Featured Comments: Week of 2013 September 1

There was one post this week that got two comments, so I'll repost both of those.

Review: Elementary OS 2 "Luna"

Reader sgreen said, "and we need Elementary for ??. I know the developer just wants to keep busy. If there's anything that will ruin Linux it's this kind of crap. How many are in its user-base??"
An anonymous commenter disagreed: "I think the Elementary team are doing a great job. I find eOS to be very distraction-free. I spend less time in making it look and feel like I want to, because the developers have done that for me. Keep it up, guys! =)"

Thanks to both of those people for commenting on that post. As the semester has started and as I start to worry about graduate school applications, my frequency of writing new posts will generally go down, but I hope to have something written here from time to time. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Elementary OS 2 "Luna"

Main Screen + Slingshot Menu

About 9 months ago, I checked out the first beta release of Elementary OS 2 "Luna". Since then, the final release has been put out for everyone to see and try, so I am trying it now. I tested this as a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like. Also note that I will not go over all the same things as I did last time, but I will take note of any changes.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 January 6

This past week, there was one post that got two comments, so I will repost both of those.

Preview: Elementary OS 2 "Luna" Beta 1

Reader CruelAngel said, "I belive you can move windows Alt+grab style but instead of Alt you need to press Super. Don't ask me why. (Maybe they wanted to use Super for something too. XD) Also the volume control notifyOSD is from Ubuntu. Their notify OSD has this feature since always."
Commenter crabdog had this to say: "Elementary is shaping up really nicely. I just hope that the release version isn't already obsolete/outdated by the time it arrives."

Thanks to those who commented on that post. Right now, IAP has started (and I will have a post at the end of it reflecting on it, but that won't be for another couple of weeks), so I am more free to post things here. That means that this coming week, there will be another review. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Preview: Elementary OS 2 "Luna" Beta 1

Almost 2 years ago, a bit after its official release, I reviewed Elementary OS 0.1 "Jupiter". There I said that there was a ton of hype surrounding its release, and that I had bought into the hype a little bit. Since then, there has been hype of a few more orders of magnitude surrounding version 2 "Luna", given the higher expectations and greater promises. Even so, there hasn't been an official release yet, so I am reviewing the first official pre-release version possible. I'll probably review the official release when that comes out as well.

Main Screen

Elementary OS was born out of the Elementary project, which started as simply a theming project for GNOME 2 and GTK+ applications. It spawned more sophisticated projects like Nautilus Elementary, and then eventually turned into an OS project. The first version was essentially a lighter, faster, optimized, and prettier-looking but otherwise standard Ubuntu-based GNOME 2 distribution. This second version promises much more. For one, many of the GNOME applications and even the GNOME desktop environment itself have been banished in favor of Elementary-developed applications. For another, many further optimizations and design decisions have been made to make it stand out from the pack.

I tried Elementary OS using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like, how it has improved, and whether it is worth the hype. For the record, it didn't work correctly the first time that I tried it, so what follows is the result of the second attempt. Also, be aware that in this review more than in others, the focus will be on the desktop environment and not as much on whether specific applications did or did not work.

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.

Review: SolusOS 1 "Eveline"

I've gotten a couple requests to review this distribution, and I've wanted to do it, but for a while all that was being released consisted of beta versions and release candidates. Now, however, version 1 "Eveline" has been released in its final form, so I am reviewing that now.

Main Screen + Cardapio Menu

SolusOS is supposed to be a user-friendly, stable distribution based on Debian 6 "Squeeze". It features a customized GNOME 2 that looks rather reminiscent of Linux Mint; this is not surprising, considering that the lead developer also contributes heavily to Linux Mint. In fact, its use of GNOME 2 makes it almost like a throwback version of Debian-based Linux Mint, now that the latter distribution has moved onto MATE and GNOME 3/Cinnamon.

I tested the 32-bit live edition using a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

How-To: Get My Desktop with MATE in Ubuntu

Installing MATE Patches

Finally, the busiest part of my week is over, and I have time to write this. Anyway, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" is getting ever closer to its final release, and that means Linux Mint 13 LTS "M[...]a" will be released soon afterwards as well. That version of Linux Mint will ship with the GNOME 3/Cinnamon and MATE DEs. I haven't tried Cinnamon for myself yet, so I will reserve judgment until later, but from what I can see, it looks like a pretty nice way to have a Linux Mint-style GNOME 2 interface in GNOME 3.

