Review: Kororaa 14 "Nemo"

Main Screen + GNOME Main Menu

This review has been a long time coming. I actually wanted to include Kororaa in my comparison of Fusion and Fuduntu, but the final release of Kororaa only came a few days ago, and I felt it wouldn't be fair to compare two final products to a beta release of a distribution.

So what is Kororaa? Based on my previous statement, it would be pretty easy to guess that it's a Fedora remix. But it's actually a little more complicated than that. You see, Kororaa actually started life as an easy-to-use Gentoo derivative; it was basically Sabayon before (or maybe just around the same time as) Sabayon existed, and regular readers of this blog know from my numerous reviews of Sabayon that it is a Gentoo derivative that's supposed to be easy-to-use and that just works. After about 2 years, however, Kororaa went dormant, due, if I understand this correctly, to the developer not having enough time or resources to properly maintain a Gentoo derivative. He then found Fedora, and since then Kororaa has been a Fedora remix. Furthermore, while I believe that Gentoo-based Kororaa focused solely on KDE, Fedora-based Kororaa has both KDE and GNOME releases, both of which I will be testing in this post.

I tested these editions of Kororaa via a live USB system created with UnetBootin. I tested the installation procedure of the KDE edition via VirtualBox within the live session with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: Zenwalk 7.0

Main Screen + Right-Click Main Xfce Menu

A few months ago, Zenwalk 7.0 was released for the world to see. However, I usually do these reviews with live media, so I waited for Zenwalk 7.0 "Live" to be released. That happened a few weeks ago, and when that happened, I immediately downloaded it, hoping to review it soon after. However, I got busy soon after that, so I haven't been able to really look at it until recently.

So what is Zenwalk? It's a distribution based on Slackware that uses Xfce as its primary DE, though other WMs such as Openbox are also available. A long time ago, it used to be called Minislack; though it has changed its name since then, it hasn't become significantly less dependent on Slackware since then. While it isn't meant for newbies per se, it is meant to be more user-friendly and certainly more so than Slackware, fast, and somewhat more minimalistic in terms of not including redundant applications. I wanted to see how well it stacked up to such claims, so I downloaded both the live and installation ISO files (both Xfce). I tested the live ISO through a live USB made with MultiSystem, and I tested the installation ISO in VirtualBox in a Lubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" live USB with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: SimplyMEPIS 11.0

Yesterday, the MEPIS developers released SimplyMEPIS 11.0, a year after the release of SimplyMEPIS 8.5, which I have reviewed before. (I went back and read that review and had a pretty good laugh at how short and shallow it was. Please feel free to do the same. That said, if you feel like doing the same at this review, please explain why in the comments.) In that review, I liked that it included many codecs and useful programs out-of-the-box along with the MEPIS tools, which were basically the Linux Mint tools before Linux Mint existed. I didn't like that Synaptic Package Manager refused to work.

For those who don't know, MEPIS was one of the original user-friendly Linux distributions (notwithstanding Slackware, which was user-friendly for its time), alongside Mandrake (now Mandriva); furthermore, it was the original user-friendly Debian-based distribution, as it came into existence two years prior to Ubuntu. On that note, interestingly, in a sign that Ubuntu really has stolen the spotlight, many articles announcing the release of SimplyMEPIS 11.0 accidentally called it "SimplyMEPIS 11.04", referring to the recent release of Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal". Furthermore, like Mandriva, it started with KDE, though while Mandriva has since then grown a GNOME variant as well, MEPIS has stuck exclusively with KDE; that said, there is a variant of MEPIS called AntiX which uses the lightweight Fluxbox and IceWM instead of KDE.

Though I didn't write that in the old review, I tested SimplyMEPIS 8.5 a year ago using a live USB made with UnetBootin. Although the MEPIS wiki says that using the "dd" command is faster and easier, it seems to imply that SimplyMEPIS 11.0 can still be written to a USB correctly with UnetBootin, so I did just that. I thought about testing the installation procedure, but I ended up not doing so for reasons that will become more clear if you follow the jump.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 March 20

There were a few posts that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll try to repost most of those.

Review: Chakra 2011.02 "Cyrus"

Reader Znurre said, "Interesting and honest review as always. Good job :)"
Commenter hugo lobo had this clarification: "Thanks for the review. Also, one thing that surprised me was that Konqueror didn't have the WebKit rendering engine option even though it is at version 4.6; all it had was KHTML. Maybe I was supposed to get it from the repositories and I missed it. Exactly. You would have to install the 'kwebkitpart' package and than enable it on konqueror."
Reader DarkDuck said, "KOffice has been renamed to Calligra Suite ages ago..."

Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Commenter be_slayed posited, "Bott's article seemed rather uninformed and irrelevant to me. What do version numbers really matter? IE of course will survive because Microsoft backs it."
An anonymous reader said, "I stopped reading Ed Bott when I realized he was such a shill for M$. I agree with you that all 3 will survive and I hope Opera does as well. I switch from one to another depending. I find that Chrome has some problems with You Tube hanging, FF 3.6 is not as fast as Chrome or Opera and Opera has a few operational problems that I don't like. I find it hard to copy from Opera screens to an email when I want to send something to a friend - no idea why but it just not work as well then. If I could get that to work and also if I were able to pay a few bills with anything but FF I might choose Opera as my main browser."
These sentiments were shared by another anonymous commenter: "I have serious doubts about Ed Bott since reading his article, I am beginning to wonder about his true motives and credibility as a journalist. That said firefox is in no danger in the foreseeable future it is hugely popular and has unmatched extensibility. I use 26 addons regularly they are a vital part of my browsing experience and increase both my productivity and enjoyment on the web. Couldn't agree more re your comments on browsers generally they all bring something to the table and have matured into great tools."
Reader linuxblog asked, "What is about other browsers? Safari? Opera? And then, as soon as Firefox and Chrom(ium) are FOSS, there are (and will be) forks and re-brandings, like Iceweasel, Seamonkey &Co." One clarification that I forgot to mention is that Mozilla Firefox and Chromium are already FOSS and already have forks.
Yet another anonymous commenter had this small counterargument: "RE: Tabs on top versus tabs on bottom If you have the tabs on top directly at the top of the screen it will be easier to access than if you have them closer because if they're at the screen edge you can overshoot your mouse as much as you want and they'll still go farther. On the other hand, if tabs-on-top doesn't put the tabs right to the screen edge, tabs-on-bottom will be closer." The only other problem with this is that even if the titlebar is removed and the tabs really are on the top of the screen, there is typically a 1 or 2 pixel gap between the top edge of the tab and the top of the screen, so that "infinite" distance for the tab height is actually not really there, so that advantage is gone too.

Linux Mint Xfce: Now Based on Debian

Reader Barnaby said, "So much for Debian is not any longer relevant."

Ubuntu: Even the Computer-Averse Can Use It

Commenter joeoshawa had this little story: "I have an ex-wife i still get along with who never bothered with computers till a few years back. Her computer knowledge consisted of literaly 'the mouse thing moves the pointer and i know what the keyboard is for' She had no idea what windows was and no idea of what an operating system is nor how to use one. I decided to teach her to use ubuntu for various reasons and she has never looked back. When she tries to use her mothers pc which runs xp she gets fed up and says 'Its so hard to use and you have no programs mine i just click and it works i hate this thing,' I do love ubuntu....."
Reader Innocent Bystander had another story: "Here is my "$friend": a person who, after two years, cannot still figure out when to single click , when to double click. The right-click is total mystery. This person doesn't understand why you can't just hit the power button to turn off the computer instead of selecting Shutdown in the menu. As a result, she never turn off, b/c she is not sure she remember the shutdown process. For this kind of user, a Windows machine will last less than 1 month. I installed her Ubuntu, but she still managed to delete the top panel. I guess she tried to do something and clicked on every mouse click possible. At the next upgrade, I will install her Linux Mint." Honestly, I don't know how much Linux Mint will really help.
Commenter Megatotoro said, "I'm not an Ubuntu user but I couldn't possibly agree more. Being a former Windows user all the way back from 3.11 to XP, I must say that once you really know Linux, you realize it is indeed friendlier than Windows. Of course, people think otherwise because they are used to their old ways, which sometimes are not the easiest."
An anonymous reader said, "I like the latest ubuntu. I like the feeling that it recognised my printer straight away and printed a test page without any fuss at all ...This above all gave me incredible confidence in it. Of course it will be better than windows, if it isn't already it will evolve to be superior in time...."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. My spring break is over, so I'm back in college, meaning I'm going to be quite busy again. That said, I hope to have a couple reviews out relatively soon, but I can't promise anything in particular for this week. Once again, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Ubuntu: Even the Computer-Averse Can Use It

