Mandriva is FREE!!!!

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:05 pm

I heard that the guy was terribly confused saying that the mandriva club cost 132 USD to join the mandriva club and have the latest and greatest to mandriva.

Just to set the record straight... mandriva is FREE!! However just as the TLLTS is a different if you use OGG than MP3.

With Mandriva Club you get your distro earlier, you get better services, and support and e-learning curses. Interactive games and also well, premium support. I was there for a couple months just to test it and found out that you get about 50 - 70 USD payed and the rest well... I could have gotten from somewhere else.

You get proprietary packages that will cost money ANYWAY somewhere else so you save money there if you want it anywa.

But if you are broke and can't pay a single dime for a linux company cuz linux is free and should always be free. Then you can just wait and download the FREE version whcih comes later during that year.

So Mandrake is free but you can also pay for a dedicated service. Which is the same way Novell works, Red Hat works (for companies), and Ubuntu is claiming to once work.

I just see Mandriva is a more experience distro, and is becomming more integrative.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:56 pm

I havn't personally experienced Mandriva's club services, but I've certainly used their distro, and what I like about it is the nice global theming between GTK and KDE, also their configuration tools for wireless networks are VERY nice IMHO, hardware support is also nice and speed is very decent.

Also, their club services also include access to additional RPM packages for more packages, which aren't included on the CDs and DVDs.

Also, just to add to the thing about propriatary packages that Jza mentions, if you install a commercial version of Mandriva, just get it on BitTorrent that's what I do, the installer will automatically detect if you have an ATi, NVIDIA or Intel graphics card and install the appropiate drivers and configure Xorg the right way.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 1:40 pm

I've always been annoyed about how much Mandrake/Mandriva harasses you for using the free version. I realize using the distro means I should consider supporting it, but if I'm just testing it out, leave me alone. The last version I installed was 10.1, and it actually made me click a button to promise to join the Mandrake club later before it would install. I don't appreciate being forced to lie before I can use a distro.

These days it's so hard to even get their free version from the web site, I'm not even slightly interested. If it's good, make it freely available and people will gladly support it. With Fedora and Ubuntu out and completely free, why bother with a distro that makes it so hard to use the free version?

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 2:54 pm

On the other hand, *shouldn't* we pay for what we're using? I think the current F/OSS model is completely screwed up -- free as in beer is not the point, though I certainly like getting software for free. I think we all should donate at least a few bucks to projects we want to see thrive.

As it is, people bitch about any pay-to-play linux software as if it were somehow immoral to want to make a little money from your work. I constantly see people bitching about cedega or linuxant or crossover office or, hell, Linspire, like we have some inborn *right* to run this software for $0. IMO, this is one of the major reasons there is so little interest in porting software to linux. I guess we could take the "I only run it if it's free as in freedom fries" approach, but then we shouldn't expect to play dvds or mp3s, etc, on our linux boxen.

As it is, we seem to have two models - one side you can only really use if you straight up buy it, the other, you can't actually buy at all, unless you consider buying linux CDs for pennies apiece at an online CD burning warehouse "buying it." So on one side we have RedHat that costs an absolutely absurd amount, and on the other we have debian that won't sell you anything, period. It's kind of a weird dichotomy, and a badly broken system IMO.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Nov 28, 2005 3:12 pm

Snarkout wrote:On the other hand, *shouldn't* we pay for what we're using? I think the current F/OSS model is completely screwed up -- free as in beer is not the point, though I certainly like getting software for free. I think we all should donate at least a few bucks to projects we want to see thrive.

As it is, people bitch about any pay-to-play linux software as if it were somehow immoral to want to make a little money from your work. I constantly see people bitching about cedega or linuxant or crossover office or, hell, Linspire, like we have some inborn *right* to run this software for $0. IMO, this is one of the major reasons there is so little interest in porting software to linux. I guess we could take the "I only run it if it's free as in freedom fries" approach, but then we shouldn't expect to play dvds or mp3s, etc, on our linux boxen.

As it is, we seem to have two models - one side you can only really use if you straight up buy it, the other, you can't actually buy at all, unless you consider buying linux CDs for pennies apiece at an online CD burning warehouse "buying it." So on one side we have RedHat that costs an absolutely absurd amount, and on the other we have debian that won't sell you anything, period. It's kind of a weird dichotomy, and a badly broken system IMO.

True, actually right after I had first spent a few hours with the KDE desktop I thought "Where the heck can I push a donate button?", the thing that prevents me from sending maybe 20 bucks to the KDE developers is that I'm still not old enough to get a credit card, which annoys the hell out of me because I hate buying stuff from local stores because the danish VAT is so damn high, 25 percent, for instance a thick book on FreeBSD costs 50 bucks at Amazon but freaking 120 here in Denmark, it's crazy!

