What makes Mageia different from other Linux distribution ?s

[Garthhh]

The invitation is just made of words on the page

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/invitation

in·vi·ta·tion
n.
1. The act of inviting.
2. A spoken or written request for someone's presence or participation.

If you want the next steps to get in : http://www.mageia.org/en/contribute/

(I think a big part of discussions will be made on mailing lists (dev and discuss) and hopefully here on the forum )

(edit : contribute link in french replaced by contribute link in english)

I'm not fond of Twitter or Facebook things
decision by sound byte
A link to
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewforum.php?f=4
should also be included...

[ahmad]

@caieng, please don't explaining your point of view in details in two different topics at the same time... viewtopic.php?f=4&t=344 ... you can ask one of the forum moderators to lock your other thread, and continue the discussion here.

[caieng]

Since there are two separate threads, I hope it is not forbidden to respond to the two different topics?

CAI ENG

[caieng]

By the way the borderline argument used by some people in favor of "ignoring legal threats" attitude is that patent owners, for example, mpeg-la, would not prosecute vlc like project owners because that would not bring them money but rather bad reputation... well : perhaps... but perhaps not... Who can say for sure ? (well it's also easier to ask others to expose themselves than decide to expose oneself )

All the question is that of deciding if we permit ourselves to expose people (our users) to legal risk (even if truly unlikely) without their knowing...

Hi Maat!

Many thanks for your detailed response.

I can appreciate that you are very concerned about this supposed problem, and to the extent that your colleagues agree with you, then, I can also appreciate WHY Mageia does not include VLC with the default distro.....

Two points I wish to make, in the spirit of completeness for this topic.

a. First, and most importantly, I believe, VLC is downloaded by folks, like me, who use windows 98, or XP, DAILY, in the hundreds of thousands, compared with the paucity of folks using Linux. NONE, not even one person, none of those folks, have ever been threatened by anyone, for using VLC. When you write about litigation against the tiny handful of linux users, you make me laugh. Even the most optimistic census puts linux users at less than 2% of all users of computers in USA. You mentioned attorneys at law. Surely then, you must realize that it costs a lot of money to prosecute someone for ostensibly violating a civil statute. Unless an attorney is independently wealthy, he/she certainly isn't going to undertake litigation, which would be of questionable outcome in the best circumstance, when the opponents (folks having downloaded Linux with VLC included) number in the hundreds, not millions.

b. Secondly, and this is not a major league repudiation of your ideas, but I mention it, in passing, as further attestation to the incorrectness of your ideas: there are Linux distros which do work, with VLC enabled, "out of the box", i.e. immediately upon completing the installation from CDROM, having downloaded the distro, one simply clicks on the icon representing aac+, for example, or mp3, or OGG, and voila, music arrives.... Nothing to compile. Nothing to download, nothing to worry about. Effortless. None of this nonsense about "tainted" this or that. Maat, you make Mageia sound like it was engineered by folks who are not completely with the program, to be honest.....

I can furnish names if you wish, of such Linux distros, if it would aid the discussion of how Mageia is different from other distributions......

I read in another thread, that a guy was delighted with Mageia, for it installed in just FOUR hours. Holy Cow. What in the world was he using for a computer? An abacus? A 386 with 4 megabytes of RAM? FOUR hours???? He must be kidding....

It takes me 20 minutes to install CrunchBang on a ten year old machine, and that includes the time needed to assign autologin (VLC is already installed, automatically, no need for the user to do anything....)

Even windows 98, notoriously slow, because of the need to go out and download all kinds of obsolete browsers and old, brain dead editions of VLC, takes only 60 minutes, on a machine with only half a gigabyte of memory and a slowpoke Celeron chugging along at 800 MHz....

How could anyone need four hours to install Mageia?

