What Can Mandriva Linux 2006 Mean for Home Users? 278
sitor writes "What can Mandriva Linux 2006 mean for home users? is an article giving an extensive explanation about the pro's and con's of using a linux distribution such as Mandriva Linux 2006. It was written with people in mind that are in doubt whether linux might be something for them or not. It aims to inform them in a neutral way, understandable to newbies. Next time you have someone asking you questions about Linux not knowing whether they should try, you can just direct them to this article."
With all respect to Mandriva.... (Score:3, Insightful)
With all respect to Mandriva, I'd much rather just point them to ubuntu [ubuntu.com]
(I feel I should make an OS X reference, but I just can't be bothered)
Re:With all respect to Mandriva.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Nice idea but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Mandriva 2006 at home (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:With all respect to Mandriva.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be SimplyMEPIS. Seriously, it's Ubuntu with all the propietary stuff.
I personally don't care, becaue i don't think it's hard at all to enable MP3s, DVDs, etc. Just a couple checks of EasyUbuntu, or some copy&paste from the Ubuntu wiki and you're all set.
Re:With all respect to Mandriva.... (Score:3, Insightful)
A better solution would be to have the package/installer maintainer live in Sweden. Make it his responsibility that things got packaged like that and then stop worrying about it.
I don't so much disagree with abiding by their local laws (since they usually are mine, too) but you can't claim to have a home user solution and not have it do basic things like write FAT and play DVDs out of the box. Those are basic functions for a computer these days.
Start at the top, not the bottom (Score:5, Insightful)
Lose the Microsoft Office Applications off of the Windows platform and the home user suddenly has less and less reason to be sitting on a MS platform. The Opensource movement can make a serious impression on the Microsoft world by pushing hard the alternatives like OpenOffice.org that the home user can really make productive use of.
Make a couple of apparently insignificant 'baby steps' away from the Microsoft applications and all of a sudden, you begin to wonder why you need Windows. I made the move to OpenOffice back in November 05 and I am now beginning to see the light and the possibility that within the next few months I may not need Windows at all. Without MS Office, there is almost no need to have Windows!
There are only two things that need to be fixed in the Linux world in my view for even greater acceptance:
* Vendor support for Printer drivers (eg: Canon)
* Mainstream publisher support from all the top games vendors.
Re:What can it mean? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hurrah!
Joe Blow Windows Users (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the average PC user running Windows Whatever doesn't even know what Linux is.
As user friendly as distros like Ubuntu and Mandriva are, I personally have not seen many people "making the switch". I am not the type who goes out and attempts to "convert the masses", but most people do know that I use Linux at home regularly.
The only person who has approached me for help with Linux is a fellow programmer who is learning web-based languages. He was looking for a way to host a website for free off of his home network, and said it was a good excuse to get exposure to other OSes. So, I hooked him up with one of my Ubuntu CDs (which I received for free in the mail), and showed him the goodness of LAMP.
Other than him, nobody I know really seems to give a crap. They know Windows is insecure by default, but don't want to have to jump through hoops to chat on AIM, or post on MySpace. I don't see any of these people spending the time to learn the basics of an entirely new OS to be completely honest.
While I can appreciate the ease-of-use that these distros have, I almost feel (from how they are advertized) as if they are trying to wage war against Microsoft. Instead of focusing on the unwashed masses, maybe these distros would be better marketed towards those who are fed up with Windows and looking to try something new?
Re:With all respect to Mandriva.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Neutral (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly you don't need to "open a shell" to install Mandrake.
Well, go to a home banking website and witness what being in a fringe group means when they reject your not-so-IE browser (this is improving, admittedly)
Yes it is getting better. Here in Canada most home banking sites will work with Firefox on Linux. The Canadian Government is different, many of their sites are deliberately blocking Linux even though they are using Java technologies that should be cross platform (deliberate deprivation of civil rights).
Watch a CSS-encrypted DVD.
Imstall the software from PLF (as easy as installing Windows software) and you have no problem.
Open a Word document (without having to completely recreate the formatting)
Never had to reformat a Word document sent to me, when I open it in OpenOffice 2.0x
Install Skype
http://www.skype.com/download/skype/linux/ [skype.com] - Yes whats the problem ? There is a Mandrake RPM and it is included with the Mandrake 2006 distribution.
Re:Nice idea but... (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably not, considering a noob would probably be like, "What is this Linux thing? I heard of it before, but what does it do again?"
