Mandriva 2006.0
A few years back when I realized that
Linux was becoming my passion, and that Lycoris was not powerfully
enough for my needs, I found Mandrake. In Mandrake I found a powerfully
easy to use and imminently likable Distro. It was leading if not
bleeding edge, keeping the repositories very up to date and full of the
latest applications. I loved it! No questions asked.
Over time, I began to become frustrated with it's limited
stability, difficult community, and the near inability of the installer
to effectively upgrade itself from one release to the next without
problems requiring complete re-installs for every new release. When
Texstar released PCLinuxOS, based on Mandrake 9.2, I was gone, and have
not been back, until now. With the newest release, and all the
hype of the merger with Conectiva and Lycoris, I felt it was time for
another look.
From the Mandriva Web site:
From the Mandriva Web site:
Mandriva Linux (formerly known as Mandrake Linux) was created in 1998
with the goal of making Linux easier to use for everyone. At that time,
Linux was already well-known as a powerful and stable operating system
that demanded strong technical knowledge and extensive use of the
"command line"; Mandriva saw this as an opportunity to integrate the
best graphical desktop environments and contribute its own graphical
configuration utilities and quickly became famous for setting the
standard in ease-of-use and functionality.
With this innovative approach, Mandriva offers all the power and stability of Linux to both individuals and professional users in an easy-to-use and pleasant environment. Thousands of new users are discovering Linux each and every day and finding it a complete replacement for their previous operating system. Linux as a server or workstation has no reason to be jealous of any other more established operating systems.
For the most part, Mandriva has
always succeeded at the strong and easy to use graphical tools and
environments, and this has not changed.
Installation:
Usage:
At
this time, the only installation method is via FTP, while FTP installs
are usually very convenient and efficient due to only needing to
download the specific packages you need, this install quickly turned
into a nightmare. I downloaded the 12 mb boot.iso from the
Mandriva server, and burned it up. Popped it into my drive and
rebooted. I was quickly greeted with the almost familiar looking
Mandriva welcome screen, I hit enter to install and I
I was presented with a source selection screen and a mirror selection screen. I picked FTP and a mirror relatively close to home, and than picked the "Current i586" repository for the install. Next I was given the option to set up networking. This worked first time with no problems getting me connected to the Internet quickly and easily. The installer than proceeded to download the next part of the installer. By the amount time it took, I'm guessing that the next piece was about 10 mb. Than the language, license, security level and partitioning screens, once this was done, more downloads, about 50 mb by my guess. I was then greeted by the familiar Package selection screen, I picked a handful of the reconfigured package selections and let it go. I went to bed and expected the next set of screens when I got up, what I got was an error message that a package could not be downloaded, and do I want to continue without it. Seeing that it was just a icon package, I let it continue. When I got home from work, I was greeted with yet another package error message about Open Office, which I also let it continue from. Eventually the install finished, with the errors, it took nearly 20 hours, Ok, that may be a bit unfair, as I wasn't sitting right by it waiting for any problems, so in all reality it likely took a bit over 3 hours. I finished up with root password, user creation and final configuration. I rebooted and was able to boot right up without any problems. I was greeted by several things that didn't make any sense, such as Gnome 2.8, not 2.10 as promised, and the Mandriva Control Center welcomed me to my shiny new 2005 LE install. WTF is all I could say, I dug around the Internet a bit, and found that "Current" is not equal to 2006.0! I went in and changed my repository lists from "Current" to 2006.0, and set off the update process. This only took about 20 minutes, way shorter than my expectations, I rebooted, and still had Gnome 2.8 and Mandriva Control Center still told me 2005 LE. I decided to reinstall being more carefully to select the correct repository. I re-downloaded the .iso to ensure I got the correct one, and started over. The repository selection was the same as before, so when given the option to edit the repository, I changed "current" to 2006.0 and set off. I got very good at doing this as I had to do it 6 different times before I got a FTP server to actually work for more than an hour. 3 times I got to the point of installing packages, which takes about 45 minutes to get to this point, only to have the FTP server stop responding, at which point, your only option is to start over. Twice I was unable to connect to the selected server at all, the last time I think I grabbed the Mandriva FTP server, and it started up, and keep it up much of the night. In the morning, I was greeted again with an error message about a package download problem, a KDE lib file of some sort, at this point, I figured I would just let it go, I really didn't want to stop it if I didn't have to!
