Epicurus.com - Mandriva Linux Powerpack 2008 - Download Version

	List Price: $59.00 Our Price: $55.00 Your Save: $ 4.00 ( 7% ) Availability: N/A Manufacturer: Mandriva
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Binding: DVD-ROM Brand: Mandriva EAN: 9782847981520 Feature: This is a download product. You will not receive any physical media. You will need the ability to download and burn a DVD image Format: DVD-ROM Label: Mandriva Manufacturer: Mandriva Publisher: Mandriva Studio: Mandriva
Features This is a download product. You will not receive any physical media. You will need the ability to download and burn a DVD image The installation process and initial desktop experience have been optimized to be accessible for first time users Experienced users will enjoy advanced installation options and new innovative technologies, integrated to work "out of the box" A large range of commercial drivers & applications: ATI & Nvidia video drivers, plugins, Cedega, LinDVD... (with an auto installation system, no need to use a terminal to install these applications) Web support: 3 months through http://expert.mandriva.com
Editorial Reviews: DOWNLOAD VERSION ONLY - 32 & 64 bits version (DVD version) Mandriva simplifies its new range of products: Mandriva Linux 2008 With this new release, Mandriva is upgrading its commercial offer around a single unified product: Mandriva Linux Powerpack. It integrates a unique set of commercial packages and services to offer a whole Linux solution. The best-seller Powerpack is the commercial edition of Mandriva Linux and the recommended extension for users of the community version DOWNLOAD VERSION ONLY - 32 & 64 bits version (DVD version) To register your actrivation key visit: my.mandriva.com/register/key
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: One of the Best Alternative OS Comment: Recently I had the opportunity to try the Mandriva 2008. Just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything, I went ahead and installed it to the hard drive of a Lenovo Y410 where the Windows OS had gone south. As to the good points: *Installation was a breeze. Put the disk in and tell it to install. Took about 20 minutes total, give or take. *Slick interface. Really nice main page with bright colors and a minimum of fussiness. Very close to a Windows interface. *It not only offers you a choice of Gnome or KDE desktops, it also tells you the difference before you make the decision. This is helpful for newbies to Linux. *It detected my USB printer and camera and downloaded drivers for both. Windows never did this right. *It quickly found wireless hotspots, and it even detected my Ethernet connection without hesitating. *Included library of applications is a rather hefty 3 GB and includes just about everything you could need. *If you can't find an app you want, it will find online repositories for you. *It's quicker than Windows once booted but is no quicker than Windows to boot. *Mainly all of the apps, like OpenOffice are merely free clones of equivalent Windows based programs. This is good because one interfaces with the other without too many problems. You even get a free clone of Adobe Acrobat which costs close to $400 for Windows. *Virus problems? What virus problems? Very few are written for Linux so that worry is not something you have to fret over. *Updating was a breeze although I did find it rather disconcerting that it required several hundred megabytes of updates. This indicates a not so ready for prime time release. Now for the bad: *I got my distro from a Linux magazine that includes disks, but if you want to buy a disk it will set you back roughly $70 or so. Fact is, plenty of online sources will sell you a disk for $9 or less or you can just download it and burn an ISO disk. Amazon.com usually have variations at a good price. *The Firefox browser included is dreadfully slow because the DNS check has been enabled (supposed to offer greater security against phishing and bad websites, but it's awfully poky). I had to do a quick Net check to find out how to disable the DNS (enter about:config in the URL area and scroll down and disable DNS). This is common to all new Linux distros that use Firefox and is not indicative of a Mandriva problem. *Once you do get to the repositories and available apps, some of the descriptions are bizarre and can be confusing. Want to upgrade you whooiz and whatchayoumaycallit? I don't know for sure, but you'll find something there along those lines. Be careful what you download, it may jam something up. Again, this is common for most Linux systems. *Typical of Linux, there is still no standard for sound cards. The Linux Standard Architecture would not recognize my Soundblaster card and I had a devil of time getting it to work. I finally installed a USB sound device which it recognized right off the mark, but this required I use headphones. My onboard speaker system never worked. *Unless you download a