I guess I gotta ask, have you tried Mandriva? It is actually a good choice Distro for noob's, although I use Ubuntu myself on most of my machines, I still kick the tires on other Distros on other "test" machines. I just don't want to get that Windows elitist attitude about my choice OS being the "best", when there may be something out there that trumps it later...
Re:Joe Blow Windows Users (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, my mother is currently using a ten year-old machine with a malware-ridden copy of Windows 95, and I've offered to upgrade everything. All she does with it is email, web, a few games (like solitaire), and occasionally edit a church newsletter with an ancient version of MS Word.
So she's visiting the other day, and I show her what I can do with Linux (I run Fedora with Gnome). I demo replacements for everything she uses: Thunderbird, Firefox, the games that Gnome comes with, and OpenOffice Writer. We upload some pictures from her digital camera and look at them with GQview. Everything goes smoothly, but I make the mistake of using gphoto2 from the command line to upload the pictures, and doubt starts to creep in. Later, she sees me doing some of my own stuff from the shell that looks baffling to her - things that she would never be doing anyway - and by then she's back to thinking that Linux may be "too complicated" for her.
So, I'll probably end up installing WinXP on her new machine, even though she'll have to deal with a lot of change on that as well. She'll also have to deal with anti-virus and spyware issues that Linux is largely free of, and that changes the "complexity" equation quite a bit IMHO. But one benefit for me of going this way is that her friends (and my brother-in-law) will be able to help her out when she has questions or problems. If she runs Linux, I'm her sole source of support...
Re:Yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Try downloading the latest Network Manager [gnome.org], which seems to be a lot better (I am gonna try this tonight)
Re:Spare yourself from the headaches (Score:3, Insightful)
Those games you love to play on Windows? GIve them up.
Im in quite lucky position since the game i most played in windows was Targetware, which as i noticed runs much better on linux (better fps, lot smoother) It made me really wish more games would be made for linux due to obivious benefits of better memory management (you need less physical memory for similar performance as windows tends to swap too easily). So i want to add in what you say. Very likely, but not necessarily.
But also:
Those mp3s and DVDs? Don't expect them to play out-of-the-box. I'm serious.
It doesn't take more than few minutes (or few seconds using a script) to get them working and it's not really that hard. Installing codecs is overall easier than installing additional audio/video codecs to play most DivX and Xvid content on windows platform.
Though it would be good idea for ubuntu devs to add the script on desktop of new ubuntu install so users could just click on "Add non-free software repositories & Install commercial codec support" icon and be done with it.
Re:I remain unconvinced (Score:3, Insightful)
Right now, for a casual computer user there isn't any. For me, the difference between Windows and Linux is in the shape of the "effort vs. results" curve. If you aren't a heavy computer user, Windows will give you results at a lower effort. But if you really need or want to use computers more, on a daily basis, then it pays to learn Linux. It may be something you don't realize at first, but the time you spend now and then in Windows trying to download drivers, anti-viruses, messing with the registry, etc adds up in the end. After you spend some time learning the basics and a little bit more, using Linux is a *much* smoother experience.
It's intersting that where I work I adapted my desktop to use Linux almost exclusively; almost every day I see the people around me complaining about "the network", but for me the network runs fine. The difference is that applications in Linux are more robust and don't fail at every hiccup in the network.
Now, for the other points you raise, I feel it's much a question of degree:
1. Fear of an uncomfortable user experience because it is different to what I'm use to.
The difference between XP and KDE is about the same as between XP and win98, and certainly less than that between win3.1 and win95.
2. The value of software to a user is relative to the number of users. What value is there in becoming familiar with a niche product with out a specific need to?
With the internet that's fairly irrelevant. I never had a question I couldn't solve in a few minutes of Google. In some ways, a smaller and more focused group of users is better. Look for an installation or setup problem in Ubuntu, for instance, and you'll almost certainly get the answer you need in the first page of Google. Look for an equivalent problem in Windows and you'll probably have to navigate through page after page of sites trying to sell you utilities you don really need and lists of people with the same problem and no solution.
All software I've dealt with is never perfect. If they're both designed to do the same thing, why change from what you're familiar with?
But some software is less perfect than others. Overall, knowing both systems, I feel that using Linux is a much better experience. However, I agree with you that, without a compelling reason, you don't need to switch. That's why, after getting used to Linux, I haven't the least inclination to try any Windows software anymore. I have no reason to switch back to an inferior system.
Re:Mandriva 2006 at home (Score:3, Insightful)