Featured Comments: Week of 2013 August 4

There was one post this past week that got one comment, so I will repost that one.

Review: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" KDE + Xfce

An anonymous reader said, "Looking at your screenshots from the KDE spin I don´t see them looking different from oxygen. Did you change them before taking the screenshots? Also a general thank you for reviewing distros."

Thanks to that person for leaving that comment. This coming week, I'm going to be taking the GRE, so I definitely can't post anything until after Tuesday. After that, I may really only have time to put out my planned post reflecting on the past summer. After that, I'm going to be relaxing at home for two weeks, so my posts may become somewhat sporadic until September, which is when I get back to campus. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" KDE + Xfce

I realize that I haven't posted anything in the last 2.5 weeks. That's because in that time I got quite busy with a combination of UROP work, video making for the MIT-K12 project, and studying for the General and Physics GREs. Given that I will be taking the General GRE in just over a week, and given that I will be going home for vacation shortly thereafter, I won't be able to post much after this for this month aside from a probable post reflecting on the summer. That said, it is a Sunday as I write this, and I figured I could use a break from the studying. So to do that, I'm reviewing Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" KDE and Xfce.

Main Screen + KDE Kickoff Menu

Why am I doing this if I have already reviewed the MATE and Cinnamon editions? Well, if you remember those reviews, I felt a little let down by both; granted, I could still recommend the MATE edition to newbies, but it wasn't with the same confidence as in the past. I want to see if the latest version of Linux Mint can redeem itself through the KDE or Xfce editions.

I tried each separately through a live USB system made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

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Review: Zorin OS 7 Core

It has been almost exactly a year since I reviewed Zorin OS 6 Core, which was based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin". The new version is based on Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail", so I'm reviewing that now.

Main Screen + Zorin OS Menu

What is Zorin OS? It is based on Ubuntu, uses a heavily customized GNOME 3 environment with Compiz as the WM and AWN as a panel. It also aims to look as close to Microsoft Windows as possible; at the moment, the target is specifically Microsoft Windows 8. There haven't been a huge number of changes from version 6 to version 7 of Zorin OS, aside from some theme and branding updates along with the usual package updates.

I tried this as a live USB made with UnetBootin; the Zorin OS website warns that the live system may be less stable than the installed system, so I'll see how that plays out. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2013 June 9

There was one post that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll repost some of those.

Review: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Cinnamon + MATE

Reader Mechatotoro said, "Thank you for the time to write about Mint; your review is very useful and enlightening. I really appreciate your objective observations! Again, thank you and good luck with your studies."
An anonymous commenter had a different experience: "I have been using Mint 15 since the RC release and it has been rock solid for me as well."
Reader Bernard Victor had a similar counter: "I am using Mint with Cinnamon desktop. I have found it very stable and responsive. Desktop effects work well. I think it is the best all round distro that I have tried. I also have PClinuxOS loaded which is not half as responsive though seems pretty stable. Could be that some of your problems result from only usinga live USB system."
Commenter on4aa supported, "I am happy to read a rather objective Linux Mint review, pinpointing the same desktop environment issues that made me leave Linux Mint Debian Edition. [...]"


Thanks to all those who commented on that post. This coming week I will have another review along with maybe one other post coming out. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Cinnamon + MATE

It's that time of the year again. Linux Mint has just released the latest version of its distribution, and I'm going to review it.

Cinnamon: Main Screen + Cinnamon Menu

What has changed since the previous version? Cinnamon has gotten more bug fixes as usual. More importantly, its settings have been consolidated into one program, and it has become less immediately dependent on GNOME than before. Meanwhile, MATE has also been moving away from old libraries toward newer ones used in GNOME 3 as well, allowing for things like Caja to look a little more like Nautilus. There are other changes in store for Linux Mint itself, like new separate tools to manage software repositories and drivers, respectively (in opposition to how Ubuntu is doing it now).

I tested both of these as live USB systems made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what they are like.

