OPEN BYTES – cave quid dicis, quando, et cui.

Totally free and based on Hardy 8.04 LTS. Enough to make you change your lifestyle?

So I have the opportunity to take a look at another Ubuntu derived distro.  There seems to be many in the DistroWatch spotlight, what with MoonOS, Trisquel, Mint 7 (Xfce) to name a few.

gNewSense 2.3 is derived from Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) and has a comprehensive list of software pre-installed for your enjoyment.

I chose GnewSense as it proudly contains 100% free software.   I  apologize for this review being shorter than usual, but with any distro based on Ubuntu you can guarantee (almost) a “minimum standards” of performance, which in turn does not help to find things new to review!

PACKAGES/FEATURES

As with Ubuntu 8.04 LiveCD installation is effortless with Ubuntu “holding your hand” or allowing you to be creative with your install.  Hardware was detected immediately and as always with an Ubuntu derived distro I had no issues to report about.

gNewsense 2.3 comes bundled with: Gnote, GIMP 2.4.5, OpenOffice 2.4, Transmission 1.06, Totem 2.22.1 and a host of those play once games that you usually get as default with an Ubuntu distro.  It was nice to see no real duplication here (which some Ubuntu derivatives are guilt of…..looking at #!CBL) so that is a plus.

There is really not much more to say in respect of whats bundled, if you’ve used 8.04Heron then you will know what to expect, accept gNewsense has been stripped of any none free software.

CONCLUSIONS

gNewsense’s strongest point is that when you install it you are running completely free software.  It was very nice to see that Mono and subsequently f-spot, tomboy et al are absent from this distro.  It was also nice to have the distro based off a LTS and you can almost guarantee its damn stable.  That is also its drawback, its based on an Ubuntu that is over 1 year old and subsequently the packages its bundled with are also old.  Transmission is currently in version 1.75 whereas gNewsense is offering 1.05 which is over a year old.  This is typical of all the packages included with gNewsense and infact Totem which 2.22.1 comes as default I believe is closer to 2 years old if not older.

I am left wondering why someone would choose to install this.  Supporters of free software with Linux experience can easily strip away the non free and bloat if they wish, whilst new users to Linux will IMO be wanting to go for the all singing all dancing “out of the box” proprietary included distro’s…to me a total non-free existence is too big a step for the new user coming straight from Windows.

For the average user I don’t believe they care if the software is open or closed source and that the first priority is out of the box compat.

I made a similar distro of my own (it only has been deployed on one machine in my home!)  which effectively stripped away everything that GS does, it also included far more up to date installs of the latest software and is currently very happy supporting the latest build of Chromium.

I really hope that I am not missing something from GS and if there is a compelling reason to use it, please let me know.  As I see it at present its not the distro I would recommend to a new user and its certainly not offering anything the experienced Linux user can’t do themselves…..please correct me if I’m wrong.

Goblin – bytes4free@google.com

Simple, fast and unbreakable even for the most un-savvy of users!

It was curiosity not necessity than encouraged me to download and burn the liveCD of Webconverger.  Currently in release 5.5, this distro is aimed towards those who intend on using a PC in an internet kiosk type scenario.  Thats not to say that home users will not have a need for it, but as a distro for productivity is probably not the best option for the home user.

Essentially Webconverger is a Web browser sitting ontop of the Linux Kernel.  Debian derived it really is Linux in a very simple form.  The LiveCD takes around 30 seconds to boot and immediately puts you into a browser (Iceweasel 3) at the Webconverger home page.  With the .iso coming in at around 250mb its not going to take long to download and burn.

The homepage itself seems to echo the ethos of “simple” & functional and you can visit it here.

FEATURES/PACKAGES

Theres no packages so to speak available to the user on the LiveCD although Adobe 10.0.32.18 are running out of the box.   Webconverger is  not intended to be a complete desktop solution though and in places like internet cafe’s its often frowned upon when users want to start installing things!

Web pages (as you’d expect) can be tabbed and the current session will be closed when the homepage tab is terminated.  This results in history being reset and all ready for a new user!  There are no login’s/passwords for users to contend with further cementing ease of use for any user!

So what is provided on the homepage?

Users are presented with a few online app’s links.   Googledocs and an online app which I have never used before, Letterly (this allows quick generation of standard letters)

Webconverger is reported to run on less than 128 meg of ram which makes it suitable to turn your old redundant hardware into webstations!

On the Grub menu is the option to install to HD and the website contains various options for download.

For those who want a customized version and don’t have the knowledge to do so themselves Webconverger offers that service for you.  For more details see: http://webconverger.com/buy/

CONCLUSIONS

Whilst the home user isn’t going to consider this as their main desktop solution (IMO).  What it does, it does very very well.  Boot time even from the LiveCD was very good and the system is virtually unbreakable, even for the most persistent of users!

