Mandriva 2011 Delayed Due to Major Changes

by Susan Linton - Jan. 31, 2011Comments (7)

Mandriva 2011 has been delayed primarily because of the team's major changes to RPM5. RPM5 is a fork of RPM, (Red Hat Package Management) which was currently at 4.8.1, that offers faster performance and fewer operational errors. Because a preview was promised today, a Mandriva Technology Preview is being released to showcase some of the newest changes.

The Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview showcases some of the planned features of Mandriva 2011 currently available in Cooker and the upcoming Alpha. This includes native systemd, Networkmanager support, KDE 4.6.0, Linux 2.6.37, Firefox 4 beta 10, X.org X Server 1.9, Clementine 0.6 and lots of software updates. Most significantly, today's preview introduces the new ISO image version.

Mandriva Desktop will replace Mandriva One and Mandriva Free. This one image will run from live CD, USB flash drives, and can be installed onto hard drives. The Technology Preview has a few glitches which include Networkmanager not starting automatically at boot, artwork is not yet updated, and lots of other juicy bugs.

As a result of these changes and subsequent delays the new release schedule for Mandriva 2011 is:

- Mandriva 2011 Alpha: February 14 2011
- Mandriva 2011 Alpha 2: February 28 2011
- Mandriva 2011 Beta 1: March 14 2011
- Mandriva 2011 Beta 2: April 11 2011
- Mandriva 2011 RC: May 9 2011
- Mandriva 2011 Final: June 13 2011

The Mandriva 2011 Technology Preview is beginning to appear on mirrors already. Here's one.

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 01, 2011

mandriva should stick to their network applet and avoid network manager - that is a POS.

mandriva's network configuration works TOGETHER with ifconfig, making network management as easy to do from command line as from their applet.

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by dar on Feb. 02, 2011

Too bad their isn't a version that uses deb packages by default. That's the main reason stopping me from using Mandriva. I think I would seriously consider switching from Kubuntu if it weren't for those damn rpm's.

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 02, 2011

Rpms have no more problems than debs. I have come to really appreciate rpm-based distros.

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 02, 2011

"mandriva's network configuration works TOGETHER with ifconfig, making network management as easy to do from command line as from their applet."

Funny, last few times I tried Mandriva/Mandrake, the network support was broken as usual. It's probably the MAJOR reason I abandoned it.

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 03, 2011

I believe rpm.org is the actual fork. Jeff Johnson has always maintained the the current HEAD of rpm development and after his departure from RH for awhile he continued the only development done on rpm. It's only in the recent years that rpm.org has picked back up development of their fork due to the pressure from constant development of what is now rpm5.org.

Hence the choice for Mandriva to leave rpm.org and continue with rpm5.org is not that hard to understand. AFAIK Fedora/RH are the only ones to ever really get any changes up-streamed at rpm.org. So the choice for distros is to stick with the current version of what they have and maintain an ever growing patch set (*Suse last time I checked), or work with an open community and get their patch set up-streamed at rpm5.org is pretty clear. The list of FOSS projects signing on to use rpm5.org is ever growing.

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 03, 2011

> mandriva should stick to their network applet and avoid network manage

actually, this single thing made me switch from mandriva to fedora

in the standard kde network manager it is relatively easy to use the nokia n900 as a modem and tether a cellphone internet connection

in mandriva's network applet, i have no idea how to get this working :(

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by an anonymous user on Feb. 06, 2011

> mandriva should stick to their network applet and avoid network manage

actually, this single thing made me switch from mandriva to fedora

in the standard kde network manager it is relatively easy to use the nokia n900 as a modem and tether a cellphone internet connection

in mandriva's network applet, i have no idea how to get this working :(