“The developers of Mandriva Linux have quietly released what appears to be a public beta of Mandriva Linux 2006.1. This release comes with many updated packages, including X.Org 6.9 final, KDE 3.5.0, GNOME 2.12, and OpenOffice.org 2.0.0. The kernel remains at 2.6.12, although it has been selectively patched with various fixes from kernel 2.6.13 and later. Other improvements affecting networking, printing and X.Org configuration have also been implemented. See the changelog for a detailed list of changes.”
I have a nice Mandriva 2006 laptop. I had to recompile the kernel (remove the mem > 4GB option) to get Parallels virtual machine running. I had to compile X.Org/Mesa/Dri to get 3D working on my ATI IGM 320M video card. Today a new version of Mandriva came out with that ‘way cool’ Gnome 2.12, and for the first time in history, I looked at my ‘puter and said, “Hold”. Is this what it means to be grown up? It only took 47 years!
It would be nice if you could report these things to them so they’re fixed in the next version. Thanks!
Well, there not really bugs. The default of having support for Mem > 4GB is probably a choice they made. The bug was really in Parallels for not functioning when this option is on in the kernel. Parallels is working on it, but they haven’t fixed it yet (I did report it to Parallels). The issue with the video card was due to Xorg not supporting 3D on my video card. It wouldn’t matter which distro I used (I have used Suse, Fedora, etc), if I want 3D, I have to go to dri.sourceforge.net and follow the instructions. I’m sure a lot of people are in the same boat. Actually, Mandriva has been one of the most bug-free of all the distros for me. The maturity part was just a statement that sometimes I really should just stick with what works and not keep trying to live on the “bleeding edge.” Of course, that’s why I have about 10 computers in my house. The rest are for experimentation!
Corrections – this isn’t a beta, and it’s not for 2006.1 (which currently isn’t planned, unless we use that name to refer to the recently-released Club edition of 2006). This is the initial CVS snapshot that serves as the first pre-release for 2007. Our standard pre-release schedule always looks roughly like this:
Cooker snapshot
Alpha 1
Alpha 2
Beta 1
Beta 2
RC1
RC2
Final
(give or take a couple of releases). We always start the pre-release cycle with a very early Cooker snapshot, and that’s what this is. It’s a 2007 pre-alpha, basically.
fretinator: for future reference, you could have simply installed the -i686-up-4GB kernel flavour, no need to recompile.
fretinator: for future reference, you could have simply installed the -i686-up-4GB kernel flavour, no need to recompile.
Duh, that makes sense, Thanks!
BTW, it was the Club download (with the Christmas theme) I was evaluating. But since everything is working so well, I hate to touch it. It was such a pain to get the 3D working. It takes a few hours of downloading and compiling the source to Mesa, X and Dri. I think it is not a sign that I’m getting more mature, just older!
Edited 2005-12-27 19:57
Fretinator, I sympathize.
I momentarily considered setting up the cooker repository and upgrading X.org and KDE at the very least, but I’m running Baghira with a bunch of stuff I got from http://www.osx-e.com and I know that unless I force, URPMI will ask me to remove all KDE dependencies before I can successfully upgrade. And I like my current desktop too much to risk borking it over a CVS snapshot.
This is not a reflection of the quality of Cooker mind you. I was running 2005LE with a lot of cooker rpms just before I upgraded to 2006 official. But like Fretinator, I want to get off the upgrade train for awhile, and with the change in release schedules for Mandriva, it’s quite acceptable.
Cheers.
Thanks for the corrections Adam. Do you mind answering a few questions too.
What is the approximate release date for 2007?
As I have not upgraded to 2006 yet(Must be even more mature than fretinator, still on 10.1:-), I wondered if 2006 has got a official upgrade of X.Org to 6.9 final?
morty: see http://qa.mandriva.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/MandrivaLinux2007
There isn’t an official update for 2006.0 yet, but it shouldn’t be long. You can get Fred’s initial build of 6.9 final from http://people.mandriva.com/~flepied/xorg/RPMS/i586/ .
sorry, that was me. Stupid, stupid cookies.
Do you mean an update ISO with public access or clubbers only ?
By the way, I have to mention the new kernel-linus package in Cooker, which is a great initiative. With this package you can test latest patch-free rc-release of the linux kernel.
Someone asked about an updated X.org, that’s what I was talking about. 6.9 final will be issued as an official update (you know, that gets delivered via MandrivaUpdate or Mandriva Online) at some point (hopefully some point very soon, but I don’t have a date).
As far as more general updates go, there’s a special Club Christmas release that just came out for Club members. No plans for an updated Free release, though.
all I can say is,…..YAY!!!!!!
january this year I poored 800 dollars into the best computer I could afford. Amd 64 bit, I thought wow, my last computer was a pentium 3 so to go from 600mhz-32 bit to the unimaginable in my day 64 bit 2.5 ghz processor I have now was just mindblowing. So I went back to find the proper linux distro as I soo faithfully do, and well this whole year has been my most painful expierience on a computer ever. I have a better computer(cept for graphix card its the old one) then most and thats the reason why I cant run high end programs on it. doesnt that justmake you want to cry 800 hard earned dollars.
so finally, after redhat and ubuntu I went to mandriva. and everything worked. I had a day of funky monitor, but it was just my ancient graphics card.
the only thing that got me was the lack of gcc and all apropriate libraries. because well, you cant do anything on a 64 bit machine if you dont mind coding and compiling. because even with source code, there are soooooo many things minor details, that have to be changed in order to compile. but I solved that within the day of install, so no issues.
oh and super tux is the only game that works, w/o crashing. Kaffine kant run full skreen.lol and so on, but liveable…….
Thanks Adam. Looks like 2007 is a long way of, so I think I’ll upgrade to ‘6 one of these days. Just have to set aside time for a complete and clean reinstall, as my setup has become quite messy over time. Using the upgrade option will most likely have issues, sometimes it’s better to start fresh. Having a up to date gcc and x.org would be nice, some of the other libs too:-)