CAI ENG

[mediocrates]

First, making a new Linux distribution is an accomplishment but I, too, must ask "What is this distribution's Unique Selling Point?" If there is one, it is not articulated very well anywhere on the Mageia website. I'm not saying that Mageia is bad or pointless, just that the communication isn't clear. To those who say "Try it, you'll see." I would like to point out that it is not a trivial thing to first download a DVD, back up my data and install a new version of Linux on my PC just to see what the fuss is about. A live CD is nice but it can't tell me everything I need to know like whether or not I am able to set up encrypted LVM at install, for example.

Again, I realize that this is a young project and that complete documentation might not be a top priority now but a clear and concise statement of purpose would help keep you from getting sidetracked and help others decide if they want to get involved.

[allangen]

First, I'd like to congratulate all of the people who have worked so hard to bring the stable release to the public mirrors . Like its ancestor, Mandriva, it is a stable, full featured and user friendly operating system. What distinguishes Mageia from some other operating system? The close ties to the community, responsiveness to that community, and an open invitation to make needs, wants, and suggestions known, along with the promise that community voices will always be welcome. Take a look at the "About" page on Mageia.org. This sensitivity to users and respect for their concerns and wishes is both evident and easy to find: http://www.mageia.org/en/about/values/. As for multimedia codecs like libdvdcss2, and support for graphics cards etc, they are easily available with the default install. Just go to the control panel and click the boxes to enable the non-free and tainted repositories. On many other distros, you have to add additional sources: On Debian you add the multimedia mirrors to /etc/apt/sources.list, in opensuse, you add pacman and others,fedora requires that you add additional media sources, in Mandriva, you have to add the plf mirrors. In Mageia you don't have to add additional mirrors, they're all there for you, you just click the boxes to enable them.

As for the Mageia team staying with Mandriva, it just wasn't an option. The company went in a different direction, and the Paris offices determined that they would no longer be needing people to work on the desktop. They would, instead focus their attention on server and enterprise products. A community fork is something that has been talked about for years. I am happy to see so much talent, energy, and dedication going into this project, and I hope that everyone will support the new infant distro in any way that they can.

[maat]

Since there are two separate threads, I hope it is not forbidden to respond to the two different topics?

CAI ENG

Topics merged: problem solved

[caieng]

Au contraire. There never was a problem.

So, you have not solved anything by merging two different topics.

You have now created an error, because you have suggested, by your action, that there is no difference between the two questions.

Computers are fussy. Comuter scientists are fussy. We don't like confounding integers with characters. We dislike misunderstanding the distinction between real mode and protected mode. We also dislike silliness on forums.

Ahmad is entitled to complain. He ought to be heard. His opinion is important. He is wrong, but he deserves to be heard. You, maat, on the other hand, have made an arbitrary decision which bodes ill for my perspective of this distro.

When I see folks on this forum unable to discriminate two different topics, then I begin to wonder, why should one trust this distro?

If Ahmad didn't like the fact that I replied to two different threads, all he had to do was desist from reading the second thread.

The merged threads make absolutely no sense, whatsoever.

CAI ENG.

[allangen]

Troll Alert

Could this be the same fellow who posts here:

Posted 03-07-2011 at 08:11 AM by caieng
07 March 2011

Despite numerous improvements in Linux, during the past decade, it consistently underperforms products by Microsoft (M$). This distinction may be blurred in newer computers, but on older machines, Linux dependably performs routine tasks more slowly than M$ software.

In some settings, however, this relative lethargy is not a significant handicap. One such application,using older computers, with Linux, where perceived diminution in responsiveness...

I consider the fact that we are attracting vitriol and acrimony a good thing. I myself once remarked, on the Mandriva form, some years back that the only thing that distinguished Ubuntu from debian was its "poo brown color". What did Ubuntu do? It became the leading distro on Distrowatch for many years. So, be of good cheer, our future looks bright and secure. LOL

[rc2011]

After reading only one page and seeing this, "What makes Mageia different then Mandriva." I wanted to add my one and a half cents. Lets break that down and just say it is all Linux anyways, right? All those different distro's are all Linux, correct?

