Submitted by “It’s not often that you see a desktop operating system aimed at power users. Usually an experienced user is expected to build the operating system from the command line ala FreeBSD, Gentoo, Debian, Slackware, or Linux From Scratch. Either of those options can take hours of research, config file hacking, and software downloading and installing. Mandriva Linux PowerPack Edition is quite a departure from both of those scenarios.”
“Usually an experienced user is expected to build the operating system from the command line ala FreeBSD…”
I’ve never had to install FreeBSD from the commandline. The aging sysinstall may well be ugly and a bit “long in the tooth,” but it’s pretty damned simple to use and effective for quite a bit of gerneral administrative tasks.
“Usually an experienced user is expected to build the operating system from the command line ala… Debian, Slackware… Either of those options can take hours of research, config file hacking, and software downloading and installing.”
I believe he doesn’t have a clue.
Slackware? It installs in half an hour, ready to work out of the box, no command line in the installer, nothing to build, no extra software needed…
Starting from Sarge Debian is a similar story: you are guided step by step, very little to configure.
“Mandriva does not hold the user by the hand and point out every little thing.”
That wasn’t how I felt, especially during install: it feels very newbie oriented. Some auto configuration is more a pain than a blessing. It was the case for me with pppoe.
I won’t even mention that Mandriva 2006 felt quite unstable out of the box, which isn’t certainly the case with Slackware or Debian.
I believe he doesn’t have a clue.
Slackware? It installs in half an hour, ready to work out of the box, no command line in the installer, nothing to build, no extra software needed…
Has been a while since the last time that I installed Slackware (8.0 and 9.0 days, I believe) but at the time, you did have to issue a few command lines in order to get it installed. Right after boot, you had to run the setup command in order to actually start the installation. Shortly after that, you had to manually do the partitioning of the harddrive using fdisk (or was that cfdisk? I can’t remember anymore). Not that that was hard to do since the installer gave all the instructions in a clear and very straight forward manner and I enjoyed every second that I spent with Slack, but to say that Slackware required absolutely no command line fiddling to get it installed just is not true. Don’t know if this is still true today, though. I settled with Debian and Debian-based distributions for now.
That wasn’t how I felt, especially during install: it feels very newbie oriented. Some auto configuration is more a pain than a blessing. It was the case for me with pppoe.
This is so true. When I was finally ready to dump my trusty RedHat 9.0 installation to try something else that wasn’t RedHat related, I went to a newstand and bought the first magazine with a Linux CD that I could find and that was MDK Discovery Edition LE 2005 or something like that. I did buy the magazine to avoid download an ISO (it takes some time even with ADSL connection and I wanted to do it immediately) and as a bonus, one can’t say that a problem on the media could be hosing my installation.
Everything went smoothly on the installation but I couldn’t for the life of me make my ADSL connection work with it, and basing on what I’ve seen here on this site and other places, I wasn’t alone with this problem. That was very odd: how could their QA department let such obvious bug pass by is beyond me. I spent like three days trying to make it work judging that it should be my fault, that I overlooked something or something along these lines to no avail. Finally, I dumped MDK and installed SimplyMEPIS and never looked back.
I won’t even mention that Mandriva 2006 felt quite unstable out of the box, which isn’t certainly the case with Slackware or Debian.
Has been ages since I last tried Mandrake but I can remember very well that it was a bit buggy on some places. Nothing outstanding but small glitches enough to make me avoid it completely on the future.
DeadFish Man
Hi,
“Right after boot, you had to run the setup command in order to actually start the installation.”
Yeah, “setup” is the only command I had to use. Also Slack is a lot easier now than the 8xx and 9xx days, IMO.
“I couldn’t for the life of me make my ADSL connection work with it”
LOL, I wrote exactly the same sentence about Mandriva 2006. After *much* fiddling I found a way and I wrote a mini HOWTO for LinuxQuestions.org
Upgraded 2005 to 2006 over the net, and it was pretty painless. Took a few hours, but at the end of the day it worked just fine on restart. If you’ve been using Mandriva all along, not a lot has changed, though the author is wrong to say there have been no changes since 9.x. There have been lots. I was on 9.x. Probably no worth going into history, as this is too obviously wrong.
The nice thing about this version of Mandriva, as compared to 10.x, is it just works. Had all kinds of problems with 10.1 and 10.2, refusing to install on perfectly ordinary hardware. The nice thing as compared to Suse is, rpmdrake works better and gives access to a wider range of software than Suse. Yast simply does not handle dependencies in a sensible easy way at all. Yes, you could use aptrpm, if you can figure out how to get it in. rpmdrake will simply install it, and synaptic then just works.
