GeekTimeLinux

(Via LWN.net.)

Mandriva Linux 2008 has been released with Compiz Fusion 0.5.2 and drak 3D,
2.6.22 Kernel, KDE 3.5.7 and KDE 4 preview, GNOME 2.20, X.org 7.3,
RandR1.2, OpenOffice.org 2.2, and Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.6. Click below
for the official announcement or check out the the
release tour page for more information.

Not many years ago, Linux users were pretty much computer geeks. The amount of software available was limited and most installs were from source code.

It was from this simple premise that Mandrake was born. Mandrake, now Mandriva simplified installs, made them almost effortless and was responsible for many new users coming to Linux.

I learned of the Mandrake Legions some years ago when I was in a “Big Box” store looking at their boxed Linux distributions. The sales clerk, a young man in his late teens ask if I had ever used “Mandrake,” I answered NO and it was as if I had slapped him in the face. He quickly told me that he and several of his friends were avid Mandrake users and that he belonged to a LUG where many of the members were Mandrake users and he proceeded to open up as if I needed the testimonial. I bought a copy!

Having done installs of SUSE and Red Hat, I found Mandrake to be quite simple to install, configure and use. I too became hooked.

Over the years several things have changed. Mandrake went through some serious financial problems, recovered, changed their name to MANDRIVA, purchased CONECTIVA and later LYCORIS and ousted their founder. Through all the changes one thing has remained a constant, install and configuration remains among the easiest of any distribution on the market.

During the past week, I installed Mandriva PowerPack 2007. I have used the PowerPack version since becoming hooked some years back. I guess that coupled with the ease of install and configuration PowerPack offers the user the opportunity to select an expanded selection of applications.

The install is very straight forward. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from CD or DVD and insert the distribution disk. I used the DVD, however CDs work the same way with the exception you have several changes during the course of the total install.

You are ask a few simple questions; language,keyboard layout,home country, time zone, agreement and partitioning. Just about as simple as it comes.

Once your install is complete, what can you expect? For one thing, the old Galaxy theme is out and a new la Ora theme is in. It comes in several colors instead of just the traditional blue and the background and splash images are new and more attractive.

If you are a “gammer” MANDRIVA 2007 has Cedega. TransGaming’s Cedega Windows emulator for games allows you to play many Windows games in much the same was as Wine or CrossOver Office.

Newer software for your desktop including; Firefox 1.5.0.6, OpenOffice 2.0.3, KDE 3.5.4 and GNOME 2.16. In addition, MANDRIVA PowerPack 2007 comes with LinDVD. Basically, this is the GNU/Linux version of WinDVD that allows you to play DVD movies legally. The list of options and new programs seems unending.

My test machine was an old AMD 950Mhz Duron. The install took about 40 minutes and, while I had the option of installing the entire DVD on the hard drive, I opted to only do a standard install.

Once the install was complete, I detected several small bugs. First, I had a bit of trouble getting the Wi-Fi to configure. Fortunately, I also had a wired Lan card in the computer that I configured to complete the install. This became quite annoying when I attempted to use the online update service during the post-install.

I wanted to try the LinDVD player and found it easy to use…that is until about 15 minutes or so into a movie. That is where it stopped. I was undaunted and tried another movie. I now have 30 minutes of my life I will never get back.

While you can update the software manually, do not depend on the software update notifier. It simply doesn’t work.

Even with the bugs mentioned above, I find MANDRIVA 2007 to be a good distribution. If you are new to Linux or hate complicated installs, this is probably your distribution.

If you don’t need all the frills and fancy stuff, you might opt for the Discovery Edition, with three CDs and a little easier to use.

The cpio command is one of the most commonly used Linux back up tools.

The cpio command has two unusual features

Unlike tar , in which the files to back up are typed in as part of the command, cpio reads the files to work with from the standard input (in other words, the screen).

This feature means that cpio must be used as part of a multiple command or with a redirection pipe. Examples of this usage are shown in the tables below.

cpio must always be used with one of three flags. Flags are options that set the mode in which the command runs. Only one flag can be used at a time, and it must come before any other options. In addition, the choice of flags limits the options that can be used. Each flag also has a gnu option that can used in its place. The gnu option gives a convenient name for each flag: extract, create, and pass- through.