That said, there is always the possibility that I will not be able to get used to Cinnamon. In that case, I have essentially been exploring a contingency plan in the form of customizing MATE to act as closely as possible to my current GNOME 2 desktop on Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora", and I would like to share that here. Follow the jump to see what I did. I did this all in the live USB session of an Ubuntu remix made as a MATE live session.

Review: Pinguy OS 11.10 Beta

A new version of Pinguy OS has come out, and as can easily be predicted, it's based on Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". And because I've taken a liking to past versions of it, I'm reviewing this new one now.

Main Screen

For those who don't know, Pinguy OS is basically Ubuntu plus everything and the kitchen sink. Also, the interface is made to look much more like Apple's Mac OS X, with a top panel featuring a global menu, along with docks and similar themes. However, there have been some changes out of necessity because as of version 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot", Ubuntu no longer officially supports GNOME 2, so Pinguy OS has also had to upgrade to GNOME 3. As a result, the whole "Apple Mac OS X" look has had to be adapted to the new interface and restrictions (and there are many such restrictions) of GNOME 3. I'd like to see if it still remains as usable and friendly as before.

I tested the live session on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation, because (1) this is an Ubuntu derivative, so there isn't much point in going through the whole Ubiquity song-and-dance one more time, and (2) the lead developer has said that this release is still beta-quality in terms of stability. Regarding the second point, the developer has also said that the stability of GNOME 3.X is not likely to improve anytime soon, so there will be no official final release of Pinguy OS 11.10; this is also why I'm calling this a review rather than a preview like I usually do with pre-release distributions, because this is as official as it will ever get. Follow the jump to see if it's the same Pinguy OS I came to know and love.

Review: Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini

Main Screen + Global Menu

Upon the advice of a commenter in one of my previous posts, I am reviewing Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini today. That commenter asked that I test Pinguy OS 11.04, and mentioned the existence of a Mini edition, so I became intrigued, because Pinguy OS is more known for being an "everything-and-the-kitchen-sink" distribution than anything else, so I thought it would be cool to see what the Mini edition would have in store.

For those who don't know, Pinguy OS is, it's an Ubuntu derivative that tries to improve upon the user interface and bring in as many useful applications as possible. Then again, the Mini edition seems to eschew that last goal.

I tested Pinguy OS using a live USB made with UnetBootin. I didn't test the installation because, well, it's yet another Ubuntu derivative, and I don't think there's going to be any huge surprises. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 May 29

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

How-To: Make KDE Elementary

Reader Sreekumar said, "This article is good. I am a kde fan and i wonder why so many people treating like it as second-rated.Great reading and Thank you"
An anonymous commenter said, "KDE 3.x was better than KDE 4+ will ever be!" This same commenter later added, after my response, "I have KDE 3.5.10 but Trinity should be 3.5.12. The official site at trinitydesktop.org is down however. Other than being a faster desktop, I like 3.5.x is because it's virtually if not entirely bug-free, not full of glitzy and shiney see-through menus and widgets that just slows performance and general work productivity. Also, I have no intentions in wasting time learning to use new and not necessarily better user interfaces that in the end produces nothing more than the old more stable ones. Perhaps why Windows is so popular is because it really never changes much, even though it's a crap OS and desktop." The same commenter added again, after another of my responses, "Maybe I will give KDE 4.x another chance sooner or later. At the same time, if there's enough people out there who likes the KDE 3.x style, then surely that branch will continue and eventually evolve into a stand-alone desktop apart from KDE 4 and onwards. As it stands now, I don't think it's possible to have both KDE 3 and 4 on one file system. Too many conflicting system files. The good thing with Linux is however that there is always plenty of options."

