Why do people always seem to assume the worst possible motive for everything?
As you say, all the advertising is present no matter what type of install you do, so what possible reason do you have to assume some kind of penny-pinching malice as the 'reason' we're 'hiding' the files? I just don't get it at all.
it's really not that hard to find one. Easy URPMI, smart URPMI, http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors , there's loads. I've never run into anyone else who has as much trouble as you claim to finding a mirror.
Well we're trying to keep things simple and easy and having network install stuff on the download page isn't really the way to achieve that. It's not hiding anything, just not exposing overly complex stuff on what's meant to be a simple page.
Since several versions ago, Beryl can use GNOME and KDE themes, via the Heliodor and Aquamarine window decorators respectively. They are GNOME and KDE native decorators for Beryl which use the desktop-defined window themes and other settings. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring sets the appropriate one up automatically when Beryl is chosen.
Well I don't know what you mean by free, then. If you're suggesting Slashdot is taking money to run stories, or something, then no: I submitted this story to Slashdot via the normal submission channels this afternoon. A few hours later, it went up. Nothing else took place whatsoever.
I've met exactly one person in five years using apt on Mandriva. A few more using smart, but still not many.
Otherwise, well - basically, we beg to differ. As you say, time will tell who's right.
RPM is not 'basically dead'.
Mandriva Linux does not use an APT derived package manager. It uses urpmi and rpmdrake, developed in house at Mandriva.
Mandriva Linux Free and the GNOME version of Mandriva Linux One are composed of 100% free / open source software and are entirely free to download. We have been producing the Free edition of Mandriva Linux since 1998 and it has always consisted of 100% free / open source software. The KDE version of Mandriva Linux One is free to download but does contain some proprietary drivers for the convenience of those who use them (NVIDIA, ATI, Centrino wireless etc).
From the Release Notes:
"Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is the first Mandriva Linux release to have a non-free section in the public repositories. This section, alongside the longstanding main and contrib sections, contains non-free drivers, firmware and some software, including the proprietary NVIDIA and ATI graphics card drivers, firmware for Intel Centrino wireless cards, Java runtime environments 5.0 and 6.0, and more."
The betas were all named after historic centres of power in China (going back to way before Communist rule). Hangzhou, Huanghe, Wei, Xianyang, Beijing. Heck, when you've been doing beta releases for nine years it starts getting hard to think of themes. =)
Well, Compiz and Beryl have progressed since 2007 came out, so all those improvements are included. You may find it more stable this time. We just package up the latest available Compiz and Beryl and make sure drak3d sets them up properly; beyond that we're at the mercy of the code quality of the upstream projects:)
You didn't pay for support. The Mandriva Club is not about support (although Club members do help each other out as much as they can). It doesn't say ANYWHERE when you sign up for the Club that you're signing up for a support contract. So if you signed up for the Club to get support, you made the wrong move. You should have signed up for support incidents instead.
"The administrative tools are MUCH to slow (To update my System the users interaction with the System is emerge --sync && emerge --update world on a root console. This tooks about 2-5 seconds. To fire up Yast, urpmi or synaptic, choosing System update etc., it takes several minutes...)"
urpmi --auto-update
is the equivalent command on Mandriva. That's several characters shorter and thus more efficient. =)
"You don't have access to real cutting edge packages. You have to stay behind with Kernel 2.6.xx while I can go on to Kernel 2.6.xx+x, just as an example"
This is because you're running a development branch. Run the development branch of any 'newbie distro' - Mandriva Cooker, for instance - and you'll get your cutting edge packages.
"URPMI doesn't just always download all the packages needed for a given app. This may mean that Mandriva just hasn't released the packages for the app I want, but regardless, it's a big pain."
Sorry, I still don't quite understand this one:). If you're saying we don't package everything in the world, yes, that's true, but neither does anyone else. urpmi will always install all the packages the package you ask for depends on.
"As N7DR said, Mandriva doesn't seem to update packages for new and spiffy things, only for security reasons. This can be a big pain; getting Gnome 2.16 running, for example, pretty much requires upgrading the entire Mandriva system, because even things like Garnome don't resolve packages dependencies."
