Mandrake + Conectiva = Mandriva !?

[VILLA21]

Mandrakesoft Announces Name Change! 2005-04-07
http://www.mandriva.com/company/pres...corporate/2551

[scarecrow]

Admitted that it's a bit cacophonous... but putting apt/synaptic into Mandrake instead of urpmi is a step to the right direction (PCLInuxOS is doing that since many months ago), and the one year product cycle instead of six months will also help for fewer bugs.
Mandrake never was a bleeding edge distro, all that counts is package quality and ease of use- and now IMHO they are closer to the target.
Of course it will not substitute Arch Linux as my main distro, but it will surely help to fight against the new competition -which is mainly (K)Ubuntu, AKA Debian for dummies- and a GOOD one.

[chickencandle]

I've been hearing a lot about Ubuntu as of late. Is it really as nice as Debian tends to be?

I run Debian on a few servers, but on my client machine I run Redhat (FC2, actually). I'd be curious to hear some opinions about switching to Ubuntu

[scarecrow]

I've been hearing a lot about Ubuntu as of late. Is it really as nice as Debian tends to be?

I run Debian on a few servers, but on my client machine I run Redhat (FC2, actually). I'd be curious to hear some opinions about switching to Ubuntu

No, I don't really find it suitable for servers... stay with Woody (till Sarge "stable" is out-don't ask when, though...) or try Slackware, satisfaction guaranteed.
(K)Ubuntu is meant as a modern/up-to-date and stable Debian for the desktop, and it almost makes the task. But some non-GPL things (MP3 playback/decoding/encoding, P2P, java...) will not FULLY work even if you enable the unofficial repositories and get stuff from here... having full functionality needs quite some footwork, and that's quite annoying, since other distros (PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Kanotix, Arch, Gentoo) don't have any of those limitations and shout out loud right after unboxing...
IMHO the best Debian wrap for the desktop (and particularly for laptops) is currently Kanotix. It's only disadvantage is that the package base is SID, which is rather buggy, as you may already know...

[scarecrow]

Mandriva 2005 Limited Edition is now available at Mandriva Club members, and after 10-15 days for the rest. But anyone can get the whole thing right now if interested. Here's how:
1. Find a fast, close to you mirror from the Cooker list
http://www.mandrivalinux.com/en/cookerdevel.php3
2. Pick up your system architecture, eg i586, and enter the /install/images/ directory. Get from the there the boot.iso disk image (about 15 MB), burn it to a CD and then begin a network installation from the CD (it's quite easy).
Of course broadband is required, else it will take ages. The result is a complete 2005 Limited Edition, which is equivalent to the former "Community Version" (no official support).

During the installation you may wish to omit the KDE desktop files (it's not the latest 3.4.0) and get it from here instead:
http://rpm.nyvalls.se/kde10.2.html
(they work pretty well).