I agree that Mandriva users who are happy with the product should stick with it until the bitter end. They should also encourage the company in any way they can such as using the paid version if they are able.
PCLinuxOS is an old derivative of Mandriva and is not much like it any more. It uses Synaptic for one thing and only comes in 32-bit flavours. I like Fedora if you want to stick with RPM based distros. It is fairly basic compared to Mandriva, but it works well. OpenSuSE is probably more like Mandriva in the way it works. Though, I don't like OpenSuSE and Yast. And since Novell is in trouble as well it probably is not much of a safe refuge. Both are very limited compared to Kubuntu. It is the poor unloved child in Canonical's stable of distros and it is very capable if you are partial to KDE. The sky is the limit in terms of packages and having the latest of everything. I don't think that Ubuntu is the Windows of Linux. It is more the OS/X of Linux or that is the way it looks these days. I think that Windows is chasing Linux and not the other way around. The I'm a PC and Windows 7 was My Idea commercials all demonstrate that Windows is stealing these ideas from Linux and OS/X and claiming them as their own. Very little in the way of innovation is coming out of Redmond. They are too busy mending fences and playing catch up after the Vista fiasco. Now they have a similar fiasco with Office. Maybe they will leave us alone while they sort that out. :) A nice Debian based distro is SimplyMEPIS and it is worth a look. It is very much like PCLinuxOS in many ways, both small, both stable and excellent at what they do, except one is RPM and the other is DEB. SimplyMEPIS comes in both 32 and 64 bit versions. I also like Sidux which is based on Debian Sid. It is more stable than Sid itself because it is based on a stable core of applications that is well tested. Ubuntu is the biggest and most popular, but there are many excellent distributions. Everyone has their favourite. Stick with your as long as it is available. It might be worth testing a few out when you have the time, just in case. I always have six or seven distributions installed at any given time. I am fickle enough to leave Kubuntu if it lets me down. So far it hasn't. Roy On 30 May 2010 14:38, Shaun Marolf <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, 2010-05-30 at 12:16 -0600, Jeremiah Bess wrote: >> Don't get me wrong, as long as Mandriva is around, I'll stick with it. >> I have tried many distros, trying to find a reason one that was >> superior to Mandriva. I haven't found any that have made me want to >> switch. But in the event they do go under, I want to have some >> alternatives in mind. >> >> Jeremiah E. Bess >> Network Ninja, Penguin Geek, Father of four > The main reason I use Ubuntu is the amount of ready software packages it > really has beyond the standard repositories. > > Launchpad allows developers to create a PPA (Personal Program Archive) > and if there is a update then it can be gotten through the PPA. Granted > it requires the end user to add a lot of items to the sources list but > that's pretty easy. > > Don't get me wrong there are some annoyances to Ubuntu but there are > some with every distribution. I still have no love for the sudo thing > and because of it can never see it as an enterprise desktop system, but > it makes sense for a personal computer. > > Honestly though, it easy to customize though any distribution can be, > Ubuntu really is easier than many others, though there are some easier > they lack in available binaries and I hate having to compile because it > requires me to find the dependencies manually. In many cases that leads > to having to compile those as well. I have little time for that as I am > pretty busy. Ubuntu works pretty much out of the box and I have had > pretty good luck with it. > > I used Mandrake/Mandriva initially for Samba services and PCLOS for my > desktop and switched to that for my personal servers as well. When I > setup servers these days its CentOS or Redhat (I also used to use SUSE > as well, but...) but for me personally Ubuntu and its derivatives just > do and have what I need with far less hassle. > > Mandriva's business plan always lacked aggressiveness and I always > thought that was a shame because overall its one of the best, especially > in hardware support, but they were more interested in breaking into the > desktop market, and never really developed their server market. YAST in > SUSE was lacking compared to the Mandriva Control Center and Mandriva > could have done well if they had just applied themselves to that market. > Hopefully, if they get bought, the new owner will change their strategy > and develop their server systems and bring them up to date. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Linux Users Group. > To post a message, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] > For more options, visit our group at > http://groups.google.com/group/linuxusersgroup -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Linux Users Group. To post a message, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit our group at http://groups.google.com/group/linuxusersgroup
