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Mandriva - Pros and Cons


manmath sahu
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My friend Sudhanshu wants to share few words with Linux community. He was a Windows user now turned to a full-time Linux user only last week. He asked me several things, +ves and -ves of linux, I told him to recollect all his thought and put into paper. Here is what he says. I thought it would be better to put the ideas on Mandriva forum. Because mandriva is the best usable and easy desktop in the linux world. At least I think so.

 

Hope, the members will address some of the issues raised by my friend. So that he (and many others) will know why linux is so if it is so.

 

Here goes my friend Sudhanshu......

 

"I just want to share some of linux ecstacy and agony with you.

Linux is a great server. In my office we never had any problem running web servers on Mandriva, RHEL or Debian. But I wonder why Linux Desktop is still rough around the corners. Lemme site some examples (all from my experience).

 

  1. I am never sure whether I can copy the next VCD on my Linux Desktop.
    First time I tried to copy the vcd files I was unable. Then somebody suggested me to use vcdimager and/or vcdgear. Tried that. Some of the vcds get copied, some still could not (but i tried them on XP, all get copied like breeze). Then somebody else told me to use cdfs. I did that as well. And it was a tedious job building a kernel module (dkms-cdfs). It did better job then vcdimager and vcdgear. But still I find problem.
  2. Next is the issue with drivers. Mandriva 2007 did not have drivers for my x3100 graphics card. Somebody told me to download the latest xorg-video-intel driver. Downloaded it, but it could not go. It asked for a later xorg-server. Upgraded it. Still could not succeed. Of course, Mandriva 2008 install detected my driver and autoconfigured. But, again a big but, I get only 24bit color at the best, whereas on windows I could get 32bit color. It's not a big issue, but nontheless a concern.
  3. I always loved my system clean. That's why I used many disk-cleaning tools on windows partition. But while using kleansweep on Mandriva, I got dire results. I could not got my desktop back. I had to do a fresh install. Later I came to know that kleansweep is quite unintelligent while choosing what keep and what to dump. But I never had such a problem before.
  4. Then big issue was with getting proper software. Take for example K3b. It's versatile. But again not like that of Nero (I talking about the Windows version, NeroLinux lags behind K3b). Whenever I write CD/DVD on Nero, I am sure it burns well. But in K3b I have to cautious about the burning speed, else the media is gone.
  5. The same thing goes with other softwares like Deluge and Ktorrent. None of them are as good as utorrent or bitcomet... On other front such as Office suites and graphics, linux apps are not that much productive. Let me explain, I never found OpenOffice as responsive (and fast) as MS Office. I never find GIMP as usable and versatile as Photoshop. Coming to illustration software, inkscape, xara and sodipodi lag miles behind CorelDraw and Adobe illustrator. The same goes with video-editing and audio-editing apps.
  6. Another big challenge. Last week I purchased disks of Britannica Encyclopedia and Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. I refer both of them at home and office. Both of them has option to speak/pronounce text and both come with Linux and Windows versons in a pack. In windows I never had any problem. OALD took MS speech engine and Britannica took quicktime. But while trying them on Mandriva the speech engines did not work. Britannica and OLAD both asked to install VLC (despite the fact that I the system already had the latest versions of VLC) then it told to use the VLC binary that came with the Britannica and OLAD. Did that as well. But still no going....
  7. Coming to web browsing. Previously, I had 64kbp bandwidth with I upgrade to 128 last month (64kbp sucks). In windows I have always found it a bad experience to browse, but accessing the web was never a challenge. While in Mandriva 2008 I could not access some of the websites. Firefox would fire some rounds of search and then it will say "The server is redirecting the page in such a way that would never....." and stand still... Later after a full days toil, I came to know it was an ipv6 issue. I disabled ipv6 globally. Now I enjoy browsing on firefox the best. Well, let me explain one more thing... Firefox is great in many respects, but it has one -ve, it's still very slow to start, whereas IE4, 5, 6 and 7 all are very fast to start, though they fall flat before FF feature-wise.
  8. I visit distrowatch regularly. Love to read the software and new-releases. I am very annoyed, when will the bugs will ever go. Every new release note tells it fixed certain bugs, but still there are many to be fixed on the next release. The n-number of alphas, betas and rcs...
  9. Then coming to desktop environment. Windows Desktop Environment (Explorer) and Mac Environment (Aqua) rarely break/crash. (I am talking about desktop environment and not the system or OS). But I have crashed KDE and GNOME several times. You tinker a little and will be dragged to a text terminal. At some good times you can come back to desktop and at some bad times you have to re-install or re-configure the desktop...

