OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/18757/Review_Mandriva_Linux_PowerPack_2008_0 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:24:30 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Finally a Mandriva review!!1 http://osnews.com/thread?277770 http://osnews.com/thread?277770 Thom,
Thanks for taking the time to review Mandriva 2008.0.
Been some time since I saw a review of Mandriva on this website

I am an avid user of Mandriva and find it the best when it comes to combining an easy-to-use desktop with options for experts.
I believe the draktools especially the partitioner to be one of the best.
I think there still is a big role Mandriva can play in the desktop space.
Regards
Gireesh Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (gireesh) Comments Thanks http://osnews.com/thread?277771 http://osnews.com/thread?277771 Thanks for the review, Thom. I can't find any argument with your criticism, though if you file bugs on the issues we'll certainly look at them. In particular you're right about the problem with switching from native to ndiswrapper drivers, it's really a pain that doesn't work. It's something I'm definitely going to ensure is fixed for 2008.1, and 2008 too if it can be fixed with an update. The good side is that bcm43xx really does work for most Broadcom chips now.

I'm a bit surprised you say you tried removing the module entirely and it *still* didn't work, though - that should fix it. Did you reboot or modprobe -r bcm43xx after removing the module? Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?277773 http://osnews.com/thread?277773 Very nice-looking screenshots. Looks like Thom has changed the default position of the titlebar buttons -- a good move, IMO. I usually change also the colour of the titlebar to a darker shade of blue -- this is quite easy to do in KDE.

Thom has also removed the bottom-left menu button and added a top-left menu button. I usually remove the menu button altogether and assign a keyboard shortcut to invoke the application menu. I also assign keyboard shortcuts (Shift+F1, Shift+F2...) to start my most often used applications. Then you don't need to clutter the panel with application icons. Having two panels (one at the top and another at the bottom) seems like an excess to me.

You could try terminus fonts for Konsole, they look nicer. Does Mandriva have terminus fonts?

Congrats to Mandriva for a new release. Personally I prefer Debian and I don't plan to try Mandriva 2008.0 at this time. Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (da_Chicken) Comments RE: Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?277776 http://osnews.com/thread?277776 "Does Mandriva have terminus fonts?"

Yup. Package name is terminus-font . In the contrib repository. Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277784 http://osnews.com/thread?277784 Well, I for one think it is a great idea to blend QT and GTK+ applications. With one (but very important) caveat: The developers must make sure that QT and GTK+ applications are as consistent as possible. This is easier with QT4 and GTK+2 than QT3 and GTK+2.

And considering the unified menubar in KDE in Mandriva they probably should've used the unofficial GTK+ patch (which btw. works fine for most apps). But I'm afraid hell freezes over before the GTK+-devs will incorporate an option for unified menubars. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE: Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277785 http://osnews.com/thread?277785 We don't use the unified menubar by default. Thom chose to use it on his own.

The Mandriva default theme, Ia Ora, is implemented for both GTK+ and Qt, so applications in the two toolkits look very consistent by default. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277789 http://osnews.com/thread?277789 Hmm... could you offer an alternative GTK+-build incorporating the unofficial patches for GTK+ in case somebody wants a unified menubar in KDE? Or would that require two sets of all GTK+-applications?

Not demanding anything, merely curious (or how it is spelled)

EDIT: Oh btw. Does the unified menubar in KDE by any chance work with the unified menubar in EtoilÃ©? :pEdited 2007-10-12 01:17 UTC Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments RE[3]: Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277797 http://osnews.com/thread?277797 I don't think apps would have to be rebuilt. It'd be possible, I believe, but Fred (our GNOME / GTK+ maintainer) has a well known lack of interest in such experimental things, so he probably wouldn't do it. It'd need a community contributor to be interested in it, and AFAIK none of our regular contributors is. There's no technical reason it wouldn't be possible, though, I don't think. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[3]: Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277804 http://osnews.com/thread?277804 Hmm... could you offer an alternative GTK+-build incorporating the unofficial patches for GTK+ in case somebody wants a unified menubar in KDE? Or would that require two sets of all GTK+-applications?

That wouldn't work, no. At least last time I checked, the GTK+ patch for a top menubar was an ugly hack. It won't play nice with KDE's top menubar (unless you patch that with another ugly hack).