Yes. This is true. It's a policy decision, though, and it has nothing to do with 'dependency hell'. We don't backport every new release of any bit of software to the current stable version, a) because it would tend to cause instabilities and b) because it's a hell of a lot of work that we'd rather spend working on the next version. Packagers are free to choose to do backports, which in 2007 will be hosted in the/main/backports and/contrib/backports media, but we don't have any policy requiring maintainers to update their packages.
"Very often when I try to resolve a dependency issue myself by downloading packages, I find that 1) I have to spend an hour downloading something, then finding out what its dependencies are, then downloading the dependencies of that package, etc. etc., and 2) I usually get to the end and realize that the whole nasty chain is dependent on some package that is simply unfindable."
That's the classic definition of dependency hell, yeah. It's impossible for a distro to 'solve', though. If you wind up in a position where you're manually downloading packages, this is always going to happen. You shouldn't wind up in this situation very often, though (I never do). If you do, either you're doing something wrong, or you're doing something so advanced / odd / different that maybe MDV isn't right for you.
I'm not sure of everything your scim script does, but I know the last line tells the app you're about to run (at least, assuming it's a GTK app) to use xim instead of scim, so I'm not sure you actually _need_ the other lines. Anyways, my main machine (the one I'm typing this on) has SCIM configured (Japanese input) and I can use Firefox and Thunderbird fine. Where can I get XaraLX to test it?
It's the dialect of French they speak in French Polynesia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Polynesia . Dialects are distinct derivatives of other languages, including some different items of vocabulary, rules of grammar etc.
You're going to have to be more specific about 'the dependency hell problem'. MDV has a dependency resolving package manager (urpmi / rpmdrake) and has for years, so what exactly do you mean by 'dependency hell'?
Menudrake doesn't exist any more. 2007 uses the freedesktop.org XDG standard for menus, so any XDG-compliant menu editor can be used. We include kmenuedit and alacarte, KDE and GNOME XDG menu editors respectively, though alacarte doesn't actually work as released due to upstream bugs. This will be fixed soon with a post-release update (it's currently in testing).
Package lists are up somewhere, I'm just checking where...
SCIM, again, I'll need some specifics to check. There was a long time problem with Acrobat and SCIM which is fixed in this release. I don't know of any other problems, if you let me know what apps you've had trouble with in the past, I'll check them.
Not sure about Cedega, sorry...
There are no official PPC releases any more. The PPC port still exists and is maintained by volunteers (principally Danny Tholen, actually). They haven't had the resources to do a stable release since, I think, 10.1 or 2005, but Cooker is still kept mostly up to date and works pretty well. If you really want to run Mandriva on PPC, go with current Cooker.
Frankly, though, I'd recommend a dedicated distro like Yellow Dog unless you specifically want Mandriva, because you're comfortable with it or all your other machines run on it or something.
Yes. Always have, always will. Run MandrivaUpdate, there they are.
We sell Online, but that's an update _notification_ service - it gives you the little panel applet that alerts you when updates are available (and, optionally, can install them automatically). It's just a little convenience.
No.
Mandriva Linux Discovery is for beginners.
Mandriva Linux Powerpack is for experienced users.
Mandriva Linux Powerpack+ is for SOHO users.
Mandriva Linux Free is for just about everyone. =)
We've never claimed to be a distro aimed specifically at beginners. We try and make the distro work for everyone. If we were all about beginners we probably wouldn't have an enterprise-aimed tool for setting up multiple redundant firewall machines, a comprehensive set of LAMP server packages, configuration tools for web, file, ftp, ldap, dns etc servers, and all the other stuff we do that beginners would run screaming from...=)
Er, what? Merging with Conectiva didn't change anything at all about MDV's multimedia support. We didn't take anything out in that line, at least on purpose. What are you missing?
And, um, we never removed anything to do with 3D support. Might have been some bugs in 2005 or 2006, but that's bugs, not intentional changes...
Slashdot Mirror
Why do people always seem to assume the worst possible motive for everything?
. list
As you say, all the advertising is present no matter what type of install you do, so what possible reason do you have to assume some kind of penny-pinching malice as the 'reason' we're 'hiding' the files? I just don't get it at all.
If you're really asking for a list of mirrors:
http://api.mandriva.com/mirrors/basic.2007.1.i586
it's really not that hard to find one. Easy URPMI, smart URPMI, http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/CookerMirrors , there's loads. I've never run into anyone else who has as much trouble as you claim to finding a mirror.
