Mandriva 2007

Normally I'd wait a couple of months before I'd download a  new distro.
This is simply to allow it to have the bugs (or the major ones) identified and eradicated.
I must be going soft in my old age.
Either that , or I was bored.
You can decide.
Anyway, it was only on the mirrors for a couple of days...and it was mine!
Now the safe way when a new version comes out, is to do a clean install.
KDE is notorious for changing paths etc. and usually leads to major headaches if you choose the upgrade, as opposed to the clean install.
Yeah, I decided to hit "upgrade."

Now, for those that think, I've lost it, I backed up my 2006 setup first!
My Home directory is on a separate partition anyway.
So, I was set. Time to leave Kansas far behind.
I had downloaded the CD version and burnt the resultant isos.

http://qa.mandriva.com/torrent/2007/mandriva-free-2007-CD.i586.torrent

This torrent file is for 32bit machines.
I rebooted with CD 1 in the drive and away we went.

(Click on the images for a larger version)

A nice stylish background for the install this time around.
The advertising has been updated as well, with LinDVD, virus checkers, firewalls and  Transgaming's Cedega all getting a mention.
The install/upgrade went smoothly and I clocked the upgrade at the best part of an hour.
If it had been a clean install, I presume this would have been a lot faster.
I set up all the peripherals such as printer, graphics, scanner , mouse and keyboard again as I've been bitten by that one before.
Once it had completed, the CD ejected and instructed me to reboot.
Oh dear, crunch time!

When I moved to 2006, I had to find the new paths to get all my old mail settings and directories. This involved copying from my backups to the respective places.
This time..................... IT JUST WORKED!!!
They've given the theme a major makeover with La Ora being the main one.

The main reason for the upgrade was to get the new KDE  3.5 (actually 3.5.4).
This has major improvements over 3.4.
The distro also has a newer kernel in the 2.6.17-5, compared to the 2.6.12-25 I was running.
The only thing I didn't have working on bootup was the 3D acceleration on my Nvidia card.
Instead of trying to see what was wrong with my DKMS setup, I chose to go direct to  Nvidia and downloaded the official drivers.
Installing was relatively painless (due to their new setup), although it was a pain having to shut down the X server before I could install them.
Another new part of 2007 is the 3D environment.

This is part of the new system menus. You can choose between XGL or AIGLX.
I believe this is similar to what they intend in Vista when it comes out of beta.

I tried burning a DVD. Worked fine.
This seems to be the best upgrade I have ever done on Mandrake/Mandriva.
The system has performed flawlessly.
Well, it did until I managed to activate an option on KDE settings that stopped my keyboard responding.
That got sorted after I painstakingly went through the options in KDE.
You wouldn't believe how many there are.
2007 also has updates of many of the packages I was using. Amarok, Open Office to name a couple have both been upgraded as well as Pan.
My old apps such as Google Earth continued to work flawlessly as well.

As mentioned, Kmail upgraded flawlessly as well.
My only complaint, so far, has been the flakiness of the upgrade mirrors.
This is hardly surprising considering how new the distro is.
Mirrors are being updated constantly and the path moved around as they rename everything.
This will, hopefully, settle down soon and things will be back to normal.

All in all, if you are thinking of moving to Linux or even just upgrading, I recommend this version of Mandriva.
There appears to be life in the old dog yet!
Before I go, here's a quick look at the configuration page now.

I should also give a quick mention to the new software installer. you now can install/remove on the same page.

Right, more on 2007 next issue. I'm off to play try out the capabilites of this new system.