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Mandriva on the Decline?


Gannin
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I've been noticing in various polls that Mandriva seems to be losing popularity. Even more than that, I've been hearing more and more people complain about being fed up with Mandriva or tired of Mandriva, about their current level of technology and how they handle things. While all this is going on, I'm hearing more and more positive talk about other distributions. This makes me wonder, are things slowly spiraling down for Mandriva?

Edited by Gannin
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Joined: 4-March 06

there's your reason ;)

 

seriously...i haven't noticed any increase, i've been hearing bad things about mandriva for a while, and it happens a lot on this board (that's not a complaint by any means). i would't be very concerned.

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Fashions come and fashions go. Distros go in and out of style, sometimes very quickly. It generally doesn't have much to do with technical merit.

A few years ago, gentoo was all the rage; you don't see that kind of enthusiasm for gentoo on the net today. Now all the buzz, a lot of it manufactured IMHO, is for ubuntu. This too shall pass; it always does. When the enthusiasm for the new distro dies down, it either fades away or finds its core constituency that sticks with it because they like the way that distro does things and it meets their needs. Others, particularly newbs, move on to the next big thing because that's what's getting the hype at the time they are introduced to linux.

Distros like mandriva, RH/fedora, slackware, debian, gentoo, suse and I guess ubuntu at this point, have all, to a greater or lesser extent, withstood the test of time. They have estabolished a core constituency and are going to be around for a while waxing and waning in popularity.

If you step back so you can see the forest for the trees, you will see that there's not much seperating all these linux distros; IMHO these distro wars become so bitter precisely because those differences are so small.

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I would not say it is on the decline more like not on the publicity trail at the moment.

 

As each new version comes out there is a lot of hype about it then it drops off, I was reading a magazine on the weekend at it said are you sick of Suse.. Now that is more because the Last version is now over two months old..

 

Lots of people try the newer versions as the come out but most have a fall back distro they really like and are happy with, Trying someting new does not mean you no longer like the old one.

 

When the next version comes out then everyone will say its on the up but i think it is more like all are on the up..

 

I stick with Mandriva, because i like it and i do try others for a day or so an another computer but not to really move but to see what else is out there, and when you talk to others you can help or advise which one they may like, as mandriva will never suit all the people like Red Hat and Suse will not..

 

And even some people like windows....

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I may have joined this particular board in March, but I've been using Linux since the late 90's. I started with Red Hat, although my first true experience was with a distro called Dragon Linux that used a loopback filesystem to connect to a DOS partition, so you could actually launch the distro from within DOS and you wouldn't have to create a separate partition for it, but quickly moved on to Mandrake and have been using it ever since.

 

I've seen my share of negative things said about Mandrake / Mandriva over the years, it's just that lately they've intensified quite a bit. I myself have become somewhat dissatisfied with the direction the company has started moving in, and with how much they've started lagging behind the other distros with their software, and I've been seeing this and similar sentiments being echoed more frequently in the Linux world.

 

I say this not only to clarify my own personal position, but also to clarify the fact that I'm not just some newcomer jumping into the middle of things and making suppositions.

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What software is lagging behind? Sure the official packages are now almost 9 months old but there are lots of community repo's out there if you want to run the latest software. (and if you really want to have the latest you can always build from source). The postive aspect of keeping with a version for a year means that its very stable. It's almost impossible to crash Mandriva 2006.0. I managed to do it only 2 times since I installed it. :)

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The more users you have for anything the more complaints you will have for that item.

 

Thus complaints do not mean that people are leaving, as in the case with windows, Some are leaving but a lot just complain.

 

Also it depends on what you want to do..

 

Mandriva does not position it self as the best for all..

 

If you want everything under the sun check out debian, but it may be more difficult..

 

When the Mandriva Club came out they said that was the death of the company but not so. Media hypes both sides of the stories good artices and bad, Bad get much better press though..

 

I am a happy user not Estatic every day but very happy and I am still in love with my version.

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I have tried a number of distros, but Mandriva remains my number one choice. I always go back to it. Second would be Gentoo. I use Red Hat for work, since that's what they've set as their distro for clients.

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....are things slowly spiraling down for Mandriva?
yes, but as pointed out it has been for a long time, though I think it has increased, and will level out. Question is, how long will it last after that?

 

When the Mandriva Club came out they said that was the death of the company but not so.
That's because this board was here, available, and flurishing to take the backlash and overflow. The Club definately hurt Mandriva, no doubt.

 

RH, Slackware and Debian have been around for a long, long time but gentoo was just a rage til people figured out the benifits weren't worth the time and wear and tear, for most users, and it was something neat everyone just wanted to try. That's all. It is put together well, it's just not for most users, so how could it remain so popular?

