Mandriva vs Linux Mint?

[alvin_liao]

I bet most guys who regularly visit this forum have experience in using Mandriva as desktop. So I don't feel it necessary to repeat how a desktop-oriented and user-friendly distro Mandriva was and is.

Instead, I want to share some feeling I got by trying out the GNOME-oriented Linux Mint 7. A few days ago, Linux Mint 7 was released. Noticing Mint has been ranked one of the top three on Distrowatch.com for a long time, I decided to give this distro a try in live mode today. And I got totally shocked. It's just amazing to find how fantastic a job Linux Mint developers have done in this "7" release. Multimedia support has been done perfectly. MP3, avi, mkv, rm, rmvb and other audio and video files can be effortlessly played by default. And the same happens in browser plugins. Also impressive is the default green and cool desktop theme, especially when you compare it with what Ubuntu ships with by default.

And now I start to wander, how would you guys make your choice between Mandriva and Mint if you don't have a desktop environment bias?

[saivin]

Wonder if this post should be under 'Mandriva Linux Help' or in 'The Coffee Lounge'.

Don't wander about what/how others feel. If you are happy with one distro, if it serves your purpose then thats what matters most.

Now, not to be rude to you, I prefer Mandriva.

[computerophil]

I personally would prefer Mandriva but it might be because I am more used to it.

[Jollie_kitten]

Stupid question: What exactly do you mean by "desktop-oriented"? I've been thinking about installing it on a netbook (Asus EEE PC)- do you think it'dn be suitable?

[Freston]

And now I start to wander, how would you guys make your choice between Mandriva and Mint if you don't have a desktop environment bias?

Well, how do you choose between strawberry and chocolate ice cream? It all comes down to taste.
Personally the main benefit I see in Mandriva is that they ship with Metisse as an installer option. Some of the Metisse functionality is quite impressive I think, even though it's not meant for end user consumption.

Ah well, it's good that you are enthusiastic, and if having to choose between two good options is the worst of your problems then I guess this world ain't so bad after all It's good to have choice, isn't it?

[bigtomrodney]

I'm more a fan of Debian based distros as I've had less trouble with dependencies over the years. I spent the first three years on Mandrake (old Mandriva) and SUSE so I used to love both.

For what I said about dependencies, I'd be the first one to say that rpm itself doesn't inherently have a problem with dependencies but I've learned the hard way that deb repositories just seem to be better managed all around. And let's not forget the Debian/Ubuntu/Mint repositories are absolutely HUUUUGE. That's all I need

[Hal343]

I prefer .deb myself, having used Red Hat, Mandrake & SUSE before, so I'd have to go with Mint. I'll wait for the XFCE edition, and replace Mint 5 on my laptop.

[lesmic]

After evaluating a tun of Linux distros, the only one I regularly come back to is Mint.
Mint 9 is the best one yet, why?
- hardware detection & support
- Gnome (much better than KDE). The Gnome window manager is better but KDE based applications are better.
- Intuitive
- faster than most other distros
- .deb packages are gaining popularity thanks to Ubuntu.