Mandriva 2009.1 Spring

Mandriva is quite popular distro and now I am going depict mt first experience with Mandriva.

My Test Machine:

AMD64 3000+ Processor
MSI Motherboard
512 DDR II Ram
ESPON C 58 Printer
Samsung Monitor.

Installation:

It is smooth and fast and graphics looks gorgeous during installation.
You will be able also to use from installation media some very useful tools:

• HDT (Hardware Detection Tool): get a complete description of your hardware without booting a complete os
• draksnapshot restore tools: restore your full system in an easy way from a date you will choose and many other updates and fixes.

This release is available through

• DVD edition (32 or 64 bits) with a traditional installer.
• Desktop Option - KDE 4.2.1, GNOME 2.25.92, LXDE,.

Multimedia Experience:

If you install VLC & SMPlayer (provider in DVD) you can play most of things. But if you want to play using Dragon or Totem you have to buy codecs from fluendo is the only option.Flash Player is useless in Mandriva 2009 spring edition.

Screenshot:

Software Salection:

· X.org server 1.6.0
· Qt Creator 1.0
· Qt 4.5.0
· OpenOffice.Org 3.0.1
· GIMP 2.6.5
· Amarok 2.0.2

Conclusion: I think Mandriva is going to windows way by selling most of things whether it is codecs or its powerpack.Desktop experience is good but it is not uto Ubuntu and OpenSuse. Flash is totally useless.

Rating : 2.5/5

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