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Mandriva has announced the release of Mandriva Linux 2007.1, marketed as "2007 Spring": "Mandriva is proud to announce the release of its brand new distribution that provides up-to-date and freshly released open source software: Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring. Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring integrates the latest innovations in the fields of office suite applications, Internet, multimedia and virtualization technologies. Not only does Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring bring to users the most advanced Linux operating system, it also includes some very special new features: WengoPhone, Google Picasa and Google Earth, Drakvirt...." Read the press release, release notes, product pages for detailed information. The Mandriva mirror servers are slowly being populated with CD and DVD images; here is a quick link to the "Free" edition DVD: (4,357MB, MD5). Torrents were not available at the time of writing.

Press Release

Thanks to Ben for the watchingout

Yup, she's out!

Multi-CD images will be along "shortly". For now, you've got a choice between the Mandriva Free DVD and Mandriva One (KDE and/or Gnome) bootable CD images.

Of course, club members have access to PowerPack and Discovery DVDs as well.

I am on mandriva ONE Gnome and is awesome. The tools are fantastic and my ATI card was configured out of the box and so was my wifi.

Cool! It's great that you're enjoying it, too.

Have you tried out Metisse yet? I really like it. Its two-click copy and paste is a blessing and I like being able to see two full application windows on the screen at one time. Of course, I could have more but I'd need a bigger LCD monitor.

The nature of most of the work I do these days is data analysis and not having to print something out or constantly flip desktops/windows to compare (or copy) data is a real time saver.

What impresses me is that I can use Metisse or Compiz or Beryl right "out of the box" and on the live CD without any difficulties.

I am sharing this to a couple of guys in my company so they can have it a try. Hopefully the windows users that dunno Linux.

I will probably give 2007.1 a try on my laptop in a few days. I tried the 2007.1 Beta One CD and Free edition and I had some problems with both versions. The One CD wouldn't boot into X without editing the xorg.conf file; it worked fine on my desktop though. Free worked fine except for a few issues; one problem I had was that the package manager would crash when I would try to select the ipw3945 package from the plf cooker repository. I would expect some issues since it was beta but overall I liked what has been put into 2007.1.

One thing that I had to try out was the development intel graphics driver with support for auto-detecting displays. I only used it for tv-out support but it worked out pretty nicely.

Linux Desktop article on the release of Mandriva 2007.1.

Mandriva keeps bringing great things to the Linux desktop...

The France-based Linux distribution is also including the Metisse desktop manager. Metisse is not a 3D desktop, nor is it a new desktop per se. Instead, it's a tool for creating new types of desktop environments. So, for example, in Mandriva Spring 2007, it uses User Interface Facades to enable users to more easily change the look and feel of their desktops. Mandriva is the first major Linux distribution to embrace this innovative approach to the desktop.

Something interesting I didn't know about...

Last, but not least, Mandriva Linux 2007 Spring is compatible with the Nintendo Wii remote. With this, users can therefore use it instead of a regular joystick on Linux games. To the best of our knowledge, Mandriva is the first operating system to include Wii support.

Another first for Linux, thanks to Mandriva

Tomorrow at lunch time I set up a Linux "Lunch & Learn" at the office I'm working at. Going to be showing off Mandriva Spring to a group of people who have never seen a Linux desktop before. It's going to be great! I'm so looking forward to the presentation.

Got a couple Mandriva One CDs ready to hand out, too.

So how'd it go?

Wally Balljacker wrote:So how'd it go?

Compiz/Beryl and Metisse were big hits.

I started off with a quick rundown on the Linux philosophy and how the GPL worked. Then I showed them the plain-jane KDE desktop and explained the concept of the virtual desktop.

After that, I launched Compiz and showed them the 3D cube virtual desktop.... which followed with a couple of "whoa!" and "wow!" and "cool!" comments from the small crowd of nine.

Then I showed them Metisse and how you can angle the windows side by side. A couple people mentioned how having that on their office desktops would help them with the work they're currently doing.

A few of the people mentioned that they'll be downloading Mandriva One over the weekend. Everyone else seemed very interested but asked questions that suggests to me some concerns of being able to try using Linux without some sort of help.

I think I'll try and organize another Install-fest for this office sometime in the future.

UPDATE: just had an attendee ask if they could borrow my Mandriva One CD to burn a copy to take home for the weekend.

The Linux seeds are planted... now let's see if they'll take root.

This is a pretty big corporation. The people here are quite "corporate minded". They seem to like the fact that Mandriva is an actual company and not just a community project.

You never know, a couple of these people seem to be leaning towards purchasing boxed sets. One of them sounds like it might even be a company purchase to "try out" in the office.

all I can say is wow - I am pretty impressed with metisse - it really seems like it could be usefull - I think I may have to give it a full glown try and down the mandriva free 64 bit.

will have to do some more playing with but it is looking very impressive

Just read a pretty good (and fair) review of Mandriva 2007 Spring here.

The reviewer suggest that, if you're going to give Mandriva Spring a try, your best bet for success would be with the Mandriva One live CD. I'd agree with that suggestion.

I did a full system install of Mandriva Spring, starting off with One and it took very little time and effort to get the system up to speed (with all of the extra apps and functionality I wanted).

I actually did a DVD install it was very quick and easy. I did enjoy having all the bells and whistles from the very start.

I am getting the 32bit torrent as we speak. I will give it a shot in a vm, it seems like I may be missing a few things.

Yeah vm can't emulate 3d cards which will make a difference on compiz. Also depends how much RAM and processor is chosen.