Part 3 of the extensive Linux Tips for Free Mandriva Linux 2006 review has finally been published, covering multimedia, productivity and entertainment software. It also discusses Mandriva Linux security features, the Mandriva Club and looks ahead at the future: “… 1990-something was the year of Server Linux, 2003 was the year of Desktop Linux, 2005 the year of Laptop Linux, 2006 will be the year of Mobile Phone Linux and 2007 will be the year of Handheld/Palmtop Linux.” Parts one and two were previously mentioned here at OSNews.
Mandriva Linux 2006 Review – Linux Desktop Showcase Part 3
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’ve been running a Mandrake server for a couple of years and I just upgraded to Mandriva 2006. What a pleasant experience. I had no problems upgrading from Mandrake 10.1 whatsoever. In fact, the upgrade cleaned up some issues I had with 10.1 (which ran for months absent power failures).
This version of madriva 2006 is very unstable when you use the multimedia capabilities. I got xine freezing the whole system when playing a .mpg file; and mcc (mandrake control center) still feels slow when initiating its pages; web update sometimes It works sometimes not.
I preferr to stick with Redhat Enterprise Linux 4.2 for the time.
“This version of madriva 2006 is very unstable when you use the multimedia capabilities.”
I have no problems with any type of multimedia with mplayer on Mdv2006. I have tried Kaffeine as well and it did not freeze my system. Realplayer works well too.
Two words:
urpme kat
Kat will probably mature to be a wonderful search tool, but at the moment it is just a CPU time thief.
HAH, My laptop won’t even BOOT the latest Ubuntu nor will it work with ATI’s POS drivers (Xpress 200).
Yeah, how about that suspend? Locks the system every time.
Maybe 2011 will be the year of Linux on the laptop. I would have agreed, but I’ve been screwing with Linux on laptops since 1998 and well it hasn’t gotten *ANY* better.
You people believe in the hype and then you get what you deserve: Ubuntu is *not* a laptop optimized distro.
You *might* have better luck with SUSE or Kanotix.
But, more important, if you want to run linux, don’t buy hardware known to be linux unfriendly, otherwise just quit trolling.
You people believe in the hype and then you get what you deserve: Ubuntu is *not* a laptop optimized distro.
Well, I can’t testfiy of that. Ubuntu Hoary was the first distro I tried which perfectly installed on my HP nc8000:
– mousepad configured
– all special keys detected, even de red light in the sound mute button worked
– special resolution 1400×1050 detected and configured
In addition, Ubuntu Breezy perfectly “hibernates” and wakens back up when asked to.
And all that without tinkering at the configs, but all by default install.
As always, there will be stuff that works and stuff that doesn’t work, be it with Linux or be it with Windows. Ubuntu is optimized to support *certain* hardware. Not all ot them. Other distro’s might be optimized for different hardware, or not.
Kubuntu works great on my Compaq Presario V2310 laptop, which happens to have the ATI Xpress 200 chipset.
You must have done something wrong (or you’re just trolling…)
This is a 6 month old computer, Compaq R4125US. AMD 3500+, ATI chipset. It’s not an old POS.
Linux is a$$ on laptops, and unless they work magic so drivers don’t have to be recompiled for every kernel release (ala every other damn os) it always will suck.
This is a 6 month old computer, Compaq R4125US. AMD 3500+, ATI chipset. It’s not an old POS.
Linux is a$$ on laptops, and unless they work magic so drivers don’t have to be recompiled for every kernel release (ala every other damn os) it always will suck.
Gosh. Suse 10 installed on my Dell laptop and everything worked out of the box, wifi, suspend. Of course, I had to install the nvidia driver, but then I have to do that with Win XP also. Oh, and didn’t have to recompile it with the last kernel upgrade. Am I missing something?
If Linux is a$$ on laptops, what am I doing wrong?
Oh, that’s right. I’m not generalizing my specific circumstance as applying to an entire community. Silly me. Linux works on many laptops, doesn’t work on many others. Sure you can try and blame “linux”, or then again maybe you could direct some blame at your vendor for not supporting linux, or you could always blame yourself for buying hardware before checking to see if it will be supported, whatever makes you feel better.
