whats so good about mandriva.

[adamogardner]

I have it on my virtual box. I'm trying to understand the differences . I'm just trying to understand why do I want this? What makes it a special and unique distribution?

[DarkStarAeon]

Well, I like Mandriva, but not as much as Ubuntu. There are more packages and more options in Ubuntu. However, Mandriva does work really well, and it's hardware detection is excellent. The installer for Mandriva is like Ubuntu's, really straightforward and easy.

That said, Mandriva on my laptop just flat out died about an hour ago and I have to figure out why and how to get back in. lol

If I had to choose though, I'd choose Ubuntu.

[AdamWill]

Hardware detection and configuration, the Mandriva Control Center and drakwizard (these provide a lot of tools most other distros don't have), wide choice of supported desktops, Eee compatibility, Windows Mobile synchronization support, the /backports repository system...

Lots of interesting info at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Tour and http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Reviewers_Guide .

[ryaxnb]

Their KDE implementation (of KDE 3.5 at least, haven't tried 4) seems way better then Kubuntu, so if you like KDE 3.5, I'd recommend Mandriva.

Their distinct features:
* Codecs included in PowerPack - legally.
* Game support in PowerPack - proprietary software.
* SUperb KDE support
* Decent GNOME support
* Control Center is friggin awesome - best utility for configuration ever, beating out Windows Control Panel, System Preferences (maybe), YaST, the GNOME tools in Ubuntu, etc. Server setup tools also included. Seriously, this is the reason to consider Mandriva.
* Great HW support.
* Friendly interface.
* Handy-dandy multiple edition setup: One - Excellent LiveCD/Installer hybrid, like Ubuntu; Free - mostly open source software, comes on DVD, installs to HD; PowerPack - costs around $80, comes with codecs, Cedega, proprietary software, three months of support, training.

[Vorian Grey]

I used Mandriva for a while and it's a great OS. They probably do KDE as well as anyone. The Control Center is the best out there. Package selection was excellent and package manager was decent. I'd easily rated it as the #2 noob distro out there. My only problem with it was it ran really slow.

[dwr50]

What makes Mandriva 2008.1 good is the fact that it recognized my WiFi and sound cards when None of the Buntu's did. All the Buntu forums kept trying to explain how to install ndiswrapper ect to fix the WiFi and it never worked for me. Turned out that Mandriva uses Madwifi instead of ndiswrapper and my computer works with Madwifi. I still don't know why my sound works with Mandriva, but when I learn more about Linux I'm sure I'll know the reasons. To date I've tried 10 different Distro's of Linux Live CD's and ONLY Mandriva 2008.1 Spring worked correctly with my computer.

[dca]

What makes Mandriva 2008.1 good is the fact that it recognized my WiFi and sound cards when None of the Buntu's did. All the Buntu forums kept trying to explain how to install ndiswrapper ect to fix the WiFi and it never worked for me. Turned out that Mandriva uses Madwifi instead of ndiswrapper and my computer works with Madwifi. I still don't know why my sound works with Mandriva, but when I learn more about Linux I'm sure I'll know the reasons. To date I've tried 10 different Distro's of Linux Live CD's and ONLY Mandriva 2008.1 Spring worked correctly with my computer.

Mandriva uses a patched 'madwifi' to make it compatible w/ the eeeeeePC which could have the same mini-PCI WiFi card you have in your laptop. My Acer shares this as well...

[ibutho]

For me personally, its the hardware detection and configurations tools. Ubuntu doesn't have a central place to do system configuration like Mandriva Control Center and YaST, so for some tasks you have to end up using the CLI. This is okay for people who are comfortable with the CLI, but newbies can be put off.

[dwr50]

Just tried the newest Suse and Cent5 Live CD's. Neither would recognise my WiFi or Sound Card. I think hardware detection IS the best feature of Mandriva. Anyone need a set of 12 Linux coasters ? lol

[dca]

Just tried the newest Suse and Cent5 Live CD's. Neither would recognise my WiFi or Sound Card. I think hardware detection IS the best feature of Mandriva. Anyone need a set of 12 Linux coasters ? lol

Could've told you neither would recognize that WiFi out of the box... Mandriva is the only one because the patched madwifi package is in their repos for all Mandriva variations to benefit from. If you want to use the Ambit (Atheros AR242x) w/ other distro(s) you need to d/l & compile the patch from madwifi.org website...

[stream303]

What got me interested was the new focus, allowing one to freely download and participate in the community.

I was very glad to see the Mandriva FREE (no proprietary software) images, as well as the usual ONE, and PowerPak.

Giving users a choice, like Ubuntu, is what it is all about.

[AdamWill]

Actually, Free is the oldest edition (there's *always* been a Free edition of every release). We started doing One with 2006, IIRC.

[articpenguin]

I like how it has more up to date software than ubuntu in a release cycle.

[stream303]

I'm enjoying the backports and recent stuff myself, like the latest Abiword, and Gimp, just to mention two. I like how Mandriva is a bit more liberal when it comes to backports, but I can understand Ubuntu's somewhat conservative stance due to 3-year support timeframe for LTS releases.

[Vorian Grey]

I like how it has more up to date software than ubuntu in a release cycle.

Yeah, that's one of my criticisms against Ubuntu too, is the lack of up to date software in the repos. Mandriva and openSuse both have a lot of up to date stuff.

Mandriva is a good OS and I would probably be using it if it didn't run so slow. I love MCC. It's the best control panel in Linux. The software management is good now. The forums seem a little cofusing to me, though. Definitely not as good as here.

[AdamWill]

vorian: what don't you like about the forums?

[Vorian Grey]

vorian: what don't you like about the forums?

It's certainly nothing to do with the people. Everyone is very nice over there. I just had a hard time getting info on things. To me it has a confusing layout. For example, there is no tutorial section. I am one of those who hate asking. I've found that usually someone else has had a similar problem if you know where to look. I never could find where to look. And my searches turned up little.

Others, I'm sure, find the format just fine.

[dca]

Yeah, that's one of my criticisms against Ubuntu too, is the lack of up to date software in the repos. Mandriva and openSuse both have a lot of up to date stuff.


Ubuntu is trying to be a commercial/enterprise-class operating system. You can't have untested bleeding edge packages in your repo and expect it to be rock solid w/o proper quality/bug testing...

[stream303]

Ubuntu is trying to be a commercial/enterprise-class operating system.

More power to them! And more power to Mandriva!


You can't have untested bleeding edge packages in your repo and expect it to be rock solid w/o proper quality/bug testing...

Much of it comes down to resources. How do you like the server-edition? Any specific problems? Perhaps the bugs that you've found can be reported to help the next guy down the line.

I ask this with sincerity, not in any sort of conflict: can you provide specific examples so we can work them out?

Whether it is Mandriva or Ubuntu, (or any other distro) a LOT depends on the users testing and providing feedback for situations that aren't detected by the devs.

[stream303]

Everyone is very nice over there.

I've found that to be true as well. I recently installed Mandriva on some of my other machines, and enjoyed it - however the community plays a LARGE part.

For me, if the distro works well, but the community represents themselves as being isolated and competetive with other users, away it goes. Fortunately, the Mandriva users seem to share much the same community-minded goals as Ubuntu, so I feel very much at home.

Yes, there is cheerleading on both sides, but for the most part, Mandriva is a welcome addition to my household, based largely upon what I've seen so far in the community.

[xnostradamusx]

good hardware detection.

uses the kde desktop

up to date softwares

stable

but i prefer the gnome desktop

[AdamWill]

dca: Mandriva has separate /backports repositories which contain version updates and other such non-security, non-bugfix updates. These are not officially supported and not recommended for use by those whose primary goal is stability. So if you want a very stable system, just use the official /updates repositories; if you want to update something to a newer version, look for it in /backports . This achieves both goals quite nicely.

Ubuntu has a similar backports system, but it's less officially blessed (AFAICT it's essentially run by third-party volunteers) and doesn't seem to be as well used by maintainers as Mandriva's is.

[AdamWill]

vorian: check out the Tips and Tricks forums; particularly useful posts / threads are archived there. But in general, I try to keep tutorial-type stuff on the Wiki rather than in the forums: look at http://wiki.mandriva.com/ . I'd like to be more proactive in gathering together all that kind of thing on the Wiki but just don't have the time, unfortunately. Any help from community members with that is welcome :)

[djbsteart1]

Adam, is this you trying to get recruit's over here, once I have more time, I will get the /backports blog going properly, and hopefully some other things for the community.

I should also add that MDV has a far better definition of what is free and non free. Ubuntu has non free firmware included in a free software distro, where as you would need to use One or Power pack to get that with Mandriva, or just get the specific piece of software from /non-free.

Also, MDV's hardware detection is far better than most, and the drake tools are excellent for configuring hardware.

The community is incredibly friendly, and if you give the forum and second or so, it becomes intuitive.

[cardinals_fan]

Ubuntu is trying to be a commercial/enterprise-class operating system. You can't have untested bleeding edge packages in your repo and expect it to be rock solid w/o proper quality/bug testing...
They don't seem to be trying very hard. Compare RHEL and Ubuntu. Ubuntu is WAY too bleeding edge for the enterprise.

[stream303]

I should also add that MDV has a far better definition of what is free and non free. Ubuntu has non free firmware included in a free software distro, where as you would need to use One or Power pack to get that with Mandriva, or just get the specific piece of software from /non-free.

Exactly, although you can rest assured that Ubuntu *knows* the definition - they just couldn't get GoBuntu (their equivalent of Mandriva-Free, or gNewSense) to be sustainable for some reason. So in a way, it is kind of unfair to compare Mandriva-Free to Ubuntu being more or less equivalent to Mandriva-One. It is kind of saying that Mandriva-Free has a better definition of freedom than Mandriva-One. :)

In any case, I'm very glad to see Mandriva-Free out there, and all I need to do now is find out if the kernel has *any* questionable licensing bits (beyond free repos and opensource drivers already discussed), and I'll be set to support it. I'm sure it doesn't, but would like assurance from the devs.

