Gannin

I've been looking for a good podcatcher, but I've been having trouble finding one that does what I want. All the podcatchers I've found either download all of the episodes available from a podcast all at once, or they just download the first show in the feed and permanently ignore the rest. I would like a podcatcher that downloads the first file available in every feed you're subscribed to, and then stops. And then when you click “download” or “update” again, it goes back and downloads the next show in the rss feed of every podcast you're subscribed to. So that way, you can get the archive of the older shows without having to download them all at once, without having to permanently skip them, and without having to download each older show manually. Any recommendations?

If you boot into another desktop, like Gnome or IceWM, and then try Xine, do you receive any different results?

Ideally what I would like to see, is for Mandriva to have Mandriva Community and Mandriva Business. Mandriva Community could have a new release every six months and a rolling upgrade process in between, while Mandriva Business could be updated once a year. I know this is almost exactly what Red Hat is doing, but I think it would greatly benefit Mandriva as well.

But as I understand it, only club members can contribute packages. The third-party package repos don't really fill in the gap either, as they tend to be missing a lot of software.

Using Gnome and then using a non-HIG application doesn't show that there's anything missing. It just means that someone created a program that you like, and they happened to decide not to follow the HIG. For instance, if someone made a game or a chat client that you really liked and wanted to use, and they decided not to follow the HIG, that wouldn't mean there was anything missing from Gnome. It would just mean that someone made a new program that you wanted to use that doesn't follow the HIG. Bloat can be a bit relative. For instance, on Mandriva, doing a regular install using Gnome instead of KDE takes up more space than using KDE instead of Gnome. However, on Fedora Core, if I remember correctly, doing a regular install with KDE instead of Gnome takes up more space than using Gnome instead of KDE. So Gnome is more bloated in Mandriva, but less bloated in Fedora Core.

When it comes to Mandriva's club model, I think the thing that I question most is only letting club members contribute. I think having a more open contribution system like Fedora is a lot more helpful to a distro.

I know there are some exceptions to this, but basically, the majority of Linux users are one of two types of people. Either they are tech people like us, where if they have a problem they either figure it out themselves, or ask about it on a message board, or find the answer on the Internet, or they're someone that knows a regular Linux user, and that regular Linux user convinced them to give Linux a try. In that case, if they have any questions, they'll just ask the person that convinced them to try Linux. Either way, offering paid support to home users for Linux is not really a viable solution. The only viable solution, as has already been mentioned, is to give paid support to businesses.

I think there is a valid point you're missing through. It's true that for an application to be directly integrated into the Gnome project, it has to follow Gnome's HIG (Human Interface Guidelines). I'm perfectly okay with that, because in my opinion, it makes applications a lot cleaner and easier to use. But, Gnome is based on GTK+. Anyone can build an application for Gnome and follow the HIG or not. A lot of people build applications that, while they're not actually included in the Gnome project itself, are made with Gnome in mind, and simply follow the HIG because they like the way it makes applications look too. But they don't have to. So basically, if an application is integrated into the Gnome project, it follows the HIG. But anyone can make an application intended for Gnome and not follow the HIG if they want to.

The KDE themes may be in the repository, as some are for Mandriva, but that still counts as installing a binary. It's true that in KDE, you can radically change the way the widgets themselves work by intstalling a theme (which must be compiled or installed as a binary), and in Gnome installing a theme simply changes the way the widgets look. But if all you want to do is change the way the widgets look, not how they work, then it's much easier to do that in Gnome.

Also keep in mind configuration. I don't mean the nuts and bolts, though that's easy enough to do in either desktop. I mean the theme. For instance, in KDE, if you want to install a new widget theme, you either have to go through the process of compiling the new theme yourself, which takes a lot of the KDE development packages, or you have to find a binary package that someone else has already made. With Gnome, you just unpack the theme and stick it in ~/.themes and you're done.

I'm referring to some of the driver-type packages out there. For instance, with a regular Mandriva install, if I tell it that I don't have a printer, it doesn't install any of the extra printer packages (hplip, cups, etc.) But with Mandriva One, it installs it all, whether I have a printer or not.

I'm not saying it's unique, I'm just saying it's a bit of a mess. For instance, if I'm installing the regular Mandriva product and I don't plan on using my Palm Pilot with my computer and I don't like evolution, I can deselect those packages before installation. With Mandriva One, absolutely everything on the CD gets installed, and then you have to go back and uninstall whatever you don't want later. And instead of only installing drivers for the hardware it detects on your system, again, it installs absolutely everything on the CD, so you end up with a bunch of useless software packages floating around taking up space.

Also keep in mind that while there will be some Gnome supporters here, when you're asking on a specific distro's board what everyone's favorite desktop is, you'll generally get more support for the default desktop of that distro. Here, most people probably prefer KDE. At Ubuntu's board, most people probably prefer Gnome.

I prefer Gnome. It seems more solid to me. I found a recent discussion at another forum discussing this very same issue. Perhaps it'll be of use to you. http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread....threadid=145424

Not to the same degree.