Read Full article here

The tar backup program is an archiving program designed to store and extract files from an archive file known as a tarfile. A tarfile may be made on a tape drive; however, it is also common to write a tarfile to a normal file.

Read Full article here

HERNDON, Virginia – March 22nd, 2006 – Parallels, Inc. today announced the general availability of version 2.1 of its desktop virtualization software, Parallels Workstation. The upgraded version delivers faster performance, better stability, and stronger isolation of virtual machines.

Additional improvements and new features in the popular, easy-to-use, cost-effective virtualization software include:
- A completely re-designed interface
- Better hardware support, including USB and wireless networking support, and support for PAE-enabled machines
- Better functionality, including the ability to suspend and resume VM (virtual machine) activity, a new “compact hard disk” feature that helps users manage available hard disk resources, and a more robust tools package that lets users personalize their experience
- Primary and guest support for SUSE Linux 10
- Guest OS support for Sun Solaris.
- Improved performance for guest OS/2 virtual machines

A complete list of Workstation 2.1’s new features and functions is available at http://www.parallels.com/en/products/workstation/21/newfeatures/.

“Parallels Workstation 2.1 is everything you need in a virtualization solution; it offers superlative performance, stability and ease of use, and on top of that, it is by far the most cost-effective solution available,” said Benjamin Rudolph, Parallels’ Marketing Manager. “This release’s impressive performance, feature set and industry-leading, low price point, coupled with free upgrades for current customers and responsive support, reinforce our across-the-board commitment to building virtualization solutions that work for anyone, regardless of computer savvy or budget.”

Additionally, Parallels announced that future versions of Parallels virtualization products will offer full support for Intel’s next generation of hardware virtualization technology, Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d), which extends virtualization support into the platform by making it possible to robustly assign IO devices to virtual machines (VMs) in a virtualized system. This enables devices to be driven “directly” by the native/physical driver when assigned to a virtual machine, resulting in significantly faster virtual machine performance.

“Intel is delivering relevant innovations for virtualization solution providers including Intel Virtualization Technology for CPU (VTx) and Directed IO (VTd), Dual Core microprocessors and Intel(R) Core(R) Microarchitecture,“ said David Tuhy, General Manager of Intel’s Desktop Products Division. “Parallels has taken full advantage of VTx in Parallels Workstation 2.1, and we look forward to continued collaboration with Parallels on enabling new platform capabilities such as VTd which will help improve the reliability, performance and flexibility of I/O devices on virtual machines.”

As part of the company’s ongoing efforts to build powerful products that meet any IT budget, Parallels is offering registered Workstation 2.0 customers a free upgrade to version 2.1. Registered users will be receiving an email with instructions on how to receive their 2.1 permanent license key.

New users can purchase licenses at the industry-leading low price of $49.99 directly through the company’s online store at www.parallels.com/buyonline. New users are also welcome to download and evaluate a free, fully functional 15-day trial by visiting the Parallels Download Center at www.parallels.com/download.

About Parallels
Parallels is server and workstation virtualization solutions company committed to building powerful, user friendly, cost-effective products that can be used by anyone, from an experienced developer to a computer “newbie” to improve efficiency, lower hardware costs, and reduce operating expenses. The company’s products all feature hypervisor technology for strong, stable virtual machines, and an intuitive web-like interface that facilitates zero-training operation. Additionally, Parallels solutions fully support Intel Virtualization Technology architecture, which is optimized to provide superior virtual machine performance. The company is rapidly growing and employs a global team of experienced technical and business professionals. For more information, please visit www.parallels.com.

Media/Analyst Contact
Benjamin H. Rudolph
Marketing Manager, Parallels
703.234.5549 (direct)
202.437.6701 (mobile)
ben.rudolph@parallels.com

I run many different distributions of Linux and enjoy playing with new
distros. My enjoyment would not exist were it not for the assistance and
support of an outstanding group of folks known as the Linux community. I
consider Mandriva to be one of my favorite Linux distros and when I use
Mandriva, I cannot help but feel a debt of gratitude for the many people
and organizations who support this distro - one of which is SeerOfSouls.

