Before I get to the review, I want to say that while I tested Pardus 2009.2 on my old computer in VirtualBox with 448 MB of RAM, I have tested Pardus 2011 Beta on my new laptop in VirtualBox with 1024 MB of RAM, so it isn't quite an apples-to-apples comparison. Please keep this as well as the fact that I'm previewing a beta release in mind for the rest of this post.
If you couldn't glean what I'm about to say from the opening paragraph, I'll just say it: the review didn't go well at all. I raved about Pardus 2009.2 "Geronticus Eremita" in my comparison of KDE distributions for its amazing tools designed to make new users feel right at home. Well, I can't similarly rave about Pardus 2011 Beta. Why? It just refused to load the desktop. No matter what combination of boot options I chose at the boot menu, it would fly through the Plymouth boot splash and then display a blank screen and hang there. That's bad. I hope the developers of Pardus get their act together before the official release, because it would truly be a shame to see such a wonderful distribution fall so much from one release to the next.
