My first experience with a Linux system was back in the year 2006 with Opensuse 10.0. It was the very first Linux based operating system that u have used. Over the last few years have used many Linux distros, many be due to the fact that I like to test and take a look at what other distributions offer when they make a new release. In this manner I have used Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, Mandriva & Knoppix but I have never used PC Linux Os. From the above distributions that I have tried, I mostly install them and test them. When I do test them I have a feeling that there is something missing. So after trying out there releases I always tend to come back and settle down to Mandriva. It has been my distribution of choice for the last 1 year. However very recently a friend of mine told me that PC Linux Os is a very good distribution and that I should try it. He also told me that it has very good hardware support, not that I have encountered any hardware errors in the past with any Linux distribution that i’ve tried, I downloaded and installed PC Linux OS on my laptop, which is an Acer Travelmate 6292 which has an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz Processor and 2GB of RAM. After a couple days using PCLinuxOS 2010.1 I must say that it ranks number one in my list of favourite Linux distributions
FEATURES
The PCLinuxOS 2010.1 list of FEATURES is very impressive. Nothing surprising there, all feature lists are when any new release comes out. That’s probably why testing a release after reading such lists may result in a bit of a letdown, for the end result usually never matches the expectation. This time around it was pretty much the opposite, which is very significant considering I tested Ubuntu 10.04 just days ago.
Kernel 2.6.32.-bfs for maximum desktop performance: Right there. I installed PCLinuxOS 2010.1 on a pendrive, the same I had Fedora13 on, and the performance improvement is sick! I can’t even notice any drag when comparing it to actual installations on proper magnetic hard drives. Quite honestly, it is the first time KDE feels as responsive as GNOME.
Full KDE4.4.3 Desktop: Awesome integration. This is by far the best implementation of the KDE desktop I have ever experienced. The developers have customized things where it matters, providing a much easier and intuitive interface.
PCLinuxOS 2010 Branding: Most applications have been tweaked so they use consistent branding, which looks great and feels tight and professional.
Mandriva on steroids: The Mandriva control center has been revamped, focusing on what matters. For example, the software center is not included, but managed separately via Synaptic. PCLinuxOS developers have made a very good job at keeping the best features found in Mandriva, making up for those which are not that great using different tools.
Enhanced hardware support: Video, Wireless and printer support is great, with many proprietary drivers already installed. In my case, having installed on a pendrive, I can boot from several different computers. I found no hardware detection issues. (Note this does not mean all hardware is supported. As usual, make sure your hardware is recognized successfully when you boot from the LiveCD)
Help and documentation: One element that should be highlighted is the impressive effort the developers have put into providing proper and meaningful feedback and help to the end user. I encountered several very helpful prompt messages, which I consider key for first time Linux users. On that same note, tools like AddLocale, Repository speed test and GetOpenOffice allow users to complete some of the most popular “things to do after installing…” easily and clearly, no use of the CLI required.
INSTALLATION
PCLinuxOS is one of those distros that enforce booting from the LiveCD before one can install. Once the desktop is loaded, installation may be triggered by double clicking a launcher if the user so desires. When I started using Linux I thought this was an unnecessary hassle. I liked Ubuntu’s approach better, which enables installation straight from the LiveCD menu. I now believe the PCLinuxOS approach is best. By forcing the user to boot the LiveCD, there are higher chances that any potential hardware incompatibility is spotted before the installation takes place.
APPLICATIONS, CODECS & DRIVERS
The catalog of applications available by default in PCLinuxOS 2010 is great, almost feels like I chose it myself! I suppose KDE purists will not be very happy to see Firefox, Thunderbird or Pidgin as default Internet browser, email and IM client defaults, but I couldn’t be happier. They just saved me a bunch of time uninstalling and installing.
Open Source advocates may also dislike the fact that PCLinuxOS 2010 includes a bunch of proprietary drivers, but for new users this is a blessing. I personally see reasons to support both approaches.
Firefox is preinstalled, sporting the latest version, 3.6.3. I was a Firefox advocate for a long time, but have lately been using Chromium more and more. In my experience, the speed difference was too significant to be romantic about it. All that said, I am amazed at how responsive and quick Firefox is under PCLinuxOS 2010. I am typing these lines from it and have no plans to install any other browser.
Thunderbird is also preinstalled in its latest version. I have not used this new version much myself, but it probably is more current and powerful than Evolution or Kmail. With email clients, though, it mainly goes down to personal preference, so I won’t go on about it.
YES! Dropbox is installed by default. This was a BIG plus for me, as I had been unable to find a convenient way to install it under KDE. It is a breeze under PCLinuxOS, just need to enter the username and password, no exiting the session or anything like that required.
TAKE IT EASY
I want to take a bit of time to talk about a number of tools that I feel are great in making life easy for end users: Repository Speed Test, Add Locale and GetOpenOffice.
Repository Speed Test runs a check on all the repository servers available and recommends the optimum setup. If the end user agrees, the application automatically applies the corresponding changes to the sources list file. When done, it starts Synaptic so software can be downloaded. I particularly liked the information messages provided throughout. They were clearly explaining what was happening as a backup copy of sources.list was automatically taken before actually committing the changes.