special app, you can forget playing DVDs. Due to copyright constraints it ain't happening anytime soon. Secondary apps do exist to play DVDs but there is no guarantee that they will work with Suse completely. Once I did get the DVD to work the playback was horribly choppy and erratic. While it may seem the bad points outweigh the good, it's a matter of perspective. Linux always has had some bug issues but so does Windows or Apple OS. Linux suffers because it's an free OS (most can be downloaded for free but they do charge to mail you disks) and the Big Boys don't like the Free Guy knocking on their doors. Fact is, Mandriva 2008 is a slick OS that ranks at the top with Suse being a close second and Freespire being third. Customer Rating: Summary: Former fan Comment: When I began using Linux, I was a huge Mandriva fan. Not so, anymore. Since the issues of Mandriva 2007, 2007.1 and 2008, Mandriva has included an increasing number of bugs---lately more than you can shake a stick at. Meanwhile, the company has provided fewer and fewer functionality updates, and has demonstrated less and less concern for individual end users, while soliciting and more and more corporate sales. My latest bugs include a funky Java environment operation, and continued problems with the old panel crashing, a bug supposedly fixed 3 years ago---NOT. The recording function on Skype still does not work with out endless workarounds that I haven't the time to do. But the final straw has been a major difficulty with OpenOffice---which no longer saves in the 1997 XP *.doc, at least not documents with embedded links. This program has become completely untenable, and Mandriva has become untenable with it. Alas, the people at OpenOffice cannot or will not consider the bug afflicting my Mandriva OpenOffice-issue---which is several versions behind the latest OpenOffice release, and can't currently be updated further: Several necessary components are incompatible with Mandriva. You'd think Mandriva would stay on top of OpenOffice changes for supported versions of its OS. But no, presumably except for corporate users. So..... I must bid goodbye to Mandriva for good. It's been four years of fun, but I'm moving on to a community-based distribution, which when it DOES release new versions (every several years, not twice a year) FIRST ensures that they actually work AND that they're compatible with components of the old, so hard drives will no longer need to be completely blanked to accommodate system upgrades. A distribution that DOES support individual users---for free, for real. No expensive clubs to join, no hidden fees, just support. Now THAT's Linux as it's meant to be. Customer Rating: Summary: Execellent OS, especially for folks new to Linux! Comment: I purchased the Mandriva Powerpack 2008 as a birthday gift for my son after trying the Mandriva One 2008 version on my own laptop. The Powerpack comes on a single DVD with about 8,000 applications on it. During installation it automatically detects and installs most hardware that it encounters. Sometimes one has to wrap Windows drivers for certain wireless chips, but most of the time internet access is immediate after you enter your WEP or WAP ESSID and password. This OS has power and functionality that goes beyond VISTA, but is stable and secure without the need to buy additional malware protection subscriptions. It is immune to Windows viruses. Also, it comes with OpenOffice, an office product that includes word processing, graphics painting, presentation, databases and db management, db aware forms creation and more. OpenOffice can be set to read and write *.doc and other formats used by Word. If you like the VISTA eye candy desktop graphics then you can activate similar capabilities on Mandriva. The Powerpack also comes with licensed Multimedia capabilities enabling the creation and editing of audio and video files. It also includes gaming playing for Linux games and many Windows games, although I am not into game playing myself, so my experience in that regard is just a curious sampling of a few. If you want an OS that you can install and it just works without the hassle of fighting security or stability bugs then you've found it. If you can use the mouse in Windows you can use it in Linux. Here is a YouTube video showing Mandriva 2008 in action: http://youtube.com/watch?v=X9tCoHDEO60 There are several variations of Linux available, but Mandriva ranks in the top 3 or 4. I rank it #1, followed by PCLinuxOS and then Ubuntu. All are easy to install, but the first two look and feel like XP, so folks looking for a better and more affordable OS than Microsoft, but which offers a similar user interface, can easily migrate to Mandriva. All of these versions of Linux have EXCELLENT, and FREE support forums you can visit if you encounter any problems. No need to use a credit card to get advice. For less than the price of family dinner out how can you go wrong? GreyGeek More Reviews