Recent Distro Updates
Linux.com has reviewed the new releases from Mandriva and Ubuntu, both generally favourably. Mandriva's package management system(s) still appear to be letting it down, and Ubuntu "Edgy" disappoints for it's lack of "edginess". If you've used either, leave your impressions in the comments below.
Personally I found Edgy's lack of new features disappointing. I found the Tomboy notes application rather cute, but hardly worth 3rd place on a list of new features (The new splash screen came first!).
Of the two products I have running constantly on my computer, I'm at a loss to find any new features in either GNOME 2.16 or Firefox 2.0 really worthy of note. Call me cynical, but I suspect that if Microsoft hadn't released IE7, I'd now be using the same web browser under the name Firefox 1.6.
A major concern for me was the increased strain that Edgy put on my five year old desktop PC. It had been claimed that GNOME 2.16 would include significant performance optimisations, but on a system with only 256MB of RAM, these optimisations seem to have only served to make a bad situation worse. It had been getting slower with every new release of Ubuntu, but Edgy was the final nail in the coffin. Fortunately, replacing GNOME with the XFCE desktop environment, via the xubuntu-desktop set of packages, brought back the relatively snappy performance of a year ago, and I was surprised to find that I lost very little functionality in the migration from the GNOME desktop (apart from the aforementioned Tomboy). XFCE's weather applet, unlike GNOME's, actually works for Coffs Harbour!
Since the previous version ("Dapper") is slated for 'long term support', with provision of security upgrades for a longer period of time than Edgy will have, this is the first Ubuntu upgrade that I wouldn't recommend to everybody, or even most users. However, to be fair, this can be seen as a result of the short space of time (three months) since the last release, and the increasing maturity of the system leaving fewer obvious paths for rapid improvement.
- Matthew Davidson's blog
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Comments
Mandriva "2007" and Edgy
At least I was able to install Mandriva "2007". That's the end of the good news with the two OS's mentioned. Instead of having one package manager that works, it has two so-called "package managers" that don't.
One, Urpmi, installed a package with a similar name instead of the one I wanted, then told me that the one I wanted didn't exist. It then included that package in a list of packages containing a certain word, following which it told me that the package was already installed.
The other, Rpmdrake, just got extremely confused every time I asked it to do something.
Even though the version is named after next year, it did not contain the latest version of KOffice and, of course, its so-called package managers could not find the later version in a third party repository.
On top of that, unbelievably, Bittorrent, although found by the packagers, could not be installed because of a missing dependency. Azureus could not be found.
That's it for me with Mandriva. No more chances.
I moved on to Xubuntu. It uses the Dapper partitioner which cannot recognise Linux partitions. The same handicap prevented me installing the alpha release of Ulteo.
Once I deleted two empty partitions, the Xubuntu partitioner was able to identify the remaining partitions and the empty space remaining. It stoutly refused, however, to create a new partition, although it seemed content to reformat an occupied one or remove the partition table completely. Neither course was on my agenda.
I understand that the Ubuntu monitor resolution problem has been fixed, but I may never know.
I have to mention PCLinuxOS which saved the day. I reinstalled it, found that I still could not get fonts to display correctly in Kde (Mandriva 2007 had the same problem), so I also, following Matthew's prompting, installed Xfce, which I had enjoyed using on Zenwalk.
Installing a later (beta) version of Xfce improved the situation further. I can run the Kde apps I want to use on Xfce. Gnome's File-Roller runs. Everything displays clearly and the whole experience is very pleasant.
PCLinuxOS has a short life span but it is the only OS I've been able to install and configure without a whole lot of problems, gnashing of teeth and waste of time. It's stable, trouble-free and the developers actually respond to feedback.