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I'm sorry but if you're holding up Ubuntu's default artwork, which hasn't changed significantly since 5.10 and is by many accounts "butt ugly", as something Mandriva should aspire to, then you're seriously out of touch with aesthetics. Mandriva's default themes have always been revolutionary, whether users favor them or not. At least they're not afraid to try something new with each release; unlike Ubuntu. Even with Hardy Heron, the Ubuntu devs have found some excuse to stick with the same ol same ol.

Edited 2008-03-02 13:03 UTC

While it is true that Ubuntu's current theme has been in service for a long time (well, about a year and a half, two years counting the upcoming version), I have a small correction to make: Ubuntu's 'Human' theme has existed since Ubuntu 6.06, not Ubuntu 5.10, which only had a brown Clearlooks colorscheme and the default GNOME icon set.

If by "Human" you mean the point at which they switched to orange icons and the Ubuntulooks GTK engine, you're right of course. Those did arrive with 6.06. I'm referring to the overall brown look (wallpaper, default color scheme, etc.) that has indeed been with Ubuntu since its inception with only small tweaks made here and there with each new version. Take a look at Google images for screenshots of the very first Ubuntu release up to the current 7.10 release. You'll be hard pressed to spot anything significantly different by taking just a passing glance. I expect more from Ubuntu, frankly. With another LTS release looming, they've really missed an opportunity to present something truly spectacular on the surface to match the innovation under the hood.

Well, I see that as branding. Ubuntu is brown and brown is Ubuntu. When you see those brown desktops in a Google search, you know that those are Ubuntu desktops. It is recognised, and they cultivate that brand recognition.

They could, of course, do something keeping the colours but changing other things, like the the theme engine, or the icons, or the panels (which they have done). I, personally, would like that they kept the colours because they help giving the distribution identity, something desirable in a 'market' as diverse as that of Linux distributions

And please forgive any broken English found in this message. I try to keep it within the bounds of sanitary regulations

I take it that you liked Mandriva then ?


Fixed spelling mistake

Edited 2008-03-02 10:44 UTC

I clicked "Report" on your post instead of "Reply" by accident Lucky we have that "Cancel" option.

Yes, I like Mandriva Linux, settings are where you expect them to be, the fonts are sharp and the whole system is responsive. Of course I do have suggestions for the "Install & Remove Software". One of these suggestions would be adding an option for "Select All" in the group. For instance, when you want to install a different desktop environment, the scroll list is huge and for almost every package it asks you whether you want to install the dependencies. So you have to keep pressing Ok, click on the next check box, press Ok for installaing the dependenies again, then click Ok again it asks you again and again and again, my wrist gets tired. There should be a setting like "Yes to All" or "Remember my answer for all for this session" etc

Edit: I also noticed that streaming Windows Media doesn't quite work as it requires the "HTTP Protocol Source Plugin" which is not installed - as displayed by Totem.

Edit: It's working with Kaffeine but in its own window (not embeded). This means, I had to view the source, get the URL, an asx file and paste it in Kaffeine but a Joe user will not know this. Just a thought for the final version...and also, my /dev/sda1 - NTFS from Storage Media is still unaccessible where my FreeAgent drive which is NTFS works fine. There is a padlock icon in /Media/hd (which points to /dev/sda1, NTFS, Windows XP). I assume it has to do something with the permissions or group privilliges. I have only one hard drive and it's SATA.

Edited 2008-03-02 11:16 UTC

Thanks for the compliments.

RPMdrake already has a select all button - bottom left of the window, under the category list. Also, we have metapackages for installing things like complete desktop environments. To install GNOME, install task-gnome. To install KDE, install task-kde. To install KDE 4, install task-kde4. To install XFCE, install task-xfce. Easy, no?

On the other thing, I'm going to take a new approach to the question.

Imagine if we could somehow implement a special system which hid source code tarballs from anyone but distribution developers.

Amazing! Your problem is solved!

Now it's really easy for anyone to install any available software on their Linux distribution of choice.

Oh, sure, the available range of software just went down...about 3%. But it's still more than enough for just about everyone.

Basically: if you don't know what you're doing with source tarballs, and you're not comfortable with learning, then *they're not supposed to be for you*. Linux works on repositories, that's just the way it is.

Yes, a usable 'universal' package system is extremely difficult. The problem is not the package format, that has nothing to do with it. The problem is that distributions are different, simple as that.

Thanks for that!

Install the kaffeine and win32codecs from the plf repository and you will be given a much improved version of kaffeine, one which Mandriva cannot ship for legal reasons, as it provides both encoding and decoding capabilities for all kinds of codecs.

