Mandriva Linux 2009 Alpha 2 Released

AdamWill writes "The Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring Alpha 2, marking the first public pre-release of the upcoming Mandriva Linux 2009. This alpha introduces several significant changes, most obviously the inclusion of KDE 4 — 4.1 beta 2, specifically — as the default version of KDE, and the latest development version of GNOME, 2.23.4. The kernel has also been updated to release 2.6.26rc7. Another feature of interest to many users will be the addition of orphan package tracking (and optional automatic removal) to the urpmi package manager. Of course, many applications have been updated (although the default version of Mozilla Firefox is still currently 2.0.x), and most of the distribution has been rebuilt with a new GCC version, 4.3. Mandriva warns that this is a true alpha, likely to contain many bugs related to the new version of KDE. Please install it only in a test environment, and especially do not use it as an upgrade from any earlier Mandriva Linux release."

2008: Year of Linux on the Desktop

Having taken a look at this latest release, I'm convinced that THIS IS THE YEAR that Linux will be the dominant desktop OS. Easy installation, advanced package manager, FREE!, and tons of community support; there's really no reason that it won't win the hearts and minds of users everywhere.

And with the cost of oil skyrocketing, people have less money to shell out to Microsoft, so a free OS is just what this ailing economy needs. It's surprising. Just a few months ago I was mentioning to someone just how good Linux was, but at that time he scoffed and said his grandmother still wouldn't be able to use it. However with this latest Mandriva Alpha (cool name) release, I think we're looking at a watershed moment here.

I'm looking forward to upgrading my systems post haste.

Re:

I read this post 3 times and there wasn't one bad analogy, let alone an analogy in the thing. Lots of sarcasm yes, and very much appreciated.

What is Mandriva's market anymore, anyways?

Back in the day, when I started using Linux, Mandrake (now Mandriva) was a great distribution that helped newbies like me hit the ground running. But now it seems like Ubuntu has gobbled up that market. Afaict, they don't have much of an "enterprise" market, and they don't have much of a "hacker" market... or am I wrong? What market is Mandriva serving these days?

Re:What is Mandriva's market anymore, anyways?

How about the market for people who just want their systems to work out of the box?

Now I did just have a couple of unexpected meltdowns recently after some 2008.1 updates, but overall, my Mandr(ake|iva) installs have been exceptionally stable compared with my (*)buntu experiences.

Re:

I swear I don't mean to be difficult here, I'm just stating my own experiences.

>What market is Mandriva serving these days?

The market that wants the stuff to work. Out of the box. With no bit twiddling.

My PCs are not bleeding edge, and they don't use anything non-standard. Same for my laptops. And I have not even once been able to get any version of Ubuntu, or any of its derivatives, to install correctly on anything I own without having to majorly fight with it. And that includes Hardy Heron.

Mandriv

Re:

We don't use full hdlists any more; it was replaced with a system where the information is split across several .xml files. This allows the necessary file to be downloaded on-the-fly (for instance, if you try to look at a package's file list in rpmdrake - or run urpmq -l - then the .xml file that contains file lists for all the packages in that repository will be downloaded at that time).

If you'd rather have one big wait when you update your repositories rather than a smaller wait the first time you try an

Re:What is Mandriva's market anymore, anyways?

The same market as always, better than Ubuntu does. ;) No, seriously, give it a try, you might be surprised.

We do actually have a reasonably large enterprise business, mainly in Europe (and particularly France, obviously). We also have several significant OEM deals, including a pre-load deal with one of the largest Brazilian PC manufacturers (several thousand PCs are shipped pre-loaded with Mandriva in Brazil every month). We also have an involvement with Intel's Classmate PC program, we're involved in a large project in Angola to basically revamp its entire national IT structure, and there's a netbook / mini-laptop / whatever you call them coming out with Mandriva pre-loaded later this year - the Gdium (http://www.gdium.com). But yeah, we still have a significant (and growing) user base among normal every day Linux users. Sales of the Powerpack and Flash are pretty strong, and there's many times more people using the free editions.

Re:

Ubuntu has got the spotlight because it does few things better than others.

1) Nice slogan "Ubuntu means humanity to others"
2) Few applications on menus (was then, now everyone has only best ones on menus!)
3) Came right time out when Linux got good HW support and GNOME got good versions out so it was looking good for Windows XP user!

And that's it. Now it has great package support (thanks to Debian!) and big support from magazines etc, who dont know anything else than Ubuntu and thinks that Ubuntu is someway

An alpha open source?

Have the definitions of alpha and beta changed? An alpha used to be an in-house test, while a beta was released to outsiders.

I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how an open source project can have an alpha phase?

Re:An alpha open source?

Alphas are released for developers (which don't have to be "in-house"), while betas are released to testers.

Shouldn't they fix 2008 first?

Instead of just releasing another hosed major version?

Anyone remember back when it was Mandrake and it actually worked?

Any stable desktop?

A beta version of KDE4? A development version of Gnome, and a RC of the kernel?

At least this is only an alpha.

Which makes me wonder how this got to the front page of /..

Who does Mandriva appeal to? Me!

I've been running Mandriva since MDK 7.2, I had a few issues with 8.2 but everything "just works".