I was very impressed with the speed in which BBCiplayer performed on the test machine,  giving a very smooth results even in full-screen.  I also tested it on the Twitterfall site which often appears to bog browsers down after when there are numerous other tabs in use.  This did not happen with Webconverger and scrolling remained smooth.

With all the options of Iceweasel disabled (no right click, no menus, no window resize,no bookmarking) this distro really is unbreakable for the average careless user!

At first glance you would be forgiven for thinking that Webconverger has a limited audience (ie as a Web kiosk) however I think thats rather unfair since Webconverger could be used in a variety of situations.  The person who has no interest or experience of computing (let alone Linux) would benefit greatly if all they wanted to do was to surf and access net apps.  The beauty of this distro is that its very unlikely you will receive phone calls with problems/errors.

On my test machine all hardware was configured automatically and correctly, so for out of the box compat Webconverger scores a hit there too!

I’d recommend this distro and Ill certainly be adding a few more redundant PC’s to my home as a result of Webconverger, as well as resting easy when someone simply wants a PC to surf (I have a silver surfing Gran in mind)!

Webconverger 5.5 can be downloaded from its homepage: http://webconverger.com/

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Written by Chips B Malroy

Welcome to my review of PCLinuxOS 2009.2.  This is a 32 bit KDE desktop based on Mandriva, and as some like to call it, the better Mandriva.  Myself, I cannot say that, because I have not had the pleasure of testing Mandriva of late.   PCLinuxOS is also a live CD which makes testing easy to check to see if all your hardware works with it, before installing.  Myself, distro’s like this with their Live CD’s, have spoiled me, and I resist trying anything that is not a Live Cd.

PCLinuxOS - reviewed by Chips. Hopefully one of many he will submit in the future!

PCLinuxOS is currently at number 7 on the Distrowatch list, which means its a very popular distro indeed.  Being based on Mandriva it uses RPM’s, but still has Synaptic Package Manager to install software post-install.  This is one of the features that, in my opinion, that new users need, not that more advanced users would not use it also.   Texstar and the Ripper gang, are the ones who put out PCLinuxOS.  Texstar, can sometimes be found actually commenting on the forum, and answering questions.  Which is unusual for a distro’s maker, or founder, to do often, but I find it refreshing.  The users forum is one of the most friendly around, with lots of good advice.  They the PCLinuxOS community have done a great job of documentation.  User forum is at:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=58

One nice small feature that I noticed right away during the live cd bootup, was the graphical log-in screen.  Unlike some distros, PCLinuxOS actually has the usernames and passwords for the live cd log-in on the upper left hand corner.  Now most distro’s usually use the same password as the user name, but occasionally I have found some that I had to go hunt it down in their forums, so this small feature, is a nice feature for New Users.    PCLinuxOS uses su instead of sudo, which is effident on the log-in screen.  My preference is su, yours may not be.

Abiword is what is installed, although with most distro’s you can post install OpenOffice or Koffice.  While I can use any of these, I actually like Abiword as its quicker to bring up and does 99% of what I want to do.   There is even an “get OpenOffice” item on the menu.  KDE 3.5.10 is the default window manager,  which will be the last version to use this before 4x.  Its just my personal preference he, but I prefer KDE version 3.5.10 at this point in time, and can wait for the next version of PCLinuxOS to come out with the KDE4x then.   Again, just my opinion, but I think Tex did it right to keep KDE3 with this release, for now.

Setting up the wireless card was not as straight forward as I would have liked it.   But then I did not read the documentation or visit the user forum.  I still muddled through it, and soon had it working.  It was a combination of right clicking on the network icon on the task bar, and somehow detecting the card, and then scanning for the available network.  It wasn’t really hard, just different than the ways I have done on the distro I use.  After being a dummy and going through that, I later found a folder on the desktop called Utilities, that had a very simple to use “network setup” in it that practically would have held my hand and walked me through the setup.  I just wasn’t expecting it to be this easy.  So I had to try it again, and can confirm it was that easy to setup.    The install to hard disk, another easy setup.

Firefox 3.0.11 web  browser came installed as well as Konqueror.   I liked the default selection of programs on the live cd, Gimp, Kaffeine, KMPlayer, DeVeDe, K3B to name a few.  But what impressed me the most was Make LiveCD menu selection.  While I don’t have time to try this right now, I do have plans to try it later.  It also has a Make LiveUSB menu selection as well.  It also had a nice video driver for ATI and Nvidia cards in the Utilities folder as well.  Mostly, this distro would hold  your hand at each and every step of the way, truly impressive, and it does everything but bark and fetch for you.   Its also a nice looking distro, very easy on the eyes.

