What's the difference between PCLOS and Mandriva?

[Extreme Coder]

I want to try out one of them ONLY( slow internet here), and I was wondering, what's so different between them? Better hardware/software support? New features? Anything else? Lots of new confusing distros :p I'm leaning towards Mandriva because it has Metisse, which is something I want to try. Also, which Mandriva version is better, Gnome or KDE edition? It sucks having a slow internet connection, so I can't try them all.

Extreme Coder

[frup]

I haven't tried Mandriva since it was Mandrake. and PCLOS in more than a year, but I would say KDE for Mandriva (I use gnome) I think they focus on it more.

I have read a review saying PCLOS was better than Mandriva but its also based of Mandriva I think. Can't tell you anymore really. Hopefully someone else can.

[karellen]

I would advise you to try PCLOS. it's based on mandriva, but heavily modified (for example it uses synaptic package manager, which is a great fact per se). plus it's 100% free, without all that club membership if you want the greatest and latest. PCLOS 2007 is just around a corner and all the reviews I read about it were positive

[kazuya]

pclinuxos is a God-send. It is very very good. I have used it for a while now and still see no other distro better than it. I would say PCLINUXOS.

[igknighted]

Its a tough call. PCLOS does tweak Mandriva's KDE a bit, but in the end they are very similar. I think right now I would say go with Mandriva 2007.1. They are a whole release ahead of PCLOS right now, and PCLOS is struggling to fix KDE issues atm. No final for 2007 has come out yet. Mandriva One 2007.1 includes graphics drivers already included (if you don't go for the purely OSS version) as well as Compiz and Metisse (beryl is an easy addition if you prefer). Also, the update flaws in the 2007 Mandriva release have been fixed. Mandriva is back, you should check them out.

[Extreme Coder]

Hey guys, I just tried Mandriva One 2007 Spring KDE( wow, what a long name :P ), and really, it's a really high-quality distro. I was amazed by the Mandriva Control Center, didn't need to touch the CLI for a thing, my only gripe with it is the mutated Konqueror that comes with it, no location bar, and even when I enable it, it looks ugly. I like to be able to use Konqueror as a browser too. It would've been better if they made Konqueror similar to the setup in Kubuntu. And somehow, they've hidden some of the programs that come with KDE from the Mandriva Menu( like KGet, KTorrent and KPPP). I could download the GNOME version, but I'm guessing it will not be much different, and I have a damn slow connection here.
Overall, I give it (8.5~9/10). I really really hope Ubuntu gets a similar control center in Gutsy.

Extreme Coder

[tgoose]

My brother runs GNOME on Mandriva on a couple of laptops and it's apparently worked fine with even proprietary wireless cards. I've no idea about PCLOS though.

[johng4]

To answer the original question...

The difference between the two is that Mandriva is urpmi, and PCLOS is apt.

There's a lot of differences in the way they work, and its hard to consider them relatives anymore. There's a lot of mandriva in PCLOS, but in the end, its more like cousins now than siblings.

Mandriva is nice, don't get me wrong, but PCLOS fills in a lot of the gaps that Mandriva overlooks. I just recently got 2007 Spring, and will give it a try (in a VirtualBox VM). However, previous releases lacked a great deal of user-friendliness and functionality in comparison to PCLOS.

Personally, I've always chosen PCLOS over Mandriva for things like apt in particular. In the end, its just a matter of preference. Most PCLOS users were Mandriva users.. and some Mandriva users were PCLOS users. The same argument goes to Ubuntu and Debian.

[marceloramone]

PCLOS isn't available in many languages, Mandriva IS translated in VERY languages (Spanish included)

PCLOS haven't commercial editions.

[AAM]

The PClinuxOS experience is very easy! The Control Centre is really a fine piece of work and makes wireless management and GUI effects very easy. KDE is the default and its very well done. I have 2 computers with PClinuxOS and 4 with Ubuntu, and the PClinuxOS was a breeze to set up, managing things that I couldn't do (especially wireless access points) in Ubuntu.

You may find other things to recommend Mandriva later but PClinuxOS won't let you down if you choose to download it.

Look in your private messages for additional information!