Stick to Windows, you’ll clearly be happier, no shame in admitting that.
“Gosh. Suse 10 installed on my Dell laptop”
“I’m not generalizing my specific circumstance as applying to an entire community.”
Sure you are.
Sorry you don’t like it, but Linux is a$$ on laptops. If you feel that makes me a troll then I’ve obviously hit a sore point.
Lets put our blinders on and mod the guy a troll instead of fixing the problems.
Fool.
If Linux is a$$ on laptops, you need state more examples other than your failures.
Sorry, unless you show more than just your failures, you are making a generalization…and then it’s still your opinion.
“Lets put our blinders on and mod the guy a troll instead of fixing the problems.”
The best distributions are doing just that. I have installed Linux in laptops belonging both to me and other people and I can testify that since late 2003 laptop support has got better all the time.
If you want to be sure that linux will be supported in the laptop you are going to buy, take with you a couple of LiveCDs. You’ll be amazed how many shops are willing to cooperate.
“Sure you are.”
No , the reason why , since you cant grasp it on your own :
Most real people ( GNU/Linux Users ) with real situation use laptop with GNU/Linux and its working perfectly for them.
“If you feel that makes me a troll then I’ve obviously hit a sore point.”
Many people will call troll someone who post lies as anonymous or just because someone is posting something in disagreement with the topic of the article. You are nothing special or hit anything of value at all. In your case your discussing another distribution on a topic article from another distribution as anonymous.
“Lets put our blinders on”
You dont seem to be doing what you ask other to do …
“mod the guy a troll instead of fixing the problems.”
What problem ?
1) “My laptop won’t even BOOT”
2) “nor will it work with ATI’s POS drivers (Xpress 200).”
3) “how about that suspend? Locks the system every time.”
Lets see if 1 is really happening 2 and 3 are impossible.
2)http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?cc=us&docname=c0…
ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M IGP
http://occom.no-ip.biz/r4000.html
http://linux-laptop.net/hosted/r4000-gentoo.html
http://stanton-finley.net/HP_Pavilion_ZE2108WM.html
Look , Look , Look , the chipset work , what can I say , the problem seem to be the person thinking he can be an installer.
3) Suspend lock the system ? No , suspend is not setup properly , Suspend is something that is simple on GNU/Linux , it work or it dont if it does and lock up its not properly setup.
Now after reading your many comment I think that your unable to install GNU/Linux on your own at all and that your unable to choose a notebook that is GNU/Linux supported on your own.
Whats availaiblke to you :
1) Go to a LUG near where you live and ask for help politely. You might get free Help.
2) Ask for GNU/Linux support on professional support website ,say that your willing to pay 50$ if someone can install a working system on that piece of crap that you choose.
3) Figure out that your not married for life with that notebook , return it if its a new buy and exchange it for a GNU/Linux supported model , if its too old or you had it for windows for years , sell it , if both solution are not option for you then you are the problem.
Try a turn-key complete supported solution.
http://www.emperorlinux.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html
http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html
If all that dont work then I guess GNU/Linux is not for you , now or maybe never will be. You can keep insulting us , we dont mind at all , GNU/Linux as been insulted and said to be crap since day one.
Personnaly before buying a notebook I take a GNU/Linux Live CD like PcLinuxOS , Knoppix , Ubuntu , Kubuntu , MandrakeMove and before I buy the system I test that it work with GNU/Linux without any problem. I dont buy the system with a blindfold and hope for it to work.
They are not so shiny. i liked the 10.0 and the 10.1 so much that i bought the full Powerpack box this time, before I just bought the Powerpack DVD only. I have to say that I found a lot of regressions. I installed two times, once form the downloaded iso, once form the pressed iso.
Mandriva Control Center has several flaws:
– the registering did not work (to tell em the packages installed to improve their system),
– the ndiswrapper module did install the driver correctly but it insisted to complain nevertheless,
– some other modules of the MCC were quite unresponsive, this has been solved partly
– the network applet was “shaky”
– The biggest issue I had with the wifi configuration, it was not saved I had to restart it every time and it couldn’t be done with a simple ifup wlan0. That lastet issue was corrected by one of the last updates.