In the past I have actually used PCLinuxOS version 93a for while on a spare laptop.  So its been awhile since I used it.  Back then there was about 5000 packages that could be post installed, now there is 11,000.  While this number might not compare with what is in the Debain repo’s, its still an impressive amount, and even back in the 93a version days, I noticed that Tex and the community did a great job of getting the best programs in the repo’s.  Also, they all seemed to just install was what I noticed back then too.

Final Opinion on PCLinuxOS

This might actually be the very best distro available for new users, and has features that make it a great distro for the rest of us as well.  Another distro that is similar to PCLinuxOS, are Mepis even though its Debian based.  Really, I can’t say I liked this distro, but I would say I loved it, that it exceeded what I thought possible that a Linux could do.   I would recommend PCLinuxOS to anyone, its made me a fan.  Now, on a negative note, what did I find that was wrong with PCLinuxOS?  You know I have to find something, even if its picky.  So don’t take it wrong PCLinuxOS community, but the number one thing I found wrong, is no 64 bit version.   Other than that its truly an outstanding job folks, please continue the hard work!    The polish and attention to detail in this distro is the best I have ever seen.

For those of you reading this who want to download this, here is the link:

http://distrowatch.com/5560

This article was written by Chips B Malroy who will hopefully be a regular contributor to Openbytes!

Zenwalk has always had the reputation as being a distro for the more seasoned Linux user, with the release of Zenwalk 6 Gnome, has this changed? Has this Slackware based distro taken the route of Ubuntu?  Short answer – not really, but then why should it?

Dont expect an Ubuntu or Fedora style installation process, who needs that anyway?

Installation

If you are expecting an Ubuntu type experience here forget it and anyone with a phobia of the command line will panic the second they boot the ISO (although all that is needed is a harmless return key press)  That being said the basic menu system does offer the feature of automatic install, which is great for those who just want to dedicate their entire harddisk to Zenwalk and don’t want to “fiddle”

The ISO itself is around the 680meg mark, so it wont take long to download and there are plenty of available options for the source of the download.

The installation was smooth, taking around 10 minutes to complete and during this time most console messages are hidden (maybe to avoid the blind panic of some users when met with a comment they cannot comprehend)

Transparent console window! This is not the default Zenwalk Wallpaper, but it is lovely...

Software

Lets start with some basics.  Zenwalk 6 is running off Linux Kernel 2.6.28.7 and using Gnome 2.26.0 DE.  This immediately creates some nice features, the first one is that Zenwalk is quick on the bootup and the second is that you are up to date with Gnome DE. The default file system is XFS.

Netpkg handles your software requirements here and the GUI makes it very simple to search for the packages/files that you require.  A nice feature of Netpkg is that it allows you to find Orphan files and remove them.

Iceweasel is the pre-packaged browser here (3.0.8) and Icedove for your mail requirements.  Python is running 2.6.2 and other packages of note include:  Transmission 1.51 (now currently at 1.73) and Openoffice 3.0.  Pidgin is included as part of the default installation and thank fully there is no duplication.

There is out of the box compatibility for BBCI Player and most of your media requirements, which is one less job to think of – although you will need libdvdcss to enable the playback of encrypted DVD disks.

It is also worth noting that you will have to install proprietary graphics drivers yourself (unlike Ubuntu which automates the process)  this will involve you getting your hands dirty with the command line.

Conclusions

I get tired of giving the “great distro” badge out, but here is another distro that has performed exactly how I expected.   Whilst some users will say that a weakness of Linux is the amount of distro’s, I see that as a strength, afterall you can run the latest Firefox release on Zenwalk, Mepis, Ubuntu, Wolvix etc etc.  I look at Linux like petrol, there may be different brands but they all make your car move.  Linux is in a good position IMO, because unlike Windows where one size has to pretty much fit all, with Linux you can have a distro aimed solely at the advanced user or soley at the new one.  I would suggest Zenwalk is more towards the former rather than the latter, but having said that its hardly difficult to follow some online tutorials if you are unsure.

Pidgin for me is a bad choice.  How many people still use ICQ? and for me the others (with the exception of IRC) have no worth.  I don’t like the IRC support of Pidgin and always favor the IRSSI or the X-chat route.

I am pleased to see there is no major duplication in the pre-installed packages and Zenwalk really has (IMO) taken time to consider the apps included.

I would like to see future versions of Zenwalk moving away from Iceweasel and/or Firefox.  I personally have seen (on my hardware) how slugish Firefox and derivatives can be compared to Chromium which whilst still in beta is leaping in front of Firefox in terms of execution, rendering and even the simple Java input box.   Since Zenwalk seems to pride itself on being fast and bloat free, a new direction in browsers may echo that ethos (IMO).

