A few days after Mark Shuttleworth, Gaël Duval, founder of Linux Mandrake, now Mandriva, posted a FAQ related to his distribution. He addresses some controversial issues such as Will Mandriva ever demand licence fees?, How can a free software based company be sustainable? and even Why is the default desktop in Mandriva Linux blue?
“and even Why is the default desktop in Mandriva Linux blue?”
Maybe because blue is a more sensible choice than brown in most cases?
Maybe because blue is a more sensible choice than brown in most cases?
Whether you like the brown color of Ubuntu or not– it does serve it’s purpose.
Name one other distribution that is recognizable by colour only.
The more people whine about it, the more identity is given to Ubuntu. Hence, it is serving its purpose.
Yea, maybe you’re right. Now there’s no chance they’ll change it… gah!!!
No, I think Mark has said they will change it after Dapper Drake.
Name one other distribution that is recognizable by colour only.
Never thought about that. Sometimes I can spot a SuSE desktop from the particular shade of green, but they aren’t very consistent about it. Mandrake/Mandriva also use a particular shade of purple, which is noticeable, but again, I don’t think they’re as consistent, and Redhat/Fedora uses the Bluecurve blue, but it’s been emulated often enough.
So I guess Ubuntu wins it for choosing a color no one else would use, and no one else will copy.
So I guess Ubuntu wins it for choosing a color no one else would use, and no one else will copy.
At least, no one with a sane mind.
“So I guess Ubuntu wins it for choosing a color no one else would use, and no one else will copy.”
I wonder why :^)
So the purpose is to suck? I read those complaints as more for the lack of color but hey that’s way better than trying for an identity of just working right out of the box.
in my humble opinion, blue for a desktop is about as sensible as blue for a leather shoe.
javajazz
Because you do the same things with your desktop and your leather shoes? You step on it?
Oh, c’mon.
Have you ever seen a blue desktop? I mean the real thing, not the screen background.
Desktops — table desktops — are traditionally made out of wood (that is, they’re _brown_) or are covered with dark green felt under a glass sheet.
So, no blue.
In fact, despite the reasoning that blue offers great contrast for many objects (our peripheral vision sees better blue, and other nifty curios about our evolved vision)… we live essentially in a non-blue landscape. Apart from the sky (which we don’t touch) and the sea (in which we don’t live), all things are green or brown — not blue — and not like shiny metal, BTW.
So, I guess blue being sensible is open for discussion, at the very least.
I find blue distracting.
dòLób
or becasue it looks like the OS X one.
Good to see Mandriva replying !
Maybe they will start communicate better, Mandriva has changed a lot, they need to explain all the efforts they are doing, mostly requested by simple users like me.
Yep, agreed – Mandriva needs to communicate effectively alot more often with the wider desktop Linux community[i] – it’s pretty clear that it’s recently lost some “mindshare” to the likes of Ubuntu and SuSE amongst others (not that it’s unusual for interest in distributions to fluctuate over time).
Mandriva clearly produces one of the best general purpose distributions out there (nobody seriously doubts that) – however – it [i]does need to step up efforts to communicate effectively and more regularly with the wider desktop Linux community.
Actually Gael Duval has been doing this sort of thing every once in a while for years, so did Joseph Cheek when Lycoris was still around. With quite a few distributions you can talk to the person in charge, although I’ve never gotten to talk to anyone of importance at Novell/SUSE before 🙁 .
why all the talk about debian, isn’t mandriva an rpm based distro?
Because he’s tired of all the buzz around Ubuntu and things that already exist in Mandriva since a long time ago. He’s tired that when Ubuntu launches an OEM install, it creates a big buzz like it has never been done before, whereas Mandriva, SUSE, Red Hat have tools to do that since a long time ago. He’s tired of misinformation around Mandriva (yes forums are free, yes knowledge base is free, yes they do have to make money somewhere to live and that’s why the club exist). I am wondering if I’m talking about him or myself…
> He’s tired that when Ubuntu launches an OEM install, > it creates a big buzz like it has never been done
> before, whereas Mandriva, SUSE, Red Hat have tools
> to do that since a long time ago.