Review: Linux Mint 11 "Katya" GNOME

An anonymous reader said, "Two points regarding your review: 1> for someone posting reviews that others may consider 'expert', it would be good if you actually read the release notes -- you would then KNOW about the compiz problem, and 2> personal preference regarding visual aspects of a distro hardly should really account for the overall value of the user experience -- beauty IS in the eye of the beholder. All in all, it is good that you have found a 'nit' to pick. Otherwise, how could you have justified the time taken to create this 'review'?"
Another anonymous commenter said, "@PV -- I guess the point that bothers me most about your review is its narrowness. The user interface issue is much more complicated than picking an initial 'look' for the newest edition of Linux Mint. The major desktop players (KDE, Gnome, AND Ubuntu) are making major changes in their desktop experience. Most, in my opinion, are trying to 'dumb down' the user interface in an attempt to attract more cell phone and tablet users over to the Linux desktop experience. Linux Mint has chosen to preserve the current user experience with Gnome 2 until the dust settles in this changing landscape. I think this is a courageous position that deserves some recognition, not criticism. Second, current Linux Mint users enjoy the ease of changing the 'default' desktop that Linux Mint devs provide. The attaching thread in Linux Mint forums, regarding user customization of the Linux Mint desktop, has enjoyed approximately 200,000 views and 6,000 posts: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10828 This seems to indicate a community that isn't deterred by what the distro devs provide as a first look. I commend you for taking the time and effort to provide the reviews that you do, as well as your willingness to take a public stance on your beliefs. I just wish you had taken a little larger perspective on the considerations most major distros are having to wrestle with. Hawkeye52@gmail.com" Also of note is that this was another comment that accidentally got caught in the spam filter. To all readers: please check back to make sure your comment has been posted. I don't personally moderate all comments, so once you enter the CAPTCHA, your comment should be visible. If it's not, please let me know with another comment.
Yet another anonymous reader suggested, "Give Pinguy OS 11.04.1 a try." I certainly will!
Still another anonymous commenter said, "I'm confused I have never had a problem with Linux Mint sooner, But one of my machines is behaving so weird with this system that after four days installing back Linix Mint 10 Julia who works 100% in all of my machines.this feels like a Rc or (nightly build)version."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This week, I hope to have two reviews out; the identity of one of those reviews should be obvious from the comments featured in this article. And remember, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing, commenting, and sharing these articles!

How-To: Make KDE Elementary

This post has been a long time coming. Unfortunately, I got quite busy near the end of this past semester, so I could neither publish this nor put a respin ISO file out there (which is originally what I wanted to do, but once again I quickly got too busy).

Configuring Panels

Basically, the reason for me writing is because most similar tutorials have focused on GNOME and Xfce as the base DEs. I haven't seen any using KDE as the base DE, which is a shame considering how customizable KDE is.

The distribution I used to write this tutorial was Linux Mint 10 "Julia" KDE, but this can probably be done easily with any distribution that packages KDE well, though your mileage may vary. Follow the jump to see what to do. Most of these steps can be done in any order, though if a particular set of steps must be done in a certain order, I will try to make that as clear as possible.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 March 27

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

Apple's Stupid Trademark Cases: Now Including Emacs

Before I get to the comments themselves, I would like to say that I wanted to write this article last year, but I decided not to in order to better build up a particular writing style and reputation. With readers coming from LXer, Linux Today, and Tuxmachines to read the articles in this space, and having written this blog for over one and a half years, I think both are now pretty much set.
Reader Innocent Bystander said, "OMG, this is the 3rd time today I felt for these April's fool stories. Blog authors are getting creative these days."
Commenter surja said, "whew!"

Review: Elementary OS 0.1 "Jupiter"

