OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/21401/Mandriva_Linux_2009_Spring_Released Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Sun, 19 May 2013 20:59:04 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com msec http://www.osnews.com/thread?360963 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360963 s/msev/msec Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (maaxx) Comments Wow http://www.osnews.com/thread?360964 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360964 This sounds like good release... Almost bleeding-edge packages, hopefully nicely integrated.

I have started my Linux journey with Mandrake 6.4 or 7.2, can't really tell now, and it was a pleasant experience. Hasn't touched Mandrake/iva for 3 or 4 years now but problems I have with Ubuntu 9.04/Intel 965GM graphics may be good reason to try something else.

Looking at their site: purple-violet theme is gone?! WTF!? ;) Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:29:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kajaman) Comments Comment by satan666 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360966 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360966
Fun fact: this is the first release reported to us by Anne Nicolas instead of Adam Williamson. For those that keep score.

There is nothing funny here. It's sad. OK it's funny for Adam maybe (being a RedHat employee).

Been running cooker since the first alpha. This is the best Mandriva release since 2008.1 ;) Edited 2009-04-29 21:37 UTC Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments Ahh memories http://www.osnews.com/thread?360969 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360969 I remember my first taste of Linux was back with Mandrake 6 and used that for a long time before I found more simplicity/stability on the Debian side.

That's the one thing that gets hard.. I've built the last many years around Kubuntu and then something great like this comes out and you shift over to this... until the next great thing. Good thing we all love computers this much!

If someone wouldn't mind... Mandriva One vs. the Powerpack. Worth buying or stick with One? Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nathbeadle) Comments Finally http://www.osnews.com/thread?360970 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360970 I've been waiting for 2009 Spring for a good while. Mandriva is an awesome distro, and I've seen a lot better installers than theirs the distro itself is rock-solid.

Gotta go and install soon! Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) Comments RE: Finally http://www.osnews.com/thread?360971 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360971 damn it, too many distros to try. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (daedliusswartz) Comments RE: Ahh memories http://www.osnews.com/thread?360983 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360983
If someone wouldn't mind... Mandriva One vs. the Powerpack. Worth buying or stick with One?


Powerpack is worth buying if you like the distro they make and want to support them.

Otherwise, if you live in a country (read USA) where the libdecss is illegal, you might want Powerpack to be able to play encrypted DVD's legally.

If you don't want to pay, or you live in a country (most European countries) with more liberal copyright laws, it's just as easy to use the PLF repositories.

With Powerpack you also get support, Cedega (for playing win-games), etc. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (josi) Comments RE: Ahh memories http://www.osnews.com/thread?360984 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360984 I would stick with the One edition if you just want to try things out. There is no 64bit 'One' so if you want that you need to install 'Free'. I'm running 2009.0 Free 64bit and I like it. Don't let the 'free' scare you, simply install the proprietary goodies you need from the PLF. Keep in mind that 'Free' is install only, no liveCD.

I only wish the system was more responsive. The package manager is unbearably slow, like openSuSE slow. Other bits seem sluggish too but a good overall system. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kenji) Comments RE[2]: Ahh memories http://www.osnews.com/thread?360985 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360985
I only wish the system was more responsive. The package manager is unbearably slow, like openSuSE slow. Other bits seem sluggish too but a good overall system.

Man, the mirrors are busy like hell. The system IS responsive. Wait a few weeks and you'll see that the mirrors will become responsive too. Do you have any idea how many downloads are there simultaneously?Edited 2009-04-29 23:38 UTC Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (satan666) Comments RE[2]: Ahh memories http://www.osnews.com/thread?360994 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360994
"If someone wouldn't mind... Mandriva One vs. the Powerpack. Worth buying or stick with One?
Powerpack is worth buying if you like the distro they make and want to support them. Otherwise, if you live in a country (read USA) where the libdecss is illegal, you might want Powerpack to be able to play encrypted DVD's legally. If you don't want to pay, or you live in a country (most European countries) with more liberal copyright laws, it's just as easy to use the PLF repositories. With Powerpack you also get support, Cedega (for playing win-games), etc. "

Firstly, Linux does not use DeCss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

Instead, it uses libdvdcss

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss

These two work in entirely different ways.

libdvdcss is not to be confused with DeCSS. While DeCSS uses a cracked DVD player key to perform authentication, libdvdcss uses a generated list of possible player keys. If none of them work (for instance, when the DVD drive enforces region coding) a brute force algorithm is tried so the region code of a DVD is ignored. Unlike DeCSS, libdvdcss has never been legally challenged.