Well we're trying to keep things simple and easy and having network install stuff on the download page isn't really the way to achieve that. It's not hiding anything, just not exposing overly complex stuff on what's meant to be a simple page.
i va_Linux - has full instructions on doing a network install (among other types). It's linked from most of the release PR.
The 'installing Mandriva' page on the wiki - http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Installing_Mandr
Since several versions ago, Beryl can use GNOME and KDE themes, via the Heliodor and Aquamarine window decorators respectively. They are GNOME and KDE native decorators for Beryl which use the desktop-defined window themes and other settings. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring sets the appropriate one up automatically when Beryl is chosen.
Sorry, what do you mean by 'hiding source code'?
You can use the Mandriva configuration tools to set up remote repositories. See: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Insta lling_and_removing_software#Making_more_applicatio ns_available
man pages are back in One in 2007.1.
but, um, if you didn't want GNOME, why did you download the *GNOME* One version? The One versions are always labelled.
actually I have a PR hat too. I get to write stuff like this. Aren't I lucky.
it's the latest beta.
Well I don't know what you mean by free, then. If you're suggesting Slashdot is taking money to run stories, or something, then no: I submitted this story to Slashdot via the normal submission channels this afternoon. A few hours later, it went up. Nothing else took place whatsoever.
I've met exactly one person in five years using apt on Mandriva. A few more using smart, but still not many.
Otherwise, well - basically, we beg to differ. As you say, time will tell who's right.
RPM is not 'basically dead'. Mandriva Linux does not use an APT derived package manager. It uses urpmi and rpmdrake, developed in house at Mandriva. Mandriva Linux Free and the GNOME version of Mandriva Linux One are composed of 100% free / open source software and are entirely free to download. We have been producing the Free edition of Mandriva Linux since 1998 and it has always consisted of 100% free / open source software. The KDE version of Mandriva Linux One is free to download but does contain some proprietary drivers for the convenience of those who use them (NVIDIA, ATI, Centrino wireless etc).
From the Release Notes: "Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is the first Mandriva Linux release to have a non-free section in the public repositories. This section, alongside the longstanding main and contrib sections, contains non-free drivers, firmware and some software, including the proprietary NVIDIA and ATI graphics card drivers, firmware for Intel Centrino wireless cards, Java runtime environments 5.0 and 6.0, and more."
Sounds like an excellent question to ask all those other distros who *haven't* been around since 1998. :)
The betas were all named after historic centres of power in China (going back to way before Communist rule). Hangzhou, Huanghe, Wei, Xianyang, Beijing. Heck, when you've been doing beta releases for nine years it starts getting hard to think of themes. =)
Well, Compiz and Beryl have progressed since 2007 came out, so all those improvements are included. You may find it more stable this time. We just package up the latest available Compiz and Beryl and make sure drak3d sets them up properly; beyond that we're at the mercy of the code quality of the upstream projects :)
That was our last stable release. It's good too. :) This is the soon-to-be-released new release, 2007 Spring (AKA 2007.1).
You didn't pay for support. The Mandriva Club is not about support (although Club members do help each other out as much as they can). It doesn't say ANYWHERE when you sign up for the Club that you're signing up for a support contract. So if you signed up for the Club to get support, you made the wrong move. You should have signed up for support incidents instead.
"The administrative tools are MUCH to slow (To update my System the users interaction with the System is emerge --sync && emerge --update world on a root console. This tooks about 2-5 seconds. To fire up Yast, urpmi or synaptic, choosing System update etc., it takes several minutes...)"
urpmi --auto-update
is the equivalent command on Mandriva. That's several characters shorter and thus more efficient. =)
"You don't have access to real cutting edge packages. You have to stay behind with Kernel 2.6.xx while I can go on to Kernel 2.6.xx+x, just as an example"
This is because you're running a development branch. Run the development branch of any 'newbie distro' - Mandriva Cooker, for instance - and you'll get your cutting edge packages.
"URPMI doesn't just always download all the packages needed for a given app. This may mean that Mandriva just hasn't released the packages for the app I want, but regardless, it's a big pain."
:). If you're saying we don't package everything in the world, yes, that's true, but neither does anyone else. urpmi will always install all the packages the package you ask for depends on.
