Mandriva 2007 RC2 is Out... but is not ready for the Desktop

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:58 am

jsusanka wrote: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

I have a Silver membership in the club. That gives me access to the PowerPack and Discovery ISOs (above and beyond the commercial One and Move 2006 ISOs).

One is a great live Linux distribution and is a very easy 15 to 20 minute install. But to get full support of multi-media files (Java, Flash, DVD, etc.) you need to do some post-install configurations. One is limited in the number of applications and codecs it contains. You'd most likely have a better experience with the FREE version (four install ISOs).

For the most robust and "Plug and play" environment, I'd recommend PowerPack. Besides the little fixes (as described in the review and on the Mandriva errata page here), it provides the best desktop experience, in my opinion.

What surprises me about 2007.0 is the speed. For such a "GUI-rich" environment, I would have expected the system to be slower. But KDE (with AIGLX) is up and running in about 20 seconds from log-in on my 1.2 GHz machine with 256MB of RAM. Mandriva certainly have made some improvements to their OS.

It's also mentioned on their website that they've got Firefox 64bit running 32bit plug-ins just fine. I cannot confirm this because I don't have a 64bit machine OR am a Firefox user. But, I'm assuming this is something of a problem on other systems (?).

jsusanka · Post by **jsusanka** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:40 pm

Wow!!

One is mighty impressive - I tried it on two different computers - both worked flawlessly -
can't believe the cd works with compiz - excellent!!

I have a question - I clicked on the update icon in the taskbar and it asked for a login or to create an account.

If I install the free version do you know what the update lifecycle is and what it costs?

I am thinking of putting it on our second computer - and was wanting to know what the support policy is - I know suse will give you updatges for two years on the box version you buy at the store.

I can't find it on the website so I thought you might off the top of your head.

I am definitely going to give a go though on my second computer that my wife and daughter uses a lot.

thanks again - glad I gave it a try.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:38 pm

jsusanka wrote:I have a question - I clicked on the update icon in the taskbar and it asked for a login or to create an account.

If I install the free version do you know what the update lifecycle is and what it costs?

I am thinking of putting it on our second computer - and was wanting to know what the support policy is - I know suse will give you updatges for two years on the box version you buy at the store.

I can't find it on the website so I thought you might off the top of your head.

I think THIS is what you were looking for. Let me know if it wasn't.

This service also comes as part of the Silver club membership, as well as KIOSK and the ability to download all of the non-corporate commercial software packages they offer.

However, I would hold off until both MandrivaOnline and Kiosk are fully integrated into 2007. At the moment, these services only fully support the 2006 release. Mandriva's dev. team are on it, though, and should have everything working properly together soon.

I'm glad you're liking Mandriva's latest OS. I am, too. A few minor bugs here and there, but nothing difficult or complicated to fix. Overall I'm very pleased with it. So is my wife, and that's most important to me!

P.S. I believe the lifecycle of each release is 18 months. I can't remember where I read that, so I can't confirm it for you.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 2:27 am

jsusanka wrote:If I install the free version do you know what the update lifecycle is and what it costs?

As far as I know, system updates for Mandriva is free of charge, however new packages for NVIDIA or ATi drivers, Flash, Java etc. are not.

jsusanka wrote:I know suse will give you updatges for two years on the box version you buy at the store.

You don't have to buy the retail box to get two years of updates, you just go to opensuse.org and download the distro, install it and bam you're set. I think this is quite impressive when you consider that they released a new version every 6th or 8th month.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 9:38 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:As far as I know, system updates for Mandriva is free of charge, however new packages for NVIDIA or ATi drivers, Flash, Java etc. are not.

Yes! Mandriva doesn't charge for system upgrade downloads. Upgrades to all system files and all distro. versions is free of charge. Anyone can use the upgrade repositories. They only ask for contributions to use the Mandriva Upgrade service.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:48 am

Another review of Mandriva 2007, in this week's DistroWatch Weekly Newsletter.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:44 am

In a couple of weeks, I'll have a chance to prove my theory that Linux (Mandriva Linux in particular) is ready for the desktop....

My Mandriva Installfest SWAG has arrived!

I have about a half dozen system (for sure) lined up for the installfest. Together, they cover a large range of hardware components and configurations. This will be a real test of the Mandriva installer, as well as other distros. I'll be using for the more "resource challenged" systems that show up. Not to mention the Linux desktop in general, as an installfest is usually to help the novice PC user get started with Linux.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:57 am

Judland wrote:My Mandriva Installfest SWAG has arrived!

David, you seriously look evil with those red eyes!

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:57 am

Damn - that's sweet. I love schwag. I'm waiting for my arch linux hoodie to get here.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 12:11 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:David, you seriously look evil with those red eyes!

Well, I don't want to scare the kids, so I fixed the picture a bit for you.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 1:12 pm

Judland wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote:David, you seriously look evil with those red eyes!
Well, I don't want to scare the kids, so I fixed the picture a bit for you.

Ha ha ha! Very funny!

Anyway, remember to take SUSE Linux 10.1 Remastered with you for that installfest, you never know when German inginuety comes in handy!

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Sat Oct 21, 2006 2:09 pm

Snarkout wrote:Damn - that's sweet. I love schwag. I'm waiting for my arch linux hoodie to get here.

Yeah, Cafe Press is fun. Sometimes they can be slow on the shipping, but overall I've had good experiences with them.

It is tough sometimes to be waiting for something to arrive when you really want to have it.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 2:34 am

Would anyone care to plainly explain what is given up by using a free version and not sending any money to mandriva?

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:30 am

hellonorman wrote:Would anyone care to plainly explain what is given up by using a free version and not sending any money to mandriva?

The version called "Free" only contains free and open source software, no proprietary at all. With the commercial packages, you get a lot of that stuff included on the CDs.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:51 am

Ok thx for the response. That's not quite what I was after. Let me rephrase the question.

Let's say you start with the free version and add all the proprietary, codec and driver packages that you desire.

At that point what are you giving up by not using a paid version?

Is there a central place to get directions for adding all those things or is the info spread out?

What's the difference between ONE and the free version if you were to install them and add all the same things?