Mageia is just starting out. I have a good feeling about it. The last time I had a good feeling about a distro was when Ubuntu came out, and love or hate it, it has changed the playing field quite a bit. Give it time. Mageia will find it's own way. Speaking of Ubuntu, even that was based on Debian and while they are similar they are not the same. In all fairness Mandriva use to be Mandrake, that was a fork from Red hat. But Mandriva is nothing like Fedora, is it.

So give Mageia time to break away. I am sure it will prove to stand on its own and evolve in it's own direction.

For those interested. Here is a link to a picture of Linux forks:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... dt1009.svg

[caieng]

After reading only one page and seeing this, "What makes Mageia different then Mandriva." I wanted to add my one and a half cents. Lets break that down and just say it is all Linux anyways, right? All those different distro's are all Linux, correct?

a. no. I disagree. Not all Linux distros function, operate, or perform in the same fashion.
Puppy Linux works very well on my oldest computer, an 800 MHz, Celeron based, motherboard. No other distro gives me the same flexibility, and same capability, for that machine. Switch now, to a core i3, 64 bit cpu with 8 GB of dual channel DDR3 RAM running 1600 MHz, and Puppy becomes a fish out of water.

b. The fundamental problem with these two topics, having been merged into a single thread, is that one confounds the desire to distinguish the newest member of the Mandrake family from the other branches, and trunk of that parent distribution, on the one hand, with a desire to contrast advantages gained by employing Mageia with completely unrelated Linux distros, like Debian, Slackware, Arch, and Puppy, on the other.

To provide the simplest illustration of why the decision to merge the two topics was ill-thought out, consider the issue of installation: Ubuntu provides an installer that inquires from the user whether or not he/she seeks to enable autologin, DURING INSTALLATION itself. I consider that a remarkable improvement compared with all other installers. PCLOS and other Mandrake derivatives, with their excellent Drake configuration center, offer a second, different method to enable autologin. Some distros don't encourage or permit autologin. Some distros will not complete the installation, if the user name is fewer than n characters, where n is > 1. Some distros demand a user password of > n characters, where n > 1. PCLOS and other Mandrake derivatives do not compel such unfriendly user participation during the installation.

Placing these kind of comments in a thread devoted to exploring, as rc2011 has explained: "What makes Mageia different then Mandriva" (sic) represents an offtopic aside, utterly irrelevant to the main issue. The comments however, are not irrelevant to a thread focusing on ways in which Mageia differs from all other LInux distros.

Should we note that Puppy linux functions beautifully, despite running 100% as "root", rather than as "user"? How does that fact aid in distinguishing Mageia from Mandriva?

At the end of the day, there remain two questions, and, in my mind at least, neither one has been answered, thus far on the forum.

1. How is Mageia different from Mandriva?

2. What advantage does Mageia offer, compared with any other Linux distro?

Merging the two threads does not offer clarity in explaining to a prospective user, why he/she should invest his/her time and money, in downloading and installing this new distro, in my opinion. There are literally hundreds of new Linux distros. Should one download and test all of them?

CAI ENG

[caieng]

Here's a partial answer to one of the questions on this thread, i.e. distinction between Mageia and Mandriva:

http://bkhome.org/blog/?viewDetailed=02310

[micko]

in answer to OP.. the logo!

hehe.. Mageia seems pretty cool to me... no crap, down to business... congrats to the developers indeed.

Oh and yes.. couple of points
*Mandrake was the first user friendly Linux (and my first XD .. circa '01)
*was released on my birthday! (01/06/11)
Cheers!

[rtb]

I see the potential of Mageia compared with where Mandriva is looking like its going.

I value the idea's behind "Tainted" but would have thought "Black Magic" could have described the issues better.

What about a "Magic Wand" Application that either starts at first boot or is available off the main menu which is a Wizard for turning on "Tainted" etc.......

RTB

[maat]

I see the potential of Mageia compared with where Mandriva is looking like its going.

