Mandriva 2006 Not a finished product

PerryPoint

I'm seeing a lot of people having issues with Mandriva 2006 most notably boot and install issues. I've had my share of issues myself. What's going on? Having a year to finish a version is still not enough? I'm considering switching to Ubuntu. This is completely unacceptable. I sincerely hope this is not the beginning of the end for what has been a great distribution. The key word is "has been". Unless the issues with 2006 get fixed, I sincerely doubt I will be getting involved with Mandriva in the near future.

It seems to me that trying to integrate connectiva will ruin this distribution since it's probably a lot more involved than the developers thought originally. I hope not.

snackboy · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject:

alaz0 · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:38 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately, MD2006, while a technical step forward from MD2005LE, was released with bugs well described in this forum. In my case, a full and formal release of Mandriva using an unfinished and buggy Xorg does not make sense -- it requires that the Linux user be a competent Linux / Unix administrator to fix install problems, else it won't work. If the objective is to get everybody, especially non-technical uses, to use Linux, releasing critical components, such as the X server, in a pre-release version is puzzling. Might I suggest a re-release of MD2006 at the end of the year, with those bugs fixed, to those who alreadypaid for that distribution, and who want it?

For Mandriva, I suggest that while cutting edge releases are great for those who want them, it's important to have a verified, tested, working release (it's OK to use older versions of critical components -- but they must work). There are those of us who need Linux to work more than we need the latest and greatest versions of critical components.

For me, I am planning on returning to my old method of using hardware and software that are a version or two old. It's more cost-effective and more reliable.

Thanks! - Andy 8)

Left-M · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject:

I thought that Mandriva 2006 was unfinished bussiness myself, see my post on the same title, but, second thoughts, in this season of change it's not hard to explain: things have to be settled again fo our favorite distro.
I also tried other distros,suse 10, Ubuntu 5.10 & PCLinux OS included, but for me still nothing's better from Mandriva.
I'm a Linux user since 1998 and Linux is my main OS
I have tried aeverything, from slackware to Gentoo, even LFS
and I started with Red Hat 5
There's nothing like drakconf out there, only YaST tries to get close but it's got way to go

snackboy · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 1:52 pm Post subject:

alaz0 · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 2:38 pm Post subject:

I should have added earlier -- Mandriva is a great distribution, and I certainly appreciate the difficulty in getting a distribution out. I highly recommend Mandriva to anyone who is interested -- these problems are not cause to bail out....

I did check the Xorg web page. Xorg 6.9 is scheduled for formal release on 21 December (plus or minus a few days, I suppose). I will wait until then to try MD2006 again.

- Andy

snackboy · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 2:45 pm Post subject:

Andy,
The final release on 21st is to late to include in the Chrismas CD.

My unprofessional guess is that it will be released later on as a download , together with KDE3.5.
As I said, just guessing.

PerryPoint · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:03 pm Post subject: Ubuntu not that great...

I've tried Ubuntu also, not to a great extend that is, and honestly I find it very annoying compared to Mandriva. But, I can install it with very minimal problems if any, things work like they are supposed to and the mirrors don't get switched around like Mandriva's do. I have a bunch of servers that I need to go back and fix all the sources cause some genius decided to make major changes to them and now I can't install or update anything.

As I'm writing this, the domain www.mandrivaclub.com does not respond, forums.mandrivaclub.com of course does. This has been happenning a lot lately.

Ubuntu's support and how-tos are outstanding. We have a corporate account with Mandrivaclub which sets us back about $2,000/year and I can't get a freaking question answered in a timely manner (see my post about the bootloader not installing in a Linux RAID mirror).

6 months ago, Mandriva was the top distro in distrowatch.com, it has been passed by Ubuntu right now. You think maybe there is a reason for it?

FlameBait · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:30 pm Post subject:

Well I just finished my 3rd reinstall of the Club Power Pack hoping to get a clean relative issue free system. The problem is I can't go any further becaue the "servers are down." I can't set up the club and commercial sources and proceed. I did a urpme kat and went in and shut off the apic service so it doesn't start. I have a pretty much expensive and unusable paperweight sitting on my desk.

It's become more of a problem than just a few major bugs. The attitude of service and quality that got me using Mandrake, now known as Mandriva, has vanished. Where did it go?

This isn't a case of us filthy, uncultured North Americans not understanding. It's a lack of a busniess like mindset. My last install was 9.2.and is still in daily use. I have been paying to support Mandrake via the club to support the distrro. 9.2 did what i needed but it's not maintained so I had to go with the new. However Mandriva they can't even keep the club servers up or assure to mirrors are maintained and working for the current release. Forget any idea of 24/7 from Mandriva. Going and installng 10.1 will not solve anything, in less that 6 months it will quit being maintained too.

Mandriva What is up eh? Are you going to continue to ignore this and issue more PR about how great and wonderful this new release is and how we should ruch out an buy it? How about addressing the issues. Address them right here on the club forums? What are you going to do? This second and third hand info is for the birds.

John_Evans · Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2005 9:55 pm Post subject:

Not to stick a finger in anyone's eye on this thread, but I've done a number of 2006 installs on workstations and laptops now, and the only real problem I've encountered was difficulties with some nvidia cards, which was easily solved by just using nvidia's installer. Other than that (and turning kat off every time), I think 2006 has been pretty good and the users have been happy.

awilliamson · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 12:24 am Post subject:

First of all, 2006 was developed on the six month schedule, not on the new twelve month schedule. The first release that will have a twelve month development cycle will be 2007.