An anonymous reader said, "Unfortunately Midori will NEVER be replaced by the Elementary team. They have extremely tight ties to the Midori devs. google would drop gmail before elementary drops midori, lol."
Another anonymous commenter had this suggestion, of sorts: "Midori is an awesome browser if people actually take the time to configure it to their likings and investigate its features, which include being able to identify as another browser so some pages work better. You can always add another browser and keep Midori for backup."
The original Elementary developer DanRabbit said, "Hey There, Just wanted to thank you for writing the review :D But also to point out that nobody ever said Pantheon would be finished for Jupiter (in fact we weren't going to even tell anyone we were working on it yet). I'm sorry you were disappointed it wasn't included, but it wouldn't have been a good reflection of what Pantheon will be all about :) As far as the next version of elementary OS, there have been no promises to ship Gnome 3 or GTK3. We'll have to see what the future holds!"
Fuduntu creator FEWT asked, "I have a question (because I'm curious :), why the name 'Jupiter' when there is already an established FOSS product with the same name? It is a fantastic name though, I'm rather fond of it for some strange reason." For those who don't know, the other Jupiter application is the laptop hardware and power management tool included by default in Fuduntu.
Bodhi Linux creator Jeff91 had this to say: "Just wanted to say Midori is a great browser (posting this from it). The Elementary OS team just need to give it some sane default settings. You can easily resolve a few of Midori larger quirks with the right configuration. Personally I think if Elementary OS sticks with Gnome 2 it could be that drop in Ubuntu deriv for Gnome with the main distro jumping to that silly unity thing."
Reader G said, "My Major issue is not with Midori which worked quite well. I found the Major issue is the mail client they shipped with, which has no support for smtp authentication or any other custom options. So for me if was unusable referring to the email client. Other than that the OS itself worked as expected and allowed me to pull in firefox and evolution. Overall nice clean product. Another recommendation is on the software store you change the heading to say Elementary instead of Ubuntu and that will give it a more polished look."
Commenter Dillon had this to say: " @PV: Just wanted to say, great review. Very thorough. Agree with you on just about everything. @DanRabbit: if you're reading this, keep up the good work! Also, where can I send bug reports? Do you have an official forum where followers like myself could discuss the next release? Looking forward to seeing your secret projects in action come next release! Thanks."
Reader Ankleface Wroughtlandmire asked, "Hi, can Elementary be used without 3D effects? I have no need for another layer of bugs and complexity on top of the mess of bugs and complexity that is Xorg. And there are many machines that at least initially do not support 3D compositing out of the box. Apart from its 3D dependencies, Elementary OS is looking very promising."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I hope to be less busy, but I only have two posts planned. We'll see what happens. Remember, if you like what I write, please keep subscribing and commenting!

Review: CrunchBang ("#!") Linux 10 "Statler" Openbox r20110105

Main Openbox Screen

I've had a couple of encounters with #! before, starting with this review of version 9.04.01 and including this review of version 10 "Statler" Openbox (Alpha 2). I was pleasantly surprised by the features and minimalistic beauty of version 9.04.01, and I was later slightly let down by the relative lack of polish and removal of some features in version 10 (Alpha 2). Now, the #! developers have come out with a (actually, two) post-alpha release(s) of version 10 "Statler". The website says this:

Regarding the “20101205″ thing, this release and any future Statler releases will now feature a date based revision identifier. There will not be any more “alpha” images and you should not expect to see any “beta”, “RC” or “final” images either.  From this point on, if anyone needs to make a judgment as to the stability of Statler, they should check the date based identifier against the progress of Debian Squeeze.

Given that Debian 6 "Squeeze" is probably going to come out soon, I think it's safe to assume that this is a stable release. I grabbed the newest version (r20110105) of the Openbox release (there is also an Xfce release available which I did not test) and went on my way.
In terms of testing, I tested the live session through a live USB (made through MultiSystem) on my computer. I mentioned in my previous post that VirtualBox on my Linux Mint system is broken; given that, I installed VirtualBox within the #! live session and used the already-downloaded ISO file to install #! onto a new virtual hard disk of size 10 GB (with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS) — more on that later. Follow the jump to see how #! compares and to see if it has improved any since Alpha 2.

