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The latest release of ROSA, announced on the 19th of December 2012, got the name ROSA Desktop.Fresh 2012. You can read the official press release yourself. However, after reading it I decided to ask some clarification questions of Konstantin Kochereshkin, the PR-manager of ROSA Labs.

Mageia is a distribution forked from Mandriva some time ago. That's not a secret. Also, it's not a secret that Mandriva's preferred desktop environment was KDE. Even the fact that the latest version Mandriva 2011 has only a KDE option proves that position. At the same time, Mageia continued the old Mandriva strategy, and released their distribution with two options: KDE and GNOME. I have only tried Mageia KDE so far, and had no chance to try GNOME. I finally got a chance to try Mageia 2 GNOME myself.

I was disappointed after my first acquaintance with ROSA Marathon 2012 KDE. Honestly, ROSA Marathon 2012 LXDE was a real surprise for me! What can I say in general? I think ROSA team showed us this time that they have a big future.

To be honest, I was slightly scared by the previous not-so-good experience of a Mageia upgrade described by Gene on his ERACC blog. The second option for me would be to make a fresh install, which I could always revert to. I had so little to loose that the decision was easily made.

First look at Mageia 2 KDE.

It's basically the same as Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen", but that is by design.

Last week, I received, in CC:, an email from a Mandriva Linux developer. This email was entitled “A foundation for Mandriva Linux *NOW* or Mandriva Linux to *DIE*?” That suggested to me that maybe Mandriva was not going very well. This, of course, hurted me. At the same time it leads to the interesting question of a Foundation for a project like Mandriva Linux.

Gaël Duval is the founder of Linux Mandrake, which later became Mandrake Linux and, after a merger with Conectiva, Mandriva Linux.

When I did my initial tests on this Debian Squeeze installation back in 2010, I had trouble with OpenJDK. I only use Java for two web-based things, and one of those -- GoToMyPC.com -- wouldn't successfully open up a Java client window. So I replaced openjdk-6 with sun-java6, found everything working and left it at that. Had things changed in the many intervening months? I was determined to find out.

Aside from a few crashes that had more to do with me than Mandriva, it's stunning to see how thoroughly Mandriva has reinvented itself. Bravo!

She went on to share with the class that from time to time, she would inadvertently hit that key, making the screen go full. Of course, she had no idea what key she had pushed.

Honestly, I thought she was going to cry.

No one in the assisted living center knew how to bring the menus and task bar back and she was frozen in place, unable to do anything.

In desperation, she would reinstall Windows from scratch. Not knowing anything about data backups, she would lose everything she had accumulated.

Just because she did not know that the F11 key was the culprit and the cure.

It is very clear to me that Linux, GNU, and free software are more popular than ever. It is also very clear that this makes a lot of people in high places very afraid. Patent lawsuits and propaganda seem to be the customary responses to Linux's ever increasing popularity. However, there is a great infrastructure that has been built that provides a powerful platform to combat the Linux-naysayers: Youtube. With billions (perhaps trillions) of video views, it is very clear that Youtube has become the dominant force for spreading information freely.

Whew! What a weekend it was at the Ohio LinuxFest in Columbus, Ohio! Between the free (but not Free) beer, having to choose between apparently popular sessions, and the wide variety of booths, the biggest problem was choosing which fun to have.

The results of DesktopLinux.com's 2006 Desktop Linux Market survey are in, and the votes are all tallied. This first article of a series offers a perspective on how the various desktop Linux distributions fared, and why.

LXer Feature: 04-Aug-2006

GNU/Linux -- Like No Other Hotrod, Ever

While others appear to be going backwards, Linux just keeps racing ahead.

'Linux supports more devices, "out of the box", than any other operating system ever has.'

"Yes, that's right, we support more things than anyone else. And more than anyone else ever has in the past. Linux has a very long list of things that we have supported before anyone else ever did."
-- Greg Kroah-Hartman, OLS 2006 Keynote

The first beta version of Mandriva Linux 2007 has been released !