Seerofsouls.com (also known as SoS) is a 3rd party RPM repository for
Mandriva Linux. SoS provides users of the Mandriva Linux community with
several thousand rpms. The majority of these RPM’s are backports from
Cooker (the development version of Mandriva) into the latest stable
version of Mandriva, which is currently Mandriva 2006. SoS also packages
new apps, old apps, and if possible, apps upon request. SoS is currently
mirrored on or linked from http://distrowatch.com , http://rpm.pbone.net
, http://xchat.org , http://mandrivauser.cz and http://plf.lastdot.org .
SoS is also mentioned on or linked from several thousand forums, blogs
and other websites.

The popularity of SoS has grown tremendously with the hit count for May
2005 being just over 23,000 and the hit count for February 2006 standing
at 1,030,856. SoS is maintained by Hawkwind, who also maintains the
http://urpmi-addmedia.org and http://linuxfordummies.org sites. The
urpmi-addmedia website is utilized by the Mandriva community to add
online sources to their system while LinuxForDummies.org site is an area
of support. Hawkwind also serves as an op in #mandriva and #lfd on
irc.freenode.net.

The Linux community is incredibly large and vibrant. There are folks who
spend their time on mailing lists, irc channels and forums just waiting
to help others with Linux. I consider these folks to be role models and
I hope to one day attain their level of knowledge.

As readers of Geektimelinux know, I was impressed with Mandriva 2005. It was a clean, easy to use distro with about everything the newbie or power user needed in software.

Version 2006 was released and I reversed my thoughts. Seemed like there were too many things that were let downs following 2005. While I had nothing to do with it, there has been a quiet rumor circulating that Mandriva would release an updated version of 2006. It would contain more CUTTING EDGE software and would take care of some of the bugs that were contained in 2006.

MANDRIVA 2006.1-0.3 Beta is here. The new snapshot is available in your choice of 3 700MB isos for either the i586 or x86-64 or one i586 Live CD. Here’s what we found.

The Mandriva installer continues to be one of the best on the market. No major surprises from the company that has made installation simple and fun. My install was on the old AMD Athlon 1.2G. Not the fastest, but the same machine I had originally tried 2006 on, so thought it would be good to compare. Install and initial boot-up took about 37 minutes. While some programs were not installed, most are available on the images.

My selection for a windows manager was KDE. I selected this because it is KDE 3.5. Looks nice and runs quite well. GNOME 2.12 is also available for those that prefer GNOME.

Talking about new programs, 2006.1-03 Beta also contains; Open Office 2.0, Xorg’s newly released 6.9.0, Evolution 2.4.2.1, Gimp 2.35 and more. In all, this free distribution of Mandriva is very well appointed. I must admit that I had to install Open Office and Evolution after the initial install. Really a simple process, but something that could have been done within the initial install.

While many would not worry about, I encountered a kicker/panel crash upon logout. In doing a little research, I believe this is a KDE problem and not one of the distribution. I also encountered problems with Kaffine. It was totally unhappy with the lack of win32codecs and dvdcss. This is something that could be corrected if this distro goes from beta to final.

On the positive side, all of my old hardware was configured properly including a printer. Most programs ran quickly (except those noted above) and from an initial overview, it would appear that many of the bugs of 2006 have been corrected. All? Maybe not, but Mandriva is on the right track.

One of the things I keep waiting for is some of the technology from Conectiva and Lycoris to surface. Possible by the time this version is final, we will be seeing some of these distros programs surfacing.

In all, MANDRIVA 2006.1-0.3 is worth giving a spin. For the newbie, you will enjoy the simplicity of install and installing additional programs. For the power user, you already know the distribution.

From time to time a trusted Linux distribution releases a new version and just misses the mark. Mandriva Linux 2006 Download Edition is, in my opinion, one of those.

