Mandriva Free Vs Discovery ???
 

Ive been running Mandriva 2007 DVD.iso free download for a couple of weeks now.

Ive been wondering whether to by the Discovery download version because it contains one or two goodies but....

Is the discovery version worth 44,00 euros? Just how much more do you get over a free download version?

The Official versions will give you stuff like Acrobat reader, Realplayer & other funky things (not that Realplayer is that funky, but it does have it's uses), & should be easier to configure, as you'll have to spend less time hunting down bits of software (although that can be fun!). For a newbie the Free version is potentially too fiddly & I could never get it to work properly (have tried Free versions of 2007 & 10.1). I could never get it to recognise my screen resolution for a start, always leaving a thick black bar on the left of my screen, even when told what the resolution is, which I found very offputting.

I've always gone the extra yard & got the Powerpack rather than the Discovery version - more goodies, & just as easy to set up & use. Also, I really don't mind giving Mandriva my money. They make a quality product, & I feel that is worthy of a bit of financial support.

Thanks for the reply you actually hit on some issues I had been wondering about.

I too have had problems with 2007 and I was wondering if buying the software would improve things. Sound like it will.

So you answered most things I had on my mind. I too was considering the Power Pack.

Thanks again

Since both Acrobat reader and Realplayer are free to download anyway, buying the Discovery version doesn't really give you a lot that you can't get free!

Yes, it may save you a bit of time downloading and installing these programs, but I've generally found that officially distributed versions work better than distro-customised ones anyway.

As far as I can tell, the only thing that you get with Discovery that isn't free anyway is LinDVD. Is it worth buying the full version just for that one program? That depends how much you want that particular program.

Fair points all!

Discovery is not really worth it my personal opinion. Its geared more towards ultra newbies who will be doing stuf like web browsing, email, listening to music etc. It only contains apps for a basic desktop system and does not contain many development tools.