[AdamWill]

stream: then it would be best to ask on the kernel-discuss mailing list, as not a lot of Mandriva kernel developers read ubuntuforums. :)

[stream303]

You are right. Not a lot of Ubuntu devs read the forums either. :) I'll have to head over to the Mandriva mailing list. Just want to make sure that if I were to make a derivative of Mandriva-Free, say for the PPC as an example, I won't run into any troubles down the road.

One thing for sure - I'm impressed with how well Mandriva is operating on my other machines.

[wxnker]

good hardware detection.

uses the kde desktop

up to date softwares

stable

but i prefer the gnome desktop

Mandriva uses several desktop environments, not just KDE. I use Gnome myself. I installed it from 2008.1 ONE Gnome, but it can also be selected when installing from the DVD versions or by installing "task-gnome" post install.

Mandriva ONE Gnome is somewhat hidden from the main download page, but it can be downloaded from the bittorrent links or several mirrors like this one: http://mirror.mcs.anl.gov/pub/mandrake/official/iso/2008.1/

Currently it's being debated how to make Gnome more visible on the main download page without compromising the simple newbee friendly design. So Gnome should hopefully become more visible on the main download page for Mandriva 2009.0.

Regards,
wxnker

[wxnker]

One of the things I really like about Mandriva is the "Mandriva control center (MCC)". It contains several great and easy to use gui tools. When I started using Mandriva I didn't have to use the CLI as much (it became an option), because of these wonderfull tools. Mandriva has the best control center I've used.

Other things (just to name a few):
- The clean consistant look for both KDE and Gnome
- Fast and easy install (excellent partitioner)
- Stability and usability
- Real simple package installer
- Backport repos

[articpenguin]

Ubuntu is trying to be a commercial/enterprise-class operating system. You can't have untested bleeding edge packages in your repo and expect it to be rock solid w/o proper quality/bug testing...

its only enterprise on the LTS releases IRC.

[djbsteart1]

You got that right about MCC, Hedge, sorry, wxnker, Another thing I love is that I can have iceWM, E-17, Gnome, KDE (4), well really any WM/DE that is available, all on one system.

If we take Ubuntu and compare it to One, it still isn't right, because one has non free drivers and other bits, flash, nvidia/ATI, madwifi and stuff. So, it still isn't really fair, but closer that Free/Ubuntu.

PS, its like a mini MDV forum here at the moment.

Schultz.

[dca]

its only enterprise on the LTS releases IRC.

You can still get support from Canonical on any release.

That's the funny thing, all this six month release cycle. It's turned everything into a game. Will Mandriva support 2008.1 if I put it on a production server that's just storing files in a data center? Will Novell support openSUSE (let's face it, the job they do promoting it is hysterical) on anything other than a "hobbyists" workstation (for 90 days)? Will Fedora get support updates longer than three weeks? j/k, I know it's 12mos.

Mandriva does an awesome KDE and I look forward to checking it out on their 2009.0 release.

I guess what it boils down to is purpose. You know you got Shuttleworth running around asking everyone to coordinate six month release cycles on something (the big distros: openSUSE, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, et 'al) that's really the same darn thing, a Linux distro whose only purpose is for that of the hobbyist.

[dca]

Oh, back to the OP's original question. I guess you can look at it like are Ford trucks better than Chevys or Coke better than Pepsi. Look at it from this side: openSUSE vs Mandriva. Okay, one grows up to an enterprise release that gets all the good bits put in by Novell and gets a high price tag attached. Other than that: both SuSE & MandrivaSA offer free vers and a 'complete' vers (can't forget about One) which funny enough both sell for about the same amount of money ($59 USD last time I checked). The big difference between the two is the free vers from Mandriva also means free from non-GPL bound bits where as free from SuSE means that you forgive the worthless 90 day support and a book that gives the run down on installation (not a run down on troubleshooting).

Both Linux distros offer what I would consider state of the art system config tools in the form of YaST and MCC. In fact those are the envy of other distros, even Ubuntu is thinking of porting YaST or something similar or creating one from scratch for their next release.

If you're KDE-centric than Mandriva is definitely worth a look, in fact, I can't decide who does a better implementation (pre 4.x) of it: Mandriva or SuSE...

Now, the truth is I don't really do much of anything with either distro anymore because of their simularities in purpose. I don't want to start one of those "what, choice is good" kind of tilts because that's the same as KDE vs GNOME arguments. Years ago I used both SuSE & Mandrake.

[djbsteart1]

Slightly confused by this post,

Firstly, MDV offers Free, which as a free dvd with only software, firmware, the lot that is under GPL.

Then there is One, which is a lice cd that as prop software and stuff.

Then there is powerpack which costs around 60 Euros, has prop and commercial software, like flash, the fluendo codecs, cadega and the like.

Both One and Free are free to Download. I don't know about Suse,

NM, I see what you were getting at now.

Nice way of describing support, but if you really do need support, MDV does do enterprise releases.

[sujoy]

mandriva tries to do too much for me, i am more of a minimalist and hence prefer something like arch,slackware or a debian net install.

mandriva is good for the non-tweakers though.

[dca]

mandriva tries to do too much for me, i am more of a minimalist and hence prefer something like arch,slackware or a debian net install.

mandriva is good for the non-tweakers though.

Absolutely correct, but now we're back to purpose. In this sense, openSUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, & Ubuntu all have the same purpose.

I put Mandriva & openSUSE together because they both do dynamite (pre KDE4) KDE 3.5.x implementations. The polish and integration is superb. They both offer free vers, DVDs you can purchase, releases every six mos (unless SuSE doesn't feel like it), and other similarities. It also adds to my 'purpose' argument.

[Vince4Amy]

I think the Control Centre in Mandriva is a brilliant idea. I also found Mandriva to be very fast and stable. YAST is just as good in OpenSUSE perhaps a little better than the Mandriva Control Centre IMO.

[texasjim]

I have it on my virtual box. I'm trying to understand the differences . I'm just trying to understand why do I want this? What makes it a special and unique distribution?

I'm a diehard Ubuntu user, but I still distro shop and Mandriva is the only
one that runs my Umax parallel port scanner out of the box.
Or at all for that matter.

Enjoy

[karellen]

Their KDE implementation (of KDE 3.5 at least, haven't tried 4) seems way better then Kubuntu, so if you like KDE 3.5, I'd recommend Mandriva.

Their distinct features:
* Codecs included in PowerPack - legally.
* Game support in PowerPack - proprietary software.
* SUperb KDE support
* Decent GNOME support
* Control Center is friggin awesome - best utility for configuration ever, beating out Windows Control Panel, System Preferences (maybe), YaST, the GNOME tools in Ubuntu, etc. Server setup tools also included. Seriously, this is the reason to consider Mandriva.
* Great HW support.
* Friendly interface.
* Handy-dandy multiple edition setup: One - Excellent LiveCD/Installer hybrid, like Ubuntu; Free - mostly open source software, comes on DVD, installs to HD; PowerPack - costs around $80, comes with codecs, Cedega, proprietary software, three months of support, training.

you've summed up pretty everything :). I'm a big Mandriva fan also

[djbsteart1]

One question, why would you use something with inferior hardware support, when something just around the corner, that you know works, and have installed does support it?

[stream303]

You can still get support from Canonical on any release.

Actually, no, not on their very old releases which reached EOL.

And, there are releases that are "unofficial" like the sparc and powerpc ports. This only means that you can't buy commercial support contracts for them, and that bugs that turn up in them won't delay the release of the "officially supported" architectures, for which you can buy a contract for.

The support has shifted from commercial to community-support in regards to the ports. This shouldn't be taken as a question of quality, as the devs and users still support them. You just can't exchange any money for support.


...that's really the same darn thing, a Linux distro whose only purpose is for that of the hobbyist.

The label of hobbyist is blurred in open-source. As a community, any community, you are larger than the distro itself. What purpose you put it to, be it hobbyist or professional, is up to YOU.

The distro is a gateway to open one's mind to things other than the distro. -- Pause for Zen moment -- :)

[TeaAge]

One question, why would you use something with inferior hardware support, when something just around the corner, that you know works, and have installed does support it?

No one would do this, i think, but i'm not sure why you ask this here,
as Ubuntu on one hand and especially Mandriva on the other hand have a very good hardware support.

Also, hardware support isn't everything. It's also important how to handle a system, big software repos, look&feel, ... ... ...

One distro works well on your machine, the other distro works maybe better ... who knows it, if not try it?

There are many reasons to try other distros!

TeaAge

[djbsteart1]

It was asked out of interest, yes MDV is very nice, and in this case seemed to detect hardware better the Ubuntu, so I was wondering if there was a specific reason that Ubuntu was used?

So as you say, its whats in the everything other than HW support that I wanted to know.

[dca]

Actually, no, not on their very old releases which reached EOL.


Obviously, but not the point, you could purchase support for any release prior to EOL. My point is six month release cycles and purpose based Linux distro(s). As I've said many times, openSUSE & Mandriva offer a very polished professional looking distro. All the pieces just seem to fit and fit nicely, some bugs but that's to be expected but other than that what purpose do they serve. Novell doesn't really want you to use openSUSE for anything other than f**ting around with it and test it to make sure it's complete enough to become the next SLE. In fact, I can't even find the comparisons of SLE vs oS anymore on Novell's website. This may be because they're working on OOo Novell edition which regardless of what people say will not be in the next oS11.1 release because the patent covenant (w/ MS) does not cover openSUSE, only SLE products. Mandriva on the other hand, I'm still trying to figure out. Now after letting Gael go and purchasing Connectiva, what are they after? They have an old enterprise release running a 2.6.12 kernel and other enterprise based products including a desktop vers which I have no idea which kernel that has installed... It just puzzles me, I always had the 'more the merrier' attitude when it came to GNU/Linux distro(s) based on purpose but it seems to me in the end, the bigger ones (top four or five) are all turning into the same thing. This in the end creates nothing more than a my distro 'A' is better than your distro 'B'! It drives me nuts...

The new RH CEO laughs (http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/Interview-Red-Hat-s-new-CEO/0,139023769,339290968,00.htm) because in the data center (another good purpose for Linux) it's a variation of RH (CentOS or Fedora) that will run on non-mission critical servers when any other would do the job (Ubuntu, Mandriva, etc) just fine.

