Bonum Certa Men Certa

Mandriva Family is Doing Fine in Russia and Elsewhere

Flags of the Baltic Sea countries
Flags of the Baltic Sea countries



Summary: Russia continues to improve Mandriva, which used to be the most widely used GNU/Linux distribution for desktops (in the Mandrake days)

WITH Russia receiving Olympic limelight, it has become somewhat fashionable to publish Russophobic pieces in the Western media, focusing only on the negatives to distract from one's own shortcomings in the debt-saddled West (Russia has almost no debt and it has vast natural reserves). This is not a political post but an attempt to explain the state of Mandriva, which some years ago passed from French and Brazilian hands into Russian hands. Remember that Linux was created in Finland, a country highly influenced (and to some degree controlled) by the Russians -- those whom Nils Torvalds worked with politically. Given what we now know about the NSA and GCHQ, it would only make sense for Russia to move to GNU/Linux everywhere as soon as possible. Given what Microsoft has done in Russia and has done with the NSA (espionage), only a "useful idiot" (to use Soviet terminology) would still put Windows on government or army computers in Russia.



Following the migration of Mandriva to Russia (finding financial asylum, so to speak) a new distribution called Rosa Linux came to us from Russia [1] with no language barriers, emerging out of nowhere and stealing some of the attention ALTLinux once enjoyed. There is a Russian (but English-speaking) blog that continues to cover Mandriva and its derivatives quite often (even days ago [2]) and Mandriva, which is now based and managed in Russia, makes new software releases [3]. A French derivative of Mandriva, called Mageia (employing several former Mandriva developers), is helping the good name of Mandriva (Mageia 4 was thoroughly reviewed some days ago [4]), not to mention the US semi-equivalent known as PCLinuxOS.

My experiences with Mandriva (main desktop operating system) have been mostly positive and it is important to assure the continued expansion of this GNU/Linux distribution, no matter who manages it. OpenMandriva gives it some independence from the Russia, and its community was led by a Frenchman until not too long ago.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. The legacy of Mandrake Linux: Rosa Linux
    At the end of 90`s Mandrake Linux was the most popular distribution out there. Most thing that are today said about Ubuntu where first said about Mandrake. It was the number one distro from 1998 util 2004. User friendly, easy to use, easy to install, lot of preinstalled software, most popular by new users and Mandrake made at that point most users to change on Linux. All that is today said about Ubuntu. Yeah, Mandrake had also free shipping for DVDs back then. But soon the empire started to fall apart. In 2004 Mandrake had died. In 2005 Conectiva, the company who bought Mandrakesoft announced and released Mandriva and in 2006 they fired Gael Duval. Duval was the author of Mandrake. The new distribution, Mandriva, was nothing like good old Mandrake and it made lot of users to change their system. Fast forward to 2014 and let us have a look on the legacy of Mandrake Linux. Last stable release of Mandriva was in 2011 and it was not really stable. But in last 10 years Mandriva inspired many users and developers and new distributions popped out. One of them is Rosa Linux. Rosa Linux is a Russian Linux distribution.


  2. To upgrade or not to upgrade?


  3. Mandriva releases new version of systems management software


    The French GNU/Linux company Mandriva has released a new version of Pulse, its IT systems management software.


  4. Mageia 4 review – Cinnamon, GNOME 3, KDE and MATE desktops
    The project makes separate installation ISO images for the GNOME 3 and KDE desktop environments available for download. Support for other desktop environments – Cinnamon, Enlightenment (E17), LXDE, MATE, RazorQt and Xfce – are provided via the DVD installation and Network Install CD images


Recent Techrights' Posts

How We Process Screenshots of Slop to Suitably Tag Them as Slop
everything is a single command
 