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How-To: Make Xfce Like Unity

This is more or less the sequel to this post. It came about because I wanted to see if it would be easy to make Xfce look like Apple's Mac OS X; I figured that Unity looks similar enough, so I might as well write about that. Follow the jump to see how to do it. I would have added more pictures if I had more time, but I'm heading back to campus tomorrow, so I can only make this a quick post in the meantime.

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Review: SolydXK 2013.04.06

I originally wanted to do this one before final exams, but other hiccups in this review pushed that to now. Anyway, here it is.

Main Screen + KDE Kickoff Menu

What is SolydXK? Debian-based Linux Mint never had a KDE edition, so SolydK was born out of the unofficial project featuring KDE in Debian-based Linux Mint. Then, Linux Mint pushed its Xfce edition back to an Ubuntu base, necessitating the emergence of SolydX. Together they form SolydXK, based on Debian Testing but with update packs, just as Debian-based Linux Mint is.

I tried SolydXK on separate partitions of a live USB with UnetBootin, as MultiSystem did not recognize SolydXK (and that's why I was having trouble doing this review before final exams). Follow the jump to see what they are like.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2013 March 24

There were two posts that got a few comments each, so I will repost most of those.

Review: Linux Mint MATE 201303

Reader Gary Newell said, "This is a good in depth review. I am currently using the Mint 14 Cinnamon release (Ubuntu base). If you have a powerful enough PC then Cinnamon is the best desktop as far as I can tell. I prefer the Consort desktop used by SolusOS to the MATE desktop and if I have an older PC I actually overall prefer to use XFCE and so tend to run Xubuntu."
Commenter Juan Carlos García Ramírez had this to say: "I still prefer xfce :D so linux mint 14 (Nadia) xfce for me".

Review: Pardus 2013 KDE

Reader Megatotoro shared, "I tested Pardus 2013 as well. In my case, I could test the repositories using Synaptic and could download the localization file for my language. I did notice that even so, some programs were still in Turkish (VLC, Synaptic). I have the Release Candidate installed on my laptop and it is greatly stable."
Commenter Mechatotoro had this bit of support: "@Prashanth, Thank you for your time with Pardus and your review. Good luck going back to school! @Mega, I just came from your blog and recommended you to read this review. I guess you are too fast :-)"

Thanks to all those who commented on those posts. I am back on campus now, and the semester isn't about to wait for me to settle down, so it will be back in full swing any minute now. This means that my post frequency will once again decrease through the rest of the semester. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Linux Mint MATE 201303

For those of you who have been waiting for a review, I think I may have said before that my writing would shift more to science-y stuff and away from distribution reviews. However, that does not mean that reviews will stop entirely. I'm on spring break now and have a little more time to do these reviews, so today I am reviewing Linux Mint MATE 201303, which came out earlier this week.

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

This is the version of Linux Mint based on Debian rather than Ubuntu. It uses a variant of a rolling-release model, in that while existing users can get the latest and greatest software simply by applying updates as usual, the updates come in large bundles (I almost want to say they are like the Microsoft Windows Service Packs, except that they work) rather than individual package files. This means that the most common packages used on a Debian-based Linux Mint system are tested so that they can be guaranteed to work not only individually but also together, so that the problem of an individual update breaking other dependencies becomes moot. Around the time of releasing a new update pack, a new ISO file snapshot of the distribution is released, as was the case this time around.

I reviewed the [32-bit] MATE edition using a live USB made with MultiSystem; I wanted to review the Cinnamon edition too, but it refused to boot, so I will leave my assessment of it at that. I also did an installation of this (which regular readers know is rare), so you will have to follow the jump to see what this is like.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 December 9

There was one post that got a handful of comments this past week, so I will try to repost most of those.

