Featured Comments: Week of 2012 June 17

There were two posts that got several comments each, so I will try to repost a few from each.

Review: Zorin OS 6 Core

Reader DarkDuck said, among other things, "I have done a quick screenshot preview of Zorin OS 6 Core, and my system used much less memory."
Commenter Kryten451 had this bit of support: "Good writeup. I like what they're trying to do with Zorin, and I've tried them last release, and I'll give it another look soon."
Reader Glenn said, "I installed it and it works really well. I like it. I'll d/l the paid version to give them a little support $$. Good job guys..."
Commenter Manic Miner had this to say, among other things: "I'm currently running Zorin 5 on my laptop and despite previous concerns I had about it I really do like it. Version 5 is very stable and the compiz effects are excellent without being too much. (A wee bit of jazz). I might give version 6 a go over the weekend."

Review: Netrunner 4.2 LTS "Dryland" SE

Reader starbuck had this suggestion: "the mic issue seems to be a known problem in ubuntu/kubuntu and is related to settings, so maybe these solutions help with correct setup: http://askubuntu.com/questions/142670/skype-no-mic-under-kde http://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/microphone-does-not-work-with-skype-on-kubuntu-11-04/td-p/73304"
An anonymous commenter said, "Working great for me. I think it's a beautiful distro. Glad I found it."
Another anonymous reader suggested this solution to another problem: "The KDE 4.x series has been tuned and revised a lot from version to version, especially due to plasma active, actually getting faster with each update, so here might be a possible explanation of the resources during testing: If suddenly your system becomes slower, starts acting weird or sluggish and perfomance seems way up, look out for the "nepomuk" icon in systray: It could be that nepomuk has just started indexing your files, which is especially resource hungry in case you just mounted a NAS storage permanently over samba-network with samba-mounter. In this case, you can either suspend indexing or leave it on for your network overnight. Other than that, Netrunner 4.2 runs exceptionally smooth and snappy on my samsung netbook n110 atom with 1GB ram."
Commenter Psychover said, "Netrunner is based on Kubuntu, according to Distrowatch. As far as I remember, Clement ( Founder /Developer of Mint) works in Netrunner project as Blue Systems is the main sponsor of Mint project right now. So I think LM Maya KDE 'll not be a huge difference with this."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I intend to have at least one more review out, and if Sabayon 9 works well with UnetBootin, I do intend to review that as well. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Netrunner 4.2 LTS "Dryland" SE

Main Screen + KMenu

The first and most recent time that I tried out Netrunner, it was in comparison with Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" KDE. At that time, I felt like although Netrunner had a few quirky design choices that I didn't agree with as much, I felt like Linux Mint with KDE just felt too generic, while Netrunner made a conscious effort to improve the user experience of KDE. Now, Netrunner has come out with a new release based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin", and I am in search of something to eventually replace my installation of Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME, so I am trying out this latest version now.

Netrunner hasn't had a particularly long history, but it has grown quickly. It aims to offer a spruced-up KDE experience, and true to its name, it aims to offer a lot of cloud-based applications as well. The organization behind Netrunner has also sponsored Linux Mint with KDE, and has more recently taken over Kubuntu from Canonical. Given that these three distributions now fall within the same organizational umbrella, and given that I was pretty excited about the prospect of Linux Mint 13 LTS "Maya" KDE, I'm trying Netrunner to predict what may happen when I try Linux Mint with KDE in (hopefully) the near future.

Given that this could be the distribution for which I have been searching, I tried the 64-bit edition of Netrunner 4.2 LTS "Dryland" SE as a live USB made using UnetBootin (because it seems like MultiSystem on my installed OS is no longer able to reliably create live USB systems, which is a little disappointing). Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 February 5

There were no featured comments the previous week because I didn't post anything for that week due to my end-of-IAP business. There was one post this past week that got a couple of comments, so I will repost both of those.

Comparison Test: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" KDE vs. Netrunner 4.1 "Dryland"

Reader Bart said, "It is a bit.. surprising to see a Facebook shortcut installed on a Linux desktop by default. You write that Netrunner also considers for example Google docs, GCal and Youtube as applications. So in that way it is a sort of a net-runner after all. Thanks for the comparison, I was indeed curious to hear more about Netrunner."
An anonymous commenter had this to say: "Given the web oriented mood Netrunner seems to have ... it would have been interesting checking, as a level of polish, the integration of Dropbox in Dolphin (context menu for Dropbox folders, etc...). On the other hand ... it would have also been interesting knowing a bit more about Blue-Systems, the main sponsor of Netrunner and Linux Mint by now. Good review, but as you can see the curiosity is even bigger. Ps.- Do you really believe they will join together ???"

Thanks to those commenters for commenting on this past week's posts. Depending on my workload this week, I may or may not be able to post anything, but if I do have that kind of time, I do have at least one thing in mind. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Comparison Test: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" KDE vs. Netrunner 4.1 "Dryland"

Linux Mint: Main Screen

Both of the latest releases of these particular distributions came out this week. Also, Linux Mint now has a partnership with Netrunner for Linux Mint with KDE; hence, this comparison test may be the last meaningful one between the distributions while they remain as separate as possible, because I think they will converge in the coming months. Finally, Kubuntu just lost its funding at Canonical, so like Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Edubuntu, after (but not including) version 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" it will be recognized by Canonical as an official derivative but will only be supported by the community. This means that there will need to be a new top dog for Ubuntu-based KDE distributions, and these two distributions seem like the most likely candidates. That is why I am comparing these two distributions now.

Linux Mint of course needs no introduction here. Interestingly, considering that for almost all of its history it has made Ubuntu with GNOME better and more usable, it actually started out in version 1 "Ada" as a KDE distribution, and KDE was still prominently featured until around version 3.1 "Celena" (and that is also around the time KDE made the transition from version 3 to version 4, which caused many users to move away to other DEs). After that, though, GNOME became the really prominent DE in Linux Mint, and KDE has almost become a second-class citizen in Linux Mint; in the last few releases, though the main GNOME edition has received extensive customizations, the KDE edition has been just a lightly-rebranded version of Kubuntu with a few other small customizations here and there. I will see whether or not that continues to be the case.

Netrunner: Main Screen

Netrunner, despite the name, is not a cloud-oriented distribution. It is a traditional desktop distribution like any other, and it aims to provide KDE mixed with useful tools taken from GNOME along with other helpful installed programs and customizations.

I tested both using a multiboot live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation processes, because both are based on Ubuntu so there is really no need; all I am really comparing are the first impressions created by each distribution (so the whole post may seem a bit superficial), because soon they will more likely than not converge. Follow the jump to see what each distribution is like.