Mageia forum

Though most distro covers all the other desktop environment/manager,
but due to resources constraint (or preference of the lead developer), most distro have a main DM/DW e.g.

Fedora -> Gnome3
Linux Mint -> Gnome2
Mandriva -> KDE etc.

which is good.
This shows the distro's main strength, while giving and option to it's users.


Having said that, am I right to understand that Mageia's main desktop environment is KDE,
since it is a fork of Mandriva?

I believe KDE is main environment also. But I downloaded the dual arch cd when I installed it and it installed LXDE by default. Although I'm a Gnome user by default!

No DE is getting more attention less than another... if there're packagers/devs maintaining it, they maintain it, that's all.

What I mean to say is, there's no rule/direction to care for one DE on the expense of another.

When i saw Gnome 3, i suddenly became a KDE fan.
So i think it's better to use KDE as a centric DE. More options, settings and nothing wasn't deleted as in gnome. And i don't think what mageia must be so nonfunctional as Gnome is.

Gnome degrades with every new release.

As for LXDE and Fluxbox, i got nothing against them

ReckouNT wrote:When i saw Gnome 3, i suddenly became a KDE fan.
So i think it's better to use KDE as a centric DE. More options, settings and nothing wasn't deleted as in gnome. And i don't think what mageia must be so nonfunctional as Gnome is.

Gnome degrades with every new release.

Well, Gnome 3 is like KDE 4.0. Give them a little chance.
(Note that I'm a KDE fan)

And I think that people should have their DE of choice, and Mageia should be able to provide a good experience in all DEs.

The Gnome variant of the Mageia Beta 2 works well, with a very straightforward two-panel interface. The KDE version also works well, but does have a slightly more polished feel. This will in part be because KDE 4.6.x already offers a more modern desktop environment than Gnome 2, and is now quite a mature product. In addition, I imagine that the developers envisage moving to some version of the Gnome Shell and the GTK 3 framework during the next iteration of Mageia, and may therefore have been happy to settle for a reasonably spare, but perfectly functional, Gnome interface this time around.

So far as the KDE version is concerned, my only request would be to have the "kicker" (or whatever it's called) menu as the default. This is mainly because the "Favourites" facility in the hierarchical menu is something of a poor relation to its equivalent in the "kicker" menu (I'd accept that, when you are accessing less frequently used packages, the "kicker" setup can be a little slower than the hierarchical setup, but that's a price I'm more than happy to pay). I can and have changed my own menu to the "kicker" format, but the process could be confusing for newcomers. However, all the facilities you are likely to want, except for K3B, which can be installed in seconds, are readily accessible from the existing menu. It would have been very nice to have K3B on the LiveCD, but the developers have already packed a lot into the 700MB available.

Whichever desktop you choose, the developers have done an excellent job, and Mageia can only improve as it attracts a bigger user community.