Featured Comments: Week of 2011 July 24

There were two posts that got quite a few comments each, so I'll try to repost a few from each.

Review: Kongoni 2011 "Firefly"

Reader Znurre said, "Interesting review, thanks! I also agree with your view that 'easy to use' must not always mean 'newbie friendly'. A system that is easy and fast to work with, although pretty advanced as in this case, could very well be a good candidate for that term."
Commenter DarkDuck had another review linked: " Another review for those interested in Kongoni..."
Reader RavS had a slightly different, more general question: "Hi Prashanth. Quite a comprehensive review you have written! well basically I am Linux Mint user and I wanted to do a similar review on my own distro and submit on Distrowatch. Can u tell me how did u submit your entry at the distrowatch? Did u just sent them your article via mail with link of the blog in the subject?"

Review: Chakra 2011.04-r2 "Aida"

Commenter seenivasan had practically the opposite experience: "After impressed by so many positive reviews,I decided to try Chakra.It miserably failed with mulyisystem.The installer failed repeatedly at 90% of the installation process (while copying the INIRAMFS).Then I tried with copying ISO image with dd.I was able to install Chakra wihout any hiccups.But the system ceased at rebooting citing some problems in identifying partitions (depite some tweakig in grub menu). In a deperate attemt to taste the flavour of Arch linux,I installed Arch base system in my Dell inspiron as my fifth OS(along with Windows,Linux Mint, Bodhi Linux and Fedora).I could not establish the dial up connection in Arch linux.I was not able to download packages to switch to graphical environment.I sucessfully chrooted the arch base into my Linux Mint.I downloaded my favourite XFCE packages.I am having Arch linux in XFCE environment.It is fast and I love working with it. I should be grateful to Chakra, as it was instrumental in promting me to install ARCH."
An anonymous reader supported my findings: "Chakra is the best KDE distro I've tried. It seems really fast and light on resources."
Another anonymous commenter had a solution for one of my issues with Chakra: "Regarding to that rekonq issue, there's no search engine enabled by default. You can choose one from rekonq settings --> search engines."
Yet another anonymous reader said, "Chakra is for those who really like KDE, as it is absent of GTK to the point of not installing Flash. One may install GTK stuff, but all up to the user, and the default way is through bundles. That's why it has the best implementation of KDE that I've ever seen. Some options are not available on install, since it isn't a mature distro yet. Never seen any other distro make the latest realease of KDE available on the stable branch as fast as they do, and working flawlessly."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I plan to have an additional 2 reviews out, along with maybe two or three other posts. Once again, if you like what I write, please keep subscribing and commenting!

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Review: Chakra 2011.04-r2 "Aida"

For a while, I've been reviewing Chakra GNU/Linux using only a VM because I've been unable to create a Chakra live USB system with UnetBootin and have been unwilling to use the destructive live USB tool "dd". Recently, though, I tried doing it with MultiSystem, and it worked fine, so I'm reviewing it today.

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Regular readers of this blog don't need much of an introduction to Chakra. It's a formerly Arch-based rolling-release distribution (though it is drifting farther and farther away) that aims to provide a user-friendly distribution with a good, clean implementation of KDE. That said, while it does target newbies, it also targets power users, KDE lovers, and Arch fans at the same time, and it hopes that its users are active in giving back to Chakra; that could be through simple things like filing bug reports or more involved things like actually participating in the development process.

As I mentioned earlier, I tested this release of Chakra using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I also tested the installation in a VirtualBox VM with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS; this was done in a Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini live USB session. Follow the jump to see what it's like, now that I'm finally testing it on real hardware.

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Review: Kongoni 2011 "Firefly"

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

This is another review that I've wanted to do for a while now. That said, until recently, the last new version of Kongoni came out quite a while ago, so I figured that I should sit tight and wait for the new version. I did, and it's here, so I'm reviewing it now.

So what is Kongoni? It's a Slackware-based Linux distribution that uses KDE. Though it claims to also be relatively easy-to-use, its priority number one is to be a fully free software distribution, akin to Ubuntu-based Trisquel, which I have reviewed before. It also has a couple pieces of software to help it achieve the other goal of being easier to use.

I tested Kongoni through a live USB setup made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox in a Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like. (In response to a comment asking for this information, I'll try to include this from now on: my laptop is an ASUS U30Jc, whose specs you can easily find online.)

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Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Yesterday, I went to see this movie with my family. I hadn't been to a movie theater with them in a long time, so it was nice to go like that.
I have to say that as someone who read all the books and watched all the movies (I consider myself more than a casual fan but less than a die-hard fan), I was generally underwhelmed by the movie. All of the battle scenes were too short and underdone. I would say the most egregious scene in that sense was the final scene between Harry and Voldemort, because for a climax, it was totally anticlimactic, especially the way Voldemort just disintegrated; combined with the lack of a cool celebration scene at the end, I felt like the whole movie ended with a whimper instead of a bang. The two redeeming scenes were the Pensieve and limbo scenes; those were really well done, and they both brought Snape and Dumbledore out as the spectacularly done characters of the movie. Overall, I'd recommend that people watch it just for the purpose of closure, but prepare to be somewhat disappointed. Then again, my impression of Part 1 has waned as well as I've come to realize that it wasn't much more than the trio just running around in big fields trying to figure out how to find and destroy that locket.

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 July 17

There were two posts that got quite a few comments this past week, so I'll try to repost a few of those from each.