Similarly, Add Locale easily makes all the necessary adjustments to add and setup languages. In fact, I often had issues installing Spanish language in KDE implemenations from Fedora, OpenSuSE and even Mandriva. It was doable, of course, but not as straightforward as in GNOME distros like Ubuntu. Even when I managed to get it to work, not all applications would display the right language settings. With Add Locale it was a breeze and once again the information messages were spot on.
Finaly, GetOpenOffice is nothing short of amazing. When you run it for the first time, the tool asks for the language you want to install, then downloads and installs the packages and menus automatically. If run again, the application detects there is a previous installation and prompts the user if s/he wants to reinstall or uninstall. Nitpicking a bit, I would say I liked how progress is shown through a terminal like interface, but I guess standard users couldn’t care less. I think it would look even better if a GUI progress bar was displayed, allowing for such minute detail monitoring as an optional feature.
NOTE: I am aware not all these tools have been developed by/for PCLinuxOS, but it is how well they have been selected and integrated that made a very positive impression on me.
All in all, I think all three applications are a very nice step forward towards making the Linux desktop experience accessible to anybody. In fact, to be completely honest, PCLinuxOS 2010 is the first distro that I feel is ready for “The year of the Linux desktop” challenge. It is powerful yet clear and simple. There are some areas that could use some polishing, but it is a huge step in the right direction. Provided the hardware is fully supported, as has been the case on all five machines I have tested it on, I really feel anyone can enjoy PCLinuxOS 2010.1!
NETWORKING & SECURITY
PCLinuxOS 2010 also provides a very clear and comprehensive GUI interface to setup the firewall. As expected, iptables policies are set to accept by default, but no ports are listening. In the GUI interface this translates to showing the firewall as disabled (the actual option displays “no firewall”). Enabling the firewall is as simply as un-ticking that option.
The network manager is the same used in Mandriva, not awfully fast, but quite solid. Once again, it provides a friendly interface, which among other things, allows for wireless scan refresh (one of the main weaknesses in the GNOME network manager applet as of today). On top of that, I was very pleased to see that my Vodafone HUAWEI USB 3G modem was recognised on the fly, successfully setup in a couple steps and working right away (screenshots under the FEATURES section above)
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
As you probably expect at this point, I absolutely recommend PCLinuxOS 2010. I have been using it for only a couple days, but I have the feeling that it is the best Linux release I have tested in years.
PCLinuxOS 2010.1 is excellent for any kind of user, but probably most recommended for new comers. It brings down the need for CLI typing to almost zero.
Don’t take my word for it, DOWNLOAD it and give it a try! You will not be disappointed.
Enjoy!
July 21, 2010 at 10:00 pm
You are right, it is a very polished product. In fact I had tested Mint, Vector, Ubuntu, MoonOS, and PCLinuxOS with regards to an older HP laptop with a Broadcom 4306 wireless card, and of the bunch only PCLinuxOS recognized the card, and even had the drivers needed already on the LiveCD! Very painless and enjoyable overall, and the OS I recommend to Windows refugees. Thanks for an excellent review.
July 21, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Nice review, detailed and balanced, but you just forgot to mention the other flavors of PC Linux OS; Gnome, Xfce, Lxde, Openbox and Enlightment all of them worth of trying for those with older machines but dont want to loose the stability and features of such a incredible OS.
July 21, 2010 at 11:44 pm
“On top of that, I was very pleased to see that my Vodafone HUAWEI USB 3G modem was recognised on the fly, successfully setup in a couple steps and working right away”
Lucky you. Now I am puzzled. With mine (same carrier and type of device), it goes thru setup, and then keeps telling me to check the SIM is inserted properly, making it useless for my netbook, whereas Mint/Ubuntu have no troubles running the same. Only PCLOS keeps asking to make sure the damn SIM is inserted, which it clearly is, since it works with other distros fine.
Also, the lack of order in the main menu arrangement is frustrating. Something tidier like Mandriva’s KDE Menu, or even the standard KDE classic menu, would be more usable than the drok we have to deal with. Simply tidying this up would go a long way toward making it more usable, but attempts to request this get deleted from the forum.
July 22, 2010 at 12:54 am
Thanx for the comments
peruviantux @ im much of a KDE fan and i only downloaded the KDE version for testing purpose and it was so good that i got stuck with it. I dont hate GNOME will give it a try sometime very soon and write about it.
David@ it comes down to personal preferences, if i want to say something bad about Ubuntu i can say many. Maybe it didnt work for you. In Ubuntu with the 3G modems i’ve tried there is not way to configure them automatically but it did work for you. Being a fork of mandriva it doesnt mean that they should copy mandriva for what it is? i used mandriva it was a favourite distro before.
You and i both know in LINUX if you dont like a setting you can always customize. If you dont like at all you can always switch to another distro that works fine for you
July 22, 2010 at 8:05 am
pclinuxos is rock dood… i’m using it since april 2008.. and never leave to another distros…
July 22, 2010 at 8:06 am
Very nice comprehensive review.