Actually I prefer to pay for free software, again I'm using RMS' definition of "free software", than proprietary software, because of the things that I'm allowed to do like recompile the thing and maybe, I don't know make it run better on my Xbox

I don't really see a problem in charging for free software, RMS was on The Screen Savers in 2001 being interviewed by Leo Laporte, one and just to quote him "If you're not allowed to sell copies it's not free sofware".

I acutally like the fact that Novell, I pray the will continue to do this in the future, sells boxed versions of SUSE Linux, because then you can say to people: Go down to Fry's and buy a copy of SUSE Linux 10, put disc one in and wipe out Windows, and if you have trouble installing, call Novell since you get 90 days of installation support, and a nice big manual.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:30 am

Snarkout wrote:On the other hand, *shouldn't* we pay for what we're using? I think the current F/OSS model is completely screwed up -- free as in beer is not the point, though I certainly like getting software for free. I think we all should donate at least a few bucks to projects we want to see thrive.

For me it's an ESR versus RMS argument -- reality versus idealism. What it comes down to is if people can't even try out a free version without being made to feel naughty, how will they ever get to the point of knowing that they want to buy (or support)? Shareware nag tactics don't really work anymore. There's just too much out there that's free as in beer for that.

Red Hat may charge a lot for Enterprise Linux, but Fedora costs nothing. Same with Open SuSE.

Mandriva can do whatever they want, I'm just saying if they want to survive in the current market the need to be a little less 20th century. I give plenty of support: monetary, testing, bug reports, even documentation. I'm just not crazy about supporting a project that makes me feel bad for trying it out.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:37 am

Gomer_X wrote:
Snarkout wrote:On the other hand, *shouldn't* we pay for what we're using? I think the current F/OSS model is completely screwed up -- free as in beer is not the point, though I certainly like getting software for free. I think we all should donate at least a few bucks to projects we want to see thrive.

For me it's an ESR versus RMS argument -- reality versus idealism. What it comes down to is if people can't even try out a free version without being made to feel naughty, how will they ever get to the point of knowing that they want to buy (or support)? Shareware nag tactics don't really work anymore. There's just too much out there that's free as in beer for that.

Red Hat may charge a lot for Enterprise Linux, but Fedora costs nothing. Same with Open SuSE.

Mandriva can do whatever they want, I'm just saying if they want to survive in the current market the need to be a little less 20th century. I give plenty of support: monetary, testing, bug reports, even documentation. I'm just not crazy about supporting a project that makes me feel bad for trying it out.

Good point, and that's why I think Mandriva should change their tune a bit, when I started using Linux and their distro I downloaded the PowerPack edition off a good source of mine, which made for a better experience.

By the way, there is no distribution named OpenSUSE, there is SUSE Linux. OpenSUSE is the project and SUSE Linux is the product, for example, the distribution Fedora Core is not named Fedora Project right?

Also the retail version of SUSE Linux can also be freely downloaded, it's called the evaluation version, but it's absoluteley a full featured version.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 9:55 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: By the way, there is no distribution named OpenSUSE, there is SUSE Linux. OpenSUSE is the project and SUSE Linux is the product, for example, the distribution Fedora Core is not named Fedora Project right?

The Fedora Project makes the distro.
http://www.fedoraproject.org
The Fedora Project is supported by the Fedora Foundation, but most of the manpower and hardware is still paid for by Red Hat.

Individual releases are called "Fedora Core X." I think it's an apples/oranges comparison.

Point is, people making money from Linux (giving Novell benefit of a doubt here) are supporting free projects.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:02 am

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: By the way, there is no distribution named OpenSUSE, there is SUSE Linux. OpenSUSE is the project and SUSE Linux is the product, for example, the distribution Fedora Core is not named Fedora Project right?

The Fedora Project makes the distro.
http://www.fedoraproject.org
The Fedora Project is supported by the Fedora Foundation, but most of the manpower and hardware is still paid for by Red Hat.

Individual releases are called "Fedora Core X." I think it's an apples/oranges comparison.

Point is, people making money from Linux (giving Novell benefit of a doubt here) are supporting free projects.

Exactly, here's the my version:

The OpenSUSE Project makes the distribution called SUSE Linux.
The version that doesn't contain proprietary plugins is called "OSS version".