 

Last words...

 

Despite all those things I use Linux. I am proud of its growth. It's improving like anything. Only last sunday, I deleted my windows partition and did a fresh install of Mandriva 2008. Because I love FOSS, GNU and Linux. I like their philosophy of software development and deployment. And like the linux security. But as I told earlier, I just pray god and the developers to smooth the rough edges of Linux. Hope the situation will improve in next few years.

 

Thanks all the forum members."

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My friend Sudhanshu wants to share few words with Linux community. He was a Windows user now turned to a full-time Linux user only last week. He asked me several things, +ves and -ves of linux, I told him to recollect all his thought and put into paper. Here is what he says. I thought it would be better to put the ideas on Mandriva forum. Because mandriva is the best usable and easy desktop in the linux world. At least I think so.

 

Hope, the members will address some of the issues raised by my friend. So that he (and many others) will know why linux is so if it is so.

 

Here goes my friend Sudhanshu......

 

"I just want to share some of linux ecstacy and agony with you.

Linux is a great server. In my office we never had any problem running web servers on Mandriva, RHEL or Debian. But I wonder why Linux Desktop is still rough around the corners. Lemme site some examples (all from my experience).

 

Some apps can be a bit rough around the edges, but I wouldn't say it's as bad as you think it might be.

 

  1. I am never sure whether I can copy the next VCD on my Linux Desktop.
    First time I tried to copy the vcd files I was unable. Then somebody suggested me to use vcdimager and/or vcdgear. Tried that. Some of the vcds get copied, some still could not (but i tried them on XP, all get copied like breeze). Then somebody else told me to use cdfs. I did that as well. And it was a tedious job building a kernel module (dkms-cdfs). It did better job then vcdimager and vcdgear. But still I find problem.
 
I had the same problem - it's due to the way VCD's are made. In the end I dumped it out to a bin file, although it was a while ago, so can't remember exactly how I did it. But if you dump it out to a bin file, you can then burn it back to another CD again later.
 

Next is the issue with drivers. Mandriva 2007 did not have drivers for my x3100 graphics card. Somebody told me to download the latest xorg-video-intel driver. Downloaded it, but it could not go. It asked for a later xorg-server. Upgraded it. Still could not succeed. Of course, Mandriva 2008 install detected my driver and autoconfigured. But, again a big but, I get only 24bit color at the best, whereas on windows I could get 32bit color. It's not a big issue, but nontheless a concern.
 
Windows doesn't have all the drivers for your hardware, so why should you expect Linux to be the same? You can still download the drivers and use them perfectly fine. Did you check how old the driver was that you downloaded? I use the intel driver that comes with xorg by default, and have no problems. ATI/NVidia you have to download manually and install or use dkms to install it. It's the way it is, and probably always will be since we cannot simply put support for every single piece of hardware by default. It's a lot better than it was though, and it's certainly not much hassle to install one driver here or there. Clean your system, and use an official Windows XP CD and you'll find you have no drivers for anything. My laptop for example, Windows requires drivers for video, network card, sound, etc before it'll work. Linux, everything works without me doing anything additional. So I would say Linux is better in this respect than Windows.
 

I always loved my system clean. That's why I used many disk-cleaning tools on windows partition. But while using kleansweep on Mandriva, I got dire results. I could not got my desktop back. I had to do a fresh install. Later I came to know that kleansweep is quite unintelligent while choosing what keep and what to dump. But I never had such a problem before.
 
Never used the tool, but Filelight is a nice package that can help you see where all your disk space went, then you can manually clear out your files. Why trust a package to do it automatically for you? That's just asking for trouble.
 

Then big issue was with getting proper software. Take for example K3b. It's versatile. But again not like that of Nero (I talking about the Windows version, NeroLinux lags behind K3b). Whenever I write CD/DVD on Nero, I am sure it burns well. But in K3b I have to cautious about the burning speed, else the media is gone.
 