I value the idea's behind "Tainted" but would have thought "Black Magic" could have described the issues better.

What about a "Magic Wand" Application that either starts at first boot or is available off the main menu which is a Wizard for turning on "Tainted" etc.......

RTB

Well "tainted" was choosen after a huge debate including several sub-matters : https://mageia.org/pipermail/mageia-dev ... 01437.html

(I don't think we could change easily now mirrors rely on "tainted" keyword and that build system also takes that in its build process...)

[zack]

Mageia is now "pure" community driven. So mageia is different from Mandriva. If this is true that Mandriva focus on server, and professional market, then it will differ more nad more (but I doubt this is the stratgey, well, actually i don't know).

In the "big" distro, the "pure" community driven are Debian and Ubuntu. Well, Ubuntu is tainted too, because of canonical, and the "personnal" role of Mark Shuttleworth.

Thus, Mageia compares to Debian, for the community aspect.

What differs Mageia to Debian :
- rpm based (as opposed deb)
- kde based (as opposed to gnome)
- ease of use as (opposed to "admin style")
- desktop (as opposed to server)
- fixed date release and release cycle (well was, but could change a little)
- up to date and avant garde (as opposed to conservative and stable), well this may also chnage a bit (for example mandriva 2011 appear more "innovative" than mageia 1).
- mess comm / identity (as opposed to "hard" identity)

Would advice mageia to try to "define" its idendity, and try to be focused on that. Do not try to do everything, but do few core things well.

First thoughts..

[caieng]

Thanks Zack, well written.

I appreciate your having taken the time to explain the distinction, good job!

CAI ENG

[kensor]

From my vantage rather removed from the cauldron core, it is my impression that the Mageia difference is the collective nature and superior quality of the people responsible for the distribution. They are talented, experienced, and determined to produce a better, and an improving, distribution for the sorts of users they envision with their products.

If you will excuse metaphor-mixing between wizards using cauldrons and carpenters using tools, I view the Mageia community as a crew of finish carpenters attending to the massive amounts of detailed work necessary to prepare structures and buildings from a highly-specified set of construction drawings for a wide variety of tenants and owners. The crew's success in attention to so much detail after selecting an optimum set of construction drawings to complete makes all the difference between an inviting and desirable Mageia distribution and any number of less-appealing and less-user-satisfying alternatives available.

The fact that they are inviting comment and participation in the next round of planning and construction is ample evidence they know and are heeding an important factor in their on-going success -- they are listening to their users, evaluating their concerns, and making improving choices. That process of conscious, careful consideration can make great differences toward success.

[corbintech]

The choosing of a distribution has come somewhat political to myself over the years.

I have been using GNU/Linux since about 1999. I loved the countless hours trying to get X working and fighting with sound and whatnot. My goal in those days was a Gentoo stage one install.... Did that, now over it!

I was an Libranet user back in the day and loved it (for those who don't know about it Google it). When the lead developer passed away the development stopped.... My heart went out to the family but I paid my dues to own that fine software, this left a sour taste in my mouth. Nowadays I don't want to use a distro that is a "one man band" with some helpers. This leads to becoming hooked and being let down when something happens to that one person or life will no longer allows them the time to continue development. I want community which to me equals security.

The search to being the uber GEEK has led me to many different choices. I have used about anything out there from Gentoo to Mandrake (Mandriva) to Suse to Slackware to Debian... I have fought to get stuff working and have won some and have lost some but I never failed to learn something new!

I remember my first brush with Mandrake, it was nice! This was at a time when I was fighting hard with the more geeky players that were available (Gentoo, Slack...). Mandrake was nice.... IT JUST WORKED!!! I however didn't give in as I was not ready to get into a relationship as I have not soared my geeky wild oats yet, there was however always a soft spot for Mandrake as it was just to easy to forget.

About a year ago I started playing again with Mandriva. It just did not feel right to me. The community that was at one time very helpful and full seemed to have been traded for a wasteland of people who seemed to really care less. Not to mention all the news of the way the company was going kind of brought me back to the Libranet days and I didn't want a piece of that... So I moved to Arch and never looked back. And no, I don't do Windows!