I have used and written about Mandriva (formerly Mandrake) for sometime. Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 was a tremendous release that gave hope that the Linux desktop was just around the corner. Mandriva has purchased Conectiva and Lycoris and was rumored to be incorporating the best of their technology and yet I downloaded the latest version of Mandriva and was quite disappointed.

The ease of installing from DVD is great, but there seems to be a lack of many of the features. Multimedia suffers slightly without Mplayer or RealPlayer while Firefox contains none of the plugins found in 2005. Want Java, Flash or any other plugins…install them. Personally, I have no problem doing so, however for someone that is a newbie to Linux, this might be more than they had bargained for!

Many programs are available simply by clicking on KDE>SYSTEM>CONFIGURATION>PACKAGING>INSTALL SOFTWARE.

I have noticed that this distro is also a bit slow compared to other distributions that have been on this machine. The machine is an AMD Athlon 1.2 with 393M of RAM. Very typical of the test machines in our little lab.

I don’t seem to be the only one that has had some problems with this version of Mandriva. Stability problems are mentioned in a review done by CapnKirby that parallel the afore mentioned.

This short review comes at a time when Mandriva is planning a Worldwide Install day. Scheduled for Saturday, November 19th, some 60 cities will participate with a dozen in China and some 15 in Brazil.

While it appears my intent is to trash a Great Linux company, that is not the case. I have used Mandrake (now Mandriva) for sometime and just feel that this is not their best effort.

For experienced users, this might be great as there is a lot of tweaking that can be done. For the newbie, give it a look, but don’t judge the Linux Desktop experience solely on one distribution.

Having followed Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 through its various development cycles, I was anxious to install Mandriva 2006. This would be the first release combining the technologies of Conectiva, Lycoris and Mandrake. It promised many new features. It delivered in most areas.

MANDRIVA is one of the most powerful, yet simple Linux distributions on the market. While you can download from several mirrors, the push is for you to become a Mandriva Club Member. With the membership, you receive some additional privileges including earlier download of new releases at a price. You select the level. If you are not a member, you get the download version at a little later date.

The shiny new MANDRIVA 2006 is full of new touches and new software. The new Blue Penguin on the splash screen is a bit of a shocker as are the penguins on the screen saver! As for software, MANDRIVA 2006 is loaded with the latest; KDE 3.4.2 and GNOME 2.10.2 head the list. Both offer excellent performance and some new features. I have KDE on one lab machine and GNOME on another and truly like both. Version 2.6.12.11 of the Linux kernel is an excellent choice. It offers excellent performance. Other software includes; Firefox 1.0.6, Gaim ( the instant messaging program) version 1.5.0, Evolution 2.2.3 and a host of other new versions of popular software. One of the interesting choices is Kat. For those that have never used it, Kat is a desktop search engine that can index a directory or your whole system for comprehensive searching.

One of the packages I have been waiting to work with is Smart package manager. While I have not had the time to really devote to Smart, that is my next project, I will report back. Smart differs from other package managers in it has configurations available for urpmi repositories, rpm directory, apt-get repositories, apt-rpm repositories Slackware repositories as well as deb directories. If you opt to remain with Mandriva’s original package manager, it remains in place.

The MANDRIVA installer continues to be a thing of beauty. I mention this because it is simple and very quick. Simply boot to disc 1, answer a couple of questions and settle back with a good cup of coffee or tea. You will be prompted to change discs and in a short time, you will be booting into your new system. It is the simplicity of this installer that has always made MANDRIVA a joy to install.

If you are one that likes to have plugins in your browser, you will be pleased to know that MANDRIVA has Real Player (helix), Java and Adobe included in the install. Other software can be added by simply going to: SYSTEM>CONFIGURATION>PACKAGING>SOFTWARE and selecting a package or searching those available. The process is quick and easy.

At this time,I do not have an Intel Mobil Centrino machine in the lab, however, MANDRIVA has been talking up their Wi-Fi setup with the system and based on what I see, they are probably in the forefront of Linux Wi-Fi.

My assessment of MANDRIVA 2006 is very simple. It is a well known distribution that has gone the extra mile to insure the latest software, is simple to use and provides a feel that is polished and professional.