[stream303]

Well, the 6-month release cycle isn't a new revelation - OpenBSD has been doing it religiously since 1996 or so.

I think I'm starting to lose track on what it is you are proposing in regards to Mandriva. Do you not want them to follow a 6-month release, start to provide extra-long-term multi-year support to end-users running Free or One, or not follow any cycle at all and do the "we'll release when we feel it's ready?"

I'm not sure that any Mandriva user is really upset over it either way. :)

[dca]

They're sending emails calling for participants in their respective countries to get the message out. Participate with what? They release every six mos as openSUSE (and others) does. They both offer a superb DVD for $60 or so, what are they trying to do now? With their enterprise versions I can't see them really raking in the dough or being sold on hardware, etc except for the new PC deal they have going on. Perhaps it's time for them to model Ubuntu's way of releasing in order to attract attention and ISVs.

On that note, back to six month release cycles: it's kind of late in the game now because the top distro(s) all offer six month releases. I feel bad for them (Mandriva) because they could've hit the ground running and picked up certain companies as Ubuntu recently has w/ Alfresco & Unison.

[djbsteart1]

It is a shame that MDV doesn't have a bigger share, they really deserve it, however, they do have a deal with gdium who are releasing a small laptop with mips architecture. It seems very promising.

[karellen]

from my point of view and based on my experiences, Mandriva is a better (in terms in user-friendliness and hardware support) distro than the distros usually ranked higher (like Ubuntu, opensuse or Fedora). if someone tells me that he wants to try Linux, I recommend him Mandriva.
just my 2 cents

[adamogardner]

it just seems a little wimpy is all. Like can you imagine trying to save the world with Mandriva? It was nice that It detected my aircard but I since got it to work on my other distros, I don't see the point any further. At least not in the free version.

[karellen]

it just seems a little wimpy is all. Like can you imagine trying to save the world with Mandriva? It was nice that It detected my aircard but I since got it to work on my other distros, I don't see the point any further. At least not in the free version.

I can't follow you. who said something about saving the world? it's just a good distro, that's all. and why is Mandriva wimpy, compared to other Linux distros? :confused:

[adamogardner]

well this is why I asked. I am new to Linux and computer, and have been trying to figure out what operating system/s I would need to become a master. If an operating system does it all, then I will learn less. If it does nothing for me (like arch, or gentoo) Then i will learn nothing. I don't really know what I'm looking for except that I want to learn (which I can't do fast enough) It was nice to see my aircard working when I turned on MANDRIVA, but it was superb when I managed to do it manually on another system. I felt success.
So since I will become great at this I figure I will just save the world or something. with such a lofty goal I will need to learn on some advanced gear. I didn't write this when I opened the thread because I'm still evolving. last month I thought I could do things that computers could not do yet, and still do not fully grasp what they can do. I was actually looking for AI to manage my computer from voice and converstion. (like VIKKI in irobot (movie) Vikki was the AI that lived in the buildings computer system.
Yeah so what are the best computer geniuses in the world using? I want to emulate them.

[karellen]

well this is why I asked. I am new to Linux and computer, and have been trying to figure out what operating system/s I would need to become a master. If an operating system does it all, then I will learn less. If it does nothing for me (like arch, or gentoo) Then i will learn nothing. I don't really know what I'm looking for except that I want to learn (which I can't do fast enough) It was nice to see my aircard working when I turned on MANDRIVA, but it was superb when I managed to do it manually on another system. I felt success.
So since I will become great at this I figure I will just save the world or something. with such a lofty goal I will need to learn on some advanced gear. I didn't write this when I opened the thread because I'm still evolving. last month I thought I could do things that computers could not do yet, and still do not fully grasp what they can do. I was actually looking for AI to manage my computer from voice and converstion. (like VIKKI in irobot (movie) Vikki was the AI that lived in the buildings computer system.
Yeah so what are the best computer geniuses in the world using? I want to emulate them.

and what do you exactly want to do? with an OS, with a PC...

[adamogardner]

speak it's language, program robots, and help others. Oh and make lots of money. Basically I want a complete working knowledge of it. Also I think forensics would be great, but I hate judges and cops.

[Twitch6000]

speak it's language, program robots, and help others. Oh and make lots of money. Basically I want a complete working knowledge of it. Also I think forensics would be great, but I hate judges and cops.

Thanks simple...
Go all out command line mode to get to know it.
To program robots well just learn programming...
To help others that depends on their problem and your experience.
Arch Linux Or LFS could be real help to you.
Or even making your own Linux Distro.

[adamogardner]

Thanks simple...
Go all out command line mode to get to know it.
To program robots well just learn programming...
To help others that depends on their problem and your experience.
Arch Linux Or LFS could be real help to you.
Or even making your own Linux Distro.

everything you just said I already figured out. Just yesturday I tried to install arch. I'm such a BIG NOOB though REALLY. It's not quite installed yet. Teaching yourself python is hard to do. I can't seem to just get started with it. I can pull up the IDE. thats it. but at least I know what an IDE. I love the CLI. My fault is I can't learn it fast enough. wish I had A scholarship.

[djbsteart1]

So its MDV's fault that they have created the best Linux around that works very well. You just want something that is hard to use,

MDV are not trying to make Linux hard, they are trying and doing very well to make it easy.

If you like it hard, open a konsole, then type init 3. Have fun.

[karellen]

So its MDV's fault that they have created the best Linux around that works very well. You just want something that is hard to use,

MDV are not trying to make Linux hard, they are trying and doing very well to make it easy.

If you like it hard, open a konsole, then type init 3. Have fun.

I second this

[adamogardner]

So its MDV's fault that they have created the best Linux around that works very well. You just want something that is hard to use,

MDV are not trying to make Linux hard, they are trying and doing very well to make it easy.

If you like it hard, open a konsole, then type init 3. Have fun.

you might want to note f7 next time you tell a noob to go to console.
I appreciate all the input. Agree too that mandriva is doing an excellent job in there intended outcome. You are correct in that I do need something difficult to satisfy my desire to get inside the machine. Thankyou

[djbsteart1]

Well if you are refering to yourself as a noob, you don't seem like one. And f7? Please enlighten me?

[adamogardner]

Well if you are refering to yourself as a noob, you don't seem like one. And f7? Please enlighten me?

ha! are you kidding? This is my first computer 6months old. I never knew how to do anything with a computer before this one. I just got a stupid hankering to build a Robot and eventually got to the point where I needed to write a program. So I bought this and ultimately put the robot on the side burner, to pursue this "new" craft.
I like to take on challenges I have no business getting involved in. Climbing right in the driver seat. but thanks, that sort of makes me feel like less of an idiot I know myself to be.
well f7 if I am not mistaken (please correct me) is how to escape tha consoles f1-f6. This happened to me and I tried a bunch of things but not knowing what to do I ended up asking and this is what I learned the hard way.
I'm sorry I should have said ctrl-alt-f7

[Dremora]

Hardware detection and configuration, the Mandriva Control Center and drakwizard (these provide a lot of tools most other distros don't have), wide choice of supported desktops, Eee compatibility, Windows Mobile synchronization support, the /backports repository system...

Lots of interesting info at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Tour and http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Reviewers_Guide .

The problem I had with it is that the One CD is 32-bit only to prevent power users from getting away with using it.

I know it's meant mainly as a loss leader/demo, but why not just charge $20-$30 for the One disc or something, just be reasonable?

I really, really don't want to shell out the extra cash for useless things like Cedega (hardly works).

I did used to use Mandrake with my dial up was slow and there wan't much out there, but it was also much better priced back then and I feel like you got something for it.

[karellen]

The problem I had with it is that the One CD is 32-bit only to prevent power users from getting away with using it.

I know it's meant mainly as a loss leader/demo, but why not just charge $20-$30 for the One disc or something, just be reasonable?

I really, really don't want to shell out the extra cash for useless things like Cedega (hardly works).

I did used to use Mandrake with my dial up was slow and there wan't much out there, but it was also much better priced back then and I feel like you got something for it.

I hope you are aware that you can install the 64-bit kernel and whatever else you may want from the repos (main, backport, testing)

[TeaAge]

The problem I had with it is that the One CD is 32-bit only to prevent power users from getting away with using it.

I know it's meant mainly as a loss leader/demo, but why not just charge $20-$30 for the One disc or something, just be reasonable?

I really, really don't want to shell out the extra cash for useless things like Cedega (hardly works).

I did used to use Mandrake with my dial up was slow and there wan't much out there, but it was also much better priced back then and I feel like you got something for it.

If I understand you, your Problem is that the One is only available as 32bit.
So, why not use Free 64-bit? All the proprietary driver and codecs could be installed later.
Or you subscribe to the Powerpack. For 59Euro/$69 you get 3 Powerpack Versions (32bit/64bit) for download. Thant are $33 per Version.

TeaAge

[Dremora]

If I understand you, your Problem is that the One is only available as 32bit.
So, why not use Free 64-bit? All the proprietary driver and codecs could be installed later.
Or you subscribe to the Powerpack. For 59Euro/$69 you get 3 Powerpack Versions (32bit/64bit) for download. Thant are $33 per Version.

TeaAge

I won't buy Powerpack until they remove Cedega, I'd hate to think any of my money was going to Transgaming.

[djbsteart1]

How about supporting the distro forget that you are paying for something, they are giving that to you as a gift, delete cadega if you want.

As for charging for One, thats just out of the question, why would you want to charge for the product designed to let people try your product.

Its like saying here are some samples of our product that you can buy before you decide if you want to buy the actual product.

Also, considering the things that you are doing with your computer, there not exactly noobish, 6 months isn't long, but you can learn a lot in that time.

[karellen]

I won't buy Powerpack until they remove Cedega, I'd hate to think any of my money was going to Transgaming.

then don't buy it, nobody forces you. this is the open source world. you are free to make your own distro, if you want. without Cedega ;)

[stream303]

Its like saying here are some samples of our product that you can buy before you decide if you want to buy the actual product.

That brings up a good question: is the sole purpose of Mandriva Free and One to be gateways to PowerPak, or can they stand on their own as a "product"? I think they make fine stand-alone environments, especially because they can be transformed into anything you want with the right repos.