Fresh OS, Rolling Releases, and Debian as of 2011 January 5

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these massive combined posts, but I feel like it's necessary today.
I mentioned in a post a couple days ago that, along with releasing an update to UberBang, I would continue working on a new build of Fresh OS. Well, those plans (regarding Fresh OS) have hit a snag (actually, a couple of snags). For everyone's information, I've been starting with Linux Mint "Debian" and using Hadret's Debian PPA for all the requisite Elementary-fication. The thing is, there are two separate Hadret repositories ("unstable" and "experimental"), and some packages from "unstable" have been moved to "experimental" (for reasons that I still don't get); these include pretty important ones like Nautilus Elementary (a modification of Nautilus that makes it a lot less cluttered and a lot easier to work with). What this means is that these packages, as I found out the hard way, are more likely to break certain things in the system (though I would think that Nautilus Elementary would be essentially unchanged). Anyway, installing Nautilus Elementary caused the desktop wallpaper to be replaced by a plain blue background, though the wallpaper switcher claims that the wallpaper I selected is still in effect. This is combined with Gloobus Preview and CoverGloobus breaking some other packages and preventing updates from running smoothly.
I looked for solutions to this in the Linux Mint forums and found that it probably is because of Hadret's repository not playing nicely with Linux Mint "Debian" and its rolling-release model. I also saw another interesting tidbit about Jupiter OS, a similar project to Fresh OS, being abandoned due to the developer having difficulties with porting over the applications and other things as well as feeling competition with Pinguy OS. While I don't feel any competition with Pinguy OS (hey, we're all in this together), I can certainly see where the difficulties come in (as it seems like the Jupiter OS developer also used Hadret's repositories).
That brings me to my general beefs with Linux Mint "Debian". I've said most of them already, but just to sum it up, it seems like Linux Mint "Debian" is having a lot more trouble with stability and working packages than standard Linux Mint. Granted, the developers themselves warned of this, but for supposedly keeping very close to the standard edition, it certainly is unstable. Maybe I just need to give it a few more months for it to work out problems with stability associated with a rolling-release model.
Finally, though this is somewhat unrelated, Debian 6 "Squeeze" should be coming out within this month! I say this only because some developers have said that the current number of known bugs is about the same as in version 5 "Lenny" when it was released. Also, there's been a bit of complaint over the new artwork. I too am not a fan of it, but it comes from the codename, which comes from the Squeeze alien toys from the Toy Story series.
Given the issues I've been having with Fresh OS based on Linux Mint "Debian", I'm going to try to do it now with plain Debian 6 "Squeeze". I'll try that and write more later about how that goes.

Ease: An Elementary Presentation Application

GNOME Office has always had a pretty good word processor (Abiword) and a great spreadsheet program (Gnumeric). Abiword is fine for most things, though it can't fully support exporting documents in Microsoft formats (though it says that older versions of Microsoft Office Word did the same as well) and it doesn't support all macros. Gnumeric is great for statistical analysis, speed, and having every single feature present in Microsoft Excel (save a few). What GNOME Office has always lacked, though, is a presentation program. Sure, Evince could always display presentations, but there was no tool to create them. Now that's changed, as there's a new kid on the block: Ease (UPDATE: here's the link to the site).
Ease is supposed to be the tool to complete GNOME Office and is obviously trying to make it into the Elementary project as its website is clearly influenced by the Elementary project. Its aim is to make the creation of presentations a lot simpler. It's still a work in progress, as it can't export to formats other than PDF, HTML, or PostScript, among other issues. Naturally, I was curious to see how good it really is, so I fired up my Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME RC virtual live system and installed Ease.
Well, unfortunately, work in progress it most certainly is. Ease just refused to start. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, as all the dependencies were properly installed within the live session. There could be a number of possible contributing factors: it could be because of the live session, the non-final status of Linux Mint, or the non-final status of Ease. I'm going to go with the third option. I had high hopes, and I still do, but I hope that Ease does get over these stability issues soon. When it does work, I hope to include it in Fresh OS along with Abiword and Gnumeric.

Preview: Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME (RC)

Main Screen

For the few years that I've been reading software news and reading about new Ubuntu releases, I don't think I've ever seen one that's generated as much talk and/or hype as version 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat"; this is rather anticlimactic as well considering that this version isn't close to as revolutionary as version 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" was (versus 9.10 "Karmic Koala"). But aside from that, a new Ubuntu version means a new version of my favorite and current distribution, Linux Mint, is just around the corner. Although the developers have a policy of "releasing it when it's ready", they are pretty good about releasing the main GNOME version not more than a few weeks after the corresponding Ubuntu release. This is no different, because only a week after the release of Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat", a release candidate (hence the "RC" in the title) of Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME has been let out for the world to see. (Isn't it a coincidence that this release of Linux Mint also happens to be version 10?) Unlike what "Maverick Meerkat" was to "Lucid Lynx", "Julia" plans to be more revolutionary compared to version 9 LTS "Isadora".
The biggest change, of course, is the theme. The developers and contributing artists have created a new theme that mixes a green Elementary icon set with the also very popular Faenza icon set; the GTK+ theme is also a modified version of the Elementary theme, with brushed metal window decorations and slick black icons. There are some other changes, including the Mint Menu as well as the Mint Update Manager.
So how does it compare? I will say right now that I won't upgrade, but it has nothing to do with the distribution itself. (I'll say why later.) Follow the jump to find out what it's like.

