What is wrong with Mandrake

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:49 am

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

Microsoft is really coming to cross roads with the release of Vista. It's been what 6 years since the release of XP? They are soo behind Linux & OSX in features, stabilility and most importantly security. The open model where a multitude of vendors and developers contributing is very powerful. It makes for rapid development and bug fixes. Plus no one vendor has to do all the work. Look at projects such as OpenOffice, Eclipse and Apache for examples of this. It's in everyone's best interest to particpate in development, planning, testing and use of this software. The world is changing even if it's a small step at a time.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:36 am

Patrick wrote:Microsoft is really coming to cross roads with the release of Vista. It's been what 6 years since the release of XP? They are soo behind Linux & OSX in features, stabilility and most importantly security.

On October 25th, it will be exactly 5 years since the release of Windows XP.
Pat something I've been thinking quite a lot about lately, when we in the Linux community talk about Microsoft's release of Vista, it always sounds like we're anticipating some sort of "chance" to appear, or maybe that over 6 months Linux gains a lot more users etc. etc.

I'm beginning to just not seeing that "chance", sure Linux is a lot cheaper, but what difference does that make? Microsoft will just give the goldmaster to Dell, HP and other OEMs, it will be put on business machines, it will be put on home machines, and when Longhorn server comes out, they'll give that to OEMs etc. and it'll be put on the servers that run that damn Exchange stuff.

Patrick wrote:The open model where a multitude of vendors and developers contributing is very powerful. It makes for rapid development and bug fixes. Plus no one vendor has to do all the work. Look at projects such as OpenOffice, Eclipse and Apache for examples of this. It's in everyone's best interest to particpate in development, planning, testing and use of this software. The world is changing even if it's a small step at a time.

It's a remarkable community, that's for sure, if only more people could see that.

Judland · Post by **Judland** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:06 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:I'm beginning to just not seeing that "chance", sure Linux is a lot cheaper, but what difference does that make? Microsoft will just give the goldmaster to Dell, HP and other OEMs, it will be put on business machines, it will be put on home machines, and when Longhorn server comes out, they'll give that to OEMs etc. and it'll be put on the servers that run that damn Exchange stuff.

I can see why you feel this way. Sometimes it seems as though the U.S. marketing machine is too tough to beat. That's certainly what they want you to think.

However, in my own little corner of the world, I'm starting to see something different.

As everyone is probably aware, I started a LUG group in the office where I work at the beginning of the year. In six months, we went from four people (three of us who actually ran Linux) to over a dozen people (with over half of us now using Linux at home full-time). I know, it's not enough people to corner the market, but it's an idea that is starting to grow.

More people in the office (outside of our LUG) have been stopping by my desk, asking me questions about Linux and wanting to borrow copies of my Mandriva One CD. I also sent out an e-mail yesterday informing the staff that I will be demonstrating the next generation of the Linux desktop (Mandriva with AIGLX) at our next meeting on Wednesday. Seems as though this has interested even more people.

So, mass migration isn't happening, but the seeds are being planted and people (at least a small minority at my workplace) are starting to take notice.

And perhaps, getting people inside the office place thinking about Linux at home will get them to start demanding it at work, too.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:40 am

Judland wrote:I can see why you feel this way. Sometimes it seems as though the U.S. marketing machine is too tough to beat. That's certainly what they want you to think.

Yeah well, it's an unfortunate reality, no one wants to market to the home user, let alone be preload Linux for business users and businesses are very skeptical about desktop Linux, so it would seem.

Judland wrote:However, in my own little corner of the world, I'm starting to see something different.

As everyone is probably aware, I started a LUG group in the office where I work at the beginning of the year. In six months, we went from four people (three of us who actually ran Linux) to over a dozen people (with over half of us now using Linux at home full-time). I know, it's not enough people to corner the market, but it's an idea that is starting to grow.

More people in the office (outside of our LUG) have been stopping by my desk, asking me questions about Linux and wanting to borrow copies of my Mandriva One CD. I also sent out an e-mail yesterday informing the staff that I will be demonstrating the next generation of the Linux desktop (Mandriva with AIGLX) at our next meeting on Wednesday. Seems as though this has interested even more people.

