PCLinuxOS

Posted Sep 19, 2010 2:42 UTC (Sun) by zeke123 (guest, #60445)
Parent article: Mageia - a Mandriva fork

Ive been a fan since the mandrake days and even though Ive drifted in and out the past few years, Ive always downloaded the newest version even when I wasnt using Mandriva on any machine.... but PCLinuxOS became my go to KDE distro for friends and family about 2-3 years ago.

Im sad for Mandriva, happy for Mageia (love the name) but also wonder if I will even bother.
How is this going to be any different than PCLinuxOS?
Was there any contact with this well known Mandriva fork?
Why should I leave a successful offshoot for a brand new one?

Good luck to the separatistas and dont forget, it doesnt matter how good your distro is technically, that is NOT the reason it will become popular. All the extra curricular stuff that gathers 'buzz' is what does it. Your non-technical crews will have to do overtime in spreading the word in the english web. You can be as successful as Novell (hehe, humour is always good!) but if its not in english, les maudit anglais wont know about it.

As opposed to when Chicken Little aka SJVN called for his KDE3 fork in his hysterical panic attack, this fork makes sense from what little ive been able to gather on the topic. But Mandriva news in the english media is few and far between (the last time I think it was actually a topic was when Adam left mandriva and when the company backed out of LinuxTag I believe).
Your PR/Marketing/social media people have one hell of a job waiting them.

I think community involvement is primordial to a successful distro and no, OpenSuse/SUSE/Novell is NOT a good example. It is quite the opposite.
I look forward to seeing le logiciel libre getting a new boost of life.

Your move Mageiatistas.

PCLinuxOS

Posted Sep 22, 2010 3:57 UTC (Wed) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link]

"zeke123" wrote:

How is this going to be any different from PCLinuxOS

My notes say:

PCLinuxOS uses apt. Mandriva/Mageia uses urpmi.
PCLinuxOS is a single-disk live CD with desktop focus. Mandriva has broader platform focus and has as its main edition a multi-disc install set.

Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

PCLinuxOS

Posted Sep 22, 2010 14:38 UTC (Wed) by buchanmilne (guest, #42315) [Link]

<blockquote>
How is this going to be any different than PCLinuxOS?
</blockquote>

Actual community involvement (IMHO, real involvement in Mandriva was easier than PCLinuxOS, or, please show me public VCS for packages ...), and no reliance on any single entity for its survival.

<blockquote>
Was there any contact with this well known Mandriva fork?
</blockquote>

AFAIK, not yet, mainly because previous contact by the Mandriva community was rejected by the PCLinuxOS folk (Texstar was given a Mandriva contributor account, but AFAIK didn't ever commit any changes). However, other projects which do care more about upstream contribution (such as Unity Linux) have been contacted and have been involved in some of the discussions.

<blockquote>
Why should I leave a successful offshoot for a brand new one?
</blockquote>

IMHO, your current "successful offshoot" isn't sustainable without Mandriva, or at least the community of contributors who maintain the vast majority of packages. Since Texstar removes all changelogs and most comments from all packages (including all the packages I maintain in Mandriva's "main" repository), even ones he doesn't modify at all when syncing with Mandriva, you probably haven't noticed that yet.
<p>
Depending on what happens with Mandriva itself (e.g., one outcome is that it could become a downstream project), Texstar may be forced to cull his SRPMS from Mageia anyway.
<p>
(Feel free to compare some SPEC files from <a href="http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/SRP...">PCLOS's SRPMS</a> to those in <a href="http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/packages/">Mandriva svn</a> if you don't believe me)