I've been a satisfied Mandriva User since 9.2 was released some years ago. Currently, Mandriva 2006 works rather well on my ThinkPad T20 laptop. Recently I became interested in Ubuntu as well, evaluated both Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu Edgy as possible upgrade paths.

I installed them both on test machines and have following observations about how they compared.

Wireless Networking: Mandriva Wins

Mandriva's "net_applet" the built-in wireless browing tools are great. It allows me to easily switch between locations, networking devices and wireless network. It integrates with Mandriva's custom network configuration, monitoring, and wireless roaming tools. With 2007, they finally added icons so I can tell that "eth0" is wired" and "eth1" is wireless. Great! It doesn't seem like Ubuntu's "Network Manager" has quite caught up with Mandriva with quality of wireless networking tools.

Firefox 2 by default: Ubuntu wins

Mandriva 2007 installs Firefox 1.5 by default, while Ubuntu Edgy has 2.0. Firefox 1.5 is a great browser, too, but this is a significant difference, has Firefox 2 sets a new and better standard. This will become an even more noticeable difference as the yearly release cycle progresses.

Ease of Updates: Ubuntu wins

Mandriva and Ubuntu both make it easy to install additional security and bug fix updates. The key difference is Ubuntu's service is free and automatic, while Mandriva's asks users to pay for it. I don't mind Mandriva does this, but from using them both, I find I appreciate Ubuntu's proactive approach of letting me know about security updates, while with Mandriva I have to remember check periodically myself (since I choose not buy this service from them.)

Ease of Demo/System Install: Ubuntu wins

Having a single disc that works as Live demo and an Install CD has become a new standard for Linux distributions. Both Mandriva and Ubuntu have stepped to the plate with offerings here, and I appreciate it. In the past, I burned as many 6 CDs to install Mandriva.

Making additional copies of all 6 CDs became particularly tiresome.

Ubuntu wins this round for a slicker installation process.

The "Mandriva 2007 One" CD still asks technical questions about which Bootloader to to use, with no help in sight. If you don't know what LILO, GRUB, HDB, and ACPI are, just accept the defaults and hope for the best. I would rather that Mandriva just use defaults. I believe Ubuntu does. Wizards can fix it later if they need to.

Mandriva asked me to go through an internet connection wizard on first boot, although I had ethernet plugged in with automatic DHCP... this step was unnecessary.

I like the simplicity if the sudo/one password system that Ubuntu uses. People don't need to learn about "root" on first boot.

Mandriva installed a "Bluetooth file transfer" icon in the taskbar by default, despite the fact that it detected no Bluetooth hardware in the machine. (It's not even a laptop!) Ubuntu didn't add this unwanted icon.

Access to Commercial Software: Tie

As a Mandriva "Silver" level club member, I have appreciated access to installation media with commercial software included, which Ubuntu Edgy doesn't do. This would have been a win for Mandriva, but they had so many versions of their "One" CD that I became confused and got the wrong one. I thought because I wasn't getting the "purely free" variant that I must be getting one with the commercial bits. Wrong. They had a nearly identical one just for (paying) club members, and I missed finding it. I call it a tie because both distros have fairly easy documented ways to install commercial software once a base system is installed.

Software Management: Ubuntu wins

The Mandriva Software Media Manager starts with a popup and then asks "Is it OK to continue?" This is an unnecessary click. It frames the experience as if it may sometimes be unsafe to start the tool. It's true the tool could explain a little better what's purpose is. Once launched, the only hint to the purpose is a cryptic title bar of "Configure Media". "Media" may be a technically correct term, but I find it confusing and unnecessary jargon. Ubuntu uses the more friendly language: "Software Sources".

Further, Ubuntu allows me to search in standard repos I haven't yet added, and automatically helps to add these repos if I request something from one of them. In Mandriva, I have to guess or know that there are extra repos to add, interrupt the flow to find the "Media" tool, add them, and then return to the installation process. Blah.

To compound the clunkiness of Mandriva's approach their Software Install tool and the Media Manager are poorly integrated. Even though I went to the Media Manager through the Software Install tool, when I returned, the package database was not automatically reloaded. I had to know that this tool needed to be restarted, and I had to realize that this could be done without leaving the Mandriva Control Center, since it appears to be one large application itself.

The integrated package manager in Mandriva 2007 is an improvement, but it's still not as user-friendly as Ubuntu's "Add/Remove Applications" tool, which shows you only user-centered applications, each with their own icon. Mandriva still shows you choices like, I'm not making this up, "abcm2ps". User friendly?

You can still install libraries and "geek tools" in Ubuntu, but they have a separate full access tool for that, that is a little more hidden away.

User Friendliness: Ubuntu wins

I really get the sense that Mandriva doesn't have enough people working there focusing on user-experience instead of more technical issues. One of the first impressions you'll get of Mandriva 2007 is "Press Esc for verbose mode". How friendly. I'm a professional computer programmer, and while I some things at work have a "verbose mode", it's a horrible first impression for a desktop operating system that's supposed to be friendly.

That no one at Mandriva has figured this out after several years seems like a bad sign to me. Mac OS X, Ubuntu and Fedora all have what is essentially a verbose boot mode, but they make the reasonable choice to make it less easy to discover, since it should hardly ever be needed unless there's a problem.

Ubuntu Edgy just uses a simple progress bar. Thank you.

Ubuntu's system administration menus are clearer-- they include everything you need directly under..."Administration". Mandriva is more cumbersome because most things are lumped into the Mandriva Control Center, requiring extra clicks, loading and browsing just to find what the options are. I would like to see the Mandriva Control Center. features linked to directly from the Preferences Menu.

The Surprising Conclusion

Mandriva 2007 is an upgrade from Mandriva 2006, and I'm happy with Mandriva 2006 overall. While Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu Edgy are both good enough to recommend to friends and family, as you can see from comparisons above, I'm generally more impressed with Ubuntu at this point.

However neither was able to reliably suspend and resume my ThinkPad T20 laptop, which works fine on Mandriva 2006, and I believed worked better in older versions of Ubuntu. I suspect this is because there was a regression in some software they both depend on. I'm tracking this bug closely to see about a resolution.

As a kind of compromise, I switched my Mandriva 2006 desktop from KDE to Gnome, which Ubuntu uses. However, it's not quite as nice as the latest version of Gnome that both Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu provide. I'm also evaluating XFCE now, which seems like it might also work sufficiently well, while using less memory than both KDE and Gnome in many cases.

Server comparison

You may also be interested in my comparison of Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu Edgy as an Egroupware server.

VPN client comparision

I've also done a comparison of using Mandriva 2007 and Ubuntu Edgy as VPN clients. Ubuntu won easily.

Update: This post is being discussed in the Mandriva Club Forums.