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The latest release of Mandriva 2008.1RC2 has been out for a few weeks. I’ve had a chance to hammer away on it. Many other users of varying technical expertises have also had time to work with it. In general, everyone is impressed with the most recent release (on the Asus eee PC). It has been my full time operating system (on the eee PC) for the past three weeks. I think it’s here to stay.

As with any release the more we hammer on the kinks the better the overall end product will be. Here is a summary of findings/feedback about the current Mandriva 2008.1RC2.

I think this one is ready to go gold!

START QUOTE:
1) Can be installed on the SSD (replacing Xandros), a USB key, or an SDHC card. 4GB min required for install, can be compressed (see below).
2) Kernel recognizes up to 4GB RAM.
3) User-friendly installer, multi-language.
4) Correctly installs video, sound card, webcam, Ethernet and post-install correctly installs Wi-Fi. USB peripherals are all correctly recognized. Touchscreen module compiled in the kernel.
5) Suspend-to-RAM (Sleep) works, needs a single extra line in rc.local if Mandriva is installed on removable medium.
6) Overclocking works, needs eee.ko module and single extra line in rc.local + simple bash script.
7) KDE 3.5.9 and 4.02, Gnome 2.22, Xfce 4.4.2, IceWM, FluxBox, etc. Take your pick!
8 ) Complete development environment included. OpenOffice 2.4 included. Mplayer included. VLC included. Kitchen sink included.
9) Post-install /usr compression of everything-including-the-kitchen-sink install results in < 1.8 GB install, leaving > 2GB free space for user files and upgrades on 4GB storage device.
10) Compiz-fusion available and easily installed. Metisse 3D desktop also available (imho not production ready yet).
11) Skype 2.x (with webcam) works with small workaround for sound (Skype hogs the sound interface while in use, so you can’t have Skype and e.g. Amarok playing an MP3 file simultaneously).
12) No Easy Mode interface.
13) Power-management is very good, comparable to what is available under Xandros.
14) Mature, stable distribution with simple upgrade/updates management.
15) Boot and shutdown are slow compared to Xandros. Boot: 1min40s; shutdown 35s. However as noted by Adam, a Mandriva box rarely needs rebooting. Suspend-to-RAM and resume are quite fast (10~15 seconds).
16) Bluetooth works, instantly recognized a $5 generic USB Bluetooth key.
17) Responsive interface (KDE 3.5.9 tested without compositing) if correctly configured.
18) As secure as you’ll want to make it. “Normal” security level (set during installation) provides sufficient security for normal online usage. Top-notch firewall provided (Shorewall, default configuration is excellent).
19) Flash can be post-installed very easily. PDF reader and printer provided.
20) Windows games can be installed through wine. But don’t expect stellar or even reasonable performance, the hardware is just not up to it…

:END QUOTE

(source: eee User Forum / dd99)