– Quite often the kicker is just there and if you press a button it gives you a DCOP error, you’ll have to restart kicker
– today the icons on the desktop were unresponsive.
– kat was a big mess so I had to uninstall it. kat 0.6.3 works wonderful on my Libranet 3.0 installation.
So here is my advice: try out the Free-Edition first. It seems that the two Official versions that I had were much better tested and debugged. I think if 2006 came out now with the fixes that have been done up to now, it would have made a much better impression here. Currently the Mandriva root partition is declared playground, maybe I’ll test the latest MEPIS or Kanotix on it. It’s a great pity that Mandriva is so unreliable on my machine this time, because I see the improvement in speed and also the new package manager smart is a really powerful tool, and this time I liked the polish very much, it is really decent, all the hotplugging worked out nicely as well and the hardware detection is also really good (I had to change the ATI driver for the mobile chip, thats all).
But at the end of the day the flaws that showed up really spoiled the nice impression that I had from the installation. It still has a few really annoying issues. Maybe less than the last SuSE I had but still more than Libranet (carefully upgraded) or a current install of Kanotix.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
Benjamin
the problem is to do with KDE being buggy – not mandriva.
thats bull**** as KDE works fine on debian and many other distro’s, and they don’t have to patch it. mandriva choose to add things themselves, well, thats fine, but if it makes stuff unstable, they should test and fix it. they didn’t do that, i guess…
i didn’t say kde on all distros is buggy. i just said that kde on mandriva is buggy. if you try gnome in mandriva, you will find that its stable, unlike kde.
Aha, and thats why the mandriva tools are (partly) freezing??? KDE is 3.4.3 the latest bugfix release. Neither the drakconf tools nor the netapplet are KDE apps … I had no problem using the same version of KDE on two other distros. This is essentially why I wrote the original post. If it would be a KDE problem it would have been off topic …
I suggest:
http://www.rage3d.com/board/forumdisplay.php?f=88
http://occom.no-ip.biz/r4000.html – “Internal miniPCI Broadcom BCL4306 card Doesn’t Work Note 1”
http://linux-laptop.net/hosted/r4000-gentoo.html – “128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM) Works partially”
The guys is correct, if it’s not 100% then it’s broken.
“The guys is correct”
I like how you agree with yourself and cant even use the free reply button below the comments. For me someone who is correct is an expert who can make it work. Cant make it work when other say the *chipset* work , then I guess your wrong , when something dont work , nobody is able to make it work on any distribution with any solution.
“if it’s not 100% then it’s broken.”
I guess your brain is broken then …. now before you feel insulted because you think its an insult , expert all agree that most people use there brain at only 15 – 30% capacity when working properly.
Broken is a simple word , when something is broken there is no way to make it work at all under any circumstance by anyone.
Now of course you can take hard drive x from machine y and cpu f from machine w and graphic chipset B from machine a , to make the point that GNU/Linux dont work.
You can also say to someone who dont know what he is doing install it on a machine I picked at random. Thats also a recipe for disater.
Or you can :
1) Buy a turnkey solution.
2) Ask a professional to install it for you.
3) Research system that others have said work out of the box with GNU/Linux.
The above 3 have a tendency to work at 100%.
Something tell me that your not going to accept to sell me that notebook for 5$ since you say its broken. What it work under Windows , I guess the reality is that GNU/Linux dont support it , and that the english word here is not the right one and dont apply at all , but wait others say it work , then I guess the problem is the professionnal installler , wait your doing the install ? it still dont work I guess its time to call in and pay for the pro to look at it , what ? you say it suppose to work out of the box ? Where is that written ? HP dont say its a GNU/Linux model that is supported and the GNU/Linux distribution say that there cases that it wont work without setup from someone who know what he is doing.
You see I have seen CPU melt with GNU/Linux settings , Cd-rom drive Bios flashed by GNU/Linux , Monitor explodes , Monitor fry , Hard drive disk brake with GNU/Linux , etc …
Does this mean GNU/Linux is not working or broken ? NO it means it dont support everything , and I appologize for this guy problem , sincerely , I know its my fault I said GNU/Linux work with everything ,I pulled out my gun and forced him to sign a devil deal that as joined him and this notebook forever and forced him to used GNU/Linux because I am a zealot and we all know that we control the world and force people to use broken thiong , sinceraly I am sorry.
