Gael Duval, creator of Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux), has been fired from the company. The information leaked on the Mandriva forums, and Duval later confirmed it on his own webpage. He says: "Since the information has leaked, I will post a message in the next few days on this website about why this is the end of the Mandriva story for me, and what's next." Since Mandrake was for many the first distribution they ever tried, I think it is only fair to thank him for creating Mandrake, and to wish him the best of luck in any following endeavours.
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Member since:2005-07-06
"Ubuntu is not damaging Mandriva on the features/functionality front. It is simply winning the marketing game. Linux users are an interesting crowd to try and win over. What will put of more users is Mandriva's really-annoying Club system. I can't get update notifications to my desktop because I'm not in the club. So I have to go find my own mirrors, and replace them as the mirrors go down. That's enough to lose a lot of loyal Linux users: we like free to mean free."
Heh. It's kind of funny how you suggest that Ubuntu has no advantages except for "marketing" and then demonstrate one of the best features of Ubuntu: that it has totally free update notifications with no need to hunt for unofficial mirrors, and no stupid club that you have to join (and no pestering to give them money). I'd call that a feature, no?
Member since:2005-07-06
You don't have to be in the Club to get update notifications: it's a separate service called Mandriva Online, which costs $20 per year. Club members get Online free as part of their subscription. I'm sure it's lovely to be a distro with a gigantic slush fund and no commercial imperatives who can provide update notification services for free, but we have to make money _somewhere_. You don't have to pay to get updates, and there's no special paid-for update mirrors, Online is purely a notification service that uses MandrivaUpdate to actually _install_ the updates.
Member since:
2006-01-10
Maybe I'm tired of the Ubuntu buzz, or maybe I'm just tired of the prevelent Mandriva-bashing, but as someone who has run many distros, including both Ubuntu and Mandriva, I don't see why Ubuntu is such a big shaker. Mandriva still has the _much_ better installer. It's just as easy to upgrade packages (apt-get vs. urpmi). Mandriva provides many more graphical configuration tools for things like video settings, xorg configurations, etc.
Ubuntu is not damaging Mandriva on the features/functionality front. It is simply winning the marketing game. Linux users are an interesting crowd to try and win over. What will put of more users is Mandriva's really-annoying Club system. I can't get update notifications to my desktop because I'm not in the club. So I have to go find my own mirrors, and replace them as the mirrors go down. That's enough to lose a lot of loyal Linux users: we like free to mean free.