/main/backports and /contrib/backports media, but we don't have any policy requiring maintainers to update their packages.
Sorry, I still don't quite understand this one
"As N7DR said, Mandriva doesn't seem to update packages for new and spiffy things, only for security reasons. This can be a big pain; getting Gnome 2.16 running, for example, pretty much requires upgrading the entire Mandriva system, because even things like Garnome don't resolve packages dependencies."
Yes. This is true. It's a policy decision, though, and it has nothing to do with 'dependency hell'. We don't backport every new release of any bit of software to the current stable version, a) because it would tend to cause instabilities and b) because it's a hell of a lot of work that we'd rather spend working on the next version. Packagers are free to choose to do backports, which in 2007 will be hosted in the
"Very often when I try to resolve a dependency issue myself by downloading packages, I find that 1) I have to spend an hour downloading something, then finding out what its dependencies are, then downloading the dependencies of that package, etc. etc., and 2) I usually get to the end and realize that the whole nasty chain is dependent on some package that is simply unfindable."
That's the classic definition of dependency hell, yeah. It's impossible for a distro to 'solve', though. If you wind up in a position where you're manually downloading packages, this is always going to happen. You shouldn't wind up in this situation very often, though (I never do). If you do, either you're doing something wrong, or you're doing something so advanced / odd / different that maybe MDV isn't right for you.
I'm not sure of everything your scim script does, but I know the last line tells the app you're about to run (at least, assuming it's a GTK app) to use xim instead of scim, so I'm not sure you actually _need_ the other lines. Anyways, my main machine (the one I'm typing this on) has SCIM configured (Japanese input) and I can use Firefox and Thunderbird fine. Where can I get XaraLX to test it?
It's the dialect of French they speak in French Polynesia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Polynesia . Dialects are distinct derivatives of other languages, including some different items of vocabulary, rules of grammar etc.
http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/Mandriv aLinux2007Official
You're going to have to be more specific about 'the dependency hell problem'. MDV has a dependency resolving package manager (urpmi / rpmdrake) and has for years, so what exactly do you mean by 'dependency hell'? Menudrake doesn't exist any more. 2007 uses the freedesktop.org XDG standard for menus, so any XDG-compliant menu editor can be used. We include kmenuedit and alacarte, KDE and GNOME XDG menu editors respectively, though alacarte doesn't actually work as released due to upstream bugs. This will be fixed soon with a post-release update (it's currently in testing). Package lists are up somewhere, I'm just checking where... SCIM, again, I'll need some specifics to check. There was a long time problem with Acrobat and SCIM which is fixed in this release. I don't know of any other problems, if you let me know what apps you've had trouble with in the past, I'll check them. Not sure about Cedega, sorry...
There are no official PPC releases any more. The PPC port still exists and is maintained by volunteers (principally Danny Tholen, actually). They haven't had the resources to do a stable release since, I think, 10.1 or 2005, but Cooker is still kept mostly up to date and works pretty well. If you really want to run Mandriva on PPC, go with current Cooker. Frankly, though, I'd recommend a dedicated distro like Yellow Dog unless you specifically want Mandriva, because you're comfortable with it or all your other machines run on it or something.
Yes. Always have, always will. Run MandrivaUpdate, there they are. We sell Online, but that's an update _notification_ service - it gives you the little panel applet that alerts you when updates are available (and, optionally, can install them automatically). It's just a little convenience.
No. Mandriva Linux Discovery is for beginners. Mandriva Linux Powerpack is for experienced users. Mandriva Linux Powerpack+ is for SOHO users. Mandriva Linux Free is for just about everyone. =) We've never claimed to be a distro aimed specifically at beginners. We try and make the distro work for everyone. If we were all about beginners we probably wouldn't have an enterprise-aimed tool for setting up multiple redundant firewall machines, a comprehensive set of LAMP server packages, configuration tools for web, file, ftp, ldap, dns etc servers, and all the other stuff we do that beginners would run screaming from...=)
Er, what? Merging with Conectiva didn't change anything at all about MDV's multimedia support. We didn't take anything out in that line, at least on purpose. What are you missing? And, um, we never removed anything to do with 3D support. Might have been some bugs in 2005 or 2006, but that's bugs, not intentional changes...