Posted on Sunday 6th of May 2007 at 13:35 in Linux

Review of SAM Linux 2007

Sam Linux 2007 is another one of those distros that clearly has a lot going for it because numerous people have told me to look in it's direction. On further investigation it seems odd that I've not heard of this release before.

An inconspicuous release sitting at a lowly #42 on Distrowatch's "page hit rankings" so it's forgivable if you've not heard of this increasingly popular distro. Especially when you consider this German system is based on PCLinuxOS.

Let's throw Sam 2007 into the normal review system

If you're unfamiliar with the way reviews are handled on Seopher.com; I have a few short tests that I consider absolutely fundamental for 'normal' use and I always evaluate things from a new user's point of view. For further exemplification please see my reviews of PCLinuxOS 2007 TR4, Linux Mint KDE edition and Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn. They should give you sufficient indication of how these reviews normally pan out.

Interface, aesthetics and general feel
It does inherit a lot of it's look and feel from PCLinuxOS which is a good move. Crucially SAM uses XCFE as it's environment of choice which means that you get a fast and clean interface - quite different from the "heavy" KDE that PCLOS uses. Don't mistake a light environment to be synonymous with light functionality or out of the box experience because that's something SAM2007 has by the kilo.

sam linux desktop

All the familiar faces are here application wise (GIMP, OpenOffice, FireFox, GFTP etc) but there's more than that; there's Skype, 12 games, 9 Media applications and many many others that I've not ever used before. SAM clearly is a distro aimed at out of the box functionality because there's just so much on offer here.

Network to my current setup
Before I'm able to test the media-playback functionality I first need to sort out my networking. SAM found my Internet connection without any woes but didn't offer any clear way of connecting to my Windows Samba shares (like PCLOS did) so either I'm being slightly slow today, the functionality is well hidden or it is indeed missing. On the plus side the PCLinuxOS Control Centre is present in SAM.

sam linux control centre

Unfortunate but not a deal-breaker because I can also connect to my network via FTP. So I was able to grab the video file this way but I was really hoping that there would be an obvious way to connect to my Windows network.

Playing the video file
After GFTP'ing my Family Guy Episode to the desktop it was time to see how painlessly SAM2007 handles videos. Selecting to play the video file resulted in a player called "Gxine" loading (one I've not seen before) but the video played without delay. Can't argue with that.

Using applications, using the release...
Writing and editing this review was never going to be an issue given the number of applications that SAM gives you post-install. Unfortunately I found myself sitting with a blank expression on my face while I pondered the functionality of each of these apps that I'd never heard of before. I feel that "normal" users would be equally perplexed. I couldn't have told you before that "Gxine" was a video player.

I guess it's a case of double standards; you need sufficient optionality on what applications are installed. It comes down to personal preference but I think there's just too much choice here. For example, why offer both Firefox and Opera as web browsers directly post install? Surely offering Firefox is sufficient and should the user have other ideas - they can install it themselves. It's very much like that - I'm not sure how many media players are necessary...

samlinux

Conclusions of SAM2007

It's a nice release and the XCFE interface serves it well but I couldn't say I noticed any real performance gains over PCLOS' KDE window manager. I do quite like the look and feel of this release and it's not hard to understand why people love it but I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say it's a rival for PCLOS, Ubuntu and co.

It feels a lot like when I reviewed Linux Mint which felt like less than the sum of it's parts. SAM2007 has a lot going for it on paper - being a blood relative of PCLOS, XCFE etc yet I would reach for PCLOS 99 times out of 100 decisions.

It's a good release but I don't see it offering anything that PCLOS doesn't besides a lot more software that managed to confuse me. I recommend you try it but it's not as good as PCLOS unfortunately.

Someone once told me that SAM2007 is to PCLinuxOS what Mint was to Ubuntu and I agree; but probably not for the right reasons.

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Comments

Showing most recent 15 of 15 comments

Think it is brilliant that there are people out there willing to take the time to create such a distro, I am actually looking for an old PC from a friend to mess around with this.

John

I’ve use Sam For A while on my 400idx emachines (400 mhz celeron 128k fsb) with 128mb of ram and believe you me I’ve got to keep it small. Big daddy ran ok but slow and 2007 creeps. I’ve tried may others (Mint Xfce, Mepis, Ubuntu Xfce) but still keep coming back to SAM because it just works better. If I could get it to share it’s folders with my Windows (Dual boot PCLOS) I would leave it alone. I guess I can’t have it all.....full disclosure - it sits next to Dreamlinux, Puppy (frugal), Dyne, and Windows 98 (to lazy to remove) on my computer

stacy

Sam 2008 RC1 is out. It looks even better than 2007 and runs well, as far as I could tell in this short time since its release on Dec 26th.