Recently, the OS X GTK+ port introduced integration with Mac's top menubar. If someone tried to implement something like that to integrate GTK+ apps better on KDE/X11 and GNUstep/X11, it would probably be merged on GTK+'s official tree. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 03:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (thebluesgnr) Comments RE[4]: Blending QT and GTK+ http://osnews.com/thread?277806 http://osnews.com/thread?277806

Recently, the OS X GTK+ port introduced integration with Mac's top menubar. If someone tried to implement something like that to integrate GTK+ apps better on KDE/X11 and GNUstep/X11, it would probably be merged on GTK+'s official tree.

Hmm.. sounds like something to do at freedesktop.org - an open standard for unified menubars and/or detachable menues (for GNUstep)?

That wouldn't work, no. At least last time I checked, the GTK+ patch for a top menubar was an ugly hack. It won't play nice with KDE's top menubar (unless you patch that with another ugly hack).

Aahh yes. The unified menubar for GTK+/Gnome is in part an applet for gnome-panel (just checking up). That won't work (unless you somehow swallow the applet inside kicker or sumthen like that - sounds like BIG_UGLY_HACK_SO_BREAK_ME_PLEASE). Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dylansmrjones) Comments OS-X bar http://osnews.com/thread?277812 http://osnews.com/thread?277812 "KDE is really, really cool in that it allows for a Mac OS X-like menubar - something GNOME can only do with an unoffical patch to Gtk+. In other words, if you switch to a Gtk+ application in KDE, the menubar will move back to the Gtk+ window, instead of being atop the screen where it belongs"

Now I remember again, that is why I stopped using that bar... Firefox and some other program-thingies refused to play nice with it; quite a shame really

Edited 2007-10-12 05:46 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Darkelve) Comments cedega http://osnews.com/thread?277813 http://osnews.com/thread?277813 Is Cedega still included in the powerpack? Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments RE: cedega http://osnews.com/thread?277814 http://osnews.com/thread?277814 Best to say it's *back* in the Powerpack

. It was in 2007.0, out of 2007.1, but yes, it's back in 2008. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: cedega http://osnews.com/thread?277816 http://osnews.com/thread?277816 That's good news. With a starting 3 mnds subscription? Fri, 12 Oct 2007 06:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments Your ndsiwrapper problem http://osnews.com/thread?277822 http://osnews.com/thread?277822 There is an Errata page where the problem about ndiswrapper combined with the bcm43xx devices is listed.

http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2008.0/Errata

What is says is simple: blacklist the device in /etc/modprobe.conf by adding

blacklist bcm43xx

---EDIT---
This actually does not work according to AdamW, so try his suggestion, see comment below.
---***---

Cheers!Edited 2007-10-12 07:28 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (davo) Comments Tried 2008 free http://osnews.com/thread?277824 http://osnews.com/thread?277824 Yes, tried to install 2008 Free, and could not get SIS onboard graphics to work. Also all kinds of errors on reboot - and no, didn't do anything fancy, just took the default install. As in the past. Life is too short for this stuff, so put in Etch while my user's patience still held up. Went in and worked just fine.

2006 had worked fine. 2007 had failed to install properly on three separate different machines, one of which I took to Suse and two to Debian. 2007.1 I passed on. 2008 does this, admittedly only on one machine.

Life is too short. Others will probably have much happier experiences, but this is the end of my own interest in Mandriva. Which, sadly, I always used to be really enthusiastic about. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (alcibiades) Comments RE: Your ndsiwrapper problem http://osnews.com/thread?277825 http://osnews.com/thread?277825 actually, that one doesn't work, as far as the testing people have done for me has indicated. i've yet to get around to updating it.

note that the native bcm43xx driver works for everyone else I know of who's tried it in 2008, about 10 people. Seems only Thom's particular chipset has a problem with it. So this should not be a problem for most people with Broadcom chips, it should be possible to use it with the bcm43xx driver after following the instructions at http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Releases/Mandriva/2008.0/Notes#Required... . Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: Your ndsiwrapper problem http://osnews.com/thread?277826 http://osnews.com/thread?277826 Well, I have a bcm43xx card laying around somewhere (USRobotics MaxG) for my old laptop (an Acer Travelmate). In the past, I never got it to work with ndiswrapper in Mandriva 2006, nor 2007.0, except for 5 seconds before dropping out again.