I was surprised when I found Mandriva-Free, since it seems to fly in the face of PowerPak. While I like being given the choice, are PowerPak users subsidizing Mandriva-Free users?

In essence, if I decide to use Mandriva-Free, I really don't want the Mandriva community holding a grudge against me for not "upgrading". If they were to hold a grudge, then don't release Mandriva Free at all.

[Dremora]

That brings up a good question: is the sole purpose of Mandriva Free and One to be gateways to PowerPak, or can they stand on their own as a "product"? I think they make fine stand-alone environments, especially because they can be transformed into anything you want with the right repos.

I was surprised when I found Mandriva-Free, since it seems to fly in the face of PowerPak. While I like being given the choice, are PowerPak users subsidizing Mandriva-Free users?

In essence, if I decide to use Mandriva-Free, I really don't want the Mandriva community holding a grudge against me for not "upgrading". If they were to hold a grudge, then don't release Mandriva Free at all.

Well, Mandriva just came out of bankruptcy a few years ago, and yes, Free and One are basically a "gateway drug". :lolflag:

Anyway, why would you buy a copy of Mandriva Powerpack for 69 Euros ($103 US dollars!?!?!?), and then have to do it again every year?

Unless I'm missing something, you could have bought 2-3 copies of Vista for the same money, and Mandriva is basically offering what most distros would amount to with codecs and Cedega.

It's hard to see how they operate with that kind of a business approach.

[karellen]

Unless I'm missing something, you could have bought 2-3 copies of Vista for the same money, and Mandriva is basically offering what most distros would amount to with codecs and Cedega.

interesting. from where do you buy your Vista? torrents?
last time I checked, Windows Vista Home Basic was $171.49. yes, indeed $103 = 3 x $171.49 :lolflag:

[Dremora]

interesting. from where do you buy your Vista? torrents?
last time I checked, Windows Vista Home Basic was $171.49. yes, indeed $103 = 3 x $171.49 :lolflag:

Right, but you get away with the same Windows for 5-7 years.

With Mandriva, $103 US times 5 = $515

If you don't buy a new Mandriva every year, you won't be current.

Vista Home Basic is $80 US at Newegg for the OEM.

[karellen]

Right, but you get away with the same Windows for 5-7 years.

With Mandriva, $103 US times 5 = $515

If you don't buy a new Mandriva every year, you won't be current.

Vista Home Basic is $80 US at Newegg for the OEM.

there is some thing called the internet. there are some places called repos, where software is kept and updated. the repos are free and can be used. amazingly, by anyone ;)

[djbsteart1]

For me, Powerpack isn't about buying a product, yes you get some things thrown in, but ubuntu and most distro's have a donation button, that is MDV's, except they give something back.

Also, Free and One do act as a channel for Powerpack, however, they are also fully usable by themselves, and yes, they are obviously subsidised.

As for comparing MDV to windows, you get 3 releases if you subscribe compared to 1 release of windows, and nothing is stopping you from using your MDV for that long. Powerpack isn't about buying a product, its about supporting the community, and unlike pretty much all other distro's, you get something back.

As for being judged for not owning Powerpack, I felt bad until I bought it, but that was a personnel thing for me, not something that the community made me feel. Also, I may have subscribed to PWP, but I still install from One, I prefer its size.

[AdamWill]

The problem I had with it is that the One CD is 32-bit only to prevent power users from getting away with using it.

I know it's meant mainly as a loss leader/demo, but why not just charge $20-$30 for the One disc or something, just be reasonable?

I really, really don't want to shell out the extra cash for useless things like Cedega (hardly works).

I did used to use Mandrake with my dial up was slow and there wan't much out there, but it was also much better priced back then and I feel like you got something for it.

Actually, One is 32-bit because we want to keep as simple a range of editions as possible. We already have more One CDs than we really *want* to have, and if we did 64-bit versions of them all, that doubles the number instantly.

You don't have to buy anything to get a 64-bit install. Free has a 64-bit edition.

[AdamWill]

To be honest, djb has the right idea.

Frankly (you may be surprised to hear me say this, I dunno :>) it does not make a gigantic deal of economic sense to buy a Powerpack. All you get that you couldn't get for free otherwise is Cedega and some Fluendo codecs, which would cost rather less than the price of Powerpack to buy separately. Oh, and a nice box and a manual, if you buy the boxed edition. Really, we sell it because some people want to buy it, sometimes for the box and the manual, hell, sometimes for Cedega, but mostly because they know that's how we keep being able to produce Mandriva: if you don't buy it now you may get it for free now, but if too many people do that, you won't be getting it at all in future. Or it'll be quite a different project, run by volunteers.

Also, buying Mandriva is how you help me pay rent. =)

Here's the thing: Trying to make money selling Linux to end-users is a giant ball of pain. When we try and lock it down and make only the commercial product really worth buying (see MDV circa 2005 and SUSE all the way up until Novell bought it) we get shellacked for not being 'free' and 'open' enough. When we do the current approach, where basically the only reason to buy the commercial product is to support the company, we get ridiculed by people like Dremora for not having a proper business approach. (I still think it's a lot better than the first alternative, though, and the results we've had since 2007 more or less bear that out).

You know what? If you've got a better plan - other than lucking out and falling over a spare South African gazillionaire space tourist sleeping off another champage and ocean mollusc bender (you heard it here first, folks!) - please, do let us know. We're all freaking ears over here. We'd love to be making out like bandits, but unfortunately no-one's figured out how to do that selling Linux to consumers yet.

This is why selling Mandriva Linux to individuals is gradually producing less of our revenue, proportionally, over time and we're moving into things like the Gdium deal, the large-scale project we have going in Angola, and innovative areas like the Flash. Independent software companies have to make a living somehow, and we do our best; but in the current Linux climate, if you're making a conventional distro for end users, you more or less have to give most of it away for free. This has been the case, frankly, since Ubuntu came along.

And, in case it's not clear from the above, yes, Free and One are intended to be perfectly complete products in their own right. Rather a lot more people run Free or One than run Powerpack. Heck, most of my systems were installed from Free.

[dca]

That brings up a good question: is the sole purpose of Mandriva Free and One to be gateways to PowerPak, or can they stand on their own as a "product"? I think they make fine stand-alone environments, especially because they can be transformed into anything you want with the right repos.

I was surprised when I found Mandriva-Free, since it seems to fly in the face of PowerPak. While I like being given the choice, are PowerPak users subsidizing Mandriva-Free users?

In essence, if I decide to use Mandriva-Free, I really don't want the Mandriva community holding a grudge against me for not "upgrading". If they were to hold a grudge, then don't release Mandriva Free at all.

+1, see that's what I was going for on some of my previous posts... Purposed based distributions. It's safe to assume the big players are all going for the same market.

[dca]

@AdamW, thanks for the honesty.

You want to know how to make money off the end user with GNU/Linux?

A = You don't...


It's too late, you got the big guns (RH & Novell) doing that already with their beta-quality / six month release-cycle distros... Interestingly enough, RH, Mandrake, SuSE, had it all back a few years ago when it comes to using Linux on a personal desktop. Corporations fly in, snatch them up, kill off the little guy with their 'community developed' distros and boom, all over. Heck, I can't say much, thanks to the corporates, Linux runs on how many of the world's most powerful machines? I don't know, I know it's a couple.

I will continue to tout openSUSE & Mandriva as the distros that do an amazing (just awe inspiring) job of KDE on Linux. Polished and professional.

In the mean time, need to try and get any version of Mandriva certified on some kind of hardware such as an enterprise-class server. Part of the money side here is companies want to be convinced that your Linux can carry a data center.

[AdamWill]

"It's too late, you got the big guns (RH & Novell) doing that already with their beta-quality / six month release-cycle distros"

But they *don't*. Red Hat certainly doesn't make any money off end-users. They make all their money selling zillion-seat support contracts to big business. Red Hat won't *sell* you an end-user desktop distro if you ask them to. It's harder to tell with Novell because they don't publish numbers, but frankly I would eat both my hats (they're expensive hats!) if Novell actually cleared a profit selling boxed copies of SUSE to Joe Public. If they make any money off Linux at all (which is never entirely clear from their figures...) it's in the same way as Red Hat, in the enterprise space. OpenSUSE is basically a loss-leader and development pool.

Here's the interesting thing: you know what company has had the most success selling a Linux distribution to ordinary end users? Us. We're it. We're as good as it gets, so far. SUSE was the closest competition, but hey, they got borged years ago and we're still going. Mandrake made modest but genuine profits right up from 1998 until we first brought in an external management team somewhere in the early 2000s (I wasn't around then) and we're just about getting back up to profitability now, if all continues to go according to plan. Probably the next most successfully truly independent commercial Linux distributor was Conectiva, and Mandriva is Mandrake + Conectiva. After that you're down in the tiny-volume space where Linspire and Xandros live (except for the Eee, of course).

Red Hat got out of the end-user market just as fast as they could (and were helped by the fact they got their IPO done during the dot com boom and hence got a ridiculous amount of money, which they did an extremely good job spending). Ubuntu has never been *in* the end user market: Ubuntu is a distribution for end users, sure, but no-one's selling it to them. You get it free. It's impossible to know if Canonical makes any money as it's a private company and doesn't publish figures, but if it does now or it ever does in future, it won't be from selling copies of Ubuntu to Joe Public.

But yes, fundamentally you're probably right: no-one's going to get rich selling desktop Linux to Joe Schmoe. Which is why, as I said, we're diversifying lately.

We already do certification and business in the enterprise area, BTW. Check out the Corporate products, we do have hardware certification from big names like HP and so on. We do a reasonable amount of enterprise business in Europe. Not a ton in the U.S., which is probably why you don't hear about it.

[dca]

But they *don't*. Red Hat certainly doesn't make any money off end-users.

...that's why they have Fedora, so you can spend all your time testing it out so it can become the next RHEL, Novell does the same w/ SuSE. See, they make money but in a different way, perhaps save money is a better term because the community develops, delivers, and along w/ community tests it. That's a pretty good model, save money on the back-end. They've successfully managed to say, if you're an end user w/ no corporate backing you're going to use our beta products. However, if you are a corporation you will use our enterprise class offerings and pay yearly for that use.

