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Mandriva Operating Systems Linux

Mandriva 2009 Spring Released 96

Posted by timothy from the great-distro-but-mandrake-was-a-cooler-name dept.
Frederik writes "Mandriva just released the 2009 Spring version of its distribution. Highlights of this new version include vastly improved boot times thanks to Speedboot, KDE 4.2.2, GNOME 2.26.1, XFCE 4.6 and LXDE desktop environments, a completely rewritten Mandriva Security Centre and improved firewall and network configuration tools, OLPC Sugar environment, QT Creator development environment, Songbird audio player, ext4 support and many more. Check out the release tour and release notes for more information or immediately start downloading it."
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Mandriva 2009 Spring Released More

Mandriva 2009 Spring Released

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  • Mandrive versus Ubuntu (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MindlessAutomata ( 1282944 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @05:08PM (#27764443)

    Since I use Kubuntu Jaunty Jackalope, can someone outline the big differences between that and Mandriva? It's been a long time since I used Mandriva, way back since it was still called Mandrake.

    • Me too. Been quite a while for me. This distro seems pretty much irrelevant nowadays. It's never been more than a slightly friendlier Redhat and nowadays I don't even think they can lay claim to that.
      • Excerpt from distrowatch.com:

        "Mandriva's web presence is a messy conglomeration of several different web sites, while its "Mandriva Club", originally designed to provide added value to paying customers, has been getting mixed reviews. Although the company has been addressing some of the criticism, it continues to face an uphill battle in persuading new Linux users or users of other distributions to try (and buy) its products."

      • Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @05:15PM (#27764513)

        they're the Opera of Linux.

        Really nice, and the reason why some of us experimented with leaving the conventional, but then dumped for a new hotter gal.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by BcNexus ( 826974 )
          they're the Opera of Linux.

          They make an internet browser that runs on many non-traditional devices like the Nintendo DSi? Cool!

        • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

          by MindlessAutomata ( 1282944 )

          Hah! Couldn't have said it better myself.

        • Hah, that describes my experience with mandrake exactly.

          Mandrake were my first full-time distro as primary boot; I'd experimented with caldera, redhat and SuSE 7.3 (all retail distros available in the shop, back when I only had dialup - I still have those SuSE discs!).

          Mandrake got a lot of things right back then, it was the first distro that 'just worked' for me, without needing manual package compiles to make up for missing apps.

          I remember switching because their funding worries made it look like they woul

          • I did think of going back to mandriva, after gentoo - but that was right after the mandriva 9.2 'cd drive killer' kernel bug. OK, it turned out to be LG's fault in the end, but it did rather put me off!

            Ironically, Gentoo had killed a lot of drives with the same patch months before (in their live Gaming CD), but didn't manage to figure out the cause, and left lots of toasted drives behind.

            In fact, it was Mandrake (at the time) that tracked down this bug, got a resolution from the hardware vendor to restore drives to a working state, and ensure that the packet writing patch could get into mainline with some testing.

      • Yeah, that's how I remember it. Used it because it was better than Red Hat and I didn't understand Debian yet.

        I dropped it around version 9 when it became completely horrible. Started going downhill in 8. Haven't been back since--moved on to a combination of Debian and Gentoo, then eventually to Ubuntu.

    • It's been a while since I used mandriva, here's a review of the latest:
      http://adventuresinopensource.blogspot.com/2008/11/distro-review-mandriva-one-2009.html [blogspot.com]

      And more timely reviews here under 2009:
      http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mandriva [distrowatch.com]

    • Re:Mandrive versus Ubuntu (Score:5, Informative)

      by pm_rat_poison ( 1295589 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @05:28PM (#27764643)
      Madriva uses rpm packages. Ubuntu uses deb packages. While ubuntu is mostly optimized for GNOME (with kubuntu being an official derivative), I THINK mandriva is mostly optimized for KDE. For major package version differences, check out here for mandriva [distrowatch.com] and here for kubuntu [distrowatch.com] In Mandriva you can have a root account, while in *buntu you "can't" (or, to be precise, it's strongly advised not to)

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by gujo-odori ( 473191 )

        This doesn't really answer the question.

