[NTLUG:Discuss] Mandrake (was: Video card recommendations)

[Peter A. Koren]

On Tue, 2005-08-23 at 08:47 -0500, tr_data1 wrote:
> I don't wish to start a distro-war but felt compelled to counter the
> tendancy for a few people to (IMO) over-state their poor experience
> with Mandrake (now Mandriva). The only hardware issue that was
> out of the norm for a distro was that of a specific CD drive using a
> specific Mandrake version (9.1?) that was quickly resolved. Yes, with
> such a combination during that brief, unfixed 9.1, it would destroy
> the CD drive, and in that regard is serious. But, again, it was a very
> issolated case. I am not aware of several other hardware problems
> that were out of the norm for a Linux distro. Rather, I have had a 
> very positive experience with Mandrake for many years. True, I 
> happened to not install 9.1 (went from 8.2 to 9.2) and did not own
> that brand of CD drive for that matter. To each his own.
> =TR=
> 
Until recently, I have been a Mandrake user for many years. The ease of
installation was a major reason for my choice of Mandrake as a desktop
system. I am not an IT guy, so I am only interested in workstations, not
servers -- with a few server application exceptions.

The big problems I had were with the code repositories that are just not
as complete and well maintained as with some other distributions. So it
can be far more time consuming to add and maintain certain software
without the dependency hassles -- aka dll hell. The Red Hat (I now use a
Red Hat derived distro) and Fedora RPM repositories are more complete
than what is availble for Mandrake, but they are trying to catch up with
the scope and quality of the repositories in the Debian world.

After spending a lot of time researching this issue, I am about to
switch distros again, this time to Ubuntu/Kubuntu -- a Debian derived
distribution, which happens to be the most popular distribution download
on Source Forge. Ubuntu/Kubuntu combines a huge well maintained (tends
to actually work) repository that contains applications that I want
(math and science related) that seem to be missing from the repositories
of non Debian or Debian derived distributions. I want to spend more time
using applications than installing and maintaining them. I suggest you
google "Ubuntu" and start reading the stories, flame wars, reviews, etc.
It looks like a winner for a desktop (workstation) distribution. Give it
a look.