about Mandriva user
 

Hi all,

My name is Sara and I'm studying Bachelor in IT and I'm a new member in LQ :)

I have a college project which is about creating a report about Mandriva Linux including its features, benefits ...etc.

My question is about:

- Who should consider this Linux distribution (Mandriva) & who should not use it?

I did my research to know the answer but i didn't find useful information!!

Can someone help me in this?!

Thanks in advance...

Doll Face :redface:

Greetings and welcome to LQ :)

Mandriva is for you:

If you like something that's a little bleeding edge.
If you don't mind fixing things when they get broken.
If you want a distro that works out of the box with most hardware.

Mandriva is not for you:

If you are lazy.
If you don't like things working oneday and not working the next.
If you don't want to use commandline.

Have you had a look at the Mandrive Wiki? With a good overview of the product you should be able to answer most of your questions yourself.

Thank u Nexus for ur reply :D

Actually, I'm a beginner user of Mandriva and my experience is still didn't complete 4 months...

Did u answer me based on ur personal experience or did u take this information from other resources?


Doll Face :redface:

Hi DollFace, Wellcome to LQ,(as some one else said, {BBI}Nexus{BBI}.)

I have been using Mandy since 10.0.

I have been stuggling to get away from M$win since.

I am an OSS activist since win98

Anyone who has never used M$ windows will find that mandriva is as easy to learn as any of the other OS's.

Those who have used M$-windows, will find it easier after a "complete introduction".

That means, usually, sitting down with them and "proving" that Linux can achieve what M$windows does.

I'm doing it, I have no plan, But it is working, By word of mouth.

any questions? Please ask! I may help more with more info.....

regards Glenn

ps, {BBI}Nexus{BBI} has helped me a lot, and I consider their opinion, always!

My reply is based purely on my own personal experience. Time was you would hear 'GNU/Linux' is not for the faint of heart. Now with more and more distros focussed on easing the transition of newbies into the world of GNU/Linux, it's become a matter of which distro you choose to cut your teeth on. First impressions do matter!

I like to try as many distros as I can and judge their ease of use against the things I need to do to keep my Mandriva happy.

I also consider how much computer knowledge the users (I advocate the use of GNU/Linux to) have before pointing them to the one(s) I think suit their abilities.

Mandriva is very good out of the box (as I've said earlier) but it is also prone to breakage from time to time. If users are prepared to roll their sleeves up and get dirty then naturally it's the distro I would point them to.

@GlennsPref: Thanks for the endorsement. Your advice/threads are always interesting to read and have helped me countless times too. :)

Thank u very much {BBI}Nexus{BBI} and GlennsPref for ur valuable information :D

Nexus dear i asked if what u provided me of information is from ur experience or other resources because i need to reference each single information in my report, so by that i will reference ur name ;)

It seems guys that u're really expert in Mandriva and i can benefit from this great experience.

To clarify more about my question, do u recommend using Mandriva as an operating systems for big companies which has for example huge database and stuff like that?!

I really appreciate ur help...

Doll Face :redface:

I'm not in a position to really say if Mandriva is suitable for big companies. Generally speaking I don't see why not (this also applies to most of the other distros out there), as long as you have the skilled personnel to maintain the network/operating system I wouldn't see this as being a problem. Mandriva (and others) are used in a corporate environment already, perhaps directing some of you questions to them will get you a more comprehensive answer. Do check out the wiki, I'm sure you'll find some useful information there.

How did you hear about Mandriva? and Why do you think it is the distro for you?

Hi, I think you'll find that data-bases for BIG companies are held on a central data base,

which would normally be a (file-)server, or a bank of servers. (I've seen some that would fill my house!)

GNU/Linux is still the world leader in server operating systems.

GNU/Linux was/is based on the Unix system, lookup Linus Torvals,

The Micrsoft Operating System was also based on Unix, they changed it enough to make it a proprietary to sell.

I think you'll find that Mac OS was also based on Unix.

See the crux of the matter is that in the old days, unix was difficult to use (cli only),

you virtually needed to be a scientist/engineer to need to use it.

The Millitary played a big part too.

Before I get too far off topic, Mandriva and other distros

(very basically) are an interface to the gnu/Linux OS.

They give us the configuration tools, Packaging (installation management), development

and (a wide variety of) choices of programs. Amongst others.
a reference you may use...http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT4698611406.html

Computer science names to look up (off topic now) Babbage, Neumann, Turing, Stallman, Pascal, and many many more.

ref....(for you)
http://www.madore.org/~david/computers/greatnames.html

Hope this helps, and not too late. ;)

regards Glenn

Other reference material...
computer science...

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~shallit/...4/history.html

http://lecture.eingang.org/

http://www.fsf.org/about/leadership.html


not so academic material, but a good read with refs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...mputer_science
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux

Mandriva was introduced for me by my college teacher who teaches networking courses. I was really excited to utilize this OS once he presented it to us. Actually, he provided us with Live CDs of Mandriva Spring One 2008 to download it on any PC in our IT lab. I found it very user-friendly system and anyone can use it simply.

BTW am experiencing Red Hat Linux on a virtual machine on my personal laptop currently, however, i feel that Mandriva is more flexible and easy!!

Anyhow,

I read ur post and benefited from it since u made this point more clear for me now.

u know what i found from my research that since there are several editions of Mandriva, each edition requires a specific level of knowledge including advanced level, beginner etc.

Regards,

Doll Face :redface:

Hi dear GlennsPref,

Thanks for the valuable resources u provided me with and i really appreciate ur help and no u're not too late ;)

I saved all the references in my favorite and i had a look at them all and scanned the information included.

Regards,

Doll Face :redface:

cool, I'm studing to be a secondary ed teacher

Each distro is slightly different, but all the mandriva distros are the same, it just depends on how you want it configured. This way I can/may be expert or beginner.

It really makes no difference, just more choices during installation!

I hoped you get the best of this DollFace! this is not a flame war!

Cheers, Glenn (I'll be 47 tomorrow)