So now I have Mageia! My hopes are to help in shaping this ship into something I like! I want to see it flourish and become what Mandriva has lost and even more. I would like to see it roll, make a good server and generate some possible revenue for the project (support?).

My days of being a geek are pretty much over! What I want now is something that works and that can get geeky when I get the urge! I think I may have found my home .

[corbintech]

The choosing of a distribution has come somewhat political to myself over the years.

I have been using GNU/Linux since about 1999. I loved the countless hours trying to get X working and fighting with sound and whatnot. My goal in those days was a Gentoo stage one install.... Did that, now over it!

I was an Libranet user back in the day and loved it (for those who don't know about it Google it). When the lead developer passed away the development stopped.... My heart went out to the family but I paid my dues to own that fine software, this left a sour taste in my mouth. Nowadays I don't want to use a distro that is a "one man band" with some helpers. This leads to becoming hooked and being let down when something happens to that one person or life will no longer allows them the time to continue development. I want community which to me equals security.

The search to being the uber GEEK has led me to many different choices. I have used about anything out there from Gentoo to Mandrake (Mandriva) to Suse to Slackware to Debian... I have fought to get stuff working and have won some and have lost some but I never failed to learn something new!

I remember my first brush with Mandrake, it was nice! This was at a time when I was fighting hard with the more geeky players that were available (Gentoo, Slack...). Mandrake was nice.... IT JUST WORKED!!! I however didn't give in as I was not ready to get into a relationship as I have not soared my geeky wild oats yet, there was however always a soft spot for Mandrake as it was just to easy to forget.

About a year ago I started playing again with Mandriva. It just did not feel right to me. The community that was at one time very helpful and full seemed to have been traded for a wasteland of people who seemed to really care less. Not to mention all the news of the way the company was going kind of brought me back to the Libranet days and I didn't want a piece of that... So I moved to Arch and never looked back. And no, I don't do Windows!

So now I have Mageia! My hopes are to help in shaping this ship into something I like! I want to see it flourish and become what Mandriva has lost and even more. I would like to see it roll, make a good server and generate some possible revenue for the project (support?).

My days of being a geek are pretty much over! What I want now is something that works and that can get geeky when I get the urge! I think I may have found my home .

I wish the EDIT button was there...

I take this back, I will be going back to Arch... I was a fool to think this would work.

I don't want any part of anything that is supposed to be about the community but only in words. Going back and forth about "we don't resources for X whatever" but refuse to get on these forums and be a part of the community that could help with anything if asked.

Sorry Mageia, I had high hopes.... Not for me!

[maat]

Going back and forth about "we don't resources for X whatever" but refuse to get on these forums and be a part of the community that could help with anything if asked.

Sorry corbintech but i do not undestand what issue you are pointing there

Could you explain me what you're speaking of ?

[corbintech]

Going back and forth about "we don't resources for X whatever" but refuse to get on these forums and be a part of the community that could help with anything if asked.

Sorry corbintech but i do not undestand what issue you are pointing there

Could you explain me what you're speaking of ?

We were asked in this thread:
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=540

To post to the mailing list if we wanted to be heard... Strange request but I did it anyhow. Never used that sort of list so I messed up... Managed to piss off someone with my first post... Seems none have any interest in what "we" want... Want to pick on my posting style as I knew not what I was doing... Being told we don't have resources for XXX when they could have got involved and possibly gained more resources from the very people using the software who support the cause...

I will just go back to Arch... Really no love lost... I just hope that the people behind this come out from behind the wall and go where it counts... THE PEOPLE!!!

[maat]

Going back and forth about "we don't resources for X whatever" but refuse to get on these forums and be a part of the community that could help with anything if asked.

Sorry corbintech but i do not undestand what issue you are pointing there

Could you explain me what you're speaking of ?

