The Official Mandriva Blog

Yes, today - July 23rd, 2008 - is the tenth anniversary of the release of Linux-Mandrake 5.1, the very first public release of what is now Mandriva Linux. It was versioned 5.1 as it was a fork of Red Hat 5.1 (it was more or less RH 5.1 with KDE 1.0 added).

Here is the original announcement in English, and here is the original thread, in French, from the fr.comp.os.linux usenet group. History will record that the very first comment on Linux-Mandrake was someone complaining that something wasn’t packaged (xemacs) - so some thing never change…:)

I did look for a usenet thread in English, but couldn’t find one. Looks like the French one is all there was.

(We celebrated the anniversary of Mandriva itself earlier in the year - in May - but today is the birthday of Mandriva Linux, the distribution).

Mandriva is proud to announce the release of its latest distribution, Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring. This new release brings features like full support for the Asus Eee, easy synchronization with Windows Mobile 5 and later, Blackberry, and Nokia devices, a new parental control utility, the Elisa multimedia center, Codeina for easy installation of necessary media codecs, PulseAudio by default and much more. Software updates include KDE 3.5.9 (with 4.0.2 available from the official repositories), GNOME 2.22, OpenOffice.org 2.4, Linux kernel 2.6.24.4, X.org 7.3, Compiz 0.7, and more.

If you just can’t wait, you can download the One (live / install CD) or Free (traditional installer, 100% free / open source software) editions of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring right here. Direct BitTorrent download links can be found here, as the mirrors are likely to be overloaded for several days. The commercial edition, Powerpack, featuring exclusive commercial applications, is available immediately for direct download, and can be pre-ordered in boxed form (delivery will begin in two weeks), at the Mandriva Store. A large amount of information on the new release is also available at the Mandriva Wiki:

Main 2008 Spring page
2008 Spring Release Tour: a graphical guide to what’s new in 2008 Spring
2008 Spring Release Notes
2008 Spring Errata
2008 Spring Reviewer’s Guide: a useful read if you plan to review 2008 Spring

The sixth pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring is here. This pre-release includes support for easy synchronization of Windows Mobile 5+, Blackberry and Nokia devices, the Codeina multimedia codec installation system, support for Radeon HD 3xxx series graphics cards, more improvements to the Mandriva software installation tools, the finalized 2008 Spring theme, a new metapackage for easily installing a complete LAMP setup, and available KDE 4.0.2. See here for download information.

The upcoming Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring release will boast the easiest ever support for synchronizing with Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices in any distribution. The adventurous can already try out the support in the current 2008 Spring pre-release repositories, by following the instructions here. Mandriva has uploaded a video demonstrating how easy it is to synchronize with a Windows Mobile 6 device right out of the box with Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring. Support is included for synchronizing with both KDE (KDE PIM) and GNOME (Evolution). Similarly easy synchronization is also possible with many Nokia phones and with Blackberry devices.

The fifth pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring is here. This pre-release includes the all-new artwork for the 2008 Spring release, further improvements to the Mandriva software management tools, WPA-EAP support in the network configuration tools, KDE 3.5.9 and available 4.0.1, some new default applications in KDE and GNOME, and the latest pre-release of OpenOffice.org 2.4. See here for download information.

The second pre-release of Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring is here. This pre-release brings a near-final snapshot of KDE 4.0 (final 4.0 packages are currently being uploaded to the Cooker repositories), new NVIDIA and ATI drivers, the chance to test the experimental nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA cards, kernel 2.6.24rc7, and more. See here for download information.

Kicking off the 2008 Spring development cycle in earnest, the first alpha is here. This alpha features X.org 7.3, KDE 3.5.8, KDE 4.0 RC2 (in /contrib), GNOME 2.21, kernel 2.6.24, OpenOffice.org 2.3, new NVIDIA and ATI proprietary drivers, PulseAudio by default and more. Despite being a first alpha, it is also in a fairly stable and reliable state, though as always, we do not suggest you use it in a production environment. It is available in Free and One editions, with i586 and x86-64 DVDs for the Free edition and an i586, KDE-based CD for the One edition. As far as testing goes, for this pre-release we are particularly interested in testing PulseAudio and hardware detection. Please report any problems with sound functionality, and any mis-detected or un-detected hardware, to Bugzilla. Of course, please also report any other problems you run into. You can also discuss the alpha in the official forums. Download locations are available on the Wiki page: it may take a few hours for the files to be copied to all mirrors, so if you do not find them on the first mirror you try, try another.

First KDE-Edu Meeting hosted by Mandriva, Paris

The first KDE-Edu meeting, on the 1st& 2nd December 2007, aimed at polishing educational applications for the KDE 4.0 release and to start planning KDE 4.1. Debugging, testing, exchanging ideas, shaping libraries, getting to know everyone was the main focus of the meeting.

14 Participants:

Anne-Marie Mahfouf (France) : Organiser of KDE-Edu project

Jeremy Whiting (USA) : KAnagram, KNewStuff (in kdelibs), KVTML2 with Frederik

Albert Astal Cid (Spain) : KGeography and Blinken

Frederik Gladhorn (Germany) : KVocTrain which has changed its name to Parley

Carsten Niehaus (Germany) : Kalzium

Aleix Pol (Spain): KAlgebra

Benoît Jacob (France): Eigen, use in KDE-Edu and KDE program, Kalzium

Johannes Simon (Germany) : Parley

Mauricio Piacentini (Brazil) : KTurtle

Vladimir Kuznetsov and Olena Kuznetsova (Russia) : Step

Jure Repinc (Slovenia) : Tanslation. Testing, bugs

Patrick Spendrin (Germany) : KDE-Edu on Windows

Peter Murdoch (Wales) : KPercentage

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KDE-Edu était à Paris dans les locaux de Mandriva pour la préparation de KDE 4.1
Les développeurs de KDE-Edu se réunissaient pour la première fois les 1er et 2 Décembre 2007 dans les locaux de Mandriva à Paris. L’objectif principal de cette rencontre était la finalisation des logiciels pour la sortie de KDE 4.0 et la préparation de KDE 4.1.Cette réunion a rassemblé 14 personnes dont 2 Français, un Américain, un Brésilien, des Allemands, des Russes, des Espagnols, un Slovène et un Écossais. Elle a permis aux développeurs des logiciels éducatifs de KDE de renforcer l’esprit d’équipe.

Le projet KDE-Edu a été fondé en 2001 avec l’idée de rassembler les logiciels existants dans un module KDE pour les intégrer complètement à KDE. Le module kdeedu est sorti pour la première fois avec KDE 3.0 en avril 2002.

La réunion a permis de corriger de nombreux bugs pour la sortie de KDE-Edu dans KDE 4. Les développeurs ont aussi étudié l’utilisation des bibliothèques communes comme Eigen2, une bibliothèque de mathématiques. Son développeur a étudié avec les personnes intéressées les besoins non couverts actuellement par cette bibliothèque.

Divers sous-groupes se sont formés au cours du week-end afin de définir le travail des prochains mois. Les logiciels KDE-Edu sur la plate-forme Windows ont également été présentés. Une telle réunion redonne une nouvelle motivation aux développeurs et permet un travail intensif pendant deux jours.