PCLinuxOS 2009.1 Minime Review

pclinuxos 2009.1 minime default desktop

Macho Man

I am a copy writer/editor by profession who is deeply into Desktop Linux. Is not it machoistic? I love to make/break praise/rant Linux. To pursue this I try each release of popular distributions. But everytime I come back to PCLinuxOS. This time I am trying PCLinuxOS 2009.1 Minime - my personal favorite (read on, I will tell you why) from PCLinuxOS bandwagon.

Mean Machine

Hi there you techies who run after quad cores! I still believe a Celeron 530 1.73 chip is fast enough for a home desktop. And it's 64-Bit too. To me it's the meanest machine. It has tested some 200 distros and still running fine! Specs: 1 GB RAM, 1.73 GHz Celeron M 530 CPU, Intel GMA 965 Graphics, Intel HDA 8 Audio, Broadcom 4311 Rev.2 WLAN Card, 80 GB HDD.

Mini-Me

My personal favorite! Why? Because it's the best, the smallest and the most perfect distribution. What's more, it gives you complete freedom to add whatever you like and make it fit to you personality. That's why the name - Mini-Me. It gives a bloat-free linux experience.

The Review

I have tried them all - Fedoras and Ubuntus. Sometimes a release comes great but most of the time they are buggy. Even a better Fedora runs out of order after some odd updates. But here is PCLinuxOS that provides great releases every time and the nicest updates everyday. Now onto the review.

When I popped up PCLinuxOS 2009.1 MiniME the boot chooser seemed looked little different from its 2008 edition. Yes there is a copy2ram option. I tried it. But sadly it did not work. Except that it booted up quite well. It took some 2 minutes to boot the liveCD. Upon booting Minime 2009.1 gave one more surprise - the update notifier.

Like it's predecessor it has no extra frill (or bloat). Just configure your internet and pull in whatever you like (except openoffice) from synaptic. Kde menu >> Office section has a link GetOpenOffice to grab openoffice 3.1.

Without doing adding/removing packages I thought it better to install and went ahead. Installation took some 10 minutes only.

Here is the list of packages I pulled in from repo to fully load my MiniMe.

OpenOffice 3.1
Kchmviewer
Unrar
Karchiver
Kpdf
Kcalc
Artha
K3b
Kpowersave

Firefox 3.5.2
Skype
Kopete
Kget
Ktorrent
Ksirc

Smplayer
RealPlayer
Amarok
Gimp
Gwenview
Ksnapshot
avidemux-qt
qt-recordmydesktop
libdvdcss2
vcdimager
Krec

The above are a regular mix of applications that I install on Minime. This time Artha came as a surprise. It is a really great wordnet frontend that's Linux's answer to WordWeb.

If you are a regular home desktop user you too can pull in just the above packages onto your Minime and get a real mean slim fast kde home desktop.

The Surprises

Even after installing all these packages my Minime consumes only 2 GB of hard drive space, giving much space to do whatever I like. The freshly installed desktop took only 250 MB RAM! Another pleasant surprise of this minime release is its power management. Right after I installed kpowersave package I was surprised to see the system running cool like a cucumber by utilizing p4_clockmod settings under ondemand cpu governance. It's first time ever happened on this notebook. Previously I had to manually set up cpu-scaling to run this machine optimally cool.



resource consumption of pclinuxos 2009.1 minime on a freshly boot system



power management of my celeron m 530 cpu on pclinuxos 2009.1 minime

The Looks

PCLinuxOS is not a cosmetic distribution. No wonder, it sticks to those crystal icons which you can easily replace with better-looking ones from kde-looks.org. Besides that, the default wallpaper, bootsplash and kde-splash are simply marvelous. They look way better, polished and professional than the previous releases.

What I liked most in this distribution:

1. Inclusion of Update Notifier option.
2. Availability of OpenOffice 3.1, Firefox 3.5.2, Artha and many other useful packages in the repo.
3. Bloat-free attitude of Minime like its predecessors.
4. Adherence to KDE 3.5.10 + 2.6.26 kernel.
5. Stunning default wallpaper, bootsplash + ksplash.

Artha - WordWeb Knockoff for Desktop Linux

Till Artha showed up in OSS Linux was lacking a perfect dictionary/thesaurus for long. Yes, it has WordNet as the lexicon and some primitive front ends such as kthesaurus and the native wordnet gui. Clearly it was not as usable as its Windows counterpart - WordWeb.

Artha is a handy dictionary/thesaurus program for Linux that focuses on high usability. It makes the best utilization of WordNet database with highly usable Hotkeys, Regular Expressions, Notifications, Relative Senses, Suggestions and Much More!

So, if your looking for a wordweb knockoff in desktop linux, look no further. Go, get Artha.

Why Should You Love PCLinuxOS 2009.2?

(pic courtesy pclinuxos.com)

I could have better set the title "What's so Great about PCLinuxOS 2009.2?" Be whatever the case, the good thing is that PCLinuxOS is here. Though little late, it's pouring goodies steadily.

