Category: Reviews
Thursday 31st May 2007
PC-BSD should make an interesting change for two main reasons. Firstly, it uses a BSD kernel, as opposed to the Linux kernel used in distributions such as Debian and Slackware. Secondly, its main method of installing new programs seems to be closer to that of Windows than apt. So, let's see if its claims of user friendliness are accurate.
Wednesday 28th February 2007
Dreamlinux is one of the lesser known distributions, and certainly does not appear in the headlines with the same frequency as Ubuntu or openSUSE. However, it seems to have been ticking along nicely, with the 1.0 release about a year ago. Today, we're looking at DreamLinux 2.2, based on Debian with bits borrowed from Morphix.
Tuesday 16th January 2007
Despite being a little late, here is the review of the latest version of SUSE by its community - namely, openSUSE 10.2.
Monday 11th December 2006
It's no secret that I like Zenwalk - the lightweight attitude proves to be a refreshing change from many other distributions. However, thus far, I've been reluctant to recommend Zenwalk to users fairly new to Linux, or those that want things to just work. As the version number shows, Zenwalk has recently undergone some major changes - let's see what effect they have.
Tuesday 21st November 2006
Fedora Core is often called a test version of Red Hat, but many believe that it deserves to be recognised as a fully fledged distribution in its own right. Led by a community and sponsored by Red Hat, Fedora is probably one of the most popular GNU/Linux distributions in the world, and is even used by Wikipedia. It recently reached its sixth release, so let's see what's inside.
Sunday 22nd October 2006
PCLinuxOS is a bit of an unknown quantity to me. It appears to be pretty popular, sitting at number six on Distrowatch at the time of writing, yet I rarely hear anything about it except for the odd release. So, seeing as I know next to nothing about PCLinuxOS, it's about time that I went and saw what the fuss was about.
Sunday 24th September 2006
After just a month and half since the Zenwalk 2.8 release, we get Zenwalk 3.0. Last time, I found Zenwalk to be lightweight and well designed, but suffering particularly when it came to package management. Let's see how this new version fares.
Tuesday 5th September 2006
It's time to give the latest version of SimplyMEPIS a spin - this time, the version has jumped from 3.4 to 6.0, along with a change of base from Debian to Ubuntu. So, has it made any difference?
Wednesday 30th August 2006
So, what is Freespire? It is essentially the free (as in beer) counterpart to Linspire, which, in turn, is based on Debian and will cost you at least about fifty American Dollars. Freespire aims to be to Linspire what Fedora is to Red Hat - a free, community project.
Thursday 20th July 2006
So, what exactly is Xubuntu? Essentially, if you start with Ubuntu, get rid of GNOME and replace it with XFCE, similarly replacing some heavier applications with lighter alternatives, you end up Xubuntu.
Sunday 16th July 2006
Ubuntu still sits at number one on Distrowatch, and has done so for many, many months. Based upon Debian, it has become one of the most popular distributions in the GNU/Linux world. Ubuntu Dapper Drake, otherwise known as Ubuntu 6.06, is a Long Term Support release, meaning it has support reaching three years into the future on the desktop. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated releases in recent months, lets see if it can live up to the hype.
Saturday 24th June 2006
On the whole, Zenwalk is a refreshing change from some of the behemoths of distributions that exist at the moment, let down by its package management. If installation can be made a little less intimidating, some parts more user-friendly, and its package management a little more reliable and usable, then Zenwalk could become a truly excellent distribution.
Monday 1st May 2006
So far, we have had Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu, covering GNOME and KDE - the two major desktop environments. Now, for the Dapper Drake release, XFCE is to be added to the mix in the form of Xubuntu.
Wednesday 12th April 2006
A little while ago, I tested Fedora Core 4, and was pretty impressed. However, I felt that Ubuntu and SUSE had it beaten, if not by a huge margin. That was around half a year ago. So, what has Fedora managed to do in that time?
Saturday 18th February 2006
Like so many others, SimplyMEPIS is based on Debian, and remains consistently in the top ten on Distrowatch. That makes it pretty popular - but can it stand up against SUSE, Fedora and Ubuntu?
Friday 27th January 2006
So, what is FoX Desktop Lite? It is based upon Fedora Core 4, with KDE 3.5. After a quick e-mail fired off to FoX themselves, and an equally quick reply, I found out that is aimed at users that are not neccessarily an expert at computing. So, does it work?
Sunday 18th December 2005
SUSE. It had the 10.0 release a couple of months ago, and remains rather popular. You can either pay for it, or choose the open source version (which I did because I'm tight). And now I'm going to review it.
Saturday 26th November 2005
Linspire. Something which can essentially be summed as Debian made easy, with extra bits added, and costing some money. Naturally, it isn't that simple (what is?), but that's the basic premise. The question: is Linspire worth the money over other free distributions?
Thursday 27th October 2005
Essentially, this release of Ubuntu is the most polished and well rounded yet... the three graphical interfaces to Apt make installing and updating packages a breeze, allowing even the most inexperienced user to maintain Ubuntu without problems. Just be careful what you do with those root privileges!
Saturday 15th October 2005
Ultimately, however, Fedora Core 4 is a polished, simple-to-use, and stable distribution. Those that want an operating system that just works should be more than satisfied. Once you get beyond the installation, Fedora is reasonably hard to fault, although perhaps is never truly outstanding.
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