I'll give it a try and report here - but that will be for the weekend. It's good to see that about 10 people actually got it working. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (davo) Comments RE[3]: Your ndsiwrapper problem http://osnews.com/thread?277829 http://osnews.com/thread?277829 the native driver basically sucked up until around kernel 2.6.20. it started being actually usable at that point.

i should mention that i personally have a bcm4312 in my laptop, and it's fine with bcm43xx in 2008. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: Your ndsiwrapper problem http://osnews.com/thread?277837 http://osnews.com/thread?277837

note that the native bcm43xx driver works for everyone else I know of who's tried it in 2008, about 10 people. Seems only Thom's particular chipset has a problem with it. So this should not be a problem for most people with Broadcom chips, it should be possible to use it with the bcm43xx driver after following the instructions at

Yup, it's strictly related to the bcm4318 chipset. It's the revision from hell, I tell you. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments Some clarifications http://osnews.com/thread?277841 http://osnews.com/thread?277841 1. The gtk-qt-engine package is not installed by default because of some instabilities issues reported by some users. It was considered safer to not ship it by default. Of course users acan still install it.

2. the drakxtools have a wizard approach because most of them can be launched in CLI without X. So they need to fit in a small console screen. This is a minor tradeoff for a very usefull features, especially for sysadmins.

3. I guess that the bootsplash begins to turn black after you have enable Compiz ?

4. for Expo, check that the package compiz-fusion-plugins-extra is installed, and that ccp is loaded for compiz :
ps -fe | grep compiz

5. Whereas LinDVD is an ugly gtk+1 application, it's the only _legal_ way to play encrypted DVD, especially in the United States ( DMCA ). Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (darkmind) Comments RE: Some clarifications http://osnews.com/thread?277842 http://osnews.com/thread?277842 Whereas LinDVD is an ugly gtk+1 application, it's the only _legal_ way to play encrypted DVD, especially in the United States ( DMCA ).

Right. As long as it plays my DVD's i couldn't care less how the player looks. And it did play "The Condemned" as it should. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments Gtk/Gnome only http://osnews.com/thread?277852 http://osnews.com/thread?277852 Just a word to say I enjoyed the review. I did the opposite of the OS, as I installed the Free version, with only Gnome & Gtk apps. All good, but it was on a desktop, so I can't comment about any wireless problems...
I think Mandriva is climbing back in the distro charts, and this release is better than its Suse counterpart.

One strange thing : I can't manage to have my "Gmail notifier" connecting on Firefox in Mandriva, while it works perfectly well in Fedora, Debian and others... Strange... Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Caraibes) Comments First distro http://osnews.com/thread?277856 http://osnews.com/thread?277856 heh, my first distro was redhat 5.2 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (spikeb) Comments Multimedia is a plus in Mandriva http://osnews.com/thread?277859 http://osnews.com/thread?277859 I think a big selling issue for Mandriva is that they have paid-for codecs so that all your multimedia needs are covered out of the box.

Of course, this can be done in other distributions with a few mouse clicks (Ubuntu) or more mouse clicks (Suse requires the uninstallation of their crippled kaffeine, amarok and xine and the installation of packman's kaffeine, amarok and libxine).

But in the ease of use department for a new user, having codecs work out of the box is miles ahead in importance than the fact that they use the best application for the task, irrespective of which toolkit was used to write it.

In fact, most windows users are very much used to having all kinds of applications use all kinds of layout, widgets and toolkits, so I doubt that that is a major issue for them.

Overall, this was a good review, although I would have liked to hear a bit more about stability, responsiveness of the system and urpmi, which I hear has been improved even further in this release. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (porcel) Comments polish and Polish http://osnews.com/thread?277862 http://osnews.com/thread?277862 Thom, there are *many* words in English that change meaning by capitalization, eg:

english (spin on cueball) English (odd island-dweller)
bush (I'll leave that one alone) Bush (and that too)
chad (of the famous hanging type) Chad (African country)
turkey (me, usually) Turkey (fascinating country)
frank (open, as in frank source) Frank (Rhine crosser)
nice (pleasant) Nice (pleasant city)
joe (coffee) Joe (like Little Joe of Bonanza)

But polish/Polish does have one distinction. It not only changes meaning, but also pronunciation.