If you are using crap, cheap CD's/DVD's then expect problems. Use a decent brand, and you might find it'll be a lot more stable. This has nothing to do with K3B or Nero. I've only experienced bad burns with crap and cheap media.
 

The same thing goes with other softwares like Deluge and Ktorrent. None of them are as good as utorrent or bitcomet... On other front such as Office suites and graphics, linux apps are not that much productive. Let me explain, I never found OpenOffice as responsive (and fast) as MS Office. I never find GIMP as usable and versatile as Photoshop. Coming to illustration software, inkscape, xara and sodipodi lag miles behind CorelDraw and Adobe illustrator. The same goes with video-editing and audio-editing apps.
 
You can get utorrent and bitcoment for Linux as far as I'm aware, although I use azureus. Petition Adobe if you want a Linux version of it. OpenOffice is faster for me than Office, simply requires a couple of changes to some settings and it's OK. Remember, Office had an app that loaded in the background, keeping it resident - do the same with OpenOffice, and it also will load faster. Video-editing is a little issue, but you can use kino for simple stuff or cinelerra for advanced stuff. However, prepare for a learning curve, it's not so simple - but then I don't expect many video editing tools are.
 

Another big challenge. Last week I purchased disks of Britannica Encyclopedia and Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. I refer both of them at home and office. Both of them has option to speak/pronounce text and both come with Linux and Windows versons in a pack. In windows I never had any problem. OALD took MS speech engine and Britannica took quicktime. But while trying them on Mandriva the speech engines did not work. Britannica and OLAD both asked to install VLC (despite the fact that I the system already had the latest versions of VLC) then it told to use the VLC binary that came with the Britannica and OLAD. Did that as well. But still no going....
 
Never used, so can't comment.
 

Coming to web browsing. Previously, I had 64kbp bandwidth with I upgrade to 128 last month (64kbp sucks). In windows I have always found it a bad experience to browse, but accessing the web was never a challenge. While in Mandriva 2008 I could not access some of the websites. Firefox would fire some rounds of search and then it will say "The server is redirecting the page in such a way that would never....." and stand still... Later after a full days toil, I came to know it was an ipv6 issue. I disabled ipv6 globally. Now I enjoy browsing on firefox the best. Well, let me explain one more thing... Firefox is great in many respects, but it has one -ve, it's still very slow to start, whereas IE4, 5, 6 and 7 all are very fast to start, though they fall flat before FF feature-wise.
 
Try a more lightweight browser then. If you have lots of features, expect it to take a little longer to load than one that has virtually no features.
 

I visit distrowatch regularly. Love to read the software and new-releases. I am very annoyed, when will the bugs will ever go. Every new release note tells it fixed certain bugs, but still there are many to be fixed on the next release. The n-number of alphas, betas and rcs...
 
How many hot fixes and service packs do Microsoft release? Do you forget about these? Microsoft probably has a lot more bugs as well. Linux is free, people do things and fix things for free. They don't do that at Microsoft.
 

Then coming to desktop environment. Windows Desktop Environment (Explorer) and Mac Environment (Aqua) rarely break/crash. (I am talking about desktop environment and not the system or OS). But I have crashed KDE and GNOME several times. You tinker a little and will be dragged to a text terminal. At some good times you can come back to desktop and at some bad times you have to re-install or re-configure the desktop...

 

What's your system specification? Maybe you're machine just doesn't have enough resources and hence the crashing? I've never had any problems with KDE/Gnome, but that's not to say there aren't any. If you're having problems, log a bug and help people fix the problems. If nobody knows about the bug, how do you think it would get fixed? Same goes for Windows. I find Explorer crashes more for me than anything in Linux does.

 

Last words...

 

Despite all those things I use Linux. I am proud of its growth. It's improving like anything. Only last sunday, I deleted my windows partition and did a fresh install of Mandriva 2008. Because I love FOSS, GNU and Linux. I like their philosophy of software development and deployment. And like the linux security. But as I told earlier, I just pray god and the developers to smooth the rough edges of Linux. Hope the situation will improve in next few years.

 

Thanks all the forum members."

 

It's already improving well. I've used Linux on my desktop for the last two to three years, and I don't have any problems or rough edges. I only have one issue, and that is video-editing. Sure, Photoshop for Linux would be nice, but Gimp is enough for me - just would like some of the features of Photoshop. However, as I said - you won't get a Linux version of Photoshop by petitioning Linux - you have to speak to Adobe about that and get them to make it. They need to see that there is a market for it, else they won't make it.