Review: Linux Mint 14.1 "Nadia" MATE + GNOME 3/Cinnamon

An anonymous reader said, "It's too bad you didn't get to experience Mint 14 with Cinnamon. I have it running on both a Pentium E5300 desktop with Nvidia 440 GT, and on a 6-year-old laptop with Intel C2D T7200 with Intel 945GM integrated video, and it runs great on both."
Another anonymous commenter had this to say: "Cinnamon now comes with Nemo instead of Nautilus. I like it, but I am o so missing the ability to have scripts and actions from within Nemo. In my opinion it was made default file browser too early."
Reader ArcherB shared this experience: "I just installed MATE on top of my standard Ubuntu installation. Works great without the stability issues of Mint. Tried Cinnamon, but, like the author ran across, it was simply not stable enough for me. It would launch and run for a while, but then weirdness would crop up. It would either lock up, "tear", or certain aspects of it would fail. MATE works fine for me, so I'll stick with that and KDE."
Commenter Jonc said, "I've run into no stability problems with Mint 14.4 Cinnamon. Or any other problems. One of the pleasures of Cinnamon is that it requires little customization, unlike many other distributions that tout their configurability but release products that are ugly and disfunctional in their default state. I've found MATE to be slow after using it on Mint, Fedora and OpenSuse. The transitition from Gnome is incomplete (Check the Startup Apps: several instances of MATE processes running in parallel with their Gnome equivalents). I also wonder if the resources behind MATE are enough to sustain it and if it can make a successful transition to GTK3. If I wanted to run a Gnome 2 desktop, I'd go with CentOS. Now, that does require a good bit of tweaking to get a good looking usable desktop, but it is fast and very reliable."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I have final exams, but after that is finished, I'll probably have a post out looking back on this semester along with possibly another review. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Linux Mint 14.1 "Nadia" MATE + GNOME 3/Cinnamon

Wow. It's been a really long time since I've had the time to sit down and do a review like this. The reason for that is because this semester has been incredibly busy in pretty much every way, and today was finally the last day to turn in problem sets and other assignments. Now, I can finally do this review.

Main Screen + Linux Mint Menu

Linux Mint needs no introduction here. However, one thing to note is that this is the first release since version 4.X "Daryna" to have a version number with a digit after a decimal point. The reason for that was that some sneaky bugs got past final-release testing, so they needed to be fixed and the ISO file needed to be released as an updated image. Right now, the editions with MATE and GNOME 3/Cinnamon are out in final form, so those are the ones I am going to be reviewing today. For reference, the KDE and Xfce are coming soon, as those already have release candidates out now.

I tested this as usual on a live USB system made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation. Follow the jump to see how this fares relative to my current preferred version 13 LTS "Maya".

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 August 5

There is no "Featured Comments" post for this past week because there were no posts that week, but the one for the previous week is this one because I was out of town last weekend and couldn't write this post at that time.

Review: Stella 6.3

An anonymous reader supported the puns: "I know what you mean about Tennessee Williams, I been perfecting my Marlin Brando Stanley Kowalski impression since I first heard the name. I know there's a pun headline there somewhere, but I just can't seem to capture my 'Stel-la!' impression in text."
Commenter crabbos said, " This one sounded interesting until you mentioned it has 2 panels. That just killed any interest I had right there. Still waiting for a look at Voyager too hehe ^_^"
Reader Nux, who is also the developer of Stella, had this to say: "Thanks for trying out Stella. Glad you liked the name, at least. :-) The remix is intentionally kept simple, I didn't want to create the new **insert random ubuntu remix here**, I just wanted Centos (EL) fans a hassle free installation, hence just a few small modifications here and there as you noticed: - nautilus uses the browser mode by default - the default fonts differ - totem should load subs automatically and also resume playing files (a la smplayer) - Bluecurve: this theme was one of the graphical landmarks of RedHat linux, old redhatters know. Using it was my own way to give credit, if you like, to this great distro. I also happen to think it's one of the most beautiful themes, but that's just me. :-) * And a tip for those who have it installed: add yourself to the "wheel" group and you will be able to use sudo and install/update software (via gui or pkcon) without the root password."
An anonymous commenter had this bit of support for a decision in the distribution: "I actually like the bluecurve theme a lot and hope you will continue to atleast have that as one of the optional themes even if you decide to change the main theme."

