Mandriva 2009.1
France and all the Mandriva fans are going to celebrate the 20009 spring in just a couple of days! That is right - in the end of April, the french Linux distro - Mandriva, will come up with its newest updated version - Spring 2009.1
Mandriva demonstrate that Linux is not for servers and perk geeks, only. Mandriva aims to be desktop oriented Linux distribution and it is really one of the best out there. With its famous and notable easy-to-use configuration tools, it makes Lunux to feel like home on almost any PC hardware nowadays.
The free software (”free” as in “feedom”) fanatics may argue about the fact Mandriva is not a pure free software distro, but comes with closed, proprietary software. Well, there are two sutable answers:
- Yes, MandrivaOne comes with full stack of proprietary software packages, but these are mostly drivers, comming from the official hardware manifactures, such as nVidia (for the video cards), which makes Mandriva easy to configure.
- There is a separate official edition, containing only free software - Mandriva Linux Free. It is a sort of special edition, which do not contains any non-free and proprietary drivers and software packages.
In a couple of weeks, I am going to do a full test on the newest Mandriva One and will share with you my experience. What I expect is to be nicely surprised. Stay turned.
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Alternative operation systems
Windows is today’s wildly used desktop operating system. It is out there for more than 20 years and gain its popularity on its easy to use graphical user interface. There is no denying that it is very friendly for the end user. And since the business is the main client for computers and software, Windows is defacto standard for business operation system.
Well, during the years, a lot of problems raised. Stability and reliability, not to mention the well-known blue screens, tons of viruses with new coming every single day. Today Windows is a night mare for a system administrator.
Addressing these problems, a few other projects aims to show there is alternative to Windows. All of them are addressing different problems, which Windows still have.
Unix
The UNIX project is started in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs. At that time, its primay usage was in the universities and major businesses, as both server and desktop OS. During the years, Unix became the basis for a lot of other branches and OS, such as Mac OS, Linux, BSD, etc.
Mac OS
Operating system, developed by Apple. Its primary target are the creative people, people of art, designers, etc. Its excellent multimedia capabilities makes it perfect for task such as graphic design and multimedia post-production. This operation system has limited usage as server or desktop OS for day-to-day tasks.
Linux
Started in 1991 just as a kurnel, the Linux project aims to deliver an easy to use operating system with the reliability of Unix. This operating system has grow-up quickly and gain significant share at the servers market. Today more than 50 Linux distributions try to break-through the desktop market, developing and introducing easy to use graphical interface. It is very popular in the IT society and there are a lot of well prepared and educated professionals.
We, at openVIVA, are using Linux as our primary operating system. We are using various Linux distributions for different tasks - one is great for a hosting server OS, other - as development platform and day-to-day taks. In most cases, Linux is able to meet all your needs of an operating system and additional software packages.
Support services are exremly important for the business clients. You can get Linux support services directly from the vendor, which distribution you are using, or by the milions IT consultants all over the world. Of course, you can contact us, too.