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Great explanation to all the issues raised by Sudhanshu! And also you helped (you made my day) me tackle/explain my friends who ask sometimes about linux annoyances (I have nothing to complain about, Linux has much for me).

 

I have but one question. Regarding software installation. Many times I get stuck in software installation. I would agree Linux most often does a good job autoconfiguring device drivers. On my notebook Mandriva detected every bit of my hardware. But while trying SLED 10 SP1 (just did it for fun) I could not succeed in installing the drivers. Frankly speaking, if its there in xorg and kernel, it damn easy. But if it is not there, device installation becomes cryptic. Whereas in Windows installing device drivers is a must. But it's easy, just click and go. Hope the situation will improve when the device manufacturers will realize that there is a strong linux user base who are using their drivers.

 

Though sudhanshu has some problems by his dkms-cdfs (he had compiled it from source), I could not built one for me, fortunately Anurag (Project Lead of Granular Linux) compiled that module for me and it worked well under on Granular, PCLinuxOS and Mandriva 2008 (may be the three have much in common).

 

I get my daily chore of computing from linux. I have no problem with tux. As for sudhansu, he is little annoyed over linux but he is still using Mandriva as his only OS. His reason for using it: Windows seems the OS of Microsoft, Linux seems to be his own pet OS, he can do/undo things in Linux the way he likes, though it will take some time.

 

ianw1974, thanks a ton! Your nice words made our day.

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But, again a big but, I get only 24bit color at the best, whereas on windows I could get 32bit color. It's not a big issue, but nontheless a concern.
That's actually 24-bit color in Windows, even though it says it's 32-bit. It's 24-bit plus 8 extra bits for non-color. The truth is, Linux is correctly identifying the color as 24-bit where as Windows is technically lying to you - here. Linux does just as many colors as Windows, it simply correctly identifies the color depth.
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Not to mention the 'desktop' for GNU/Linux is an after-thought. As such it is still in its infancy to that of the other op/sys you compare it to.

 

Conversely there are many things that the GNU/Linux desktop offers out-of-the-box that the other op/sys doesn't.

 

More or less everything is achieveable (less because you sometimes have to roll your sleeves up and get dirty) in GNU/Linux, a fully funtional and productive op/sys, and all this for 'free'.

 

I dare say if there was a bit more co-operation from hardware and software vendors, using GNU/Linux would be a much smoother experience for all.

 

GNU/Linux often exposes the masking and tricky employed by the other op/sys. All done to fool its users into thinking they are getting something that they're not!!

Edited by {BBI}Nexus{BBI}
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I have to say, I've been using various linux distro's for the past 2.5 years on my home machine with no MS Windows in sight...

 

I've test driven the majority of the main stream distro's including Xandros, Fedora, OpenSuSe, Gentoo, Ubunto, Mandrake and Mandriva.

 

I found Fedora and OpenSuSe to be the most robust and complete up until recently.

 

I recently downloaded the live cdrom version of Mandriva 2008 (it was for my daughters computer, bless her) and gave it a little test run on my machine (which at the time was running OpenSuSe 10.3).

 

I was astonished at the speed of the distro, the live cdrom was a 32bit kernel and running from cdrom I expected it to be a lot slower than my OpenSuSe 10.3 (64bit), but I was wrong... in fact it was so much faster that by that alone I had made my mind up to give it a try (install it).

 

Of course I soon found other things that I appreciated... one of which was/is the excellent 3D effects which are absolutely fantastic on the desktop.

 

Not only are the 3D effects for the desktop great fun to use and play with, but they're also very stable in Mandriva 2008.

 

Both OpenSuSe and Fedora 3D effects were not stable, they had my X windows crashing frequently, so much so that I simply disabled them (although the first time I found compiz I was blown away by the effects, but not the stability).

 

Okay, I think I've given you my message that Mandriva 2008 is pretty darn good when matched up against the likes of Fedora and OpenSuSe (although I still have a soft spot for them both).