MANDRIVA 2006, is now available for download. Give it a try!

If Paul Revere had been a Linux person, he would be riding tonight shouting “THE DISTROS ARE RELEASED…THE DISTROS ARE RELEASED.” What that really has to do with anything, I don’t know. I just thought it would be funny!

This is the time for the Distro race with SUSE 10 being released earlier in the week. I was fortunate to get on the servers before their problems and get a download completed. I must admit it is a strong distro to challenge as you can see from the review already posted.

UBUNTU, 5.10, “Breezy Badger” was released today and I am currently working on the download. It should complete shortly and we will begin our usual round of burning, install, attempting to break, etc. From having used the Beta for a short time, I am really curious as to how the final product will play.

Finally, MANDRIVA released today. Their latest version is 2006 and combines the minds of Mandrake, Conectiva and Lycoris. This review will be coming in days as well.

As you can see, this is a hectic time. It is also one that I truly enjoy. Please have patience with me and within days, I should have the reviews finished and published on GTL.

Enjoy!

The final review of Betas is MANDRIVA 2006-0.3.

For those not familiar with MANDRIVA, formerly Mandrake, the company was founded in 1998. Their goal, make Linux easy to use and to date, they have succeeded.

Having used MANDRIVA Limited Edition 2005, curiosity was high when 2006 was announced. 2005 had been and continues to be one of the distros that has remained on a lab machine and has had an abundance of abuse or aah, testing!

While the graphics on the splash screen have changed…again, the development team at MANDRIVA have put together a distro that is simple to install, easy to use and features programs ranging from the latest version of Open Office to tools ranging from multi-media to E-mail client.

If you have never done a MANDRIVA install, it couldn’t be easier. Simply boot to the first CD and with a few simple questions, the installation program takes over and before long, you are looking at a full Linux install. It really can’t get much simpler.

The default windows manager is KDE and with the latest version, the icons and “eye candy” are clean and polished. MANDRIVA users will find Firefox 1.0.6 and the latest version of GAIM (for IM). In addition, this robust distro is designed to work with i586, ppc, x86 and 64 processor architecture.

While there has been interest in what MANDRIVA will use from their recent purchase of CONECTIVA and LYCORIS, there is no sign of either in this distro. This might change soon. In a recent issue of LINUX FORMAT (one of my favorite monthly reads) Gael Duval, one of the founders of MANDRAKE/MANDRIVA eluded to the possibility of the use of SMARTPM, a program management tool by Conectiva.

While this version is still in Beta form, it appears that MANDRIVA has another winner on their hands, something that is getting to be “old hat”!

If you like to try betas, download MANDRIVA 2006 Beta and give it a try. Not that daring, the full distro should be available soon.

A question was asked on a mailing list I subscribe to: How to get Sun’s java plug in to work with Firefox under Mandriva Linux. I put this response together, and decided to post it here as well in the event it is helpfull to others. I use Mandriva Linux 2006.0 beta 2 with the KDE desktop environment. I prefer to use RPM packages when possible since Mandriva’s urpmi and the GUI interface make package management so simple. I will explain, in detail, the steps required to install java using an rpm package provided by Sun on Mandriva. I will also give the steps to make the java plug in available to Firefox

I presume the following:

1. Using Mandriva Linux with KDE desktop environment

2. Minimal Linux knowledge.

3. Firefox was installed with the mozilla-firefox RPM package provided by Mandriva.

4. Firefox is used to download the file from sun.

5. Firefox downloads files to the desktop.

6. The file downloaded from Sun is not already executable.

Go to http://java.sun.com to download the java package. There are two versions available, J2SE-5.0 or J2SE-1.4.2. Both work OK in Firefox, but as far as I know, only the 1.4.2 version is recognized by Konqueror.

Navigate to the downloads page for the version you want. Make sure to select the link Linux RPM in self extracting file.
This will download a .bin file which contains the java RPM package. There is also a .tar file available, but I do not reccommend it since the package management system does not support this file type.

You have to extract the RPM package from the .bin file in a terminal window. To execute the extractor in the .bin file, you have to make it executable.