Mandrake was also my introduction to Linux. Although I no longer use it, it's nice to see it returning to what it does best, putting out an easy-to-use and well thought-out desktop distribution. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Geoff Gigg) Comments problems - just few. http://osnews.com/thread?277866 http://osnews.com/thread?277866 on my machine almost everything worked except broadcom (I have tried with the native driver and it did work for a while before it dropped the connection).
Skype didn't work, seems to be missing some qt libraries.
Google earth, guessing the same libraries.

anything else worked great, the LinDVD player I think is bad because you can only change the region 5? times, and I do have some foreign moves with a diffrent region.
But this is easly fixed with vlc.

I still think it's a great distro worth paying for.

btw. I have a HP pavillion dvXXXX something laptop. amd x64Edited 2007-10-12 13:07 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nilew) Comments The only thing... http://osnews.com/thread?277869 http://osnews.com/thread?277869 The only thing stopping me from moving to Mandriva now is the lack of multiple screen support. I just want a simple tool that detects the second screen attached to the laptop and configures it automatically. Seriously, that's the only thing. It's 2007 so do not ask me to edit any configuration file. I don't edit the registry on Windows - technology has moved on.

I say this because I've been testing many (and I do mean many) Linux and BSD distros to move away from Windows. The only thing that's remotely close to a usable system is Mandriva. I loved it back in April and now even more with the new release. Ubuntu is very clunky in comparison. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eKstreme) Comments Enough Reasons to warrant buying the PowerPack http://osnews.com/thread?277874 http://osnews.com/thread?277874 What I am curious about, is whether there are enough reasons to buy the Power Pack edition. Are their tools in it, that I can't get in another distro for free? Enabling the universe, and multiverse repos in Ubuntu, will get me over 23,000 software packages. I believe Gentoo has about the same. I saw where Cedega might be included, and I have that already. It works wonders on the new releases, but I've got tons of old games, that refuse to work on it. I'm just trying to see the benefits of switching over to Mandriva, from any other distro. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (whittmadden) Comments RE: Enough Reasons to warrant buying the PowerPack http://osnews.com/thread?277888 http://osnews.com/thread?277888 besides CeDeGA, LinDVD, you have a ton of software in DVD format, so less to donload.

And you get the manual (if you get the boxed version).

And you get to make sure Mandriva continues existing, by paying them for their services.

Yes, you can use Mandriva paying nothing. But others feel like giving them some moneyfor their work is a fair thing.

Peace! Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (opkool) Comments RE: Enough Reasons to warrant buying the PowerPack http://osnews.com/thread?277919 http://osnews.com/thread?277919 Cedega, LinDVD and the Fluendo codecs are the banner benefits of the PowerPack edition. I think there's some other commercial stuff on there too, I don't have a package list handy right at the moment though. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE: The only thing... http://osnews.com/thread?277922 http://osnews.com/thread?277922 What graphics card do you have?

If Intel, try this at a console:

xrandr --auto

If NVIDIA, try using:

nvidia-settings

If ATI, try using:

aticonfig Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments Fonts and general feel http://osnews.com/thread?277926 http://osnews.com/thread?277926 I installed KDE One on my avarage ThinkPad R50 and was able to keep it fer approximately one hour. I noticed some glitches (for example - all windows got transparent after suspend to RAM). But my general complaint is about how it looks. I have bad luck with getting good fonts on Mandriva and I experienced the same with PCLOS. Whatever fonts I try and whatever settings I use - everything looks like crap. On SuSE and Debian fonts look great. Why there are problems with Mandriva? Moreover, why Mandriva has so cheap bootsplash - ir looks kind of unfocused. Is it that hard to make one that is a bit sharper. In spite of the fact that I like how Mandriva preforms, it is not my distro of choice. Yes, I think that new openSuSE release is much better.
Just my 2 cents. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eudoxus) Comments RE: Multimedia is a plus in Mandriva http://osnews.com/thread?277967 http://osnews.com/thread?277967 or more mouse clicks (Suse requires the uninstallation of their crippled kaffeine, amarok and xine and the installation of packman's kaffeine, amarok and libxine).

Actually that's not true for OS10.3. I clicked on a mp3, kaffeine launched, told me it lacked codecs and gave me a link. When you click on it it takes you to a help page with one of SuSE's meta-package links (does anyone else use them? They're great), that then was busy for about 20mins installing uncrippled media players, java, flash and all the other stuff.

