Today I loaded up my live CD of PCLinuxOS 2009 and it is quite impressive. From what I read it is a fork of the former powerhouse distro Mandrake that’s since turned into Mandriva that’s lost some luster. This distro has a clean look to it, it’s desktop environment is dutifully handled by KDE, and it did an excellent job at being ready to run “right out of the box”. One of the benchmark tests of that distinction is a distro’s seldom seen ability to play Adobe Flash content without installing it first. (There are several reasons why this is not as easy as it may seem, but that explanation exceeds the scope of this article. Even Windows does not play Flash “natively”, but I digress.)
As the screenshot reveals, there is a clean Desktop with the usual KDE components available. A nice touch also is the addition of Mozilla Firefox web browser to complement the ubiquitous Konqueror program. There is a large number of programs available directly on the Live CD by default, with many more obviously available from the package management system.
I think PCLinuxOS 2009 could really give the front runner Ubuntu a real run for its money. Considering this distro does not have the deep pockets of a corporation behind it providing funding, I really think it’s a great all-purpose distro, especially for those who want to try Linux with the least amount of difficulties of switch from Windows.
One more thing- This distro automatically detected the proper screen resolution for the LCD monitor I was using it on– Very impressive!
Mandriva 2009 is a distro that has another nice, clean looking desktop. It uses the KDE4 desktop environment and has lots of applications installed, as evidenced by the screenshot below.
Mandriva is a distro that used to be known as Mandrake and it was the top Linux distro in 2004.
The Mandriva Control Center is the heart of Mandriva’s settings configuration. It uses KDE or Gnome as the standard desktops and also allows for Xfce and twm. The package manager used by Mandriva is called urpmi which is a wrapper for the RPM package management system which uses a graphical front-end similar to Ubuntu’s Synaptic, called rpmdrake. Rpmdrake is integrated into the Mandriva Control Center.
As is the case with lots of Linux distros, Mandriva comes in different editions. Mandriva Linux Free consists totally of free and open-source software. Mandriva Linux One is a hybrid having both a Live CD and an installer. Mandriva Linux Powerpack is the commercial version of Mandriva Linux, which provides non-free drivers like NVIDIA and ATI video drivers.
Buy Mandriva Linux
- Ubuntu Linux 8.04 (Hardy Heron)
- Mandriva One 2009 KDE4 Linux
- Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) Linux
- Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Beta Linux
- Kubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Beta Linux
- Xubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Beta Linux
- Xubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) Linux
- Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope)
Each distro offers something a little different. Some are tailored for older computers with fewer resources, while others offer the latest software to take advantage of the latest hardware computers are equipped with.
Tags:
live cd,
Mint
Below you will find the snapshot I just took of my Linux desktop. currently I’m running Xubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) from an 8GB USB memory stick. Xubuntu is a derivative of the most popular distro right now, Ubuntu, that uses an Xfce desktop environment, versus the standard Gnome environment of Ubuntu.
My Xubunt 8.10 Linux desktop
As you can see, Linux doesn’t look as scary as some may have told you, does it?
Tags:
ubuntu,
usb,
xfce,
xubuntu
Linux is an operating system, or OS, that is becoming increasingly popular. Linux is available in hundreds of distributins, more commonly referred to as “distros”, each one designed a little bit differently, but all similar since they are all based on the Linux kernel.
Linux was originally conceived in the early 1990s as an open source, free alternative to Unix, the standard in corporate operating systems.