Open a terminal window.

Switch to your desktop directory:

Enter: cd Desktop {ENTER} (no quotes)

Make the .bin file executable, then extract the RPM package:

For J2SE(TM) Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 4:

Enter: chmod +x ./jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586-rpm.bin {ENTER} (no quotes).

Enter: ./jre-1_5_0_04-linux-i586-rpm.bin {ENTER} (no quotes).

For Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4.2_09:

Enter: chmod +x ./j2re-1_4_2_09-linux-i586-rpm.bin {ENTER} (no quotes).

Enter: ./j2re-1_4_2_09-linux-i586-rpm.bin {ENTER} (no quotes).

You should read their terms.

To extract the RPM:

Enter: yes {ENTER} (no quotes) when asked to accept.

After the RPM file has been extracted, you can install it with the Software Installer from within KDE filemanager. Keep the terminal window open. You will need it later.

In filemanager, navigate to ~/Desktop.

Alt-Click the RPM package.

Move the mouse cursor to Open With … in the context menu

Select Software Installer in the pop out menu.

Click the Install button

Enter your root password when requested.

The Software Installer will install the java package correctly for you.

Click the Done button.

Java is now installed on your computer.

Create a link between the java plug in and Firefox as root using the terminal window.

Switch to the Firefox plugins directory:

Enter: cd /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox-1.0.6/plugins {ENTER} (no quotes).

Switch to the root user:

Enter: su {ENTER}‘ (no quotes).

Enter your root password when requested.

For J2SE(TM) Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 4, create the link:

Enter: ln -s /usr/java/jre1.5.0_04/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so {ENTER} (no quotes)

For Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition 1.4.2_09, create the link:

Enter: ln -s /usr/java/j2re1.4.2_09/plugin/i386/ns610-gcc32/libjavaplugin_oji.so {ENTER} (no quotes).

The next time you open firefox, java should work correctly.

You can delete the .bin and the RPM files since they are no longer needed. I check the Sun WEB site about once a month for updates. If you choose, you can keep the RPM file in a location of your choice to avoid re-downloading the same package in the event of calamity.

June 15th 2005 - Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, the publisher of the popular Mandriva Linux distribution, today announced an agreement to purchase several assets from Lycoris, a major North American Linux distribution for home users. As part of this agreement, Lycoris’ founder and CEO Joseph Cheek is joining Mandriva to develop a new and advanced Linux desktop product.

Since its inception in the year 2000, Lycoris has established a solid reputation for developing easy to use and friendly operating systems targetted to the consumer market. For instance, Lycoris has released a full Linux OS - Desktop/LX - which is based on a high-quality graphical user interface and the Iris Software Gallery technology for easily adding new components to the system. Desktop/LX is often considered to be a realistic and affordable competitor to the Windows® and MacOS® operating systems, thus gaining large recognition from the American press.

Lycoris also pioneered unique Linux products for the mass market, such as a Tablet Edition and a Pocket PC edition of Lycoris Desktop/LX, which led to several partnerships with hardware vendors in Asia, including Dialogue and MoBits.

As a result of these successes, Lycoris developed a large base of users in only a few years. Paying members of this community of users number nearly 20,000. Based on the download statistics of the free products, one can estimate the overall user population to be several hundreds of thousands.

On the other hand, Mandriva, which was one of the first Linux distributions to care about the desktop and the user experience from its inception in 1998, was looking for an opportunity to accelerate the development of its desktop technologies which are key for Linux adoption both in the user land and corporate world.

Lycoris was a top candidate for this strategy, and thus Mandriva is extremely pleased to reach this agreement with Lycoris and to have Joseph Cheek joining the team.

The joint plan is now to develop a new product that will be the convergence between our Mandriva Discovery product and Lycoris Desktop/LX. Both teams have already started working on this product.

In parallel, the plan is to add into the Mandriva Club some of the unique features of the Iris Software Gallery and to create a specific space in the Club dedicated to the existing Iris Software Gallery and to welcome the former Lycoris.org user forum.

Joseph Cheek joins Mandriva to head the program that will drive these two projects.

