Comparing the descendants of Mandrake and Mandriva Linux
- Reference: 1644924787
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/02/15/comparing_the_descendants_of_mandrake/
- Source link:
The [2]OpenMandriva Association was established in 2012 to continue the development of the Mandriva distro. Mandriva itself [3]went into liquidation in 2015 . Another prominent fork, [4]Mageia , split off slightly earlier, in [5]2010 .
The same year, a Russian company, [6]ROSA , also started, and continues to maintain its own branch of the distro for sale in Russian-speaking countries.
[7]
Their shared parent distro was called Mandrake. In 2005, MandrakeSoft [8]bought Brazilian distro Conectiva and renamed itself Mandriva to avoid a [9]trademark dispute .
[10]
[11]
Mandriva was one of the first [12]live Linux distros on a USB key , and its founder Gaël Duval [13]now sells de-Googled smartphones .
A 2003 fork of the original Mandrake, called PCLinuxOS, is still around and still getting updated. Since their shared beginnings were as a [14]version of Red Hat Linux bundled with KDE, which Red Hat would not include due to licensing issues, the fairest comparison seemed to be the KDE editions of all four.
[15]
Since they're all related to one of the friendliest of the 1990s distros, all of the distros have some basic features in common. They all look unusually polished even by contemporary standards, with graphical GRUB menus, customised loading screens and wallpapers. Three of them have a handy Control Centre, a global system-admin tool, which can handle hardware config, setting up scanners, printers, software repositories, and so on, and all of them include a choice of media players.
OpenMandriva
[16]OpenMandriva LX 4.3 was released on February 6th 2022. This is the newest release of the lot, so as you might expect, you get the latest kernel (5.16), [17]LibreOffice 7.3 , and so on. It includes kernel KDE 5.23.3, as it appeared just a [18]few days before KDE 5.24 .
OpenMandriva used the same cross-distro Calamares installer as [19]GeckoLinux . It also has a feature that Ubuntu users will find familiar: a combined user and admin account, with the sudo command preinstalled. It uses Fedora's dnf tool for package management, and the Mandriva's urpmi command wasn't installed.
KDE is configured with a dark theme and a coloured start button, and no apps pinned to the taskbar at all. OpenMandriva also has a decorative floral-themed look which extends from the GRUB screen to the desktop wallpaper.
Uniquely, OpenMandriva includes a desktop theme switching tool in its Welcome app, which offers a variety of desktop layouts: the KDE default, plus ones resembling Windows 7, Windows 10, macOS, and Ubuntu.
[20]
We found the Ubuntu look to be broken and unusable, but the others worked well. You get Windows 7 or 10-like title bars, appropriately arranged Start menus, and the Win10 look has a taskbar search box, monochrome status icons and so on. The macOS-like layout is a little crude but surprisingly functional, with a global menu bar in the top panel, a customisable dock and so on.
Mageia
[21]Mageia 8 was released a year ago, but after an update, it's pretty current, with kernel 5.15 and KDE Plasma 5.20.
Like most distros before Ubuntu, it has separate root and user accounts. You must enter passwords for both, and the sudo command isn't installed by default. For software packaging, both urpmi and dnf came installed and working.
There are other signs of duplication, too: for instance, it offers both the Firefox and Konqueror web browsers, and two graphical package managers (RPMdrake and dnfdragora). You also get HP's printer drivers pre-installed. Mageia uses its own network-manager applet, rather than the KDE default one, and instead of a virtual-desktop switcher, it pins KDE's Activity switcher to the panel.
KDE's [22]docs are not the clearest on this, but it seems to be a superset of virtual desktop functionality: each "activity" screen can be customised separately.
[23]Mandriva's Linux on a stick will wow all the ladies this Summer
[24]KDE Community releases Plasma 5.24: It's eccentric, just like many old-timers
[25]Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android
[26]Finally! It's the year of Linux on the desktop ... nope
Like OpenMandriva, Mageia has a nifty "Welcome" app that appears on the first run (and subsequently, unless you turn it off). This offers more than, for example, Mint's fairly basic Welcome screen. You can configure software sources, run system updates, add suggested applications, codecs and plugins (with appropriate copyright warnings). Its Control Centre prominently features UPS support, which is unusual but nice to have, and the distro comes with parental controls installed by default.
Mageia has some pleasing touches. We liked the animated loading screen which is coordinated with the GRUB background and the desktop wallpaper. At the end of the installation, the installer runs a full update on the newly installed system. It takes a little longer, but by the first boot, it's bang up to date.
