Mandriva Linux 2010 GNOME – Solid and Sweet

I had a quick look at the Mandriva Linux 2010 GNOME edition and it turned out to be great. Having used Mandriva Linux 2009 and 2009

Mandriva Linux 2010 - GNOME Desktop

Spring GNOME, I was certain that this release is going to be as solid as stable as it ever was. The GNOME edition provides one of the best, stable desktop experiences. If KDE stands for innovation and glittering eye candy, GNOME is all about stability. It just gets out of your way when you work. Of course, you can also get all the eye candy by enabling Compiz. There is also new artwork in Steel blue and Mandriva has introduced a new Steel theme for the window decoration to go with it.

Here is a quick look at the other stuff.

Software

The 2010 release comes with the following software and more.

• GNOME 2.28
• Firefox 3.5.3
• OpenOffice.org 3.1.1
• GIMP
• Empathy Instant Messenger

Pidgin has been left out in favour of Empathy. I am still not so comfortable using Empathy. Other than this, there are no other surprises. Mandriva’s control center is still the one stop shop for admin needs.

One problem I faced is that I could not install any Adobe AIR apps. They seemed to be failing and I was not sure why. This happened on the KDE edition as well and so nothing specific to the GNOME edition.

Conclusion

After running Mandriva Linux 2010 GNOME for a couple of days, I could say, Mandriva Linux 2010 GNOME edition is as stable as its predecessors with newer versions of popular software and makes a great desktop experience.

Screenshots

As usual, here are a few screenshots.

My experiment with dark themes

There are two things that I have never changed in my Mandriva installation. They are the GTK theme and the Metacity window decoration. Mandriva’s default GTK theme, in my opinion, is one of the best default themes on a Linux desktop. Recently, I wanted to test how some of the dark themes measured against it. I would like to mention that I have a strong dislike for darker themes and this is one of the reasons I want to use it and see if I can come out good after a week or so. So, I embarked upon an experiment to use a top dark GTK theme and see how things work out after a period of a week or two.

I downloaded the Shiki-Colors GTK and Metacity themes and installed them. Shiki colors is one of the top themes on gnome-look.org. I already use the GNOME-Colors icon theme which is one of the best icon themes around. After all the setup, my desktop looked something like this.

My Desktop

As far as the experience was concerned, I breezed through Day 1 – the day I changed everything. However, on Day 2, as my laptop booted, I was a bit surprised first and then realized I had changed everything the previous day. Guess I have not got used to the dark theme yet . Let me see how it turns out at the end of the week

Mandriva Linux One 2008.1 Spring GNOME – Screenshots

As I promised in my previous post, I finally managed to capture a few screenshots of the lovely Mandrvia Linux One 2008.1 Spring – GNOME edition.

Go here to enjoy the screenshots. I could not resist including the Mandriva Control Center screenshots since the Mandriva Control Center is a great piece of software that differentiates this distro from the rest out there.

Mandriva One 2008.1 Spring GNOME

I am currently playing with Mandriva One 2008.1 Spring GNOME version. It has the same polish and smoothness as the KDE version. It is a shame that I am currently running it on QEMU. In a few days I would decide whether I would replace Ubuntu with one of Mandriva versions. Their La Ora theme is gorgeous and combined with the Mandriva Control Center this distro is awesome. Here is a single screen shot. More to come in a few days. Stay tuned

Mandriva One 2008.1 Spring - GNOME