| Mandriva 2007 & XGL / Compiz |
| Posted by: AceBHound on Jan 28th, 2007 12:44 PM |
 With the Windows Vista release due out soon to consumers I've been trying to figure out if there are any features I can't live without.. and ultimately stumbled into a discussion about the Compiz Window Manager. Linux has come a long way in simplifying installations and allowing users to preview a distribution via a Live CD. Distributions like Ubuntu make it extremely easy to demo the software without ever installing anything on your hard drive. Still, as impressed as I was with the ease of installation, hardware detection, and much more refined desktop environment.. it always felt like the desktop GUI was a slight step backwards -- until now.
Mandriva 2007 Linux (formerly Mandrake Linux) is the first distribution I've seen to impress me "out-of-the-box". I used their Live CD to preview it & though I had trouble using the XGL environment on my laptop, it worked perfectly on my desktop. The Live CD has the Compiz Window Manager already installed so as long as it supports your video card you're instantly ready to view some 3D goodness. While I would agree that many of the features in Compiz are just great eye-candy -- I really do see a lot of features that would actually improve productivity and make it easier to manage multiple desktops on a single monitor. I love to tinker with Linux/Unix as much as the next guy, but for everyday use I want gadgets or computers to that JUST WORK. From what I've seen so far with the Live CD, Mandriva 2007 is the first Linux distribution that had thinking about installing Linux on a primary computer and less about Windows Vista or OS X. I'd say that's a pretty good thing. |
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