Now in case you missed it I got 5$ Canadien , for this broken notebook , my offer still stand. Lets make this a good Christmas for him and liberate him from this notebok union that only bring him sorrow and dispear , I missed the part where he called it “my precious” , but its truely the work of the power of evil that he is forcing himself to do this again and again and again and again.
Sorry chump, I’m not the same person like you may believe. I actually get paid big dollars to support Linux and I have this computer because it was on ATI’s supported video card list.
If you can get the Xpress 200 to work at 1280×800 with DRI using the latest drivers then let ATI know because they will probably hire you.
I followed those links, AND I’ve been an active member of that community. Lots of people have this problem.
When you get it configured properly, you get a black screen. The only fix is to turn off dedicated memory and use shared.
The driver is BROKEN.
Maybe you should leave your momma’s basement for a while, you sounds like you could use some daylight.
Your anonymous , your the same person. You get paid top dollars for not delivering working solution , sweet gig , must be why you hide your name and employer.
I dont like IGP crap , sorry let me rephrase that , I think that if your stupid enough to use/buy/support/promote a chipset that is meant to be used in a vcr on a 1000$ + laptop you need to be shot. Even on the window side everyone agree that IGP is crap.
Yes , I know that people similar to you exist and that you all have the same problem of choosing a notebook on price , then try installing GNU/Linux and then complain it dont work , because you dont know what your doing.
When you get it configured properly , wich you obviously dont know how you have a working screen , you dont get a black screen … Black screen = Dont work or in console or before you started Xserver.
“The only fix is to turn off dedicated memory and use shared. ”
Nice , you dont have a real working solution and offer fixes as anonymous. sorry I prefer when solution are offered by those who actually got it working properly and have some appearance of knowing what there doing.
“The driver is BROKEN.”
Ok lets assume your right for a nano second , then explain how come some people get it to work properly if its broken ? My take , they know what there doing and you dont.
Thanks for suggesting I have the same living situation that you do , that explain a lot , must be why your stuck with the same notebook , also daylight as you put it aint going to make me stupid enough to follow your advice on anything at all as anonymous , it would take a serious blow to the head to make me buy IGP crap.
“I dont like IGP crap”
Yep, lets keep making excuses for bad software and drivers.
You were most helpful.
No wonder people still think Linux is useless.
“No wonder people still think Linux is useless.”
they are never people who are in the know though are they?
“Yep, lets keep making excuses for bad software and drivers.”
No , bad software and bad driver need fixing , care to point to a real one for a change ? With I dont know your real name and email so that I can look it up and get back to you on it ? Hardware name/specs help too.
“You were most helpful.”
No , you still think the problem is driver and software base when its human based ( you ) , you still have a notebook that is not working properly. Not my fault , you refuse to have me or another professional look at it.
“No wonder people still think Linux is useless.”
Theres your problem try GNU/Linux distribution instead of just the kernel , thats why you get only a black screen.
“This version of madriva 2006 is very unstable when you use the multimedia capabilities.”
Well. Let’s see. I have been working with ‘Redmond’-produced products for twenty years. Anyone who says they have never had issues with video set ups on aany platform is quite literally blowing wind before the brain catches on there was a noise.
I’ve been ‘Redmond’-free since October 2003. As a former user of Slackware, I found this version of Mandriva to be rock solid. So solid, in-fact, I’ve moved to Mandriva for my business.
Any difficulty with ‘media’ has been directly related to our country’s legal standing on certain codecs.
mandriva limted edition installed fine on my thinkpad p3 and found wireless access easily. then upgraded to 2006 with no problems using urpmi. i turn powercontrols off to avoid problems so i do not know if i would have any problems. 🙂
i installed ubuntu onto my brothers laptop a few weeks ago and yes the hibernation worked out of the box.
