What does it teach us? That when the process of selection is public (and one assumes, fair), even Mandriva (one of the worst GNU/Linux distros in your opinion) beats Windows. MS can only “win” with movements behind the scenes, twisting the will of the Government of a country on a base different from quality merits of their product (because those where already taken into account, and dismissed, in the public competition). We do not know what “other merits” those would be, but I’d be willing to bet that their material is paper, and their color green.

Thanks for pointing out, but I have no misconception. I know full well that Linux is a kernel developed by Linus Torvalds around 1991, based on MINIX. I also know that it filled the hole Stallman’s GNU project had, because a viable kernel (Hurd was not, and still is not, production-ready) was needed to build up a whole OS. I simply use “Linux” as shorthand for “GNU/Linux”, or “Any complete OS plus utility software bundled in so-called distros, based on the Linux kernel”.

I know that you can do everything from the command line. But with some distros the default tools to do things from CLI are more useful, and with some others GUI tools are more prominent. You can install in SuSE all the CLI tools you are used to use in Debian, but for that you have to use the package manager that comes with SuSE, which in turn is more comfortably used from the GUI, which in turn is a piece of crap. In short: when a friend with SuSE has asked me to fix some problem, it has always been more trouble than with other distros, even though, yes, you can do everything from my beloved CLI in any distro, in principle.

You have a misconception of Linux. GNOME and KDE are not Linux. Linux is a kernel and can run the computer without GNOME and KDE…that’s how I learned to install and run Linux in the beginning. I used to do all my Linux work from a 1.44 floppy using a small text editor and the commandline. SuSE and Mandriva are no more GUI oriented than any Linux flavor selling GNOME and KDE.

The Linux kernel, network interface cards, video cards and sound cards are all completely configurable from the command line. No matter what flavor of Linux you are running – the root installations are all held to one standard. If you can do your configs from the command line on one flavor – that same config will work on any similar setup. You might see some variations of logic in some program setups such as SAMBA – but, even if you take that back to the basic – it’s the same. One persons idea will work on the same SAMBA install as another. That’s the beauty of computers. Many different logical ideas will work in accomplishing the same job.

I didn’t aim to bring about a SuSE vs. Mandriva debate. My point was that SuSE has fixed its MBR issues after all these years – and Mandriva has not — even to this day. Mandriva – being a spinoff of SuSE – should have had this MBR issue solved a long time ago…so that shows the inability for Mandriva to address crucial but very root issues with the Linux product. The Mandriva concept is unreliable…and probably Microsoft proved this issue. Anyone that has been working with Linux since its inception know of this MBR issue and Microsoft has the Novell pro’s telling it the weaknesses of Mandriva…in my opinion and it is something that can be proven.

I think Nigeria made a good decision for choosing Microsoft over Mandriva. Microsoft products are more in numbers, ready to use and usually fully tested. Linux on the other hand – you have to get past the harden hardcore hacker wisdom and characteristics in order to get something reliable, durable and sustainable. Usually – the first words out of one the really really intelligent hackers that work on Linux is “Have you sent us a bug error report?” YET?” If I’m a user – I’ll just simply tell you to get lost and that your product sucks. I shouldn’t have to be an expert in computers to run one that’s been setup and programmed by these experts. You don’t tear your car engine apart if it stops running. Why would you want to do your computer any different?

In my opinion and experience – the developers of Linux want all computer uses to be experienced professionals at using their products – not just average users. That’s the biggest issue I have with these arrogant people. I wouldn’t buy their product due to the very nature of Mandriva management.

I am not a Mandriva expert (I used Mandrake back when it was 8.0 – 10.0), but I would not find it surprising that all you say is true. I do not know if openSuse is a good substitute. Recall that a government like that of Nigeria would probably prefer a commercial solution (be it Linux, Windows, Mac or whatever), for the added support (so they’d go SLES instead of openSuse, I guess, or openSuse with support). For someone not wanting this support, I think Debian is by far the best choice for servers, for stability and flexibility. If you don’t want a GUI, both Mandriva and Suse are a pain in the ass, because they are really oriented at being configured via their GUIs.

However, recall that a Mandriva vs. Suse discussion moves us out of the core question of the post, as it would a Linux vs. Windows one. The actual problem is not whether Mandriva is good or bad, better or worse than Windows. I would probably not have posted if Nigeria had chosen Windows from the start. But this is NOT what happened. Mandriva was deemed better (maybe for the wrong reasons, I don’t know) and chosen. LATER, the government changed their mind and chose Windows (even after paying Mandriva), for unknown reasons.

