PCLinuxOS is a Mandriva fork that seemingly shot up in distrowatch’s top distros list. I was more than a tad surprised at this, seeing a world where nobody ever mentioned PCLinuxOS as much as say, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora or OpenSUSE. Intrigued, I read more about this distro and decided to give it a shot, which is what I’m typing from right now.
PCLinuxOS installs and boots fast and has a very slick interface – and of course, KDE! The biggest hurdle I can see is that since PCLOS doesn’t have a regular release cycle (or at least not one as frequent as the Ubuntu distros), you have to upgrade a ton of packages after installation, which is a bit of a pain for those of us with inferior connection speeds.
Even then, I like what I see in PCLOS, particularly the mklivecd command, which lets you construct a Live CD out of your existing installation – a very handy tool to have. Despite being based off Mandriva, it has the APT package management system, which means Synaptic is back, and that alone is worth celebrating.
PCLOS also has a special control centre independent of the KDE control centre, and I liked it! It sets up everything very well and is pretty easy to use. PCLOS also feels very cool to use, as compared to Ubuntu or other distros. Konqueror is still around to hate, but I think that should be taken care of once we make the big jump to KDE 4.0.0 on January 11th (I can’t wait!).
Setting up the Internet wasn’t too much of a problem, thanks to the new control centre tools, but I’ve yet to get sound working. PCLOS’ forums look decent, albeit not as eternally busy as Ubuntu’s.
I think I will be using PCLOS for quite a while, especially because of its priceless mklivecd command, but being the fickle distro-jumper that I am, I might just try out Linux Mint’s next KDE version if it comes out!
If you are a confident Linux user, please try the latest PCLinuxOS release, which is mini-me. One of the links you can get it from is here:
ftp://ftp.belnet.be/pub/mirror/pclinuxonline.com/live-cd/english/preview/
This is a 296Mb download giving you a stripped down version of PCLinuxOS, which includes enough of KDE to get a desktop and on the net through Konqueror, the Control Centre, and of course Synaptic to add the software you want. There is a Utilities folder on the desktop to help set up your Internet, Clock, ATi/Nvidia card, and other stuff.
Again not for people with slow connection speeds, and not for people not experienced enough to know what to install. But for people who want a Linux with great hardware detection and support, easy to install, who are knowledgeable enough and happy to build up their system from a basic one, using Synaptic to add packages, this is a great choice.
Expect a “full” version, based on Mini-Me, to follow on soon.
Benn using pclos for about 2 months now. No way would I ever go back to buntu. I rebuild old donated boxes and give away to needy people. Everyone likes it. Easy to use and very solid. Hardware detection is great. Buntu has a lot to learn from pclos.
I’ve been using PCLinuxOS for about 2 years now, after jumping around a bit to Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, Suse, Mandrake, Fedora, Sabayon, and others. I’ll never distro-hop again! I’ve found a home with the best Linux distro out there. I’ve been moved so much by the distro, I try to help out and ‘give back’ any way I can.
I have been using PCLinuxOS since the original days of .93a “Big Daddy.” I have never had any kind of system failure with PCLinuxOS (that wasn’t my fault, that is… you know, you try something and it just doesn’t work). I have tried the new versions of Fedora and openSuSE but PCLinuxOS moves ahead of all of them. It just does everything I want and need it to. Being a teacher, my computer is not an eye-candy machine, a media center or anything like that, it is a tool I use for work and there is a lot of it when you teach. Being able to reliably update software as needed, add new packages that are needed, etc., is truly priceless. I have PCLinuxOS running on my desktop and my laptop. .93a is still running on my very old other laptop. Not having to worry about/doing all of the system maintenance with other operating systems saves a lot of time that can be devoted to doing the work of teaching. And I guess that’s what it is really all about…
Ive been running PCLinux for a little over a year and ive got to say its the best distro out there. Ive tried many others but havent found any as easy to configure or as stable as PCLinux. Its the perfect distro for those new to Linux or anyone who wants a solid no hassle linux experience.
PCLOS Is very good!!
http://www.drupload.com/uploads/795lnx1.png
“kdetv” rocks, it’s “image motion filter is awesome”. so does “kaffeine”. I’ll be checking out “kdevelop” soon.