I'm looking at distros - convince me of Mandriva

[Guest rhageman]

I've been experimenting with Ubuntu 6.10 and 7.04 for about five weeks. I've recompiled kernels to add audio drivers. I've successfully added several packages. And I've fought another set of packages to a stand-still. I have friends who are frustrated with Windows but are afraid that moving to Linux is too techie. So far, I would have to agree with their fears. I'm surviving the experiment, they don't want to try.

 

So, I have some background and now I'm asking questions.

 

Is Mandriva going to be an easy install? I'm using a Gigabyte motherboard with Intel core-2-duo running at 3.2 GHz. It has 2 GB of RAM. The audio is provided on board by an Intel HD Audio sub assembly. Graphic output is by a Sapphire ATI card. I'll be looking to dual boot with Windows XP. I want read/write access to the XP system drive and five USB externals. Oh, Linux gets to have a 120 GB drive for its home. I have an HP Deskjet 842C printer attached to this desktop along with an Epson Perfection 1660 Photo scanner.

 

Add to this base, I desire all format video - including wmv, avi, mpg, flv, rm, ram, etc., etc. I want to download photos from a digital camera and be able to edit them.

 

I'd also like VoIP/IM support - preferably, Google Talk compatible.

 

The same site that recommended Mandriva also recommended openSUSE. Why wouldn't that be the better choice?

 

 

[moved from Installing Mandriva by spinynorman - welcome aboard :)]

[AussieJohn]

Hello Rhageman and a big welcome to MUB.

 

All I can say is that I have preferred to use Mandriva for nearly all of my Linux life (5yrs) after originally trying RedHat.

Although Mandriva versions have had their problems in the past, they were resolved as we went along.

I have always found Mandriva fairly easy to install and get working and I am not a computer expert.

The current Mandriva2007-Spring has been the most faultless so far and looks great.

 

I think you will be happy with it too.

Plus this MUB is reputed to be the most user friendly forum on the web. :D

 

Cheers. John.

[arctic]

Welcome aboard. :)

 

Why would/should you choose distro A over distro B? Hard to answer. The problem is that everyone has a different idea of how things should be done, how they should look like etc. so what suits one user might be a nightmare for another user. There are tons of operating systems out there and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. Windows has its flaws, so has a linux distribution or a Mac. But in Linux there is a small advantage, called Live-CDs. With those you get a rough idea of what a distro will give you, if you like it. There are Live-CDs for SUSE and Mandriva available, the Mandriva-ONE even has a harddisk-installer (I guess SUSE lacks that one still). So I would say, test both a bit, check the hardware-compatibility, then decide for yourself.

 

What I prefer in Mandriva: It is a lot faster than SUSE and the MCC (Mandriva Control Center) is very easy to use by newcomers to Linux, thus making administration very easy (IMHO the Mandriva tools are the easiest to use tools that were ever created by any OS. Installing Windows is harder than installing Mandriva). Multimedia support is very, very good if you enable the plf-repositories and I am personally pleased with the hardware-support. What you should do is to compare your hardware to the hardware-compatibility-list (HCL) found here: http://www.mandriva.com/hardware

It is incomplete but a good first start in order to see if your computer is 100% compatible. If you install Mandriva and run into problems, we are still here for answering questions. :)

[Guest rhageman]

AussieJohn,

 

Thank you for the information. Part of why I'm going through this process is to help several friends who have no desire to become techies. So it looks like I need to find the link to a live boot cd to try out.

 

 

Artic,

 

Thank you for your feedback. I agree, I need to find a live cd image to try out. I'm hoping to find that I have no tweaking to do. My friends would be more comfortable with "plug and play". For myself, I've learned from Ubuntu and plan to learn from whatever I play with next.

 

 

Thanks all. Take care.

[Guest rhageman]

Hey guys,

 

Thought I'd let you know what I'm seeing.

 

I've downloaded and checked the MD5 on both mandriva-linux-2007-free-dvd-i568.iso and mandriva-linux-2007-free-mini.iso. They have been burned to a DVD and a CD respectively. The DVD will start but does not behave as a live DVD. It only offers to install, boot from HD, or run a memory test. It does not run linux. The CD will not boot. Frankly, I don't see how it could. The root directory contains only two subdirectories: i586 and x86_64. There's no autorun.inf until you enter one of them.

 

So, unless I install from the DVD, I can't preview Mandriva.

[Reiver_Fluffi]

Neither of those provide a "live" environment running off the media, you need to Download Mandriva One in order to achieve that.

[scarecrow]

A bootable CD does not need any "autorun.inf" - such a file is usable only to pop something in your face if you insert the CD under windoze.

Try a regular liveCD instead. I could suggest MCNLive (Mandriva based live CD), PCLinuxOS (newbie friendly live CD with plenty of eyecandy and non-GPL stuff), Mepis (Kubuntu for the absolute dummie plus some non-GPL stuff again)... Linux is full of choices.

[adamw]

http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/mandrivaone

 

there's the downloads for Mandriva Linux One, our live CD edition. As scarecrow mentioned, MCNLive is also worth looking at.

[Guest rhageman]

Hi Guys,

 

Back again. Thanks for the info. The choice of iso for live booting does not appear clear at the Mandriva site.

 

I have both the Gnome and KDE cdrom iso files downloading and I have their MD5 files. Gnome, I worked with in Ubuntu. KDE, I've never seen.

 

I'll be back to let you know how it went.

 

Thanks again for your guidance.

[Guest rhageman]

 

Yup, that's how it feels! Banging my head on a wall.

 

Downloads went well. MD5 sums checked. Burned two live CDs. Neither one boots to Linux.

 

Both CDs stall out at - I guess - the last step. Dark screen with a prompt for something "login:" There is not a lot of time to read. Left to itself, screen goes totally dark with no prompt. Tried to give "Enter" (blank password) and prompt returns. Again time is short. After three "Enter" attempts, screen goes dark with no prompt.

 

I see no info at Mandriva site. Why would they put that in a trial CD?

 

[tyme]

It sounds like you run into a little trouble. This happens on some hardware. They do their best to build a CD that will work fine with all computers, but sometimes you run into a little trouble. I would suggest you post about your issue in the Installing Mandriva forum (if you haven't already), and we will help you get it started up properly. That's why we're here ;)