bug report, too. Here's what will happen: The Automatix devs (or some other team under a different name) will fix the bugs and provide the software again."
Fixing the bugs would require a ground-up rewrite of the software. From the evaluation it's clear that its entire concept ("act like a package manager without actually being one or respecting the existing system packager in any way at all") is fundamentally flawed. These are not problems susceptible to one-line patches.
"To get Flash working on 64-bit Linux, try searching your distro's software repository for "nspluginwrapper". Technically it's a bit of a hack, but from a user's perspective it's fairly transparent at getting 32-bit browser plugins to work on 64-bit platforms.
:) (it's by Gwenole Beauchesne, who recently left MDV but worked here for years, including at the time he wrote nspluginwrapper).
Debian, at least, has it."
And Mandriva. Seeing as how we wrote it.
Of course you didn't get any joy, because you're an end user, not a distributor.
Patent law applies to distribution. Patents are licensed to distributors. There will be always be zero interest (and zero point) in licensing patents directly to end users.
There is no legal violation in receiving and using patented technology without a license, only distributing it. The only party technically in breach of patent law when you download a binary LAME in the U.S. is the site you download it from.
The biggest legally problematic packages are dvdcss (which is, as discussed, a clear breach of the DMCA and the EUCD), and win32-codecs / w32-codecs, which contains numerous files in clear breach of Microsoft's and other's copyrights.
IANAL.
You could all just use the standard and abundantly clear form of words the U.K. figured out to describe the N.H.S. several decades ago - "free at the point of delivery" - and SHUT UP ALREADY. sheesh.
I don't understand why *any* company would allow *any* employee to talk to the press without first making them endure an hour long talk which involved the employee, the PR team, and a large whiteboard with the following phrase written on it: HOSTAGES TO FORTUNE = YOUR ASS IS TOAST
1. Accept one million pounds 2. Surrender cellphone 3. Hire flunky to talk on cellphone for you profit!
Most glaringly, point 10 directly contradicts point 5. I'd say point 10 is the more correct (most filesharing focuses on big, popular, commercial artists) - but that blows a hole in point 5, because it suggests the labels would do far better trying to sell innovative music with genuine artistic value to music enthusiasts, rather than trying to sell mass-produced pap to people who really just want some background noise and are happy to download it if that's more convenient than buying it.
Beyond this, the biggest obvious problem is the implication in point 7 that the music industry "create(s) jobs, exports, tax revenues and economic growth". I'd file this under 'unproven', at least in the sense under discussion here (piracy threatens the music industry's ability to create jobs, exports etc etc). The problem is that to prove this the music industry has to prove not only that people pirate music, but crucially also that the music they save by pirating music isn't just injected back into the economy in some equally beneficial way through some industry. If Joe Bloggs pirates five albums a week but still spends all his disposable income on movies, junk food and clothes, the overall effect on the economy is exactly the same as if he'd spent some of that money on buying the albums. The music industry is trying to dress up its own self-interest as the benefit of the entire economy, but they need more proof to succeed in this.
Oh, and point 8 is easy to blow away: Chinese living standards are still at the point where, in most of China, you need to be classified as middle- or higher-income in order for a CD player not to constitute a significant chunk of your income. And people who can't afford CD players are not likely to pirate CDs.
I was thinking of asking someone to let me know where Alice, Bob and Eve all live. I just bought a job lot of cheap resistors on eBay and I need to unload 'em in a hurry...
SRPMs for the updates are available on the mirrors just like the binary packages.
s /7.2/SRPMS/
http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/mandriva/old/update
there's the SRPMS for the 7.2 updates. That release is six and a half years old.
I am entirely sure that any FSF representative, lawyer or reasonable person would consider our source availability to be beyond adequate and well into 'generous'. All the Mandriva public mirrors carry the source code for every package. What more can you realistically ask for? You seem to be just making trouble for the sake of making trouble.
MDV doesn't use *parted as the installer partitioner, never has. It uses diskdrake, our own in-house tool, which may look kinda like gparted from some angles, I guess.
For a start, you don't understand what 'source' is. The binary RPMs that make up the distribution you get on ISOs are not 'source', and that's what you're moaning about. The 'source' is all this stuff:
n drivaLinux/official/2007.1/SRPMS/main/release/
/old tree where old releases go to die have all the old updates available. http://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/mandriva/old/updates / has updates back to 7.2. (In case you're wondering, I found that by Googling for mandriva-old : it was the first result).
ftp://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/Ma
How long would it take someone who hasn't paid for Club access to find them?
Well, for a start, I don't see what paying for Club access has to do with anything. 'A mirror list' is not among the privileges of Club membership. So I don't know where you get that argument from. Second, when you Google for 'Mandriva Mirrors', the CookerMirrors page on the wiki is result #4, the 2007.0 mirror list on api.mandriva.com is #10, and the Club mirror finder (which works for non-Club members) is #6. So the answer to that would be 'not very long', I think.
The GPL has precisely nothing at all to do with the provision of security updates. That's clearly an absurd argument. You can release a product under GPL (or any other software license) and never update it. Notwithstanding, mirrors that carry the
You are also badly misreading it in terms of where the source code is to be made available. The paragraph you quote is not compelling the source to be made available in the same place as the binaries. It's saying that if you, say, sell a GPL-covered product as a time-limited download, then it's OK to provide the source in the same place; you don't have to make it available permanently as a non-time-limited download, and if the buyer doesn't download the source at the same time as they download the binaries, hard cheese. In other words, it's entirely irrelevant to the situation we are discussing.
I'm sorry, but it's getting to the point where it's hard to assume good faith on your part. And your understanding of the GPL is clearly sorely lacking.