Showing posts with label Stella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stella. Show all posts

2012-08-19

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!

2012-08-06

Review: Stella 6.3

Main Screen
A couple weeks ago on an unrelated review, I remember a commenter asking if I could review a Linux distribution called Stella. It seemed interesting, but I didn't think much of it until the last few days when its release of version 6.3 made news on several major Linux news sites. At that point I knew I should check it out, so here it is. (Also, if Tennessee Williams were alive today, I think that "A Linux Distribution Named 'Stella'" would have made a great title for one of his plays. Yes, I really did have to make that pun, and it won't be the last time either.)

A lot of distributions that I come across that aim like Stella to be more user-friendly than their respective parent distributions are based on Ubuntu. There are quite a few based straight on Debian. There are also a handful based on Slackware, Arch, or Gentoo, which are all generally not very easy for new Linux users to use. And there are a few based on Fedora, though I feel like the only big-name one that's still around is Kororaa (and even that was originally based on Gentoo, so it hasn't been based on Fedora for that long — plus, Fuduntu forked from Fedora a while ago, while I haven't heard anything about Fusion recently). But until now, I don't think I've ever heard of a distribution that aims to make straight-up RHEL/CentOS more user-friendly, and that is exactly what Stella aims to do, so I think it may be unique in that regard. This is a great thing, because while I don't think CentOS is particularly unfriendly to general consumers, I do think it is generally geared more towards enterprise desktop and server settings. But CentOS has a reputation of being absolutely rock-solid, and this is made better by the fact that every CentOS release is supported for 7 years (and RHEL provides an additional 3 years of support to paying customers on top of that, if I remember correctly). So that seems like an ideal starting point upon which to build a user-friendly desktop.

I tested Stella 6.3 as a live USB system made with UnetBootin. (I tested the 32-bit edition because I happily have a new installed system, so I'm not looking for anything anymore so I don't really need the 64-bit edition. This also means that as before, from now on all reviews are of the 32-bit edition unless I specify otherwise.) Follow the jump to see how Stanley reacts. (Yes, I did that pun again.)