samedi 8 mars 2008

Mandriva Linux is NOT a purely "KDE distribution"

No, Michael, Mandriva Linux is NOT a purely "KDE distribution" and it hasn't been for the last 7 years !

  • All our tools, including our installer, are developed using GTK2 (mostly using Perl bindings for Gtk)
  • our theme (Ia Ora) is available in both GNOME (ie Gtk2) and KDE (Qt) flavor, to make sure applications have a similar look, even if they are not run under their "native" environment
  • we favor default applications to "native" ones for each desktop (ie using KDE applications under KDE and GNOME apps under GNOME)
  • we try to develop features and graphics design in both environments at the same time
  • we ship our live CDs (called Mandriva One) in two flavors (KDE and GNOME)
  • people using our classic installer products (either Powerpack or Free) are asked if they want to install GNOME or KDE (or any other environments we ship, like XFCE)
  • we even offered a GNOME based Mandriva Flash to all attendee to GUADEC last year in Birmingham.
  • for Firefox, we even split the gnome specific modules in a separate package which is installed by defaut only for GNOME install
  • we developped a XSettings server for KDE which tries to ensure GTK2 applications looks decent under KDE, following KDE settings (unfortunately, it is not possible to do the same for Qt/KDE apps under GNOME)
So, I repeat, Mandriva Linux is NOT a purely KDE distribution. It might have been 8 or 9 years ago, when it was originally created, but it is no longer the case for more than half a decade now.

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4 comments:

  1. Nevertheless, when choosing to download mandriva 2008 one, it's the KDE One which is downloaded without choice.
    I think that Mandriva is more a "KDE oriented distro" than a "purely KDE distro". Fortunately, because for we KDE users, Gnome oriented distro like fedora or ubuntu don't care much about KDE.
    So you must not neglect that aspect for Mandriva users choosing Mandriva because they prefer KDE.
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  2. I hope to get the KDE One only download choice fixed for next release (2008 Spring). It is also a matter of simplicity for new users to not bombar them with two different flavors of a product.

    You are mistaken if you think Mandriva Linux is KDE "oriented". We have a KDE history but we think both environments have their pros and their cons and it is up to users to choose which one is better for them.

    And my post was not to downplay Mandriva involvment in KDE nor to predict the dead of KDE in Mandriva Linux. We are committed to cross desktop and we will continue to ship both desktops and develop features for both desktops.
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  3. OK, so you can see here : http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/2008.1_What's_New
    "Mandriva Linux 2008 Spring includes the final release of KDE 3, KDE 3.5.9, as its default desktop environment."
    And may I remind you Mandriva's involvent in supporting KDE's Semantic Desktop and K3B ?
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  4. Dude, I work at Mandriva in engineering team, so I know we are doing developement in BOTH GNOME and KDE, not only in KDE.

    We are not doing directly funding K3B work (but Sebastian Trüeg is an Mandriva employee working on R&D project and he develop K3B on his free time).

    My point was to remind people Mandriva is not a purely KDE distribution, not even KDE "oriented", even if we choose KDE as default environment.
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