After storming the Desktop world with PCLinuxOS Gnome 2009.2, PCLinuxOS KDE 2009.2, PCLinuxOS MiniME 2009.1, PCLinuxOS Zen Mini 2009.1, PCLinuxOS XFCE and PCLinuxOS LXDE 2009.4. And at last, the repo is ready with kde4. That means an Official PCLinuxOS with KDE 4.3 is not far away.

What I liked the most in PCLinuxOS 2009.2?

1.Cosmetics: This point release sports a better look-n-feel than 2009.1.
2.Updates: It endows tons of updates over 2009.1, making it a must for anyone doing a fresh install.
3.Stability: I don't know much about linux internals but this release seems well tested and polished.
4.CPU management: This release does a great job managing your CPU and power. After installation of 2009.2 when I set out to configure cpu-scaling, I was really surprised to see that pclos had already set proper cpu-scaling for my celeron chip.

Needless to say, this release also bears the testimony of tex standards - well chosen packages and better overall integration of all the components.

So, try it. You will fall in love!

Easy PCLinuxOS Solution to Weird HTTPS Annoyance in Centos 5.3

Background:
Couple of months back I had installed PCLinuxOS 2009.1 in ONSIS, Noida. For almost 2 months after installation ONSISians had a joyride with PCLinuxOS. But slowly PCLinuxOS started to hang after some hours of working, and afterwards hangs became frequent. And finally we gave up on it and moved to Centos 5.3. We had to compromise on usability for the sake of stability.

The Problem:
Though Centos 5.3 worked like a charm it gave rise to some weird problems, the most annoying of which was the inability to open any HTTPS websites. On the same network Windows XP and PCLinuxOS had no problem opening https websites but Centos did not move. We scanned the firewall settings, browser setting; visited several forums (fedora, rhel, mandriva, pclinuxos, etc.) but to no avail. We checked for 443 port, there was no blockage there. We checked for konqueror and firefox setting, there was nothing wrong either.

The Solution:
Suddenly something brilliant stuck to your System Admin Tarun Pandey's mind. He tried to dig deep into the pclinuxos network settings (which opens https sites flawlessly) and came up with a big point – PCLinuxOS advanced network setting has disabled tcp_window_scaling. He did the same on Centos 5.3 by putting an extra line net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling=0 at end of /etc/sysctl.conf file, and lo, after rebooting Centos opened up all the https websites.

The Question:
Though the problem was solved. I am interested to know how disabling tcp_window_scaling solved this weird https problem. So far, I have no cue.

KDE 3.5.10 - How to Stop Kwallet Annoyance

On my home desktop I had been using Pidgin (formerly Gaim) and Thunderbird without any password phishing agents like Gnome-Keyring (and Kwallet which never showed up). There is no use of a password phishing agent on a home desktop where you are the only user. But the problem surfaced in PCLinuxOS 2009.2 on which I started using Kmail and Kopete. Overall I was happy at the growth of both these KDE apps, except that kwallet phisher.

I remember right after the fresh installation of pclos 2009.2 I had removed kwallet, but when I fired up kopete and kmail, the kwallet started buzzing me to give a password. And there was no escape, I removed all that hidden kwallet craps and config files from my /home as well as /root directory. Again gave kopete a try, but kwallet came up adamantly and asked for password. Perhaps some kwallet daemon is running all the time.

Thank God! I finally found a fix to disable kwallet at OpenSuse forum.

If you want to disable the use of kwallet, edit ~/.kde/share/config/kwalletrc (if there is no file as kwalletrc create one). Delete all the text from that file and paste:

[Wallet]
Enabled=false

Save the file and reboot your system. Henceforth, kwallet phishing agent won't show up.

Why Some People in India Try Linux and Then Go Back to Windows

From the days of Red Hat 7 till now I have seen many people (windows users) try Linux. But most of them go back to Windows after time of playing around. Why?

Hang on. Before digging why people go back to windows, let's see why anybody looks for an alternative operating system such as Linux or BSD. Is it for the reason that windows is not free? Is it for the reason that Windows is closed-source? Or is it for the reason that Windows is prone to viruses and malware?

Here in India, maximum people are not worried about the price-tag attached with Windows. Because in many cases the PC comes preinstalled, and if not, installing a pirated copy of XP is not that difficult. You would be surprised that most people give a damn to software-piracy. Even many people think that cost of Windows XP is just Rs. 50 (that around 1$ - the approx. price of Windows XP in most parts of India). For them Windows XP costs the same amount as a PCLinuxOS or Mepis disk. Now on to the nature of operating system - they don't care whether it's open-source or closed source as long as it works.

Next is the issue of viruses, spyware and malware. According to me it's the only reason that attracts many people to linux, in India. They hear people talk - linux is very secure.

