With the new Mandriva 2010 release, I’ve been working on making myself a procedure list for the things I do whenever i install a new distro. Invariably there are a few things that need to be tested right from the start, once the distro has updated itself. Because I operate a mixed network with numerous different operating systems running, one of the first things to install and check is the Samba connectivity to the other machines in the workgroup - ironically, most distros can interact with the Windows machines in the group but may have issues talking to the other Linux boxen. Mandriva’s Control Centre (listed as Configure Your Computer in the menu) makes installing the Samba system a breeze.

Next on the list is usually DVD playability, which invariably in most distros due to the need to add the libdvdcss package which is usually not included in the distro due to copyright issues. The files are however readily available through the various repositories - in the case of Mandriva, the easiest way to get them is go to http://easyurpmi.zarb.org and install the PLF repositories.Best choice in my mind for watching movie files is the VLC player, especially once the navigation is added.

After many years of using Evolution as my primary email client, I have finally shifted over to a new package - Kontact. Not only does it have a nice email client which seems to work as nicely as Evolution when it comes to handling multiple accounts and mass quantities of folders, but the package also includes a nice To-Do setup, a news feed aggregator, contacts, calendar, notes and more. A really nice information manager, all in all.

One of the reason I run Linux on the desktop is to be able to have a local web server available for testing purposes and Mandriva makes that a simple process. to do so easily, however, you first have to install the drakwizard package from the repositories. Once you have done so and reloaded the control center, the Sharing categorywill show up which allows the setup of a web server. Follow up by installing Webmin and you have a great environment ready in which to play.

The Mandriva install went very fast and had no real issues. Initially installed as a KDE platform, I then shifted over to Gnome. My HP 1012 printer was found and configured with no problems,and was much easier to do than it was in Fedora. VLC is working like a champ for watching DVD’s and Kontact is running happily to handle mail and appointments. So far so good.

One of the reasons I use Linux distros is to maximize some of the older technologies that are still floating around the house. For example, my old HP Omnibook is perfectly capable of running a modern install of Fedora, though it would probably bomb out on anything else at this point. We have an older home built pentium class machine that is destined for my sister-in-law, so I’m seriously considering putting Mandriva on that - it has plenty of power on the chip but not a lot of RAM, so it could be entertaining to see what happens.

One of the issues that cropped in Mandriva was a keyboard-locking problem when using GIMP to add text to an image. It would work fine for awhile then freeze the keyboard, which started becoming a problem as I do a lot of graphics work for my web clients. So far, I haven’t seen this become an issue in Fedora but I haven’t really pushed that particular envelope yet.

Another issue in both distros has been a problem with the refresh rate for my HPw1907 monitor. Though both recognized the resolution once the nvidia was installed, there has been an issue withthe screen yellowing when resource use rises. I just let the system complete a series of updates so I’m hoping that the XOrg update that was included may have fixed the yellow screen problem.

Out of three old Omnibooks, virtually identical, I’mangd to get two working properly, after swapping around some memory and the screen on one. Both machines are now running with 256MB RAM and have 40 GB harddrives with PIII processors - they are, basically, typical older laptops. As such, they’re worthless for running much of anything on the Windwos side, but they can be used for many of the Linux distributions. Both of these machines are now happily running Fedora 10 and performing well.

Though testing needs to be thorough, it also needs to not interrupt the daily business of my clients, so all initial testing will be done with personal sites of my own. Along with the upgrade to PHP5, these sites will also be upgraded to the latest version of the Xoops environment. Because this latest version is still in Beta, it will probably be quite some time before the auto installers like Fantastico add it to the program and so the installs will all be done manually.

The basic process is fairly simple, it just takes a while. First, the files all need to be uploaded to the location desired on the server and the initial database needs to be created. After the installation process is run, the modules needed for the site need to be installed and the data migrated. The data move is a time-consuming process as the modules’ data will need to be moved individually to ensure compatibility with the newer environment.

We haz it.

There were actual a number of reasons for the change, but the primary one was the problems I was having with Evolution Mail, which had developed the quirk of throwing an error message every time it checked for new mail. Though the mail still got delivered, the continual error messages were very frustrating. As a test, I checked how Evolution behaved on the laptop running Mandriva 2008 and there were no problems at all, so it became clear that the issue likely lay with the older version of Evolution runnign on the desktop. Attempts to upgrade that version, however, proved frustrating in the extreme. Having seen how well Evolution worked on the laptop running Mandy, that became an easy choice to make, rather than spending too many hours fighting with the issue.

Another large part of the change was the desire to have the system running a web server for home use, as well as for testing new development projects for my clients’ web sites, all running linux servers. While getting Apache up and running on Sabayon is possible,  it would have been a lot more involved than the extremely simple operation it is in Mandy, so again the choice became an easy one.

If I was the only PC user in the house, I might have been tempted to continue struggling with the issues Sabayon was having, but as it is, my desktop needs to be operating properly in order for me to get work done. Installing Mandrive 2008.1 was a piece of cake on this HP box and that’s ultimately all that mattered.