[saulgoode]

Here's the interesting thing: you know what company has had the most success selling a Linux distribution to ordinary end users?
Slackware Linux, Incorporated. (http://slackware.com) :)

[AdamWill]

saul: Interesting position, but I respectfully disagree. :)

dca: yes, that's more or less what I'm saying. That's not really a model Mandriva can follow, though.

[djbsteart1]

To add to what Adam said about PWP, I install from One, but have a Pwp subscription, LinDVD being the only thing I use from it.

I would guess that to some extent MDV does follow that business model. I am sure that some of the development that went into the 2008.1 release, will eventually go into the next enterprise release.

There was survey done by some high up independent survey people, they were looking at the most stable servers around. MDV and Turbo Linux came out on top, this was against Novell, Red Hat, the BSD's, everything in the server market.

Yes its a statistic so shoot it, but it has to count for something.

[AdamWill]

Actually, there was an "others" category which covered everything not explicitly labelled, and that came out on top. They listed it as "Others, e.g. Mandriva" - hence the confusion. Since they didn't break the Others category down we have no idea how Mandriva specifically did. It's a pretty bleeding meaningless survey anyway if you look into the details of it.

"I would guess that to some extent MDV does follow that business model. I am sure that some of the development that went into the 2008.1 release, will eventually go into the next enterprise release."

Yes, the enterprise releases are branched from a recent stable release. What I really meant is that we are not going to be able to be one of the dominant enterprise Linux providers as those spots are already taken and it's a very difficult area to break into. We can have a decent business on our own scale in the enterprise space, but in absolute terms if you compare it to Red Hat's business, it's a drop in the ocean. So we can't just say "ah, we'll have a loss-leader consumer distro and make our money on the enterprise, done deal" - we have to find other things to do as well.

[Dremora]

To be honest, djb has the right idea.

You know what? If you've got a better plan - other than lucking out and falling over a spare South African gazillionaire space tourist sleeping off another champage and ocean mollusc bender (you heard it here first, folks!) - please, do let us know. We're all freaking ears over here.

Bitter much?

Seriously, Red Hat and Suse don't care about giving their stuff away to home users, both of them tried desktop editions on a retail shelf next to Microsoft, lost, and went after business customers.

Debian has always been free.

Ubuntu is a loss leader trying to dump discs everywhere and see what happens, ran by a venture capital firm and your gazillionaire.

Mandriva will either find it's way into the business market, or fade away, you already mentioned that you don't make lots of money on end users, and keeping up to date with your products is more expensive over 5 years than with Microsoft, I hate to say it, but it's the truth.

You need to position yourselves to where end user income is nice, but not required.

I'd love to pitch in to your operation, but at that pricing, there's really not much I am in a position to do, I simply cannot spend that kind of money and say "great job guys!"

My suggestion was to give some options that more people can live with, if you had a $20-$30 64-bit One CD once a year, I could dig and find that, I'm sure as heck not going to fork over $103 every year for a Powerpack, and frankly the Free bit kind of concerns me that something nasty could be slipped into the deal later to make you "pay up or get out" later and then I have to do backups and put something else on here, you seem to be going to both extremes and in the process, my confidence in your product is going down the tube.

So yeah, give us some options.

[Dremora]

@AdamW, thanks for the honesty.

You want to know how to make money off the end user with GNU/Linux?

A = You don't...


It's too late, you got the big guns (RH & Novell) doing that already with their beta-quality / six month release-cycle distros... Interestingly enough, RH, Mandrake, SuSE, had it all back a few years ago when it comes to using Linux on a personal desktop. Corporations fly in, snatch them up, kill off the little guy with their 'community developed' distros and boom, all over. Heck, I can't say much, thanks to the corporates, Linux runs on how many of the world's most powerful machines? I don't know, I know it's a couple.

I will continue to tout openSUSE & Mandriva as the distros that do an amazing (just awe inspiring) job of KDE on Linux. Polished and professional.

In the mean time, need to try and get any version of Mandriva certified on some kind of hardware such as an enterprise-class server. Part of the money side here is companies want to be convinced that your Linux can carry a data center.

People often confuse Ubuntu as a community project, it is and it isn't.

Ubuntu is more or less dependant on Canonical, Canonical is entirely dependent on Mark Shuttleworth.

Ubuntu is a venture capital scheme that Canonical hopes will pan out eventually, til then it's a loss leader and Ubuntu is "dumping" discs to see what becomes of that, they knew there were companies like Mandriva that had screwed the pooch, and demographics that Novell and Red Hat ignores, so Canonical/Ubuntu are trying to go for that....angry Microsoft customers can't hurt either.

[dca]

Ubuntu is a venture capital scheme that Canonical hopes will pan out eventually, til then it's a loss leader and Ubuntu is "dumping" discs to see what becomes of that, they knew there were companies like Mandriva that had screwed the pooch, and demographics that Novell and Red Hat ignores, so Canonical/Ubuntu are trying to go for that....angry Microsoft customers can't hurt either.

It's even better than that... The dics get dumped all over the place, word gets out (as it has for the past couple years), admins pick up the discs and use them instead of where they normally would've installed CentOS. That's how you get it out there. Now that the desktop is saturated w/ Ubuntu CD(s) they can now tackle the server side which in my opinion has been lacking.

[djbsteart1]

I wasnt meaning you post, it was the one about the business model that came afterwards.

Yeah, that was why I had my favourite statistics quote there, the survey was crap.

It does seem that MDV is going somewhere again, which is really good. As for Ubuntu being a server........................ see my sig.

[Extreme Coder]

Bitter much?

Seriously, Red Hat and Suse don't care about giving their stuff away to home users, both of them tried desktop editions on a retail shelf next to Microsoft, lost, and went after business customers.

Debian has always been free.

Ubuntu is a loss leader trying to dump discs everywhere and see what happens, ran by a venture capital firm and your gazillionaire.

Mandriva will either find it's way into the business market, or fade away, you already mentioned that you don't make lots of money on end users, and keeping up to date with your products is more expensive over 5 years than with Microsoft, I hate to say it, but it's the truth.

You need to position yourselves to where end user income is nice, but not required.

I'd love to pitch in to your operation, but at that pricing, there's really not much I am in a position to do, I simply cannot spend that kind of money and say "great job guys!"

My suggestion was to give some options that more people can live with, if you had a $20-$30 64-bit One CD once a year, I could dig and find that, I'm sure as heck not going to fork over $103 every year for a Powerpack, and frankly the Free bit kind of concerns me that something nasty could be slipped into the deal later to make you "pay up or get out" later and then I have to do backups and put something else on here, you seem to be going to both extremes and in the process, my confidence in your product is going down the tube.

So yeah, give us some options.
BTW, it's not really 103 :/
Go check store.mandriva.com and change currency to US Dollars, you'll see a 1 year subscription(2 or 3 releases, not sure) is actually 69 only :/
And when the subscription ends, you can still update to the latest release for free.

[TeaAge]

Mandriva will either find it's way into the business market, or fade away, you already mentioned that you don't make lots of money on end users, and keeping up to date with your products is more expensive over 5 years than with Microsoft, I hate to say it, but it's the truth.


No it's not!
What you get from Microsoft for $150, is what you get from Mandriva for free.
Almost no software is delivered with Windows.

But if you compare it with the powerpack:
18 month Powerpacks cost $69, than you have 18 month of support. So you have 3 years for $69! And after that you can still upgrade to a newer (free) Version for free.

After the 5 years with Microsoft, you have and old kernel (I think) with less hardware detection.

Remember: There is an 64-bit Free Edition of Mandriva, after the Installation, the repos will get configured (automatically) and you have everything you would get with an 64bit One-Edition!


OpenSuse costs also $59 with nothing extra but 90 days of support?!
And that's also ok, it's cheap enough :)

Regards
TeaAge

[AdamWill]

dremora: if you want to support MDV but don't want to buy a Powerpack every eighteen months, just buy one once, then upgrade it using Free or just an online upgrade. All you'll lose is the Powerpack-only commercial apps, if you even lose those (often they continue to work from one release to another as they're all pretty statically compiled). Or, as noted by someone else, you can get the PWP subscription, which lists at $69/year and gets discounted or special-offered a few times a year. Or if you'd be willing to pay $30 for One to support MDV, you can buy One for $6.90 - http://store.mandriva.com/product_info.php?currency=USD&products_id=391 - and then buy a t-shirt or a mug or a mousemat or something - http://www.cafepress.com/mandriva . We get the money and you get One *and* a t-shirt. Bargain!

"and frankly the Free bit kind of concerns me that something nasty could be slipped into the deal later to make you "pay up or get out" later and then I have to do backups and put something else on here"

You can say that about any commercial distro. It's equally true of Ubuntu, Fedora or SUSE - what's to stop them suddenly switching to a paid-for model? It won't happen, but it could. We've been releasing Mandrake / Mandriva Free for over ten years, now (much longer than Ubuntu, Fedora or OpenSUSE has existed), and we are committed to releasing it as long as we're around - I don't think you'll find any other distros that give you a better guarantee than that.

"You need to position yourselves to where end user income is nice, but not required."

I don't think that's true, and if it were, it would be kind of sad. We *like* the individual user space. We like making a distro for people out there who genuinely enjoy using it on their own terms, not for bean counters. I honestly don't think Mandriva turning into a mini-Red Hat would make the world a better place in any way, and it would likely just wind up with us getting borged in short order. This is why we're trying to tackle the problem in a different way, with a new approach, not just aping what's already been done very well by others.

"Seriously, Red Hat and Suse don't care about giving their stuff away to home users, both of them tried desktop editions on a retail shelf next to Microsoft, lost, and went after business customers."

This is a reasonable description of Red Hat, but not of SUSE - you're kind of missing the rather big point that SUSE got bought out by Novell, fused with Ximian (Dr. Frankenstein-style) and turned into an entirely different product in the middle there. It's not like the independent SUSE management woke up one morning and said "well, the consumer space sucks, we're going to sell to businesses from now on!", that ain't how it happened at all.