This is called marketing.
It made Microsoft and Apple what they are.
The lack of it killed BeOS and OS/2.
Good to see somone talking about working on binary compatability. I have having to scourge the net for installation instructions for my particular distro everytime I want to install non-repository software.
I meant ‘hate having to’ not ‘have having to’
Oh well, that what you get for posting anonymous
What, you mean you can’t remember “./configure; make; make install” from one occurence to the next?
Meanwhile, if you ran Mandrake, you’d find that there’s very little software that isn’t in the distro repositories.
What distro are you running?
..no Ubuntu news today?
I want to know if Mark slept well, or if he farted, or what he ate for breakfast! OSNews, more Ubuntu news please!
Heh, heh. This guy has a great sense of humour. A nice pastiche of Shuttleworth’s FAQ.
I’ve sometimes wondered why many features that are common to most modern GNU/Linux distros are considered somehow amazing, awesome, wonderful & brilliant in Ubuntu but the exact same features are not so amazing in other distros. I guess Gaël Duval has also wondered about this mystery. 😀
I tried ubuntu myself yesterday and I was absolutely pissed off to have to manually eject my inserted photo cd because the eject button didn’t work.. (I have to go to the contextual menu)
Come on it’s working in mandrake since the 7.2 version I guess
Very good to let the people know who you are , what you do and have done.Most people aren’t shocked by the choosen default desktop colour but have a legitimate wuestion why they have choosen.Makes a distor more human,and above all the people and their ideas behind it.
Nice initiative,also the Ubuntu one.
“*Will Mandriva ever demand licence fees or royalties?*
Absolutely not. We do Free Software. All the code created by Mandriva is published under the GPL. We don’t do proprietary software.”
Even the X.org binaries? 😛
Well, the X.org isn’t made by Mandriva
The binaries are not code made by Mandriva of their own code, but are binaries made by Mandriva of non-Mandriva source.
Okay. You got me. LOL.
Everyone who is complaining about the brown color in Ubuntu should either
a) not use Ubuntu
b) change the colorscheme
c) read this posting: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=14649
I go with option c: Silver and especially blue are really sucked out.
Hell, even http://www.ubuntulinux.org and http://www.ubuntuforums.org use both a brown based colour theme that is better than the Ubuntu Linux default theme when you first boot it. You want warm colours, fine, but do it right for God’s sake!
Are nearly all those commands representive for the average computer user?A user that is heavily bound by the colour of the desktop or is he/she actually doing something with the machine?That’s what i would like to know.
Even so i think this is OS-news and not the daily telegraph with all respect.
Compared to Madriva, Ubuntu is a developing child. Mandrake has had the functionality that Ubuntu user rave about since version 7 and while I actually think Ubuntu is an okay distro, the truth about Ubuntu is that if Debian didn’t move at a snails pace for releases, it probably wouldn’t even exist. While Duval did mention that ominous brown color, notice that he he speaks of compatibility with Debian and not Ubuntu. Ubunto is the little engine that could, but Mandriva’s already done everything that they’re getting their users excited about.
Let me know when Ubuntu is Centrino certified, has gui based tools for noobs to configure everything, has Commercial and government contracts,and a public offering that attracts paying participants instead of would be marketing fan boys and girls
Having said all that, I really hope Ubuntu succeeds, because Mandriva has already proven that they’re more than willing to compete on all fronts and they’re getting better at it every day. Now if only someone would tell Mandriva to kill KAT until tenor is ready and re-release their packages with Beagle.
While I agree that shipping kat in Mandriva 2006 was a mistake, I love that this guy (Gaël Duval) shows so much support in the project (they even host kat website : kat.mandriva.com).
Ubunto is the little engine that could, but Mandriva’s already done everything that they’re getting their users excited about.