ROSA Linux
We tried the [27]ROSA Linux Fresh Desktop 12.1 , but the [28]ROSA also offers other distros for enterprise users, virtualization hosts and so on.
The Fresh desktop uses the Anaconda installer from Fedora: it's not a personal favourite of the author's, but it works and it will be familiar to Fedora fans. By default, the root account is disabled, and the normal user account is also the admin.
Also like Fedora, the only package-management tool installed by default is dnf , and unusually, the default browser is Chromium rather than Firefox.
A little like [29]Ubuntu Kylin , even if you install in English, now and again things appear in the language of the region the distro targets. In ROSA Fresh, the software updater is in Russian (which your correspondent does not speak), as was the tooltip on the panel's date/time indicator in the live environment.
One peculiarity of computing in Czechia is a near-universal love for [30]orthodox file managers – the old two-pane type of tool, exemplified by Norton Commander or the modern Total Commander. ROSA Fresh includes one of these, Krusader, so maybe this affection extends further east, too.
ROSA adds icons for system settings and a trashcan on the right of the panel, and dispenses with Welcome or Control Centre apps. For graphical package management, again ROSA looks towards Fedora with the dnfdragora tool. Its theme is a restrained icy blue, perhaps reflecting a more businesslike focus than OpenMandriva and Mageia's novice or home user.
Post-update, ROSA Fresh had KDE Plasma 5.22 and kernel 5.10.
PCLinuxOS
[31]PCLinuxOS is an American distro, founded Bill "Texstar" Reynolds in 2003. This means it's had longer to diverge from its shared roots than the others.
We tried PCLinuxOS 2021.11. After an update, it has kernel 5.15 and it's the only distro on test with the latest KDE 5.24.
Like Mageia, it has the old-style model of separate root and user accounts, and sudo isn't installed by default. Unusually for an RPM-based distro, though, it uses apt for command-line package management – so you won't find dnf , urpmi , yum or anything else. The only graphical package-management tool provided is Synaptic.
PCLinuxOS looks simpler and more stripped-back than the others. The desktop is bare other than a shortcut to the Dolphin file manager, and the wallpaper and GRUB menu are simple colour blends. There's no Welcome app and a very simple, clean Start menu: no sidebars, no pinned favourites, no categories or sub-submenus.
Quite a wide range of apps are pre-installed, including non-KDE ones such as GParted instead of the KDE partition manager. It comes with MEGA, Filezilla, Nitroshare, Anydesk, OBS Studio, even Zoom and Spotify. Unusually, the Control Center [sic] has a tool to import documents and settings from a Windows installation.
There are a few instances of duplication, such as both Bleachbit and Sweeper for privacy-oriented clean-ups, and both the normal Konsole terminal app and Yakuake for a drop-down Quake-style terminal.
The distro feels almost stark and bare compared to the others, but given KDE's tendency to be cluttered with options, controls and widgets, that's a good thing. There's less hand-holding, but more pro tools: drop-down terminals, htop and [32]CPU-X .
PCLinuxOS feels refreshing: like a distro for someone who knows what they're doing, rather than the newbies for which most distros try to cater.
Conclusion
There is a lot of overlap between these distros, as one might expect. There are more options than we have space to cover: Mageia also offers GNOME and Xfce editions, and PCLinuxOS MATE and Xfce ones, for example.
There really isn't a lot to choose between Mageia and OpenMandriva, and both seem to be trying to address the same type of user. We hope it's not too impudent to suggest that settling their differences and merging might benefit both.
ROSA Linux focuses on a different market and is going its own way, including importing features from Fedora, which is no bad thing.
Meanwhile, PCLinuxOS offers an interesting alternative for the clueful, with some handy additions, even including proprietary ones. It does some things better than more mainstream alternatives and has just won itself a place on the writer's emergency Ventoy USB key.
