OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Released With Completed Arm 64-bit Port, Sticks To Using LLVM

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Released With Completed Arm 64-bit Port, Sticks To Using LLVM

OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 was released this FOSDEM weekend for this distribution derived from the once great Mandriva Linux, formerly Mandrake...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OpenMandriva-Lx-4.3

[jacob]

Nice to see OpenMandriva is still kicking and keeps bringing great features. Many people don't realise just how historically important this distro is. Mandrake (the old name of Mandriva) was the first distro with a serious desktop ambition. In the days before Ubuntu, "desktop" Linux too often meant startx, fvwm, xterm and xeyes. Mandrake came with a graphical, almost completely plug & play installer, a user-friendly package manager and some then-novel features like the auto-mounting of CDs and USB devices that we take for granted today but that were not supported by upstream at the time.

[mdedetrich]

Nice to see OpenMandriva is still kicking and keeps bringing great features. Many people don't realise just how historically important this distro is. Mandrake (the old name of Mandriva) was the first distro with a serious desktop ambition. In the days before Ubuntu, "desktop" Linux too often meant startx, fvwm, xterm and xeyes. Mandrake came with a graphical, almost completely plug & play installation, a user-friendly package manager and some then-novel features like the auto-mounting of CDs and USB devices that we take for granted today but that were not supported by upstream at the time.

I remember installing Mandrake back in the old days, it was a very polished distro for its time. Shame its not as popular as it once once

[jacob]

I remember installing Mandrake back in the old days, it was a very polished distro for its time. Shame its not as popular as it once once

Yes It is a shame. The company went bust mainly due to bad management and some very ill-advised decisions. Think about it, they were a French company and yet both the French Parliament and law enforcement (Gendarmerie) preferred Ubuntu for their workstations. That's how badly ran Mandrake/Mandriva was.

[Isedonde]

I remember I gave Mandrake a try at some time (I didn't even have my own computer at the time as a teenager, so I was a Windows user on my family's computer back then, maybe early 2000s?). If I remember correctly, the mouse didn't work and I couldn't get it to work. Haha :-)

A few years later and using my own computer, before Ubuntu existed, I installed some Redhat-based distro, but I couldn't get that PCI wifi card to work. It needed something like an ath10x (?) kernel module and it compiled successfully, the LED on that card turned on and everything seemed to work. But I couldn't configure the internet connection through ifconfig, never managed to get it working (ethernet connection worked okay, but that was not an option for my room). So back to Windows again.

Then a bit later I tried probably the first ever Ubuntu release, and things just worked. It felt really strange to finally use wifi on a Linux distro after fighting that wifi driver, the kernel module etc. for many hours. Great experience :-) And still using Ubuntu today although I guess there might be better options for me now.

[Mez']

I remember I gave Mandrake a try at some time (I didn't even have my own computer at the time as a teenager, so I was a Windows user on my family's computer back then, maybe early 2000s?). If I remember correctly, the mouse didn't work and I couldn't get it to work. Haha :-)

A few years later and using my own computer, before Ubuntu existed, I installed some Redhat-based distro, but I couldn't get that PCI wifi card to work. It needed something like an ath10x (?) kernel module and it compiled successfully, the LED on that card turned on and everything seemed to work. But I couldn't configure the internet connection through ifconfig, never managed to get it working (ethernet connection worked okay, but that was not an option for my room). So back to Windows again.

Then a bit later I tried probably the first ever Ubuntu release, and things just worked. It felt really strange to finally use wifi on a Linux distro after fighting that wifi driver, the kernel module etc. for many hours. Great experience :-) And still using Ubuntu today although I guess there might be better options for me now.

I also started with the rpm-based distros, namely Mandriva, Suse Linux (just before OpenSuse) and Fedora Core.
It was in late 2005, it was the first ever version under the merged name (Mandrake-Connectiva) and as a french-speaking Belgian, it made sense to start there (although now weirdly I don't give a rat's ass about the french language).
The last one I tested back then was Manjaro.

I faced the same wifi struggle as you did, although it was the iwconfig command for wi-fi (ifconfig was for ethernet). I managed to make mine work, but the system was overwriting my config all the time and I had to tinker with iwconfig, /etc/hosts and the likes way too often for a Linux beginner. It was not for everyone to waste their time doing this, and I understand those who went back to Windows because of this.

Eventually I settled on Breezy Badger (Ubuntu 5.10), who was mostly just working and I didn't change for almost 15 years, except some tinkering with Zenwalk and SliTaz around 2010 for my parents 10 yo computer of then, and some Debian because I thought it was the logical next step to Ubuntu.
I still use Ubuntu on my desktop computer (20% of the time) while I'm back to the roots on Manjaro on my laptop (80% of the time) since mid-2020. I'm Windows free on my personal computers since 2008 (not even in dual boot).

[nist]

Nice to see OpenMandriva is still kicking and keeps bringing great features. Many people don't realise just how historically important this distro is. Mandrake (the old name of Mandriva) was the first distro with a serious desktop ambition. In the days before Ubuntu, "desktop" Linux too often meant startx, fvwm, xterm and xeyes. Mandrake came with a graphical, almost completely plug & play installer, a user-friendly package manager and some then-novel features like the auto-mounting of CDs and USB devices that we take for granted today but that were not supported by upstream at the time.

I had been using Mandrake, then Mandriva, for many years. Excellent distro, really underrated distro. The first distro for the users. I also remember Mandrake was been updated every three months. I still have some cd sets somewhere.
From the ashes of that distro now we have Openmandriva and Mageia. I don't know which of these distros is the Mandriva's successor.

[xpris]

I had been using Mandrake, then Mandriva, for many years. Excellent distro, really underrated distro. The first distro for the users. I also remember Mandrake was been updated every three months. I still have some cd sets somewhere.
From the ashes of that distro now we have Openmandriva and Mageia. I don't know which of these distros is the Mandriva's successor.

ROSA Linux, Magei, Unity, PCLinuxOS are forks that were created in the time of Mandriva.
OpenMandriva was founded at the time of Mandriva's fall, when Mandriva SA transferred the distribution development to newly created OpenMandriva Association community. Many developers previously responsible for Mandriva are currently involved in the project.

[FireBurn]

Do they use glibc? What about gcc's libstdc++?

[jacob]

I had been using Mandrake, then Mandriva, for many years. Excellent distro, really underrated distro. The first distro for the users. I also remember Mandrake was been updated every three months. I still have some cd sets somewhere.
From the ashes of that distro now we have Openmandriva and Mageia. I don't know which of these distros is the Mandriva's successor.

Honestly I didn't try either but from what I understand (it could be wrong) is that OpenMandriva is meant to be a direct continuation while Mageia is more of a spiritual heir that explores its own ways.