An Update on my Respins

I want to take this time to update you all on the progress of my respins and my future plans for them.
Both wikis (Oxidized Trinity and Fresh OS) are up and running. I've included stuff like download and installation procedures and desktop overviews; I'll include more stuff like pictures and system requirements as soon as I have a good bit of free time.
Oxidized Trinity seems to be the more popular one (download statistics-wise), though admittedly, it has been available longer than Fresh OS. Within Fresh OS, as I've split Fresh OS into regular (Linux Mint "Debian" base) and Light (wattOS R2 base) versions, surprisingly, Fresh OS Light is more popular than Fresh OS by over a factor of 4 (then again, neither one has been downloaded especially much). That leads nicely into the future plans for each.
As Oxidized Trinity is based on Kubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx", there's not really a whole lot more for me to do. The next version of Oxidized Trinity will either be based on Kubuntu 12.04 LTS (whatever it's called) or Debian 6 "Squeeze" or Linux Mint "Debian" with the KDE 3.5.12 Trinity packages. Other than that, I won't actively be working on it; for now, it's pretty much a static distribution.
Fresh OS, on the other hand, is more dynamic by nature of being a rolling-release distribution. That's combined with the fact that Debian 6 "Squeeze" (though, in an update to my first preview of Debian 6 "Squeeze" GNOME, I want to let you all know that the Debian developers have promised to release this version of Debian before Christmas) hasn't been released yet, so there are still quite a few updates coming in. I'm a little surprised that Fresh OS Light is the more popular one, considering that the semi-official LXDE Ubuntu variant Lubuntu already does what Fresh OS Light does, and better at that; given this and the fact that Fresh OS with GNOME is almost as light on RAM as Fresh OS Light, I will not be developing another version of Fresh OS Light.
Instead, I will try to release 3 versions of Fresh OS akin to how there are 2 slightly different versions of Peppermint OS (which I recently reviewed). The basic desktop will remain essentially the same, with a panel on top with the MintMenu, a clock, a global menu bar applet, and a couple other applets. All of them will use Nautilus Elementary and the Elementary theme. All of them will probably use the applet that combines the window title and buttons with the panel to save space. The differences will be in some default applications and icon sets, as well as window navigation. The first will be a "standard" version, with a panel with window switchers on the bottom. It will also use Mozilla Firefox as the default browser and Pidgin as the default IM client. Finally, it will use Linux Mint's new icons (green modifications of the Elementary icons), which have recently been released along with a release candidate of Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME (which I also hope to test soon, as I am a fan of Linux Mint). (The reason why they can go into Fresh OS is because some of the new packages for the new Linux Mint release will also go into the (unstable) repository for Linux Mint "Debian".) The second will be an "Elementary" version and will essentially be a port of a standard Elementary OS desktop; it will use the Elementary icons, Midori as the default web browser, Empathy as the default IM Client, AbiWord and Gnumeric instead of OpenOffice.org (though the latter will still be included), and a dock (Docky) at the bottom for switching windows. The third will be a "Light" version and will use Chromium as the default web browser, Pidgin as the IM client, AbiWord and Gnumeric instead of OpenOffice.org (which again will be included, but not the default), the new Mint icons, and a tint2 panel at the bottom for switching windows.
How does all this sound? I'm excited! Anyway, stay tuned for an upcoming preview of Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME!