Then why do they quit? The reason is they expect exact counterparts of Windows application software in Linux. For example, a lay-user after switching to linux seeks for a MS Office alternative in Linux and hits at OpenOffice. Unfortunately he/she doesn't get the same productivity from it. OpenOffice is not that polished, fast or user-friendly as MS Office. OpenOffice is growing feature-wise, but every release leaves makes some edges rough. I have never seen a decent grammar checker in it. Of course, OpenOffice is free, but then, most users also don't pay for MS Office. Its pirated copy comes for around Rs. 50. There are many programs such as photoshop, corel, 3D designing and animation software, audio/video editing software, etc. that run on windows, and they are not ported to linux. Given the present condition of fragmented linux community, they probably will never be ported.

For many users viruses and malware are less annoying than substandard application software that's why windows is leading on the desktop.

We all know linux kernel is more advanced and way better than windows. Linux Gui (KDE and GNOME) has also come a long way to be as good as or better than explorer (in windows) and aqua (in mac). Driver support has also improved a lot. But everything is lost due to lack of proper application software.

PS: This post is about why linux is unable to make a mark on desktop. I know, Linux is the king on servers.

Google's Take on Consumer Desktop - Google Chrome OS

Chrome Browser was the first followed by Android, and Google Chrome OS is the latest buzz in Google camp. It's going to fill the void created sometime back by Red Hat's dropping its Global Desktop (RHGD)

As the Google personnel say, "it's a natural extension of Google Chrome - the Google Chrome
Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be."

The above proclamation says it all! It'll be nimble, fast and secure - meeting perfectly to average users' demand from a home desktop connected to the Web. Based on certain version of Linux Kernel it will ready in the second half of 2010. Google plans to bring it in a grand way, that means it will come preinstalled in many netbooks, notebooks and desktops.

Needless to say, it will have everything from Google bandwagon, plus moderate bundles of office productivity and multimedia applications.

Read Google Blog for more.

RIPLinuX and TestDisk Made My Day - Recovery was Possible

The day before yesterday something fateful happened. I laid my hands on my brother's refurbished notebook (an old Thinkpad R, the labels are worn away) to install PCLinuxOS 2009.2 MiniMe, and by mistake deleted all the partitions. It had Windows XP installed on its C: drive and all the data (including some serious financial notes, online banking passwords, etc.) were stored on D: and E: drive. I could have undone the "delete partition" thing, but to my bad luck, the laptop just died there due to power failure.

Then I began the disk recover hunt frantically and came across RIPLinuX and some of the recover tools it has, most importantly TeskDisk and Photorec (Later I came to know that PCLinuxOS repository also has both these tools. Had I known it earlier, it could have saved my time downloading around 100 MB). I just popped up the RIPLinuX 9.3 and within 1 minute got my old FAT32 partitions restored. Here is what I did.

RIPLinuX is very nimble when it comes to booting - quite fast and without much verbosity. I logged into RIP with Administrator privileges (root user) and issued "testdisk". It led me to an ncursed based interface.

The first step asked me to whether I would like to create a log file. I chose "CREATE".



The second step listed all the disk drives and prompted me to choose one.

The third step was about choosing the type of partition table. I chose the default (TeskDisk often highlights the right type for you).

The fourth step was the actual recovery procedure where I chose "ANALYSE" option followed by "QUICK SEARCH", and TestDisk displayed all the deleted partitions.



Finally, I had to "WRITE" the changes to the disk.

That's it!

Notes about RIPLinuX:

Recovery Is Possible (RIPLinuX) is a Slackware-based Mini distribution using which you can create a bootable CD or USB drive. It can recover partitions and files of a lot of filesystems including Reiserfs, Reiser4, ext2/3/4, XFS, JFS, UFS, HPFS, HFS, MINIX, MS DOS, NTFS, FAT32 and More).

A Non-fatal Boot Error in Mandriva 2009.1 and its Fix

Mandriva 2009.1 seems me the best release so far. I have not faced a single problem from the day I installed on my work PC. Wireless, bluetooth and almost any device work flawlessly. But I used to see this error message during boot and shutdown.

Configuring wireless regulatory domain nl80211 not found. [FAILED]

All you Mandriva 2009.1 users, here is the fix to stop the above error message.

Comment out CRDA_DOMAIN=US in /etc/sysconfig/network and you won't see that error message on during booting or shutdown.

Here is what I did:

[root@localhost manmath]# nano /etc/sysconfig/network

NETWORKING=yes
#CRDA_DOMAIN=US

Caution: The error message may come live again if you update some packages (related to networking). But then nothing to worry, you can again put a # before CRDA_DOMAIN in /etc/sysconfig/network file.

PCLinuxOS Bandwagon Updated!

Good News! All you PCLinuxOS users. The community has released new quarterly updates of PCLinuxOS Main KDE (2009.2), Gnome Remaster (PCLinuxOS 2009.2 Gnome), two beautiful Mini Versions - PCLinuxOS 2009.1 MiniME and PCLinuxOS 2009.1 Zen Mini.

All these releases come with updated packages. Main KDE version sticks to 3.5.10 version, this time more baked and beautified.

This release also makes an announcement that KDE 4 will be added to the repo soon. And it will find a place in Next Quarterly Update.

Thanks Tex and PCLOS Team!