TechieMoe.com

Introduction:

Mandriva has an odd naming scheme for their releases. It sort of follows the way automakers in the US name their cars. The new model for the next year is released before the end of the year and named for the future.

Thus it's October 2008 and I'm playing with Mandriva 2009. I guess the idea is that I'll use 2009 well into the real year 2009. Or something.

I've been impressed in the past by how responsive the company is to concerns regarding their distributions, so I felt confident that if I had any serious, reproduceable trouble it would be addressed.

For the moment this rant only covers the One edition, KDE flavor. If I have the time I may download the full DVD at a later date. My opinion at this point can only go up.

Install:

My first hurdle was burning the ISO. The image for Mandriva One KDE version was 702MB, which is just a hair over the technical limit of a CDR. My usual burning tool (ISO Power Toy) didn't like it and asked for a DVD. I burned this on my work computer, so I ended up using Nero at a very slow speed instead.

The release notes (yes, I read them this time) mentioned several new things in this release, including a completely redone installer. I must say, I was a bit underwhelmed.

On the first run-through to get my screenshots I was using VirtualBox. KDE 4 on a live CD runs excruciatingly slow in a virtual machine.

I had originally planned to install this on Rig 2, but by coincidence I had just wiped the extra partition on my laptop at the time this came out, which left it open for Mandriva.

During the live CD boot, my laptop speakers had a static hiss coming through them. It basically sounded like the audio channel had been turned WAY too high. When I tried to hook up headphones I got a terrible noise. Somewhere between a screech owl and a very loud cicada.

I've run into this problem on previous versions of Mandriva but I'd hoped they would have fixed it by now. In fact, the release notes for 2009 mention better support for Intel HDA audio (my chipset).

I tried fiddling with the volume settings in the mixer, turning everything way down, but nothing changed. I decided to wait and try again with the actual installed distro.

The Nvidia "beta" splash screen told me 3D effects would be available. I'm unsure why Mandriva used a beta driver in their stable release, other than perhaps that this is the only version that works with the current Linux kernel.

In that last screenshot you'll note a screen I've never seen before. Mandriva 2009 determines your configuration and offers to not install things it deems aren't necessary. I think that's a grand idea, and hope all other distributions follow suit.

Some of the pieces it didn't install included things I usually have to manually remove from Ubuntu, such as Bluetooth, ATI drivers, and various other firmware for devices I didn't have. I was a little concerned when I saw "ipw3945", my wireless chipset, on the remove list.

It's worth a note that Mandriva 2009 has chosen to migrate to KDE 4. It's a controversial decision. However, in the past Mandriva has heavily modified the look and behavior of whatever desktop they chose, so there's hope they fixed some of the glaring bugs still present in KDE 4.

The installer finished and I rebooted. I was asked for my country and the system immediately started trying to download updates, which errored out. I then set my username, password, and root password.

I was then brought to a pretty blue "First Time" screen. I wonder why the other screens for the installer couldn't have looked like this.

The login screen was unimpressive, but the loading screen showed more polish. It was basically a reproduction of the boot screen that started out plain and added more elements and colors as things loaded.

I immediately noticed that the sound issue hadn't been fixed by an install. I looked around online and found a fix. I had to open KMixer, go to "Configure Channels", check "Analog Loopback", hit OK, then mute the "Analog Loopback" channel.

This fixed the problem, but I was a bit annoyed that it cropped up in the first place.

I had to manually set my desktop resolution. The default 1024x768 just wasn't doing it for me. I had to enable "Other" resolutions to pick 1280x800, but to the credit of Mandriva, at least once I set it the resolution stayed put.

The multimedia keys on the front of my laptop didn't work. They lit up when I pressed them but I could not control volume or the media player (amaroK) with them.

MP3 playback was included. While navigating around the desktop I experienced periodic freezing, where the desktop would not respond to anything I clicked. I also noticed video artifacts on some of the windows at random intervals. I don't know if this was KDE 4.1's fault or the beta Nvidia drivers, but I've used these drivers on the Ubuntu 8.10 beta without issue, so my suspicion is the former.

Software Selection:

Firefox, GIMP and OpenOffice were installed, but Kopete replaced Pidgin. Boo. OpenOffice was a new version (3.0). I'm not entirely sure what's new about this release, but it's nice to have.

True to the release notes, Mandriva has revamped their Control Center app. I like the smooth light blue look, but I wish that it had been more universally applied.

One program I'd never seen before was Sweeper, a system cleaner. Call me OCD, but I like being able to clear out old preferences and whatnot from a central location.

Neither Java nor GCC were installed. The Flash plug-in seemed to be installed, but I got no sound. This may or may not have been due to my previous muting of the analog loop channel. The rest of the applications were pretty sparse. No games were included, not even the default KDE ones.

Conclusion:

I don't honestly know how much of the trouble I've had with Mandriva 2009 is due to KDE 4.1 and how much is due to Mandriva itself. Either way this is quite possibly the worst "stable" release of a mainstream distribution I've tried in a while. Mandriva should be ashamed.

Of course, should any of the problems above be my fault (or something that can be easily addressed) I'm all ears. I would also welcome a link to the full DVD ISO, since all I could find was the "free" edition, which doesn't include any of the codecs or drivers I need. Until I find that, Mandriva gets a very stern "STAY AWAY" status from me.