Mandriva :-)
Posted Nov 22nd, 2008 by ConorYeaterday I met a guy browsing the Linux magazines in easons. We started talking about Linux and he highly recomended Mandriva. I had been using Fedora for a month at that stage and to be honest I didn’t think that much of it. The man managed to convince me to buy the Linux Format magazine which included a live version of Mandriva.
When I got home I stuck in the CD, not expecting much since I was disapointed with both Fedora and Ubuntu. Oh My God it is brilliant!! Mandriva is the best operating system that I have ever stumbled upon! Absolutly brilliant! 
It combines all the good visual aspects of Microsoft’s Window Vista and the good old back end of Linux! The graphical ‘flowing’ widgets and the availability to completly customise everything visually creates a great user friendly (and more importandly Windows user friendly) interface.
So I set about getting rid of Fedora. I only had 12 GB hard drive space reserved for Fedora but I was so impressed by Mandriva that I managed to clear 34 GB for it! The OS is now installed and almost fully functional.
I have to say I am surprised that a Linux distribution has finally achieved what I have been waiting for. The things that I want in Linux are finally available, which are:
- The graphical, ease of use, user friendly aspects of a Windows distribution. Mandriva in my opinion has achieved this, and to my great suprise it has out-done any Windows OS that I have ever used in this section in particular.
- No Viruses. This has allways been available – but without the other points it means nothing.
- The ability to code properly, I have learned the hard way that this isn’t possible on Windows.
- Oh and everything is easy! Like MySQL for example, i found it impossible to set it up on Windows without using PHP MyAdmin.
Over all i think Mandriva is brilliant and I cant wait to get it working properly. The only one problem that I did find with it is that my 02 3G modem won’t work properly on it. I have found some articles to hack the config files, which I intent to do as soon as I find out how to log in as root!!! oh it will all work eventually…
Just to note I got The Strats website up at http://www.thestrats.com please check it out and give me a review here or preferably at http://www.webdesignforum.com/5904-review-my-new-site.html#post22842
mac still kicks its ass
Mandriva 2009 is a very nice release, I have been using 2008-1 on my Asus Eee 900 with good results but still have the original OS installed.
As for Ubuntu 08.04 LTS which is a very easy OS, I have to say Mandriva 2009 just works, and very well to, Even Kde4 is usable.
I use Windows XP each working day and this 2009 release is such a Joy to use over XP.
Mandriva 2009 is now installed on My Eee and ALL works fine, The OS Asus should have used ?.
This release has come of age, very east to install, easy to use, which will Stay INSTALLED on ALL my Laptops, Why use Vista ?, and Who Needs Windows 7.
Well done Mandriva! I now Forgive you for Gael, but we wont forget!.
I too like Mandriva. I started with SUSE, went to Ubuntu, then to Mepis, then to PCLinuxOS and now to Mandriva One 2008.1
Tried Mac, don’t like the way Mac makes you stay with proprietary hardware. Mac is too expensive for normal folk.
I see that PCLinuxOS 2009 is coming out. Beta looks nice, will have to wait for a Live CD version to see if it will play nicely on my Compaq laptop.
Where have you been? Mandriva has had all of this for a long time. You might want to check out the upcoming release of PCLinuxOS, too. It’s based on Mandriva, but is a little different. The current version is a little long in the tooth, but a new one is very close. PCLinuxOS uses Synaptic and Apt for package management and is a “rolling release”, where there’s no need to totally reinstall when new versions arrive. Other than that, it’s almost like Mandriva, with the brilliant Mandriva Control Center and all.
Interesting. I knew there must be more than just myself in Monaghan who used Linux (there is always more than one magazine in Eason, and I only buy every second month or so).
We’ll get your O2 working on Wednesday. I’ve managed it in Fedora and Ubuntu. It’s usually just the modem settings.
Bloody brilliant that you’re finding it easier than Windows. Mandriva has always been like that. I’m surprised it didn’t occur to me when setting up your system. I guess I just reached for what was available, and I always have some Fedora around.
btw: db connection error on the strats!
Yeah i’ll get a live version of PClinuxOS 2009 when it comes out. I didn’t realise that Mandriva 2009 wasn’t a “rolling release”, that might turn out to be annoying when I want to upgrade.
I find mac easy to use, i’m aiming for the new 13″ mac book pro… its very expensive so it’ll be a while till I save the money! I’ll probarbly run Linux on it anyway, it’s just the brilliant reliable mac hardware i’m after!
But for the moment anyway i’m just looking for a stable OS. I don’t want to change it again if I don’t have to and apart from the upgrade feature I think that i’ve found that in Mandriva.
Opensuse 11 is quite similiar to Mandriva, if you feel like trying more stuff out, I would suggest trying that next.
Mandrive – Latest releases are very impressive; great hardware detection; best configuration tools in Linux (any OS?); standard package management is not as good as other distributions
PCLinuxOS – Most of the features of Mandriva, plus rolling release, better package management than Mandriva; easy to customize/remaster; recommended
openSUSE – nice, stable; great configuration tools (particularly good for servers); my choice for free server option
Ubuntu – more packages available than for any other platform; good overall desktop; more challenging to configure some advanced settings (e.g., server/developer requirements)
Fedora – fairly vanilla distribution; usually stable, but lacks configuration tools found in most other distributions; for a long time, this was my favorite, until Mandriva improved quality, PCLOS and Ubuntu emerged, and SUSE was opened by Novell; although this is a good distribution, unlike others, it really does not especially stand out in any area (except similarity to/compatibilty with Red Hat Linux)
Mac OS – Runs only on special (generally expensive) hardware; legal encumbrances; Java shipped by Apple may produce unexpected results, from time to time; some F/OSS apps are not readily available (or lag in being available) for Mac; excellent GUI; most *nix commands available from the terminal
I did want to add one thing to what Mudcat said about OpenSUSE… It’s the most professional looking distro there is. I don’t think their configuration tools are quite in the same league as Mandriva (and PCLinuxOS), but from boot to shutdown, it has a certain feel as if you just spent hundreds of dollars on a well put together retail product. The only problem is that I believe it still has broken multimedia apps by default, and you need to upgrade them from a 3rd party repository called Packman. Also, the YaST package manager will scare a new user to death when they approach a package that’s missing dependencies. Ubuntu and other distros using Apt + Synaptic are much more polite about it, and less intimidating.
Overall, I like PCLinuxOS best for the combination of Synaptic and Mandriva’s tools plus the rolling release nature of it and simplified repository. Mandriva ranks right up there, too, but the package manager and the fact its not a rolling release holds me back.
For the most part, I agree. openSUSE’s package management is not quite as good as Ubuntu/PCLinuxOS, but it is getting better all the time. Unfortunately, this is the one area where Mandriva trails the other three. But, Mandriva’s configuration tools are the best. YaST is still very good, though. Like openSUSE’s package manager, YaST is rapidly making strides. I generally like openSUSE better for server-type functions.
I’m not trying to be smart, its just a question I have since reading your post:
If you think Mandriva a lot like Windows and that that is a good thing – why not just use Windows?
I’ve used XP under Microsoft Licence for 3/4 years and I’ve never had to jump around with different OS installs….
I do think that it takes all the good user friendly and graphical aspects of windows. But at the same time I like the way that the other Linux features work. Such as the CLI and the no viruses part. I also like the way that everything is free and I agree with it from a political angle.
I would just like to take this opportunity to say that over the last few days I have learned to love Mandriva. It does everything for me that Windows failed to do.