Introduction

I was excited about the launch of Mandriva 2009. Why? Mainly because the 2008.1 (Spring) Edition was so good. It had the best KDE 3.5 implementation in its class. So when 2009 came out, with a brand new KDE 4.1, I went for the download like a shark after anchovies.

The download, perhaps, was a little less than straightforward. The first server I encountered actually denied me resume support for my download manager on Windows Vista (IDM). The next server I tried, however, did. So I downloaded, burnt off the CD and went for the install.

Live - and install

The CD went live without a hitch, but then, there was no reason for it not to. What was immediately noticeable, though, was that Mandriva had used not the KDE 4 theming (Oxygen, the Mac-ish Window styling), but their own typical theme. My opinion in that is rather split - I liked KDE 4 style, minus the black TaskBar, of course.

Still, I do not deny that the whole look was very chic.

Mandriva 2009

(Screenshot not taken from my own system)

Installation

Truth be told, it was flawless. Nothing to do, nothing to worry about, just simple questions and answers, and advanced disk configuration if you so need (which I do).

On my Ferrari 5005WLMi, (2.0GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1600 Mobility), the install completed in about 30 minutes, start to end.

While the install went perfectly well for me, other reviews around the internet are claiming some install problem, including a bizarre one where the Gnome is loaded as the default desktop. However, I am inclined to think this is either a rare bug, or something wrong done by the reviewer himself.

Impressions

The best part I have liked about Mandriva is that it is the only Linux distro to date (with the exception of the Sabayon 3.x series) that actually runs my graphics card out of the box. Not even openSUSE or Ubuntu do that. And for me, that scores 10 points, straight off.

The other changes are, obviously, the new KDE 4, and the associated paraphernalia.

Stability

KDE 4.1 has a lot of stability improvements. My typical methods of testing include doing many things at once, randomly clicking around and opening and closing repeatedly. The reason is to emulate desktop usage beyond the ordinary: if the distro can survive my ’strain’ tests, it can take anything the average user may throw at it.

I have, so far, run the system without a crash. There was hang at one point, and I had to kill the X-server, but that was a one off incident.

Update: I have by now done a lot of testing, and my current impressions are slightly less positive. The hang consisted of a screen freeze when I opened five windows of Firefox. What I did not realize is that this recurred for me. I am not sure if it is the same case for others. There were also two more crashes, from unidentified causes.

But more so, the desktop, and plasma improvements are great. Take the time to experiment with each, they are worth it. They too, are stable.

Notable Changes

Another notable is the replacement of the standard KDE 4 “Kicker” menu with the older model, very much like in older versions of Mandriva. Mandriva has shown a lot of reluctance to adapt their design to the new KDE 4, rather, they have adapted KDE 4 to their old design. This is a rather unusual approach: is Mandriva hesitant to evolve?

We have Firefox 3, OpenOffice 3.0 and Amarok 2. GIMP 2.4.7 is installed. All these applications ran well, though the performance of GIMP seemed just a bit slower than normal. For me, Amarok caused no problems, though it did stagger while playing a very high FPS video that runs fine otherwise.

The final port of call in my testing was the Control Center. The phrase “New and Slightly Improved” should cover it, I think. The layout is newer and spacier, but the basics remain the same: categorizations on the left, tools on the right.

Update: Package Management

One of the most important parts of any distribution is the package management. I had not had a chance to test this earlier, but this was a big let down. I was expecting something exceptional here. What I got was an almost exact replica of the management system of the previous Mandriva, which was, let’s face it, slow and cumbersome. The integration and speed, and the intuitive GUI that I have now come to expect from the likes of the latest SUSEs and Ubuntus was missing in the Mandriva 2008 version, and by fair forwarding, in the Mandriva 2009. I had a difficult time downloading packages from online repositories - Mandriva’s package management apparently did not like my slow, albeit passable, internet connection.

The Negatives - and a brief comparison to my present distro of choice, SUSE 11.0

I was used to SUSE 11.0 as my linux of choice. And in that respect, I am perhaps, left to waver. SUSE uses a DVD, Mandriva a CD. The difference that makes is phenomenal, though you can get the Mandriva on DVD (but not the “One”). By hacking away at the KDE 4.1 as Mandriva has done, I get even a functionality more reminiscent of KDE 3.5, rather than the future.

SUSE, in my opinion, takes the cake, however, for the amount of things you can actually do. Webserving, Programming, Development, Documentation, Virtualisation (and regular work) can done on Mandriva, but not via the default load out.

Conclusions

I was a SUSE fan, and I still am. But that is no reason to reject a perfectly good distribution when it comes along, and Mandriva 2009 is as close to flawless as it gets for the desktop user.

Update: I no longer maintain that it is flawless. The best I can do is to put this in the range of “good”, not excellent. The edges appear under careful analysis.

But beware, it is not more than that - after all, there’s only so much you can put onto one CD. For bigger designs and heavy work, I keep my SUSE 11.0.

Update: There seems to be some confusion about why I have referred to Mandriva as less fully loaded as compared to SUSE 11. The point to be noted here is that SUSE 11’s default offering is the DVD, while Mandriva’s is the ‘One’ CD. Mandriva’s DVD comes in only the ‘Free’ version, which does not contain the advantageous proprietary chunks as One, and thus loses the advantage.

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