“We are extremely happy that Joseph Cheek decided to join the Mandriva family. They bring a unique expertise in terms of desktop tools and some excellent products. Our goal is now to provide a path moving forward to the thousands of Desktop/LX users”, said François Bancilhon, CEO of Mandriva.

Joseph Cheek added: “Lycoris is especially excited to be part of the new Mandriva team. Merging the unique qualities of our Desktop/LX product with Mandriva’s excellent technology will enable both Desktop/LX and Mandriva users to enjoy a superior computing experience.”

More details will soon follow about the new convergence product, as well as a release plan.

About Lycoris

Lycoris was founded in 2000 with a vision of making Linux simple enough for everyone. Lycoris packages Open Source applications for the consumer market and integrates them into Desktop/LX, its simple, robust operating system. Lycoris has enjoyed amazingly positive press coverage in Time Magazine and other publications. Lycoris is positioning itself as the leading provider of the best Linux based operating system specifically targeted for the desktop market, whether purchased separately or pre-installed on Desktop/LX PCs. The company is also the leader in the Linux Tablet arena, pioneering the first and so far only Linux-based Tablet PC operating system, Desktop/LX Tablet Edition. Lycoris sets the standard that all others follow.

Joseph Cheek’s experience at both Linuxcare and Microsoft helped him learn how to merge a great user experience and open source software into a consistent whole. Prior to his tenure at Linuxcare and Microsoft, Joseph had been a network consultant and a Caldera VAR. His vision for the future of computing includes a time when open source enthusiasts enjoy all of the computing benefits typically found in more established commercial operating systems.

About Mandriva

Mandriva, formerly known as Mandrakesoft, is the publisher of the popular Mandriva Linux operating system, one of the most full-featured and easy to use Linux systems. The company offers its enterprise, government educational customers a complete range of GNU/Linux and Open Source software and related services. Mandriva products are available in more than 120 countries through dedicated channels and also from Mandrivastore.com, the company’s online store. Number 1 in several countries, Mandriva has won many awards for quality and technical innovation. “Born on the Internet” in late 1998, has offices in the United States, France and Brazil. Mandriva is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF). http://www.mandriva.com

Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 is the transitional release intended to transition from discrete Mandrakelinux and Connectiva distributions to Mandriva which is the result of the recent merger / acquisition of Connectiva with / by Mandrakelinux. I installed Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 replacing Mandrakelinux 10.1 (both download editions). I like the appearance and functionality enhancements provided by KDE 3.3, although I can do without the starry eyed mallard penguin dominating the custom Mandriva graphics. I personally prefer a more subtle approach to product branding, but this is not the object of this article. Following the installation, I was unable to send or retrieve email. In the following paragraphs I will first describe how I handle email on my system. Second I will report my investigation of the issue. Finally I will give the simple solution I found.

How I handle email on my system:

I have a couple of WEB based email accounts and one provided by my ISP. All are POP3 accessable, and require user name and password to send email. I connect to the Internet with a broadband always on connection. I use cron to run fetchmail once each 15 minutes to retrieve email from my various accounts on the WEB as well as the one from my ISP. fetchmail passes any incoming email to procmail for filtering and delivery to my local inbox. My local mail store uses the maildir format in which each email message is a discrete text file, and is stored in a directory. There is a new, cur, and tmp directory under each email folder which is in turn a directory under the main mail store directory on the harddrive. Since each email message is a file on the hard drive, any email from unknown sources can be safely inspected with a text editor. I use Kmail to read, compose and send messages. This combination has worked well for me for more than five years, providing automated email retrieval, filtering to my specification (I wrote the filters in my procmail script), and a safe way of inspecting questionable email messages.

The issue:

After installing Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 I found I was unable to send or retrieve email using Kmail and the SMTP or POP protocols respectively. Kmail returned an error ‘unable to connect to server’. I confirmed my account settings. They were correct. I confirmed no firewall. I checked running services in MCC (The Mandriva Control Center), and stopped any unessential services. No change. I switched from the DHClient to DHCPCD. No change. I switched from DHCP to Static Network configuration. No change. I installed Thunderbird, but was still unable to send or retrieve email. I checked system logs and found no help there. I was stumped.