I was presented with a source selection screen and a mirror selection screen. I picked FTP and a mirror relatively close to home, and than picked the "Current i586" repository for the install. Next I was given the option to set up networking. This worked first time with no problems getting me connected to the Internet quickly and easily. The installer than proceeded to download the next part of the installer. By the amount time it took, I'm guessing that the next piece was about 10 mb. Than the language, license, security level and partitioning screens, once this was done, more downloads, about 50 mb by my guess. I was then greeted by the familiar Package selection screen, I picked a handful of the reconfigured package selections and let it go. I went to bed and expected the next set of screens when I got up, what I got was an error message that a package could not be downloaded, and do I want to continue without it. Seeing that it was just a icon package, I let it continue. When I got home from work, I was greeted with yet another package error message about Open Office, which I also let it continue from. Eventually the install finished, with the errors, it took nearly 20 hours, Ok, that may be a bit unfair, as I wasn't sitting right by it waiting for any problems, so in all reality it likely took a bit over 3 hours. I finished up with root password, user creation and final configuration. I rebooted and was able to boot right up without any problems. I was greeted by several things that didn't make any sense, such as Gnome 2.8, not 2.10 as promised, and the Mandriva Control Center welcomed me to my shiny new 2005 LE install. WTF is all I could say, I dug around the Internet a bit, and found that "Current" is not equal to 2006.0! I went in and changed my repository lists from "Current" to 2006.0, and set off the update process. This only took about 20 minutes, way shorter than my expectations, I rebooted, and still had Gnome 2.8 and Mandriva Control Center still told me 2005 LE. I decided to reinstall being more carefully to select the correct repository. I re-downloaded the .iso to ensure I got the correct one, and started over. The repository selection was the same as before, so when given the option to edit the repository, I changed "current" to 2006.0 and set off. I got very good at doing this as I had to do it 6 different times before I got a FTP server to actually work for more than an hour. 3 times I got to the point of installing packages, which takes about 45 minutes to get to this point, only to have the FTP server stop responding, at which point, your only option is to start over. Twice I was unable to connect to the selected server at all, the last time I think I grabbed the Mandriva FTP server, and it started up, and keep it up much of the night. In the morning, I was greeted again with an error message about a package download problem, a KDE lib file of some sort, at this point, I figured I would just let it go, I really didn't want to stop it if I didn't have to!
First Boot:
So, than what you ask, well I finished up and rebooted. Everything looks great, the new theming is cool without being overdone, screenshots , a lot of apps are installed by default, and a great deal more are easily available via urpmi, Mandriva's update and installation program. All my hardware was correctly identified and loaded, my other drive and partitions were correctly identified and loaded. Over all everything is great!
What it has:
Simply, a lot! KDE 3.4.2, Gnome 2.10, Firefox 1.0.6, Evolution 2.4.1, Gaim, Open Office, Thunderbird, Xorg 6.9, stacked on a 2.6.12 kernel. As has been my experience with previous Mandriva/Mandrake installs, it is powerful, easy to live with and easy to configure. Mandriva has for years had some of the best configuration tools, all wrapped into the Mandriva Control Center. Anything you need to change, adjust, or install is all in MCC.
What it has not:
Honestly, only one thing,
stability.
I experienced multiple crashes, lockups and slowdowns during normal usage which amounts to Internet browsing, web site editing and updating and e-mail. Additionally, in no way shape or form was I able to get KDE or any of it's applications to work. I even went to the point of uninstalling all of KDE and reinstalling. Nothing changed, no KDE. Now, using Gnome is no big stretch for me, I switch between Gnome, KDE and XFce like changing my clothes, but clearly I did not even have the option to look.
