I believe he’s just wondering why there is no Live version of the Free release. It would be preferable for those who wish to stick to completely free software, and wish to test drive this distro, without forcing them to download the One version. Its semantics really. I think we all understand what he meant.

I’m giving Mandriva 2010 a shot right now! Mandrake was one of the first tastes of Linux I had in the late 90s, and I’d love to come back and see if I can make it home!

Excellent response Ross, apparently you feel insulted by Jim’s comment about open source software freaks but you cannot avoid insulting religious people and demonizing money. I was not surprised of reading that you come from a family of scientists: they consider themselves superior to everybody else and they think they have the right to lecture everyone because of the presumed “objectivity” of the scientific method. Unfortunately, as I discovered myself during my college years as a Physics student, they are too often hypocrites: paraphrasing Orwell, they believe that “All men are equal, but some man [scientists] are more equal than the others”. Before asking for respect for your beliefs, you should show respect for the beliefs of other people.

OOOPPPSS! Finger check.
That should be “For me, Mandriva Free 2010 leaves a lot to be desired”

Sorry to be late to this Mandriva Lovefest.
Here’s what I liked about Mandriva Free 2010:
Previously set up / and /home partition were recognized as such, not just as separate partitions.
System config as part of the Install process, rather than having to do it afterwards as in other distros.
System and package update as part of the Install process.

The problems I encountered:
Boot options screen blinks on and off in a split second, not allowing entry of any options.
Hardware Discovery Tool display is grey text on royal blue background. Very hard to read.
Unlike Jim, I was not presented with a choice of packages to install. Once the partitions were formatted, the install started.
The installation took 60 minutes.
The same 5 pictures were displayed over and over during the install.
“Time Remaining” timer and the progress bar were not synchronized. When the install started, the timer was at 1 hour. When the progress bar showed half done, the timer was at 14 minutes. Actual loading of system/packages took 31 minutes.
No explicit root signon available or allowed.
The system rebooted with a different resolution than I set in the system config process. Every time I changed the settings, they would not survive a restart. Both the monitor and the video card are quite capable of handling the resolution and refresh frequency I set.
I did not see a “Shutdown” option (as in turn off the system) in the Leave menu. The only way to shutdown the system was to power it down.

For me, Mandriva Free 2010 is a leaves a lot to be desired.

Oops Jim

You upset some of the nutters. To the 3 people who got upset with “free software fanatic”. This is fair comment and your responses are exactly what to expect from the nutter club.

I googled each of the 3 and couldn’t find anything from them, no reviews ect. And no, you won’t find anything from me cause I don’t review & generally don’t comment. Your comments are so typical of the fanatics.

Ross, “I’m involved in several GPLed project and I’m real smart, unlike the rest of you idiots”, I googled your name. Unless you are a Canadian snowboarder can’t find anything you’ve done – hmmm

As for Jack, this is a Mandriva review, who cares if you DON’T use Ubuntu. Oh, I get it. I hate ubuntu because they are successful! Easier to tear them apart then help out!

And benfranks. Come on man! all the comments re fanatic. There are 3: all from the nutter club. Yep, you are a nutter.

BTW use totally free, don’t use totally free. Your choice. You criticise Jim for saying fanatics but then you insult his intelligence. Hmmm! Methinks I’m doing the samething.

Sigh. After reading http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20091211/tc_zd/246785 it seems you still don’t get it, or are baiting for clicks. Words like ‘fanatic’, ‘religious’, and ‘zealot’ are insulting in this context, and you can’t wiggle out of it by claiming they apply to ‘those over people over there,’ or that readers who object to a clear insult are wrong. It’s apparent that you have a negative attitude towards people who value Free Software and who don’t want closed, proprietary software on their systems. I wish you would take all the reader comments seriously and think very hard about what you’re really saying.

I did not bother to respond to this article until the author chose to draw further attention to himself.

The statement “Now please understand that I am not a “free software fanatic” type at all.” insinuate that users that choose not to use propietary software ARE fanatics.

That is not the case. But for you to have Mandriva or any other distribution – with or without propietary bits – is highly dependent on users and developers that are firm and loyal to “Open and Free”.

Those guys and girls are the ones safeguarding Linux and Opensource. They makes shure that you and I in fact has something free to run the propietary bits on top of.

People do differ in opinion. I’m not so worried about those fiercly against propietary blobs, and I’m not worried at all about those advocating propietary bits.

My concern is directed towards the pragmatics. Even more so the ignorant and those who don’t really care at all, because these groups will accept virtually anything blindly.

One issue that strikes me whenever I see sarcastic or mocking comments about “free and open” it is usually someone in the monosphere or a Novell supporter.

Hardly ever do I see it from someone that are obvious in their relation to any other distro than Opensuse Gnome or Novell. They are the same folks that are bashing Ubuntu whenever they can.

Your use of “free software fanatic” was not nice at all.

(For the sake of good order: I do use propietary elements but prefer opensource throughout, and I do not use Ubuntu.)

Hi Bill! I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving and I also hope that you take on the challenge of tackling a Mandriva system even without an apt-get style of package manager. The urpmi package manager used in Mandriva is quite mature and surprisingly rich in features and capabilities. Get used to it and you may find that you can do pretty much the same kinds of things you do with apt-get.

I find Mandriva to be a bit less stable than my favorite Debian systems, but certainly stable enough to handle simple Web browsing and basic desktop functions. It does those well enough that I can get away with using their absolutely sharp, bleeding edge Cooker variation. I like the Cooker enough that I have not used the installed versions for a couple of years, instead, every month or so tracking the newest releases with the Cooker – very cool. I ran KDE 4.3.0 when it first came out first in Mandriva, perhaps a week before I ran it in Debian – of course we are well past that version now; I am using Debian KDE 4.3.2 in both sidux and Debian Squeeze – running Squeeze tonight.

Well, I was intrigued enough to load Mandriva One-Gnome on my HD so that I could make a more direct comparison with Ubuntu 9.10. Quick Take: It compares very favorably and anyone interested in auditioning one of these should also look at the other.

Mandriva’s ability to load flash and the correct video driver, together with a wireless driver right from the CD is impressive. A person gets a much better idea of what the installed system might be like.

Installer runs very well and it is easy for a new person to follow. Every reviewer comments on the lack of a “back button” and that is odd, but not a show-stopper.

I posted a question on the Mandriva forum and I received a very helpful set of responses in less than 12 hours.

On the HD it is responsive and the GUI front-end for repositories works well.

There are a few odd loose ends that the team might have caught before the release, but they did not. Fortunately these are minor and they do not interfere with the user’s experience at all.

Biggest challenge for me? No apt-get! And no smxi script!

Would I recommend this to a Linux-shopper? Yes I would. Mandriva One is well done. I’ll be looking at the KDE version shortly.

@ Noone:
“THERE IS a live CD version”
Yes, there is, the ONE … one:
But where are (say) gcc, gfortran, sage, on THE live CD????

(I know they are on the free version)….
Where are LXDE or Icewm on the KDE ONE or Gnome One version (and the choice betw. them?????)

FYI the ONE liveCD can be transformed into a live USB with mandriva-seed (useful for “net”"books” without {C|DV}D reader….)