So You're Not Quite Ready For Vista?

As indicated in the closing section of my recent article (PC Update, June 2007), new Linux versions are appearing at an amazing rate. Some of these quickly disappear, some are of specialist interest only, but others serve to continually raise the standard of available offerings.

Two recent noteworthy releases are Mandriva One and PCLinusOS. Let's look briefly at each of them.

Mandriva One 2007.1

Like Ubuntu, this is a single CD "live installer" - that is, initially the distribution loads fully from the CD and if everything is suitable, it can then be easily installed to a hard drive.

Mandriva's version is impressive - I particularly liked the way in which settings in the version loaded from CD could be customised and those settings retained in the version installed to the hard drive. Installation was extremely simple (much simpler than the "standard" Mandriva installer) and surprisingly fast.

Although the range of installed software is less than the standard version it is perfectly adequate for most users. Additional software can be added but only after the distribution's software repositories are enabled - if Australian mirror servers are to be used (highly desirable for speed) a third party Web based utility still needs to be used.

Separate CDs are available for either the Gnome or KDE desktop manager - either are functional and well designed.

Mandriva One now has an automatic updater and the update facility has been redesigned to avoid usability issues I mentioned in my report on Mandriva 2007.

Other than that, the distribution is largely the same an Mandriva 2007 and the reservations I expressed for that distribution still apply. Nevertheless the implementation of a single CD live installer version is a welcome development and adds to the appeal of this distribution. Many users would find this an attractive alternative. Rating 7/10.

PCLinuxOS

This distribution has rapidly risen to become the second top rating in the Distrowatch top 100 (see http://www.distowatch.com). It promotes itself as a simple, user friendly distribution especially suitable for users new to Linux. Not having tried this distribution previously, I thought it was worth taking the opportunity to briefly report on it here.

PCLinuxOS is essentially a single disk live CD version of Mandriva which appears to have started development prior to the arrival of Mandriva One. In many respects it is similar, but there are one or two interesting differences.

Installation is virtually identical to Mandriva One and works very well indeed. The installed system is based on KDE - a Gnome version was not available at the time of testing.

The range of installed software is excellent for a single CD system and, unlike Mandriva One, the online software installation system comes fully operational and set to a local mirror server. Adding additional software is simple.

An interesting difference to Mandriva One is that the PCLinuxOS developers have chosen to adopt the "Apt for RPM" software installation system - using Synaptic as the software installation utility. This makes software installation virtually the same as in Ubuntu and significantly improves the usability of the system.

It should be remembered, however, that the back-end package management system (RPM) has not changed.

This means that while the "front end" software installer may seem more attractive in PCLinuxOS, the actual reliability of the software system will new version be no different to other RPM systems such as Mandriva's URPMI.

PCLinuxOS does not come with an update utility and I could not find a reference on the developer's Web site to the operating system being updated between releases. No updates have appeared on Synaptic during the time I have been testing the system would need to be alert to security updates in software such as Firefox and would need to manually install any new version should an important security fix be issued.

This is a well designed and usable system and being supplied with a fully functional software installation system will be of great assistance to new users. Rating 8/10

Linux DOES Run on the Smell of an Oily Rag

The distributions mentioned to date are all designed to be a suitable high end alternatives to Windows. For this reason the hardware requirements set out in a previous article were high.

Other versions of Linux can run on an astinishing low resources and can be suitable for reinvigorating that old computer that would otherwise be thrown out. Did you know, for example, that the current Linux distribution can run a friendly GUI in only 16MB RAM? And that it can be installed in five minutes flat?

in the next article we will be reiewing distribution suitable for older machines. You may be surprised at what that obsolete box - the one you thought was headed for the scrapheap - can actually achieve.

Reprinted from the July 2007 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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