So, than what you ask, well I finished up and rebooted. Everything looks great, the new theming is cool without being overdone, screenshots , a lot of apps are installed by default, and a great deal more are easily available via urpmi, Mandriva's update and installation program. All my hardware was correctly identified and loaded, my other drive and partitions were correctly identified and loaded. Over all everything is great!
What it has:
Simply, a lot! KDE 3.4.2, Gnome 2.10, Firefox 1.0.6, Evolution 2.4.1, Gaim, Open Office, Thunderbird, Xorg 6.9, stacked on a 2.6.12 kernel. As has been my experience with previous Mandriva/Mandrake installs, it is powerful, easy to live with and easy to configure. Mandriva has for years had some of the best configuration tools, all wrapped into the Mandriva Control Center. Anything you need to change, adjust, or install is all in MCC.
What it has not:
Honestly, only one thing,
stability.
I experienced multiple crashes, lockups and slowdowns during normal usage which amounts to Internet browsing, web site editing and updating and e-mail. Additionally, in no way shape or form was I able to get KDE or any of it's applications to work. I even went to the point of uninstalling all of KDE and reinstalling. Nothing changed, no KDE. Now, using Gnome is no big stretch for me, I switch between Gnome, KDE and XFce like changing my clothes, but clearly I did not even have the option to look.
Usage:
Problems
aside, Mandriva presents an awesome, clean interface that is powerful
and easy to use. Configuration is quick simple and easy to do.
Everything loads up and functions nearly as promised. Boot
time is reasonably quick, my Window's partition was automatically added
correctly to the Lilo bootloader, adding my PCLOS install was as simple
as showing the MCC boot configuration where to find my other kernel and
init scripts, and boom, there it is. An oddity that occurred, I
was attempting to transfer a file from my PCLOS install to the Mandriva
install, being in PCLOS at the time, I used Konqueror to adjust the
permissions of the Mandriva home/user folder to give myself write
access, a maneuver I have done many times with many different distros.
Mandriva locked me out of my user, stating the permissions
changed, and dropped me back out to the login screen. Root access
did nothing to change the problem. I'm sure that this is a
security protection concept, but in the over all scheme of things, it
proved to be just a pain. In the end, I ended up making another
user.
Conclusions:
Well, it's been an interesting experience. Mandriva has delivered a fabulous, bleeding edge product in it's latest release. Unfortunately as has been the case with most Mandriva .0 releases the product is unstable and needing attention to become the promise that was expected. I remember using 9.0 and how unstable it was as well, things got better as updates were released and packages improved. 10.0 had pretty much the same issues, it was 10.0 that convinced me to find another distro. I can honestly say that not a lot seems to have changed in the Mandriva world since 9.0 other than the name. A great promise, a great look, an awesome configuration program, and poor for Linux stability.
Well, it's been an interesting experience. Mandriva has delivered a fabulous, bleeding edge product in it's latest release. Unfortunately as has been the case with most Mandriva .0 releases the product is unstable and needing attention to become the promise that was expected. I remember using 9.0 and how unstable it was as well, things got better as updates were released and packages improved. 10.0 had pretty much the same issues, it was 10.0 that convinced me to find another distro. I can honestly say that not a lot seems to have changed in the Mandriva world since 9.0 other than the name. A great promise, a great look, an awesome configuration program, and poor for Linux stability.
Follow up:
It's been 4 days since I posted this review, and have received a great deal of input about it, some actually useful! I have come to the conclusion that the poor quality of my experience must be related to the specific install as many of the comments I have received indicate that my issues with stability are not common. If this is truly the case, I am still concerned that I was able to have such a poor quality install. With a distro of Mandriva's stature, this should not be the case.
To be fair, I will re-review Mandriva once the .iso's hit the Internet, and see what this beautiful distro has to offer.
Thanks to all who have offered useful input.
Capn
Contact me at:
webmaster@capnkirby.com
