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Mandriva Linux

Mandriva Linux 2008 Now Available 189

Posted by kdawson from the latest-bits dept.
AdamWill writes "Mandriva Linux 2008 is now available for download on the official site and on the network of public mirror servers. In 2008 you will find KDE 3.5.7 and the new GNOME 2.20 already integrated, a solid kernel 2.6.22.9 with fair scheduling support, OpenOffice.org 2.2.1, cutting-edge 3D-accelerated desktop courtesy of Compiz Fusion 0.5.2, Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6, and everything else you've come to expect. We have integrated a reworked hardware detection sub-system, with support for a lot of new devices (particularly graphics cards, sound cards, and wireless chips). There is a wizard to import Windows documents and settings, a new network configuration center, and a set of improvements to the Mandriva software management tools. Read about the new features in depth in the release tour, or view the release notes. The One installation CD is the recommended download: it comes with a full KDE desktop and application suite, NVIDIA and ATI proprietary video card drivers, Intel wireless firmware, Adobe Flash and Sun Java browser plugins, all included."
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Mandriva Linux 2008 Now Available More

Mandriva Linux 2008 Now Available

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  • Link leads to archive (Score:5, Informative)

    by LiquidCoooled ( 634315 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:19PM (#20915909) Homepage Journal
    Proper link should be: http://www.mandriva.com/en/download.html [mandriva.com]
  • Mandriva already had shiney window manager effects didn't they? Have they dropped Matisse in favor of Compiz?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Zombie Ryushu ( 803103 )
      Its still in Drak3d as far as I can tell, you can use that or Compiz Fusion.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AdamWill ( 604569 )
      Metisse is still there. You can choose between Metisse and Compiz Fusion with drak3d. Mandriva has shipped Compiz since the release of 2007. 2007 came with Compiz. 2007 Spring came with Compiz, Beryl and Metisse. 2008 comes with Compiz Fusion and Metisse.

  • Ubuntu (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Virgil Tibbs ( 999791 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:30PM (#20916069) Homepage
    Ubuntu has basically stolen all the hype mandriva used to have hasn't it?
    Mandriva used to be one of the only 'gratuis' distros which had a nice desktop by default
    didn't it pioneer the way towards 'point and click', 'just working'?

  • 64 bits? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by N7DR ( 536428 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:50PM (#20916349) Homepage
    Their wiki says: "Mandriva Linux 2008 is available in three editions: One, Powerpack and Free, for both i586 and x86-64 architectures", but so far I have been unable to find the 64-bit version of either One or Free (One is the "free + proprietary" version; Free is the "free only" version).

    I can't tell if my inability to find the 64-bit version of One or Free is due to their confusing site design, my incompetence, or because those versions don't actually exist. Several places on their site say that all versions are available from "the official download site": http://www.mandriva.com/archives/ [mandriva.com] But there's no indication there at all of how to get the 64-bit versions (at least, not at the time I'm writing this). I can't say that I'm impressed by the apparent lack of internal coordination on their website for this release: several links point to the Spring 2007 edition as still being current.

    I hate to draw the conclusion that this is (yet) one more sign of Mandriva's decreasing relevance, but I would be very surprised if Ubuntu's upcoming release exhibited any of these kinds of quirks.

    • I'm pretty sure the 64-Bit files are on the Install CD. I read that it will install a 64-Bit client if you have a 64-Bit processor and you have to override it on install if you want the 32-Bit. Though, I don't know if that's only on the DVD version.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by N7DR ( 536428 )
        Can you cite what leads you to believe that? If they have done that, I think it's a change from the past, and I can find no obvious statement to support you.

        Mind you, I can't find a way to download the DVD version anyway. I must have the wrong kind of mind to grasp the organization of their site.

        • Nah, the site is grossly over complicated. I actually searched the forum for that bit of info. I, like you, can't find jack squat on the official site.