2006 has issues. Every other MDV release had issues, too. Every release of every operating system _ever_ has had bugs, so this is not unprecedented Smile

. Some of them were fairly important issues that should have been fixed before release - especially the acpid 99% CPU usage bug, and the X.org graphical corruption bugs - and that's just wrong and shouldn't have happened, and I've been doing what I can to get the basic issues addressed so it doesn't happen again. But it would be silly to say 2007 won't have bugs, and I'm not going to say that. If you believe any other distro doesn't have bugs, well, you'll probably be disappointed when you try them Smile

. Many of the bugs that 2006.0 shipped with have already been fixed by updates, and we're certainly working on the others.
_________________
Adam Williamson | http://www.happyassassin.net
Fedora QA community monkey
Mandriva contributor, former community manager

zilla1126 · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 5:14 am Post subject:

Mandr* seems to be looking more towards the business sector - how is that going to work with these buggy releases? Personally, I think it is completely unrealistic to think that some major corporation is going to bypass Novell, Red Hat, or IBM to give you guys a big pile of money. Where is your support? Stability? Documentation?

I think Mandr* will be a also-ran in about a year and a half. Killed by those who spawned it.

You know, a mother that thinks her baby can fly is just a bad mother - no matter how cool the baby was. I see the "leaders" of Mandr* trying to pop open the hatch that leads up to the roof.

sydhancock · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:07 am Post subject:

1. My guess is that large organisations who are serious about deploying Mandriva will be using the Corporate editions of Server and Desktop and buy in support services from Mandriva - like the Redhat business model.

2. Check the news sections of the Mndriva website and you will see that there are many large companies using Mandriva. I'd be surprised if many of them use a 3-CD download 'enthusiasts' version.

3. Also: remember that the english-speaking countries are not the only markets. Mandriva is internationalised for many languages which gives them an immediate global advantage. Buying Connectiva gave them a large ready-made entry into the South American markets such as Brazil where Linux is gaining a lot of ground. Don't forget that even in the USA Spanish speakers are now almost half the population. The linux business is still very young, many things will change.

4. Re-emphasise point one: a wise business person, whether a self-employed business or a large corporation, does not rely on a free-cost starter edition of any software with zero guarantee of support - they invest, i.e. they pay for what they need.

In other words, comparing the consumer editions of Mandriva, and areas such as the Club, to the professional services available is just chalk and cheese - not the same thing at all.

I've not personally had major problems with 2006 but obviously there are some. Mandriva, as Gael Duval's baby, has always kept to that 'bleeding edge' attitude of including very new stuff in their distros. Maybe they need to review that and make the attitude changes required to *really* carry through the program they talked about in the new 12-month based release schedule of 'stable' releases.

But, like it or not, Mandriva has its own way of doing things. The great thing is that anyone is free to try ubuntu or any of the other distros and if they prefer it then carry on using it. Every single distro has some problems and some advantages so you make your choices depending on what you want. Do it and have fun with it!

Syd

sydhancock · Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2005 6:21 am Post subject: Re: Ubuntu not that great...

Hintzy64

dexter11 · Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2005 12:23 pm Post subject:

Filipe Oliveira · Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 10:15 pm Post subject:

After 5 years using Mandrake, I'm swithching to Fedora.

Mandriva 2006 worked for many people, and I'm happy for them. But it also did not work to many of us. Using a beta version of XOrg to run X ??!! Is that a joke?! This attitude shows a complete lack of respect for users. Now, I lost almost a week trying to fix their unbelievable drivers, but I'm not a professional and have other things to waste my time on.

2005LE supports my video card and Mandrive2006 doesn't??!! Unbelievable!

Man am I angry Evil or Very Mad

Cheers.

awilliamson · Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:07 am Post subject:

filipe: did you try simply installing the updated X.org from http://www.seerofsouls.com , or from http://people.mandriva.com/~flepied/xorg/RPMS/i586 ?
_________________
Adam Williamson | http://www.happyassassin.net
Fedora QA community monkey
Mandriva contributor, former community manager

Filipe Oliveira · Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 11:08 am Post subject:

Hi!

I only tried www.seerofsouls... Are the other RPMs you mention any different?

I reinstalled 2005LE over Fedora (real love dies hard!) and I'm now waiting for a more final version of 2006 before updating.

Thanks anyway,
Filipe

awilliamson · Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:29 pm Post subject:

filipe: no, they're more or less the same, so if the SoS didn't fix your problem, Fred's likely won't either :\. Sorry to hear about the trouble, we will be releasing an update to X.org 6.9 final when it's released, so maybe you can try again then.
_________________
Adam Williamson | http://www.happyassassin.net
Fedora QA community monkey
Mandriva contributor, former community manager

marcgabay · Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 9:15 am Post subject: trouble with Xorg

Unfortunately I am also part of the bandwagon of victims of a flawed X server!! 4 years ago I switched from RH to Mandrake and that was a step up.
This distro brought linux closer to a user friendly OS for those who sought an alternative to Bill Gates. Mandriva being the commercial offspring of Mandrake, it has to deliver good products and I concur with Filipe's remarks.
I am not going to waste my time to patch a faulty Xorg. Rather than installing the free version I made the choice of paying and thus I expect a product that works, especially such a critical element as X!! I don't need excuses from Mandriva, but I expect to get a rpm with a fixed (an fully functional) Xorg very soon. Mandriva is shooting itself through the foot.