All of them could teach their more mainstream rivals a trick or two. The Control Centre rivals openSUSE's Yast as a global system-management tool, for example. All run well in VirtualBox, too, complete with auto-scaling to window size. If you haven't looked at the Mandrake/Mandriva family in a decade or two, as the author hadn't, you might be impressed. We were. ®
Get our [33]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.openmandriva.org/en/news/article/openmandriva-lx-4-3-released
[2] https://www.openmandriva.org/en/doc/association/About
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/27/finally_its_the_year_of_linux_on_the_desktop_not
[4] https://www.mageia.org/en-gb/about/
[5] https://www.mageia.org/en-gb/about/
[6] https://www.rosalinux.ru/about/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YgvcO0zMk3nyaDy0mjd7aQAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2005/02/24/mandrakesoft_connectiva/
[9] https://lwn.net/Articles/131007/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YgvcO0zMk3nyaDy0mjd7aQAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YgvcO0zMk3nyaDy0mjd7aQAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/20/mandriva_spring_flash/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/15/meet_the_man_building_a_googlefree_android/
[14] https://static.lwn.net/2000/features/LinuxMandrake.php3
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YgvcO0zMk3nyaDy0mjd7aQAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://wiki.openmandriva.org/en/distribution/releases/omlx43/new
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/02/libreoffice_7_3/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/09/plasma_524/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/24/geckolinux/
[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YgvcO0zMk3nyaDy0mjd7aQAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[21] https://www.mageia.org/en/8/
[22] https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/plasma-desktop/kcontrol/kcmactivities/index.html
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/20/mandriva_spring_flash/
[24] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/09/plasma_524/
[25] https://www.theregister.com/2018/06/15/meet_the_man_building_a_googlefree_android/
[26] https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/27/finally_its_the_year_of_linux_on_the_desktop_not/
[27] https://www.rosalinux.ru/rosa-fresh-12/
[28] https://www.rosalinux.ru/
[29] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/07/ubuntu_dde_2110/
[30] http://www.softpanorama.org/OFM/
[31] https://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=2
[32] https://github.com/X0rg/CPU-X
[33] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
If Only ...
If only they would all stop forking about with their own version, bash their collective heads and skills together, we could have the One Linux to rule them all, and give Windows the two fingers we all gagging to do.
Re: If Only ...
First we need to agree about the best browser to use.
Re: If Only ...
No, no, no, no and no. Let anyone who wants to use Windows use Windows.
As far as I know the purpose of Linux, and 'open source computing' generally is not to enable people to use some simulacrum of Microsoft's finest(!), but to enable people to do what they want with their computers. If that happens to mean re-creating 'Windows' well who am I to judge—it takes all sorts—but I would venture to suggest that would be a rather niche, and somewhat futile, interest.
Re: If Only ...
...we could have the One Linux to rule them all...
You mean [1]https://xkcd.com/927/ ?
[1] https://xkcd.com/927/
Re: If Only ...
Many, many years ago, the sainted Eric Frank Russell, who had extensive experience with the British military, colonial, and home government establishments, wrote “Study in Still Life” about this kind of thing. His hero created a Form Of Forms, to keep track of the other forms. This achieved several things:
1. It got Our Hero a job. Someone had to be in charge of data entry for the new form, after all.
2. It got Our Hero a raise. He couldn’t possibly do all the work himself, so he needed subordinates, and was now a supervisor.
3. It got Our Hero’s boss a raise; the new guys that Our Hero supervised had to be assigned to report to some bigger boss. The boss’s department got bigger, so he got promoted.
4. It irritated the hell out of certain of Our Hero’s former workmates, who had been sure that he would crash and burn.
#4 was the important reason. The rest was gravy.
Sons of Mandrake
PCLinuxOS is my favourite of the three I have tried. It seems to be more polished generally and with it using a modified APT and Synaptic, one of the best distros I have used when it comes to keeping my system up-to-date. Being a rolling release it can be a bit of a lottery when it comes to things breaking. That has happened but rarely and Texstar and his devs soon sort things out. The community is a good place to go when you need help and the forums are full of knowledgeable, friendly people. That said I have temporarily moved to Mageia as I was having severe problems with PCLOS. Things were not working and although I did manage to get some of then sorted out with the help of folk on the forum, in the end I jumped ship.
I first looked at Open Mandriva. Despite what they claim I don't think that OM is a direct descendant of Mandrake/Mandriva. Things have moved too far away from the original. The use of Calamares as the installation utility being the first thing that hits you. The use of SUDO is a personal hate of mine. I never know what password to use and to my way of thinking letting any user have root privileges is just asking for trouble. I just could not get on with this distro so I took a look at Mageia.
