A Mandriva 2011 review.

[John A]

The new Mandriva are out now. Support only KDE with this new version:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20110829#feature

Can be interesting to read about it. But I will not try it myself. My "distro hopping" days are over now.

[John A]

I have tryed the live option for Mandriva 2011 after all. In my opinion the "Rosa panel" are Unity (Ubuntu) with another name.
If this is the future for Linux I am not sure I will continue with it at all..
Rosa panel and KDE4 not mix good. Unity/Gnome works little better.

I hope the next Pardus (2012?) version not go for that direction.
And I think many agree. Even with this new Mandriva version it going down in the Distrowatch list.

Another review:
http://cristalinux.blogspot.com/2011/08/mandriva-2011-review.html

[owiknowi]

installed mandriva 2011 _64 on a hp dv6-3185ed and must say i'm impressed with its hardware support.
even could install the appropriate drivers for the ati radeon hd5600. till now the only penguin in which i could do so.
no success however on the catalyst front.

wireless works out of the box too and maybe tomorrow i'll set the router to 'not broadcast ssid' and find out whether mandriva can connect to a hidden wireless.

the combination kde4 and something ubuntu unity like, isn't bothering me as much as it does in ubuntu.
basically it even makes kinda sense to me, but that's strictly personal, of course.

still have to try it some more and will post things that work with mandriva and not with pardus, in the appropriate places on this forum (and of course on the german forum, didn't forget about them neither   ).

[Dean]

Dark Duck has some interesting things to say about Mandriva at http://linuxblog.darkduck.com/ .

[John A]

Here is another review:
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/09/01/mandriva-desktop-2011-review/

He bring up some issues with it. I must say I prefeer Mageia if I must choose one Mandriva fork.
More Mandriva than Mandriva itself now.

But that just my personal opinion of course.

[owiknowi]

@dean
interesting article, for sure. didn't know about all that takeover stuff, very american-like
never really used mandriva in the past, and thus never participated on their forum, mostly because of it's commercial background.
since i have a rather new notebook though, i'm testing a lot different penguins, just to see which can get what to work.
might provide some useful information in the bargain...

@john a
maybe you also want to take a look at unity-linux. it's also mandriva based but is intended to build your own distro in a rather easy way.
nice, helpful, and skilled community too.

[John A]

It seems like Mandriva have give up the Powerpack version.
I never liked that they had split up their distribution in a free and a powerpack version.
The Powerpack had all the codecs that the free missing.

I wonder how their policy are now? Can you see a DVD movie for example?
Or must you look and install some codecs?

[owiknowi]

@john a
just gave it a try: smplayer was very busy reading out the dvds (one encrypted and one unencrypted) but could not play them.
note: this was with an unchanged, default installation of mandriva 2011. when changing some settings or adding some codecs it probably will work.

tried both in pk2 and could play them with gnome mplayer, menus included.

[John A]

I got a extra PC to play with. So I maybe try Mandriva more in that one.
But at the moment I am most interested about the coming Ubuntu 11.10 with Gnome3/Unity:
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/04/gnome3-packages-begin-trickling-into-ubuntu-11-10/

By the way I can not get SM Player to play DVD.s  in Pardus 2011.1 to.
It only works if you have downloaded movies in to the hardrive and play the files from there.
But not if you try to play from the plastic DVD disk itself.

[Dean]

@owiknowi

interesting article, for sure. didn't know about all that takeover stuff

No, I did not either, but none of it sounds like it is good for the little guy user.  Maybe they will be able to get their act together.  If they do not, Mageia will probably replace them totally.

Dark Duck has a Russian back round and so is able to follow the news over there.

[owiknowi]

@john a
just fired up pardus 2011.1, put a dvd in the player, and from the pop-up menu i could choose smplayer.
it showed the dvds menu and started playing when i clicked on the start option.

don't know for sure if i have any extra codecs installed, though...

@dean
if the base, i.c. mandriva, is no longer reliable, i fear all derivatives will suffer from that too.

personally i wouldn't mind a commercial open source os as an antithesis to the closed source variants. one would pay more or less the same, but wouldn't have to suffer from all kinds of weird licensees and stupid restrictions.
so, the choice would be: closed windows, them apples or a penguin. choose one whilst buying a computer.

another thing that would be good imho, is that such an os would come in two flavours:
1. enterprise, emphasizing on stability, security, durability, lts, and functionality. a highly customizable, build up (technical) system.
2. home or multimedia, also customizable, but emphasizing on usability, or ease of use, by default with all kinds of neat apps and codecs installed.

next to such a basic penguin one could, and should, keep developing all kinds of variants, because that's evolution for you too

[Dean]

@owiknowi

if the base, i.c. mandriva, is no longer reliable, i fear all derivatives will suffer from that too.

You are probably right about that, but I think the people at Mageia, having been rejected by Mandriva, will develop a fully independent distro project.  They can't be happy about the way they were treated.