        RPM Vs. Dev, and all, is under the hood stuff that is almost certainly already known by the person asking, since (s)he states previous use of Mandrake. An important difference would be something like msec, the Mandriva Security Center, which has no good equivalent in *buntu AFAIK. I don't know what "optimized for GNOME" is supposed to mean, but Ubuntu comes in the GNOME flavor (default Ubuntu), the KDE flavor (Kubuntu), and the XFCE flavor (Xubuntu) that I know of. LX

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by MindlessAutomata ( 1282944 )

          the ol' rm -rf * in the wrong directory eh?

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Ponga ( 934481 )

          First thing I do after installing Ubuntu;

          $sudo passwd root

          sudo is for n00bs and lusers :D

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by amn108 ( 1231606 )

            Actually both of them suck, but sudo sucks less.

            Apparently, nobody understands the big difference between temporarily elevating own privileges versus becoming another user (with everything that comes with that).

            The problems people usually encounter are 1) Why do my GTK applications look weird when I launch them with "administrative privileges", to which experts simply explain that settings for root are not settings for their other user account, hence different theme etc. Even though the answer is correct, t

            • Actually both of them suck, but sudo sucks less.

              IMHO, not the way Ubuntu sets it up by default. Blanket sudo is almost as much as a risk as running shells as root.

              sudo should be used to give access to commands you trust yourself with. I don't see that Ubuntu has actually supported this idea at all, on Mandriva, rurpmi is available as a restricted version of urpmi, where no dangerous options are allowed (you can't accept unsigned packages, install local packages, force package installation without dependency checking etc.), specifically so it can be used

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by amn108 ( 1231606 )

                I am not entirely sure you got the point. The point is sudo and su do not elevate privileges of the user calling them who needs to do some administration tasks. Instead they impersonate another user, usually root. The problem is, this impersonation naturally (it is impersonation, right?) brings with itself personal settings of the user being impersonated, usually root, which messes up the human computer interaction. Because the user using the system is still the very same person, only with a strong need (an

          • Really, now? I've been using Linux since 1998 and was a Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris x86 admin from 1999 - 2003, when I shifted to the email security industry. I have been using Linux as my exclusive home desktop since 1999, and exclusively at work most of the time since 1999 (currently 80% Linux, 20% Mac), and primarily at work all the time since 1999. Even when I worked for Microsoft. I'll hazard a guess, based partly on your /. ID and partly on your comment, that your credentials are something less than this.

            I

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by arkhan_jg ( 618674 )

          Kubuntu is not great. It's basically the vanilla KDE packages with a couple of basic QT apps thrown on top; the real love, and bulk of development, goes into the ubuntu GNOME side, and GTK apps for everything ubuntu specific.

          I haven't tried mandriva lately, but they've always been a KDE-lovin' distro with all the management utils etc written in QT. From a quick browse round their site, they still look like the emphasis for distro custom apps being in QT.

          • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward

            When I ran Mandriva (yes, I'm another Ubuntu traitor) the management utils were written in perl + GTK.

      • sudo su

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Xtravar ( 725372 )

        All of Mandriva's system utilities use GTK.

        I've been using Gnome on Mandriva for years, so apparently their support for both environments is acceptable.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Fri13 ( 963421 )

        Mandriva is a KDE distribution. Altough the KDE does not get more attention than GNOME. Both are very well supported and if weighted Ubuntu and Mandriva with KDE and GNOME support, Mandriva wins, because of Kubuntu quality.

        And Mandriva takes the security very seriously and use root account correctly. It use sudo too, but it is used just how it should be used, to defined a specific permissions for specific users and only for specific tasks. It does not make the same idiotic act like canonical with sudo using

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Mandriva's Control Center is way ahead of Ubuntu, and Mandriva does a much better job of working from install -- no further twiddling required.

      But that's it. They've both very good distros. If you like Ubuntu, by all means do stay with Ubuntu. Mandriva's simply done a better job of being the distro you can hand to a neophyte and walk away. With Ubuntu you still have to twiddle for a couple of evenings, in my experience.

      YMMY due to hardware variations, and I have not upgraded to Jaunty yet.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Mandriva's simply done a better job of being the distro you can hand to a neophyte and walk away.

        Not only that, but Mandriva is the only Linux distro which has been working to create a completely usable Linux Desktop. These days I have better things to do that to keep tweaking my desktop months after the install. Many call Mandriva the neophyte distro - and while its true, its also the Linux Desktop distro you can simply install and use without screwing around with it weeks after the install.

