Distrowatch has reviewed Mandriva Spring, and concludes: “All in all I’d say it’s a fairly typical Mandriva release. It features improved looks and added features, but it is released with a few issues. I don’t think many of the problems are of major importance for the average user, but for myself, I won’t be using Mandriva without wireless support.”
slickest distros around http://shots.linuxquestions.org/?linux_distribution_sm=Mandriva~*~@…
While my favorites remain Debian and SUSE (but honestly SUSE is too slow), this Mandriva release is very nice, IMO.
Having been disappointed by several previous ones, this release could be good enough to become my main OS.
Keep it up, Mandriva: you are better than many that are higher up in the DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking.
Great distro. Keep up the good work!
WiFi works on my laptop perfectly.
It’s true in the default configuration the download firmware message pops up. The firmware package is available at PLF ( http://plf.zarb.org/ )
Just add their repository at the control panel, and you will be able to install the firmware, and WiFi will work.
MANDRIBBLE!
Yeah . . . just what I was waiting for.
I bought a new Averatec wifi notebook last October and it came with the execrable Windoze XP Home Edition installed. No amount of coaxing by Yours Truly could get wifi to work under Mandriva.
Then I installed 2007.1 by ftp and Bingo! Glorious wifi.
Mandriva . . . you made me happy. The subscription I pay for being a Silver Member (ooh-err) is all worth it.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
People, when you read posts dissing Mandriva, please remember: it’s a great distro, it’s been around for ages and a heckuvalotta work’s gone into it.
Now . . . where’s that Windoze uninstall button . . ?
Mandriva 2007.1, Sempron Mobile, RaLink RT2561. Enjoy!
chromium ^_^
“Now . . . where’s that Windoze uninstall button . . ?”
ROFL, format your Windows partition with DiskDrake and it’ll go in a fraction of a second
Ahhhh, but wouldn’t most Windoze users need a button to push???
I actually used DiskDirector through Windoze before doing the original dastardly deed, and I’m caught here because if I scrub Windoze on the notebook, I won’t be able to use my Korean mp3 player which works only with Windoze (as Korean computer users have been identified as helpless victims of MS).
Everything you buy here needs W. No kidding! The idea of choice in the market seems to be anathema. I talk to people here about Linux and they respond with blank looks, they’ve no idea that there’s even such a thing as a Mac.
But when it comes to the desktop machine . . . now that’s different. I objected to the ludicrous price of XP Pro in the first place and especially since the arrival of SP2, it seems to have gone steadily downhill. It was so bad that last year, when a thunderstorm caused a major fry-up, reinstallation of this existing OS meant downloading the six-floppy boot utility, and even then it was difficult.
Now, seriously . . . by my recent reckoning, now that wifi is set up at the time of installation, only a webcam remains and once that function is available in Mandriva, MS is out, out, out, I will have no need for it any more.
But hey, look on the bright side . . . at least when I had XP Pro installed, I was able to download Linux. MS has _one_ use at least. 🙂
mm, what kind of mp3 player is it?
Hi Adam,
Actually it is a domestically-built half-gigabyte “Mobiblu”, I believe they sell them in North America now because their web site changed location/address some time ago. But this is now an old model, I don’t think they sell anything with less than a gigabyte of storage now.
But the local Kyobo bookstore also sells iPods now and from what I have been reading, GTKPod and Amarok both support loading iPods now, although apparently GTKPod is better for this. Is this correct?
Andrew. ^_^
interesting, I thought MobiBlu’s were usable as normal USB mass storage devices. Yours isn’t?
on iPods – I’ve no personal experience, but that’s what I’ve heard too. You need PLF libs to transfer songs to the iPod, of course. The GNOME players also have support now I believe.
Yes, it can be used as normal USB mass storage, but under Mandriva I can’t write to it. Data goes just one way (out but not in).
I normally run Amarok for streaming audio and despite the odd crash it works fine. But the little on-board Mobiblu player OS is Windoze-only.
This is interesting because I remember buying the thing at the local Tesco Homeplus originally, and the man there actually said that it only ran under W. How did he know I was running L? It’s another great Korean mystery, folks . . .
Andrew ^_^
I have tested the 64 bit version for 2 weeks now on my HP laptop with very good results. Even my wireless card works as it is supposed to(A BCM4318 Air Force One for which the driver has some power management problems, but this is not a Mandriva problem).
Open Office, Mplayer with 32 bit codecs, etc work just fine and I had no need to set up a chroot for 32 bit applications as Debian seems to require.
Mandriva with KDE is definitely simpler to use than Kubuntu and no less powerful. Not being a big fan of Gnome I have tested it to work but have no opinion on it.
If you haven’t tried Mandriva in a while you’re in for a nice surprise.