[dca]

Still, Mandrake, SuSE, & Red Hat all started out with free releases back a long time ago. Mandrake buys Conectiva, fires the founder, and changes its name to Mandriva. Tries to release an enterprise solution which still really hasn't gone full bore. SuSE released two free editions, gets bought buy Novell, and now users are left w/ beta-testing openSUSE (or purchase SLED10 license). Red Hat secretly found the secret sauce (selling to enterprises for support fees), took back their prize, created Fedora, and now general users left w/ kerneloopses... That's the history of the three BIG distro(s) that "tried" to do something good for the people. I gotta' hand it to Mandriva for sticking to its guns all these years but they're still a business, and a publicly traded one at that.

...who knows, Red Hat indeed pushed Linux into the enterprise. They're still giving back to the community in the form of (not necessarily) Fedora and its 21 days worth of update support but in some of the apps whether it be network-manager (hey, it works sometimes), PackageKit, RPM, etc, etc. Perhaps Mandriva will be the one to create a new model that hasn't been thought of that will help as far as exposure and getting the name out there.

I don't take what's listed in this thread as bashing (okay, one person is taking it a little that way), more of disappointment. Mainly because I think there is still a huge crowd that wants to see Mandriva get the accolades it deserves. (Not to mention the open letters Francios *spelling* sent to Steve Ballmer about the Nigerian thing were hilarious and about time)

[djbsteart1]

Where are these letters, boi wants.

[saulgoode]

http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/

[starcannon]

I used to be a Silver level member, it was very nice; then I found Ubuntu, sorry Mandriva.

[Extreme Coder]

I used to be a Silver level member, it was very nice; then I found Ubuntu, sorry Mandriva.
I used to be an Ubuntu user, it was very nice; then I found Mandriva, sorry Ubuntu :P

[Dremora]

Still, Mandrake, SuSE, & Red Hat all started out with free releases back a long time ago. Mandrake buys Conectiva, fires the founder, and changes its name to Mandriva. Tries to release an enterprise solution which still really hasn't gone full bore. SuSE released two free editions, gets bought buy Novell, and now users are left w/ beta-testing openSUSE (or purchase SLED10 license). Red Hat secretly found the secret sauce (selling to enterprises for support fees), took back their prize, created Fedora, and now general users left w/ kerneloopses... That's the history of the three BIG distro(s) that "tried" to do something good for the people. I gotta' hand it to Mandriva for sticking to its guns all these years but they're still a business, and a publicly traded one at that.

...who knows, Red Hat indeed pushed Linux into the enterprise. They're still giving back to the community in the form of (not necessarily) Fedora and its 21 days worth of update support but in some of the apps whether it be network-manager (hey, it works sometimes), PackageKit, RPM, etc, etc. Perhaps Mandriva will be the one to create a new model that hasn't been thought of that will help as far as exposure and getting the name out there.

I don't take what's listed in this thread as bashing (okay, one person is taking it a little that way), more of disappointment. Mainly because I think there is still a huge crowd that wants to see Mandriva get the accolades it deserves. (Not to mention the open letters Francios *spelling* sent to Steve Ballmer about the Nigerian thing were hilarious and about time)

Just to work my way in here, Fedora is stable one day and broken the next, you can't really depend on it being anywhere at any time.

In 6 months, you could see three different versions of the kernel alone, and god knows what else, Red Hat is comfortable giving it away mainly for that reason, it's never much beyond a glorified beta and certainly nothing you want to trust important stuff to.

OpenSuse is very stable and moves at a predictable pace, it's definitely a useful system, I just dislike Yast.

Ubuntu if pretty much the best "all around" experience you'll get, it's free of charge, easily configured, and the Long Term Support releases just fix bugs and keep really important features backported, this is the same approach Red Hat Enterprise takes, and after a couple months of getting shaken down, an LTS is usually rock solid.

I'm not terribly sure what Mandriva is up to these days, as the last time I seriously used it day to day it was Mandrake 10.1

I poked around with One 2007 and found it to be a bit rough here and there, I might grab a 2008 One and see about getting it installed on my laptop, I probably won't be converting my desktop over unless Mandriva really impresses me though, because of the sheer amount of data I have.

In any event, thanks to Mandrake 7 for pulling me over to Linux....8 years ago. (whoa)

I don't mean to sound rough, it's just that I generally dislike subscriptions, I see them as a kind of evil headgame designed to make you unsure of what the full price ends up being.

[djbsteart1]

That article has reassured me of the "decent" side of MDV management. I'm glad the company is coming back to where it should be.

Then go get a copy of either One KDE or Gnome, whichever you prefer, no subscriptions, just the best OS there is.


I used to be a Silver level member, it was very nice; then I found Ubuntu, sorry Mandriva.

I used to use (K)Ubuntu it was awful, then I found MDV.

[AdamWill]

Let's all be nice, guys =) I honestly don't like to get into distro bashing because it's a) pointless and b) generally not true. I've used Fedora, Ubuntu and SUSE and honestly they're all good products. There's nothing terrible about any of them and a lot of good things. I mean, obviously Mandriva's the best, but those guys are trying their hearts out ;)

No kidding, I think it's good to have several major distros and there's really not a lot of point in aimless arguments between / about them, but the competition+collaboration system it results in works really well. Y'know, when we do X, it makes the other guys want to do X, and vice versa. It's very hard to try and game the system because everything truly is out in the open - one of the nice things about the Linux world today is all the major consumer distros genuinely work in the open source philosophy, no-one's really trying to hide or artificially manipulate / control things. I know people working on Fedora and Ubuntu (not really anyone directly working on SUSE but I'm sure it's the same) and they're great people doing useful things and doing them well - guys like Jono Bacon.

dremora, I'd definitely encourage you to give 2008 Spring a shot, it's honestly in my opinion our best release ever (and people who know me will know I don't lie about stuff like that, just ask them what I said about 2006 :>). 2005, 2006 and to a certain extent 2007 were shaky releases, and we've improved on a lot of things hugely since then. So unless you get unlucky in the hardware lottery, which can always happen with any distro unfortunately, I think you'll be quite impressed with it. Frankly, 2008 Spring's a good point to jump in, as 2009 might be a bit hairy. There's a lot on the plate for it, jumping from KDE 3 to KDE 4 is a really big move.

[adamogardner]

I used to be an Ubuntu user, it was very nice; then I found Mandriva, sorry Ubuntu :P

We'll see you back soon enough :)

[djbsteart1]

Sorry Adam, your right. In future I wont be honest :)

Ubuntu just wasn't for my hardware, but I do see why people like its simplistic approach to thing, I just prefer being in the driving seat more. This is what MDV gives. The same applies to Suse and Fedora, although I could never get them installed.

[Extreme Coder]

We'll see you back soon enough :)
And how'd you know that? :)
Currently, Ubuntu (Since Gutsy, till Hardy now) can't even boot on my PC (I have a AMD 690 chipset), it gives some errors, and doesn't start X.
While Mandriva and OpenSUSE work without a hitch or an error on my PC.
I do come here sometimes for some of the interesting discussions ;)

[Dremora]

I tried a LiveCD of Mandriva 2008.1 today, it still has the same bugs it has had for three years now that keeps making me not want to install it on anything important.

I copied B43 firmware to /lib/firmware and Mandriva doesn't use it.

It can't appear to go above 1280 x 760 or else the display goes black.

The system randomly locks up.

[TeaAge]

Hey,

for you wireless, have a look at:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Installing_Broadcom_Wireless_Network_Card

What graphiccard and other hardware do you use?

Regards,
TeaAge

[Dremora]

Hey,

for you wireless, have a look at:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Installing_Broadcom_Wireless_Network_Card

What graphiccard and other hardware do you use?

Regards,
TeaAge

Nvidia Geforce 7650GS driving a Westinghouse 24" 1680 x 1050 LCD

[adamogardner]

And how'd you know that? :)
Currently, Ubuntu (Since Gutsy, till Hardy now) can't even boot on my PC (I have a AMD 690 chipset), it gives some errors, and doesn't start X.
While Mandriva and OpenSUSE work without a hitch or an error on my PC.
I do come here sometimes for some of the interesting discussions ;)

here's what I don't get though: you are computer savvy (an extreme coder if you will) So why can't ubuntu work on your machine? bad disk? You'll be back because Ubuntu has you beat but your bigger than ubuntu, and you will want to put ubuntu in it's place (that is, on your machine). for the same reason I want to get Arch running. Do I think I can use it? - no Am I challenged to do it anyway?- yes. why? - because it's a defiant operating system and I refuse to buckle under it. So see you out there ay?!

[Extreme Coder]

here's what I don't get though: you are computer savvy (an extreme coder if you will) So why can't ubuntu work on your machine? bad disk? You'll be back because Ubuntu has you beat but your bigger than ubuntu, and you will want to put ubuntu in it's place (that is, on your machine). for the same reason I want to get Arch running. Do I think I can use it? - no Am I challenged to do it anyway?- yes. why? - because it's a defiant operating system and I refuse to buckle under it. So see you out there ay?!
I may be computer savvy and all, but I'd rather not waste my time configuring the OS to work, I'd be better off configuring things inside the OS itself.
I used to have fun trying to make things work the way they're supposed to, but now I do not have that much free time to waste on things like this.
Why should I fight with an OS to install, then try to install the ATI's graphic driver, then try to get my Wireless card working, then fight with the sound to make it work with more than one app, when all of this gets configured automatically from the Mandriva One disc?

[ooobuntooo]

Mandriva is as ugly as hell and they charge people money for it!

[TeaAge]

Mandriva is as ugly as hell and they charge people money for it!

It's a matter of taste and can be changed easily. That shouldn't be a reason for choosing an distriution.
Mandriva don't charge people money for it. It's as free as ubuntu.

Ubuntu has an "donate" button ... that's the same.

It's fine if you didn't want to use Mandriva. I'm not going to say, that Mandriva is the best distribution ever.
For me it works well and does everything I want it to do, someone else has an different opinion.

But your comment was unqualified and unneeded.

@Dremora
Maybe try the latest nvidia driver. should be in the backport repos

Regards
TeaAge

[ooobuntooo]

It's a matter of taste and can be changed easily. That shouldn't be a reason for choosing an distriution.
Mandriva don't charge people money for it. It's as free as ubuntu.

