Review: PCLinuxOS 2007 Final release
It won't have escaped your attention that it's already been a couple of days since release and yet I've only just managed to review it? Oddly enough I wanted to sit with it for a couple of days and give it a fair review - after all it is a big contender for my most usable Linux 2007 title. While my reviews are quite short and heavily focused on light-intensity, new user use; I wanted to give PCLOS some proper attention for a couple of days to give it a fair hearing.
Aesthetics
Always the sharp dresser, PCLOS2007 doesn't disappoint. The graphic design team are obviously good at what they do because the entire system has had a lot of thought applied to it. The boot screens, loading icons, desktop icons and even the User Interface is magical. I find PCLOS to have the single best desktop interface out of all the "usable" distros that I toy with. I don't get on well with Ubuntu very well (while I appreciate it's excellence, the interface never amazes me) and some of the other excellent releases (like SimplyMepis) are good but PCLOS just sits right with me. Clearly this is personal preference but I just find everything is where it needs to be - testament to the devs I suppose.
Networking
As with the test releases the networking side is very strong, seemingly removing some of the "temporary" issues I encountered when reviewing test release 4. My Internet connection was picked up instantly, Samba shares worked directly out of the box and I couldn't fault how it worked. It's empowering to know that whatever I'm trying to do - if I fail there's the massively powerful Administration Centre to fall back on. No quibbles at all with networking - it worked perfectly (as I would have expected).
Media playback
Many don't agree with me, but I consider strong media support to be a crucial element for an "out of the box" distro. New users won't want to faff around sourcing codecs and unless you're going to offer on-demand support (like Ubuntu) then you need to be offering good things post install. Opting to play the normal Family Guy DVD-rip results in flawless media playback (as it has done previously).
Another good result for PCLOS; stuff like this really impresses me because first impressions count for so much. If I this release to a non-Linux user and it offered support like this out of the box then it makes an excellent impression. Regular users won't be impressed at the complications behind sourcing codecs on the fly for you to download. Obtaining codecs may be a short and rather trivial task but the psychological benefit of doing it all for the user before they even arrives is something I like. I like it a lot.
Applications
Normal users love applications. They love having plenty of things available and even better; they love it when they're free, so it's important for an "out of the box" focused release to offer a sensible amount of things directly post install. As you would expect you have Firefox, OpenOffice and GIMP to satisfy the most obvious needs of the user. You also have Synaptic to offer one-click-install heaven for those who have more specific needs.
One point worth highlighting is that I find the menu system to be slightly curious (as you can see in the above screenshot). Due to the number of applications on offer directly post install (and there are a LOT), the menu structure has been turned slightly more atomic than I would have preferred. Either way the menu naming is logical and it's no effort to find what you need - I would just prefer a long list of "Multimedia" apps rather than it being broken down into Audio/Video/Graphics.
Overall there are plenty of applications on offer - more than sufficient to ensure that average users won't need Synaptic for the most part and that's another plus point for an "out of the box" release.
Conclusions
As I said at the top: my reviews tend to be short and sweet while the thinking behind them sometimes takes me a while to articulate properly. PCLinuxOS has been difficult to review because I was eager to give it the attention I feel it deserves. Ubuntu has made big waves in this market and while some have complained about comparisons made between these two big players - I welcome them. PCLOS had a lot to do to threaten Ubuntu's position atop the usable pile and I'm happy to conclude that I think it manages superbly.
It feels polished and adheres to it's own slogan of "radically simple". Everything just works in the manner I would expect and that's exactly what it needed to do. Combine that with the advanced features (that I won't get into here, but Java comes preinstalled...) and you've got yourself a winning release.
Unfortunately (and I do feel this is worth mentioning) a good friend of mine recently gave PCLOS2007 a less than shining review; upon reading this review (which wasn't overly negative) the leader of PCLOS instructed loyal fans to "hammer" his site. I'm not impressed with this behaviour and I certainly have more loyalty to a close friend than I do a Linux distro that I enjoy. I'd love to hear what Texstar has to say because I find it hard to believe that this situation ever arose.