I tried Mageia in its very early days and although it was OK it had a few rough edges to it. These have long since been done away with and the distro is pleasant and easy to use. Its not as polished as PCLOS. A lot of things that need to be done after a fresh install are harder to do with Mageia, A case in point is the hassle I had switching from double to single mouse click. It took me two days to track down the toggle to change the setting. In PCLOS the option is there in the control centre. Software is another sticking point. RPMDrake is not as clear or as easy to use as APT or Synaptic and there are some gaps in the programs available. I had to side-load Palemoon as it is not in the Mageia repo.
So far I have been lucky and have not had any problems with systemd. From anecdotal evidence when something goes wrong you can be in real trouble. Fingers crossed on that one.
The Mandrake derivatives have inherited one thing that makes them stand out from all the other distros I have tried. The *drake suite of tools. Diskdrake is surely the easiest of all the partitioning utilities and I don't know why more distros don't use it. Hardrake, printerdrake and most of the others are, in my opinion, top notch and I miss them when they are not available.
My system admin days are long in the past now and my boxes are no longer my job or a hobby. I guess that I have reverted to a plain user with a few admin rights, so although any of these distros would suit someone like me wanting just a simple and easy to use computer there may be others who prefer a more hair-shirt approach.
Oh, in case anyone asks, I use the Mate desktop as I cannot get on with KDE or Gnome these days.
I started using Linux as my primary OS in 2004 with Mandrake, then moved on to Mandriva and finally Mageia. Very happy with it.
My current machine dual boots to Win10 as my kids like to play games with me and it's so much easier just using Microsoft for that. Yes I know there are ways around it but I don't bother. What's revealing is just how much faster and more responsive Mageia is compared to Win10.
@Mr Templedene
More or less the same with me, Mandrake from 99 after RH. In between many more out of interest.
Ximian Helix code was one of the very early that felt very impressive too then.
I will stick with an Europe based distribution just because we need that knowledge here too.
Thanks for the write up about PCLinuxOS. I have been using this distro for about 3 years now. I am no computer tech expert, just a user. While PCLOS may be small potatoes compared to other distros, it is a good distro for folks that just want to get their work done. There is good community support, and it really does just work out-of-the-box. I found it to be straight-forward to remove/add packages using synaptic and apt for rpm. As of this morning, there are 16,000+ packages in the repository - something for everyone.
Mandrake!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
This was my second distro to try (briefly experimented with SUSE first) then tried out Zenwalk, PCLinuxOS, and Puppy, finally setting on Debian (and now Devuan).
Mandrake and Mandriva
Bit of a wander down memory lane here :o)
first attempt at installing Linux many years back, did NOT go well ffs LOL
fell away for a while, until I finally got Ubuntu to load, and managed to post on an IT forum that I WAS AN IT GOD :o)
but was actually checking through my old system discs, as I no longer 'need' them, still 'want' them though, and was just fondling the Mandrake CD, wondering if I have any spare space to actually try and load the swine up, and make it do my bidding
probably not, to either, no space, and quite possibly no chance of making it work either LOL
Mandrake Soft 9.2 as it happens, and FECK ME, I have CD 2, but not the first one, all these years of holding onto it JUST IN CASE LOL
Nice trip down memory lane; Mandrake/Mandriva was the first distro I daily drove on desktop, and to my mind versions 9.x/10.x still have the best OS installers I've ever used. Although I will admit that in retrospective the best thing I liked from Mandrake/Mandriva was that under the hood everything was very Debian-like, which eased my transition to (K)ubuntu (circa the 6.06 days) and made me fall quickly in line for Debian in server(ish) roles
Couple of notes: I thought Conectiva was ultimately sold to Red Hat (and is still Red Hat's offices in Brazil); maybe it was sold on by Mandriva to Red Hat back then? Also, using apt to manage a rpm-based came from Conectiva. rpm was late to the party to a dependency-resolving package manager (apt-get equivalent); urpmi was one of Mandriva's big selling point back then, as was Suse's package manager (zypper?). yum came by way of a Red-Hat/rpm based distro for PPC machines (Macs).
Activity manager
> KDE's docs are not the clearest on this, but it seems to be a superset of virtual desktop functionality: each "activity" screen can be customised separately.
You are correct. You can have virtual desktops within each activity; for example I have Activities for my default uses of this computer (e.g. pontificating on El Reg forums), one for doing genealogy research, and a third with a desktop full of monitoring widgets, for when I'm messing about with hardware.
I have fond memories of Mandrake, it being the first distro. that I acquired, back in the days when one purchased a set of CDs from The Linux Emporium.