Not to knock Mandriva but it can’t get me GNOME the day it’s released on one cd along with .deb based package management. People have their preferences. Mandriva’s maturity isn’t enough to pull me away from GNOME. Other’s have their own reasons.
I am one of the few people who thinks the brown colour scheme of Ubuntu is really pretty cool?! 😉
The .deb format is a liability if you want to run multiple architectures at the same time, e.g x86_64 and x86. On Mandriva there is no need to chroot as you need to do with Debian or Ubuntu. Nowadays it just works, thanks to the hard work that Mandriva put into this side of things.
BTW I use Debian on servers, as I appreciate the multiple versions of packages like python, which is essential for running zope/plone. Mandriva is weak in this respect, as I’ve yet to see a python 2.3 RPM for Mandriva 2006, for instance. If it were strong in this area, I’d be happy to stick with Mandriva, but alas.
Damon
What’s so bloody wrong with brown? Are people so used to everything being blue or silver that find it disturbing if it isn’t?
At least the Ubuntu brown is not intrusive or distracting. If you want ugly, try Linare:
http://www.linare.com/linare-linux.php
Now, that’s a friggin eyesore.
OMG! I’d never expect to find anything worse than Ubuntu. This is ridiculous. What’s wrong with this people/Ubuntu people? Hire designers for the love of God. Brown itself is not the problem, as we have seen this green desktop sucks more than a vacuum cleaner. The problem is that brown is such a difficult colour to make a good theme, that it will most probably end up like crap as it does on Ubuntu theme. If you want inovate on desktop design, hire designers to do it, and not coders… geez.
Canonical has had professional graphic designers do everything from the logo, to the color scheme, to the splash screens and backgrounds since it’s inception. Only recently has a community-lead team been put together for working on official artwork. (and we mostly like the brown)
There are Canonical devs that work on artwork, but they’re obviously good at it. I’m a full time graphic designer. If I learn to code does that make me less of a designer, or somehow inhibit my ability to learn to code? That just doesn’t make any sense.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. It’s as simple as that. If you ever visit distrowatch.com, you’ll notice that SOMEONE likes it.
I have yet to try out Mandriva 2006, but my experience with Mandrake 10 Power Pack was awesome – probably the best overall experience I’ve had with any Linux distro (and I’ve been a distro whore, including with Ubuntu).
I also think that Mandriva has it’s act together as a business. They understand the market. They understand how to make money with free software. They pay 130 people, half of which are developers, to enhance their product (and all GPL, freely redistributable). And they are profitable, after emerging out of bankruptcy.
I think Gael Duval has his act together too. He’s a smart cookie both in terms of business and technical. And, obviously, he has a sense of humor. He is probably, quite understandably, a bit annoyed with the attention and hype Ubuntu is receiving, when he knows full well that his distro is vastly superior to Ubuntu (I honestly think most people who have used both would agree – I have and I liked Ubuntu, but it did not come close to Mandrake/Mandriva). So Duval does a funny tongue in cheek take off on Shuttleworth’s FAQ, while at the same time providing good info on Mandriva.
I am a newly paid up Mandriva Club Silver member. I have been using Mandriva/Mandrake as my main OS since Mandrake 10.0 dumped XP off my machines for good.
I used the download editions from 10.0 to 10.2, then I installed 2005LE from a magazine DVD.
I liked 10.2 better than 2005 for some reason, dunno if it was the screwed up crow or not
but I urpmi from 2005 to 2006 and it was sweet.
However, Mandriva are now offering membership on a pay-per-month basis, so I signed up to a Silver membership and downloaded 2006 Discovery pack.
I installed it on this machine and it is simply amazing compared to the upgrade route. The KDE system is well snappy compared to before and has a smaller memory footprint, and the machine starts in less than a minute from boot to KDE desktop, and that is without initNG.
