Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2 released

[AdamWill]

Mandriva is proud to announce the release of Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring Alpha 2, marking the first public pre-release of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2009. This alpha introduces several significant changes, most obviously the inclusion of KDE 4 - 4.1 beta 2, specifically - as the default version of KDE, and the latest development version of GNOME, 2.23.4. The kernel has also been updated to release 2.6.26rc7. We emphasize that the KDE change is a major one that is not yet entirely completed and likely to cause many bugs. As always - but more importantly than ever - we remind you not to use pre-releases in any critical situation; install them only on a test system or partition, or in a virtual machine. Additionally, we strongly discourage using this pre-release to upgrade from any earlier release of Mandriva Linux, as the transition process from KDE 3 to KDE 4 is not yet fully implemented and you are likely to end up with an unusable system.

Another feature of interest to many users will be the addition of orphan package tracking (and optional automatic removal) to the urpmi package manager. Of course, many applications have been updated (although the default version of Mozilla Firefox is still currently 2.0.x), and most of the distribution has been rebuilt with a new GCC version, 4.3. Please make sure to read the Errata and Release Notes, and file any bugs not covered in those pages on Bugzilla.

[wolfen69]

KDE 4 is to be the default DE? say it isn't so.

[AdamWill]

Why?

[Growbag]

KDE4?

Don't do it, don't do it! It will cause too many problems and alienate many many users.

KDE4 (and 4.1) is BETA software and should NOT be used on everyday machines, and especially not for users who are new, and/or non-technical.

OpenSUSE made the mistake of including KDE4 as an install option on the DVD version, and the only option for a KDE liveCD without giving a CLEAR warning that it is EXPERIMENTAL SOFTWARE.

It has caused so many arguments, and "suse sucks" threads on the forum that it is not worth the hassle.

There is a major flame war going on between the KDE4 devs and users, a lot of people have quit, or have threatened to quit over KDE4 and all it's problems.

The devs say that KE4 is "a functional desktop which supplies everything a new user expects", and "experienced" users of KDE generally find that it lacks basic functionality, like saving the positions of icons when you logout!

It doesn't work properly with Nvidia drivers (as in slow as!), and the devs blame Nvidia for that! Go figure o_O.

[AdamWill]

KDE 4.1 is very different from KDE 4, we employ several upstream KDE developers, and there's a lot of time before October. Please don't make judgements before seeing the final product.

[TrailerTrash]

Im using Mandriva 2009 KDE 4.1 Alpha 2 and find it very pleasing. Its been VERY stable for me so far (and im a GNOME guy). Its the nicest KDE4 desktop yet. No crashes YET! LOL

[Growbag]

KDE 4.1 is very different from KDE 4, we employ several upstream KDE developers, and there's a lot of time before October. Please don't make judgements before seeing the final product.

No it's not, it's still incomplete.

And I didn't judge before seeing the final product sunshine, for 1 I get updates daily to KDE4.1, and 2 it is called KDE 4.1 rc.

That means that it is NOT a final product, and neither is KDE4.0.

That is the whole point, and even the KDE4 devs will agree with that, the ones you "employ".

But don't listen to me, listen to your users whine and complain once you release it, hopefully you won't take the stance that the KDE devs did and blame your users for being too stupid to understand and use it.

Good luck .

[AdamWill]

Erm...it's July, and KDE 4.1 RC1 is out. We are releasing Mandriva Linux 2009 in October, by which time we'll be well past the final release of KDE 4.1, which is what it will include. I'm not sure how this is difficult to understand.

[articpenguin]

All major KDE distros are using KDE 4 in the next release by defualt.