Granular Funworks offers the best of Work and Fun

As you have noticed, for the last 6 months, PCLinuxOS is rising high on popularity for all its properties. I have been using it since its .92 release. Each time it has stunned me with pure brilliance of desktop computing.

Alongwith the official PCLinuxOS, there are several respins available. I have tried them all, except SAM Linux, the XFce respin of PCLinuxOS. There is the small TinyME for purists who would love to add packages suiting their needs, there is PCLinuxOS Gnome Remaster at Linuxgator.org, and there was Junior, Big Daddy, never to forget MiniMe. Only 5 days back I tried another Jumbo OS - Granular Funworks 90. It sounded patriarch to all the desktop linux around - the Jumbo desktop, full with every desktop user's computing requirements + a heavy dose of fun.

Granular Funworks stands out in many ways, though deep inside the core is PCLinuxOS. The good thing is that it has proliferated to a jumbo for all the good reasons. Let me count the ways. Its canon of applications outweigh any popular desktop linux - it has got two office suites (koffice and openoffice), gimp and inkscape, a whole lot of IMs, browsing and networking tools, text to speech utilities, four desktops (KDE, XFce, Looking Glass and Enlightenment). For better multimedia experience it has the best of linux world - vlc, xmms, mplayer, amarok, kaffeine. Please visit http://www.granularproject.org/teamblog/ to know more.

What I liked in it the most:

1. When Funworks liveDVD booted the most pleasant experience I saw is its default KDE desktop. A unique but nice idea to put the desktop panel at the top.
2. The three more desktop environments first did not seem interesting to me. But then while the turn came to install it on my friend's PIII desktop, I thanked the Granular developer for including XFce. My friends system could run XFce optimally, but KDE responsiveness was not good. It is very good to include light desktops like XFce because still many people in this part
of the world use low-end desktops and laptops. Though they can never get the eye-candy of KDE, they can surely have a better computing experience on XFce.
3. Liked the inclusion of Wordnet, Unrar and Ntfs-3g. I can't say for other, but I love to see rar and unrar packages in my Linux desktop and Granular has them by default. I am not in the habit of using zip, tar or bz2 utility, I love rar. And I am sure many love rar than zip, tgz or bz2. Granular has it all.

What I added to it on my home laptop

I added libdvdcss, vobcopy, antiword, nrg2iso, xvidcap and w32codecs. I would like Granular team to include these packages + the latest intel drivers in their next release.

What I did not like

I wished it had the latest kernel and drivers. Because I could not configure my Intel GMA 960/965 Express Graphic card. Hope the next release will fix my issue.

My verdict

Anybody looking for the best set of applications for home as well as office productivity should use Granular Funworks. There is no second say.

You will never find a better linux desktop around.