Anyway, I think Novell has done a lot of dumb things by laying off major people from SUSE, which made SUSE veterans leave, I just hope Hubert Mantel's replacement doesn't turns the SUSE Linux kernel into crab, because I think it's been a very decent patch set that's added a lot of good features.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 10:18 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: Anyway, I think Novell has done a lot of dumb things by laying off major people from SUSE, which made SUSE veterans leave, I just hope Hubert Mantel's replacement doesn't turns the SUSE Linux kernel into crab, because I think it's been a very decent patch set that's added a lot of good features.

Novell/SuSE is pretty important to Linux (probably more in Europe than in the US). I really hope Novell can get their financial worries sorted and find a viable place in the Linux market. Right now I just think they're trying to keep themselves in business.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 1:33 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: Anyway, I think Novell has done a lot of dumb things by laying off major people from SUSE, which made SUSE veterans leave, I just hope Hubert Mantel's replacement doesn't turns the SUSE Linux kernel into crab, because I think it's been a very decent patch set that's added a lot of good features.
Novell/SuSE is pretty important to Linux (probably more in Europe than in the US). I really hope Novell can get their financial worries sorted and find a viable place in the Linux market. Right now I just think they're trying to keep themselves in business.

I think they will stay in business it's just dumb things like the recent KDE debate that makes people yell at them and make it seem like they are an "unstable" company.

Maybe they should try to actually sell SUSE Linux on preinstalled machines to home users, Novell is a networking company but obiously Red Hat is kicking their ass, and SUSE Linux is a very good and mature desktop distribution, come mon my mum can use it and then so can a lot of other people, maybe if Novell hauled Dell would jump faster.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:49 pm

Wow I forgot about this post but now I see that it also generate a lot of debate. So I should put my input.

Mandrake is free, and will always be free, thats regarding the manifesto that Mandrake published some years ago.

Another thing is that they dont FORCE you to join the club, they make it easy for your to join the club if you decide to do so. Of course they want you to upgrade. And I never joined the club nor was I ever invaded to join the club.

For example you have a quick update button to join the club, that is fine with me. I will use it when I feel up to it.

If I was really irritated by it, I will just uninstall it. Since I dont use KDE or GNOME,it doesnt even display on my XFCE4 so I probably still have the program but I never seen it now.

To upgrade to the latest and greatest is extremely easy exactly because of the ranting community of Mandrake (remember MDK is one of the largest communities next to Debian). So I hardly ever go to the website, most of the mirror sites are out on the community sites like mandrivausers.org or blogdrake.net (spanish), or many other hundred of websites.

I personally have never feel guilty for not being a user, well except when I think I should put some dollars to the project. Yet I have make some mandrake purchase like Mandrake Globtrotter which is trully great.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Tue Nov 29, 2005 5:54 pm

Gomer_X wrote:I've always been annoyed about how much Mandrake/Mandriva harasses you for using the free version. I realize using the distro means I should consider supporting it, but if I'm just testing it out, leave me alone. The last version I installed was 10.1, and it actually made me click a button to promise to join the Mandrake club later before it would install. I don't appreciate being forced to lie before I can use a distro.

I installed mandrake 10.1 and I dont remember seen any dialog that aks you to lie. Maybe is the survey you are asked to filled out the first time you run mandriva. This has always been the case and you can choose not to go through the survey.

I dont see anything wrong with filling out a survey, they want to know your profile which is fine by me. I would see something being harassing if you would get pop-ups constantly asking you to join. But embedding it as part of the instalation, is fine by me (since I wont see it again).

I would actually suggest them to embed the surven on the installation time, that would at least keep me entertained.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:42 am

Jza wrote:
Gomer_X wrote:I've always been annoyed about how much Mandrake/Mandriva harasses you for using the free version. I realize using the distro means I should consider supporting it, but if I'm just testing it out, leave me alone. The last version I installed was 10.1, and it actually made me click a button to promise to join the Mandrake club later before it would install. I don't appreciate being forced to lie before I can use a distro.
I installed mandrake 10.1 and I dont remember seen any dialog that aks you to lie. Maybe is the survey you are asked to filled out the first time you run mandriva. This has always been the case and you can choose not to go through the survey.

It's possible it was Mandrake 10.0 or maybe even 9. During the install before you could go any further you had a multiple choice that included "Join the Mandrake Club," "I will join in the future," or "abort install," or something similar. I still have the disks and an extra partition, but I doubt I'll ever get the time to do an install just to relive the experience.

Before they came out of bankruptcy, though, they were pretty vigilant about getting you to donate. They also still make it very difficult to even FIND the free version to download.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 3:55 pm

I usually get the mandriva newsletter and they always announce it. There is no reason why mandriva want less users, they are one of the most popular and I don't see why will they turn people away.

I do think that they should get more mirrors it seems they havent grow as much on mirror sites.

They were one of the initial pushers of the Bittorrent technology.