Yesterday, I was talking to one of my relatives (whom I shall refer to as $relative) about computers, and I inquired as to whether $relative was still using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" that I had installed on $relative's laptop shortly before I left for college. Do note that $relative is pretty computer-averse when it comes to anything other than using a browser or using a productivity suite. To my surprise, $relative said yes! I also asked if $relative's printing issues were sorted out, because the printer connected is made by Lexmark, and Lexmark printers play as badly with Linux as Broadcom wireless cards do (i.e. they don't mix). To my further surprise, $relative said yes again!
At this point, I figured $relative was switching to Microsoft Windows XP to print documents, printing from another (Microsoft Windows) computer at home, or just printing in school by means of a USB flash drive. To my total and utter shock, $relative countered that all printing was being done in Ubuntu on that connected Lexmark printer and $relative was able to connect and configure the printer alone, without help. Woah!
Not too long ago, $relative was unable to find and set up drivers for the Lexmark printer on Microsoft Windows XP, and I don't know how much has changed since then. Yet, on Ubuntu, it was totally doable.
What further surprised me is that $relative's laptop previously had Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope", with which I struggled long and hard to no avail in order to get it to recognize that printer, yet with an Ubuntu version just one year newer, a previously impossible task became darn easy.
I know now without a doubt that (a) Ubuntu is getting exponentially better with each release and (b) many user-friendly Linux distributions are in fact more user-friendly than Microsoft Windows. Would someone like to try to convince me otherwise?

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 January 16

There were a few posts that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll try to post most of them.

On Megabytes and Mebibytes

Reader T_Beermonster said, "how did you create your 900MiB partition and did you put a filesystem on it? Firstly you probably didn't actually get a 900MiB partition because most tools by default end up rounding to "cylinders" and giving you a bit less. Most linux filesystems by default are set up to reserve 5% of space for the root user - so that makes available space 855MiB as a user. depending what sort of jiggery-pokery is used to make the iso into a bootable USB a couple of MiB may not be enough room for manoeuvre. It could even be something as simple as a script expecting a partition size of 1GiB or greater and just not completing," later adding, "You could try using tune2fs to get rid of the 5% reservation of space - the partition is effectively going to be used as read-only anyway. tune2fs -m 0 /dev/sdg1 replace sdg with your usb device and use su or sudo as you prefer. That will give you an extra 45MiB to play with on a 900MiB partition. Which may be just enough - I should really go and look at the sizes of the mint iso's. I doubt the journal is taking up much room but you may want to consider going for an unjournaled fs on that partition given the read-only nature. The tune2fs trick is worth remembering in general anyway, particularly if you have a separate / and /home. /home doesn't need to reserve any space for the superuser and 5% of a 1TiB partition is 51.2GiB that would otherwise be sitting unavailable."

Review: Trisquel 4.0.1 LTS "Taranis"

Reader jai ho had this, among other things, to say: "I have tried Trisquel 4.0 and instead of going with gnome i have tried the LXDE version of Trisquel...The LXDE version uses Midori if i remember correctly...And is using gnash and the yuoutube video played correctly and all the flash adverts worked correctly... the only issue with gnash is with that i was not able to play facebook flash games ... i tried streaming music also and it worked correctly in some sites and not in other... i am really impressed with the Trisquel in short..."

Revisited: 3 Newbie-Friendly KDE Distributions

Reader Debianero suggested, "You've forget Debian6 with KDE4 (look for the CD image ending in -kde-CD-1.iso). The release will be around Feb, 5-6."
Commenter Sylvain said, "Which edition of Mandriva Linux do you use ? One, Free or powerpack ? For Pardus, why not using the latest version ?"

That's all for this past week. At the end of this coming week, I'll be going back to college for my second semester, meaning there'll be quite a bit less activity here. That said, I will try to have one post out every week. Remember, if you like the material, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Pardus 2011

Installation DVD Boot Menu

Wow, what timing! Just yesterday I took another look at Pardus 2009.2 "Geronticus Eremita", and today Pardus 2011 is out! Incidentally, I previewed a beta release of Pardus 2011 to disappointing results. However, a few months before that, I did declare Pardus 2009.2 the winner of a 5-way comparison test, so I figure it's only fair to give Pardus another shot now that the newest official release is out in the wild.
For those who don't know, Pardus is a distribution developed primarily by scientific and military organizations in Turkey for their use, but is also reasonably popular among the general Linux-using populace in Turkey and abroad. It's not derived from any other distribution, and it uses KDE as the desktop base aiming to be newbie-friendly.
Unfortunately, given Pardus's failure to load on a MultiSystem-created multiboot live USB yesterday, I didn't do that today. Instead, I tested the installation procedure and installed system in VirtualBox on a Linux Mint 10 "Julia" GNOME live USB. I allocated 1 GB of RAM to the guest OS as always.
With all that, follow the jump to see what the newest iteration of this Anatolian leopard is like.