Ubuntu has an "donate" button ... that's the same.

It's fine if you didn't want to use Mandriva. I'm not going to say, that Mandriva is the best distribution ever.
For me it works well and does everything I want it to do, someone else has an different opinion.

But your comment was unqualified and unneeded.

@Dremora
Maybe try the latest nvidia driver. should be in the backport repos

Regards
TeaAge

They have a professional version which costs around 70 euros.
All versions of Ubuntu are free.

[Extreme Coder]

They have a professional version which costs around 70 euros.
All versions of Ubuntu are free.
Yes, but you're not required to use it.
You can just use the Mandriva One disc, which is exactly like Ubuntu, a livecd with an install option ;)

[AdamWill]

dremora:

"I copied B43 firmware to /lib/firmware and Mandriva doesn't use it."

You were trying too hard. This is a common problem with people who run Mandriva for the first time. :)

The technical reason it doesn't work is that we use bcm43xx by default, not b43. This is due to testing showing that bcm43xx generally worked better.

You don't have to copy the firmware manually on Mandriva at all. All you have to do is run the network configuration tool. It will ask you to feed it the Windows driver, and it will extract the firmware itself (using bcm43xx-fwcutter). See the release notes, where this procedure is explained:

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Notes#Required_firmware_for_Broadcom_wirele ss_adapters

if bcm43xx doesn't work very well (which for several chips it really doesn't, and neither does b43), you can also use the Mandriva network configuration tool to set up ndiswrapper.

I don't know what happened with your graphics card / monitor (my HTPC runs an NVIDIA card at 1920x1080 on my HDTV). I'd need more details. Was the monitor detected? What does Xorg.0.log say? One just uses the NVIDIA proprietary driver without any major modifications...

[TeaAge]

They have a professional version which costs around 70 euros.
All versions of Ubuntu are free.

You are well informed ...

As mentioned x-times in this thread. You can buy 3 Versions of Powerpack for $70 (you can bye the box of openSuSE also for $69 or 69€ ... I'm not sure).

LinDVD with will be deliverd with it, which costs ~$45.
And other stuff, but thats not the point.

Mandriva use the Powerpack as other Distributions use the Donate button. Both are used to support the distribution! Mandriva (or Mandrake) also had an donate button a few years ago, but this had made the sponsors nervous.

So, you get from Mandriva the same as form Ubuntu ... both for free ... if you want more or want to support Mandriva, you CAN buy the powerpack ... I don't understand your problem.

Regards

[Dremora]

dremora:

"I copied B43 firmware to /lib/firmware and Mandriva doesn't use it."

You were trying too hard. This is a common problem with people who run Mandriva for the first time. :)

The technical reason it doesn't work is that we use bcm43xx by default, not b43. This is due to testing showing that bcm43xx generally worked better.

You don't have to copy the firmware manually on Mandriva at all. All you have to do is run the network configuration tool. It will ask you to feed it the Windows driver, and it will extract the firmware itself (using bcm43xx-fwcutter). See the release notes, where this procedure is explained:

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_Notes#Required_firmware_for_Broadcom_wirele ss_adapters

if bcm43xx doesn't work very well (which for several chips it really doesn't, and neither does b43), you can also use the Mandriva network configuration tool to set up ndiswrapper.

I don't know what happened with your graphics card / monitor (my HTPC runs an NVIDIA card at 1920x1080 on my HDTV). I'd need more details. Was the monitor detected? What does Xorg.0.log say? One just uses the NVIDIA proprietary driver without any major modifications...

Every other distribution works fine with the Nvidia driver, this makes three cards and 3 different monitors, between Mandriva 2006, 2007, and 2008.

It always says "Unknown Monitor" and then refuses to go any higher that 1024 x 768, or 1280 x 1024, which look like hell on a widescreen.

I tried to fix this by calling up Nvidia Settings, but the version you are using appears to not have a way of adjusting the screen resolution, so I tried getting Nvidia-XConfig to force generate a new Xorg.conf, and that didn't work either.

The cards Mandriva doesn't work on include Geforce 6200, Geforce 7300 LE, and Geforce 7650 GS, if you can make it work, thats awesome, but I don't really want to get the thing installed and just not know where to go next, it's obvious that something about your Nvidia stuff isn't right, because every other distribution I've tried works great.

I suppose it might work if I wanted to figure out how to get build tools on yet another system, rip out your driver, and install Nvidia's manually, but oh well.

The Broadcom nightmare is something else entirely, you even HAVE b43-fwcutter and you don't use it?

Thats going to confuse the hell out of an advanced user, I even had the cut firmware in an offsite backup..

Broadcom's site is very unhelpful, the driver from the OEM is from 2004....

You know what they say, 'If the mountain won't come to Muhammad..."

[Extreme Coder]

Every other distribution works fine with the Nvidia driver, this makes three cards and 3 different monitors, between Mandriva 2006, 2007, and 2008.

It always says "Unknown Monitor" and then refuses to go any higher that 1024 x 768, or 1280 x 1024, which look like hell on a widescreen.

I tried to fix this by calling up Nvidia Settings, but the version you are using appears to not have a way of adjusting the screen resolution, so I tried getting Nvidia-XConfig to force generate a new Xorg.conf, and that didn't work either.

The cards Mandriva doesn't work on include Geforce 6200, Geforce 7300 LE, and Geforce 7650 GS, if you can make it work, thats awesome, but I don't really want to get the thing installed and just not know where to go next, it's obvious that something about your Nvidia stuff isn't right, because every other distribution I've tried works great.

I suppose it might work if I wanted to figure out how to get build tools on yet another system, rip out your driver, and install Nvidia's manually, but oh well.

The Broadcom nightmare is something else entirely, you even HAVE b43-fwcutter and you don't use it?

Thats going to confuse the hell out of an advanced user, I even had the cut firmware in an offsite backup..

Broadcom's site is very unhelpful, the driver from the OEM is from 2004....

You know what they say, 'If the mountain won't come to Muhammad..."
Did you try choosing another monitor?
I know I can force it to choose any resolution I want it to use..

[AdamWill]

Dremora: use the Mandriva Control Center to set graphics settings in Mandriva, not nvidia-settings or anything else. You can specify a monitor model and resolution there. Run 'drakx11' or 'XFdrake' directly, or find it in the MCC under Hardware / Set up the graphical server.

I think part of the problem here is that you're approaching Mandriva assuming everything will be exactly the same as it is in Ubuntu, which of course it isn't (what would be the point?)

You assume a particular way of setting up the network card just because it's what you happened to use before, but that just isn't the method we use on Mandriva. If you'd just follow the Mandriva tools it would work a lot better. If you're going to try and set everything up manually and do it wrong, we really can't help you; remember, the Unix model is to let you shoot yourself in the foot if you really want to. The correct method of doing things is explained in the documentation and in the Wiki and has been gone over numerous times on the forums, there's really not much more than that we can do that doesn't involve artificially restricting choices people might want to have.

As I said, we use bcm43xx - the previous incarnation of b43 - simply because we *tested*, on a range of chipsets, and found bcm43xx worked better. We provide a b43-fwcutter package because some 'advanced users' may want to switch to using b43 manually, so we'd like to facilitate that.

[adamogardner]

I may be computer savvy and all, but I'd rather not waste my time configuring the OS to work, I'd be better off configuring things inside the OS itself.
I used to have fun trying to make things work the way they're supposed to, but now I do not have that much free time to waste on things like this.
Why should I fight with an OS to install, then try to install the ATI's graphic driver, then try to get my Wireless card working, then fight with the sound to make it work with more than one app, when all of this gets configured automatically from the Mandriva One disc?

I guess your not into ARCH? I keep attempting an install but it's difficult to configure since unlike yourself, I'm not so savvy. Yet the challenge calls me.

[Extreme Coder]

I guess your not into ARCH? I keep attempting an install but it's difficult to configure since unlike yourself, I'm not so savvy. Yet the challenge calls me.
And who said I didn't try Arch? :D
When I'm far too bored( which is sadly, far too rare these days), I try installing it, and after the first time of using the tutorial, I got the hang of it ;)
Hmm.. When KDEmod gets a working KDE 4 up, I will have another go at it :P

[adamogardner]

And who said I didn't try Arch? :D
When I'm far too bored( which is sadly, far too rare these days), I try installing it, and after the first time of using the tutorial, I got the hang of it ;)
Hmm.. When KDEmod gets a working KDE 4 up, I will have another go at it :P

see you in the Arch forum, aye? Question: What is Horus saying in your avatar?

[Extreme Coder]

see you in the Arch forum, aye? Question: What is Horus saying in your avatar?
I don't know how to read hieroglyphics (yet :P ), so I can't say, but my friend who designed the avatar designed it that way because I'm Egyptian ;)

[adamogardner]

I don't know how to read hieroglyphics (yet :P ), so I can't say, but my friend who designed the avatar designed it that way because I'm Egyptian ;)

very pleased to make your aquaintance. I'm an American. I can translate it for you if I could see it larger. or perhaps since your friend made it it won't make much sense? :)

[Dremora]

Dremora: use the Mandriva Control Center to set graphics settings in Mandriva, not nvidia-settings or anything else. You can specify a monitor model and resolution there. Run 'drakx11' or 'XFdrake' directly, or find it in the MCC under Hardware / Set up the graphical server.

I think part of the problem here is that you're approaching Mandriva assuming everything will be exactly the same as it is in Ubuntu, which of course it isn't (what would be the point?)

You assume a particular way of setting up the network card just because it's what you happened to use before, but that just isn't the method we use on Mandriva. If you'd just follow the Mandriva tools it would work a lot better. If you're going to try and set everything up manually and do it wrong, we really can't help you; remember, the Unix model is to let you shoot yourself in the foot if you really want to. The correct method of doing things is explained in the documentation and in the Wiki and has been gone over numerous times on the forums, there's really not much more than that we can do that doesn't involve artificially restricting choices people might want to have.

As I said, we use bcm43xx - the previous incarnation of b43 - simply because we *tested*, on a range of chipsets, and found bcm43xx worked better. We provide a b43-fwcutter package because some 'advanced users' may want to switch to using b43 manually, so we'd like to facilitate that.