So, mass migration isn't happening, but the seeds are being planted and people (at least a small minority at my workplace) are starting to take notice.

And perhaps, getting people inside the office place thinking about Linux at home will get them to start demanding it at work, too.

We'll see, I just hope Novell has some success with SLED 10 or that they can convince Adobe to port Photoshop over so that the people wanting that stupid app can have it on Linux.

hellonorman · Post by **hellonorman** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:10 am

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

This overlooks too many factors. If MS's focus was simply to create the best OS ever things would be a lot different. A more centralized, standardized open source effort wouldn't have high priced upgrade and lock in strategies either.

CptnObvious999 · Post by **CptnObvious999** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 1:14 pm

Gomer_X wrote: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.

Amen! I think the more choice the better and I say choose the distro you like. Just don't throw shit at others for what they choose.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:30 am

CptnObvious999 wrote: Amen! I think the more choice the better and I say choose the distro you like. Just don't throw shat at others for what they choose.

Unless they choose Gentoo...

Just kidding. I'm actually doing a Gentoo install as we speak.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:20 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
CptnObvious999 wrote: Amen! I think the more choice the better and I say choose the distro you like. Just don't throw shat at others for what they choose.
Unless they choose Gentoo...

Just kidding. I'm actually doing a Gentoo install as we speak.

Good luck! Maybe it will finish compiling before 2007.0 is released.

On a serious note, how was the hardware detection? From my experience with Gentoo, it has the absolute worst hardware detection of any distro i've ever used. I've tried it on several machines, and it has been a major pain in the rear to get even basic functionality out of it, usually requiring a kernel recompile just to get ethernet, or sound working. Sorry, but I've been burned by Gentoo too many times!

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:55 pm

How does gentoo link back to mandriva? I mean is all good that gentoo doesnt detect hardware but I really dont get why these posts are on this topic.

To answer the dilema why mandriva doesnt contribute back to redhat (now fedora) they have been doing that, URPMI (package manager) is free software, however the FC people went to YUM instead.

Is funny how many people make a big deal out of YAST for not being open however they completely ignore URPMI which was open and could be used on SuSE.

Now mandriva is doing the same thing with SMART. And we hope it will get adopted but who knows. A lot of distros have this thing of 'not invented here' mentality specially when it comes to company backing distros like red hat, suse, linspire.

The task of a distro is usually to assemble packages which is why they are not in the task of creating applications so the OS really doesnt change since the apps is the one you see from different sources (gnome, kde, gtk develpers, etc).

A distro task usually comes to documenting, making it look native, and to make it work together.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:13 am

Jza wrote:To answer the dilema why mandriva doesnt contribute back to redhat (now fedora) they have been doing that, URPMI (package manager) is free software, however the FC people went to YUM instead.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that too, plus a lot of people have been complaining about YUM being slow.

Jza wrote:Is funny how many people make a big deal out of YAST for not being open however they completely ignore URPMI which was open and could be used on SuSE.

Well, YaST has been GPLed for about 2 years now I think, but before that it was indeed proprietary software, but today it's entirely open.

Jza · Post by **Jza** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:22 am

That's why I said suse and not Novell, Suse as SuSE corporation always kept proprietary from version 1 - 8.1

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:11 am

Wally Balljacker wrote:On a serious note, how was the hardware detection? From my experience with Gentoo, it has the absolute worst hardware detection of any distro i've ever used.

What hardware detection? This box has an old ALI chipset motherboard, TNT 2 video card and 8139 based NIC. That's it.

Networking came up automatically using DHCP. I had to make sure the 8139too module was built with the kernel, and enabled drivers for my PCI chipset (not absolutely necessary), but that was it. I have never had Gentoo reboot and have the kernel work, but maybe I did something right this time.

To bring it back on topic, I probably wouldn't consider running Mandriva on a server. If anyone knows how a minimal/server install of Mandirva measures up, I'd be interested in hearing about it. With Red Hat and Suse (and Fedora and CentOS), I can't see the need for another RPM based server distro.