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Hey guys Mandriva 2007 is Out which are really good news, this popular distro with their tonz of updated repositories are really looking promising.

New Features:
New 3D desktop support and new tool to configure it: drak3D;
New rpmDrake with combined installation / removal interface;
New DrakVPN;
Invictus Firewall: to configure a redundant firewall;
GNOME 2.16;
Kernel 2.6.17 (with ALSA 1.0.12 rc2, i965 support, and new kernel factorization: normal,enterprise and legacy)
KDE 3.5.4
New 'Ia Ora' Mandriva Theme (KDE and GNOME)
New bootsplash theme

Enjoy.

Reading on distrowatch a couple of Mandriva developers got on the topic of last week's Linux is(n't) ready for the desktop.

The definition of desktop depends but from a market perspective it means whatever else.

The defition of a desktop is really concern to the PC, in this definiton the Mac is not a desktop. Simply because a desktop can be anything, from brand names like Nvidia, ATI, to smaller companies like JiaMeiKang(HK) Technology Limited, MA Labs, Shenzhen Newmi Digital Tech. Co Ltd, VideoHome Technology Corp etc.

I think that the effort should be put to redefine the Linux desktop as a vertical integrated hardware that is made for linux, just like the mac. Why is that? Simple, hardware compliance. having a list of supported 'certified' hardware can make a big difference for the linux newbie or for the desktop as a whole.

A Linux store might even be the best bet, it doesnt have to be a brick n mortar store but a store inside a store where allt he hardware components are Linux friendly with no major modifications that works out of the box, might be what people really need.

Oh well, partially I agree with the point behind the rant of the developers, however I do think there is solutions most linux users don't want to accept, because it might loose their 'gratis title'.

I'm lovin' my Mandriva 2007.0 desktop computer. My personal opinion is: Mandriva has put together a real kick-ass operating system, here. PowerPack's got everything a "regular" user would need.

Even my wife commented at how much she's enjoying her AIGLX enhanced desktop. And I found install and set-up so easy. Mandriva is the ONLY distro I've ever installed that never had any disc errors during install.

Mandriva have really improved on the little things. MCC is faster, and has some new Drak tools to make set-up of AIGLX / XGL easy, and an improved wi-fi wizard (although I don't have wi-fi myself... but the Mandriva community seems to like it).

All I can criticize is that I could probably due with boosting my 256MB of RAM to give AIGLX just a little extra oomph.

I know Mandriva is not a distro. that this crowd likes very much, but I've found my perfect operating system.

As for the "not ready for the desktop" issue... I'm not getting in to that again.

I just posted a review/opinion of Mandriva 2007 on my blog. I wonder if Distrowatch will quote me!

Nah. Probably not. "Bad news" is the only news people seem to want to read.

here's a hint: no distro will ever "be ready for the desktop". in fact, people have been saying linux is or isn't ready for the desktop for so long that the phrase has lost all meaning. linux distros are what they are: a semi-chaotic hodgepodge of unverified, unwarrantied, poorly integrated yet surprisingly adequate software.

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:...surprisingly adequate...

Woohoo... that's for me!

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:here's a hint: no distro will ever "be ready for the desktop". in fact, people have been saying linux is or isn't ready for the desktop for so long that the phrase has lost all meaning. linux distros are what they are: a semi-chaotic hodgepodge of unverified, unwarrantied, poorly integrated yet surprisingly adequate software.

Yeah, what he said.

Judland wrote:I just posted a review/opinion of Mandriva 2007 on my blog. I wonder if Distrowatch will quote me!

Nah. Probably not. "Bad news" is the only news people seem to want to read.

Where is this review? All I see are anticipation posts and then a couple of sentences on how beautiful it is. Where is the indepth review I am anticipating? I'm on pins and needles here!

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:here's a hint: no distro will ever "be ready for the desktop". in fact, people have been saying linux is or isn't ready for the desktop for so long that the phrase has lost all meaning. linux distros are what they are: a semi-chaotic hodgepodge of unverified, unwarrantied, poorly integrated yet surprisingly adequate software.

And how does this differ from any other OS out there? Now sure, if you use all MS products on MS and all Apple Products on OS X, they interegrate extremely well; similar to if you use QT software in KDE and gtk apps in Gnome. While there is definetly more work to be done, I don't think it is that far off with regards to integration.