Review: wattOS R2

Main Screen and Main Menu

The only review of a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution I've done before this is of #! 9.04.01. I was looking around to see if there are any others, and I came across wattOS.
wattOS R2 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" and uses LXDE. From other reviews of this distribution that I have read, the thing that sets it apart is its comprehensive set of power management tools (hence the name).
The other reason I wanted to test this is because I wanted to try to make a "light" version of my Fresh OS respin. Yeah, I know this is based on Ubuntu while the regular version is based on Debian, but I've heard murmurs in the wattOS forums of the next wattOS version being based on Debian anyway. Anyway, this means that I will also be testing the installation procedure as well as a few other things post-installation.
I tested this in VirtualBox with 256 MB of RAM, as I wanted to test the performance of this lightweight distribution under a lower resource environment. Follow the jump to see how all of this goes.

The Ideal Linux Distribution, As I See It

Before I begin this post, if you're wondering how I manage to churn out these posts and still claim to be busy, I will say that I write almost all of these posts on the weekends and then schedule them to automatically publish during the workweek. I don't usually have time to write posts on weekdays.

As I review more distributions, I'm continually fleshing out exactly what I want to see in a distribution. There are a few things that I would like to see in Linux distributions, none of which should be especially hard to do, as some of these features have already been implemented. Here's what I'd like to see:

• Mozilla Firefox (Rekonq and Arora are acceptable substitutes in KDE; Opera and Google Chrome are also acceptable substitutes anywhere)
• OpenOffice.org (AbiWord and Gnumeric are acceptable substitutes if the distribution is more lightweight)
• A graphical package manager
• Most proprietary codecs either included out-of-the-box or installable by clicking on a highly visible link
• Support for various peripherals out-of-the-box (especially mice, webcams (and external mics), and printers)
• Stability and security
• Rolling releases (just so that installation only needs to be done once)
• Minimal visible bloat

The ideal candidates for this are PCLinuxOS and Linux Mint "Debian"; both are rolling-release distributions but test their packages extensively to ensure the stability and high quality of the packages. Both include Mozilla Firefox, but only Linux Mint "Debian" offers OpenOffice.org. Both include graphical package managers and most proprietary codecs (out-of-the-box). Finally, both have excellent support for mice, webcams, and printers. As PCLinuxOS doesn't have OpenOffice.org, I'm going to continue with just Linux Mint "Debian".
I would say that the best-looking GNOME theme present today is the Elementary theme, and that Linux Mint "Debian" with Elementary (and things like the Nautilus Elementary mod) would look positively stunning and will age well with the distribution (which doesn't make sense considering the distribution will always have the latest packages). (On a side note, there are some rumblings in various blogs about how Linux Mint may use the Equinox Faenza icon set in version 10 "Julia".) I've already done this with my FreshOS respin of Linux Mint "Debian". So what else would I like to see? Not a whole lot, except for one other thing:
I want to see an installer (and Linux Mint "Debian"'s installer, while adequate, isn't quite up to the level of polish of the Ubuntu-based releases' Ubiquity installer) that gives options for different application categories. What I mean is that if someone is big on multimedia, applications like F-Spot will be replaced by digiKam and OpenShot during the installation. Similarly, if someone needs programming tools, programs like Emacs, Eclipse/Netbeans, and other similar programming utilities could be installed. This way, while the user can always go to the package manager to install and remove packages of his/her choice, there are options in terms of what default applications are present after installation, nicely grouped into different categories.
How does that sound?

SourceForge, Pages, and Respins

I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but I have added new static pages to this blog. I wanted to mention this again as I will probably be adding at least 2 new pages in the near future.
I made a remastered version of Kubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" Trinity, which I have called "Oxidized Trinity". I no longer have to worry about Google Docs's upload limits, as this project and the ISO file are now on SourceForge. Yay! Please do download it, check it out, and be on the lookout for any bugs present in the live image, and please do let me know what you think of it!
Also, I have been working (to partial success) on a remastered version of Linux Mint "Debian" which I am calling "FreshOS". It replaces Linux Mint's "Shiki" theme with the extremely popular and handsome "Elementary" GNOME theme, and also contains the Nautilus Elementary mod, the GNOME global menu panel applet, and the Midori web browser. I have tried making a remastered ISO from this, but while the live image boots, no combination of user IDs and passwords seems to work. I hope to get this fixed soon, and when that happens, I'll upload this remastered distribution to SourceForge as well. That said, I am getting busier with coursework, so I will not have as much time to work with these things as before. In any case, please do check out Oxidized Trinity and be on the lookout for FreshOS. Thanks!