[CS-FSLUG] Mandriva 2008.0 disappointing.

[Nathan T.]

I paid for a copy of Mandriva 2008.0 because I've always wanted to give 
back to the company that helped me cut my Linux teeth; however, I found 
the finished commercial package to be a let-down.

The pros: Mandriva advertises that they include a legal, licensed codec 
pack & legal DVD playback. Firefox can be made to look decent with the 
gtk-qt engine, the KDE desktop looks reasonable and is stable.

The cons: Where's that codec pack that was supposed to be included? 
Multimedia support was non-existent in the x86_64 version I installed, 
even streaming MP3s off a web site or file server didn't work. Gnome 
apps used to open video files in KDE, there appears to be visual 
distortion with the i810 (and up) display drivers, the sound defaults to 
having no volume every time I log on again. The default Mandriva theme 
and default icons for KDE had some unattractive elements, the update 
sources needed to be modified because the software didn't automatically 
add some of the ones I needed and it wasn't apparent until after I 
searched the internet that I was missing a required source for a 
particular samba update to work. The fonts are not as crisp as in 
Windows and the kerning needs work, overall the legibility of the fonts 
needs improvement.

Mandriva 2008.0 shows potential, but it hasn't changed the fact that 
Mandrake Linux 9.1 was still the last good (and perhaps the best) 
release I can remember. It could be fixed by someone who wants to invest 
the time and effort into it, but I wouldn't say it's ready for the 
masses at all. I don't feel any desire to invest more time into getting 
Mandriva to work the way I want; if it were a better fit for me then I'd 
have no problem, but I feel too much of it failed to make a positive 
impression and I wasn't getting all the features as advertised.

Anyone else have something to say about it?

-NT