Yes I've tried Ubuntu, it's very shiny but I can't get into the guts of the beast; besides I'm better at using Mandriva.

What I really like best is I can use my Power pack (yes I'm a silver member) or I can use Mandriva-mini and, once I"ve set up the repositories, I can type "sudo urpmi mythtv-backend" and it all goes and works.

To me, that's a pretty damn neat trick. That's a lot neater than going down to Best Buy and buying whatever TV tuner they've got and trying to make it work on Vista.

Re:Who does Mandriva appeal to? Me!

I used to be a silver member in Mandrivaclub (two years back I think) - but I got a bit fedup having to pay for access to repositories that provide DKMS versions of proprietary nvidia drivers and such and I didn't like the 3rd party repositories for that stuff because they were messy.

This policy has been abandoned. All repositories except the commercial software ones are available to all at no charge. That includes the repository with the proprietary drivers.

Re:News?

Well, it is a special occasion since 2008 is the year of linux on the desktop.

Re:News?

Not to start a distro flame war, but...

How is an alpha release of Mandriva news?

BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME! Name me another distro that:
  - installs easily and with lots of options
  - has integrated configuration utilities for GUI AND console that don't mind personal hacking of the config files
  - has bleeding edge packages, if you choose
  - doesn't exclude dev packages in pursuit of user friendliness
  - has native packages for nearly every application you'll use

In other words, they provide a professional, up-to-date Linux environment that is simple enough for newbies, flexible enough for advanced users, and hassle-free for those of us who have no time to waste on configuration and compilation.
Also, it appears to be a rare example of a major distro that still supports multiple desktop environments out of the box.

I'm stoked for Mandriva 2009 and I'm glad to know it's coming...

That said, there's no way in hell I'm installing an alpha of it, so you may have a point. :) But at least I can start prepping my hard disk partitions! WOOO MANDRIVA FTW!!!

MANDRIVA in Love Internet Cafe in Philippines

I just came back from the Philippines last week where I set up an Internet cafe with Mandriva 2008.1 version Power Pack edition. During the winter this year I tried every version of the major distributions on my systems at home and chose Mandriva for the cafe because it is so well set up for administrative control, firewall control, etc .. I have been using SUSE for over 8 years and the Mandriva looks fantastic visually, has all the software you need and offers CEDEGA to run Windows based games for online g

Re:News?

Doesn't have anywhere near MDV's range of configuration utilities, which is what the OP was getting at. Also we'd argue our centralized backports repository system is rather better than Ubuntu's "seventy billion PPA" system, for bleeding edge packages. (Yes, for anyone who didn't get the memo yet, I work for Mandriva).

Re:

You are ahead on configuration, and do KDE better than Kubuntu, but you are behind on packaging.

I have come across several packages with minor problems (such as missing dependencies) which has hardly ever happened to me with Ubuntu. RPMDrake is also not as good as Synaptic, or even Adept, but I have complained about that before on the Mandriva forums.

The problems with packages is something I have come across more recently. I hope it is just a bad patch rather than showing an underlying lack of QC.

One

Re:News?

When you find a package with an error like that, please report it on the forums or (preferably) to Bugzilla - it'll help in getting it fixed. It does happen sometimes, mostly to contrib packages when the package gets rotten (because a maintainer leaves or stops maintaining a package for some reason). For 2009 there should be no such problems within the /main repository, we are working on ensuring that at present.

Re:News?

The main point is configuration utilities. Of the other mainstream distros, only SUSE's YaST has anything like the range of the Mandriva Control Center, but it doesn't take kindly to you altering the files it controls manually (it tends to just reset them, completely overwriting your manual modifications). MDV doesn't do this. That was what the OP meant with that point. Ubuntu and Fedora (and derivatives) have nothing like MCC / YaST.

Re:

How is all of what you hear about Windows 7 news? The fact is that progress of any new version of any OS is news. Do you complain when there is news about an upcoming yet unreaeased Mac OS?

If you made the same comment about a Windows 7 news item you would have been modded flamebait (not by me, mind you; I'd mod it as "overrated").

I'm excited about the progress; I use Mandriva dual boot; of the distros I've tried, it's my favorite. I haven't tried Ubantu yet, but that's only because I've been happy with Mand

Re:WHAT THE SHIT?

Would you be dicking around in a windows or mac alpha?

No, you wouldn't.

Re:

One might if one ever got the chance to get ones paws on a win or osx alpha.

Which doesnt happen.

Re:paid ad?

Slashdot don't take paid ads as news. I submitted this through the submission form same as everyone else (and as noted above, /. rejects 95% of MDV-related stories). My contact address is .mandriva.com, so whoever reads the submissions knows I work for MDV.

And, yes, of course we're relevant. We're probably the fourth biggest distribution overall (behind Ubuntu, SUSE and Fedora / RH). We're the largest remaining independent commercial desktop Linux distributor (excepting Canonical, which is not really a conventional company but basically entirely funded out of Mr. Shuttleworth's pocket) - if you want a company that exists by providing Linux distributions to end-users (and doesn't do it as a loss leader or a development spin off), Mandriva is basically it. And 2008 Spring got probably the best overall reviews out of the crop released at the same time, as noted by Distrowatch this week.