The solution

Email clients are unable to connect to servers while fetchmail is able to retrieve email successfully, permitting me to read my incoming email as always. I reconfigured Kmail to use Sendmail to send email rather than the SMTP protocol. Now sending email succeeds.

It is important to note that newer Mandrakelinux distributions as well as the new Mandriva employ a sendmail symbolic link to postfix, so for this to work, postfix will have to be installed and enabled (The Mandriva default). I did not do any configuration of postfix (sendmail) either in the config files or Kmail. I simply clicked the ‘OK’ button in the pop-up dialog after selecting the sendmail option when I reconfigured Kmail.

It disturbs me that I have been unable to determine the cause of this issue, and I will continue working it as time permitts until I find out why it is happening or Mandriva releases a fix.

All in all, the new mandriva release works well so far, and I can even use kdevmon again to monitor data traffic to and from my workstation. It did not work in Mandrakelinux 10.1 (returned a seg fault error), so I had to use a different traffic monitor which required more realestate in the system tray. If this fixable email issue is the only trouble I find in my new installation of Mandriva, then I will give it a cautious recommend rating.

When Mandrakesoft announced it had acquired Connectiva in February, 2005, there was much interest in the direction the company would take. Mandrakesoft’s management had worked through some tough times and had begun to make great inroads with corporate accounts as well as their desktop distribution market in Europe and U.S. Connectiva was the leader in Brazil and South America. How would they mesh?

The first look at this new and exciting company, now known as MANDRIVA is their Limited Edition 2005 release. This release features many cutting edge features designed to position the distro as the leader of the pack.

MANDRIVA has changed more cosmetically in this version than Mandrake Linux has in the past several releases. In fact, when you begin the install, you are suddenly looking eye-to-eye with the largest and possibly the happiest penguin you have seen. I believe it reflects the mood of this growing company.

MANDRIVA continues to present a well tuned KDE-based desktop with easy-to-navigate menus and configuration tools such as HardDrake, DrakConf and MenuDrake to make desktop administration simple.

This distro recognizes external hardware and automatically configures it. Flash drives and removable media are auto-mounted and given an icon on the desktop. MANDRIVA also installs by default hardware-accelerated 3D video drivers for Nvidia, ATI and Intel-based graphics processors.

Since my introduction to Mandrake some years ago, the install process has continued to be one of ease and speed. A few simple questions and let the installer take over. If you install from the DVD, you are allowed to store all of the software packages on your hard drive. Simply, when you decide to add something from the repository, you need not look for the DVD. Simplicity!

MANDRIVA still offers a CD install with 6 CDs as well as a “mini” CD which downloads the required software packages over broadband Internet connections. MANDRIVA is offering the options, its up to you to select.

So how about the software selection? Where to start!

If you are a heavy duty Internet user, you will appreciate FIREFOX 1.0.2 with some specific customization including out-of-the-box. Web content RSS reading and software sound mixing are included (so multiple applications can play sound at once).

MANDRIVA Limited Edition 2005 is the only Linux system to allow the trouble free coexistence of 32 bit and 64 bit applications while offering enhanced support for removable devices, including he ability to boot from USB keys.

WHAT ELSE IS UNDER THE HOOD?

Booting from Linux Kernel 2.6.11.6, MANDRIVA offers KDE 3.3.2 as the primary gui interface, however GNOME users are offered the opportunity at install to boot from GNOME 2.8.3. CDRECORD has been upgraded to2.0.1.01(with DVD+R dual layer support). MANDRIVA has included, by default, the ndiswrapper package, which allows Windows wireless networking drivers to work with the Linux Kernel, thereby enabling otherwise unsupported wireless NICS. Add the latest version of Open Office, MySql and the many refinements that Mandrake users have become used to and you have to brand this distro as a Gigantic win for the user.

I have been using the system for about two weeks and have found it to be powerful, simple and full featured. My previous Mandrake install was 10.1 Professional. A great distribution, but one that will be forgotten after a few hours with Mandriva Limited Edition 2005.