Mandriva 2009 Review Update

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

In my opinion, with the updates that have been laid in by Mandriva, especially the kernel updates and strategic backports from the development "Cooker", it is now ready for primetime. I am spending more and more time on it and it is very good, very stable, KDE 4.1.x has more to go, like a release of K3B for 4.1.x, but can you use it productively and in a stable manner? Yes. Oh yes.


Go to the "Easy Urpmi" website, add the PLF file sources, and update from them as well. With the sub-pixel hinting library available only there and Compix Fusion enabled, the desktop display and features and text clarity stands with any OS.

Go get it, if you are of the mind. Make sure you set the latest kernel and image as default in the boot setup utilities, after updating. The latest stable Nvidia drivers are in backports.

[madokie]

1. downloaded it last night, burned a copy,

booted to it this morning and let me tell you, of the different Linux's I've tried, this one is by far the best. I couldn't get it to play sounds as it came but I'm sure there is a way. Otherwise it worked fine and is much faster in surfing the web even though I was running it from the CD. Yes sir, Mandriva just may be the Linux I adopt for a replacement for micro$hafts xp. :woohoo:

Looks good too.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Pulseaudio is still a little flaky.

Once you get it working correctly(load all pulseaudio related packages from the file repositories to beat it into place), it is easily the best sounding sound server on any platform. My Audigy2 has never sounded this good, clear and detailed. What this would sound like with a real high-end card and SPDIF speakers is a scary thought.

[IDemo]

4. No problems here with PA, but on openSUSE it's another story

Typing this from Mandriva 2009, and no audio problems so far. But I have no audio on my newly installed openSUSE 11.0 partition, and I haven't figured out how to make it work.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. The word I have heard on PA is...

That it has undergone a complete redesign and the new version will be a marked improvement in reliability, with the same, if not better, sound quality.

[madokie]

10. In my case its the sound card its not seeing, 'I think'

creative soundblaster live 24 bit. I have a yamaha sub system for sounds and its truly amazing the clarity with this combination.

[RoyGBiv]

2. On a related note ...

Kubuntu 8.10 is garbage. Well, no, not garbage ... how to put it.

It reminds me of Vista.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy list, but I'll summarize by saying that I'd been having increasing problems with Kubuntu 8.01 as new package updates came out. As of the latest, the last kernel update is still borked, so I was using a previous version, and with KDE 3 even, there was a measurable lag between pressing, say, the applications list button and the list opening.

That's all worse with 8.10 and a fresh install.

I'm starting to figure out that part of the problem here is that the Ubuntu/Kubuntu team likes to stay on the cutting edge, but they're relying on Debian stable to do it, which is strange to say the least. I think ... I can't tell for sure other than to note that the version numbers for several apps are more recent that Debian stable yet not as up-to-date as the most recently released source, and are modified by the Ubuntu team up to work with the Ubuntu line in a certain way ... and they're not checking dependencies properly. Again, I think ... I know that's part of the issue I'm having with the last kernel update, but I've decided not to bother with it.

And, if you do anything on your own ... forget it. It screws up everything.

I'm exaggerating a little there, but I do have my own compiled version of mplayer and k3b, and they do not play nice with the whole system. That shouldn't happen.

[sodium]

6. I have to agree...

As a long time gentoo user I recently switched and did a fresh install of kubuntu 8.10 .. Part of my problem of course is getting used to the differences especially with installation/update of software. But there is more; there is something about the 'feel' of kubuntu and kde 4.1 that I do not care for. I think its probably desktop effects that I could easily turn off. I also installed xfce4 as a desktop manager so I can always go there. I don't use anything made by Microsoft but if vista feels like this I can see the rub. Its an overlay effect, I'm sure, but it sure feels like a bottleneck somewhere and I just don't get the attraction. I am going to stick with kubuntu 8.10 for awhile just to give it a fair shot. I miss gentoo I guess but its utility has diminished a great deal since computers are so much faster now and "streamlined" compilation and configuration just doesn't make a huge difference like it used to. Maybe I'll try slackware next.