I suspect someday soon this will all change.

dann wrote:Where is this review? All I see are anticipation posts and then a couple of sentences on how beautiful it is. Where is the indepth review I am anticipating? I'm on pins and needles here!

In depth review will take some time for me to work with 2007.0 in depth. It's been less than a week. I haven't done enough with it to give a detailed review. This first post was just my opinion based on the couple of evenings I had working with it.

I'm sure you'd enjoy the full review more if I had some bad things to say. At the moment, I'm only finding good things. That doesn't seem to fly with this group.

Last night I did an install of Mandriva 2007 One on my secondary PC. Got a few notes gathered on that, which I'll comment on. Also, there are a couple of people in the office that are installing 2007 over this long weekend. So, I'm expecting some feedback from their points of view, too.

dann wrote:

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:here's a hint: no distro will ever "be ready for the desktop". in fact, people have been saying linux is or isn't ready for the desktop for so long that the phrase has lost all meaning. linux distros are what they are: a semi-chaotic hodgepodge of unverified, unwarrantied, poorly integrated yet surprisingly adequate software.

And how does this differ from any other OS out there? Now sure, if you use all MS products on MS and all Apple Products on OS X, they interegrate extremely well; similar to if you use QT software in KDE and gtk apps in Gnome. While there is definetly more work to be done, I don't think it is that far off with regards to integration.

I suspect someday soon this will all change.

I think he just meant that Linux distros pull everything (kernel, desktop, web browser) from so many different projects, that it is more of a hodgepodge of an OS, than something like Windows, in which Microsoft develops everything themselves internally. Obviously the open source Linux model has proven to be far more effective, but there is still a level of cohesion that is missing on Linux at times.

Wally Balljacker wrote:

dann wrote:

TankCatNinjaFish wrote:here's a hint: no distro will ever "be ready for the desktop". in fact, people have been saying linux is or isn't ready for the desktop for so long that the phrase has lost all meaning. linux distros are what they are: a semi-chaotic hodgepodge of unverified, unwarrantied, poorly integrated yet surprisingly adequate software.

And how does this differ from any other OS out there? Now sure, if you use all MS products on MS and all Apple Products on OS X, they interegrate extremely well; similar to if you use QT software in KDE and gtk apps in Gnome. While there is definetly more work to be done, I don't think it is that far off with regards to integration.

I suspect someday soon this will all change.

I think he just meant that Linux distros pull everything (kernel, desktop, web browser) from so many different projects, that it is more of a hodgepodge of an OS, than something like Windows, in which Microsoft develops everything themselves internally. Obviously the open source Linux model has proven to be far more effective, but there is still a level of cohesion that is missing on Linux at times.

I was refering more to something like VMS or Genera, which are systems _designed_ for productivity. On the other hand, Unix/Linux _mutated_ to its current state. This darwinistic nature is why nothing in Unix fits together: dozens of mediocre shells, incompatible window managers, archaic development tools, 3 grep variants, shitty GUI toolkits, make (the build tool), "the source is the documentation" attitude, and a dungheap called X-windows.

The ability to mutate is also why it will never die. RMS didn't choose Unix to model his ideal free OS after because Unix was good; he simply recognized its one redeemable quality which was its realitive portability. Since everything was ad-hoc, it could survive different hardware. This, combined with his attitude that he'd rather use inferior free software than superior proprietary software, is why free software today follows and emulates Unix.

The sooner you realize how and why the "unix way" is limited, and more importantly that its not the only way of doing things, the sooner you will be able to fully utilize and take advantage of it.

dann wrote:Where is this review? All I see are anticipation posts and then a couple of sentences on how beautiful it is. Where is the indepth review I am anticipating? I'm on pins and needles here!

Here's another "short" review for you to read, Dann (with screenshots below). http://lunapark6.com/?p=2264

I'm still building my notes for a more "in-depth" review later on.

Dann, here's a more in depth review of the new Mandriva 2007....

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/53/

Judland wrote:Dann, here's a more in depth review of the new Mandriva 2007....

http://www.softwareinreview.com/cms/content/view/53/

thanks judland

The list of what is included looks very impressive.

I think I will have to give it a try.

I used to use mandrake all the time when you could buy it at wallmart, sams etc - I always thought it had the best installer around.

the new theme looks excellent and I can't believe it comes with lindvd - the only distro besides linspire that I know of.

who knows - might become my new distro of choice.

what do you but from them? I always bought the pwoerpack edition but do you recommend? going to download one now and give it a go