[dot] KDE and Distributions: ALT Linux Interview

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1193222849/

From: Wade <olson at kde.org>
Dept: incredible-educational-opportunities
Date: Wednesday 24/Oct/2007, @03:47

KDE and Distributions: ALT Linux Interview
==========================================

   As part of our KDE and Distributions series (1
[http://dot.kde.org/1153960955/], 2 [http://dot.kde.org/1150244865/], 3
[http://dot.kde.org/1152563989/], 4 [http://dot.kde.org/1162426636/])
KDE Dot News spoke to representatives from Alt Linux
[http://www.altlinux.ru/]. Russia recently announced plans to include
GNU/Linux in every school in the country
[http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/09/14/266177], and ALT
Linux hopes to be the chosen distribution.  Below CEO Alexey Smirnov and
Andrey Cherepanov answer our questions about their relationship with
KDE.



                                  PAST


  I. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE HISTORY OF ALT LINUX? WHAT WERE YOUR
INITIAL GOALS?

     ALT Linux was established in 2001 as a result of merger between IP
Labs Linux Team and Linux RuNet, both involved in creation of
GNU/Linux-based solutions since 1997. The primary focus of the company
lies in the sphere of development of Free Software and GNU/Linux-based
solutions.


 II. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE KDE AND WHICH VERSION OF KDE DID YOU FIRST
IMPLEMENT?

     Our first distribution included KDE 2.1. At that time we inherited
Mandrake's tradition of having KDE as the default environment.


III. HOW DID YOU FIND INITIAL SUPPORT FOR A NEW DISTRO?  IS ALT LINUX
BASED ON ANOTHER EXISTING DISTRO?

     ALT Linux started with tailoring of Mandrake Linux for the Russian
market. However, it soon became evident that full-fledged technical
support and more extensive customization were impossible without having
a package repository and establishing the distribution development cycle
of our own. That is why we created Sisyphus, which is now one of world's
5 largest Linux-based Free Software repositories.


 IV. WHAT COULD KDE HAVE DONE BETTER TO HELP NEW DISTROS USE KDE?

     KDE was (and still stays) an attractive environment for both
newcomers migrating from Windows and experienced users. The primary
factors that determined our choice were attractive look-and-feel,
customization features and a rich pack of applications.


  V. WHAT WERE YOUR FIRST IMPRESSIONS ABOUT KDE'S DOCUMENTATION AND
COMMUNITY?

     KDE had decent documentation, and its community treated companies
and individual users in an equally friendly manner.



                                PRESENT


  I. IT IS AN EXCITING TIME FOR ALT LINUX.  CAN YOU SHARE YOUR
OPPORTUNITIES AND RECENT NEWS?

     In mid-2007 we launched a new 4.0 branch of ALT Linux
distributions. The first was ALT Linux 4.0 Server with support for
virtualisation and our own browser-based management framework named
ALTerator. By the end of August we announced a desktop version ALT Linux
4.0 Desktop with KDE as default environment.

     Now we are working on ALT Linux 4.0 Desktop Lite, a distribution
for less powerful computers and on ALT Linux 4.0 Small Business, which
will include WINE at Etersoft Local, a tool that allows to run accounting
and legislation database software particularly widespread in Russia.

     Since 2003 we release distributions targeted at schools and are now
working on a new version of ALT Linux 4.0 Junior for Russian schools
that will include the full set of KDE Edu applications and other Free
educational programs.

     Russian Ministry of Education and Ministry of Information
Technology and Communications will soon announce a public tender for
development and deployment of a GNU/Linux distribution for Russian
schools. According to the government plans, this distribution will be
installed on all the school computers in 65,000 schools in Russia (up to
675,000 computers).  We will certainly take part in this tender.


 II. DO YOU FEEL THAT YOU HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH THE KDE
COMMUNITY?

     Yes, we maintain a close relationship with the KDE community,
particularly in the area of the Russian localisation. One of the key
members of the Russian KDE translation community, Andrey Cherepanov, is
currently employed by ALT Linux.


III. WHAT ARE THINGS THAT KDE CAN DO TO HELP ALT LINUX WITH ALL OF THIS
ACTIVITY?

     We believe that KDE team should pay more attention to the quality
of applications and their usability (maybe interfaces need to be
simplified a bit without sacrificing their functionality). Special
attention needs to be drawn to the needs of enterprise users,
development of deployment and management tools.


 IV. DO YOU HAVE ANY USER FEEDBACK MECHANISM? IF SO, WHAT FEEDBACK DO
THEY HAVE ABOUT ALT LINUX AND KDE?

     Our users communicate with developers directly by means of mailing
lists. We have bugzilla for tracking of bugs and feature requests on our
products. The mailing lists and bugzilla allow users to communicate in
Russian, which brings down the language barrier for many of them.


  V. IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU CUSTOMISE KDE?  ANY CHANGES THAT ARE MOVED BACK
UPSTREAM TO KDE?

     We do not change KDE deeply as Novell/SUSE does -- it is nice
enough in its original implementation. However, we include a patch for
quick search in KDE menu and also use a unified icon theme based on
Tango and a unified widget style QTCurve, which allows us to make
consistent the look-and-feel of KDE and GNOME/GTK+ applications.


 VI. WHAT KDE APPLICATIONS ARE THE MOST POPULAR AMONG YOUR USERS?

     Konqueror, Kontact, Kopete, Amarok.



                                 FUTURE


  I. WHAT CHALLENGES DOES ALT LINUX HAVE WITH ALL OF THESE
OPPORTUNITIES?

     We will continue developing quality GNU/Linux distributions for
servers and workstations. We are ready to offer our package repository
management technologies to any interested party.


 II. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON KDE 4.0 AND HOW IT PERTAINS TO ALT LINUX'
GOALS?

     We hope that KDE 4.0 will increase users' productivity and will
offer developers a powerful environment to realise their ideas. Both KDE
and ALT Linux seek to make user experience in GNU/Linux environment
really comfortable.


III. ANY OTHER PLANS FOR YOUR DISTRO IN THE FUTURE?

     We plan to take an active part in the programme of deployment of
GNU/Linux on all computers in schools and government. We hope that a new
support infrastructure for GNU/Linux across the whole Russia will be
created within this project, which will make the migration possible not
only for schools, but also for IT infrastructure of government agencies,
business and home users. The Russian government expects to migrate up to
50% of computers within the government sector to Free Software within
the next few years.