Hello, I have been using Ubuntu now for a year and a bit.
But, it has started to get old-hat, and some of the things (such as my USB ADSL modem) don't work very well in it.
So, I tried out Mandriva One the other day and I was amazed at how good it is with my hardware.

I mean, I don't need them, but my 3D effects on ubby really aren't very good - and that may be down to my 64MB shared graphics, but they work wonders in Mandriva. My internet connection is superb. So I am quite swayed now.
Should I change? Or What?
And, in Ubuntu, where you can upgrade every 6 months - is this sort of thing implemented in Mandriva?
Thank you for your help.

Josh


[moved from Installing Mandriva by spinynorman]

I think Mandriva is an excellent distribution on the technical side, although it is sometimes a bit too much over the bleeding edge (but well, that's what I want).
And yes, Mandriva has roughly a 6-month release cycle: there's 200x.0, and then 200x.1 (called "200x Spring").

Yves.

Thanks for the help.

I'm gonna give the live CD another whizz, and I think I might install it.
=]

I don't know for certain, but I'm using the live CD again now - and I think I am going to install it.
I love it

I find Mandriva far more capable than Ubuntu or any other distro come to that. I have only been using it a couple of months but it is now my firm favourite, although I do keep other distros on the go as well. I also run Cooker and that is looking very good at the moment so it looks as if the line of excellence will continue when that reaches final release status.

You're going to love 2008.1 a lot more than ubuntu... (I'm one of them )

If you like the bleeding edge (like me) then you can download the RC2 here...
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_RC_2#Availability
It's very stable at the moment but your mileage may vary

Cheers

Luis

I'm looking forward to it too. I can't wait for 2008.1 to come out, especially the GnomeOne edition. Although, I will say that the current Hardy (ithink alpha or beta stage) looks way better than any previous ubuntu versions.

I'm going to stick my oar in here and say PClinuxOS (a fork of Mandriva) is also a very good distro.

Hmm, Rofl Cos I only just took windows off (well 3 months ago) My dad doesn't want me to install it yet. Even though he doesn't know too much about computers.

But when Hardy comes out, I'll check it out - but I think Mandriva is more my liking.

I LOVE IT!!!
So I guess I'll be using thta soon

+1 for that

In general i find Mandriva far better than Ubuntu in terms of speed and hardware support. It is a very good distro, despite some annoying bugs in KDE (which i had used the most).
PCLinuxOS is what i have now. It is a rolling distro, very well polished, pretty stable and it is a mandriva fork, so it has its mcc and hardware support capabilities. But if you are a gnommer - stay away from PCLinuxOS, go for Mandy instead.

AFAIK PCLOS have "semi-official", but pretty good Gnome and E17 packages- and even live CD's loading+installing the aforementioned desktops. Why "stay away Gnomers"?

I have Gnome installed and it is very buggy, yet working. It stalled my PC several times so i didn't persist and switched back to KDE. Maybe it misbehaves only on my comp, but still based on my experience i wouldn't recommend it.

I might give Ubuntu another bash when it comes out. Wasn't impressed with 7.10 as lots of problems trying to get java installed, but then this was also the same in Debian as well. Ubuntu 7.04 has been the best for me so far. But interested to see how the new release fares up.

Well, the basic (Gnome) version of Ubuntu 7.10 was very nice and clean... maybe too newbie friendly for my taste, but nevertheless good indeed... but I'm not such a great Gnome fan.
BUT: Kubuntu was just a poor relative of Ubuntu- easily surpassed by many other KDE implementations, and Xubuntu was a bad joke... compared to a stock Zenwalk installation, or a customized Arch with XFCE4, it is a poopoo.

Spot on Scarecrow.

Ubuntu - far to Gnome-centric, Kubuntu - OK but as you said a poor relation. Linux Mint is far better than Ubuntu itself, a very capable distro, PCLinux is good too but not as good as Mandriva for me. I actually have all of them on the go at the same time (although PCLinux is on an old computer that I use for backups, it was never able to produce any sound on my laptop, though it has probably fixed that by now).

My order of preference at the moment is Mandriva - way out in front, Mint,+PCLinux joint second, then Kubuntu, although things change so often in the Linux world that it may not stay that way for ever.

My only worry for the future is that being a 'Gnomeophobe!' it scares me to death when I see how bad KDE4 is. I run it on Cooker and hate it, it is the ugliest most non-functional desktop I have ever seen and If that is the future of KDE and it doesn't improve, then I might have to get used to Gnome fairly soon.

EDIT. On second thoughts I would put Mint in second place and PCL third for the simple reason that Mint is the fastest booting distribution that I have by a noticeable margin and that is always desirable.

Hang in there, things are improving and functionality is slowly being added. See here for a review on the current state of KDE4: http://polishlinux.org/kde/kde-41-visual-c...log-rev-783000/

I do so hope that you are right, but I don't see anything in that site that addresses the issues that I see. When I first downloaded 4, I thought that I had got hold of some 'accessibility' release for visually handicapped by mistake. The System Tray/Taskbar is the size of a plank of 4"x2", the icons are the size of paving slabs and the clock was big enough to read from the next county. Is that really what people want to see? I don't. Please don't be tempted to write back telling me how to resize the taskbar,clock etc I know that. When you do so all that happens is that anything on the bottom half of the taskbar in 'normal' mode disappears off the bottom of the screen. Useless!

Incidentally I should say that my ideas about 'accessibility' releases were soon dispelled when I opened up the system settings app to find that the fonts were just big enough to read with an electron microscope on high magnification, back to the good old days of early KDE releases.

I know it is not a final release and even when it is I wouldn't bother using it until it had been through about 5 or 6 versions, then maybe it will be usable, at the moment it certainly isn't.

You cannot judge it with the cooker version. 4.1 is the latest stable release. There's a lot of other previous functions that didn't work in the cooker version but do in 4.1. The cooker experience didn't warm me to KDE4 however the stable releases are a much better experience and I am now gradually liking the new look/functions.

I really do like Mandriva, when Hardy comes out- If it doesn't please me, I think I'll be re-formatting my drive and sticking Mandriva on it.
I think it is amazing.
Much faster - and with KDE 4, it looks ok. I came from a GNOME environment - but I don't mind which I use, KDE makes me happy though xD

Thanks for reassuring me BB| - I really do want to like it and I really do want it to work. The alternative is too drastic to contemplate!

Come on, Gnome ain't that bad

i have tried everu major and LOTS of minor distros out there, even "paid" fr some and yet i keep coming back to MDV.

UBU is too gnomey for me

xandros is great to integrate into a windows network, but too much proprietary stuff

fedora is trying too hard NOT to be rles and SUSE is for me the only serious contender out there

just m,y 2 cts