Mandriva 2008.0

?! :bugeye:

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Aye, I hadn't used Mandriva for some time (it was my first Linux distro), but neither Fedora Core or Ubuntu worked correctly on my laptop, but when I tried Mandriva 2007 everything worked right out of the box. It even asked me if I want to install a special driver for my widescreen, so everything is displayed correctly, I clicked yes and that was the end of it, whereas in other distros I tried I had to hack through config files to achieve the same result. Nothing wrong with that, but I've come to enjoy easier life.
Besides Mandriva 2007 Spring has come a long way forward since the days of 9.1 and I actually enjoy it.

The compiz is nice and shiny and never crashed on me even though my laptop has a simple graphical accelerator, but I disabled it, because I'm not used to that wobbly feel and it actually distracted me.

p.s. I've installed Windows Vista for two of my friends and I find that Mandriva 2007 Spring with compiz is more beautiful to the eye and has more shiny tricks. Of course beauty is in the eyes of beholder.

 

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Sorry but my XFI card doesn't work in Linux, and it takes like 6 steps to install the NVidia driver.

 

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More like one line as root: yum install kmod-nvidia.
That's for Fedora Core, because I use it.

 

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If I do it like that, xserv fails to start (possibly a nvidia issue) but I have to use the hack third-party program "envy" to install the driver. Even so, not all features for my card is enabled like in Windows.

 

Sure, could be.

 

Actually the first taskbar I can remember was on an BBC/Acorn Archimedes computer, not a Windows system.

 

Offtopic:
The main reason for the lack of the 'out of the box' programs being available is because some people realise there is a lot of bloatware in the backend of windows. For instance if you pull up on a windows system the 'Process list' through your 'task manager', you will find a number of processes loaded. Some will be legitimate 'OS' related processes, others will be extra drivers for devices or corporate personalised controls, others still with be server related processes for services that the average user doesn't even use.

All those processes that run as extra's are potentials for exploitation, Hackers love things that are installed 'Out of the box' because it means so many computers will be loaded with the same exploitable configuration.

Personally I prefer my *BSD, since I really do go with barebone's commandline for running OS's, Yes I run a windows system but I usually connect via SSH to my *BSD box(es) to deal with their operation. I want an OS that only runs what I configure to run on it because if that server is up 24/7 I can't afford to have a publically acknowledged exploit from an 'out of the box' install, also the lack of GUI keeps even the slowest of boxes perky.

I have yet to install a linux version as a workstation, for the most part I don't need to.

Anyhow, On topic This threads about Mandriva, not a windows vs linux thread. (we've had plenty of them in the past, if you feel that arguements should be made, utilise one of those threads). Try to keep the thread from this point on 'On topic'.

 

I'm fairly new to Linux, I've only used Ubuntu. Is Mandriva worth checking out? Is it targeted to any user group in particular?

 

It's mostly targeted towards people who want to have a user friendly/non complicated system configuration interface. Overall it's a very user friendly distro that is not dumbed down like some Windows clones out there.

You can download their live cd (Mandriva One) and check out for yourself if you like it. http://www.mandriva.com/community/mandrivaone

 

Mandriva is still not very user friendly.

 

How so?

 

What do you think of dyne:bolic and similar distributions?

 

Haven't tried dyne:bolic (thanks for letting me know!), but I have tried some two other multimedia tended distros, they all suffer from one thing: nothing that I've tried compares to Adobe Premiere or other best Windows/MAC non-linear video editors.

These kind of distros will be a lot more useful, when better video editing software is released for Linux. The best thing about these distros of course is that the editing and other soft that comes with them is fine tuned to work at top performance.

Any way, that's my experience, maybe something has radically changed in the last 8 months.

Oh, and of course, that's just me. Maybe for other people they satisfy all their multimedia needs.

 

If you want top quality non-linear video editing for free on linux, I'd say give cinelerra a try. As for audio, I use aduacity and jack.

I've found there are no programs I need so badly that I need to use windows. Hell, Nero feels clunky and weak compared to k3b.

To address the concerns people have been expressing about the load times of linux systems. The issue you face is not actually slower speeds, but slower perceived speeds. Windows systems pop up a window asap, but all the items in said window will not be functional right away as it continues to load the app. Linux buffers a lot more in the memory, so by the time the app pops up, it is fully functional. While that process is more efficient for laoding programs into memory, to the end user used to MS style loading it appears slower. There are different ways to adjust that very aspect on each system, which I don't think we need to go into here, but the sufficiently versed user on either system can make his box perform to his own optimal specifications.