Revisited: 3 Newbie-Friendly KDE Distributions

A few months ago, I did a comparison test between 5 KDE distributions that aim to be friendly to newbies. These distributions were PC-BSD 8.1 "Hubble" (which is technically a distribution of BSD, not Linux), PCLinuxOS 2010.07 KDE, openSUSE 11.3 KDE, Sabayon 5.3 KDE, and Pardus 2009.2 "Geronticus Eremita" (live CD). (I also tested Chakra Alpha 5 "Panora", but that wasn't compared to the others due to its pre-release nature.) I did all these tests on my old Sony VAIO desktop. I intended to make live USBs out of all of these using UnetBootin, but only Sabayon and (surprisingly, given its origin and its developers' previous statements about using UnetBootin in this particular case) PCLinuxOS cooperated. The others required that I make a live USB using the "dd" command, which wipes all existing data off the flash drive and writes the ISO file onto the USB with a primitive filesystem type that can't coexist with other partitions. This didn't look good for me, because I didn't want to keep erasing and rewriting data on the flash drive. Thus, I tested all these distributions in VirtualBox. The downsides to this were that as my old computer only had 1 GB of RAM, I could only allocate 448 MB of RAM to the guest OSs, which in some cases was clearly too little, and that I couldn't in some cases properly test things like hardware detection and installation of programs in this limited virtual environment.
Then, a couple weeks ago, I found a program called MultiSystem, which I wrote about promptly. This program allows writing a live multiboot setup to a USB drive partition without destroying other partitions. Plus, it supports distributions like Mandriva (which I tested shortly after the original comparison), openSUSE, and Pardus which otherwise require the "dd" command. (Unfortunately, it doesn't support either PC-BSD or Chakra, the latter of which is surprising in its omission considering that distributions like Arch, ArchBang, and CTKArchLive are all supported.) Clearly, this was what I needed. Now I could go back and test Mandriva, openSUSE, and Pardus as live USB systems with direct access to all my computer's hardware without issue. And that's exactly what I've done and that's the subject of today's post.
Please note that I'm not including any screenshots with this post because the relevant screenshots have already been put up in the previous comparison. Next, I'm not actually comparing these distributions to one another, as that's already been done — I'm just seeing if each one on its own will cooperate with my computer's hardware. Also, I realize that because I'm testing these on a much better computer than before (and I'm using Mandriva 2010.2 instead of version 2010.1 that was previously tested), the methodologies may turn out different results than before. With all that in mind, follow the jump to see how each one fares.

Apologies about the Slackware Review

A couple days ago, I reviewed Slackware 13.1. I wanted to see if I could use it post-installation, though from what I had read from commenters and writers on various blogs, it would be tough. At the end, it did prove to be as tough (and for me, fruitless) as I thought it would be. Though I did get to resolve a network connection issue, there wasn't really a whole lot interesting for me to see (other than a multitude of WMs in essentially vanilla form). Anyway, I wrote and published the review on this blog and it ended up in Linux Today and TuxMachines; owing to that, it got a lot of traffic and comments, most of which panned the lack of substance in the review.
It seems like most people who happened upon the review expected something substantive from a Slackware guru. Quite the opposite: I'm essentially a newbie who simply enjoys trying out different distributions from time to time. For letting down these readers (which is also a function of a lack of context, because though I make it clear on this blog that I am a newbie, that doesn't make it to Linux Today or TuxMachines), I am sorry.
Another mistake I made was expecting too much from Slackware. Usually, when I test distributions, I either expect a lot of things or nothing. For example, I would expect a lot of things out-of-the-box from a standard GNOME Ubuntu installation. I would not expect anything from Arch or Debian Standard. My mistake was associating Slackware included many WMs (especially KDE) out-of-the-box with many other niceties, like automatically configuring my network connection. I really should have included it in the group of distributions from which I expect nothing nice out-of-the-box. In addition, to make up for that, I probably should have read a good bit more about setting up Slackware post-installation. For these things, I am sorry.
However, there were quite a few comments that rhetorically asked why I chose to test Slackware if I knew that it wouldn't turn out so well. Well, the answer to that is that sometimes my expectations are defied (either way). In any case, I enjoy testing such expectations. In this case, my expectations (of a tough experience) were upheld. So please do tell me, is there anything wrong with that? It's either that, or I have seen the ugly side of the Linux community in the comments — the side that does not believe in helping out new users and only cares about those who already use Linux at the level of a trained professional. Maybe I've just been sheltered by the cordiality present in the Ubuntu and Linux Mint communities. Maybe it's just a matter of letting go of my innocence. But seriously, what's so horrible about having some expectations about Slackware, trying it out, and then writing about the experience?
In conclusion, I will say that this was probably a low point for this blog. Do not despair, as I have (better) reviews coming up in the coming days and weeks. I have learned my lesson with regard to Slackware, and you can be sure that I'll try not to make these mistakes again (especially if I get around to trying Arch).

