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Which is better - Ubuntu Or Mandriva?


Guest Jebereuen
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Its really just a matter of taste and knowledge level what suits you best. My 12-year old daughter installed mandriva2006 in a dual-boot situation by herself and it works just fine for her, including a common partition (FAT32) for both Wind Blows and Mandriva. On the other hand, you don't really seem to grow out of mdk as quickly as with other distros.

 

If you are wondering about sharing stuff between NTFS/XP and Linux, why not consider a common FAT32 partition?

 

 

I tried the latest Ubuntu myself, but returned to mdk.

Helmut

Edited by Helmut
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Ubuntu, more up to date, far superior hardware support, has less buggy and more standard GUI config tools that are better integrated with the desktop, much more software available, doesnt look like win95+gradients, a single CD install is actually usable, uses superior automounting solution, more functional desktop out of the box, better installer (LiveCD install).

 

Mandriva. uh.... they're still around?

 

Not an ubuntu user, and havnt used it for months, but sorry, mandriva has nothing on ubuntu.

 

James

Edited by iphitus
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Iphi, no offense, but when have you used Mandriva the last time? And where is the proof for anything you state here?

 

Ubuntu, more up to date - Take a look at the current Mandriva cooker snapshot. It's nonsense what you say.

Far superior hardware support - Nonsense. I got Mandriva to work immediately, where Ubuntu failed, especially on Laptops.

Less buggy - I believe you haven't checked the reviews, the angry comments and the Ubuntuforums lately about the disaster with the buggy 6.06 release.

Much more software available - Nonsense. Mandriva has in Main and Contrib repos alone over 13 000 packages, according to AdamW and he should know what he is talking about.

A single CD install is actually usable - Same with Mandriva. Use Mandriva ONE e.g. or download the boot-iso (18 MB) and install a full desktop with it. No problem.

More functional desktop out of the box - Proof? Gnome is Gnome, KDE is KDE. Nothing more, nothing less. :P

Better installer (LiveCD install) - Are you kidding? The installer is pretty broken. ;)

 

I won't comment on the rest, as it's not really worth the effort. There is no proof in what you say there and such comments only tend to start ugly flamewars. So please don't state things without giving valid arguments.

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Iphi, no offense, but when have you used Mandriva the last time? And where is the proof for anything you state here?

 

Ubuntu, more up to date - Take a look at the current Mandriva cooker snapshot. It's nonsense what you say.

 

:huh:

 

I can't see how cooker comes in to this, it's a development snapshot. IMHO it is more constructive to compare stable with stable.

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Yes, you are right, but Cooker shows you what will be available soon in Mandriva 2007. And that is KDE 3.5.3 afaik, Gnome 2.16 and the latest Kernel plus the current Firefox and Openoffice. Thus it's a bit ridiculous to say that Ubuntu is more up to date as they will ship almost the same software. After six months - of course - they have newer packages due to faster release cycles, but the difference between both systems is imho rather minimal.

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Iphi, no offense, but when have you used Mandriva the last time? And where is the proof for anything you state here?

 

Ubuntu, more up to date - Take a look at the current Mandriva cooker snapshot. It's nonsense what you say.

I'm talking releases here. If ubuntu have made another release, then that's to their advantage. This thread asks about the distros now, not in 6 months when they make another release.

Far superior hardware support - Nonsense. I got Mandriva to work immediately, where Ubuntu failed, especially on Laptops.

There's countless sata controllers for example, which will work out of the box in ubuntu that fail in the current mandriva release. My wireless worked out of hte box in Ubuntu, whereas mandriva provided a driver that was known to give a guaranteed hard lock when loaded.

 

Less buggy - I believe you haven't checked the reviews, the angry comments and the Ubuntuforums lately about the disaster with the buggy 6.06 release.

I didnt say less buggy, I said less buggy GUI config tools. MCC blows, whereas ubuntu uses the far more stable gnome-system-tools set.

Much more software available - Nonsense. Mandriva has in Main and Contrib repos alone over 13 000 packages, according to AdamW and he should know what he is talking about.

Ubuntu has mirrors configured out of the box. With mandriva people have to discover this easy urpmi website thingy.

A single CD install is actually usable - Same with Mandriva. Use Mandriva ONE e.g. or download the boot-iso (18 MB) and install a full desktop with it. No problem.

Never heard of mandriva one, good to see mandriva putting their products where they should be seen. I just grabbed the first CD of the latest release and installed it. Wasnt pretty. Boot ISO aint so great when you dont have internet access.

