Mandriva Linux 2009 Released 106
Adam Williamson writes "Mandriva has today released Mandriva Linux 2009, the new major release of the popular distribution. 2009 is a bold release which brings the new KDE 4 as the default desktop, along with a re-designed installer and Mandriva Control Center and many other new features. Other significant updates include GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, Mozilla Firefox 3, and kernel 2.6.27. Key features include new graphical in-line upgrade capability, netbook compatibility, class-leading hardware support, and further improved support for working with mobile devices. For more details, see the Release Tour and the Release Notes. Get it at the download page, or go straight to the torrent list."
Re:Wow, now that's a trick! (Score:5, Informative)
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Docs/Choosing_the_right_edition [mandriva.com]
Basically, One is a hybrid live/install CD which includes proprietary drivers and browser plugins. Free is a traditional installer edition (2xCD or DVD) which is 100% free / open source software, no NVIDIA / ATI drivers or anything (though you can add them from the non-free repository after install, if you're that way inclined).
Re:Wow, now that's a trick! (Score:3, Informative)
I guess they're pulling the same as Ubuntu did with Firefox 3, it's at -rc9 now and on monday Linus said: "If things go well, I might do a final release mid-week, otherwise it's
'next weekend' again." so it should only be a few days away.
Re:Wow, now that's a trick! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Worth a spin...? (Score:3, Informative)
It's been improved... the best way to handle your update repositories is to use the Easy URPMI site at http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ [zarb.org] - just click and it will automagically add the sources for you.
I've been running the Beta and RC versions on my laptop and a desktop, it's been working well. Gonna start torrenting the release version shortly.
Way to go mandriva! (Score:2, Informative)
I gave a spin to 2009-RC2 and I found it very lacking in many aspects, including general theme, while KDE4 implementation of the mandriva theme was mostly there small details (but important ones) like desktop icons where left out, if you look at the 2009 errata outstanding issues where not handled, like multimedia keyboard support on KDE4, it reasonably works on 2008.1 why should it stop working in 2009?, passing the blame to kmilo is no way to handle it (they would be better of with KDE3 for now).
I like the few new improvements, boot time is fast, intel wifi works better now, new kpowersave is nice, I can finely set the monitor brightness if supported, however, the damm thing won't suspend when closing the laptop lid.
I think is a good release for a new KDE4 migration, I think I will give the final release a spin but most probably I will stay with 2008.1 which is way more usable today than 2009, just think it.
Re:Useless summaries (Score:3, Informative)
You might want to look at the Reviewer's Guide: http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.0_Reviewers_Guide [mandriva.com]
it contains a lot of that kind of information.
Re:Mandriva One x86-64? (Score:3, Informative)
There is no x86-64 One. Really, for most workloads, you may as well run i586 on x86-64 systems. If you really want a native edition, install x86-64 Free.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Informative)
Via VirtualBox or VMware, yes. Yes it does. :) And, of course, vice versa.
Re:Wow, now that's a trick! (Score:3, Informative)
Actualy it has been released, but never the less it is almost a guarantee that Mandriva is not using a kernel version released that recently, since Mandriva is very good about thoroughly testing things, and they wouldn't have had time to do so.
Here the proof that 2.6.27 is "released":
[zero__kelvin@bodhisattva ~]$ kernel
[zero__kelvin@bodhisattva linux-2.6.git]$ git pull
remote: Counting objects: 83, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (35/35), done.
remote: Total 58 (delta 29), reused 52 (delta 23)
Unpacking objects: 100% (58/58), done.
From git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6
6984937..3fa8749 master -> origin/master
remote: Counting objects: 1, done.
remote: Total 1 (delta 0), reused 1 (delta 0)
Unpacking objects: 100% (1/1), done.
From git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6
* [new tag] v2.6.27 -> v2.6.27
I miss Conectiva (Score:3, Informative)
Until they got merged into Mandrake, Conectiva was the best distro, IMHO. They had RPM with Apt, the best of both worlds. After the acquisition, they opted to drop that feature, keeping the vastly inferior Mandrake package management. Sorry, guys, I wento to Ubuntu, and never looked back.
The main thing I miss now is the Conectiva keyboard mapping. There are some subtle but significant differences in the way US-style keyboards handle accented characters, and Conectiva had the smartest setup (easiest to use, less keystrokes needed).
Re:Useless summaries (Score:3, Informative)
Some distros do have unique features. For instance Fedora 9 had kernel-mode setting if you had an Intel video card. At the time, it was only one of a few, if not the only installers to offer full disk encryption in the installer, etc. Ubuntu offers Wubi.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/9/FeatureList [fedoraproject.org]
That is the kind of stuff I'm talking about. When reviewing distros, write about what makes that distro unique.
Re:Useless summaries (Score:3, Informative)
The Control Center (i.e. "Control Panel") is probably the best feature that Mandriva has. For me, it allows easy setup of just about everything - from NFS and SMB servers and clients to a backup feature that just works (so long as the hard drive has space - which they also deal with). Much of these things can be edited by webmin, but the control center GUI is easier to use than webmin. Another benefit is that many of the tools can run in the Linux virtual terminals. This makes it easy to configure the box even when I don't have X running.
I'd have to say Mandriva's package management is also another benefit. Since they've gone to urpmi, I haven't had any troubles with package dependency hell. urpmi takes care of that for me. However, this hasn't stopped me from installing rpms myself as-needed. And when the non-urpmi-repository rpms require specific packages, urpmi will automatically install the packages for me when it installed my rpm.
When I've tried Ubuntu, the biggest thing I missed was all the configuration items that the Mandriva control center gave me. Sure, I can edit things by hand, but I'd rather use a GUI for it. Fedora felt the same way.
So overall, I like it. Sure, there are complaints, but there will always be complaints.
Gave it a whirl (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Once Upong a Time... (Score:4, Informative)
Um, Mandrake/Mandriva has *always* been a commercial company with commercial offerings. But they have also *always* offered free versions of the distro. And this is what Redhat did before they went completely commercial-only, and what SuSE still does.
http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free [mandriva.com]
Re:Once Upong a Time... (Score:3, Informative)
Mark is not actually correct.
There are no longer any paid Club memberships (we abolished that system last year). There's only the Powerpack subscription, which gives you no privileges, it's a simple product which gives you access to the Powerpack edition for 12 months; nothing else.
The only software that is exclusive to the Powerpack edition is software that is not only non-free, but commercial: that is, software we *could not legally include* in any edition that's free to the general public. Software that we have to pay a license fee to the owners to include in Powerpack, and that they only let us license on a limited basis for paying customers.
All publicly redistributable non-free software in Mandriva is available in the public non-free repository, completely free of charge, to anyone. When you set up 2009, this repository is configured automatically.
To put it another way: everything you get for free with Ubuntu, you get for free with Mandriva. The only stuff you are paying for in Powerpack is stuff you could not get for free from any other distribution.