Featured Comments: Week of 2010 December 19

Unfortunately, there were no comments on articles from the previous week (2010 December 12), so there was no accompanying "Featured Comments" article. That can be attributed to the fact that I wrote very few posts that week. Anyway, there were a whole bunch of comments this past week, so I can only post a couple.

Review: Slackware 13.1

There were many comments about this, so I'll post a couple, as well as my responses to them.
An anonymous reader writes, "You never even talked about this distro whatsoever. You just complained about what stuff you were used to that slackware didnt have. if every distro was the same then there would be one distro. Slackware is one of the most stable distros still surviving. You want a extremely stable distro here it is. While i agree that there is no dependacy checking, if you are going to slackware you are usually semi good at the command line and usually know how to install a program anyhow. so its "your" job to do it."
Reader Hannes Worst had this to say: "I think it's an ultimately unfair review. It only states the preferences of the writer and nothing about Slackware. It's like someone allergic to fruit writes a review about apples. From the first sentence on prejudice is shown. When you aren't capable of exploring and researching Slackware, don't write a review about it."
To the anonymous reader, I ask, if complaining about what isn't in the distribution isn't saying something about the distribution itself, then what is? Also, the last point leads me into my response to Hannes Worst.
I may not have made it clear in the review itself, but relatively speaking, I am a newbie to Linux. I like using Linux a lot, but I still have neither the skills nor the patience to work with something like Slackware for a long time just to get it working. I had a feeling that my experience wouldn't turn out so well for this very reason. But I wanted to test this feeling, so I did; I then wrote about the experience. Please tell me: what exactly is wrong with that? I figured that I made it abundantly clear that my issues with Slackware were never meant to reflect poorly on Slackware; quite the opposite: they reflect poorly on me as a Linux user.
I hope all that is cleared up. Next!

Familiarity Breeds Fondness, not Contempt

Reader T_Beermonster had this to say: "Probably the big one for me is the package manager. I've just got so used to APT over the years that I find other (probably equally good) systems don't feel right. Kind of like getting into someone else's car, the biting point is wrong and the seat is the wrong hight." I feel the same way as well, but I must ask, what about when familiar front-ends are applied to different back-ends? For example, PCLinuxOS uses RPMs in the back-end, but its GUI package manager is the familiar Synaptic. How would you feel about using that there? Or am I missing the point entirely?

Bad Experiences are Forever

Reader T_Beermonster wrote a long diatribe against Apple's Macs: "I have a visceral loathing of Apple Macs - not the hardware which in recent times has been quite attractive looking (if overpriced/underspecced). It's the OS."

FOLLOW-UP: Linux and Breakfast Cereals

Commenter twitter had this to say: "Diversity and choice are good, restrictions are bad. Despite the differences between distributions, they all share the same core of free software and all of it tailored to a wide variety of hardware architectures. That means that users get the software they want on the platform they want. Skype is difficult because it is not free software and the company has to do all the hard work of packaging things themselves. If you want Skype to work as well as Mozilla, ask Skype to liberate their code and rely on an honest service model that does not demand undue power over users."

Well, that's all for this week. I hope all the confusion surrounding my motivations regarding the Slackware review are cleared up, and I sincerely apologize for not delivering adequately to those who were expecting a more substantive level appropriate for an intermediate or advanced Linux user trying Slackware. As always, if you like the content, please continue commenting and subscribing. Finally, happy holidays!