More functional desktop out of the box - Proof? Gnome is Gnome, KDE is KDE. Nothing more, nothing less. :P

Better installer (LiveCD install) - Are you kidding? The installer is pretty broken. ;)

Distros do happen to customise their desktops you know, enable different bits of gnome and kde by default, and provide different components. And if you've ever tried a one CD install, it gives a pretty useless desktop.

 

James

Edited by iphitus
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I think you're confusing the first CD of a Mandriva 2006 set with their product called "Mandriva One".

 

It's a LiveCD installer.

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I'm talking releases here. If ubuntu have made another release, then that's to their advantage. This thread asks about the distros now, not in 6 months when they make another release.
In that case, you should compare Mdv2006 to Ubuntu 5.10. And both systems were - again - quite similar in what they shipped. Some differences are there, of course. Nobody denies that. But comparing Ubuntu 6.06 to Mdv2006 is as unfair as comparing e.g. the current Gentoo to Debian Stable.
And if you've ever tried a one CD install, it gives a pretty useless desktop.

That definitely depends on the user. For many users, Mandriva ONE provides them with all they need. It's of course not perfect, but it ain't bad either.

Ubuntu has mirrors configured out of the box. With mandriva people have to discover this easy urpmi website thingy.
Still: The software IS there. That is a fact. Like it or not.
There's countless sata controllers for example, which will work out of the box in ubuntu that fail in the current mandriva release. My wireless worked out of hte box in Ubuntu, whereas mandriva provided a driver that was known to give a guaranteed hard lock when loaded.
So it depends on your hardware - as usual. The same can be said of any distro. So this is not a valid point imho. It would only be a valid point if 90% of the distros support e.g. HP printers and Mandriva not. But that is not the case.
I didnt say less buggy, I said less buggy GUI config tools.
Sorry, my bad. :)

 

Final note on KDE and Gnome: Yes, distros take things out or put others in, but I have yet to find a distro that cripples KDE or Gnome so that the desktop is rather unfunctional. The core is for the average user the filemanager and that works in both DEs and ain't crippled. Neither in Ubuntu, nor Mandriva. ;)

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In that case, you should compare Mdv2006 to Ubuntu 5.10. And both systems were - again - quite similar in what they shipped. Some differences are there, of course. Nobody denies that. But comparing Ubuntu 6.06 to Mdv2006 is as unfair as comparing e.g. the current Gentoo to Debian Stable.

well the thread is about NOW. So, i'm comparing the two now. If that means mandriva's release schedule is a disadvantage, then it's a disadvantage NOW imho.

 

But there's still some things which remain out of date. Like mandriva's use of supermount, and bootsplash. Both are very dated, and havnt been updated/maintained for *years*.

That definitely depends on the user. For many users, Mandriva ONE provides them with all they need. It's of course not perfect, but it ain't bad either.

Again, I hadnt heard of mandriva one till now. Grab the standard ditro's first CD, and it's completely useless.

Still: The software IS there. That is a fact. Like it or not.

poorly worded by me. Ubuntu's is more accessible.

So it depends on your hardware - as usual. The same can be said of any distro. So this is not a valid point imho. It would only be a valid point if 90% of the distros support e.g. HP printers and Mandriva not. But that is not the case.

if we're comparing these two distro's hardware support, then the other distro's support is irrelevant. In my experience and knowledge, the current ubuntu release smokes the current mandriva release simply because it has a much newer kernel. Of course it will depend on your hardware, but you'll find ubuntu has much better support for newer hardware. Although already I outlined two areas where ubuntu is improved over mandriva, wireless and SATA, and to be fair, they're pretty big areas.

 

Some of those advantages are due to the fact that mandriva is a release behind. But this thread is about the distro's now, not in 6 months. In the past Mandriva have tended to ship things a version or two older than latest. To be fair to Mandriva, the 2007 alpha is looking to be a change from that and contains an ambitious list of new and developmental stuff, and it would be a great release if they pull it off. That with an MCC overhaul, Network Manager, Gnome Power Manager, a proper userspace mounting setup such as ivman, gvm or kde's internal one, would make a mighty fine release.

 

James

Edited by iphitus
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i remember having a not-so-fun time when I had to set up the urpmi mirrors, swapping them round if some weren't accessible, etc. New users can't really be expected to do that kind of thing, as basic as it may seem to us.

 

So even a 3-CD install was quite useless for me as I couldn't install the software i needed without the mirror juggling trick. With ubuntu it's just a simple apt-get.