        I must say, th

      • That's one thing I've always liked about Mandriva. Much easier to configure everything through the GUI.
      • Screwing around with your install? What kind of installs do you need; or more specifically, what do you need that takes a few hours in Ubuntu that Mandriva works with OOTB?

        The only thing I can think of is maybe a bit of codec installation, which takes a few key presses in Synaptic and a half an hour wait on a slow internet connection. DVD takes an extra repository addition. For newbies, I do this all in front of them and explain what I'm doing as I go, which is handy for future references.

        Maybe Mandriva w

        • I think that's exactly it, things like adding extra repositories, installing packages for really basic stuff. I find Mandriva just has that extra bit of polish in working right out of the box.

          It has its rough edges in other areas, but on the whole I quite like it for desktop use. I'm technical enough to have no issue with a much more technical distro (and use them all the time for servers), but for my desktop I really like Mandriva's polish. The polish might be comparable to Ubuntu (not a ton of first hand

    • In purposely very broad to illustrate the point terms, Ubuntu comes off as being open source to the point of zealotry. I find it much more difficult to do things like run ndiswrapper or ATI/NVidia's drivers, etc in Ubuntu. I think Mandriva has the best practical balance of any Linux distro in this regard (note you can get a purely open version of Madriva and you can also find ways to load the non-open stuff in Ubuntu, its just that he asked for the difference and in my experience this is it.) Also, for a lo

    • Mandriva ....works?

      Been using Mandriva for years/hated 2009.0 until I installed KDE3...

      I've been following cooker for a few months, KDE4.2 has been working nicely for awhile... D'Ld ONE-KDE and installed it on all 3 machines here already, no unusual issues
      (I have yet to be able to say that about ANY Ubuntu release)

      Currently works flawlessly as far as I can tell.

      The only standing "issue" I've run into is mythbackend seems to spin for some reason when started as a service, runs fine run in a shell. (PLF versi

  • I have tried the previous version on my eeepc 701 and kde4 rocked with it!!! I am experimenting with Slackware for now, but I may go back. Everything works out of the box.... not bad for a non eeepc specific distro. I would certainly recommend to someone fed up with the default Xandros install.

  • Mandriva is still a great distro. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gukin ( 14148 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @05:38PM (#27764765)

    Yeah I'm a fanboi and I have tried ubuntu but found it to be a little too dumbed down for my likes.

    The Powerpack is a really nice package due to it having some things that are really really nice. Trying to install the Citrix client, you'll need Motif 4, which is included in the power pack.

    Want to run an ATI card with xorg 1.6, the Power Pack comes with working drivers.

    Want to run Firefox plugins on x86_64? Mandriva got that one right too.

    Want to D/L the MS and Real codecs for mplayer? You can get them from the Penguin Liberation Front at http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ [zarb.org]

    Want to set up a mythtv backend? Let Mandriva look for updates during an install or tell it to add "Distribution Sources" and all you need to do is type: "urpmi mythtv-setup mythtv-frontend mythtv-backend" and follow the instructions.

    Mandriva is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available; and yeah, I'm going to pony up the pesos to buy the PowerPack.

    • Re:Mandriva is still a great distro. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @06:10PM (#27765113)

      Mandriva is, IMHO, the most flexible Linux Distribution available;

      Not to be rude, but there's this thing called Gentoo...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Growlor ( 772763 )
      Are you saying they found a way to make older ATI cards work with xorg 1.6??? I thought ATI was not going to support that for anything but the very shiniest, newest chips. If so, that's a pretty compelling reason for me to try the Powerpack right there (now if only they could do something about this ATH9K disconnect issues I keep having, I'd be a really happy camper.)

  • XFCE? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord Byron II ( 671689 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @06:19PM (#27765229)

    I see a download option for KDE and an option for Gnome. The summary says XFCE is available. What do I download if I'm a XFCE user who uses Gnome plugins (nm-applet, etc) and KOffice?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by DimmO ( 1179765 )
      mandriva-linux-free-2009.1-i586.iso has all desktop environments in it (KDE, Gnome, XFCE, LXDE).
      Mandriva One isos have only one DE (KDE or Gnome)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by James Ray Kenney ( 9036 )

      Download the "Mandriva Free DVD" not the "Mandriva ONE KDE" or "Mandriva ONE GNOME"
      The ONE editions are LIVE CDs that you can install from if you really need to.
      The free DVD edition contains MUCH more software, but more importantly, it contains the REAL Mandriva installer program, that lets you chose anything you want or need.
      It will handle what you wanted, either by selection XFCE and the Gnome apps you want, or just select both and after your first boot, just select XFCE at the log-in screen and it will d

    • I would consider getting the mini dual-arch CD.