    • Re:64 bits? (Score:5, Informative)

      by AdamWill ( 604569 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:31PM (#20916987) Homepage
      The Free x86-64 edition is available, from the download mirrors or at http://torrent.mandriva.com/public [mandriva.com] . There's no x86-64 One at the present time, I'll have to update that text. If you get to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , that means you hit a broken link. We just changed www.mandriva.com , concurrent with the 2008 release, but the new site is still having some kinks worked out. www.mandriva.com/archives/ is the old version site, preserved for now in case we need it. As it's the old site and it won't be used any more, nothing on it was updated for 2008. We are currently sending all broken links under www.mandriva.com to www.mandriva.com/archives/ , on the basis that whatever you were looking for is probably still in there somewhere. As we get all the kinks worked out of the new site, you won't see this happening so much. We would've liked a few more days to polish the new site, but we couldn't push 2008 release without the new site, and we didn't want to delay the release solely to finish the website. Slashdot initially ran this story with a broken link to www.mandriva.com/download.html (should have been www.mandriva.com/en/download.html ), so you may have got to the /archives page that way.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GreggBz ( 777373 )
      A great percentage of the complaints against Mandriva stem from their maze of homepages and subverted, hidden or missing download links. It's just not completely obvious where to get Mandriva. It should be.

      I've been totally impressed with the 2007.1 (Spring)

      It's a little more complete then Ubuntu, is closer to the Red-Hat we use where I work, and has a much improved package management system.
      Also, the ATI drivers are good and the hardware compatibility has been at least as good as Ubuntu in my experience. T

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by AdamWill ( 604569 )
        "A great percentage of the complaints against Mandriva stem from their maze of homepages and subverted, hidden or missing download links. It's just not completely obvious where to get Mandriva. It should be." as I said, we're still working on the new page. once that's completed it'll be as easy as you can wish. I mean, go to www.mandriva.com . Note the gigantic green button marked "Download". :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Knuckles ( 8964 )
        I work faster when I'm really root. I'll just use a strong password.

        Faster to trash your machine, yeah.

      • Re:64 bits? (Score:4, Informative)

        by GooberToo ( 74388 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:59PM (#20917405)
        I've been totally impressed with the 2007.1

        Mandriva definitely went through some growing pains. Okay, okay, it was growing leprosy. The three releases prior to 2007 had some real crufty bugs and lots of things which just didn't work right. These problems brought into question the viability of the entire distribution. Since 2007, they have finally come full circle and now offer a high quality, robust (fat) distribution, like what originally made them popular. The 2007.1 release only continued to improve and polish.

        Don't be afraid to try Mandriva. I've tried many different distributions and went elsewhere during their dark days, but I came back. Personally I like it much better than Fedora and especially Red Hat. I consider in on par with Ubuntu for package completeness. And the wizards is a real bonus for most inexperienced users.

  • 2007, 2008? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mrslacker ( 1122161 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:59PM (#20916473)
    Someone tell them that it's not 2008 for another 12 weeks. Is this going to be like cars, where the "2008" models were actually made in early 2007 - and when you sell it, it looks a year newer than it actually is?

    Sorry, car analogy.

  • I hope this isn't the same as RC1 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kwabbles ( 259554 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @02:59PM (#20916481)
    RC1 was out what... maybe 1 month ago? I tried it and after countless bugs, widgets/controls that didn't work, and other annoying nuisances that I didn't feel like fixing - I dropped it. I was surprised to see a final version released so soon.

  • Improvements? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by multisync ( 218450 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:06PM (#20916591) Journal

    and a set of improvements to the Mandriva software management tools.


    I hope by "improvements," they mean returning some of the functionality the software management tools used to have. There was a time when the software manager would give you basic information, like the total number of packages selected and their sizes, overall progress etc. Then, a couple of releases back, all of that info disappeared. There may be a way of getting "verbose" output, but the default is decidedly minimalist.
    • Agreed. And I still haven't gotten completed used to the new layout for adding/removing/updating software.
      • Yeah, I'm looking at it right now (Mandriva Spring 2007 I think). Running the Software Packages Update. (I was at work before and a little foggy on what pisses me off about it).