 

One thing that I may not have mentioned is that although I've installed various distro's over the last 2.5 years, I should have mentioned that by simply making sure my 'home' directory is in fact a separate partition, I found installing any distro a breeze... and so if I got bored with the distro or mangled my configs, or even just wanted to try something new... it wasn't any trouble, apart from the delay in waiting for the new distro to install ;-)

 

I'm glad more MS users are looking at using Linux, and I'm really glad they're talking about it too...

 

binarybasher

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  • 2 weeks later...

Many if not all points of the start post have been addressed, but this point inbetween got to me...

 

Not to mention the 'desktop' for GNU/Linux is an after-thought. As such it is still in its infancy to that of the other op/sys you compare it to.

 

Why is the desktop of Linux an after-thought?

It is most certainly not, imho and in the opinion of Linus, for instance.

 

Truth is, the Linux desktop was never far behind in any way, and always has been far ahead in some ways, of the competition.

Which is because the UNIX desktop was already ahead on some respect.

 

If you say the desktop is an afterthought, I take that to mean that the developers don't find the desktop important and don't put any effort in it.

 

To the contrary of that point of view, I can say that I used FVWM in ~1996 and it was way ahead of MSWindows in the following aspects:

window management (MSWin is still not truly usable imnsho)

copy-paste

virtual desktops/one large desktop (virtual) 9x the size of the screen (or which size one configured)

 

The things that lagged and still lag somewhat are the programs and hardware drivers, but that's not the business of the Linux developers.

 

So the Linux desktop is not tacked on just because that's somewhat practical, it's always been more or less as good as the competition.

Depending on your needs, Linux may not be suitable for you, but that's as much the fault of your needs as it is of Linux... ;)

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Not to mention X11 remote display, that was invented by Microsoft some years ago, right :lol: ?

 

Yves.

 

(Joke of course: remote display was reality and truly usable for hundreds of users simultaneously more than 10 years before MS announced it could be done in Windows... for up to... 4 users maybe?)

Edited by theYinYeti
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Truth is, the Linux desktop was never far behind in any way, and always has been far ahead in some ways, of the competition.

Which is because the UNIX desktop was already ahead on some respect.

 

Let's face the canon, Linux desktop is behind others in some ways, that's why people use MS or Mac (even paying hefty amount towards it) and they don't use Linux though it's absolutely free, cutting edge and advanced. Don't get me wrong. By this statement I don't mean that linux desktop is technically backward, in fact it's superior. Anybody who says Linux desktop lags behind means it does not give that comfortable computing experience at home. Of course, there are many reasons behind it, the most important of them is - it lacks mature desktop software (though it's not a fault of linux developer). Independent software companies don't make software for Linux as they don't see profit from it. Windows comes preinstalled and pre-configured, and there is no dearth of mature software.

 

There is some geeky approach in Linux whereas MS and Apple are customer-centric. Desktop environment and OS should be invisible to the user, and that's what proprietary OSs practice. Tell me how many times you tinkered with the os of your mobile phone? MS sucks in terms of virus, adware, trojans, etc..., but I rarely meet any annoyance with Windows XP desktop (explorer) and Mac desktop (Aqua), whereas in linux we have tons of DEs such as kde, gnome, xfce, fluxbox, icewm..... that will break if you do a little playing around.

 

Proprietary OS's run by a unified development, you can say they are designed. Right, it is slow and not cutting edge. But Linux has grown to a bizarre multiplicity - variety of software management systems (rpm, dep, cnr, tgz....), loads of desktop environment, lack of backward compatibiliy and many more..... Right, it is cutting edge but chaotic too.

 

Said all that. Let me tell my heart. I am an avid Linux lover, I posting this reply right on top of Mandriva 2008, but I must admit the rough edges of Linux. Of course, Linux desktop is fast improving, and soon it will overcome these issues.

Edited by manmath sahu
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It's not the linux desktop itself that is rough around the edges, so much as the applications being developed for it. Commercial developers who provide a linux version often do so as an afterthought, and it shows. Open-source developers tend to produce apps that work, but lack the fit and finish of the commercial product, especially in terms of interface design.

 

As for "keeping your system clean", the very nature of Linux makes that sort of operation much less necessary. System files are segregated from user files, and it's generally only the user filespace that gets cluttered, not the system. So the only reason to worry about it is disk usage, unlike Windows where the filesystem and registry can get completely borked over time due to user additions.

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