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Mandriva is still free


lavaeolus
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Ok, some of you might be bored by this, but lastly I often heard: Mandriva is not free, they try to lock you in the club, yadda, yadda... and so on (vomit)

 

To set some urban legends straight:

 

Mandriva is as free as it was before !

 

There is a free edition that has all the non-GPL-stuff removed, but is otherwise fully functional (maybe its good to have a broadband connection, since some parts have to be downloaded from the internet, but these are mainly somewhat exotic server apps)

 

OpenOffice 2 is in contribs, it's a pre-version, but

 

1) it works very well

 

2) Fedora Core 4, Suse 10 and Ubuntu 5.10 ship pre-versions either

 

Mandriva 2006: OOo 1.9-129

FC4: OOo 1.9-104

Suse 10: OOo 1.9-125 or 129

Ubuntu: OOo 1.9-125 or 129

 

3) this was the version available when Mandriva 2006 came out

 

For the final OOo2 you don't need to join the club, just download it from OOo's site (it's rpm-based now, there is an install-guide within the package, which tells you how to do it, there is a rpm that creates the menu entries too)

 

For Flash-player, Adobe-Reader and Java there are free replacements, if you don't know how to install them go to artee's site:

 

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/

 

he has put together some really usefull instructions on this

 

If you want Flash-player, Adobe-Reader and Java go to macromedia, Adobe, Sun, they have rpms that are fairly easy to install

 

for nvidia and ati-drivers, please don't blame mandriva, blame ati and nvidia for the somewhat difficult install and the closed-source nature of their drivers

 

Freedom in the Open Source world means freedom of choice, not getting everything for nil

 

Final Point: the mere existence of PCLinuxOS shows that Mandriva indeed is free (since PCLOS is based on Mandriva), I don' think Texstar would have taken Mandriva as base otherwise

 

If you don't have broadband connection, there are CD-Vendors as well, where you can get the entire package on CDs, in Germany for example it's

 

http://liniso.de/

Edited by lavaeolus
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Thanks for the free ad. Darn, I knew I should have put ads on my site...

:D

 

Small comment: the Free edition isn't entirely GPL, there are some other parts, for instance OOo is not GPL. However, it does not include any proprietary software, which is the next best thing to being completely GPL if you ask Free Software buffs...

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for nvidia and ati-drivers, please don't blame mandriva, blame ati and nvidia for the somewhat difficult install and the closed-source nature of their drivers

 

 

I think you have kinda missed the point on that one. The open-source and ati drivers worked before, the issue was that Mandriva uses a development version of Xorg which they pulled from the CVS. If the used a stable version of Xorg, it is sensible to suggest that the nvidia and ati drivers would not be an issue. Ergo, blame Mandriva, they packaged a development xorg to keep intel happy (i'm sure there is a business arrangement between the two.....)

 

And to be quite frank, installing ati and nvidia's closed source drivers is a doddle, just takes a little patience and about 5 mins of your time............

 

B)

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It's weird, as I've put MDV 2006 on all my boxes now, and had no problems whatsoever with it.

 

The only problems I do have are with some OpenGL screensavers, when running on........Intel Video cards!!!! :P

 

My NVidia systems work perfectly well with all OpenGL screensavers (Euphoria). However, on my Intel Video based systems, the Euphoria screensaver only runs in the top third of the screen!

 

Which part of Intel are they keeping happy? Not sure it's the video section :P

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Thanks for the free ad. Darn, I knew I should have put ads on my site...

:D

 

Small comment: the Free edition isn't entirely GPL, there are some other parts, for instance OOo is not GPL. However, it does not include any proprietary software, which is the next best thing to being completely GPL if you ask Free Software buffs...

 

I looked at that OOo web pages is very good one I like it put there is for linux look up at http://www.hahaha.com :headbang:

Edited by Mandriva-user
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Just add this line to ubuntu repo and you have OO2 final.

 

 

# Open Office 2 final

deb http://people.ubuntu.com/~doko/OOo2 ./

 

 

 

:)

 

Aye, most of the major distro's have now packaged it and made available to end users. But, typical of Mandriva, if you want an "Official packaged OOo, you gotta be a club member. Somebody care to explain why the business model works, cos it's beyond me.....

 

 

(Here AI, nice to see yer still around ;))

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