I wasn't comparing package formats at all. I only mention RPM to generalize the type of distro. It was definitely more recent then 12 years ago. Maybe it wasn'

I wasn't comparing package formats at all. I only mention RPM to generalize the type of distro. It was definitely more recent then 12 years ago. Maybe it wasn't mandriva but it was a kde based distro. I prefer KDE and many of the recommended ones are RPM based so recently I tried many of them but their installations were far more limited compared to Linux Mint/Ubuntu/MX and the resulting system didn't feel like something I had much control over.