Mandriva Spring 2008 The New “Definitive” Linux?
Submitted by srlinuxx on Sun, 08/03/2008 - 20:47.
I’ll just lay this out right from the beginning: Mandriva Spring 2008 Live CD is better than most other distributions fully installed. I am currently writing this blog on a laptop (that is generally flaky about Linux distributions) running the Live version of Mandriva Spring 2008. And even without installing the distribution I am very impressed. Let’s see just how this is faring.
Display: Works perfectly.
Wireless: Works perfectly.
Sound: Works perfectly.
Hibernation: Works for the most part but because of the Live nature the laptop doesn’t want to fully hibernate.
Performance: Outstanding (blows away the currently installed gOS).
Installation: Quirky but simple.
So now, let’s break it down into its constituent pieces.
Installation
It’s not so much the installation that was quirky but loading the Live CD that caught me off guard. Generally a Live CD is booted and places you directly on the desktop. The Mandriva Spring 2008 version of the Live CD first had you select your local and your keyboard and then you actually had to accept an EULA. I have never come across this in a Linux distribution. So I accepted the EULA and then had to select my local and keyboard yet again. Once that was done the live CD booted to the login where you select Guest as the user and no password.
Once logged in everything worked perfectly. I had to open up the network connection tool and select my wireless network. But once I clicked connect I was up and running (and writing this blog.) I really like what Mandriva has done with KDE 3.5. The look and feel is one of the nicest default KDE themes I have seen.
Now the installation on one of my desktop machines was flawless. During the installation you are asked if you want 3D desktop effects enabled and what you want to handle them (either Compiz or Matisse - I chose Compiz.)
Mandriva Spring 2008
FTA: "This is, without a doubt, the finest release of any Linux distribution I have ever experienced in my 10+ years of using Linux."
It's true. I can attest to the same experience.
Mandriva Spring 2008
Mandriva is **THE** desktop Linux. Full stop.
Mandriva flavour ? Whats next ? More hardware partnership ?
Mandriva is French. SliTaz understood the kernel 2.6.x best. So, despite 2500 bugs every time kernels change, Mandriva can only fix 1800; it is less bugs by staying with a kernel that can do the new batch of laptops. This means kernel and applications are well suited. Mandriva must have learned(from their standards committee) some debian architecture in their RedHat fork to reduce the number of bugs of their RedHat architecture?
So, it is on the way to bios adaptation, same as Foxconn on AMI, Then perhaps phoenix bios as well to get correct work around on acpi, PNPos, fsb ratio and wait state adjustment on the fly(hypervisor on shadowed bios) for cpu temperature control(take advantage of steppings in some cpu).
Congratulation to Mandriva staff. More partnership with computer manufacturers will help even more. Each code in the source code has to be examined for prosperity sake.
Footnote:
RedHat Linux 7.0 had 9 partitions. Debian sarge had 1 partition. So, one debian(platform instruction dependent, kernel branches independent apps) bugs(600+) can be multiplied 4.13333 times in RedHat architecture. So, shrinking number of partitions then add symlinks will shrink bugs from errors in bindings.
A footnote on Suse architecture:
Suse is based on Slackware. Slackware uses both SYSV and BSD commands. So it has to have specific configuration utility on separate branches of kernels. These specific utilities created problems with bindings(in administration, drivers, network, and window manager). So, they have more bugs(50,000) with every change of Linux kernels. Slackware is very slow in adopting new kernels, even with the use of only one directory.
THE Desktop Linux?
After I read this review I burned a CD and give it a shoot on my test machine. But after a short test this is what I got:
-I couldn´t choose my language and/or country (Sweden)
-Mandriva didn´t recognised my monitor (Acer AL1917) nor my graphic card (sparkle Nvidia 6200) consecuently I didn´t got the right resolution.
-I was unable to play streaming media (Windows Media, Realplayer files) online, and it didn´t gave me a solution.
But that´s the beauty Linux and all its flavours, we have differents tastes and differents needs, some use KDE and others Gnome. I´ll continue with Debian and its derivates for a while.
Mandriva Languages, PNPos, video protocols ? How come ?
Languages are a lot of work. Keyboard map, L18n, then a lot of gui language conversions. Mandriva had to have a lot of paying customers to put in all that work.
Video protocols are proprietary in many cases. You may have to install Realplayer yourself, otherwise Mandriva has to pay for a license.
The real Xorg drivers should be componentized like in Vista. So that from the bios, PNPos, you can install the correct components(instruction sets) for Nvidiz video cards(any four number cards ie. 6200). Without bios PNPos for components of any drivers; Vista copied the XP drivers and its corresponding components in a wizard to use Vista drivers. I am sure Vista SP2(without driver wizards) will have work around new PNPos(real Plug and play componentized drivers, not plug and pray) in the new AMI or Phoenix bios.
Footnote:
Linux /dev drivers invented componentized video drivers. Xvesa using VGA and options of 791 or 792 resolution can handle all the old and new video cards thru backward compatibility. New options may do all the larger monitors beyond 1024x768. However Svga can only do all the S3 video cards. But other Linux drivers all have componentized features(generic functions).