Arch 2007.08-2 Review

A lean machine
Arch Linux is a Linux distribution inspired by CRUX and intended to be lightweight and simple for advanced users. According to the project website; "Arch Linux is a workhorse distribution designed to fit the needs of the competent Linux user. We strive to make it both powerful and easy to manage, making it an ideal distribution for servers and workstations. Take it in any direction you like" .It is currently ranked #17 at distrowatch

Test Machine
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ with 2 gig of RAM, Nvidia 6600GS with 256 meg RAM and 19" wide screen monitor.

Booting
Arch Linux, on its own, does not provide a live environment. However, for the interested, FaunOS is an Arch derivative and provides live environment. So users can check out FaunOS as well. Also Archie also provides a live environment.

Installation
Arch comes in two flavors, CORE & FTP. Both ISOs are minimalistic and won't result in a working desktop environment. I chose core ISO for this review. Again instead of wasting another CD, I extracted out vmlinux and initrd files from isolinux directory in the ISO, and used them for starting the installation. A detailed procedure is provided in my earlier post.

Arch Linux has two main repositories "core" & "extras". The core repository contains minimalistic software, enough to provide a working command-line-interface. Rest of the packages(i.e. gnome, kde, xfce, xorg, e17) are contained in "extra". For the core installation the user has two option s, either to use the directory available in the ISO or copy the latest packages from any of the mirrors. The repository contains more and recent packages . I chose to copy the latest package from core repository. Copy all the core packages on to some spare hard disk partition before starting the installation

Once the user boots into the install system, there are five different terminals available and BASH can be started by hitting . First, for non-CD install mechanism I used, user has to mount the partition containing the core packages to /src/core/pkg. The installer can be invoked by issuing /arch/setup command.

The installer allows to create and specify partitions. I would like to mention that Arch loads pata modules before sata modules, and thus if you have two hard drives, first an IDE and second a SATA, then IDE drive will be named sda and SATA drive will be named sdb. User can change the module loading order in the final system configuration.

The installer then asks to select the packages for installation. Now its safe to select all the packages. I remember, in version 0.7, if the user selected all the packages for installation, the installation failed. After package selection, package installation comes into play. And it was really fast. The core system installed on my machine in less then 5 minutes.

After installation, system configuration comes into picture. I love the fact that almost all of the system configuration are concentrated in /etc/rc.conf. Spare some time and browse all the configuration files. Arch uses a BSD-style init framework.

Once the core installation is finished, user can reboot into fully functional command-line-interface. Now at this, point users have two options for "extra" installation. If the user can bring up network connection in the command-line-interface, network installation works fine. If, however, the computer is not having a functional network connection, user can download the "extra" repository from any of the mirrors and can copy the contents in "/var/cache/pacman/pkg" directory. Also "extra.db.tar.gz" file needs to be extracted to "/var/lib/pacman/extra" directory.

Once onto the newly installed system, user can customize the installation with "extra" repository.
"pacman -S kde" will install all the required packages to bring up KDE; similarly gnome, xfce can also be installed.In the last release, packages for keyboard and mouse were not installed automatically by the above command; but that is gone now

To boot into the new desktop environment, user needs to do these changes: change /etc/inittab to runlevel id:5, set login manager as kdm/gdm/slim, add hal and dbus to list of daemons (started at boot) in /etc/rc.conf, and execute xorgcfg to generate xorg.conf.

Being a KDE fan, I installed KDE first and then later tried to see xfce as well. I installed xfce4 by issuing pacman -S xfce4, but was never able to get to the xfce desktop environment. It just hung for me.

Aesthetics
Being a workstation and server targeted distribution, not much has been done in the aesthetics department, except a custom wallpaper. But even the base KDE looks really nice. For GTK application to look nice under KDE, users have to install the gtk-qt-theme.

Applications
The core install only provides basic installation and whatever application the user wants, s/he has to get it from the extra repository. The extra repository is approximately 4 GB and provides almost all the applications in there latest version.

Multimedia
With the packages from extra repository, I was able to play all kinds of media.

Eye Candy
Compiz-fusion is not present in the extra repository as of now. So user has to enable other repositories for the eye-candy.

Recommendations
Arch Linux should also think about a single DVD install flavor. Just pack core and extra onto a single CD, for workstation users. This will save the individual downloading of packages from the repository, and will make arch installer easier for system without internet connection. Also, please take some time and clean up the wiki.

Conclusion
Acrh Linux is lean, wicked and it allows all types to possibilities. It allows the user to custom tailor the distribution as per his/her taste. It has a great package manager. A package manager that is being used by lot of other distributions like frugalware, archie and faun. But I am unable the gauze the advantages pacman provides over apt-get.

Fedora 8 Review

Nice new beautiful fedora.
Fedora (previously called Fedora Core) is an RPM-based, general purpose Linux distribution, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat. Fedora's mission statement is: "Fedora is about the rapid progress of Free and Open Source software."

