Mandriva Linux One
By SaltwaterC
Published: May 7, 2008
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The distribution comes as several builds. Mandriva Free includes only free software (free as in free speech and free beer), while Mandriva One also includes software which is released under restrictive licenses, but it is free to download and install.

I am going to explain to you how to install Mandriva One 2008 which is the latest release. Since it ships with Gnome or KDE as desktop environments, but their installation has many similarities, I am going to include both of the Mandriva builds within this article.

The very first thing which you must do in order to install this Linux distribution is to point your browser to this location: http://www.mandriva.com/en/download/free – select a mirror which is close to your geolocation, then start downloading the appropriate build. Most probably you would need the international build, thus depending on your preference for a certain desktop environment, you wouldneed to grab an image called mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-GNOME-int-cdrom-i586.iso – for a Gnome build or mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-KDE-int-cdrom-i586.iso – for a KDE build.

After you finish the download, burn the ISO image to an optical medium such as CD or DVD. Mandriva One fits well on a single CD, but usually a DVD is faster for this kind of job. You would need to burn the ISO file as an image. Any decent CD/DVD burning application should support this write mode. For Windows XP/Vista, I would recommend ImgBurn, a great freeware application.

You also need some free space on the destination hard drive. By free space I mean unpartitioned space which is going to be used by the Mandriva installation. Roughly 10GB are OK for testing and moderate usage but for a long term installation at least 30GB are recommended. You would need to create with the install disc a couple of partitions, while one of these must a primary partition. I say this because you can create maximum 4 primary partitions so please be careful where's the unpartitioned space. Backing up your data before you start to re-partition your hard drive is highly recommended.

If you completed this step successfully, then you need to boot your computer from the freshly created Mandriva One disc. The boot menu should show up. It has just an option anyway, thus you can't do any mistakes.

 

 

 

The language menu should show up after the boot sequence if finished. Obviously, you would need to pick the localization that suites you.

 

 

The next step is as easy as the localization step: you would need to pick your country.

 

 

Another thing which you must do it to take a cup of something, anything, while you read the EULA. After you finished the reading, you must accept this in order to continue.

 

 

This is a fairly simple step: pick your keyboard layout.

 

 

You would also need to pick your time zone as well.

 

 

The next step is also time related. You need to set the hardware clock to your local time or to UTC. You can also use the time synchronization with a NTP server.

 

 

These steps are the same for both the Gnome and the KDE build. After you complete this easy wizard, the desktop environment should show up since Mandriva One is a hybrid: a LiveCD which can be installed.

If you picked the Gnome build, then you should see the Gnome desktop.

 

 

Otherwise you should see the KDE desktop.

 

 

 

In either of the cases, you can see there a 'Live Install' item which launches the Mandriva One 2008 install wizard. The first step is fairly useless as it just tells you the fact that it would help you to install Mandriva. I am going to provide you screenshots for both of the Gnome and KDE builds.

 

 

 

The next step is the partition setup which is the most important step of a operating system installation.

 

 

 

You can either use all the free space or you can use a custom setup. Since you might have another installed OS, then you need to use the custom setup as it allows you to fine tune the result. You need to use the free and unpartitioned space I was telling you about. For a successful Linux setup you would need a couple of partitions: the root partition, which is marked as / and the swap partition which is used as virtual memory when your physical memory runs out. Your hard drive should look as in the following snapshot, but my snapshot lacks any existing partitions as the test machine uses an empty hard drive.

 

 

The 'Create' button should show up.

 

 

Hit the 'Create' button. A new dialog should show up. This dialog allows you to set the size of the new partition, the file system type and the mount point if you need one. I started with the swap partition as it needs to follow some rules. Usually it needs to be somewhere around double of your installed physical memory. However, since the RAM has become very, very cheap, for 1GB of RAM it's OK to have 1GB of swap if you don't use memory intensive applications. Under normal circumstances I use 2GB of swap, no matter how much physical memory I do have.

You need to select the 'Linux swap' as filesystem type. You also need to drag the slider which marks the partition size. You won't need a mount point. In fact the interface won't let you to set a mount point.

 

 

The next thing which you must do is the root partition. This is a requirement as the distribution refuses to install without this. You need to hit again the 'Create' button, then drag the slider in order to occupy all the free and unpartitioned space. Select 'Journalized FS: ext3' as filesystem type. The mount point must be “/” (without quotes). The forward slash marks the root partition as Linux doesn't have the drive letter concept. The kernel recognizes a single partition, the root, while the rest of the potential partitions or media types such as optical drives, USB mass storage devices, or hard drive partitions are mounted as subdirectories of the root drive.

 

 

The result should look like this:

 

 

Please remember that I used an empty drive, thus you may have more partitions.

After you accomplish the partitioning step, the installer should copy the packages to the hard drive.

 

 

 

When the installer finishes the package transfer, it asks you about which boot loader it should use. My recommendation is either GRUB with graphical menu or GRUB in text mode. The graphical version looks better while the text mode is more flexible, but dedicated to the average users.

 

 

 

The next step allows you to define the existing options from the boot menu. Under normal circumstances, you won't need to edit these settings as they are appropriate for most of the Mandriva users.

 

 

 

This was the final step from the live environment installation. You can continue to use the system or reboot in order to use your freshly installed Mandriva One 2008. Please remove the optical medium when Mandriva asks.

Since I picked the 'GRUB with graphical menu' interface, the boot menu after you reboot your system should look like my following screenshot.

 

 

After the system loads all of its services, you still have some work to do. The live environment doesn't define a couple of things: the network settings and the user setup. Since the words are useless, I am going to post the screenshots which talk by themselves.

Gnome Setup:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KDE Setup:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's it. After all of these rather simple steps, you should be able to use your fresh install of Mandriva One 2008. You can login and start using this Linux distribution. You can take a peek for either of the platforms into the following snapshots.

Gnome:

 

 

 

 

KDE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Unlike Ubuntu which is packaged with Gnome, for the KDE desktop that comes with Kubuntu is a little bit harder to find native clients, or clients which fit good on your desktop. However, there are a couple of clients which are accesibile: KTorrent and qBittorrent. There is another client which fits with Kubuntu, but being available only as source package makes it to be appropriate for the advanced users. If you're OK with the source code compiling, then go ahead for FatRat, otherwise, stick to the already existing clients.

Unlike Ubuntu which is packaged with Gnome, for the KDE desktop that comes with Kubuntu is a little bit harder to find native clients, or clients which fit good on your desktop. However, there are a couple of clients which are accesibile: KTorrent and qBittorrent. There is another client which fits with Kubuntu, but being available only as source package makes it to be appropriate for the advanced users. If you're OK with the source code compiling, then go ahead for FatRat, otherwise, stick to the already existing clients.

Although under Linux you won't find BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and BitComet which are popular under Windows OS, or at least you can't run them under as native binaries, however you can find very good alternatives. Since I am going to write about Ubuntu clients, thus appropriate for the Gnome desktop environment, I am not going to mention the clients which are typical for KDE. Under Gnome there are some popular clients such as Deluge, Transmission, and Azureus. However, Deluge and Azureus have Windows builds, thus for some of you, these clients might not be a brand new thing.

Although under Linux you won't find BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and BitComet which are popular under Windows OS, or at least you can't run them under as native binaries, however you can find very good alternatives. Since I am going to write about Ubuntu clients, thus appropriate for the Gnome desktop environment, I am not going to mention the clients which are typical for KDE. Under Gnome there are some popular clients such as Deluge, Transmission, and Azureus. However, Deluge and Azureus have Windows builds, thus for some of you, these clients might not be a brand new thing.