Anyway, with that aside PCLOS2007 is a cracking release that lives up to all the promise that the test releases offered. Everything worked and the entire experience was indeed "radically simple".
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Showing most recent 20 of 42 comments [View all comments]
I like what I want to download Aug.
HOW EVER tehy really need a knock along the side of the head when it comes to people who are Not "elite"
They need to learn and to work with people of disabilities as some just want answers, To band a person because she or he can’t spell or use a search to find what they need is by far the worse thing you can do to a person.
Also with that note :
To be able to ban or kick at will with out provocation leads me to believe that they think that they are better then "others"
To make good soft ware is one thing to insult a person intelligence with degrading remarks like, Perhaps a mac would be best suited for you, is not only derogatory and demeaning it is also abusive and is discriminatory in nature .
My Message is this, if you make the software public you had better be ready for the masses from all walks of life because if you can belittle them and degrade them then you disrespect the product and the community you are trying to promote.
My review :
Software : B
Support : D
Recommendations :
Grow up, Learn to deal with difficult people that have a different learning curve.
And I probably will be permanently band from the support channel as well as the caht channel after posting this review.if So Ill be back and make an addition saying .
Fonts look horrible on LCD, period. Your eyes get tired after a few minutes. I dont want to start a debate here about this. Font rendering is a controvertial thing about Linux and one needs to do manual work on this, but a tutorial for the distro would be great to have: Thing is "Hinting" is a TrueType feature that drastically improves the appearance of TType fonts. But there are licensing and patent issues so it is disabled by default in the freetype source and in the supplied binaries.
The thing I dont like about PCLOS is that (unlike SUSE i.e.) this is not explained anywhere, nor there is information about how out of the box freetype library is complied (hinting disabled btw).
To enable this feature, the FreeType sources need to be rebuilt. If you think your fonts look good, and you havent done this yet...Think again.
There is one thing not mentioned is the fact that after some postings to your friends other review he went to The PCLinuxOS site and asked for opinions on his review when this was given in polite manner he continued to pursue and aggravate until he got what he wanted an angry answer he could post on his site. If he posted the whole forum posting people would see this.
"I doesn’t matter which distro you run. They are all Linux!"
As far as personal likes go, I prefer KDE. I tried Ubuntu but quickly soured on it because of GNOME. Over the last 9 years I have run RH, SuSE, SUSE, Mandrake, LibraNet, Xandros, Knoppix, Kanotex, several minor distros, SimplyMepis and PCLinuxOS. As you might guess, I prefered Kubutnu over Ubunutu, but since my preference is for KDE I tend to favor the distro that does three things:
1) recognizes, configures and installs as much of the hardware as possible,
2) uses KDE as the desktop.
3) comes "out of the box" with as many media drivers as are legal.
Anyone who has used Linux for any length of time knows that #1 can change, even within a single distro from version to version. Old hardware is dropped off and new hardware is added, in spurts and tests and more spurts. So someone’s hardware may be detected perfectly in one distro and not another of equal vintage, but with the next release of both distros the situation may reverse itself.
The desktop is merely a matter of preference. KDE has a stronger mime functionality than GNOME and is more Windows like. Since I use Windows at work shifting between WinXP and PCLOS is seamless. KDE itself is undergoing a sea change from QT version 3, on which the KDE 3.x series is built, to KDE 4.x, built on QT version 4, and scheduled for release later this year. So, it may be a year before many distros using KDE get switched over to KDE4.
