J_K9 @ Linux

Mandriva 2007 Metisse Edition

January 28, 2007 on 9:06 pm | In Linux, Distributions, Desktop Environments & Window Managers |

I’ve tried out Mandriva 2007 Metisse Edition and have discovered a few things which I would like to share:

• Metisse kicks ass, and there’s no doubt about it. The window-rolling copy and paste feature is beautiful in its simplicity and ease-of-use, and I just couldn’t stop playing with it
• It also offers transparency,
• smooth transitions between virtual desktops (there are nine of them by default in Mandriva 2007),
• and makes using Linux even more fun than it was before.

However, in my opinion, it’s still not ready for prime time: there are still a good number of bugs which need to be fixed. I encountered the following:

• A slight jitter of the whole screen when I dragged the bottom of the window beneath GNOME’s bottom toolbar;
• gnome-screenshot refused to work, which is why I have not included any screenshots in this post - first, it worked, but the screenshot ended up being a screenshot of the background alone (no windows or toolbars were included). I think this was because of Metisse running an X server over X, and so gnome-screenshot was taking a screenshot of the lower display rather than Metisse’s. However, all attempts to change the display used by gnome-screenshot were in vain. Then, gnome-screenshot stopped working altogether and kept exiting with a error.
• Not really a ‘bug’ per se, but the window folding is quite rough - it would be nice to have an option of setting the smoothness and thus the CPU-intensiveness of the folded edge.

The inclusion of proprietary drivers (and automatic recognition of your graphics card) makes this experience possible, but unfortunately brings with it its share of criticisms (and for valid reasons). While I do not condone the use of proprietary drivers, although I will freely admit that I use them on every one of my Linux installations, I highly recommend you give this live CD a spin, if only to waste make good use of your time by playing with Metisse’s features!