The printer configuration is much easier than Suse. Quite why in 9.2 you had to go down to the command line and define usernames and passwords again to access your printer has been beyond me. Some of the window managers are better and some worse. In Suse, the default aesthetics of kde don’t appeal. In Mandriva, Windowmaker doesn’t work properly out of the box, the paths for the icons are all wrong. Not a big deal, but careless.
Kernel headers are not updated during the default upgrade, which means the ATI drivers won’t load. Most naive users will not have a clue how to do this. This was the only really glaring issue I found. For the rest, very pleased, and would strongly recommend it.
But, if you want a light distribution, this is not the one. Slackware or Debian would be a much better choice.
can take hours of research, config file hacking, and software downloading and installing
I guess having no clue is becoming increasingly more fashionable and cool these days ? When wishing so hard to present one distro being so better than others ignorance will most probably not be the best proof of the writer’s claims.
I very much dislike most of the ways newer “user friendly” distros are choosing to take, namely not the “easy” clickety installers [but I don’t think they are any better than usual ncurses/console based installers] but their increasingly overly bloated nature – meaning mr. user clicks three and gets a system, with multiple gigs of stuff he doesn’t even know [since mostly people new or lame to linux think these kinds of distros are the way to go, I think that assumption can generally be true].
All in all, I really don’t mind, in fact I’m glad such distros exist. But I’d hammer those loosers down in a glitch who start claiming these are “better” than linux power distros like Slackware, Debian, Gentoo, and that’s just the start of the line. A good distro is such which gives you the opportunity/choice to get a basic install going in minutes (!) and gives you free hand in installing the rest of the system. And, thankfully, many of such distros exist.
Clickety shiny “user friendly” distros and power [i.e. freehand] linux distros can peacefully co-exist, no doubt about that. But good lord please keep these “this is better than those lame distros” guys away nough fro me sp as not to hear their breathing.
What are exactly the benefits of buying the powerpack?
I believe PowerPack comes with all of the proprietary drivers and plugins preinstalled and configured. I also think there are some apps that are not included in the download edition.
I could be wrong on this, I haven’t used Mandiva (mandrake when I used it) for a few years.
I thought of trying Mandrake 10.0 but when they bought Connectiva and then Lycoris, then I decided to wait until version 2006 to profit from the integration of the 3 distros. On that point Mandriva 2006 seems dissapointing as little appears to remain from the other 2 distros. Contrary to what Mandriva said at the time of the acquisition, they seem to have bought these distros just to buy market presence, not for any new technology. That is dissapointing from a user perspective, even more as the integration was the “excuse” to basicaly abandon 10.2 and wait for 2006. The author also says that the 2006 feels like 9.0. That is another reason not to use Mandriva. It really seems stuck, and can only offer updated packages, just like other distros I must say. Linux seems to be moving incrementally now, and these increments do not justify upgrading, just like with Windows XP.
I was also considering Mandrake at the time because it was said to have a better multimedia support. But on that point it seems to be dissapointing too. Problems with Nvidia cards and lack of DVD player tells me that Mandriva is not THAT multimedia friendly after all, and that I would have to install applications and multimedia drivers myself just like on FC. On that point again Mandriva lacks any incentive for me to switch.
And on a less important note, I agree with the author that the Mandriva theme is distracting. It’s not a problem for home usage but any professional would prefer to be productive, have a pleasant (but not boring) theme, and not be distracted by a too “flashy” interface. The Mandriva theme seems classy and flashy but lacks what makes “elegance” in my eyes.
If other reviews confirm these points, I won’t switch to Mandriva, that is certain. There is no reason to do so, and that is pretty dissapointing as I was hoping to find something better than Fedora.
“If other reviews confirm these points, I won’t switch to Mandriva, that is certain. There is no reason to do so, and that is pretty dissapointing as I was hoping to find something better than Fedora.”
Try SUSE, maybe?
You can’t go wrong, as it is free to download.
for me at least…..is plf, and ease of software installation. I know apt is great, I’ve used debian, and Ubuntu fan boys are all over, (don’t need to mention gentoo), slack I’m unsure of, but they can’t compare with easy urpmi, sets up plf (play dvd’s, mp3’s). Tried to get dvd’s working with Ubuntu, didn’t have much luck, and was unwilling to put more than 15 min into it, as it takes less time to get Mandriva just how I like it. Most power users would prefer something geekier I think, but if you just want to get things done, Mandriva does a fantastic job……btw….posting from winXP due to being geneticly unable to give up video games…….America’s army in this case….
America’s Army is available also for linux:
http://icculus.org/news/news.php?id=2518
It’s certainly forward-looking. I mean, it’s still October 2005 and already version 2006 is out.
I wonder when the other distros will catch up.
Mandriva does a fantastic job……btw….posting from winXP due to being geneticly unable to give up video games…….America’s army in this case….
Americas Army runs here very good on SuSE 10.
And AppArmor assures AAO does only what it is allowed to do and no more.Least privilege.