Mandriva has today released Mandriva Linux 2009, the new major release of the popular distribution. 2009 is a bold release which brings the new KDE 4 as the default desktop, along with a re-designed installer and Mandriva Control Center and many other new features. Other significant updates include GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, Mozilla Firefox 3, and kernel 2.6.27. Key features include new graphical in-line upgrade capability, netbook compatibility, class-leading hardware support, and further improved support for working with mobile devices. For more details, see the Release Tour and the Release Notes. Get it at the download page, or go straight to the torrent list.

When I first got to work this morning, happened to check the Mandriva forums, because I knew the early seeds were out and the release was due. Someone had posted the ftp link for free and "One" so I managed to get the KDE One before the rush. I am very impressed. Ran it live on my Toshiba Satellite A205 and everything that I tried worked like a champ. From Compiz to wireless setup, I had no problems. It is giving me "unknown hardware" on the built-in web cam, but I don't use that anyway. Great job once again!

So it is worth going through the hassle? How hard is it going to be to go from 2008 to 2009?

does it use kde4 or kde4.1 as its desktop environment?i think kde4 is full of bugs!!

It uses KDE 4.2 as the default, which is far more mature than 4.1. If you prefer, KDE 3.5.9 and GNOME are also available.

Sorry, I meant 4.1.2, not 4.2.

I downloaded Mdv One 2009.0 this morning,-. It installed easily and was soon up and running. It seems quick and visually highly polished. The fonts are crisp and much easier to read than those in previous versions of Mandriva. I have downloaded and installed RealPlayer Gold 11 and it is running well as I type.

Next up, I downloaded Skype 2.0.72 rpm and tried to get it to work. I knew that there would be trouble with PulseAudio so disabled it in MCC and reset the Skype options for my soundcard. After a rebooted I opened Skype, entered my password and Skype immediately disappeared. I tried again with the same effect. Is this a Mandriva 2009.0 issue or more to do with skype?

Dolphin is meant to be the new file manager. As with the rest of the system it is clean to look at and looks just like Konqueror. The title bar reads DOLPHIN. Left clicking on a folder opens it as usual but RIGHT clicking gives you the opportunity to open the folder with KONQUEROR which seems rather strange to me. You end up with two windows, one labeled Konqueror and the other Dolphin each with exactly the same menu choices. So, Konqueror is Dolphin and Dolphin Konqueror.

MPlayer has been replaced by Dragon Player with Totem also appearing in the menu.. Also gone is ShowFoto from the graphics section.

A new app to me is OKULAR a document viewer. It seems to be able to open a large range of file formats including .odt, jpg, gif, pdf to name just a few. It is a light and to my mind useful addition.

I can't find Beagle or any equivalent in the Tools menu. If someone does so, please let me know where it lies.

There is a new app in the TOOLS menu called Sweeper. I have yet to use it but believe it is menat to free up disk space by removing unused apps. As there is no Handbook I'm unsure as to its usefulness.

Another new one to me is CODEINA and codec and plugin fetcher which is meant to go into action when a codec or plugin is found to be missing.

Amarok version 2.0 looks good and sounded OK until I tried to listen to the BBC World Service via Vermont PBS. Normally, it is clear and easy to lesten to. In this version of Amarok however, the sound is very jerking and impossible to listen to. Is this down to Pulse?

Overall, this is a GREAT version of Mandriva. It is smooth to use,looks good and has bang up to date software. Quite why people go on about Ubuntu when we have such a superb distro in Mandriva 2009.0 is beyond me.


All for now,

Tony

Tony

Thanks Adam and Tony for your reviews,

I add this as a companion, not criticism. Thank you,

sweeper looks after temp files and personal stuff in browsers (cache), like disk-cleanup in windows, but it does nit catch rpm orphans, urpmi has a new function for that, Keep an eye out for the feedback from urpmi. Nice idea, but...leaves me thinking...

skype...
Even though I have upgraded from 2009.0 rc1 to 2009.0 release I have noticed that changing config options causes the program in particular to "disappear".
I am not sure, but "plasma" is new so I'll blame that.

you should be able to install beagle if you want it, it used to be installed by default, not now, to some it was a memory hog (un-needed).

I use kde, so I try to stay away from totem if I can.

I like okular too, but so far I have only used it for pdf files.

codeina seems to me to be a way to pay for software, I prefer foss and use plf repos.
win32codecs, real-codecs, libquicktime etc. (check the package names)

note: I guess I do this to reduce disk space, by limiting cross-window-managers.

I believe the jerky'ness of streaming audio over amorok is due to buffering that may be caused by pulse(see disclaimer above)

I believe Pulse is a positive step forward for Mandriva, but a few things still need to be sorted out. It looks and behaves great most of the time.

ubuntu is for pnp newbies, thanks Tony.(Mandriva user)

my 5 cents worth, Glenn

ps, there are so many new entities in Mandriva 2009.0 that it is hard to pinpoint any one package that is a culprit to crashes.

Okular is new, Dolphin is new, X11/xorg libs are new too, and plasma is new, the best bit is we no longer need to add beryl, "matisse" (-spelling?) or compix to get 3d desktop.

The new kernel supports my motherboard, but not my graphics card.

it's a work in progress and will always be for ppl like me. And it just gets better all the time.

Just a couple of things - Beagle isn't installed by default on KDE any more because KDE 4 has its own native search tool, Strigi. Before, with KDE 3, we used Kerry, a Beagle front-end, in KDE. You still get Beagle by default if you install GNOME.

And Codeina will offer PLF packages if you have PLF enabled. It offers any gstreamer codec package available which has the ability to decode the format in question.

I had installed MD-2009-RC2 and now would like to upgrade it to the finish version. I didn't use it much as RC2. What is the best to way upgrade it? Any helpful hints, links, etc would be helpful.

Thnx.

-REALLY can't wait to check it out (I usually test drive every new major Mandriva release)-

I just can't understand why Ubuntu is where Mandriva really should be. I mean look at it - #1 versus #7 on distrowatch. And Mandriva with its One version is the thing people out there are looking for.

Hi FredGStanford,

You can get back to release from cooker, goto the easyurpmi page

And setup the sources for 2009.0. main-release, main-updates, contrib-release, contrib updates, and non-free release. You could add the plf (free and non-free)

Then you'll need to remove or disable the cooker repos from your drakrpm media-database.

I haven't worked out how to get the release type to show correctly, mine still says cooker.

Hope this helps.

Glenns: you just need to remove all mandriva-release-* packages (do it with rpm -e --nodeps) and replace them with the same ones from the 2009.0 repos.

Thanks guys for the info. I'm at work now but will try your suggestions when I get home. I must say I haven't tried Mandriva since Mandrake 8 and it has come a long ways and is a very good distro. It is the one I will recommend to friends.

Thanks heaps AdamWill.

Regards, Glenn