The Mandriva Control Center was even funnier, it didn't list any of my monitors, so I chose "Generic LCD" and "1680 x 1050" and it blanked the monitor and I ended up getting punchy and doing a hard reset.

The broadcom firmware wouldn't work no matter which way I tried doing it.

The problem is not that the tools aren't there, it's that they won't work, or end up screwing you over worse than if you just did everything yourself.

I know that the problem is not sitting in front of the computer in this case, because I've successfully set up distributions that would leave most users running in terror, Mandriva is the oddball.

[Extreme Coder]

very pleased to make your aquaintance. I'm an American. I can translate it for you if I could see it larger. or perhaps since your friend made it it won't make much sense? :)
Pleased to know ya too ;) You mean you actually read hieroglyphics?
I don't really know about the avatar, but I will try asking my friend.

[adamogardner]

Pleased to know ya too ;) You mean you actually read hieroglyphics?
I don't really know about the avatar, but I will try asking my friend.

I don't read them but I have a book for translation. typically anything thats in a little box called a cartouche is a name. Your avatar doesn't have one. I can recognize tut's cartuche but thats hardly reading. Your avatar is horus. (he's pretty cool) son of isis, his father osiris killed by his brother set. and set wanted to kill horus too so he could steal the high seat. so isis hid horus until he was god enough to light the earth.

[AdamWill]

Dremora: well, *I* know that the documentation works because I tested it before I wrote it. :) I have a Broadcom card here. Install a clean 2008 Spring, download the wl_apsta.o file referred to in the Release Notes, run the network configuration tool, tell it you want to configure the Broadcom interface, feed it that wl_apsta.o , and it works. I tested this three times at various stages of the pre-release process and with the final release, and so did our QA team. I also tested setting it up with ndiswrapper via the same tool. Both methods work correctly. I am entirely sure of this. I can send you a screencast, if you like.

If you run 'monitor-edid --MonitorsDB' as root and paste the output, I can add your monitor to the detection database. We can only list monitors for which someone has submitted the specs to us (or which we happen to own ourselves). The 'generic' setting should usually work, but it's possible your monitor has somewhat odd specs that are narrower than the generic definition allows, or something. It's slightly odd, though, as the NVIDIA proprietary driver usually does its own monitor detection and mode verification, regardless of what you put in xorg.conf .

[wxnker]

If you run 'monitor-edid --MonitorsDB' as root and paste the output, I can add your monitor to the detection database. We can only list monitors for which someone has submitted the specs to us (or which we happen to own ourselves)
Off topic, but would it be an idea for Mandriva forum users (like me) to do this in a thread and post the results, Adam? To get more monitors in the detection database?


The problem is not that the tools aren't there, it's that they won't work, or end up screwing you over worse than if you just did everything yourself.
That's FAR from what I have experienced. The tools have never let me down, with 3 different Nvidia cards and 3 monitors. I'm yet to discover a better set of tools in any Linux distro I've tried.

[djbsteart1]

The problem is not that the tools aren't there, it's that they won't work, or end up screwing you over worse than if you just did everything yourself.

3 nvidia cards, 3 ATI, one Matrox. 5 different monitors, and 3 laptops. All without one hitch, and they all ran compiz off the live cd without any issues.

Have you posted at the actual MDV forum?

[AdamWill]

wxnker: if XFdrake cannot detect your monitor, then yep, that would help. You can test by temporarily renaming xorg.conf - mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.bak - and running XFdrake . See if it correctly detects your monitor model or not. Then just quit and copy xorg.conf.bak back to xorg.conf .

[wxnker]

The ONE CD did detect it out of the box, so I guess it does. I'll try your suggestion though.

When I read your previous answer I just had a thought, that we could do a thread on the official forum, where people could post their output, if their monitor is not already on the list. To get more monitor types into the database.

Regards,
wxnker/hedge

[karellen]

Dremora, for me you seem to have some personal and completely subjective issues with Mandriva; maybe you should quit bashing and move on...to something (anything) else.

[djbsteart1]

It detects mine fine, but if I play with anything, it goes very very fuzzy. Will try with the .bak idea and see.

That worked a treat, higher res now. It was picked up as a generic plug and play, but I am down with the rest so its cool.

[AdamWill]

karellen: Dremora already does use something else, usually, but he decided to try MDV again after encouragement in this thread. Please don't bash him for open-mindedness :)

[karellen]

karellen: Dremora already does use something else, usually, but he decided to try MDV again after encouragement in this thread. Please don't bash him for open-mindedness :)

I'm fine with that, though I don't understand his complains regarding Mandriva

[adamogardner]

if mandriva were an automobile, which would it be? arch? ubuntu?

[djbsteart1]

if mandriva were an automobile, which would it be? arch? ubuntu?

MDV would be a massive fast Roller or a Bentley, *buntu would be Ford fiesta/escort or a Vauxhall Corsa/Nova/Astra, Arch would be a Dax Rush, Debian would be a truck, some fat American thing, Suse is a BMW, Fedora is a Monaro. Sabyon is Big Merc sports car, Puppy would be a Westfield X1, DSBSD would be a Dax Rush with a massive v6, Slackware would be a nice air cooled 911 RS from about 78, Gentoo would be a Porsche 904, FreeBSD would be the 917 turbo, with the whale tail spoiler. PC-BSD would be the original 917. OpenBSD is a big safe Volvo.

I think my views on the various distro's has been made clear with that.

If you need any of the cars explained, please ask.

[Dremora]

I'm fine with that, though I don't understand his complains regarding Mandriva

I did used to use Mandriva constantly, if anything I'm biased towards it for several reasons I won't go into.

I just thought it was weird that it doesn't behave like most other distributions do in several areas of hardware support, otherwise I did like it.

[adamogardner]

MDV would be a massive fast Roller or a Bentley, *buntu would be Ford fiesta/escort or a Vauxhall Corsa/Nova/Astra, Arch would be a Dax Rush, Debian would be a truck, some fat American thing, Suse is a BMW, Fedora is a Monaro. Sabyon is Big Merc sports car, Puppy would be a Westfield X1, DSBSD would be a Dax Rush with a massive v6, Slackware would be a nice air cooled 911 RS from about 78, Gentoo would be a Porsche 904, FreeBSD would be the 917 turbo, with the whale tail spoiler. PC-BSD would be the original 917. OpenBSD is a big safe Volvo.

I think my views on the various distro's has been made clear with that.

If you need any of the cars explained, please ask.


if you think you have some fancy comparisons please elaborate on one or two.

Arch, is like a stock car for racing. it has the shell, seat, and engine.
Ububntu, like a conversion van, comfortable, roomy, modern.
debian is like the cargo van that construction workers use.
Mandriva, is like a minivan (a windstar, aerostar)
Backtrack, is the batmobile
knoppix, sport utility vehicle

[djbsteart1]

MDV is the Roller or a Bentley because it can do everything and is really fast.

*buntu, they are crappy little boy racer cars, claimed by there owners to be the business, but their actually nothing.

Arch, well a Dax Rush is the fastest Lotus 7 clone, 4 wheels an engine, and thats about it.

Debian, well it has everything, and isn't exactly fast.

Suse, well BM's here are owned by young racy snooty business execs and bankers. I don't like them.

Fedora, well the Monaro is a fat Aussie car with a massive engine that can't go round corners, Fedora always crashes.

Sabyon, I didn't really think about that one.

Puppy, the X1 is a really nice and fast car to drive when driven properly, if not, its a nightmare.

DSBSD, is a Dax Rush with a bigger engine, its faster than Arch.

Slackware, it has some luxury, and is still fast, it is also quite purist, therefore the original sports car with a proper engine in it.

Gentoo, the Porsche 904 is quite a hardcore racer,

FreeBSD, the 917 turbo, there isn't a car that is more pure bred than this.

PC-BSD, a tamed FreeBSD, a saner (not really possible) 917

OpenBSD, possibly the most secure OS their is, Volvo;s possibly the safest cars there are.


Yes, I have just done some bashing, this was done for humour, and everything is in my opinion.

[wxnker]

if mandriva were an automobile, which would it be? arch? ubuntu?
A car that gets you from A to B when you need it too. A car that offers you a comfortable ride. You don't necessarily have to know what's under the hood to use it, but if you want to look, then you can. It's the car that gives both racers and blonds what they need. :p

Ubuntu? Also a very nice car, IMO. But I did have to look under the hood way more, when driving that one. Also I don't like the default color much, but that's just a minor detail, hehe. :)

[djbsteart1]

A car that gets you from A to B when you need it too. A car that offers you a comfortable ride. You don't necessarily have to know what's under the hood to use it, but if you want to look, then you can. It's the car that gives both racers and blonds what they need. :p

Ubuntu? Also a very nice car, IMO. But I did have to look under the hood way more, when driving that one. Also I don't like the default color much, but that's just a minor detail, hehe. :)

Oi, I'm blonde.

[lumos_aeternum]

Interesting comparisons...I'll keep them in mind when I look at other distros...

Besides getting wifi (Broadcom ... ick) setup, using Mandriva hasn't required too much exploration. It is helpful to learn more about the internals, but, compared to the impression the general public has of Linux, it wasn't a rough transition for me.

[karellen]

Interesting comparisons...I'll keep them in mind when I look at other distros...

Besides getting wifi (Broadcom ... ick) setup, using Mandriva hasn't required too much exploration. It is helpful to learn more about the internals, but, compared to the impression the general public has of Linux, it wasn't a rough transition for me.

well, I suppose Mandriva it's not the right distro if you want to learn about the intricacies of Linux. but if "just" want a painless friendly experience (without touching the CLI), it's the right one :)

P.S I've yet to find something better than Mandriva's Control Center in the Linux world (and no, not even Yast)

[lumos_aeternum]

Thanks! For a first run, getting used to the Linux environment, I think Mandriva is doing a good job.

[adamogardner]

well, I suppose Mandriva it's not the right distro if you want to learn about the intricacies of Linux. but if "just" want a painless friendly experience (without touching the CLI), it's the right one :)

P.S I've yet to find something better than Mandriva's Control Center in the Linux world (and no, not even Yast)

I admittedly am a masochist for a good interfacing at my terminal's.