After all, a DVD actually has the key required to decode it actually stored on the DVD itself (somewhere within a long list of possible keys) ... otherwise a stand-alone DVD player could not decode the DVD. AFAIK libdvdcss just tries, one after another, all of the keys it finds (in plaintext) on the DVD, until it finds one that works.

Since libdvdcss was written before the US DMCA law was passed, and since libdvdcss does not reverse-engineer anything anyway, and since it works in order to be able to play DVDs that have been legally purchased ... I cannot personally see a sensible way to consider it illegal even under US laws.

libdvdcss is not itself a copy of any other copyrighted work. It does not use any kind of "key cracking" mechanism and its purpose is to play legally-purchased DVDs so it is not a "circumvention device", and it is not reverse-engineered from anything else.

IANAL. YMMV. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:18:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (lemur2) Comments Recommended http://www.osnews.com/thread?360998 http://www.osnews.com/thread?360998 I cannot recommend 2009 spring with KDE enough.

Everyone who was disappointed by KDE4 (as I was, a big fan of KDE during the 3 series) should give this one a try.

I haven't been a big user of rpm distros before but this one works very well at least. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mariux) Comments frenchies :) http://www.osnews.com/thread?361002 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361002 .Edited 2009-04-30 06:52 UTC Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Phocean) Comments Problems http://www.osnews.com/thread?361012 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361012 I can boot from the KDE4-CD (2009.1, checked MD5 and SHA1), but Mandriva fails to detect my graphics card and stays at a black screen forever after the services started.

Any idea? Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (detto) Comments RE: Problems http://www.osnews.com/thread?361017 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361017 Did you have a look at the erratas ?

for example:
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2009.1_Errata#Upgrade_of_x11-server

Regards,
glyjEdited 2009-04-30 10:09 UTC Thu, 30 Apr 2009 10:08:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (glyj) Comments RE: Recommended http://www.osnews.com/thread?361021 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361021 Does this version of KDE4 allow you to configure click-in-root-window window-list and application menus (what you get to in KDE3 by ControlCenter>Desktop>Behavior>Mouse Button Actions)? Every other WM I've used (since OLWM on Sparc2's around 1990) has allowed some measure of configurability here; from what I hear, KDE4 is completely broken in that regard.

Unless it does, it's good-bye to KDE for me and probably good-by to Mandriva/Mandrake after twelve years of use. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (cjcoats) Comments Comment by Calipso http://www.osnews.com/thread?361032 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361032 I first started out with Mandrake 9.1. Might be time to check out the distro again that started it all for me. Looks like a nice release. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Calipso) Comments RE[2]: Recommended http://www.osnews.com/thread?361035 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361035
Does this version of KDE4 allow you to configure click-in-root-window window-list and application menus (what you get to in KDE3 by ControlCenter>Desktop>Behavior>Mouse Button Actions)? Every other WM I've used (since OLWM on Sparc2's around 1990) has allowed some measure of configurability here; from what I hear, KDE4 is completely broken in that regard.

Unless it does, it's good-bye to KDE for me and probably good-by to Mandriva/Mandrake after twelve years of use.


Since you seem to be a fan of the distribution wouldn't be easier if you just installed a different window manager - Fluxbox judging by the description of your needs - and retain all of the qualities that make Mandriva a good distro for you instead of switching distros completely? Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (DeadFishMan) Comments RE[2]: Recommended http://www.osnews.com/thread?361041 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361041 Hi !

Please have a look in System Settings then choose "Window behaviour". You will find there all what you need. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anne) Comments RE: Problems http://www.osnews.com/thread?361051 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361051 IMHO you are affected by the following bug :
https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=49503

Try the workaround as described in the bug report :
CTRL+ALT+F1
log as root ( login = root )
service dm restart

and normally you should be ok. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (linuxwizard) Comments The best KDE distribution ! http://www.osnews.com/thread?361054 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361054 Mandriva always was the best KDE-based distribution. And the better is that Gnome and LXDE can be installed from the same media (on the Free or Powerpack versions).

There only 2 distributions with a complete control panel and both a powerfull tradicional installer and livecd options: Mandriva and OpenSuse. But Mandriva is lighter and faster and has more packages in official repositories. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (shiva) Comments RE[2]: Ahh memories - use urpmi http://www.osnews.com/thread?361061 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361061 Sometimes you need the graphic package manager to search for titles or descriptions. If you know the aproximate or exact package name then it's far faster to go command line:

urpmi --update
urpmq firefo
urpmi mozilla-firefox

(where urpmq "firefo" returns any package name containing the text including "firefox" or "mozilla-firefox") Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (jabbotts) Comments RE: The best KDE distribution ! http://www.osnews.com/thread?361063 http://www.osnews.com/thread?361063 One of the best distribution now? with the best control center that works in the console too. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PocoO) Comments