With the $$$ behind Ubuntu it should do well. And, as a famous person once said, "A rising tide raises all boats." Now that DELL is pre-loading Ubuntu on some of its PCs it is time for Linux fans to put their money where their mouth is and do as much Ubuntu business with DELL as they can, as long as the deal doesn’t turn out to include a stealth Microsoft tax built in. IF a DELL PC can run Ubuntu it most certainly will run PCLinuxOS 2007. The PCLinuxOS forum is a friendly bunch who even answer questions from Windows users, and do so graciously. After all, quite a few Linux users still dual boot with Windows, or run it as a guest OS.
Nice fair review here.
Since you brought up the subject, I will put my thoughts on the other subject. Your friends first version of the review did have a very rushed feeling to it, and his first conclusion that is no longer there was based on his rushed experience with it, and, IN MY PERSONAL OPINION, was very poorly done. He stated some concerns, particularly with the installer, when had he taken 2 seconds to look at the install guide those concerns would have been partially taken care of (step by step with pictures for a good typical install and he apparently didn’t look at it). There is no problem pointing out some things that could be improved upon, he is entitled to his opinion, and some points are valid. Partitioning isn’t the best, but it works very well on everything I’ve tried. A regular person should read up on partitioning anyway in order to fully understand what’s going on and the risks they are taking with their data in the first place though. A fair review though would have looked at some of the features of the OS itself, you know, actually trying it out and seeing how it works.
As to the aftermath, most of the comments on his article were posted before Tex said much of anything. Following the comments, he rewrote some of his article, and the conclusion, and deleted many of the comments. I don’t understand why people resort to namecalling and such, or mine is better than yours, but they had some valid points. As to any and all comments Tex made, I can’t speak for him, but his comments in frustration were taken out of context, as has been said more than once. If someone puts something inaccurate in a review, what is wrong with "hammering" the comments with "the truth"?? If something is inaccurate or ignorant it should be corrected, instead of being left alone and ignored. False information being spread around does no one any good. What’s wrong with telling people to post "THE TRUTH" in the comments?? How does that translate into a militant leader?? Your friend is not innocent of making rude comments either, Tex apologized for his, though personally I feel he had no reason to.
I am the one that started the thread on the PCLOS forum. I only stated that there was a review, I never made a comment about it or posted anything afterwards, but I did witness a majority of what went on in both places. Bottom line, in my opinion, your friends first review was rushed just to get something out, and now he is taking comments that were made and taking them out of context, and dragging you with it because his feelings are hurt. Instead of leaving well enough alone, he capitalizes on a statement Tex made, takes it completely out of context, and writes yet another ignorant article (I also seem to remember something in that article about Oli asking for Tex to write him to see about the future of the article, funny, could be mistaken because I don’t see it anymore...). A review should only be done after spending time with something, accomplishing a few tasks, and using some common sense. As an outsider, someone currently using PCLOS and Puppy, formerly Kubuntu for several months, that’s mostly how it looks to me.
I would also note that PCLinuxOS on my system is faster than Ubuntu 64. Which was a surprise to me. Also, I have managed to freeze Ubuntu and other distros up from time to time opening up multiple browsers. folders, apps and etc.. It is extremely difficult to freeze PCLinuxOS up. It is extremely stable.
The insinuation that someone from the PCLOS forum has instigated a slur campaign against a reviewer who made an honest appraisal of PCLOS 2007 causes me some disquiet.
I do wish you would elaborate on this so that the matter could be investigated, please name the people/ person responsible. This is not what we expect of dedicated contributors to this distribution.
But, of course, there will always be less than honest people reviewing Linux distributions and similarly dishonest people responding to them.
I think Texstar has shown the proper response to this kind of situation on many occasions:-
Magnanimity in the face of conflict, forgiveness of nastiness and the desire to improve PCLinuxOS despite the petty mindedness of those who have loyalty issues.
My kind regards,
Stan.
SimplyMEPIS 32 Release 6.5 Sat, 04/14/2007
Texstar - SimplyMepis 6.5 is a really good release. Im so happy for Warren and crew and wish them much success. Thank you guys for giving such a wonderful gift to the Linux community.
There are many more like this about other distros as well.