Switching from Ubuntu to..... Mandriva?

[cazmatazzz]

Hello! I've been an enthusiastic Ubuntu and Xubuntu user for quite some time now. About three years ago when my windows XP started giving me such critters, I was tempted to throw my laptop out of the window. Because I could not find my original XP cd I decided it was time to try something new. And so I installed Ubuntu.

Now after three years of using ubuntu the same temptation is arising, although this time not out of annoyance, to try something new.

So my quest for a new distro has started. What I want is a stable and fast system that allows me to tweak certain bits (I am not exactly a beginner but then to call myself intermediate.... well I guess it depends on your scale of reference) but not the whole shabang. Also I love choice, thereby meaning large repositories and who doesn't adore a nice look and feel.

Thus! Which distro to choose? there are soooo many options, I have been looking at Mint, pclinuxos and Mandriva. I guess I am looking for something similar to Ubuntu but more advanced maybe.


I sure hope this rant makes any sense.

[SuperSonic4]

Mint is ubuntu. Except for a few different programs and themes. But they share the same repos and packaging etc

PClinuxOS I've never looked at.

Mandriva is an excellent distrobution IMO. You can install either gnome or kde and both are well made and supported. Personally I think it is the best KDE4 there is. You can tweak it well and the Mandriva Control Centre will do that rather easily with a GUI. There are large repos and although a nice look and feel is subjective I think mandriva has the best default theme but again it can be changed

[Down8ve]

I'm running Mandriva One KDE4 2009 right now. I agree, it is the best KDE4 experience at the moment, and will only improve with time. It is quite stable and I have had no showstoppers on my rather generic system.

OpenSuSE 11.1 is looking very good too, but I have finally gotten Mandy to behave as I wish... although I wish my Firefox Fonts were better. Picasa install was easy, right from Google's website. It also uses Pulse Audio.

Sorry for the rambling.

[Cresho]

I remember mandrake/mandriva. It is the best kde out there. Is this still a french company?

[AdamWill]

French / Brazilian - we merged with Conectiva (hence Mandriva).

cazmatazz: just try a bunch and see what you like. Try Mandriva, of course. Try Fedora, SUSE, PCLOS, Mepis...no-one can really tell you what you will like best, you can only try the options and see what works for you.

[Vulpus]

Thus! Which distro to choose? there are soooo many options, I have been looking at Mint, pclinuxos and Mandriva. I guess I am looking for something similar to Ubuntu but more advanced maybe.

In recent months I have become less sympathetic to all the variations of distros that are out there. I have tried Mint and it is very nice but basically it is just Ubuntu configured in a particular way. Likewise PCLinuxOS is mainly Mandriva with Synaptic added.

Personally I think that Mandriva is the best distro out there, though it is not everyone's cup of tea and is quite a bit different from Ubuntu. If you prefer the Gnome desktop then I suggest Fedora.

[Down8ve]

Just figured out an annoyance I had with Mandriva's streaming playback using various media players. The default setting was for a T1 line, and I'm on DSL. Once I changed that setting I no longer had stuttering internet playback on the "movie player." I'm at work at the moment and cannot remember which app it was (KDE4).

Now if I could only get Amarok to not stutter on some Shoutcast streams.

[wolfen69]

If you prefer the Gnome desktop then I suggest Fedora.

why? mandriva does gnome very well.

[kaldor]

Try out Fedora. Very popular and stable Distro with both Gnome and KDE. Feels a lot like Ubuntu.

[Sorivenul]

Thought I had posted here already.
Mandriva is a good distribution, but is not "more advanced" than Ubuntu. My vote goes to Debian. If you know Ubuntu, the basics of Debian will be familiar, but there is more manual work and configuration involved with a Debian system. It is almost always my suggestion for a "next step after Ubuntu".