      During installation, you can add network media, and you could add the 'task-xfce' package to your installation list. Or, you could install (which will give you IceWM), and after installation, add network repos, and then install the 'task-xfce' package (e.g. 'urpmi task-xfce').

      However, the Mandriva XFCE community team usually ships an XFCE live CD a few weeks after the release though ... see devel/iso/contrib/2009.0 on any mirror (like http://mirrors.telkomsa.n

  • I've previously been a big Mandriva fan having it installed on many machines over the years. It was "Mandrake" back in the day, now Mandriva. I've never been disappointed with the distro, never. It's solid and has always been a worthwhile install.

    I have since converted over to Debian for my servers which I absolutely love. Then, just to keep my distro's somewhat similar, I started using Ubuntu (debian based distro) on my workstations. And so I've been using Ubuntu ever since.

    It seems like everyone is runnin

    • "It seems like everyone is running Ubuntu these days"

      Seems....

      I ran Mandrake/Mandriva from 1999/2000 to 2006, using Win4Lin to run w98. I then switched to PCLinuxOS in late 05 or early 06 when I kept having issues with Mandriva. When i got my new laptop in Dec 08, i found that i was not going to run Win4Lin (personal choice pains from 05) and win98 (new CAD apps not running on w98), and since my laptop came with vista, i upped the RAM to 2GB and upped the hard drives to ~160 GB and ~250GB (two drive bays) f

  • Including 30+ production servers. Love it for the driver support and all latest packages. Had very few problems over the course of 6+ years, mostly with packages broken upstream. Looked on few occasions at Fedora and Ubuntu but always came back. As for desktops, PLF (non-free codecs and libs like libdvdcss2) is a real kicker.

    • Do you use the enterprise server or powerpack (or free!) version for your servers?

      Any issues with samba integration with windows desktops, if you use them? (been having some crashes and performance issues lately with ubuntu LTS server tied into our AD doing filesharing)

  • For the LDAP and Kerberos Junky.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Zombie Ryushu ( 803103 ) on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @09:19PM (#27767077)

    I'm the local LDAP and Kerberos Junky.

    Something I've always loved about Mandriva is that it can use Kerberos to disseminate packages and streamline installations in a LAN. Not to mention this new version adds an LDAP schema to urpmi meaning you can control urpmi repository configuration through LDAP.

    Now this is what really caused me to almost shit myself when I saw it. Mandriva is coming out with something for their corporate line called Pulse 2. Pulse 2 allows for the Cataloging of the installation of applications on other Distributions of Linux, AND Windows. Again, also centralized by none-other than LDAP.

  • I've been a short time Mandriva user, and most of the problems I've noticed with the distribution have had to do with KDE issues. The distro itself seems stable, easy to use (complex when you need it), and easy on the eyes. Not only that, but the upgrade to 2009 Spring was just a matter of replacing a few repos and letting urpmi do its thing. I'm running Spring now about 1.5 hours after I started the switch, and everything is working great, even KDE 4.2. I'd say the distro is doing quite well, given wha

  • Since Mandrake times, I buy every new version Mandriva sells.

    It's open source, and free, so I vote with my pocket. Good work Mandriva!

  • I think I could work routinely with any simple understandable linux distro as long as it runs fast.

    That said: a friend showed me his Mandriva install a year or two back. I was most impressed with how snappy it ran kde, ease of use, at the selection of apps etc. It shat the pants off that fat old canker slug Fedora (which I keep on my laptop for a "fat" system option against better judgment).

    My impression was of a thoroughly well done piece of work. I would have no issues using it.

  • Hello,

    Have just upgraded, it used to be a right rigmarole, now it couldn't be simpler.

    The Mandriva server sent my desktop a message saying the upgrade was available would I like to proceed? I indicated yes, my system automatically downloaded the upgrade, took around 3 hours and considering it was an over 3 GB upgrade package not bad.

    Upgrade package downloaded, it asked me was it OK to reboot "yes" I indicated.

    One reboot later and I'm running the latest KDE and the latest Mandriva with no pain, no CD or DVD

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