        You get a list of packages that have updates available, pre-checked for your convenience, but no info on their size.

        Selecting Update starts the downloads. A dialog box pops up - stealing focus, btw - and shows the total size of the file currently being downloaded as well as the progress, but it doesn't tell you how many more files re

  • Default desktop is extremely ugly (Score:5, Interesting)

    by QCompson ( 675963 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @03:27PM (#20916919)
    While the feature-list and included packages is very impressive, the default KDE desktop is truly hideous:
    http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/uploads/9/9a/2008-kde-desktop.png [mandriva.com]

    I realize this is a matter of personal taste, and that one can easily alter the look of the desktop, but still... I challenge someone to claim that the taskbar and menu-button look nice. Even the easter bunny wouldn't pick that light pastel blue as a default color. First impressions do matter.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jsight ( 8987 )
      Despite their reputation for being desktop oriented and polished, they have always had a tendancy to do this. I'll never forget the early versions with stars as checkboxes. And colors selected such that it was never obvious whether the star meant that it was selected or was not.

      Ubuntu took their market share easily thanks to tremendously foolish management mistakes with the Mandrake/Mandriva distro. I think the gap is just widening even more now.

  • I'm genuinely curious. One of the main things that has kept me from both Fedora and Mandriva is the package management/repositories of Debian-based systems. I just cannot live without that anymore. I mean, software might be available in RPM format, but then you have to hunt dependencies yourself. No thank you. And last time I tried, it was possible to get repository-like functionality via tools like yum, but you still had to track down a thousand different repositories (the safety of which was typically unk

    • Re:Package repositories? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:06PM (#20918247)
      Well, all I can think is that your fear of RPM is still rooted in Redhat 3. Things have come a long way since 1997! I always thought that Synaptic is merely a clone of Mandriva's Software Manager.

    • Re:Package repositories? (Score:4, Informative)

      by AdamWill ( 604569 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:07PM (#20918275) Homepage
      "Is this any better now? Do you still have to hunt for 3 hours on the interwebs to figure out how to install anything that didn't come with the distro?"

      No. No, you don't, and you haven't for several years, as I said. Please read:

      http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Basic_tasks/Installing_and_removing_software [mandriva.com]

      it explains it all rather clearly.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Knara ( 9377 )

      I mean, software might be available in RPM format, but then you have to hunt dependencies yourself.

      This hasn't been true if you stick to the official repositories for any major distribution for a while now. Granted, if you wander off into the wilds and just start installing rpm's you found on sourceforge, you might start having some work on your hands, but I haven't stumbled into RPM hell myself for quite a while.

      YMMV (and keep in mind that .0 on any dist release is just askin' for trouble)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BokLM ( 550487 ) *
      Mouahahaha, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. You really don't need to hunt dependencies yourself, tools such as urpmi and others do it for you, and it's been like that for years.

      but you still had to track down a thousand different repositories

      Not true. I'm only using the official mandriva repositories, and everything I need is in there, no need to use other repositories.

      Do you still have to hunt for 3 hours on the interwebs to figure out how to install anything that didn't come with the dis

  • ... but is it as good as Amiga 5?

  • I Like Mandriva (Score:2, Insightful)

    by RudyHartmann ( 1032120 )
    There isn't a perfect distro out there. I install and fiddle with them as a hobby of sorts. Also as a business aside. There are some that are rock solid, but conservative and not appealing. There are other bleeding edge distros that just don't work. I tend towards the pretty distros with lots of features. There are a few that I had to spend a great deal of time finding pieces to make everything work. You know, codecs, plugins, yadda yadda. Ubuntu takes alot of time making me do this stuff. I prefer KDE anyw
  • Just a heads up, if you're upgrading from an earlier version... well I've been using Mandriva since 10.1, I have not had a fully successful upgrade yet (usually end up wiping my / /usr partitions and starting anew). So get ready for an evening of fun, backup your fstab (you may need it later) and your xorg.conf (if your current one is making you happy).