Now, what these “unknown reasons” are is a really interesting question…

Miles said:

#

Facts:
Linux is getting very bad rap because of:
GNOME and KDE who are the real culprits are not getting charged as “guilty” for being crappy GUI’s.
Apple has Leopard or Cheetah or whatever – and Apple doesn’t call their GUI’s BSD (Berkley Software Developement) and people are quite happy calling their machines Mac’s or MacIntosh. So why are GNOME and KDE calling themselves Linux – when they ARE NOT built from Linux but, in fact are built from the very same C/C++, Perl and Python that Mac’s are built from? Even if MacIntosh computers were running on top of Linux – Apple wouldn’t call it a Apple Linux or LinApple or whatever goofy name you can make of it.

The first problem with Mandriva is that it is not fixing the Linux issues with the MBR and 3D-Cube freezing and probably doesn’t have the expertise now that they have fired their best dude for the job and hired a salesman to replace him.

The second problem with Mandriva is that it is giving Linux a BAD rap when in fact it is GNOME and KDE that are screwing up and Mandriva isn’t even trying to fix their issues of “writing to the MBR”. It’s not a Linux problem with these issues – it’s GNOME and KDE problems and “How” Mandriva is rewiring them so to speak – to be Mandriva instead of leaving them as done by openSuSE or hiring someone from openSuSE to do the writing for Mandriva.

Miles said:

Let me correct my previous statement on Linux usage. You can load Linux without ALL 35 to 45 services running – and you do that by loading a GUI-less install. Yes people – Linux runs great without any GUI attached…in fact I prefer to run it that way. You just need to know how to do CLI so you can properly program with a Text Editor in order to setup Apache, MySQL and other servers required for websites with PHP, Perl and Python scripting. This in fact the best way to run a Linux server – barring Mandriva because what is wrong with Mandriva is systemically an issue at its core and even with CLI it keeps breaking (MBR keeps corrupting or won’t get written to at all or Mandriva can’t find where to write). The bottomline is – if you load Linux without GUI – you’re going to have a super fast server, very secure and only about 6 to 12 services running – depending how many boxes you feel like buying and loading without a GUI in order to get all your apps running. As for me – my main box to the open internet is my squid box and only runs squid, firewall and a ftp proxie. I have a special box for telnet and another box for websites and another for databases. In any case – you can buy or download ANY version of ANY flavor of Linux and load and run it from a CLI and never worry about KDE or GNOME open socket issues or broken programs showing a colorful program – but, not really of any practical use otherwise. Being color blind in this case would be a good thing then you have no distractions. You can experienced users and developers by their need for GUI and Color. GUI and Color are for the audience – not the actors.

Miles said:

If I were a country buying any flavor of Linux – it’d have to do specifically what I want it to do and no more or less. In servers – ONLY Microsoft’s servers are built to provide ONLY server services whereas Linux services are the same whether or you load servers or desktops…and those 35 to 45 services eat up so much CPU and Memory that it’s really not worth the pain to install cheap Linux boxes and especially Mandriva. Mandriva’s core MBR writes are systemically prone to failure and do so on a 30 to 50 percent basis. By that I mean – if you can get a fresh loaded verson of Mandriva to load the MBR – you can’t just pull the plug or turn off the machine while cycling or I’ve even just pulled the plug while the machine was just sitting there doing virtually nothing – and the reboot didn’t happen and I’d have to use DOS debug to fix the MBR or load a fresh copy of XP or DOS (DOS is a quicker fix) or a fresh version of some flavor of Linux. Mandriva may be a stable product in the lab under nice conditions – but, not in the real world of keeping the CPU, Video RAM and RAM in full tilt to do the required work. Mandriva looks good and mostly runs good – but, not great on any subject. Sorry – Nigeria should have tried openSUSE 10.3 or chose like they did, Microsoft Windows. Redhat would have worked or something Redhat Server connected to Fedora Desktop. Still – Mandriva was a poor choice to even try.

Aslam said:

I personally used the mandriva I just say that mandriva is only good as compared to windows.

This is because Mandriva sucks! Get a really good distro, like Debian or Ubuntu :^)

Now, seriously, your problem might be caused for two reasons: you can not install the printer, or you can not install the printing server (CUPS). It seems to be the latter. Have you installed the cups package in your Mandriva system? Were you root when you tried to?

Every Linux newbie is confused by the many distros there are out there, but let me tell you something: the only real differences between them are 1) the installer (that you only see once, when you install from CD), and 2) how to install/remove each program. You will use the latter a whole lot, so choose a distro that has a package management system that you like. Personally, I have come to love APT, Debian’s package managing system (used by Ubuntu and others, too).

If you have cups up and running, the rest should be a breeze.

(By the way, your English is great)