For a detailed list of changes have a look at:
http://www.sam-linux.org

Kitty

Dear Nico, dear readers,
I am a bloody, ignorant user with no knowledge of any os code. I use MS Windows XP
because I need it for some crucial applications.
For safety reasons I prefer a live linux cd for surfing the internet. I have tried suse,
ubuntu, puppy linux and fedora. But none of them serves me like sam or pclinuxos does.
SAM or pclinuxos offer me the best opportunity to watch video tv and other video media
without the need to download additional code.
I prefer sam to pclinuxos because I like to have some fun with my system. Sam does not
look as grave as pclinuxos does and the window system of sam seems to run faster.

I am looking forward to downloading the next release.

Frank

FAM

Friday, 1. June 2007

Hello again!

RE my «I have a suggestion» comment of 29. May 2007 — I didn’t think to include a link to a screen-shot where you can see a typical example in Synaptic for a description of software. Notice that the dark-blue cursor is on the software item whose description you’ll see down below.

Here’s the link —

http://www.esnips.com/doc/71f4a80f-28c6-4e6f-8436-4c3de52b5f29/Synaptic_Shot2

mit herzlichem Gruß allen Linux-Freunden,

Roger ( http[colon]//www[dot]zumGlockenturm[dot]org )

Roger

29.May 2007

«It’s a good release but I don’t see it offering anything that PCLOS
doesn’t besides a lot more software that managed to confuse me.»
I have a suggestion:

See if the software which you may not be familiar with is already
included in the PCLoS repository. The easy way, of course, is to fire up
the Synaptic package manager, which is the standard tool for adding to
PCLos (or for deleting unwanted packages=programs). Read the
descriptions that Synaptic offers.

Synaptic will provide a thumbnail description for packages you wish to
learn more about. Yes, of course: some of the program NAMES don’t
give you a clue about what they’re designed for. But browse around with
Synaptic.

You may not even have to check the PCLoS repository. — Instead fire up
Synaptic and just look at what is already installed in SAM. I suspect that
SAM has to be installed to hard disk for a person to be able to do this
looking-around.

And there you have an easy way to remedy your confusion about
mysterious software!

I’d like to expand a bit on what (I strongly feel) is the very most important
thing about PCLoS and SAM — namely, the PCLos repositories. PCLoS
repositories are called «stable.» Which means that— as long as you are
using the correct repository (software pool) to match the version number
of the PCLoS or SAM you are running — then any and all software you
download and install will slide right in nicely with your existing PCLoS (or
SAM) installation. The Synaptic tool is a front-end for the APT (apt-get)
package-management system; but even the best package-management
system will not be able to compensate for software repositories which
are not put together properly. SAM has for many months now referenced
PCLoS not only for the basic operating system of SAM but also for its
software repositories. As much as anything else, the PCLoS repositories
may well explain its popularity: because they make everything work well.

SAM offers a pre-configured XFCe desktop GUI in place of the resource-
hungry KDE. On high-end machines nobody WILL see the difference —
unless, that is, a person is also running a number of tasks in one or
more terminal windows in genuine Unix fashion. These additional tasks
demand additional resources, so even a high-end machine which is
heavily multitasking can behave like a low-end machine sometimes.

XFCe saves on resources, yet it is a true Desktop Environment. For whiz-
bang and (for me) silly and «convenient» features, KDE and Gnome
reign supreme. For my part, I just don’t get it: if that’s what a person really
wants, get a Mac (or a good used one) running OSX, which is BSD-Unix
with a pretty face. — But reasonable people can disagree on this point. XFCe is a pretty darn good middle-path to take for Linux.

Where SAM is concerned, let’s not forget that mostly it’s a one-man
operation by Nico. He’s done a great job. The relations between SAM
and PCLoS are friendly and cordial. If there is this or that in SAM which
doesn’t quite meet expectations, SAM’s base (PCLoS) and its excellent
repositories make up for it. Tweaks to the GUI (to XFCe) are i.e. cosmetic
and do-able. What is under the hood of SAM is solid from start to finish:
what counts most of all!