    Presently I've completed the upgrade to 2008, sadly now I have only one monitor working (out of a dual head setup), no applications under KDE (woo, lets pla

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Budenny ( 888916 )
      Yes, quite right, exactly my own experience. This is what drove me to Debian. And this is what makes Mandriva basically unusable by the unsophisticated. The distro itself, any particular version, may run great. Never let a naive user try to upgrade it, though.
  • To begin with, I was a Mandrake user and even paid for a Silver account or whatever it was for a couple of years. I used other Linux distros also, and liked them. I love the idea of Linux in general, free software, package management and all that. It's all great stuff, in theory. But today, as I read this announcement, there are many reasons I continue to be completely unimpressed with the "progress" of Linux distros over the years since I stopped using it. In the vain and ridiculous hope that someone is li

    • Re:Several things... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AdamWill ( 604569 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @12:54AM (#20922895) Homepage
      Sheesh, take a pill.

      First, as has been explained several times in this thread, there is absolutely zero point in including Firefox 2.0.0.7, as the only change in 2.0.0.7 is a fix which is entirely irrelevant to Linux.

      OpenOffice.org 2.3.0 was released on September 18th. That is not 'a while'. We were already in the Release Candidate stage at that point. Would you expect Microsoft to do a major version update of, say, Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer between Vista RC2 and Vista final? Of course not.

      "The few pieces of software that have pre-compiled downloadable Linux versions still need at least three different types of packages just to cover "most" of the popular Linux distros"

      This is because the idea of having pre-compiled downloadable Linux versions is, frankly, silly. The package management system works best when people understand it, and worst when they try to do end runs around it. This is not surprising. Software writers should write, and packagers (who work for individual distros) should package. That system works great. It's when people start messing with it that you get problems.

      "And then we wonder why nobody bothers to develop for "Linux""

      We do? Can't say I find myself kept up at night wondering about that. Maybe because lots of people *do* develop for Linux. It's simple - release source code.

      "And there is no single clear-cut procedure for installing software completely outside of the native package management system in a way that neither will ever interfere with the other."

      Why do you want one? What's wrong with the package management system?

      "Good God, when I think of all the man-hours that are being wasted with all this idiotic redundancy, and all the time spent by users complaining in forums that their distro-of-choice doesn't have the latest version of package X yet because the package maintainer is on vacation, it makes my head hurt."

      Then go think about something else and quit trolling Linux threads. Good lord, if anyone's wasting their time around here it's you.

      • Why do you want one? What's wrong with the package management system?

        Nothing, since autopackage came along.

        Its just a shame that no-one appears to use it, leading to issues like your current truecrypt woes, or the Unreal 2004 installer requiring tweaks to get UT2004 running on Mandriva.

        BTW, you must try alot harder to be patient with those you suspect are trolls. Many of them are genuinely frustrated users, and a Mandriva representative coming across all 'spiky' and 'French' doesnt show your company in a good light. You really must treat them kindly, saying 'there, there

        • I'm as English as Neil Hancock, I'm afraid.

          Truecrypt woes? Do elaborate.

          "Unreal 2004 installer"

          there's your problem. as I wrote in my original message. :)

          • Truecrypt woes? Do elaborate.

            "Unreal 2004 installer"

            there's your problem. as I wrote in my original message. :)

            Truecrypt.
            I recently moved to truecrypt for my backup external disk (for a host of reasons, but primarily portability). urpmi truecrypt failed, some reading led me to urpmi realcrypt, which failed. So I went to the source. Which required kernel-source (and not the stripped version either). So thats a 200Mb download. On each PC. Followed by a compile taking 20 minutes.

            On the first PC it took about 1 hour to get from urpmi truecrypt to installed, and required me to exercise extreme cleverness to understan

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by BokLM ( 550487 ) *
              It would have taken a couple of minutes on Linux if an autopackage version was available on the truecrypt site.

              Good luck using autopackage for something that require modifications in the kernel !

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