Theres no silly games that you will play only once out of curiousity, although as default, Zenwalk was VERY guilty of defaulting to “one click executing” which causes for an oldtimer like myself who is used to clicking once for focus, twice for execution alot of heart ache.  I just cannot get used to the “hover focus” so that was one of the first things that had to be changed.  I’ve noticed in the past many KDE distro’s are defaulted to this.  Am I behind the times? or simply stuck in my ways?

Conversely a nice feature was that as default the terminal has a transparent backdrop (which is one of my few vices in relation to screen visual effects)

Zenwalk is fast, stable and well supported.  From what I’ve seen of the Zenwalk community it appears friendly and helpful.

Zenwalk isn’t going to hold your hand in the way Ubuntu does, but for those that take the time with it, will be rewarded with yet another snappy distro that doesn’t see asthetics and hand holding as a priority over performance.  As with all distro’s it will be unlikely that you find one that exactly meets your requirements and a little fiddling/fine tuning is always required.

So how does it compare with my distro of choice (Wolvix)? Very well, although on my hardware Wolvix Wine performance is better than Zenwalk as is many of the emulation projects I am running.  The memory footprint for running Zenwalk and a few basic operations was a respectable 120mb…very impressive, infact even running a rather large document in OO didn’t take it much above 150mb.   Compare that to Ubuntu which has a footprint in similar conditions of 255mb.

A great distro and one of many that offers a tight and stable experience. It is also available as a live CD.  Visit the homepage:  http://www.zenwalk.org/ for download options!

I will still be sticking with my beloved Wolvix though!

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Review of 2.0.0 Beta 2 - Slackware based Linux distro.

This distro was brought to my attention in the BN IRC room, and whilst my distro hopping machine had difficulties with it (its a little anti social at the moment) I gave it a run on one of the many machines dotted around my house and found myself very surprised (pleasantly) by the results.  Its a Slackware based distro, and in these days of MONO uncertainty and the ever growing popularity of about 4 or 5 of the “big name” distro’s, its nice to break out of the mold and take a look at a lesser known option (sans MONO I hasten to add).

INSTALLATION/LIVE CD

I hope this is not taken the wrong way when I say that the installation process is very Ubuntu’ish, meaning very simple and straight forward.  There’s a rather off putting message (for any users who may not have much experience with Linux) although I can see where they are coming from.  As I will explain, I don’t think Wolvix is for the brand new user, and in my opinion these users are always better catered for with Mint, Ubuntu, Mandriva, et al.  The Live CD comes in at around a 680mb ISO which can be downloaded via bit torrent (which personally I would recommend, firstly because the d/l speeds of the other options were poor and secondly because I am helping seed it at the moment!)

Wolvix in action. The default backdrop has been replaced with a more colourful one to reflect my mood today. A great distro if you have been using Linux for a while and are comfortable with the command line.

FEATURES

The default DE for Wolvix is Xfce 4.6.0 and what a great choice that is, I am rapidly becoming a fan.  For fear of starting a series of angry emails, I can’t warm to KDE.  Whilst KDE does everything it says on the tin and is pleasant to look at, its just far too Vistaesque for my liking and for that and a reason I cannot put my finger on, I just don’t feel fully in control of my distro under KDE.  Thats going off topic though since Xfce 4.6.0 is whats being talked about here, is very similar to Gnome in looks, with a reduced dock at the bottom and is far faster operation.

Whilst I always state that I’m not a fan of flashy visuals and “bling”, it had to be said that the default desktop theme(s) are very attractive.  Simple, bold and clean I especially like the Wolf howling at the moon backdrop.  These backdrops are not the usual ultra high resolution. memory sucking images that we see with some of the bigger name distros, so it appears that even in looks, the ethos of providing you with as fast a system as possible is at the forefront of what Wolvix hopes to achieve.

Out of the box compat was very good and although Nvidia drivers needed to be installed as first port of call, this is par for the course on most distro’s anyway.

Wolvix again, simple clean and a great distro!

SOFTWARE

Personally, its nice to see AbiWord included as default.  Whilst I like OpenOffice and believe its a great piece of software, I have no need for any of the other supporting packages.  My distro installation always involves the removal of OpenOffice to replace with Abiword, so that to the creators of Wolvix, thats one less job.  The version included is the latest (2.6.8) and the new features of which can be found on the Abiword homepage.  To give an example of the speed of this distro, the LiveCD barely even gave you a chance to read the logo window of Abiword prior to the program loading that’s forgetting the speed once the distro is installed to your HD.

Web browsing is via Firefox 3.0.8 which was released 27th March 2009.  Whilst this is not the current version, its certainly stable and offers the same Firefox experience that I am sure I do not need to describe to you for the purposes of this review.

