Topic: Is Mandriva Dead?

[sam]

This is an interesting question one could ask about the Mandriva distribution, is it dead? The answer could possibly be maybe. It is not the first time that we have seen Mandriva on the brink of collapse, and quite frankly, if we go in terms of userbase it might be so.
Mandriva is a publicly traded company and has had to do some cost cutting measures to weather the storm, but is this a sign of things to come? The CEO and upper management was let go to cut costs but is that really what is causing people not to support Mandriva?

Mandriva/Mandrake started out a long time ago and was one of the main Linux distributions alongside of RedHat, Suse, Debian and some could say Gentoo and Slackware.

But years have gone by since Linux was a fledgling alternative to Windows and started to appear on desktops of hardcore computer users who wanted to try something different. Fast forward to today, and you see Mandriva has really become an afterthought. It has not really "gone anywhere" per se, but there is nothing to give it a big wow we should try it out like other Linux distributions have.

If we take a look at popularity through the Distrowatch website, currently Mandriva ranks 7th overall. It still ranks in the top 10 but if we look at what is going on between OpenSuse, Fedora, Ubuntu holding top spots, Mandriva is falling by the wayside to smaller distributions like Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS.

It is not a good thing to see one of the "originals" falling in popularity and often not talked about much in the "Linux world". We all know that Fedora 10 has received plenty of attention on the net as well as Ubuntu which has lit a fire under Tux's behind as still being the most popular distribution. OpenSuse is popular for being quite innovative despite what many users say about the agreement between Novell and Microsoft. Mandriva still does not attract attention in the news whether it be good or bad, but we'll probably see more bad before we see any good.

What is there to say in the end? Mandriva has fallen on hard times once again. It doesn't have the support from name brand PC makers like Dell, nor does it have the clout of being on a netbook, but we can say this Fedora and OpenSuse don't really need that attention as it is well known both in the desktop and business world, Ubuntu is surely catching up in the server market but is still in its infancy at this point but we don't hear about Mandriva. Even reported a few days ago that Toshiba has signed a deal with Sun to have OpenSolaris being distributed on certain laptop models and could be seen as the final nail in Mandriva's coffin.

http://gnuman.com/the-news/39-linux/130-is-mandriva-dead.html