Available in four different flavours live/install CDs (KDE or GNOME, i586 or x86_64) or in a whole new dual architecture Installation DVD, get a glimpse of the next Mandriva Linux 2007 edition !

Note that not all of the new features have been implemented yet and that a beta version is not bug-proof, on the contrary. This is why we strongly encourage everyone to test and report any bugs or surprises they may encounter.

Trolltech is replacing its Linux embedded product development QT/Embedded with Qtopia Core. The focus of the new product is to make building software faster and to ease the development process.

MID-WAY through last year Mandrake, the French Linux organisation, bought Conectiva, a Brazilian Linux outfit ... and so was born Mandriva. Check the unofficial Linux league table on http://www.distrowatch.comman - you'll see Mandriva sitting proudly in second place behind Ubuntu.

[Ed: Nice Job in a major newspaper. This could have been published in any major Linux newswire. -tadelste]

MandrakeLinux always had a reputation as an ideal distribution for beginners. Now that the renamed Mandriva has included technologies from Conectiva and Lycoris into Mandriva Linux 2006, this reputation seems more justified than ever. From its installation program to its selection of software and desktop design to its package design and security options, Mandriva is one of the easiest to use distributions available today.

DistroWatch reports - 2006 is the ultimate version of Mandriva Linux. It is the fruit of the convergence of three technologies: Mandriva, Conectiva and Lycoris. Mandriva Linux 2006 is also more easy-to-use, more user-friendly and more powerful. It is ideal for the needs of all customers, from the beginner to the SOHO user. New features in 2006: Desktop Search tool, Interactive Firewall, new package manager: Smart, DeltaRPM updates; new installer feature; new software: graphical desktops: KDE 3.4 & GNOME 2.10; better look-and-feel and ergonomics...

OSDir's got shots of the super-slick Mandriva Linux 2006.

Queue Linux fanfare, the 2006 version of Mandriva Linux is now available, albeit currently only to club members and distributors. Mandriva Linux Mandriva Linux (known best as Mandrake Linux) is one of the most popular “user-friendly” distros of Linux available. The developers of Mandriva have always sought to make ease of use a high priority, and have for the most part done a pretty good job of that. Not too long ago, three distros known as Mandrake, Lycoris and Conectiva joined together to form Mandriva. This release is the first update since then, and brings with it a lot of hardware support that was needed. Being a club member isn't free, but eventually it will be released for free as all the others.

I'm writing this column on my trusty IBM Thinkpad, which has been running the newly released Gnome 2.12 for about a week now. This is thanks to Ubuntu Linux, which has gotten so much praise in my recent reports, a colleague suggested I should change the name of this column to "Ubuntu Agent." Ahem.

On the heels of its recent acquisition of Brazilian Linux vendor Conectiva and name change from Mandrakesoft to Mandriva, Mandriva acquires Lycoris, a maker of user-friendly desktop Linux distributions.

Mandriva -- formerly Mandrake -- is one of the world's most popular user-level desktop GNU/Linux choices. Now, only a few months after Mandrake extended itself to absorb Conectiva (hence the new "Mandriva") name, it has embraced the small but feature-rich Lycoris distribution. Lycoris founder and CEO Joe Cheek may end up as a Mandriva employee, although this is not certain yet, but Mandriva certainly hopes a substantial percentage of Lycoris's approximately 20,000 paying customers join MandrivaClub. This acquisition may be good for both parties in the long run. But a lot of its success may depend on whether Joe Cheek ends up working for Mandriva or walking away at the end of his current consulting contract, which runs only through this fall.

LinuxQuestions.org has just posted an interview with Mandriva (ex. Mandrake) Linux Founder Gael Duval. The interview covers the companies recovery from Chapter 11, the recent merger of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva (and the resulting Mandriva name), the Linux Core Consortium and his take on the fact that Munich selected a "non-commercial" distro. He also expands on an earlier comment about Linux on the desktop

The merger of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva has already borne fruit in the form of Mandriva Limited Edition 2005. Bill von Hagen takes the new distro out for a spin and lets us know what the future has in store for this transatlantic product.