Other packages of note include Python 2.5.2 (hooray no 3!), Gnumeric, GIMP and quite a comprehensive out of the box collection that should cover your main tasks.  Thunderbird is in control of email duties here, running a 2009 version (2.0.0.21), its a great all in one (RSS/email/Newsgroups) and really removes the need for any other mail package.  I have heard from others that RSS is slow within Thunderbird compared to that of Claws, but personally I have had no issues and have yet to test Claws as an alternative.

Software is handled by the package manager slapt-get in terminal or by a GUI (gslap) on the DE

CONCLUSIONS

With every distro I have installed, there always follows a removing of software (for differing reasons, mainly duplication and personal choice)  There are some more guilty than others.   I always remark that the worst offender in my opinion would be #!CBL (Crunchbang Linux)  A few things strike me as strange (although this is probably due to trying to please everyone) Liferea and Thunderbird?  Is Liferea just duplication? Great package but I’m not sure of its value in addition to Thunderbird.  Xchat and IRSSI? obviously one provides a GUI the other runs from the command line, but I would suggest that the Wolvix creators choose a path and stick with it to avoid duplication (Personally I think IRSSI is far better)

My big issue was no Binaries newsgroup grabber, the absense of Transmission (although I will give Deluge a run).

With Wolvix being a Slackware derived product and the absence of the Ubuntu “hand holding” I cannot recommend it for a Linux user with only a small amount of experience (contrary to the implication on the site that it can be)  However, for the seasoned Linux user it excels and I’ve been looking for a reason to switch my main Gentoo distro.  Wolvix is such a reason and I think I will be very happy with it.  The packages on offer are a mish mash of experienced and new user although I’d suggest that if this distro is aimed towards the more experienced, some of these packages are really not required.

*Note – There is no issue with Gentoo, merely that I enjoy distro hopping and have to have a good reason to do it on my main rig.

I don’t think Wolvix would stand up as a newcomers distro (nor does it seek to be) when you hold it up to products such as Ubuntu/Fedora/Mandriva et al and I don’t think Xfce DE will be an attractive enough option for people when they are coming from Windows and looking towards KDE.  Thats no bad thing by the way, and Wolvix for me sits very comfortably in a more seasoned Linux users hands.

It is very obvious that much work has gone into Wolvix, my expectations of a perfectly packaged distro are not unreasonable but a little selfish and since this was the only issue I had with the distro, its of no matter since removal of unused packages takes no time at all.

As with any new installation there are a few teething troubles that need to be ironed out, that for me is half the fun of a Slackware distro and the issues I came across were very minor.

The first problem I found was with the mouse wheel, which although recognised refused to work as a scroll.  This issue is now resolved.  Next issue I had was that the master volume was not found on the dock (its in the multimedia menu) due to its default setting being low (and my speakers being set on low for fear of nieghbour complaints) I spent around 1/2 hour trying to work out why the sound wasnt working.  Too much to ask to put it on the dock?  The only other issue of note was Wolvix’s refusal to allow me to set the keyboard to UK permanently, and it insisted on switching back to US.

Those issues caused very little trouble.

When talking about the speed of this distro, “Punchy” is the best way to describe it.  Its these type of distro’s that people should be supporting in any way they can.  Aesthetically, what with its fancy site and logos, Ubuntu is about 10 years ahead and Wolvix is no competition, however “under the hood” where it matters and I’d say on my test machine Wolvix outperforms any of the mainstream distros noticeably.  Projects like Wolvix are where the exciting things are happening and I wholly recommend anyone who is familiar with Linux to give this speedy, tight and highly functional distro a try.

You can visit the Wolvix homepage here: http://wolvix.org/ although the beta 2 is available on LinuxTracker here.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Can Mandriva provide the same "out of the box experience" of Ubuntu? Find out below!

For the brand new user is there really only one choice?

Meet Mandriva 2009 (One), a distro which states a similar level of “out of the box” compatibility as Ubuntu, but does it deliver?

I decided to write this article to cover a topic that has been concerning me for a while.  Whilst Ubuntu is a great distro offering “out of the box” support, there is so much more to Linux and Linux != Ubuntu!  With that in mind Ive picked a distro which Ive dabbled with on occasion in the past, but since Heron 8.04 went on my second rig and Gentoo remains my distro of choice, I’d neglected the distro for a while.  I think (if i’m honest) there are reason for this.

As a Linux user I may have started believing myself “special” in the world of computing, that “special” feeling is increased when one stays away from the more mainstream distro’s and I think somewhere in my mind, I enjoyed telling people that not only had I found a better computing experience away from a “mainstream” Microsoft offering, but I was staying away from “mainstream” Linux distros and thus reinforcing that I’ve some sort of self esteem issue? – Who knows? but thats my psychological examination over.  The point of me bringing that up? Well, in the quest for finding the “ultimate” by repeated “distro hopping” there may well be an answer closer to home.