According to the project website: "Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that showcases the latest in free and open source software. Fedora is always free for anyone to use, modify, and distribute. It is built by people across the globe who work together as a community: the Fedora Project." Currently Fedora is ranked #4 at distrowatch.

Test Machine
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ with 2 gig of RAM, Nvidia 6600GS with 256 meg RAM and 19" wide screen monitor.

Booting
Fedora comes in different flavors: KDE Live, Gnome Live, Games Live, Developer Live, Fedora Electronic Lab Live and the standard DVD install. For this review, I picked up the 64-bit standard install DVD.

I really like Red Hat based distribution from installation point of view. There is no need to burn a CD/DVD for installation. You can have a hard disk installation. This is really cool. No need to burn extra DVDs and then throw them out after six months.

On initial boot, after installation, Fedora brought up X with the correct resolution 1440x900@75Hz. Fedora did the same in version 7 as well, making it the first distribution to correctly setup Graphics for my machine (neither XP nor vista) can do this)!

Installation
Red Hat uses anaconda for installation. Anaconda is really easy and highly configurable installer and is used by a lot of other distributions as there standard installer.

Here I would take some time to describe the hard disk installation process. The user needs three things: a partition(fat32 or ext3) that can be read by the installer, an ISO reading application (e.g. WinRAR) and a Linux boot loader (e.g. lilo, grub or NTLDR).

Copy the ISO file to a free partition; which is readable by installer. Now use the ISO reader application to extract /isolinux/vmlinuz & /isolinux/initrd.img. Now create a new Loader entry with these files to the desired partition. You might have to google for more information specific to the Loader you are using. For grub, the new entries for the second partition on primary hard disk, should be like this:

title Install
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz ro vga=791
initrd (hd0,1)/initrd.img

Now reboot the machine and select the Install option. Anaconda will come up and ask for language and keyboard. Then anaconda will ask for the partition containing the ISO image file. Once anaconda finds the desired image, it will start as normal.

Aesthetics
As mentioned in the title, werewolf (Fedora 8) looks are simply breath-taking. Tango icon theme is now default, the fonts look awesome.

Applications
Being a DVD install, there are a lot of applications, and all of them are in the latest version. Open Office 2.3 is there for office application, and Firefox 2.0.0.8 is installed for web browsing. I had some problems with Firefox; initially it refused to come up. I had to kill all the running Firefox instances (by executing "killall firefox"), and Firefox came up fine the next time.

The default applications present on DVD are undergoing a massive change. A lot of applications are missing out. Gvim is dropped, whereas emacs is in the latest version 22.1. Gnome configuration editor is dropped, one thing I personally don't like. But I consider these as side-effects of a massive change. The changes are not yet stabilized, and we can hope to see a stabilized set of applications, tuned to community preferences in future.

Software installation is still a mess. Pirut almost hangs whenever invoked. It would be better to see Pirut as a more responsive applicaiton.

Multimedia
Red Hat is staying clear from proprietary codecs, as a result, out-of-box multimedia support is missing from Fedora. Codec buddy is installed for making codec installation easy, but I ran out of luck while trying to use it. While playing MP3, Amarok simply crashed. And while playing WMV files, codec buddy was unable to find any suitable plug-in.

Eye Candy
Fedora comes with latest compiz fusion, but is not enabled by default. For Nvidia graphics card, I enabled 3D acceleration by compiling proprietary Nvidia drivers from source. Also some additional parameters are required in xorg.conf.

Conclusion
Red Hat ruled the Linux distribution world, before Ubuntu came and took over. With the current release for Fedora, it seems that Red Hat is fighting really hard to control the lost ground. The intense effort is clear from the current release. If we ignore minor hick-ups, werewolf is one of the best releases from Fedora. With this release Fedora is returning to my workstation as distribution of choice, after a long time.

Zenwalk 4.8 Review

Zenwalk (formerly Minislack), or Zenwalk Linux, is a Slackware-based GNU/Linux distribution with a goal of being slim and fast by using only one application per task and with focus on graphical desktop and multimedia usage. Zenwalk is currently ranked # 15 at Distrowatch.

Zenwalk comes in four different versions: Standard, Core, Live, and Server Editions. I used standard edition for this review. There is no screen capturing application installed by default by Zenwalk; thus the review does not contain any screen-shots from my machine. If you are interested in seeing Zenwalk, look here

Test Machine
Pentium D 3.4 GHz with 2 gig of RAM, Nvidia 7300GS with 256 meg RAM and 19" wide screen monitor.

Booting
For this review I chose the Standard Edition, and it does not come with a Live environment.

Installation
The installer is ncurses application, similar to Slackware. For some newbies this, seemingly text based installation method, can be intimidating. The installer asks the standard questions, root partition, swap partition etc. and begins installation.

Once installation is complete the user can configure the system. One of the most annoying fact about a Slackware based distribution is failure to load the required network card module. The installer detects the network card, allows the user to specify the network settings, and then on booting, the network functionality is missing. The user has to manually load the network driver module . Now this issue is generic to almost all Slackware derivatives.