It's really great.

Unfortunately SuSE's still dooooooog slooooowwwww compared to other distros. So back to PCLinuxOS

Compare that to my Mandrake experience:
1. Download page needs JS, I hate those pages.
2. After activating it and selecting the first download link I get a 404
3. The third works but stalls half way through.
4. You Fail.Edited 2007-10-12 17:17 Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nutshell42) Comments RE[2]: Multimedia is a plus in Mandriva http://osnews.com/thread?277994 http://osnews.com/thread?277994 I just tested the download page. The first link in the list is to the Austrian server, http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrakelinux/official/iso/2008.0 . I checked, and this download worked correctly.

The FTP / HTTP mirrors are under heavy load at the moment. It's a better idea to use the BitTorrent downloads, which are linked right there on the downloads page. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: Multimedia is a plus in Mandriva http://osnews.com/thread?278010 http://osnews.com/thread?278010 I was talking of the powerpack which sells for 35 , which is what Thom was reviewing here. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 20:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (porcel) Comments 32 or 64 ? http://osnews.com/thread?278026 http://osnews.com/thread?278026 Just to mention:
I was trying up to now a x64 distro with an e6400 intel...
Ubuntu fail with a lot os issues, some others too etc..
The only one working right out of the box is this one! Mandriva !
Probably (I am not certain) it's because it is not a full 64 bit distro but it's at my opinion a very good move from Madriv's people, ti mix both environments.
I can now on my desktop use some 32 or 64 bit logs without having the question; will it run ?...
Just for this it worth to try Mandriva and give it a chance... Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flojlg) Comments RE[2]: Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?278046 http://osnews.com/thread?278046 It's certainly nice that Mandriva makes the terminus fonts available via its contrib repository. However, it would be even nicer if you included them in your default installation.

IMHO, terminus fonts are the best terminal fonts available, both for tty's and for X terminals. Terminus fonts are the default fonts in Debian's "console-setup" utility that sets up tty's easily for different locales.
http://packages.debian.org/etch/console-setup Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (da_Chicken) Comments RE[3]: Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?278050 http://osnews.com/thread?278050 I prefer Vera / DejaVu monospace, honestly. Don't much like terminus. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE: 32 or 64 ? http://osnews.com/thread?278052 http://osnews.com/thread?278052 Just about all of the x86-64 editions of Mandriva is x86-64 native. The only major bit that's not is OpenOffice.org, the x86-64 build of OO.o has been experimental for a long time. We may make the x86-64 build default on x86-64 machines in 2008.1.

But yes, you can install x86-32 apps and libraries alongside x86-64 ones where you have a need to, MDV is designed to make this possible. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[4]: Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?278056 http://osnews.com/thread?278056 I prefer Vera / DejaVu monospace, honestly. Don't much like terminus.