Mandriva is available in three flavours with nothing confusing about any of them.

Mandriva One -Includes the proprietary GFX drivers, proprietary codecs for playing all your media and Adobe Flash. You have a choice of Gnome or KDE for this LiveCD.

Mandriva Free – The version which contains no proprietary codecs.

Mandriva Powerpack – A commercial release of Mandriva which gives access to CrossOver games and includes everything of the other two.

Mandriva Flash – For installation onto USB stick or similar.

Installation

Booting from a LiveCD (from an LXF DVD released in December) you can immediately check the compatibility of your hardware.  After an about average LiveCD bootup time giving you various keyboard and desktop options, you are presented with the Mandriva desktop (running with KDE 4.2 or Gnome 2.26)  Whats more, even on Live CD my NVIDIA drivers were loaded and Compiz was running with the all too popular “cube” effect and a number of other little aesthetic tweeks such as wobbly windows!  Its worth noting that the ISO available from the website is updated since the DVD that I’m using, however the differences are minor.

For this feature I am running KDE.  My normal preference is Gnome, I tried as much as possible to come out of my “comfort zone” in order to try and get a view of Mandriva from a new user point of view.

The installation process was a simple wizard asking you questions about where you wanted Mandriva installed, but it was put in such a way that will be stress free for the new user.  Some users may find it too simplistic, however I think for a user migrating from Windows, the clear messages and simple layout will be welcome.

After approximately 25 minutes. installation was complete.  I did not know that there would be very little for me to do after re-boot!

Packages

OpenOffice 3.0.1 is the order of the day, which needs no explanation, and all your favorites can be found here such as Gimp, FireFox 3.08 and probably a whole host of packages you will neither have heard of or use (see further on this matter in conclusions)

The Mandriva package manager (Rpmdrake) is so similar to Ubuntu’s package manager, I cannot see any advantages or disadvantages.  Anyone who tries to tell you Windows software installation is easier than Linux, need look no further than the package repro’s of Ubuntu & Mandriva (to name a few) to see the advantages.  No IRC client though? (more about this in conclusions)

Its all ready for you with Mandriva. Why should Ubuntu be the only distro being seen as a great "out of the box experience" Mandriva is not alone, we will cover other distro's that are just as easy for the newcomer!

Operation -  Mandriva in action.

A liveCD never represents the true experience of an installed OS (neither does running in a VM), so when testing my hardware with it I had no idea of what was in store when the distro was installed.  After a boot-time that was certainly longer than #!CBL, I experienced about the same time as Ubuntu 8.10.  Whilst a long boot time (like I experienced with Windows many years ago) is not acceptable, a blistering fast one is not that much of an advantage to me, since when the computer is booted, it remains on for a considerable time.  Keeping in mind that I was running Mandriva on a system which only has 512mb of RAM applications ran and loaded at a blisteringly fast pace.

The pre-installed Compiz was surprisingly quick and smooth.  The test machine has the following specs: AMD Athlon 64, 512mb RAM, GeForce FX 5200, 80gb HD and since this computer is old (by my standards) the experience was that of a fresh, modern, just purchased machine.  Since this secondary PC is only used for the more mundane tasks, I am now considering promoting its position in the house to maybe a second PC for the kids.  Mandriva is really that good.

Stability wise, I had no issues and have yet to experience any crashing.  This has been par for the course for me with Linux in general,  so maybe I’m simply lucky.

Conclusions

Let me say that only the issues Ive had are common with all distro’s, that is far too many packages included and too much duplication.

I know the reason for this and its an honorable one to ensure that everyone gets something which they are comfortable with.   Mandriva is no different in this respect to any other distro, and the worst offender so far (in my experience) has to be #!CBL.  So after a little deleting of packages I’ve got the distro best suited to me (one of the main pro’s of Linux?)

In the midst of complaints of too many packages included in Mandriva 2009, there was an absence of an IRC client (or have I just not noticed?)  Since it probably would have been Xchat (or similar) and not IRSSI (my client of choice), it matters not, that issue was sorted out literally in seconds.  (Kudos to Crunchbang for including IRSSI)

So it leaves me with a question.  Why is Ubuntu becoming the new users (and established ones) distro of choice?

Please don’t take that as an insult to Canonical or Ubuntu, its not, however what I see with Mandriva is the “new user” requests of Compiz & graphics card drivers along with proprietary codecs, sorted out on install automatically, unlike Ubuntu where a little tweaking is still required.  Theres no selecting options or messing around with config files with Mandriva, its all there ready!  That to me would be a great plus if I was new user (from Windows) who wanted to get into Linux as quickly as possible and have the “fancy” effects I’d seen on Youtube!  For everyone else, taking off the un-needed features is a very simple job.