So if you are planning to install Zenwalk, or as matter of fact any Slackware derivative, its better to know your network card name and corresponding module required by Linux before hand. A simple googling will help :). On my machines, I have intel network and realtek network cards and the modules are e100 and 8139too, respectively. So for the intel based driver I have to issue "modprobe e100" as root user. Once the module is loaded, the user has to bring up the network card by going through a control center application called ZenPanel.

Aesthetics
Zenwalk flaunts the most simple and elegant theme; its nice and cool. Zenwalk has xfce as the default desktop manager. And the xfce is left in its original format, not pushed hard to look like gnome, as done by some other distributions like Xubuntu and Mint.

Zenwalk has a really nice login screen; very well integrated with the splash screen and wallpaper. But with this version (4.8), somehow the themed login screen was not selected by default. I had to manually set in Settings Manager.

Applications
Zenwalk has a unique application strategy: one mainstream application for each task. Its nice and can be very helpful for new Linux converts. A lot of confusion is cleared. I used Geany, as a text editor, for the first time and was really impressed.

Almost all the applications are in the latest version. Ice weasel (re-branded Firefox) is 2.0.0.6-g2. Open office is missing from the packages, instead Abiword and Gnumeric Spreadsheets are installed. Although these applications are enough for an average desktop user, but I feel that Open Office would have been a better option. Maybe we can hope to see that in later versions.

With xfce based distributions one serious short-coming is the lack to samba viewer. There is no way to view samba shares on other machines. And the same scenario is there for Zenwalk.

Multimedia
Zenwalk has the complete multimedia support out-of-box. It was able to view/listen all kind to medis formats without any glitch.

Eye Candy
There is no advanced compositing manager installed by default with Zenwalk. A default compositing manager is installed which allows true window transparency.

Recommendations
Kindly load the desired network module during boot: its easy and simple, but can prove to be really annoying to a new user. Also Open Office is much better and complete solution for office related application; kindly consider it for inclusion.

Conclusion
I am just in love with xfce based distributions; they are fast, simple and elegant and Zenwalk is no exception. It has a really good control center and out-of-box multimedia support. Except for few initial hick-ups (network card module) it is really user friendly. I would recommend it to new Linux users.

StartCom MultiMedia Edition ML-5.0.6 Review

Highly disappointing start
StartCom Linux is a Red Hat clone. The Multimedia edition resembles Fedora. It is currently ranked #81 at Distrowatch.

The last time I viewed this project's main page, I remember seeing a reason for starting the distribution. The project developers expressed their anger about the pricing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat's decision to discontinue the Base version. As a result of with developers were forced to rebuild the distribution from source. But this time I see that StartCom has converted to a commercial identity. And the original cause is lost.

Test Machine
Pentium D 3.4 GHz with 2 gig of RAM, Nvidia 7300GS with 256 meg RAM and 19" wide screen monitor.

Booting
For this review I used the Multimedia Edition DVD, also known as Kessem. The DVD does not provide a Live environment, thus the user is forced to install the distribution first. This is quite amazing, given the fact that Fedora now provides a live environment.

When the system boots for the first time, some configuration is further required. Selinux is removed from Multimedia edition, so the desktop users are saved from a restart. Display configuration is completely messed up in Kessem. Even after selecting "Generic LCD 1440x900" the configuration did not give me the option for setting 1440x900 resolution. I selected 1400x1050 and desktop came up with 1024x768.It looked horrible.

Installation
StartCom uses the same Anaconda installer: used by Red Hat, with some changes in the package selection. Some sets, like Cryptography are available under two headers.

The installer asks about Language, Keyboard, disk partition, boot loader, root password and packages to install. The user account is created on first boot.

Aesthetics
StartCom does not have very appealing user interfaces (I reckon Fedora is better), but they are not so bad either. Dejavu fonts are missing from the default install.

Applications
Being a DVD installation there are a lot of applications to choose from. Latest Open Office 2.3 is installed whereas Firefox is still 1.5; 1.5.0.12 to be precise.

There are a lot of unique softwares present in Kessem which are not found in other distributions; for instance , MySQL Administrator . Wine is also installed by default.

Multimedia
Being a multimedia edition, I was too much excited about the codecs and multimedia applications. Certainly there are a lot of Multimedia applications, but none of the Codecs worked. I was unable to play WMV files and DVDs. Its pathetic for a distribution, calling itself multimedia edition and yet unable to play DVDs.

Eye Candy
Compiz Fusion is installed by default, but all attempts to enable the eye-candy resulted in XServer crash.I had the latest Nvidia drivers and all the required settings in xorg.conf, but still I was unable to have the nice desktop effects.

Conclusion
The previous versions were a lot better, and I strongly supported their cause. Now with this release the cause is gone, and a new commercial identity is in place. The system crashes a lot, seems like there was no testing done at all. Just stay away from StartCom, Fedora is lot better, stable and reliable.