Review: Scientific Linux 6.0

An anonymous reader had this bit of support: "good review. Thanks!"
Another anonymous commenter was generally enthusiastic: "Scientific Linux is great !!! Thanks"

Review: PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE

Many of these comments surprised me in the way that they attacked me and the review without properly reading the review and seeing where I actually did praise PCLinuxOS; instead, they focused on the issues that I did have (and the issues that I didn't have or that I had but made clear that those were not to be blamed on PCLinuxOS) and magnified them to the level of a capital offense. Frankly, I was disappointed by the lack of understanding and comprehension among the readers, and it along with similarly savage comments on other reviews of PCLinuxOS that were not 100% positive is unfortunately enough to steer me away from reviewing PCLinuxOS in the future. Anyway, let's get on with the comments.
An anonymous reader said (later following this up with a little conversation with me in the comments), "Please correct me if I am wrong. You tested an operating system through a live environment, and then tested an install through a virtualbox session within the live environment. Is this a fair review? I wonder if you would have needed to tinker if you did a full and proper install. I do agree with you regarding the partition manager at install...it could be better. Emil" Of the rather bluntly critical comments I saw (many of which at best shared these concerns, at worst just engaged in ad hominem attacks), I felt this was the most fair, informed, and courteous of them all, and I'd like to thank this commenter for maintaining civility where other commenters had lost all such semblance.
Another anonymous commenter tried to fight back against that tide: "I use PCLINUXOS, and i am shame of this commentaries from the users. This is the kind of comments that give bad name to the community and the distro itself. Some PCLinuxOS users are know for no respect for the reviewers, this is not the first time and will not be the last! In the future do not complainin when people say that PCLinuxOS users are arrogant! Respect and be respected!"
Yet another anonymous reader had this related suggestion: "Has anyone tried iGolaware or Mageia? Both seem quite good, former is based on Ubuntu and latter fork of Mandriva, now independent. Not a troll :),just thought of asking if anyone had any experience with either."

Still another anonymous commenter said, "I've been using PClinuxOS for nearly 4 months and have found it a very good distro - my hardware is approx 2 years old - and it all works very well. The community very friendly. I think a few - and I would say it is just a few - do get defensive, but sometimes the reviews are so inaccurate I can sort of (partly) understand it. But if I can defend them for a moment, I "rarely" see them being personal in their responses, and secondly, the forum is the best by far of any of the ones I use. You only have to go the Welcome Centre to see how friendly, and helpful, they are. Thanks for reading."

 

Thanks to all those (yes, even the one who called me a "[living] Murphy's law", for your comment was a prime example of said ad hominem attacks) who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I plan to have at least three posts, two of which will be reviews again; no, I can't guarantee that either will be 100% positive, though I hope they will turn out that way. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

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Review: PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE

Main Screen

The last time I tried out PCLinuxOS was at version 2010.07, and I tried the KDE version then too. I didn't particularly it then because I felt it dropped a lot of useful applications from the 2009.2 release (which I tried out before I started this blog), and because it was pretty slow on my computer. Then again, my perspectives and desires have changed a little bit since then, so don't read too much into that. Anyway, version 2011.6 has been released, and I'm reviewing it.

So what is PCLinuxOS? A long time ago in a galaxy that we are all in, PCLinuxOS was a Mandriva derivative with a custom theme, some changed default applications, and a few customization scripts. Since then, it has grown and diverged into basically its own distribution; really, the only thing it has in common with Mandriva is its package file type, and that is a particular form of RPM used in Mandriva. Other than that, it's basically entirely different, so there's no point in continuing to mention Mandriva after this. Anyway, it primarily uses KDE, though there are GNOME, Xfce, LXDE, and Enlightenment editions available as well. Its selling points include ease of use even for total newbies to Linux, stability, and a rolling-release model. Through it all, it has essentially remained a one-man project, and that man is Bill Reynolds, also known as "Texstar". How can stability be reconciled with a rolling-release model? Well, although packages are sent to the repositories when ready, "when ready" is only after a lot of time and testing. PCLinuxOS is known for its rather conservative stance on upgrading to newer pieces of software; for example, KDE 4 wasn't available for users at large until last year with the release of the PCLinuxOS 2010 series. This is a similar tack Debian-based Linux Mint will be taking by thoroughly testing all incoming Debian Testing packages and only releasing them when ready in monthly packages.

I tested the live session on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox within that live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

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Review: Scientific Linux 6.0 "Carbon"

Main Screen

I really wanted to do this review a while ago, but I couldn't because when I wanted to do it then, MultiSystem didn't recognize the then-newly-released Scientific Linux 6.0 live CD ISO file. Since then, there have been quite a few updates to MultiSystem, and this time I could make a Scientific Linux 6.0 live USB with MultiSystem.

So what is Scientific Linux? It's basically Red Hat Enterprise Linux, minus Red Hat branding (with Scientific Linux branding instead), plus repositories containing extra mathematical, scientific, and engineering software, plus some extra niceties. It was developed for Fermilab and CERN, so it's not really meant to be a home desktop distribution per se, but I did read a few reviews of Scientific Linux 5.X commenting favorably on its abilities in such environments, so I wanted to see if that would be true of version 6.0 as well. Plus, I have never tried more office/server-oriented relatives of Fedora, so this would be a new experience for me too.

As mentioned earlier, my main mode of testing was through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I also tested the installation in VirtualBox within the live USB session. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

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