The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Mandriva 2009 Roger Brown

Add to that and it was easy to see why Mandrake immediately became the top Linux distribution.

Of course, life at the top isn't always easy and Mandrake (or Mandriva as it had to be called following legal action) soon found itself in financial difficulty - eventually resulting in a period of bankruptcy protection.

In its efforts to recover from this predicament, Mandriva adopted a model whereby some key features and interim updates were only available to paid club members. Although the free version of the Mandriva distribution remained perfectly usable, this move had its effect on popularity especially as other equally attractive alternatives (including Ubuntu) were appearing.

In addition, users were finding that Mandriva's (successful) effort to stabilize itself financially, seemed to be having its effect on the quality of the company's offerings. Annoying, and sometimes significant, bugs seemed to go unfixed over several releases - particularly a serious problem with the graphical version of the software installer. All of this had its effect on Mandriva's popularity.

More recently, however, Mandriva has largely reverted to a completely free model and reports of its more recent releases have been much more positive. Users who had given up on this distribution in frustration seemed now to be suggesting that it was well worth another look. So in that overall context, let's take a closer look at Mandriva 2009.

Installation

Mandriva 2009 comes in either a full multi CD/DVD version or as a single CD live CD "MandrivaOne". Separate versions of MandrivaOne are available for either the
Gnome or KDE desktop.

I decided to test the single CD version as this is the easiest version for users to download and because it makes the review directly comparable with other distributions such as Ubuntu. I tested both the Gnome and KDE versions. I normally test Linux distributions on a virtual (VMWare) computer using a hard drive of 8GB and 256MB of RAM. This is normally perfectly adequate for most distributions - more than adequate for some. Slackware will install and run perfectly well in only 64MB.

Mandriva recommends 512MB of RAM for its MandrivaOne CD and I found this recommendation to be fully justified. Until I increased the memory allocation to that
level the CD version would not run at acceptable speed and the install routine tended to freeze. This is not unexpected with a live CD installation running entirely from CD - performance once installed to hard drive would be better because the system then has access to swap memory.

One wonders, however, whether Mandriva should offer a single CD text install version for users with low memory availability, as is the case with Ubuntu.

That said, with the recommended amount of memory available, the CD loaded promptly and the install routine ran quickly and faultlessly. Live CD installations tends to be very simple because the system already knows what hardware it is dealing with. Users have only to specify how the system is to be partitioned (full guidance is available) and the installation proceeds without further question.

Installation is fast, much faster than Windows, and while one might wish for a little more progress information at certain points, it isn't long before the user is being asked to reboot into their new hard drive installation.

The Installed System

The system, as installed (either version) is clearly and attractively set up with pleasant artwork and design - a nice change from some of the quite revolting colour schemes chosen for some previous Mandriva releases. In either version, the menu system is kept simple and the newest of users would have no difficulty in finding the available programs and configuration utilities.

The idea of a single CD release is to provide the user with a carefully selected choice of applications in all the looked for categories. That is certainly the case for these
MandrivaOne releases. All the usual suspects are present - Firefox web browser, KMail or Evolution mail client, KNode or Pan newsreader, OpenOffice suite. Gimp photo editor and the usual utilities. Many users would be able to use this system exactly as installed without ever needing anything additional.

Of the two versions, I would tend to favour the Gnome release simply because at this point Gnome is a more mature desktop and all associated utilities are available. For example, the Gnome version is the only one with CD burning support installed - presumably because the KDE4 version of the excellent K3b burning utility is not yet operational. That said, the version of KDE used (4.1) is fully stable and functional and works well.

Configuration

Mandriva has always featured excellent configuration utilities, all available through the excellently set up Mandriva Control Center.

The current releases certainly continue this tradition and in general users will experience few difficulties in getting the system properly configured. Live CD installation generally means that most aspects will have already been appropriately auto-detected and set up - most users should find that the display settings, network connectivity and sound will already be operating correctly. But should any of these items require adjustment, excellent tools are provided.

However a curious feature of the MandrivaOne installations (presumably not replicated in the larger DVD release) is that printing support was not installed. No item for configuring a printer appears in either the Mandriva Control Center or the KDE/Gnome menus and back-end (CUPS) support is not installed either.

This is easily remedied by using the Mandriva Software Installer to add the necessary utility - running that utility causes the necessary back-end support to be automatically installed. Adding a printer is then a simple matter.

But this support should certainly have been included by default - new or inexperienced users would not realise why printing support seemed unavailable or what steps were necessary to fix the problem.

That issue aside, Mandriva's suite of configuration utilities is arguably among the best available and most certainly superior to many of its direct competitors.

Software Installation and Updating

A major feature of modern Linux distributions is the provision of large software repositories together with software utilities for automatic installation - either by 'point and click' selection from a list or by entering a simple command. Mandriva uses a system known as `urpmi' (User RPM Installation) which allows for both graphical and command line installation. For example a simple command such as: 
urpmi program_name
will download, fully install and set up the required program completely ready for use.

Software installation simply doesn't get any easier than that! However for this to work properly, the users' computer needs to be configured to connect to the appropriate on-line repositories. Mandriva now joins Ubuntu and others in enabling these repositories as part of the default install - a welcome change as previously users had to attend to this configuration as a post installation task using the Mandriva Control Center. This provided an unnecessary obstacle to inexperienced users - largely the target market for this distribution.

Some useful additional repositories still need to be added by visiting an external website Easy Urpmi at easyurpmi.zarb.org

Urpmi is an excellent software system but like all such systems, users are well advised to get to know the command line options - often the command line is a simpler and faster way to get the job done. For example, by far the easiest way to complete the initial update is to use the simple commands:
urpmi.update -a
urpmi --auto-select

Some users will be disappointed to note that Mandriva now seems to use a rotating mirror system rather than allow users to specify specific mirror servers. This may prevent users from confining software downloads to quota free sources, if these are still provided by your ISP. However the software installation system, especially now that it is automatically enabled, is a major feature of this distribution. Users will have no difficulty is locating and installing the software they need.

Overall Impressions

There's a lot to like about these releases - particularly in the single CD form where users get a well thought out base system giving full value for download, an important consideration for Australian users coping with tight data allowances.

Mandriva excels in the area it has always led, good user configuration. These releases are clearly superior to most of its competitors in this regard. But Mandriva needs to rethink its handling of printing support for its single CD releases - a live CD should be able to auto-detect and enable a printer without user intervention. The system is well set up with simple menus and a good design - users, even those who have never seen a Linux box before, will have no trouble in getting things done. In my view, distributions like Mandriva can teach Windows a great deal about usability.

The software installation system works very well and I'm delighted to note that the installer now shows no trace of the glitches that so frequently appeared in earlier versions.

Overall, Mandriva is clearly back and very much deserves user support. Users who have tried Mandriva before and those who have not, won't be disappointed with Mandriva 2009.

And as always, MelbPC members have the benefit of informed support by posting messages to newsgroup melbpc.computing.misc.

A highly recommended release. 

Reprinted from the December 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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