A test version of Mandriva Linux, Limited Edition 2005 is now available as a full FTP installation tree which can be downloaded on a number of FTP mirrors. This new release includes up to date flagship software such as GNOME 2.8.2, Gimp 2.2, OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 and many others: more than 10,000 applications are provided (main + contribs + jpackages), for both x86-32 and x86-64 processors.
Mandriva (ex Mandrake) Linux LE 2005 hits FTP mirrors
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it should be called Mandiva, Mandriva is a bit rough..
It is available for FTP installation, but, as always, it’s only available for club members: “If you are looking for ISO images to burn CDs or a DVD, join the Club and download now (bitorrent or http)!”
In a couple months, it should be available to the general public, without a club subscription.
Oh, and it’s not so much a “test version”.. but more a transitionary product between the 10.1 release, and fall 2006 release. Mandriva has published a roadmap, so you can see how their release cycle will function, among other things: http://www.mandriva.com/company/press/pr?n=/pr/products/2546
Think of LE 2005, as 10.2 – Sort of
up to date flagship software like GNOME 2.8.2 – what does ubuntu hoary (stable) have again?
i’d rather call it “not outdated flagship s/w”
good luck with the new comany, mandriva – i hope you won’t get as close to 0 with the money as with mandrake; it’s a hard business!
Err, actually Mandriva (Mandrake) should be held high as a lesson of how to make money in the Linux world. They had huge obsticles to overcome coming out of the dot bomb, and truly have done a great job at it. There are many things that one would and could say about Mandriva, but attacking their business model or ability to make a profit is something that only an uneducated person would take a stab at.
No, it *is* available to non-Club members. The FTP mirrors are freely accessible and contain the entire distribution. All you have to do is do a network install – download boot.iso from the images directory, write it to a CD, boot from it and choose network installation. Point it at your favourite mirror and shoot. What’s not available to non-Club members is ISOs, and they’ll be released some time next month.
You’re right it’s not a ‘test’ release, though. It’s a full stable release and it _is_ 10.2, it just got renamed a few weeks ago. It’s a ‘Limited Edition’ because there’s no retail distribution and no technical support. That’s all.
Just upgraded, and my desktop seems quite a bit snappier. So far I’m happy. Viva la Mandriva!
Make sure you get the special KDE 3.4 packages for extra functionalities and especially extra speeeed.
Where?
Thanks
what is the point of putting people through the pain of net installs when an ISO is perfectly fine. its not as if they are preventing people from downloading their software. the net result is only that people feel resentful and dislike further mandrakes strategy and customer relationship management.
in my opinion, you either do not allow any downloads or you allow ISOs. silly. silly. silly. how long before someone constructs an ISO from the tree?
and how much confidence is there in a tree that is listed under the /devel/ directory?
sigh. i think after many years of using mandrake i am seriously looking for alternatives that are truly free. (free not as is beer, or liberty, free from an unreasonable pain in the rump).
i don’t trust ubuntu’s corporate backers. there must be somethng that;s more end-user oriented that is as “free” as debian?
fedora and debian are being considered. fedora is quite ugly. and it always seems much heavier for what it actually does. having said that i do trust their engineering than other distributions. if only there was a fedora-i586 or fedora-i686 distorbution (not just the kernel, the whole thing, image processing for example benefits from cpu optimisation)
gentoo is the other big one and to be honest its not the compiling that is a pain – its the incredibly inconsistent USE variable mechanism. either you know what they all do, and are aware of them, or there is no point in such customisation. in any such large set of variables, for them to be useful, they must be consistent and logical. they are not. i dont have the time to consider every single one. i remember back in early gentoo days when there were about 20 USE variables. now the list is crazy.
suse is not free. nothing wrong with that. but its inconsisent – whenever you find a recipe or a method there is always an exception for suse. i don’t have time. anyway suse is for desktop users who won’t be doing much more than that.
slackware – again another of the rare distributions which i trust. but again i would like i586/i686. and some degree of hardware configuration – again i don’t have time. i want to insert my USB memeory stick and i want it to work. i want it to use my dell WSXGA display. i want it to be able to use both a mouse and the touchpad at the sime time – like mandrake did.
the smaller ones like mepis, pclinuxonline, vector, … i don’t have the time to fix them when they go wrng… there is comfort in knowing that people are using what you’re using. if you have a problem someone else might have a fix – (similarly if they have a problem you might have a fix. )
what of the BSDs. they match all the criteria for me. solid, rusted engineering, consistent(ish). large userbase. even if netbsd has a smaller userbase than freebsd – the effect is not diminished – your netbsd is the same as their netbsd. so its easier to support each other. problem is only the hardware issue. will netbsd do cu frequency sclaing on my laptop? will i be able to use the nvidia 3d acceleration?
its a shame that after all this time, i feel i have been uhed away from mandrake.
and in case anyone thinks their stategy has paid off – in terms of profitability – think again. take away the very suportive french government – and you have a mandrake that is without governement trainingcontracts, R&D contracts, and implemenation contracts, without susidies and without chapter 11.
what “R&D” does mandrake do anyway? i ask as en EU citizen whose taxes go to the EU and pay to bail out companies like Mandrake.
ISO’s will be available in a couple of weeks. They have to offer some value to the mandrakeclub members (who actually choose to pay for the software). This is no worse than Linspire charging a fee to use click and play.. and just as in Linspire you can point apt-get to the universe repositories, in Mandriva you can point URPMI to the new 2005 repositories and update. Or as has been stated above, you can use the network ISO to do a net install. btw, http://rpm.nyvalls.se/ has a build of kde 3.4 (I’m running it on my system right now)
Screenshots:
http://www.hup.hu/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8603