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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.

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.