In a similar vein, what is important about Ubuntu is (I believe) mainly its
repositories. Mepis Linux uses them. You can hardly go wrong with any
distro which uses APT and a good front end (optionally) to APT such as
Synaptic or KPackage: uses APT i.e. with repositories that are properly
put together. On the question of who has truly good repositories, people
have different opinions. I do not seek to start but only to report on existing
controversy. FluxBuntu leverages e.g. the Ubuntu repositories and that
seems to be the only «Ubuntu» thing about it. Except for my «lieblings-
distro» Grml, FluxBuntu is most up my own alley because it’s even
leaner — but doesn’t strictly speaking have a desktop environment but
rather a window manager. — That’s good for me, but not of course for
everybody. Not everybody wants to get more and more under the hood.
Even Grml (no KDE, Gnome OR XFCe!) is said to work well with the
Ubuntu repositories within reason. For non-Debian Linux: Sam | PCLoS.

Thanks for the review of SAM!

Sincerely,

Roger (http[colon]//www[dot]zumGlockenturm[dot]org)

I’m planning on using SAM as my main system. It has good hardware recognition, it runs fast, and the system can be pretty closely-integrated if you use the right programs. It’s a perfect system for low-end machines, and proves itself to be more than simply PCLOS with XFCE added.

DJ Gentoo

I used SAM for a while (the first test release, which i have to say was more stable then the last), i liked it
at first and its quite nice but has some issues. probably because ,as i understood, not many are working on it. You can notice just by looking at its screenshot that the desktop icons are not lined up properly and also in xfce you cannot customize and arrange them yet. there are other small yet annoying gliches.
On the positive hand it has wine installed by default and opera web browser in addition to firefox.

itsik

SAM is by far te best distro for me, I love it. I’ve tried all the major ones (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Suse (for a long time), Fedora, Mepis, PCLOS, etc. I like SAM the best in every way -- the interface, the applications, the ease of use, everything. I also like the fact that it comes with so many applications pre-installed -- this way I don’t have to install them myself.

Now if only it could recognize and run my wifi right off the bat... :-)
The only problem I’ve found with SAM 2007 final is that it doesn’t shut down properly as it freezes on the last screen. This has happened with both my old and new laptops.

I think SAM is way up there with the top distros. I raise my hat to Nico for such a great, fun distro.

Cheers.

Parham

Explain me why the good developer at SAM don’t put their appreciated effort into improving
PCLinuxOS, why don’t you just provide to this latter distro with a good XFCE package?

Or is there some other differences in the underling scripts?

(BTW, the same refrain for Mint and co...)

jakko

For me SAM is great and XFCE is absolutely faster then KDE or GNOME, no doubt!
SAM is one of the best XFCE based distros, with Zenwalk and Dreamlinux... and Xubuntu of course.
Nico, keep on the fantastic work.

Thanks.

Oscar

I’m currently using SAM 2007 on my notebook, which I use to write this down........
it’s a very good distro, nice-looking, a good support, etc.
All of its limitation is because the use of XFCE, but everything in this world has its
own pluses and minuses, right ?
I love it from the start, ....and if the XFCE is as complete as KDE, I won’t be looking
anywhere else for my OS of choice.......... I like the simplicity of any OS , and SAM
gives me the simplicity and the functionality at the mix ........

Adri F

Nico,

Thanks for reading the site. I like SAM, it’s a nice release and I feel bad that I totally overlooked the notion of using it on a lower-end machine - such is the main intention of using XCFE?

I’ve added it to my list of "distros to watch" so any future releases will be covered. It’s a nice release just not what I thought it was going to be considering it’s heritage.

Seopher

I love your effort. And Sam is a good add on. Thanks for your release. I shall have a go with it again. I liked the last one. And user has option to add kde and gnome on that as well as in pclinuxos test?

kazuya

Thank you for this nice review!

Let me add some comments:

Under the line you ask "Why SAM?" - I will tell you why:

The reason for me to do SAM is not to be a rival for PCLOS, but to provide a linux system for low-end computers, easy enough to handle for linux beginners. You can run SAM on a 500mhz machine with 128mb or 192mb RAM and have a good choice of software along with a good speed combined with a nice configured XFce desktop environment.

The SAM live cd tells the user (even at the first screen you ever see after putting the cd into the drive) where it´s coming from: PCLinuxOS. So are my texts written at the SAM website or the release announcements.
Also Texstar and his developers from PCLinuxOS let me take part at the development process - there is even a sub-forum for SAM Linux at the PCLinuxOS forums.

So please don´t think about "rivalry" or such things. Tex does his PCLOS, I do my SAM - and then there are enough connections where we work together.

But let him speak by himself:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=99999999&topic=15323.msg130087#msg130087

Thanks and have fun,
Nico

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Review of SAM Linux 2007

Let's throw Sam 2007 into the normal review system

Conclusions of SAM2007