[igknighted]

The PClinuxOS experience is very easy! The Control Centre is really a fine piece of work and makes wireless management and GUI effects very easy. KDE is the default and its very well done. I have 2 computers with PClinuxOS and 4 with Ubuntu, and the PClinuxOS was a breeze to set up, managing things that I couldn't do (especially wireless access points) in Ubuntu.

You may find other things to recommend Mandriva later but PClinuxOS won't let you down if you choose to download it.

Look in your private messages for additional information!

The control center and much of the KDE layout were taken directly from Mandriva 2007

[dan171717]

i wood like 2 try kde but have never goot round to it whats it like? is it better than gnome (i am talking about ubuntu)

[AdamWill]

I would advise you to try PCLOS. it's based on mandriva, but heavily modified (for example it uses synaptic package manager, which is a great fact per se). plus it's 100% free, without all that club membership if you want the greatest and latest. PCLOS 2007 is just around a corner and all the reviews I read about it were positive

You do not need a Club membership to get the 'greatest and latest' with Mandriva. The only software exclusive to Club members (and commercial versions) is a small amount of proprietary software (most obviously Acrobat Reader and the Flash plugin).

[Extreme Coder]

@AdamWill: You can also get the flash plugin with PLF :D

BTW, Adam(I know you're from the Mandriva team), is there something like blueprints(its used to suggest new features or fixes for the next release in Ubuntu) for Mandriva?

Extreme Coder

[igknighted]

i wood like 2 try kde but have never goot round to it whats it like? is it better than gnome (i am talking about ubuntu)

It is a different gui for the same system, that is all. There is no better or worse. You can google it (I couldn't begin to describe the differences) if you want more info, or just "apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" to try it out. I prefer it to gnome personally, but its all preference.

[danny joe ritchie]

PCLOS is based on Mandriva linux,they have tried to tweak a few things to make it easier to use. I have both and I would have to say that PCLOS is easier to install and maybe even easier to use but Mandriva 2007 Spring is no joke,It is a complete distro with a lot to offer! Its a win win situation either way,both are excellent in my book! :)

[kazuya]

PCLOS works great. I have it on both of my PCs now. It just works and works very fast. Also I have gnome, kde, beryl, fluxbox, and xfce working great on it. The fonts are larger in pclos than in Ubuntu by default. PCLOS is sort of windows-like in look. Very easy to work with. Perhaps even easier or equally as easy as Ubuntu.
The two distros are tied for me. But Beryl on PCLOS is wonderful and very easy to get going, as is installing nvidia drivers..

Everything is done through the PCLOS Control Center as well as synaptic.. They also leave you the option to use the CLI should you choose..

This distro is really professional and nice looking by default. Also it performs rather fast as well. It boots up fast, runs beryl and compxr with xgl setup. It is a beauty to use.

[pelle.k]

Just wanted to give "mandriva one 2007 spring" credit. It's a nice distro if you want to point and click.
Really sane defaults, great kde, wonderful theme. Personally, I felt that PCLinuxOS was tweaked a bit too much for my taste. Mandriva feels a bit more "vanilla".
Very polished! ;)

The downsides would be;

default user uid,gid was both 500 while 1000/1000 in ubuntu and 1000/100 in arch. Can we please have a standard people? (All my file partitions use 1000/100) Wasn't that hard to change with a bit of command line magic though...

Neither ndiswrapper nor rt2570 module would work very well with my usb dongle. I'm very used to this problem, but in mandriva i couldn't solve this problem. And yes, i know what i'm doing...

Package handling is never as good as with synaptic/apt-get i'm afraid.

Good documentation is sparse, and the user forums are often in french.

Still, If i were looking to install a GUI oriented distro, this distro would be in my top five list without a doubt

[SunnyRabbiera]

PClinux has improved greatly over time, I know I perfer it anyday over mandriva.
The top reasons would be APT and Synaptic, and this means easy package installation.
PClinux is much better at handling dependancies then any other RPM based distro I have come across, and this includes Mandriva.
Mandriva used to be the top distro for newbies, and its down with good reason... Mandriva has always been tempermental and I am no big fan of how it handles itself.
PClinux trumps it by a mile in my book.