Sometimes, Apple Doesn't "Just Work"

I was at a presentation this morning where the presenters were discussing research opportunities at MIT (called "UROPs" (Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programs)). The presenters showed a video about UROP that was put together last year to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the inception of UROP.
Before I continue, I would like to mention that at MIT, almost all of the school run computers (in the "Athena clusters") run Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS, which is really cool. In fact, the Athena software is optimized to run on Ubuntu 10.04. Weirdly enough, I can't run the Athena software on my computer even though I run Linux Mint 9, which is basically Ubuntu 10.04 with some theme and included software changes. That said, I have exclusively seen Apple MacBooks used at presentations like these at MIT. This presentation was no exception.
The lady who started the presentation said a couple of things in general about UROP before showing the video. The video was on a separate DVD, and I saw her insert the DVD into the laptop. What happened next surprised me. There was no dialog upon insertion of the DVD asking what to do. She had to manually open the DVD's contents folder and search for the correct video. Even when that was done, she wasn't entirely sure which program to use (I suspect this is her first time using a Mac, considering that she struggled a little even to open the contents of the DVD); despite there being VLC Media Player on the laptop, she wasn't sure whether to open the video with iMovie, iDVD, DVD Player, or VLC. (She eventually picked DVD Player, and it worked.)
Macs are supposed to be easy to use and they are supposed to "just work". Then there's this. Your move, Apple.

I wanted to end this article by expressing by deepest thanks to the huge flood of visitors and commenters on this site. I never thought my article on KDE distributions would make it to Linux Today's front page; I feel extraordinarily lucky that it did. I also want to add that if you like any of the other content on this site, please sign up for updates through RSS or email; both options are pretty high up on the sidebar. I may even have an article exclusively for subscribers (at least initially) coming up, so that should be an incentive to sign up. If you haven't done so, please do it now! Finally, the next article (which, incidentally, is not that exclusive article I just talked about) should address the concerns of many of the commenters on the KDE comparison article. That should be a big hint as to what it is.

Comparison Test: Newbie-Friendly KDE Distributions

In anticipation of my new laptop, I decided to test 5 major KDE distributions to see which one could work best on my laptop. As it happens, I ended up testing all of these on my old Sony VAIO desktop and installed Linux Mint 9 GNOME on my laptop. Go figure.
Each of these distributions aims to provide a hospitable and workable environment for the new user/Windows migrant. As such, there are a few features I expect to see included out-of-the-box. One of these is Firefox. A lot of implementations of KDE provide Konqueror instead of Firefox; while Konqueror may be faster and doubles as an excellent file manager, in terms of extensibility, ability to handle pretty much any webpage, and name recognition, Konqueror doesn't come close to Firefox. Along with this, I expect to see proprietary codecs included out-of-the-box. The story is similar for KOffice versus OpenOffice.org, so I also expect to see OpenOffice.org present and integrated nicely with KDE. I also want to see good hardware support (as tested by checking for support of my Logitech Quickcam Communicate STX USB webcam) out-of-the-box. The distribution shouldn't be too sluggish in live mode (but before that, it should have a live mode so that the user can try the distribution out first before taking the shot in the dark that is the installation process). In essence, the distribution should have Firefox (well-integrated), OpenOffice.org (well-integrated), hardware support (as per my webcam), and a reasonably fast live mode.
Although the newest version of KDE is 4.5, all of these distributions come with 4.4, which isn't a whole lot worse as far as I know. The distributions are openSUSE 11.3 (live CD), PCLinuxOS 2010.07, Sabayon 5.3, Pardus 2009.2, and PC-BSD 8.1 (live CD) along with a mystery contender that shall be revealed at the end of this post. Many of these distributions implement KDE specifically to better serve the new user, as many of these distributions are based on other distributions that are notoriously hard to work with.
As I was running low on blank CDs and DVDs at this time, I decided to try to put each of these distributions on my USB stick as a live USB. Only Sabayon and PCLinuxOS cooperated, so I decided then to test all of these distributions in VirtualBox. All of the impressions I have written are from these tests in VirtualBox; Sabayon and PCLinuxOS's performances as live USBs have not crept into this post (I hope).
With these things in mind, follow the jump to see how each contender fared. (NOTE: There are a lot of pictures after the jump, so your browser will probably slow down a bit. Please continue reading, but keep this in mind.)