Reflection: 2012 Summer UROP

Reader Chenyu Zhao said, "Scheme is great! You must read SICP if you haven't already: http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/"

Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE

Commenter Erno had this experience to share: "I found Amorok as painfully bad working with Mint 13 KDE. So i uninstalled it and replaced it with much better working Banshee. Perhaps one of the reasons might have been my old cd/dvd device. However with Banshee in both Lubuntu, Mint 13 MATE and Mint 13 KDE it has worked very well."
An anonymous reader asked in response, "Curious to know how you got Banshee to work in Mint 13 KDE. Tried it and 1st time it dissapeared. Restarted the app and it crashed again.
I have a Sony Vaio VPCF234FD which reverts to HDMI audio at the slightest provocation and Amarok keep switching phonon to the HDMI audio (quite annoying), So for me it has been back to good 'ol Gmusicbrowser. Frankly I'd like to know your secret to make Banshee work in KDE."
Commenter crabdog also responded, "I've become rather fond of Clementine of late. So much so that it's now my default music player in Windows 7 as well as my various Linux distros. As for Mint, I've tried all flavors of Maya and didn't find anything compelling enough for me to stick with it. I'm currently running Voyager 12.04 xfce, a Zorin 6 respin and BigLinux KDE."
Reader Rudy Hartmann shared this tip: "I had a few crashes in Linux Mint 13 KDE too. I think it has better polish than Kubuntu also. But I upgraded Mint 13 KDE to KDE 4.9 and all the bad stuff stopped happening. sudo apt-add-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports -y sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get dist-upgrade Try it! Works good!"

Thanks to all those who commented on the previous week's posts. There were no posts this past week as I was relaxing with family and friends at home. That will continue to be true for this coming week and the following week, meaning that posts may or may not happen during that time. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE

I recently reviewed Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE, and I was quite pleased with it. My long-term review of the Xfce edition just ended, so this one will go for another 8 days. This will be the last such long-term review of the summer, because after this I am going home and won't be back until just before the semester starts, at which point I probably will not be able to continue this.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 July 29

There was no "Featured Comments" post last week because comments on the previous week's posts didn't come until after that week was done. There were two posts that got a couple comments each, so I will repost all of those.

Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

Reader Bernard Victor suggested, "Have you tried Xubuntu. I am using it and find it very good. Even able to change to Nautilus from Thunar. All my sound and video files play without any tuning, using either VLC or Gmusicbrowser. Rhythmnbox is also available."

My Installation of Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

Commenter Innocent Bystander said, "Someone trying to discover the installation of LM14 XFCE would have hard time to learn anything from this article", later clarifying, "Sorry I meant LM13 XFCE. In the article "Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce" http://dasublogbyprashanth.blogspot.ca/2012/07/long-term-review-linux-mint-13-lts-maya.html There was too much emphasis about the attempt to replace MDM by LightDM. Although I understand your motive but I was expecting to see if LM13 XFCE is worth a move, in terms of software and "habits" compatibilities. Speaking of MDM, I wonder why a "friendly & design focus" distro like LinuxMint would opt for the inconvenient MDM. Do you know why?"

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week will see the publication of the last long-term review of this summer. In addition, I will have a normal review out along with possibly a second (if the release of that [second] distribution happens this week), and I'll probably have another random post about the summer in general. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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My Installation of Linux Mint 13 "Maya" Xfce

Old: [Customized] Mozilla Firefox + Desktop Cube

Well folks, this is it. After many months of looking for a suitable replacement for my setup of Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME, I have found one and have followed through with it. There were two reasons why I wanted to make this upgrade/switch: I wanted to stay up-to-date and take advantage of the support promised in the latest LTS release, and I needed to either reinstall my current OS or install something else because my present installation of Linux Mint stopped recognizing my laptop's ethernet card when I accidentally pulled out the power adapter cord from the laptop about 2 months ago. I got by with wireless Internet, but it was painful, and it had become so painful in the last few weeks that I couldn't stick with it for much longer. The following is a log of my experience installing and customizing Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce on my laptop. As of the moment that I write this sentence, this will simultaneously be the last post that I write with the old version of Linux Mint and the first that I write with the new version. I have to confess that I've become somewhat attached to the way that I've customized the old version (and that's what made finding a suitable replacement so difficult), but given that it looks like I can do the same things in the new version, I eagerly anticipate having the new version installed. Follow the jump to see what happens.