 

And ubuntu makes the update easily visible - so buggy software is fixed more quickly and easily. But mandriva needs several clicks and dialog boxes before updating, do you think average users will go to that kind of trouble? They'll just notice the bugs, and that's not a good thing.

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But there's still some things which remain out of date. Like mandriva's use of supermount, and bootsplash. Both are very dated, and havnt been updated/maintained for *years*.
Supermount - agreed. Bootsplash... well it's not pretty but it's only minor eye-candy. A pretty bootsplash is nice, but not something by what I judge a distro.
Again, I hadnt heard of mandriva one till now.
It was in the media for quite some time, so don't blame Mandriva for you not reading magazines. :P

 

I cannot really comment on Wireless and SATA devices as I don't use them. So my judgement is out on those things. :juggle:

 

Yes, Ubuntus software is more accessible by default. That is an acceptable wording for it. :)

 

To be fair to Mandriva, the 2007 alpha is looking to be a change from that and contains an ambitious list of new and developmental stuff, and it would be a great release if they pull it off. That with an MCC overhaul, Network Manager, Gnome Power Manager, a proper userspace mounting setup such as ivman, gvm or kde's internal one, would make a mighty fine release.
I agree. 2007 looks like a fine release. But I don't think that a major MCC overhaul will be incuded there (haven't noticed it in cooker yet). And I guess Red Hats NetworkManager will make it into Mandriva, too. I don't know however if it will be in 2007 already as NetworkManager is not considered as stable yet (although it works in most cases from what I know).
I had to set up the urpmi mirrors, swapping them round if some weren't accessible
That is more a problem of the mirror maintainers and easyurpmi not being updated properly by the community than of Mandriva. But default Mandriva-mirrors that work would be nice, of course.
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I always heard Ubuntu was classed as an easy distro for Windows users to get to grips with. I've also heard the Ubuntu forum isn't that user-friendly, especially if you bump posts because nobody replied to help you.

 

It's FUD. ianw :)

Ubuntuforums are very user-friendly.

I've only seen 2 or 3 get flamed for it out of our 120.000 members. We try to deal with such persons that do that. I have seen many who had bump there post without getting flamed.

 

One of thte rules we also have, that you aren't allowed to (flame ofcause), or google it as a reply.

 

Sure when the forum is so big it's regretable that it also attract some not-so-nice people, but usual we have a good grip on those people if we sees one.

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There are other annoying things about (K)ubuntu, factly very annoying ones, but as far as it goes for things that i'm concerned about, I agree with Iphitus: More polished, more up-to-date, less buggy, easier to handle than Mandy. It just ain't good enough for my needs.

If I didn't have my case set on Arch, I would use either Debian Sid (either pure or via Kanotix), or some flavour of modernized Slackware, e.g. Frugalware. Fortunately enough Arch is alive and kicking, for the foreseeable future.

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Sure when the forum is so big it's regretable that it also attract some not-so-nice people, but usual we have a good grip on those people if we sees one.

 

I used to frequent a Windows forum :o but after getting big attitude problems from people who were completely wrong anyhow, I left. I was only there two days!!!!! And I know I was right too, I do know my stuff on Windows.

 

However, before I left I did correct him on all his comments that he was unfounded in anything he said. I wouldn't go back.

 

Bunch of #$^&%^# :lol2:

 

My comment however, was because I remembered a comment from someone here (mentioning no names), who, had been on the ubuntu forum and when he bumped it, got told to #$%% off.

 

I have seen attitude on the Arch forums too, aimed at one of my posts when I posted a solution to my problem, and they replied with an attitude saying that was not the solution to my problem but something else was. They could have been nicer about it in my opinion.

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Sorry, I got lost somewhere in the deabte between arctic and iphitus lol

 

So, sorry that I haven't read the whole thread, but here is my opinion:

 

I would choose Ubuntu for the following reasons:

 

- It's more light-weight and streamlined than Mandriva. Just one CD, with everything you need and nice choices of applications. I don't like how much Mandriva ships with and a default install will give you a ton of applications you'll never need. This is also confusing for new users (I know, because I was one :P ). That said, it can be handy having everything on disc if you don't have an Internet connection or something. Personal preference here = Ubuntu.

 

- I prefer apt and synaptic as package managers. Urpmi is dated, slow and incumbent (my opinion, again). And I must confess that I have not used Mandriva lately (urpmi was one of the things that drove me to Gentoo).

 

And I'll leave it at that - I do agree with iphitus that hardware detection is better in Ubuntu, although I'm talking from dated exeperience, Mandriva might be better now.

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