We were asked in this thread:
https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=540

To post to the mailing list if we wanted to be heard... Strange request but I did it anyhow. Never used that sort of list so I messed up... Managed to piss off someone with my first post... Seems none have any interest in what "we" want... Want to pick on my posting style as I knew not what I was doing... Being told we don't have resources for XXX when they could have got involved and possibly gained more resources from the very people using the software who support the cause...

I will just go back to Arch... Really no love lost... I just hope that the people behind this come out from behind the wall and go where it counts... THE PEOPLE!!!

Here is a post from Lebarhon on the topic you pointed :

And our admin team members still sleep during nights

Fortunately, nights are short this month
Well, please don't lock this thread, I will be the "mailman" who push it in trough the ML

People really do matter for us... and Lebarhon commitment is a good enough proof of that in my mind.

Later we'll probably connect lists and forum so that people can choose the way they like to get in the community. But (as i said many times before) this connexion has to be really well thought to avoid us running into a mess

[corbintech]

People really do matter for us... and Lebarhon commitment is a good enough proof of that in my mind.

Later we'll probably connect lists and forum so that people can choose the way they like to get in the community. But (as i said many times before) this connexion has to be really well thought to avoid us running into a mess

I think people matter in context. I don't really see the overwhelmed developers stepping outside of the ML box in order to relieve some burden by recruiting people to help. I don't see the devs jumping to do things the way the community wants them done, why the ML?

They simply don't want to hear it! They want to argue why the ML is better then forums (this is new) and talk about how people post to the ML... They want to hear from the people who like the initial plan they have laid out, they "want" to hear new ideas but really don't.

They could sleep at night if they might get more people. They could sleep at night if they would stop working so hard to go against everything they do actually ask for. They could step out of the shadows and see some light and come to the forums like the people want.

I thank the person who is going to relay the posts to the ML, should not be his/her job however...

[maat]

People really do matter for us... and Lebarhon commitment is a good enough proof of that in my mind.

Later we'll probably connect lists and forum so that people can choose the way they like to get in the community. But (as i said many times before) this connexion has to be really well thought to avoid us running into a mess

I think people matter in context. I don't really see the overwhelmed developers stepping outside of the ML box in order to relieve some burden by recruiting people to help. I don't see the devs jumping to do things the way the community wants them done, why the ML?

They simply don't want to hear it! They want to argue why the ML is better then forums (this is new) and talk about how people post to the ML... They want to hear from the people who like the initial plan they have laid out, they "want" to hear new ideas but really don't.

They could sleep at night if they might get more people. They could sleep at night if they would stop working so hard to go against everything they do actually ask for. They could step out of the shadows and see some light and come to the forums like the people want.

I thank the person who is going to relay the posts to the ML, should not be his/her job however...

Well, in my opinion people are what they are.. i won't try to change you explaining the benefits of a mailing list (there are, enough to explain that for packagers needs a forum can't compete) i won't try either to change some packagers or devs explaining them that forums are cool, that some users do prefer them and that would be cool for distribution fame that they show their nose on forums from time to time.

I respect your choice to be on the forum but i think their choice to hack with less visible presence on the forum deserves the same respect as your choice does.

Community is all about doing things with a common goal... and community is all about making very different people work and play together... you are part of "the community" if you chose so... but devs and packagers are not less part of "the community". You can point devs or packagers as bears locked in their den and reluctant to "see some light" if you like (for some of them it could be true ) but you can't say they are not part of "the community" and that they don't care about community because this is just untrue : they spend loads of time working for the project and they release their work for free. That's enough to earn at least consideration.

There are other people less skilled in packaging that can be on the forums and thzt choose to do so (or irc or the users mailing lists or whatever media one can imagine) and relay things to developers.

When we can answer without bothering devs we just do it. When some things are more complex or need a dev point of view: we ping them on the lists or on irc and they come here (or they answer directly and we forward the answer).

This is just community: doing what you can to help with the skills (and spare time) you have