Mandriva is about the same as every major distro of Linux when it comes to laptops. _Most_ of the time _most_ things work. When it doesn’t, expect to spend some time tweaking. The situation is far better that 3-5 years ago, when _most_ things didn’t work and it was a major adventure to get Linux going on _most_ laptops. I run Mandriva 2006 on my laptop and everything works. The only tweaking I had to do was to get DRI working on my ATI IGP 320 video card. I just followed the directions at dri.sourceforge.net and it worked. BTW, have you ever tried to install _any_ version of Windows on a laptop without the factory installed drivers? What a nightmare it can be hunting down all the right versions of drivers!
Mandrake is pretty nice as is SUSE, I however prefer Ubuntu for a desktop as the menus are less bloated and everything “just works TM”. Some of the security stuff like msec in Mandrake are great ideas. I heard that someone is working on porting it over to Ubuntu for the ubuntu-hardened project.
This is my personal experience and might be different than yours. I’m just voicing my opinion
When I wrote that 2005 was the year of laptop Linux, I meant that before, it was hard to find a laptop which worked practically completely with Linux (meaning: possibly not all relevant functionality could be made to work), whereas the offerings are now much much better, with some laptops designed with Linux in mind (hp’s nx6100 comes to mind).
You can argue back and forth about things, but this is the current state: if you want a laptop that works well with Linux, since this year (or, with a lot more searching and studying, and maybe patching, since last year) you can get one.
Of course, you can buy hardware that doesn’t work with Linux. Try installing MSWin on an iBook.
If you take just any laptop, and use MSWin which is preinstalled, then try Linux and find it doesn’t work – even if it’s just because _you_ don’t know how to make it work (it’s not very relevant why it doesn’t work for you), just go back to Windows. I mean, that’s what you bought the laptop with, so that’s what it’s made for.
BUT: why complain?
Linux (as if it were a person) never made a promise to work on non-supported hardware. You didn’t buy the laptop with Linux which subsequently didn’t work. No harm done.
If others have better luck, or just more desire, and put in more effort to make sure their hardware doesn’t lock them in into MSWin, it’s their win. If you didn’t, it’s your loss.
It’s not like your laptop just became useless because it won’t run Linux to your liking. And it’s not because Linux doesn’t do ‘it’ for you that it doesn’t work great for me – because it does.
I have no lockin, I could easily move to another distribution, WM/DE, etc.
But that too is beside the point, since Mandriva does what I need (put together a nice system for me to use, with loads and loads of available software), and due to it being Free Software and free of lock-in mechanisms, I have actually no reason to use something else.
Which finally brings me to the topic of other distributions. (K)Ubuntu fans (and those of any other distribution), could you please just find your own topics to rave about (K)Ubuntu?
It’s not that I don’t like (K)Ubuntu, it’s just that no one asked you.
Really.
There’s rarely a reason to switch distribution from A to B, other than that someone IRL will help you with B but can’t with A.
Boasting about hardware support – it’s all Linux, if it can work with Ubuntu, it can be made to work with Mandriva, and vice versa. Same for OpenSuse, FC, etcetc.
Saying that one distro has better hardware support is nonsense, one distro’s kernel A may have better hardware support than another distro’s kernel B, but really that’s where it ends. And these differences are constantly equalised, because it’s open source.
The next point is config files and tools, but there too if it doesn’t work, the distro should (and usually will) fix it.
So raving about whatever distro is just silly, so leave it.
Just my 2 cts,
Rob
http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr
Asolutely no reason for anyone to be using a “Redmond” platform computer anymore. There are too many sound and safer alternatives out there on the free market. Linux, BSD and even Apple.
Freedom and Liberty are such a wonderful thing.
RE:KAT
What I should have said was Kat (as implemented in MDV2006) is just a CPU time thief. I’m sure that when properly configured and matured it will be great. What I disliked is that it was constantly indexing indexing indexing.. even when I specified just home folder and excluded all ./ folders it still indexed and indexed. Meanwhile, on my XP boxen, I have MSN search installed and it indexed the entire hard drive and then stopped.. and now it only indexes occasionally. Something is buggy with Kat that it never finishes indexing ever… that needs to be addressed.