What is wrong with Mandrake

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:07 am

Wally Balljacker wrote: Fair enough. However, it is true that they release new versions of Mandriva to club members only before releasing to the public. I consider that to be rather petty. TerraSoft, the makers of Yellow Dog use this tactic as well, in hopes to get more sales, and it kind of irritates me. It's stuff like this that tends to push me away from commercial distros.

However you can always get the Cooker version for free, cooker will be similar to Debian Unstable. Which is the version that will become the new release. As well as download the RC, actually right now you can get the RC3 for 2007 which is not even out commercially.

The issue is that it seems that you either get irritated too easy, or havent even bother to find out if your irritations are for an actual valid reason. Like I said there are a lot of missconseptions and in the end you find out is the same shit as any other distro.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:10 am

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:
Judland wrote:Yup. Big improvements over the last year.

Contrary to popular belief, Mandriva does listen to their users, individual and corporate customers, and the members of the club.
Mandriva doesn't have any corporate customers. Corporate destop linux usage is more like 90% Redhat 10% Suse (probably less suse). And another bad thing about mandriva: its produced in France.

Actually there are some French government directions standarizing on mandriva. Look at the Mandriva News and i think they have some announcements within early this year.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 2:36 am

Jza wrote:Like I said there are a lot of missconseptions and in the end you find out is the same shat as any other distro.

I think part of the issue is that if it's the same shat as any other distro then what exactly is the point. To me it's annoying that some distro's do some things well and other's do some things poorly. It's one thing to have special purpose distros like damnsmall or smoothwall or the one Patrick mentioned for hi end audio. It's another to have 100 desktop distros with varying degrees of minor differences.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 7:08 am

hellonorman wrote:It's another to have 100 desktop distros with varying degrees of minor differences.

I don't know what that has to do with Mandriva exactly... other than the fact that Mandriva has been developing a desktop Linux model since 1998.

Before all of the other desktop Linux distros. popped up into existence, like you describe, Mandriva was a special purpose distribution. It was (and still is) making a version of Linux that the novice PC user could use and benefit from.

But now you've got Mepis, Ubuntu, Linspire, Freespire, Fedora, etc., all trying to do the same thing.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:15 am

I agree with judland however most of the older distros that came about have the same ideals as the new ones. If you ask slackware guy, the porpouse of the distro is to make it easy to install, then gael duval have the same reason for creating mandriva, fast forward to Mepis and is the same porpouse then Linspire and most recently, Ubuntu.

So you end up with what we have nowadays, hundred of distros triying to make Linux easier.

But in reality like Linus said, nobody really uses the OS, they use the apps on top. So until OpenOffice.org, Gimp, Evolution, K* become easier for the user, then linux wouldnt be percieved to be easier for the user.

I am not saying that this apps are hard, I am just saying that to the mayority of end users, an OS is the GUI. If they face CDE they think linux is horribly hard. If they see AGLX/Cairo/XGL they think linux is easy.

Is a false perception caused by the proprietary world as the software mature their icons get prettier so users relate flashier with better.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 11:23 am

Jza wrote:Is a false perception caused by the proprietary world as the software mature their icons get prettier so users relate flashier with better.

Yup, I'm with you. To me, typing urpmi {package name} is a far easier way to install a package rather than the GUI, at least for me. But, I'm comfortable with the command prompt.

Easy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:18 pm

Judland wrote:
hellonorman wrote:It's another to have 100 desktop distros with varying degrees of minor differences.
I don't know what that has to do with Mandriva exactly... other than the fact that Mandriva has been developing a desktop Linux model since 1998.

Before all of the other desktop Linux distros. popped up into existence, like you describe, Mandriva was a special purpose distribution. It was (and still is) making a version of Linux that the novice PC user could use and benefit from.

But now you've got Mepis, Ubuntu, Linspire, Freespire, Fedora, etc., all trying to do the same thing.

I didn't describe anything "popping" into existence.

What I'm describing is a multitude of desktop distros where they all do things differently but not neccissarily better. Where instead of being concerned with running exciting new applications one has to focus on an OS distro and whether it's current strengths and weakness's will allow it.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:30 pm

hellonorman wrote:I didn't describe anything "popping" into existence.

I stand corrected. Although I'm still not clear on how this relates to Mandriva.

Any-whoooo.....

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:38 pm

Judland wrote:
hellonorman wrote:I didn't describe anything "popping" into existence.
I stand corrected. Although I'm still not clear on how this relates to Mandriva.

Any-whoooo.....

Well there's nothing about Mandriva being started in 1998 that makes it anything other than just another distro doing things a little different. ---insert the points of my last post here---.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 3:52 pm

Okay, I think I'm getting the point you're making.

What you find annoying is that there are so many distros. like Mandriva, doing the same sort of thing, that you feel it would have been better if developers for the Mandriva-like distros. just contributed to Mandriva instead of making their own branches. Resulting in fewer distros. that appear to be doing the same thing (besides a few variations).

Is that what you're getting at?

Don't mis-uderstand, I'm not trying to poke a fight... I'm just trying to understand the point you're trying to make.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:50 pm

I suppose thats part of it. But following how you describe it the mandriva people should have given to red hat instead

My point is broader actually. The fact that the debate is over distros instead of applications is a weakness IMO.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:43 am

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:42 am

hellonorman wrote:I suppose thats part of it. But following how you describe it the mandriva people should have given to red hat instead

I was actually USING both Mandrake and Red Hat in 1999. As I remember they were different and targetted enough that it was worth having both around. Of course in those days there weren't 100 distros to choose from.

I think since we've gone from 10 distros to 100 we've also multiplied the Linux userbase tenfold. There is plenty of interest to go around.

I remember in the early 80s the main computers were the Apple II, C64, TI-99/4a, TRS-80 (various), Tandy CoCo, Sinclair ZX-81, Vic-20 and IBM PC. That's at least 8 big players off the top of my head, in addition to probably another 10 minor machines I can't remember. Now we have 2: PC and Mac.

I imagine things will grow a bit in the Linux world, then filter down to a few big distros again. I don't think we'll ever git rid of niche distros, though, because anybody can build one.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:37 pm

Gomer_X wrote: I think since we've gone from 10 distros to 100 we've also multiplied the Linux userbase tenfold. There is plenty of interest to go around.

I would argue that the increase in userbase has little to do with distros and more to do with the usable applications for linux in general. I think this is best illustrated by the fact that the vast majority of people will switch distros at the drop of a hat.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:42 am

hellonorman wrote:
Gomer_X wrote: I think since we've gone from 10 distros to 100 we've also multiplied the Linux userbase tenfold. There is plenty of interest to go around.
I would argue that the increase in userbase has little to do with distros and more to do with the usable applications for linux in general. I think this is best illustrated by the fact that the vast majority of people will switch distros at the drop of a hat.

I didn't mean to imply that having lots of distros has increased the userbase. Rather, Linux has become popular, bringing more users, who can support more distros.

The argument that more distros weakens Linux by dividing effort is invalid. The majority of distros will pass fixes and patches upstream, which helps everybody. The more different ways we combine the same software, the more solutions we can find. As long as there are enough users and developers to support a distro, it's not hurting Linux.

This is just basic cathedral versus bazaar stuff. If fewer distros was better, Windows would be the best OS ever.