[RoyGBiv]

7. Slackware is nice ...

It's nice because the basic install is streamlined and very basic. KDE is standard, but it's still at 3.5.x and probably not moving to 4.x for some time. The guiding philosophy there is stability, and if that means they're a version or two back, so be it. One of these days I'm just going to learn my lesson and go back to it. I haven't so far due to laziness, the standard "complaint" about Slackware. Anything beyond the base system does require some knowledge of what you're doing, and you will end up compiling from source.

If you're familiar with Gentoo, that shouldn't be a huge issue for you.

The problems with KDE's current status are too numerous to detail really. I don't mind the direction they are going really. It is time to redefine the desktop and make that space actually usuable as something other than a billboard where you stick shortcuts that you never really see because they're always covered by other windows. Where they're going is fine. Where they're at is not, and they're going to lose some people over it. Their PR is poor also. They've kinda got a "trust us" thing going on, and I've heard that story before.

Too many in the Linux community are trying to compete head-to-head with Microsoft. We would all be much better served if we'd all just accept the fact that Linux is not Windows and vice versa. Each has their strengths, weaknesses, positives, and negatives, and which you want depends on how you balance all that out. The more the desktop managers try to out-do Windows, the less I'm liking them.

Thankfully, it's opensource, and I don't have to accept what they what me to do. I can refine it how I want, but with Kubuntu/Ubuntu, that's turning out to be more of a chore than going with something like Slackware or Gentoo and building from there.

[sodium]

8. building the os

I really miss the "putting it together" feeling that you get as a gentoo user. There is a sense of satisfaction that one gets after compiling and customizing. I may yet go back to gentoo. Slackware is probably my best bet to once again feel that sense of control. It will have its own learning curve. I know the runlevels are different - maybe they don't even call it runlevels in slack.

I know that kde 4 has lots of problems. The best example for me right now is sitting on my desktop. There is a main menu widget up in the left hand corner that I cant move. It wont drag - it wont drop -but it does work. Now I know there is probably some nifty way to fix that by manipulating some config file, however, what I know will work is to delete the .kde directory from $HOME. I don't want to mess other stuff up though. This cant be just a bug; somebody had to sit there and think "maybe they wont notice?". If kde4 is not ready it should not have been released; its not finished yet. I have tremendous respect and admiration for open source developers and I hope we can take some of the pressure off of those guys. I'll happily go back to kde 3.5 or xfce in slack or gentoo in due time. Hell I'd like to see the kernel go back to odd numbers for beta and even numbers for official releases. Lets easy does it a little bit here.

Linux is NOT windows - lets keep it that way!

[hobbit709]

9. Friend of mine wanted me to put some kind of Linux distro on an old box

Socket A board with a 2GHz CPU, 384 Mb RAM and 40 GB hard drive.

Here's the results:
Ubuntu 8.10-Installed but would not recognize the SIS graphics onboard or the Linksys wireless adapter.

SUSE 11-Recognized the graphics but would not let me set it to 1024x768, did not recognize wireless.

Mandriva 2009-Full scale graphics, installed wireless(just needed the .inf file from the MS driver) but the sound didn't work. Fixed that by disabling onboard sound and sticking in an old SB sound card.

The guy is just a slighly better than average computer user who just wanted something he could learn to use without having to do any major command line work.
Any OS has to appeal to the masses by ease of use. Windows has its problems but to the user that only knows point and click it does work fairly well. To compete with that kind of user-the vast majority-Linux has to work the same way for them.

I used to joke that Unix was written by programmers that tried to see just how may 3 letter commands they could come up with.

For this friend I'd say Mandriva is the way for him to go. He wants to use it mostly for browsing, email and word processing. Playing video and music is not a major demand on his computer time.