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Long-Term Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

If you've read my very recent review of Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce, you'll know how pleased I was with it. Given that my latest long-term review of Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" just ended, I needed something new, so this was going to be it. Follow the jump to see what this is like over the course of 7-10 days.

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Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE

Main Screen + Kickoff

About a week ago, I reviewed the Xfce edition of Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya". While I was quite pleased with how that turned out, I held off on going ahead and installing it because I wanted to try the KDE edition as well. Now that is here, so I'm reviewing it.

I tried the 64-bit edition as a live USB system made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see if it could be worthy of installation on the hard drive of my laptop.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2012 July 15

There were two posts this past week that got several comments each, so I'll repost a few from each.

Long-Term Review: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin"

An anonymous reader suggested, "Please can you try Mageia 2, the KDE edition. Use the livecd version and have a great time with it. Only problem is mupen64plus is not in the repos, but you can make package request or try out mupen64plus from Mandriva Cooker. Should work without any issue. I have used many KDE edition pass this year and Mageia 2 is the best of them all."
Commenter avelinus also suggested, "Please, can you try Sabayon 9, the KDE edition. I am very pleased with it. I installed the 64 bit version on my HP dv6 2180 with an i5 520M I tried all versions since 4 and 9 is the best ever. Appears to be the safest and friendliest of user friendly OS.. I haven't any problems so far with any of the programs that I added. Only the update that i decided to do, I canceled twice due to the delay. the older versions, did not like the installer."
In addition, reader Stefan Ivić suggested, "Did you tried openSUSE KDE? Best KDE experiance by far..."
Another anonymous commenter had this tip with regard to my comment about Mageia not playing nicely with live USB creation even with the "dd" command: "I had the exact same issue with one of my usb-stick. It failed with both Mageia and Chakra. But then I tried my other usb and with that usb it worked like dream with dd. So if you have more then 1 usb it could work for you also."

Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

An anonymous reader said, "I agree with you regarding MATE and Cinnamon. I wonder why it is necessary to create them when LXDE and XFCE already exist in a stable state. I am using Lubuntu + Ubuntu Studio (xfce). I add Gnome-fallback and Enlightenment to have some alternatives to boot into and try out, and they don't seem to fight too much or use too many resources. I like Nautilus for its double-pane but since that is on the way out, I may be done with all gnome bits. Good riddance, gnome. Lxde and Xfce are my favorites, and I rarely notice that I am no longer using gnome. In gnome or unity, I cannot really function anymore. I am also not accustomed to using KDE. Enlightenment E17 would be my third choice after xfce and lxde (tied). I have tried Mint a few times but see no advantages and some disadvantages to the *buntus. I wonder also if you don't think a *buntu has a better upgrade (and sidegrade?) path than Mint. In fact, even on Distrowatch, Mint has not yet reached the level of Ubuntu+Lubuntu+Xubuntu+Kubuntu+Ubuntu-Studio. Mint just seems like Ubuntu done right, and I do hate almost all of the decisions made at the head Ubuntu office, but the spinoffs that are still in the Ubuntu family seem to get it right, too."
Commenter Chris had this to say: "yes i really really think also that xfce mint is one of the best distro oute there for guys of old school...  I cannot understand this unity thing (although it seems it is getting somewhere), gnome 3 is out of question while kde is stable now but i use too many gnome apps...What is going with linux DE??"
Reader crabbos had the following suggestions: "I'm surprised that there's been little to no mention of PCLinuxOS Phoenix XFCE on this and other popular sites. I've been testing it myself over the last few days and it's brilliant. I'm also quite fond of VoyagerOS and Porteus, both XFCE and both I feel deserve more attention. Voyager is a bit more resource heavy but works nicely and Porteus is amazingly quick and responsive."
Another anonymous commenter clarified, "PCLinuxOS XFCE has no maintainer right now and it is not considered an 'official edition' any longer. There is some political back story there from what I gather from reading their support forums. I briefly installed it a couple of weeks ago and ran into a few small bugs, like issues with numlock causing me to be locked out with my password after I updated it."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE is now unofficially released on the mirrors, though no official announcement has been made yet, so I will review that this week. Aside from that, there may be other random posts too, but the next long-term review won't come out until the following week because it started this past Friday. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce

