Submitted by As the latest Mandriva release, 2008 Spring, reaches release candidate stage, the What’s Coming in Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring page on the Mandriva Wiki is available, providing a summary of all the major new features arriving in the forthcoming release, along with screenshots. New versions of KDE 3, KDE 4, GNOME and XFCE, Asus Eee PC compatibility, PulseAudio, improvements to the Mandriva configuration tools and some new applications all make the list.
no firefox3 in 2008.1? i know it can be installed alongside fox2 but Ubuntu an Fedora will have it by default, Mandriva lags behind
Edited 2008-03-04 10:18 UTC
Woopty doo! Let’s start another ‘My distro is sssooo much more better than yours!’ p*ss*ng match! /sarcasm
Well ATM it’s optional in Ubuntu hardy(unless they recently changed it) but it’s easy to just download the beta3 tar and run it, thats what I do if the distro dont have the package.
I’m personally not a big fan of Mandriva but it’s got some great feature and stuff coming, just find it hard to recommend over the others somewhat.
what feature is may i ask? Fedora’s prolly had it for a year or so anyway,
Well, Firefox 3 isn’t out yet. I’ve been trying it out under Ubuntu and, for me at least, it’s been a pretty buggy experience. The Linux version of FF3 seems to be lagging behind the Windows version. I can’t understand any distro committing to include it by default in it’s current state.
im using swiftfox currently in Fedora8 an seems pretty stable , doesntl surprise me in Ubuntu though, i could never get Firefox2 properly open tabs in any version
FF 3 is not scheduled to even be available as a final version by the time we release MDV 2008 (early April) – much less by the time we hit feature freeze (which was, well, yesterday).
if its good enough for fedora to include a beta or RC of Firefox3 at final time of the fedora9 final an they update ff3 to the final for everyone, why cant Mandriva? surely a final version can be pushed through to the updates . just seems like Mandriva is still lacking behind, an i have to ask myself why i dont use Mandriva, maybe Mandriva needs a longer testing schedule to get these updates in,
Edited 2008-03-04 23:29 UTC
Fedora has a policy of being on the absolute bleeding edge of everything, which is appropriate to the distribution it’s trying to be. Mandriva isn’t in quite the same situation as Fedora, and we try to take a more balanced approach. This is the same reason they are shipping KDE 4 as the default KDE in Fedora 9, and we are shipping KDE 3 as the default KDE. We could have shipped a Firefox 3 beta in 2008 Spring if we wanted to, for sure. We simply made a choice not to.
fair enough but how many people do you expect will use Mandriva2008.1 over fedora having KDE4.0.2 or 4.0.3 being the default, people wanna get used to KDE4 before 4.1 gets out, which makes me ask another Question, since fedora9 wil ship 4.0.x as default an when 4.1 is out you will be able to install 4.1 over 4.0.x why didnt Mandriva opt to do it that way? now people will have to get Mandriva2009 for that,
Same reason. That is not an approach that is likely to work trouble-free for everyone, which is what we want in Mandriva.
I actually think quite a lot of people will choose to use Mandriva 2008 Spring exactly because of this: they know that KDE 4 is not really ready for many people yet, so they want to go with a distro that is sticking with KDE 3 until KDE 4 is truly ready. I remember back when we shipped GNOME 2.0 as default as soon as it came out, we got a lot of stick for that. Time will tell, anyway.
i can see where your coming from but if people want ” stability” they should stick to Windows, sometimes you need to take a risk an this is one of those that Mandriva seems scared of doing, many people use Ubuntu/Fedora now, i ask again why didnt Mandriva take the plunge an go with using KDE4 as default by using a few KDE3 libraries an let the user be able to upgrade to KDE4.1.0 within 2008.1 when it shipped? i still think it could of shipped a firefox3 release candidate in the final or the RC1 or 2 of Mandriva2008.1 an just update the users to the final when it was released.
I already gave the answer to your question. If you think our opinion is wrong then that’s your right, but there’s no point keeping on asking the question when it’s already been answered.
seems like im hitting a dead wall here so i will drop it,
none of the recent distri flavours seem to install / boot for me in Virtual PC – anyone with the same experience?
Virtual PC is hamstringed in it’s capabilities for a number of reasons. First, it’s not a target for most OSes, like VMware compatability is. Most distros understand the need for VM compatability, but for most, Virtual PC isn’t used by enough people to be a target. Leading from my second thoughts.
Second, Virtual PC is a weak VM, and while I personally use it for probably the same reason as you (easy to configure AND free), it actually emulates a full x86 on an x86 processor, or something to that effect where it emulates the whole hardware, and some CPU commands are emulated in some way (hence why the VMs in VMWARE natively detect your CPU, but in VPC, they’re detected always as either PII or PIII. The real reason I suspect, is the low VRAM allocation VPC gives to VMs. Last time I used Virtual PC, VPC was only allocating 4 MB of VRAM, not enough for these distros or the GUIs to load up…
PS. I was making some known points about why VPC is usually slower and generally less compatable. If anyone has better info on the whole way that Virtual PC emulates more than virtualizes, please correct or extend what I said.
It’ll install on your win32 host OS and cost the same amount as VirtualPC. I’ve not yet even been able to replace VMware with Virtualbox due to the previous having better hardware support and virtualization.
Beyond that, I can’t offer a reason why VirtualPC won’t boot modern OS outside of the usual conspiracy theories but they don’t help you much I’m guessing.
That really looks like a lot of great stuff. I was especially interested in the EeePC support. In June (Father’s Day!) I plan on getting an EeePC. I’m hoping they have the 9-inch screen version by then with 1024×600 support. Mandriva looks like a great solution for this.
I know I’ve said this before, but Mandriva (previously Mandrake) really pioneered the easy-to-use, home-friendly Linux desktop. They are the company that really allowed me to enter the Linux world on a regular basis. I also like Ubuntu, but you would think they pioneered the “out-of-box” experience. Anyway, no distro wars! I just want to give credit where credit is due. Mandriva has been through some tough times (what Linux company hasn’t?), but I think they have come through it all with a really solid product.
In short, woohoo!
Mandriva is back! They seem to have learned a lot from their previous mistakes. We are getting more outreach to linux users with clear explanations of what’s coming.
The mandriva folks also seem to have a good pulse on what’s interesting in the linux market. The fact that they took the time to make sure that Mandriva works out of the box with the Eee PC is a nice touch and the choice of applications seems sound.
I can wait to try out this release. I just wish Mandriva had a freely supported release for three years as Ubuntu does as that makes it more practical to deploy in non profits where money is tight.
In summary, this release looks really good.
I’m not sure what you mean. Mandriva has always had a free version to download, and it is just as supported as any other free version download from anyone else. A supported version from Ubuntu costs money. A supported version from Suse costs money. A supported version from RedHat costs money. Perhaps I am missing something. All free (as in cost) versions of Linux rely on community support, such as forums, etc. How is Mandriva any different?
I might have not worded this all that well.
I was speaking of bug fixes and security updates. Mandriva does not have a gratis/free release that is supported for 3 years, while Ubuntu does.
Does anyone know if you could only use 3/4 of the actual screen (as in the Eee PC screen shot) for display?
The Eee in the picture is using its full screen area. The Eee’s screen is quite small compared to the casing: it has a very big bezel, that’s what the black area around the screen is, it’s not extra screen that’s going unused.
I’m not aware of a way to do what you ask intentionally, I’m not sure why you’d want to?
You answered what I need to know. Never xp an Eee before so wasn’t sure if that’s how it looks. Thanks.