Shortly after announcing the merger of Mandrakesoft and Conectiva into Mandriva, the newly combined company released a transitional "limited edition" GNU/Linux distribution to bridge the gap between the two parent distributions. Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 may look a little different, but it's the same great Mandrakelinux desktop distribution that you're used to.

Citing desires for both a "new identity" and an end to possible legal liability, Mandrakesoft changed its name to “Mandriva” last week, not long after announcing a merger with Conectiva and many details of a future product roadmap. Some members of the Linux community are unhappy about the changes, but Mandriva has plans to make the changes more palatable.

With a commitment on the table to using open source in its future technology roadmap, the Southern Cape's Knysna municipality last year was looking to increase the reach and functionality offered by its collaboration solution.

OSDir.com Weekly Screenshot Tours for March 31, 2005. We had another great week in the screenie department at OSDir, grabbing nice shots of Linspire 5.0, SkyOS 5.0 Beta 8.4, Foresight Desktop Linux 0.6, Conectiva Linux 10 and Turkix 10.0 Alpha

Mandrakesoft shareholders, at the extraordinary shareholders' meeting on March 30th 2005, approved the acquisition of Conectiva, the Brazilian Linux company. The necessary resolutions have been adopted, and thus the acquisition is now effective.

Tonight on The Linux Box Show Sean discuss what he has been doing, including the Krystaline icon set, a brief diatribe on usability, his own distro shoot out, and the headlines are 'The Mandrake Conectiva Merger', 'Microsoft admits targeting Wine users', 'New Law Center Founded to Assist Open Source Software Developers' and 'Tux likes it cheap: a review of cheapo devices that will stymie Redmond'.

Listen/Stream

While the French Linux provider presents its purchase of the Brazilian company as a triumphant expansion, some observers call it a desperation move.

Commentary: As you've probably read, Mandrakesoft and Conectiva announced their merger today. The combined firms will be well-positioned to go after emerging markets not only in South America but around the globe. MandrakeSoft derives 40 percent of its revenue from North America, 40 percent from Europe, and the remainder from elsewhere around the world. Conectiva derives 95 percent of its revenue from Brazil, but its distribution is spread by partners in Columbia and Peru as well.

Mandrakesoft, the European Linux leader, today is announcing a definitive agreement to acquire Conectiva, the South-American Linux leader. All details for this new acquisition are available in the press-release below.

Managing packages can be a tricky undertaking, even with package tools like the RPM Package Manager (RPM), the package management tool used by Conectiva, Fedora, Mandrake, Red Hat, SuSE, Yellow Dog, and many other distributions. With RPM, you may try to install a package, only to find that it depends on others you don't have. Or, you might discover that your packages are several versions out of date and then have to track down and install potentially dozens of updates to fix security and other problems with the old packages.

Last week OSDir.com surpassed their 100th Linux and open source screenshot tour, which has become an invaluable resource to the open source community.

The Smart Package Manager project has the ambitious objective of creating smart and portable algorithms for solving adequately the problem of managing software upgrading and installation. This tool works in all major distributions, and will bring notable advantages over native tools currently in use (APT, APT-RPM, YUM, URPMI, etc).

We're very pleased to announce that Connectiva, Mandrakesoft, Progeny and Turbolinux today announce the creation of a common implementation of the LSB 2.0 which will serve as the base for future products. The project, called "Linux Core Consortium" (LCC), is backed by Linux supporters such as Computer Associates, HP, Novell, Red Hat, Sun, OSDL, and the Free Standards Group.

LinuxBeta.com has prepared an 86 page screenshot slideshow of KDE 3.3 final running on Conectiva Live Snapshot 20040828.

If you haven't seen Conectiva in action this is a must see. LinuxBeta.com has prepared a slideshow of this polished Brazilian distribution. The desktop launches in portuguese but is switched to english. Warning: you may be converted :)