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I tend to switch distributions as often as Paris Hilton switches sexual partners. At any time I am running two or three different distros in addition to windows vista (how can I complain about Vista if I don’t occasionally use it?). when Mandriva 2008 came out, I decided to stick with it, day in and day out and see how I felt. This isn’t a review, just a look at my experience with it. For those wanting a review, I’ll imitate one you one in one paragraph!

Mini-Review:

Installation: flawless, except my (insert odd hardware or ati card here) didn’t work without fiddling around. Mandriva 2008 contains (list of updated packages with boring numbers i.e. 3.4.7). I (really like!) (hate) the updated look (circle one). Talk about Mp3/W32 stuff. Mention Ubuntu. Complain about Gael Duvall’s dismissal years ago. Wrap it up by saying either you love it, think it is okay but you are sticking with whichever distro, or hate it because something didn’t work.

I just can’t write those anymore. I want to give a shout out to those that do, though, because the current round of distribution reviews have been excellent. You go girls! Why do you need me to tell you what others have said eloquently enough already? You don’t, and I can live with that.

So, back to my point, which is I thought it might be interesting to stick with one distribution and see how it fit my day to day needs. Most reviews I have written were written after spending a couple of days with a distribution. It is like having a friend over for the weekend. A whole different world than living with the friend every day. Or…. Having a one night stand, then deciding to date the person. The way you feel one day is probably very different a month later. So I moved in with Mandriva.

It was made easier to stick with Mandriva after the new video card came to town. I believed the hype and rushed out and got an HD ATI card. Previously, ATI and Linux got along like John Bolton and the UN. The new AMD/ATI Linux driver situation is very promising. In that there are a lot of promises being made. OpenSuse couldn’t handle the card. It gave me one of the most screwed up errors I have ever seen. It was nothing compared to Vista, though. Vista could not handle the righteous intensity of having on board video and a PCIe video card. I’m stuck in 4bit graphics hell. ATI says it is the motherboard’s fault. the motherboard manufacturer blames vista. Visa blames the motherboard. Every fix does not work. How did mandriva do? Worked right out of the box. Big ups!

All of my hardware, none of it exotic, just works. I couldn’t play around with Compiz-Fusion due to my poor choice of video card and its proprietary drivers. No biggie. I am sure if I hacked around I could have gotten it to work, but it is too big a hassle for the benefit of bling that will cause an occasional crash or freeze.

Everything I need to do in my daily life I can do with Mandriva 2008 Powerpack. The same can be true of most distributions these days, but the feel of the Mandriva System is better. There is a lack of annoyances that I find in other popular distros.

Pluses I find:

• I like the new menu layout, with XDG integration. The mixture of KDE/Gnome apps is smooth. I feel *buntu gets crazy and incoherent when you run more than one Desktop Environment on the system.

• Everything just works. I run a 64-bit system, and that is important to me. Adobe’s Flashplayer would not work on OpenSuse. Unfortunately Flash is an essential in my web surfing, so that detail was a deal killer for O/s.

• I love Mandriva’s community. Adam Williamson impresses me. He is all over Mandriva’s forums being helpful. Any article mentioning Mandriva he is usually there representing the company in a favorable light. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Adam has given Mandriva a public face, and it is positive.

• Drak3D as a login choice, to get it set up outside of being in a DE, is smart. I like.

• Blogrover and Foxmarks installed by default is an interesting choice. Blogrover has proven to be irritating (Stop jumping out at me!) Foxmarks (sync-er of bookmarks) does its job well.

Annoyances:

• I’m not crazy about the new theme. No big deal, it takes all of a minute to adjust things. The Orange look of Mandriva 2007 Spring was fresh and new, the updated look, while decent, is a bit boring and cheap looking.

• No description of packages in the otherwise excellent package manager. I am sure there is an easy fix out there, but they should be in there by default. Or, since there is a brief description right next to the title that says it all, just get rid of that message.

• No Katapult?

• Surprisingly, nothing else!

I am glad to see this release getting the respect it deserves. For too long Mandriva has been viewed under the harsh light of past failures instead of the strength of the product they deliver. They are racking up a string of great releases. A lot of hard work was put into 2008, particularly at the end, and it has paid off. I feel it is better than OpenSuse 10.3. Ubuntu hasn’t caught up to Mandriva in my eyes.

This is currently my favorite popular distro. From a practical standpoint, I feel it is better than Windows Vista. I don’t say that as a Linux slappy. Looking at it from an angle of which OS enables me to do the things I need to do day in and day out, Mandriva shines. My next article will compare Vista and Mandriva 2008 in depth, and I will convince you why 2008 wins.

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