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ZDNet Mandriva review


devries
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There is a Mandriva 2006 review at ZDNet (and a comparison is made between different distros). Mandriva didn't come out very well but the reasons given for this result (difficulty setting up a network printer) don't sound very convincing. I'm afraid this review says more about the technical skills of the journalist then about Mandriva. Read and weep :)

 

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When I first used Linux, I didn't really have a problem with partitioning like he did? He was obviously trying to be dumb.

 

He clicked the auto button. So if he actually then looked at the partitions that were created, he would have figured out what it had done, and then he could create manually based on what ended up after automatic configuration. And if he'd read up on partitions, he could of figured to use reiserfs, etc, instead of ext3 which is chosen by default with automatic partitioning.

 

This guy is obviously a Suse fanatic, and unless it operates like Suse with yast, or whatever, it has to be no good. I personally find Mandrake/Mandriva one of the best distros out there. I think it's really easy to use, an does give you advanced functionality as well for you to get to grips with.

 

I'm sure he could easily obtain the Exchange Connector. Maybe updates to the system include an update for Evolution that would have resolved it. If not, find it, download it, install it, and hey, it's all working guys :P

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My point was, who actually cares about exchange, a microsoft product, when you can use pop3 and IMAP, which are not microsoft products?

You go and tell your boss that he should throw away his thousands of $ in exchange because you want to use mandriva on the desktop. What Exchange does is an easy to manage all in one solution. the closest thing open source has at the moment is hula, which is only available through subversion because there hasn't been an official public release.

 

I'm certainly not a fan of Exchange btw, but there are reasons it gets chosen.

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There is a package called ximian-connector in the Main-tree of Mandriva 2006.

 

That's what rpmdrake tells me about (just used the synthesis.hdlist, so no further info):

Name: ximian-connector

Version: 2.2.3-2mdk

Architektur: i586

Größe: 3050 KB

Medium: Main (Official2006.0-1)

Momentan installierte Version: (keine)

 

Zusammenfassung: Exchange Connector for Evolution

 

Beschreibung: Keine Beschreibung

Dateien:

(Nicht vorhanden)

 

ChangeLog:

(Nicht vorhanden)

 

Printerdrake is set up to look for network-printers

 

conclusion: the guy didn't just look

 

seems he just does not like Mandriva but has no real case why, so he had to find something

 

for the exchange thing:

 

if your company is such exchange-fanatic I would doubt that you are allowed to use linux anyway

Edited by lavaeolus
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why is this a surprise for anyone here? dont we all know the mindset of the media by now? dont we all know that if the computer doesnt wipe their arse for them, then its not actuarially equivalent. never mind about the spyware, viruses, maleware and so on. never mind the BSOD's and the other things. people accept this from M$ when they wouldnt accept it anywhere else. yet people are to blinded to see their own stupidity and double standardness.

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Maybe we should post our comments there and attempt to enlighten this writer ?

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/os/0,3...39237416,00.htm

 

 

somehow, i dont think it would help much. i used to respect paul thurrot..... http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/Articl...8556/48556.html these people, have their minds set on windows. although, i must say, paul did make some fair observations. deps are still an area that linux needs work on. although paul forgot to mention dll hell. his bias deffinately comes through, but then so does ours. there isnt a way to objectively report on an OS.

 

his bias shows here

Regardless, OSS proponents have been pushing the supposed security, reliability, and durability advantages of Linux over Windows for years now. My gut feeling has always been that were Linux installed in as many production environments as Windows, it would fall apart as much or more, albeit in different ways. What's lacking, of course, is evidence

 

in the OP's article

The hand-holding was a bit slack in places, however. We found the disk partitioner a little harder to use than YaST2.
i am a suse user, and i still prefer the drake partitioning tool over yast. click on the partition and adjust. how hard is that? :S i guess he likes to enter in numbers. :juggle:

 

Eventually we stumbled across a way of adding a networked printer when we had to reinstall the OS for other reasons. During the final stages of the installation process, when the installer is configuring the hardware, it's possible to search for printers and add them very simply by clicking buttons. The installer found dozens of printers on our network and printed a test page on our chosen one. We can't believe this functionality isn't available inside the operating system: do we really have to reinstall every time we want to use a new printer? If the option is available when the OS is installed and running, it's very well hidden.

 

so this is mandrivas fault? just a little poking arround solved the problem.

Despite appearances, though, the manual was no more help than most of its ilk when we used it in anger.
no book will make sence when you read when your angry. put it down, walk a way for a bit, then come back to it.

 

We were disappointed with the Evolution client, too. It works well, but in Mandriva is supplied without the Microsoft Exchange connector which -- let's face it -- will be needed on most corporate desktops. Although it's possible to connect to an Exchange server via IMAP, this is more fiddly than using the Exchange connector, which could easily be made available.

 

as someone pointed out, its available with mandriva. you can also get red-carpet and do it that way.

 

i cant comment to much here, since i havent used mandrake/mandriva since mandrake 10.0 beta2 :woops: but you can tell the author was biased here as well. he deffinately prefered suse. the last paragraph talking about how ctrl-alt-e to get a euro symbol crashed the X server, i can do worse in suse 10.0. i click on a program and it throws my system into an irretrevable sleep mode. none of the keys work when this happens. again, he shows his bias and ignorance.

 

i thought yall might appreciate a suse user putting it into perspective. ;)

Edited by linux_learner
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There is another guy, who is even worse:

 

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,123555,00.asp

 

Maybe a bit offtopic, but these reviews lead me to a question: what is so super-cool about ubuntu ?

 

don't get me wrong; I like ubuntu; it has a nice different look, it mostly works without fiddling, but it's not perfect either: on an acer notebook with 1280x800 widescreen it insists on 1024x768, which does not look very nice

except from that it uses gnome 2.12 I can see no improvement over the mandriva 2006 with gnome 2.10 I use on my main machine

 

one feature of nautilus in 2.12 is even worse than in 2.10, you can't type in your path in the address bar

Edited by lavaeolus
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I usually don't comment on other people's reviews, since I'm writing reviews too, but boy have these guys got no clue, preset minds and preselected winners or what?

 

I guess what's so cool about Ubuntu is that you can order discs online and they get sent to you. Heard the community is nice, albeit not so clued-in at times...

 

Last time I tried (a year ago) when everyone was saying: this is the new thing, forget SUSE, Mdk, FC etc, this beats them all, I found it had the quality and polish the competition had 6 to 12 months before - text installer, mediocre hardware support, etc. I'm just waiting for the next opportunity, I'm sure it's much better now - most linuxes have access to the same kernel and patches, so hardware support should be very similar, and the installer should have moved into graphics world. Although I didn't mind the text installer.

 

Lastly, the hot thing about it is people finding an easy to use Linux based on Debian - which in its pure form is too hard for many starters (there used to be too many people shouting: rtfm/utfs - not sure if this is still the case). So the excitement is often about pride to have managed something cool. Not to mention apt-get, which those not in the know think is the only proper package installer...

If you come from the 'other' side, it sure is amazing.

If your mandy is working fine, as it should, Ubuntu won't offer you anything amazing.

 

So from one side: Ubuntu is hyped, but on the other, it's all true, if you catch my drift.

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