Since most distros come with just about every app "joe User" needs then they dont need to look for a rpm. It's only the same as trying to find the exe, they still have to spend time looking for it and hope it's the right one(Windows/OS X both warn about downloaded content).

Windows has no such repos and nether does OS X so your going on the word of what they say when you download, Linux repos are checked and secure(unless you go for third party which is a small risk).

Edited 2008-03-02 13:33 UTC

In general, I agree with you. But, since Linux is about choice, no standard packaging format has emerged (no pun intended) and different distros have developed their own ways of doing things. I have high hopes for such things as Klik, Autopackage and even 'Click 'n Run' as they offer more universal ways of installing popular software across different distributions. I do disagree that software installation on Windows or Macintosh is somehow better. It's different, but not necessarily better. Linux distributions' repositories are chuck full of every package most users would need and in most cases they're only a mouse-click or two away when using the distro's package manager. Installing packages this way is far more reliable (and secure) than downloading and installing individual packages as is done on Mac or Windows.

The solution is to use a distro based on DEB.
Then, if you are extremely unlucky enough to find an application that has no DEB, use the excellent application ALIEN.

Alien will convert an RPM and all its dependencies into a DEB for you to use with your favourite package manager.

And why is that? What makes a deb based repo superior to rpm?

Popular Linux Mythology.

To a great extent, that's true. It took some Debian users several years to come to terms with the fact that other distros had adopted package manager. And even today, one still hears unsupported claims of something called 'RPM Hell' whatever that might be.

But... there are some practical advantages that deb based distros have compared to rpm based ones.

Package availability for deb based distros is typically sterling. Debian and Ubuntu have something like 19000 - 20000+ packages available. Compare that to Fedora, which has about 9000-10000 available. And that actually does make a difference in the real world. There have been plenty of times where a package I wanted to use was just an apt-get away on my deb based machines, but rather more difficult to locate for my rpm based ones. It used to be that certain out of repo proprietary packages came as rpm or tgz only. But the rise of Ubuntu pretty much put an end to that.

Also, apt *is* very noticeably faster. It's faster at processing the metadata, and it almost always has superior download speeds. I believe it can pull from multiple servers at once. YUM is also a bit clunky. It has more issues with database corruption, requiring an rpm --rebuilddb. I sometimes have to force kill it. And I sometimes have to fiddle with lock files.

And that clunkyness extends to pirut. Synaptic is much nicer.

On the other hand, yum is steadily getting better. And I look forward to delta RPMs actually becoming useful, in practical way, in Fedora 9. Which is nice, because I still generally prefer Fedora to deb based distros. Depending upon the situation, of course.

Did I say it was superior ?

I merely showed that people who use DEB based distros have the capability of converting RPM using alien.

There is no such tool for people on RPM distros

And for good reason. Installing packages from other distributions is not a good idea, no matter what format they're in. Frankly I think Alien is intrinsically irresponsible as it merely encourages people to do something they shouldn't: install packages from other distros. It's a *good* thing there's no automated .deb -> .rpm converter, and I hope no-one writes one.

alien -d

It can also convert deb to rpm, now I am confused!

Stop whining about non-existent problems.

Two easy choices.

1) Easy Urpmi:

http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/

2) Klik (very similar to the Mac's self-contained packages).

http://klik.atekon.de/

The klik client comes preinstalled in many distributions already.

Find better things to complain about, because package management really isn't the real issue.

This is the DUMBEST argument I've heard (not calling parent dumb, just the idea contained in the post).

So you switch back to Windows (XP, vista whatever). Then to use the SAME analogy you used - you want some piece of software that doesn't have an installer (or package) for your version of windows.

What are you going to do?

I think I'll take the linux package option.
If there's no package for mandriva, try one for just about any of the major current distros and it should work fairly well (thanks to LSB). Otherwise contact the project maintainer and see if they are happy to provide mandriva packages (or whatever distro you are running).
In any case, you can convert between the different package managers very easily these days.

And my final point is that sure you can switch to windows but if this package you need so badly is not available for mandriva, it DEFINITELY wont be available on windows. So good luck buying all the software you get for free with Linux. Meanwhile I'll pay off my mortgage with the same money...

You want task-kde-devel (for KDE 3) or task-kde4-devel (for KDE 4).

Thanks for that ;-)

Patrick: we've wanted to do one for a while, but in the end haven't had time to work on it. Situation's same for 2008 Spring, as far as I know: if we have the time to spare, we'll do an XFCE One disc (or if someone in the community builds one and it works well, we'll provide it as a community build). XFCE itself in Mandriva is well maintained and very polished, but building a live CD is an extra step on top of that. If I get more definite info I'll let you know.