I can respect your preference. Still, that's a poor reason to exclude terminus fonts from the default installation of Mandriva -- some users might have different preferences than you. Of course, it's eventually your choice but I'd just like to point out that there might be users who prefer the terminus fonts, like me. Adding the terminus fonts wouldn't eat much additional disk space, I think. Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (da_Chicken) Comments Somewhat Biased http://osnews.com/thread?278067 http://osnews.com/thread?278067 While the review was okay, to me it comes off biased. Themes and personal preference items while good for side commentary shouldn't be considered when reviewing a distribution, because those item have no bearing on how well the system works with your hardware or the how well the applications meet your needs. The overall look of the distribution is worth mentioning, but lets just leave it at I like the look or I don't, but it's easily modified. Also, if you know you have a piece of hardware that is unlikely to work(in almost all distibutions), how can you hold it against the distro especially when they've set up specific instructions on a wiki to try to help users get around the problem. If windows isn't expected to meet this requirment, why should Mandriva be held to that standard. No distro can be all things for every user's hardware. As the owner of a Thinkpad T60, I've got to say that Mandriva 2008 is great for Thinkpads. I have Intel/ATI hardware components and everything works out of the box with no configuration changes. In the past two days I've installed openSUSE 10.3 and Mandriva and while I was very impressed with openSUSE 10.3 Mandriva deintely edges it out. openSUSE has frame buffer issues when you try to install the latest ATI proprietary drivers and requires you to modify the Boot menulistto have any chance of it working wit the 1XXX chipsets. Everything else in openSUSE worked fairly well, but it's just not as polished as Mandriva. Fonts, configuration tools and the install process are all componets that are implemented with more polish in mandriva. I've used openSUSE 10.2 for the past year and i really liked it, but Mandriva 2008 has convinced me to come back to my roots. I wish Lenovo would release it's Thinkvantage tools for all linux distributions instead of just SLED/openSUSE 10.2, becasue they're very useful. I'm happy to see mandriva get the publcity the review will provide, but I'm still waiting for a review that avoids mentioning Ubuntu and get to the root of whether or not an individual believes that Mandriva is a disto that will allow Linux users to be more productive than they were with last years group of disributions on the hardware and software fronts. Perhaps I've used Linux long enough to know how to not hold it against a distro if it isn't OSX (designed for a specific piece of hardware) out of the box. I wish evryone would have a more open mind with linux reviews that don't include Ubuntu in the title.Edited 2007-10-13 03:02 Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Guppetto) Comments RE[5]: Nice-looking screenshots http://osnews.com/thread?278077 http://osnews.com/thread?278077 Well, in theory, there is at least *one* user who likes every font in existence, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Should we therefore include every font in the distro in the default install? Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:26:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments Erunno http://osnews.com/thread?278084 http://osnews.com/thread?278084 I didn't have the opportunity to test Mandriva fully as it wouldn't boot on my desktop system where I have a spare partition for occasional distribution testing but one detail that caught my eye with the livecd was that it doesn't respect my language choice I made in Grub. With Ubuntu and openSUSE the configuration/installation dialogues use the language selected in Grub by default while Mandriva switches back to English (although the language pack was available).

It's small details like this that make one distro feel more polished than the other. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 10:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Erunno) Comments RE[2]: 32 or 64 ? http://osnews.com/thread?278086 http://osnews.com/thread?278086 this open a point that I don't understand.
Mandriva come to have some inventive (inovatives?) and or try some ways to improve our way of seeing linux. (it's a point of vue).
But when you go to the main site mandriva, even the new one, you don't see or feel that way!
How many clic to get an info or even download ? 6 pages to buy the new version 2008!
4 to get the wiki, 5 for the forum, it's even just in 800x600....
Even to get the infos about the new club advantages ?where ?

Mandriva, please, show more what you are! Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (flojlg) Comments Dear friends... http://osnews.com/thread?278104 http://osnews.com/thread?278104 Your distribution is very nice. But why I can't still configure my ADSL modem (pppoe)?
With most other distros I can. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous Penguin) Comments RE: Tried 2008 free http://osnews.com/thread?278108 http://osnews.com/thread?278108 Funny... my desktop machine has a SIS gfx-chipset (my Laptop has a CLE266 card), too and does (both do) work perfectly with 2008. Did you make sure that you did not get a bad burn or corrupt download by accident? Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (arctic) Comments RE[3]: 32 or 64 ? http://osnews.com/thread?278109 http://osnews.com/thread?278109 Um, are we looking at the same site?

One click to get to the download page. One to get to information about One, Powerpack or Flash. One to buy the Powerpack (click the big orange 'download' link in front of Powerpack). Two to get to the Wiki (Community, Mandriva Wiki). Two to get to the forum (Community, forums). I don't know what you mean about 800x600, the forum site uses phpBB so it doesn't matter what your resolution is. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE: Dear friends... http://osnews.com/thread?278110 http://osnews.com/thread?278110 You can, drakconnect has an ADSL connection type. Did you try it? Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AdamW) Comments RE[2]: Dear friends... http://osnews.com/thread?278119 http://osnews.com/thread?278119 Of course I did, Adam, but for some unknown reason it doesn't work. Same problem with the 2007 edition, got better with 2007 Spring. Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous Penguin) Comments boxed http://osnews.com/thread?278344 http://osnews.com/thread?278344 Is the powerpack boxed version released yet?
Hard to get here in the netherlands :-( Mon, 15 Oct 2007 13:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (netpython) Comments Mandriva 2008.0 rocks ! http://osnews.com/thread?279463 http://osnews.com/thread?279463 Mandriva 2008.0 rocks ! I'm writing this from a MDV 2008.0 box ! Sat, 20 Oct 2007 20:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (shiva) Comments