I was also a distro whore, but then, thats the best thing about having /home on a separate drive
Looks like now, I will settle on Mandriva, and use Discovery on friends and families PC’s and Powerpack on me own.
Mandriva 2006 is well worth trying out Jeff – download the FREE 3 .iso set in a few weeks or you do an FTP install etc now – it’s more polished than ever (the installer’s real classy now
) – boot-up times are as quick as hell – the desktop’s snappy as ever (KAT and a few other “bits” can be “disabled” if desired) – Fluxbox is included along with ICE now (on the discs), to make a very lean, snappy, minimal setup. All in all, good incremental improvements across the board – certainly well worth having on a spare partition along side your other distros 
I sure hope the folks at Mandriva, Ubuntu, Red Hat and what ever other linux based business have more sense than most of you display here or linux is doomed commercially.
My distro is better but yours gets all the attention, that’s not fair. Besides it is ugly brown. No one can like ugly brown. I know linux is about the freedom to change and to choose and <add whatever you want here>, but you can’t do anything I don’t want. It is my right to complain even if what I am complaining about has nothing to do with me.
I can remember when the same thing was being said about Mandrake Linux.
I dislike revisionist history, even if he does make a tongue-in-cheek reference to it early on. He launched something called “Mandrake” Linux… not “Mandriva” Linux.
…but Mandriva is hard to beat. Great operating system.
I left Mandrake for Debian and later ubuntu before they made the name change to Mandriva, I found the whole distro a little *too nannying* for my liking. But this article has cracked me up, pure genious… This guy is a comedic master!! I really hope Mark comes up with some witty retort to this, or perhaps bucks his ideas up and starts working on that “binary compatibility” thing… I’m fed up of debian packaged not installing on ubuntu because kdelibs and qt3devsomething are called different names in ubuntu to debian. Duval hit the nail on the head with his comments on this, and it’s my only real quibble with ubuntu
Mandriva can be as “minimal” & “power-user” ish as you want it to be – I’ve got fairly minimal custom installs of Mandriva on around 500 mb disk space, consisting of Fluxbox, Eterm, VIM, NEdit, XChat, Firefox, MCC and very little else – so as you can see, you can implement a fairly light-weight setup from a standard Mandriva distribution.
(With Mandriva I typically go for the custom install – then strip out all the tickboxes down to around 275 mb, then “manually” select the packages that I want (including X, the 75’s, the WM etc, etc))
According to colour theory, colours that have a blue undertone such as violets, blues, aquas, and greens. The shade of brown Ubuntu uses as default is a warm colour (warm colours have a yellow undertone). Cool colours are better for desktop backgrounds (and around the desktop for that matter because of three reasons:
1. By design, you monitor screen is bright because it emits light. Cool colours are suitable here.
2. Desktops are meant primarily to be conducive to work – cool colours are less distracting and more relaxing.
3. Cool colours are detached – it doesn’t attract attention. No distraction from the desktop background = good.
That’s why Mac OS uses blue, Windows 3.x until Windows XP uses various shades of blue, Windows Vista uses (in the betas) green. Even on consumer products like PDAs and phones, greens and blues are favoured as the default to browns, reds, oranges and yellows. It makes more usability sense – warm colours should be avoided unless in areas where you’re trying to attract attention; neutral colours (whites, greys, blacks, beiges) should be the primary desktop colour.
Brown could be a neutral colour, but not the shade Ubuntu choosed.
After all these posts talking about how Mandriva is better than Ubuntu I decided to try it.
But I go to Mandriva’s page only to find that to get an ISO of 2006 I have to give them money. Great
A free ISO of a distro the day it’s released is also a feature. The lack of which is stopping me from even trying Mandriva now. This shouldn’t be overlooked when wondering why Ubuntu is so popular.
You only ave to give Mandriva money if you want the ISO NOW. That fact has been pointed out in previous comments. If you want to wait a few weeks, ISOs will be generally available.
You can download boot.iso from the repository and do a network install if you can’t wait.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.