ahmad wrote:(That was indeed the plan, however, somehow we went ahead and made Mageia a fork of Cooker from last September, so it's much newer than 2010.{1,2}
).
Thank you ahmad, but, in my opinion, the fact that the Mageia fork is even newer than Mandriva 2010, suggests, contrarily, that there is essentially no, or very little, difference between Mageia and Mandriva.
Then, one wonders, (back to the OP,) why (if there is very little to distinguish the two distros) did half of the folks wander away from the main distro, to form their "own", but taking with them the essential features of the parent distro?
It is a bit fuzzy now, but, back at the beginning, when Mandrake split from Red Hat, weren't there some deep philosophical differences between the two, distinctions which then translated into unique aspects of the two distros?
Creative differences of opinion can lead to good things: look at the marvelous Drake control center, for example. Which other distro (not in the Mandrake family) possesses such a feature?
However, most of the branches away from the main tendency, serve, in my opinion, only to dilute and weaken the parent distro. That may not be the case for Mageia, but so far, in this thread, no one has offered a convincing argument for switching from Mandriva itself, to the new kid on the block.
One way to approach an answer to this question, is to prepare a chart of the standard programs included in the default distribution downloaded, perhaps, as illustration, the kernel in Mageia is xxx.yy, whereas, in Mandriva it is nnn.rrr.
Another way to address the question is by comparison with other distros, both those which have been successful, and those which have been unsuccessful, after splitting from the parent distro.
Several distros come to mind: Debian versus Ubuntu/CrunchBang/Mint; Slackware versus Vector/Zenwalk/Salix.
Which succeeded, and why? How has the analysis of their successes or failures, or both, for those distros helped the developers of Mageia either to avoid problems, or encourage successful modifications from the parent distro?
Here's a very simple test, one could perform, to highlight the unique aspects of Mageia, to show how it differs, or how it represents an improvement, over (not only Mandriva itself, but also) all other Linux distros:
how long does it take to install? on a P3 1GHz cpu system with half a Gigabyte of RAM, i.e. an obsolete computer, which nevertheless has some good benefits compared with most modern computers: LESS power required for operation.
So, if one has a task, such as I do, receiving internet radio broadcasts by streaming audio, then a 32 bit P3 system is just as performant as a more modern 64 bit system which demands three times as much electrical power, as the old obsolete system. One cannot hear any difference between the radio broadcasts received by a 32 bit computer versus the most contemporary, 64 bit machine available today.
Yes, for most users of Linux, this is
not an interesting test, because most folks are disinclined to waste their time with such silly activities, preferring instead to engage in more productive tasks, for which a more powerful computer is a handy tool. But, you see, with a faster computer, the distinctions blur, whereas, with an old, slow machine, like the ones I use, the differences between distros, magnify.
If one seeks to know the advantages of Mageia, compared with Mandriva, or any other distro, it will be useful, in my opinion, to provide such information, to prospective users. In other words, instead of simply writing platitudes, all of which may well be accurate, it is always fashionable, (and in my opinion, useful,) to flash some numbers on folks. Here's why we should download and install Mageia: It is faster than mnopqrst, or, it executes the following task faster than mnopqrst, or, the computer shuts down or boots up faster with Mageia than with mnopqrst. Numbers, like the frosting on a cake, generally deliver a pleasant taste.
CAI ENG
Posted: Jun 1st, '11, 11:51
) [I've done dual and triple boots, but don't really like those setups.]