I currently run Ubuntu (9.04) on another rig which is primarily the family PC for the kids, however I am now seriously considering moving it over to Mandriva.  Package execution just seems so much faster and smoother and the system is (so far) just as stable.  There is so little to do after installation, and I found the only “tweaking” was aesthetical, with a different colour scheme and desktop wallpaper.

So if youre looking to get started in Linux, or are looking for an “out of the box experience” I would at least suggest you compare Mandriva to Ubuntu yourself, I believe its the better distro and I’ll stand by that comment when I next install a Linux distro for someone who wants to migrate from Windows.  I’ve often stated that I am concerned when people mention Ubuntu as if IT IS Linux.  Fact is it is not and the “out of the box friendliness” that we see mentioned in relation to Ubuntu is true of other distro’s out there.

You can get Mandriva from its official website here.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

I would put money on there being very few Amiga owners who DIDNT use this software. X-Copy, the floppy disk duplication package of choice on the A500!

I think its no secret that my first true love (in a computer sense) was the Commodore Amiga, its operating system and the PD scene.   Its purpose? To be an OS thats compatible with AmigaOS 3.1 at the API level.

When reading that, my excitement grew, is it possible that my first love will be coming back to me (albiet via an AMD processor) rather than a Motorola?  Downloading the liveCD (at 50mb) was done in seconds, and having burnt the ISO, I was ready to boot.  After about 10 seconds of loading, my screen was filled with a desktop that did indeed look like the days of Workbench, and whilst asthetically it has been brought up to date, its easy to see its roots.

So I started to tinker, getting used to right click to bring down the task menu again.  The habbits of old returned frighteningly fast, and after a few minutes I was a teenager, back at my parents house desperately scraping together enough money to buy 10 blank 3.5″ disks in order to do some duplication with Xcopy….what memories!

Now whilst this OS is still in its early stages, basic functionality can be achieved from many of the packages, however the developers need help, AND THAT MEANS YOU!

This really is a great project, although with packages needing to be ported to this platform, its software library will depend greatly on how well recieved it is by the “old timer” Amiga user and new user alike.

In terms of operational speed, it absolutely flys! and the fact I was using a LiveCD was forgotten.

Dreams of AmigaOS might not be so far fetched if the AROS team have anything to do with it! Heres the AROS desktop, to most very similar to any other. Any Amiga user though will have a tear in their eye!

So will I be using it?  In its current development stage (IMO) its not viable as a replacement yet, however (and I mean this sincerely) that when/if it gets to a stage where the tasks I require of an OS are facilitated within AROS, I will probably be at least dual booting.  There is support for ADF via UAE within the OS, however UAE is something that has been enjoyed for many years so I dont believe it needs to be mentioned as a feature.

What would I like to see in future versions? ADF supported natively instead of through 3rd party software, maybe even a config prog where your Amiga ROM files could be set (along with CPU emulation settings) so that ADF could be run by simply a double click.  I understand that this is not the main intention of AROS, but since the Amiga has such a massive catalogue of excellent software, it cannot all be ported to AROS.  The other thing is mouse speed.  Even on the fastest setting, the mouse pointer didnt move as quickly as I would have liked, I do not believe this was due to CPU resources, it was merely an issue with the code (since everything else flew!) To visit the site and download the latest build, please visit The Official AROS site!

Article by Goblin[RFD]

Before we delve into a look at the latest Ubuntu release, Ill explain to any of you out there, who are asking “what on earth is an Ibex?” – Its a mythical creature which is a cross between a deer and a rabbit *-Edit: No its not! Im getting a little ahead of myself and confusing it with Jackelope which is the next version.  Article left unedited to show my stupidity!

Now, onto looking at the distro.  I am a big fan of the Ubuntu distro.  In my opinion it is one of the best distros out there for both the new and experienced user alike.  It takes alot of the headaches of running Linux away from the user and all the people I have introduced it to have said the same thing.

If you are looking at installing a Linux distro for the first time, you cant really go wrong with Ubuntu.  That being said, this is a look at v8.10, so ill continue with a look at some of the features.

Open Office 2.4.1 is included, which in my opinion is a shame, as version 3.0 has been released on the official site (and apparently broken a few records of it own on the download stats)  Firefox 3.0.3 is also included (not the latest beta from the Firefox site of 3.1) this is no bad thing, Firefox 3.0.3 is the latest stable release, and with something as essential to most users these days as internet browsing 3.0.3 is the best choice.

