Not happy with Mandriva-2009

[bigtomrodney]

My objection to the Power Pack isn't based on software - it's because of the philosophy. One of the reasons why a lot of us use Linux is because we're fed up with the Microsoft/Mac corporate model of computing. When you see how important computers have become in the modern world, and how anyone who doesn't know how to use them or can't afford them is at a disadvantage, you start to see why software Freedom is a very important issue.

I agree completely. Another issue I took with the PowerPack approach is that they charge for things that aren't their products. Why charge extra for and nVidia driver written by nVidia, Adobe Reader (which is free and comes from Adobe) and so on.

The funny thing is when SUSE had a charge model I used the free version, then went to a 'pirated' versioin of the paid version (hey it's still all GPL, I wasn't breaking the law). Right from Mandrake to my change to SUSE I promised that when I had the money I'd buy the boxed version to show my support and maybe get some cool decals for my laptop. Ironically I put the money aside and then version 10 of SUSE was released and everything had changed. It was now openSUSE and it wasn't quite the same. They never did get that money...

Now I just try to spread the word and pay off my karma bill by helping out when I can here and deleting as much spam as I can get to

[Manchunian]

It's not as though the ease of install of things like the graphics card drivers is an issue anymore anyway. With distros like Ubuntu, Mint and, yes, Mandriva, installing these things has become child's play.