Links 11/08/2025: Meritless Twitter Suspensions and Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Upgrading Debian Bookworm and Better Quality PDFs From Gemini Pages
Links for the day
Currys PCWorld Lied a Decade Ago, 10 Years Later It Still Effectively Voids Your Warranty for Installing GNU/Linux Despite It Being Increasingly Mainstream
Microsoft gatekeepers
Team GNOME Has Libeled Me for Nearly 20 Years
we are not dealing with sane people
Experience With Airlines in 'Web Sites' and in 'Apps'
In a lot of ways, Stallman Was Right about what JavaScript would turn out to be
Open Does Not Mean Free
wiser to ask if some program is freedom-respecting
The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)
today's sponsor
Sabotaging GNU/Linux PCs (and Users) is Not a 'Joke'
maybe cruelty is the very objective
Links 11/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Climate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 10, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 10, 2025
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Tea Caffeine Hot and Super ZZ Zero
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Brian Fagioli, and Other Serial Sloppers
Maybe Microsoft wants to dub this "Web5"
Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Residents Management Company, Automation, and Politics
Links for the day
Links 10/08/2025: AOL Ending Dial-up
Links for the day
Seductive Mirage or Allure of Complex, Proprietary Coffee Machines (or Similar White Elephants)
Software is a lot like those things
Links 10/08/2025: Webrings, “AI Sunglasses” and “AI Eyeglasses”, US Administration Intensifies Attacks on Science and Research
Links for the day
Sometimes Newer is Worse
We generally need to reject this dumb notion that "old" means bad
The Code Used to Make Techrights Fits on a Seventh of a Floppy Disk (or 100KB When Compressed)
For the sake of comparison I've just downloaded the latest version of WordPress. The ZIP file is 27.2MB in size, or ~27,200KB.
What They Tell Young Programmers
Coding in 2025
Simpler is Better When Simple is Enough
Over-complicating things to "sell" new versions is so 1990s
Links 10/08/2025: From Social Control Media to Prison, New Examples of Windows TCO
Links for the day
Sloppy Reporting About Slop, or How The Register MS Lowers Its Standards
Maybe the management isn't even aware of this
IBM's Strategy: Cull 'Expensive' Workers, Replace Them With Cheaper Ones
So far we saw not even one rebuttal or challenge to the claim of Red Hat layoffs scheduled for tomorrow
If You Attack Somebody Too Much You Legitimise and Strengthen That Somebody
at the end those attacks add up to a "martyr" status
The Man Who Helped Microsoft Kill Linux is Trying to Delay Our Lawsuits Against Him
By conservative estimates, and based on court documents submitted by them, they're prepared to spend over a million dollars on lawyers, fighting against me and my wife
Gemini Links 10/08/2025: Gen Con 2025 and Framework Laptop
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 09, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 09, 2025
The Register MS (Microsoft) or The Register AI (Slop)?
What a slopfest!
Is Red Hat About to Give the Boot to GNOME People Who Helped Microsoft 'Secure' (Monopolised) Boot?
It was always a dumb idea to play along with Microsoft's hardware mischief
Sales of Windows on PCs (Windows Licences) Go Down
Microsoft has a big problem in its hands
The Hype That Microsoft and The Register MS (Among Others) Promote Helps Stage DDoS Attacks on Free Software Sites
Microsoft is, to put it bluntly, pure evil
The Goal of Coopetition Assumes You're Friends
it will never work with Microsoft
Links 09/08/2025: Putin Allegedly to Visit Alaska (Which He Deems Part of Russia), Mike Tyson Sued for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, LinuxSecurity, and Google News With Its Slopfarms of Choice
SEO spam, made with LLMs
Follow the Money: The Register MS Gets Paid to Promote "Hey Hi" Ponzi Scheme/Hype, Some Fake 'Articles' Might Be Composed by LLMs Already
paid to promote slop
Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Rethinking Aliases and Posting on Gopher vs. the Web
Links for the day
Links 09/08/2025: Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell Dies, Slop Future Bleak
Links for the day
After Shutting Down Studios, Divisions, Applications (e.g. Skype) Microsoft is Also Shutting Down 'Apps'
Cuts all around as layoffs persist this month, Microsoft tries to get many people to resign, and debt skyrockets
Most of Geminispace Can Probably Fit on a CD-ROM or a DVD (the Textual Part)
If one excludes very large capsules and ones that contain non-textual contenty
Eventually UEFI 'Secure Boot' Will be Dropped (Users Will Demand Its Removal and Boycott Its Pushers)
we expect OEMs will just listen to users
The Register MS: We Know Slop is a Bubble and Mindless Hype, But We Get Paid to Participate
Call out the culprits
Hate Mail From Anonymous Cowards
if this persists, we'll need to escalate
There Are Probably Over a Million Pages in Geminispace
there are two many limitations which merit a mention when it comes to assessing magnitude
Informal Open Letter to the Lawyer of the Microsofters (on Who's Funding the SLAPPs Against Techrights)
Whenever I ask about the funding they try to change the subject and act all aggressive
Microsoft Lunduke is Just Provoking People for Provocation's Sake
Be forewarned and remember where this guy came from: Microsoft
Besieged by Plagiarists Who Play With LLMs and Image Fusions
We really need to exercise or use our collective voice to oppose Serial Sloppers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 08, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 08, 2025
Gemini Links 09/08/2025: Water Painting and Political Violence
Links for the day