A review of Mandriva Linux 2009.1 Spring "One"

This is a review of Mandriva's new Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring "One" distribution.

It's been some months since I last used Mandriva, which was Mandriva Linux 2009 One.

Mandriva recently released a new version of Mandriva, mandriva 2009. 1 Spring.

Mandriva comes in three main product lines: a free Live CD/Installation CD hybrid called One, a free installation DVD containing only free software called Free, and a commercial Installation DVD containing proprietary web browser plugins and proprietary drivers and some additional software called Powerpack.

Yesterday, I downloaded the Mandriva Linux 2009 One Live/Installation CD ISO and burned it to a CD.

I then booted off the CD.

It booted to the desktop successfully.

The default desktop is very beautiful and easy to use.


I used Mandriva's Mandriva Control Centre system administration tool to configure my internet connection successfully.

Unfortunately, the 3d graphic effects window manager did not work out of the box.

I went to the Mandriva Control Centre and went to Hardware>Enable 3d desktop effects.

When I clicked Enable 3d desktop effects Mandriva Control Centre said it needed mesa-demos and asked whether to download and install it.

I chose not to download and install it and wanted to do this after installing Mandriva.


This is very unfortunate.

On Ubuntu 8.10 and also on Mandriva's last version Compiz Fusion worked out of the box.


I clicked the installer icon on the desktop.

Mandriva installed successfully.


After mandriva was installed my computer rebooted.

There was a graphical GRUB menu, with two options: mandriva 2009.1 Spring and Mandriva 2009.1 Spring safe mode.

I pressed enter on Mandriva 2009.1 Spring and a graphical bootsplash appeared and then a survey appeared asking me if I want to take a survey of Mandriva.

I cancelled the survey and then a beautiful-looking KDM appeared.

I typed in my username and password, and then a beautiful KDE 4.2 desktop appeared.


To set up my software repositories I used EasyUrpmi.

EasyUrpmi is a website which automatically sets up Mandriva software repositories.

I chose to add the official repositories and the plf repositories.

PLF is an unofficial Mandriva software repository that contains software that cannot be included in the official Mandriva repositories due to legal reasons.


After setting up the software repositories I launched Mandriva Control Center and used it's Software Management componenet to install the PLF version of VLC media player.

I tested playing my videos and audio with VLC media player and they worked.




I installed DigiKam, a Photo management application, Kdenlive, a video editor, and Jokosher, an audio editor.

I also installed Elisa, a media center application similar to Front Row for Mac OS X, which supports playing audio and video and displaying pictures from your hard drive and from internet services like Youtube and Flickr.




The next thing I had to do was mount my extra Linux Ext3 partition which I use for storing my videos, audio and photo.


I found a website which showed how to mount the partition and make the partition be mounted automatically on boot.




After that my Mandriva Linux system had everything I needed.