Main Screen + Xfce Menu

The final release of Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" Xfce hasn't even been officially announced yet, but despite that, I'm reviewing it now (and it is indeed the final release and not an RC). How is that possible? To be honest, I was quite anxious to get my hands on it, and earlier today I found that some mirror sites of Linux Mint had uploaded (though not others, which was weird, although as I write this, more mirrors have uploaded it). Well, in any case, now I'm trying it out.

The main editions of Linux Mint now feature the MATE and GNOME 3/Cinnamon desktop. I've checked out Cinnamon from time to time and have found it to be too unstable for my use, at least in a live USB session; plus, some extensions like the Auto-Move-Windows extension don't work as they should. That leaves MATE, which I tried over a month ago. I wasn't especially happy with it because of the issues with Compiz trying to work with MATE, and this surprised me considering that MATE should have replicated the GNOME 2 experience. That left me waiting for the KDE edition. Then I found out that Xfce would make an official return to Ubuntu-based Linux Mint, which was surprising given past statements by the developers that the Xfce edition would be exclusively offered with the Debian base. Now that this has happened, I want to see if Ubuntu-based Linux Mint with Xfce can effectively replicate and replace my current and ideal GNOME 2 setup on Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora".

I tested the 64-bit version of the live session through a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like. Also, please note that because this is Linux Mint, I may be more biased in favor of it, but then again, I just couldn't overlook the deficiencies of the MATE edition no matter what, so this may or may not be an issue.

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Revisited: SolusOS 1.1 "Eveline"

This is the follow-up to this review. At the time, the 64-bit edition had not been released, and I was unable to install packages in the live system probably due to a bad USB writing procedure by that particular version of MultiSystem that I was using at that time. For this post, I tried the 64-bit edition of SolusOS 1.1 "Eveline" using a live USB made with UnetBootin. Because I am simply discussing whether installation of my preferred packages worked, I will keep it short and sweet.

Using the Synaptic Package Manager to install the Linux Mint Menu and Redshift worked, and those packages started and worked fine too. Also, as SolusOS 1.1 "Eveline" is based on Debian 6 "Squeeze", the Mupen64Plus package in the repository is version 1.5, so I was able to install and use that fine too.
Google Talk was not in the repository, but that is generally to be expected. I was able to install and use it through the DEB file fine.
SolusOS uses Nautilus Elementary, but interestingly, Gloobus-Preview is not present. As SolusOS is not based on Ubuntu, installing Gloobus-Preview is nontrivial, so I would like to see that included in the future. Then again, SolusOS 2 will have GNOME 3 and has GNOME Sushi (which is basically the same sort of thing as Gloobus-Preview) in a repository already, so given that SolusOS 2 will not be released more than a few months from now or so, this is probably not a big issue.
Skype, at version 4, was the bad apple here. Neither the static DEB file from the website nor the package from the repository worked. I mean, the package installed fine in both instances, but in both cases Skype refused to start, throwing an error (that I think I have seen before) about the inability to load some critical shared library. Unfortunately, searching in the SolusOS forums yielded the same question with not much of an answer, and the suggestions made for users of Debian 6 "Squeeze" on various websites did not work either, as Skype continued to throw the same error.

The lack of a working Skype means that I would not install SolusOS 1.1 "Eveline" on my computer. I do hope though that it works better on SolusOS 2. In fact, I am downloading and trying out SolusOS 2 Alpha 5 right now.

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