Brasero 0.8.2 is here as well to provide all your CD/DVD writing needs, I am currently a user of 0.7.1 and I have nothing but praise for this functional, fast and most importantly RELIABLE piece of DVD writing software.  In my opinion you need to look no further than this package.

There are tweaks to the system everywhere, and as I write this, I am wondering how many more performance increases I am going to notice.  That aside, in my opinion, anyone with concerns about updating from Hardy, should not have any.  To set your mind at rest, you could pop over to the Ubuntu forums and site to check for any issues with the hardware that you are running.

There are plenty of sites going into great detail about what exactly is included, and I am putting this entry here mainly as another opinion on the net, to give potential users another viewpoint.

Speed wise, I believe it to be an improvement over the last version (or is that just me) Hardy was always quick for me, but Ibex seems to have a little edge, both on program execution and initial bootup.  Theres also the bluetooth function which provided immediate functionality for me.

In these days of Microsoft product overload, buggy Vista and yet another Windows release on the horizon (yep apparently next year) its refreshing to see an OS that is released on time and actually delivers what it promises.

I personally dont think there is anything majorly groundbreaking in this release of Ubuntu over the previous (if you have Hardy running without issue on your system), however I would recommend the upgrade for existing users and I would certainly direct new Linux users in the direction of it as well.  Theres the option to upgrade 8.04 to 8.10 (and full instructions on the Ubuntu website)

Take care all.  Enjoy the Ibex!

Visit the Ubuntu website and get your copy now!

If you want to check out what other sources on the net are saying about our beloved Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, check out the links:

http://bin-false.org/?p=45

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/ubuntu-8-10-review.html

http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com/2008/10/review-ubuntu-810-intrepid-ibex.html

Review by Goblin[RFD]

If you choose one of the mainstream distro’s out there such as openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, you will see plenty of testimonials and reviews about them.  You can read pages of glowing (and in some cases no so glowing) reports of their functionality and features.

With that in mind, Openbytes concentrates on looking at the lesser known distro’s, and in fact at the time of writing this, NimbleX 2008 was not even mentioned in the top 50 on distrowatch.  Thats a shame, and Ill explain why.

The iso image is approximately 200meg in size, which is quite amazing when you consider that some of the opensource games that have been reviewed here are larger.  After burning the image to disk, I booted the LiveCD for some NimbleX goodness to see if it was as fast as the site was claiming.

Even booting off the LiveCD was fast, and instantly my Netgear hardware was detected, I wasnt put into the horrible 800×600 resolution that so many distros have done to me in the past, infact as soon as the KDE desktop boot option was loaded, I was ready to rock!

Before I continue, Ill list some of the features that our NimbleX has:

The default desktop is KDE, however there are Enlightenment 16+17, EDE, IceWM, Fluxbox, Openbox and TWM to choose from.  Koffice is included for your productivity, as is the Gimp for gfx and Transmission for all you evil Bittorrent users!  Theres a host of other software included with the distro, and from the LiveCD with no “fiddling” I found myself ready to be productive!

NimbleX also has “out of the box” bluetooth support, however I was unable to test this feature, due to not having a bluetooth facility on the test machine.

So does it fly? Yep it sure does! milliseconds to load apps, and smooth execution.  I was always impressed at the speed of Ubuntu (contrary to reviews stating it was slow) but NimbleX is much faster.

So who would it appeal to?  You can install NimbleX to USB stick and since its a tiny distro, those will little storage space can have a fully functioning OS.  NimbleX only requires 128meg to run, so older machines will benefit from the distro’s small requirements.  NimbleX will certainly be a consideration when I am salvaging an old system back to functionality.

So am I a convert? Yes and no.  Yes because Ill certainly find a home (or two) for this speedy little distro, but no because it wont be installed on my main rig.  I am very happy with Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) and having used it for a while, very comfortable with it.   I dont think many people change distro’s on a whim, however if you are a first time Linux user, or using an older machine, I dont think you can go far wrong with this little gem.

I think this is a great little distro, fast, great “out of the box” compatibility and similar enough to Windows so as not to make it alien to any new user.  A great deal of thanks and respect needs to go out to the contributors to the NimbleX distro, and it puts MS to shame that a little distro can provide fast out of the box functionality for free. Can someone remind me why people buy MS products?

But wait! theres more!  From the website you can customize your own NimbleX distro before download, there are wizards available that allow you to choose packages etc depending on what you want to use NimbleX for and once all your options are assembled into the ISO you can download it. (your personalised distro remains on the system for 12 hours).  Can it get any better than this?

I really hope this distro gets the credit and usage it deserves.  Get yourself over to the site now!

- A great distro, that is small in size, fast, and hassle free!

Visit the NimbleX website to download the ISO!