 

If you step back so you can see the forest for the trees, you will see that there's not much seperating all these linux distros; IMHO these distro wars become so bitter precisely because those differences are so small.
..well said. Linux is Linux.
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I've been noticing in various polls that Mandriva seems to be losing popularity.
"Don't trust any statistics that weren't falsified by yourself" (W. Churchill). Losing popularity is hard to measure. If magazine A says: It's losing popularity, then ask yourself: From where do they get that information? What are the sources? Are they mentioned? Probably not. Thus: Don't believe the hype. The second thing is: you read in magazine A that it looses popularity. In magazine B they say the opposite.
Even more than that, I've been hearing more and more people complain about being fed up with Mandriva or tired of Mandriva, about their current level of technology and how they handle things.
There are two different types of users: The one group wants the latest and greatest and when Mandriva switched to a yearly release cycle, many users felt that Mandriva will not be up to date anymore and went to some 6-months-or-shorter-release-cycle distros. Others however went to Mandriva as they were tired of downloading the latest version every six months. Still others stayed with Mandy and they did not "complain" about it but "critisized" it. We did that here on this board several times, but these discussions were not held mainly because we were fed up with Mandy, but because we wanted to discuss where there is room for improvement. And there is always room for improvement.

 

One thing is also interesting. Many of those who say "I am fed up with Mandriva" are those who now use Gentoo. A lucky coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. According to some people, it's more a logical thing ( http://greenfly.org/mes.html ).

While all this is going on, I'm hearing more and more positive talk about other distributions. This makes me wonder, are things slowly spiraling down for Mandriva?
IMHO no. There were some big changes at Mandriva, thus some rumbling and it will need a little time before everything is running smoothly again (compare: Novell/SUSE. Similar "problems"). But continuous spiraling down? Don't let distrowatchs rankings influence your opinion. The counter is a toy, nothing more, nothing less (Red Hat is #24 there but it is still the most widely used Linux-distro afaik).

 

The 2007 release will be the first one that should/will benefit strongly from the one-year-release cylce they switched to. Previous versions always had some bugs here and there because they were rushed. Now they have the time to iron things out. I guess that 2007 will be a release that will prove many people wrong in their opinion on Mandriva (but not all people, of course. You can't please everyone). :)

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If youre new to dating or new to Linux, you want to try out what you can and have lots of fun! Of course that creates loads of hype. But once you get settled down and are happy with what you have, you don't spend time messing around, or clicking-up Distrowatch's counters much more. After all, if youre happy with your marriage, why go hunting for alternative partners? I'm happy with Mandriva, so why should I click counters looking for other distros?

 

On the other side, Mandriva's businessmodel has never been anywhere near as successful as we all would like it to be. Most of us get the distro for totally free, and Mandriva gets absolutely nothing in return at all! Compare that with Bill Gate's undertakings! I'm not sure if Mandriva can sustain that way, lets all hope the best.

 

Helmut

Edited by Helmut
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Wish I would be as optimistic as you guys. But as I see there are several signs of the decline of Mandriva. So let's see:

All the other distros give you the freedom of choice. You can install the greatest and latest or you can use an older but more stable one. As you know that's not the case with Mandriva anymore. Either you use cooker and deal with all the bugs in it, or use 2006 with KDE 3.4 etc. There's nothing between these two.

Behind Linux distros often there is\are some person(s) who really make the distro and keep it in motion. Undoubtebly one of these persons at Mandriva was Gael Duval and we all know what happened with him.

2006 was the first one which was made with a doubled engeneering team (though with the old release cycle) and it contained two applications which never should have made its way to a stable product. One of them namely xorg is the core of every desktop distro. I'm using Mandrake since 7.2 but never saw such a buggy release from them.

About the benefits of the new release cycle read this thread : http://archives.mandrivalinux.com/cooker/2...03/msg03626.php

Do you still think everything is OK?

Edited by dexter11
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Many successful distros that are stable do not have the latest kde or gnome in them. And, the repos that offer the latest are as buggy as any new release. I have used Mandrake/Mandriva since 7.0, and have always installed somebody else's new kde, for example. Once or twice, I compiled my own, with some success. The point is my desire to have the latest kde had nothing to do with Mnadriva; it was me. When I tried Red Hat, when it was Red Hat, I liked Mnadriva because it had a newer version of kde. Now, Fedora has a newer version, but then it was released after the newer kde release. Frankly, Mandriva 2006 as it installs is excellent. I don't "need" the latest kde, really.

 

I think this is about impression more than fact. Mandriva is having growing pains, and have had for several years. I am not certain they are declining. I also agree that gentoo was "hot" for a while, and ubuntu is "hot" but they are really not any better than any other fine distro. I am waiting for Ulteo! :lol:

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I agree with dexter11 that Mandriva could be better and more modern, but It (2005!) works for me, and does so a hell of a lot better than Windblows. Then of course it would be good if 2006 worked better with NVIDIA-graphics, if it had the latest OpenOffice, latest Gnome and KDE... and so on. Of course I would like the latest stuff too, thats only natural. But like I said, Mandriva (2005) works bloody well, and a hell of a lot better than Windblows ever did for me.

For example, my new HP PSC-printer-scanner-copier got plugged in for the very first time and Mandriva did all the rest fully automatically. Wow! Thank you Till Kamppeter of Mandriva.

So why feel distressed? Hey, it works damn good! I'll try 2007 when it comes out and try to be patient in the mean time.

Helmut

Edited by Helmut
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