Just a point of clarification, PCLinuxOS is no longer considered a derivative of Mandriva. The 2010.1 version was developed from ground up.
July 22, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Yes could be, but it still uses mandriva control center and all the other mandriva tools, only that they do not use mandriva repo’s anymore, so i still consider it as a fork of mandriva!!
July 25, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Yes they do use a modified version of the Mandriva control center, they also use code from various other distributions as well.
As many other distributions use code from other vendors as well.
So that really isn’t a fair assumption is it. Calling it a derivative because one aspect uses code from another distro?
So in that respect then refer to yourself as a derivative from a monkey because you share some of their DNA, same thing.
July 25, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Terry I Think You really have something against mandriva. Just like Some die hard ubuntu fans have about debian. Its like this if debian was never invented then we would not have ubuntu. If mandriva never came then we wouldnt have PC Linux OS, if you really have something against mandriva just spell it out, rather than beating aound the bush. I will always consider PC Linus OS as a fork of Mandriva cause that was how it began. And there is no reason to bring that monkey thing here. Perhaps You Need Anger Management Lessons To Let Go Of Mandriva For What Ever Reason You Hate It. Have A Good Day
July 26, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Wow, I don’t know how you got the impression I have something against Mandriva from that??
I didn’t say one negative thing about Mandriva..
You need to read what I wrote again and relax a bit my friend..
)
July 22, 2010 at 10:08 am
“By forcing the user to boot the LiveCD, there are higher chances that any potential hardware incompatibility is spotted before the installation takes place.”
You hit the nail right on the head, my friend. PCLinuxOS is also a rolling release, which means it has very long-term support. Enjoy!
July 22, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I using PCLinux 2001.7 myself. Very good KDE distribution. But I also think the new Pardus 2009.2 are among the best to:
http://www.pardus.org.tr/eng/
If you prefeer Gnome I still think Ubuntu or Linux Mint is best.
July 22, 2010 at 3:29 pm
How can I reduce the number of desktops to 1 (one)?
July 22, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Zuma, right click near the desktop workspaces and click “remove last virtual desktop”, If you want to add later you can right click near the workspaces and then choose, “add virtual desktop”.
Hope that helps thanx
July 23, 2010 at 1:02 am
Thank you for the good rewiew. One great +point from PCLinuxOs have you forgotten : It’s total simpy to make a own Distro with all the goodies you want.
Install PCLinuxOS on your Maschine, get the Packages if you want, and when you ready open a Konsole as root and write ” remasterme “. Wait a little bit, and you have your own ISO remaster from your installing System , that you can burn it on a CD or DvD !!!
Thats a great tool and i think PCLinuxOS is the one Distro that make it so simply to make your own ISO.
Greetz from Germany : Uwe
July 23, 2010 at 1:06 am
Uwe S, thanks for the information. I didn’t know it can do that!!!.
July 23, 2010 at 1:29 am
Yes my friend, it’s works perfekt. I remaster my installing system with all the Packages that i have install to, burn this ISO on a DvD ( it’s a Live-DvD ! to ) and install this on my HP Laptop, on my Acer Netbook, on Machines from my friends …When you google ” PCLinuxOS Remasterme “, you can find more and better information that i can write here with my bad english
Greetz : Uwe
July 23, 2010 at 9:12 am
I tested pclinuxos. found that it failed to recognize my nokia e50 mobile. so i can not connect internet. but it works fine in ubuntu, linux mint, peppermint, puppylinux. pclinux os’s network manager may be very powerful then others, but i can not connect internet with my nokia e50 mobile phone using this network manager.
July 23, 2010 at 10:07 am
I have been using PcLinuxOS as my distro of choice for about 6 years now. It has always been a consistent winner in my book. I have tried other desktop distros and found, for one reason or another, that they did not quite fit the bill for what I wanted to accomplish. When you consider that pclos is a ‘hobby’ distro administered by texstar, you gain a great appreciation for the development that went into its end product. I do have appreciation for other distros, particularly debian and its varients [I even have debian on one partition] I just find pclos just simply works out of the box. Which is why I, and many other pclos users, call it the ‘distro hopper stopper’.
July 23, 2010 at 11:44 am
I have been using PC Linux OS for the past couple of years. I also really enjoyed the interface from 2008/2009. However, when it stopped upgrading automatically via Synaptic, I thought I had a configuration problem and was ready to move on to another distro.
When I learned that the 2010 had to be reinstalled, I was very upset. However, saving off my list of installed packages, segregating my personal data from the system configuration, I gave it a go. It took about a week to get the system back to where I had it before upgrade, but I am very pleased with the result.
July 23, 2010 at 9:40 pm
I have been a long time user of Ubuntu and still am, but with 10.04 LTS, I have had so many problems. I have read many reviews for different Linux distros and decided to give PCLinuxOS a try (actually I tested more than 20 flavors of Linux). This OS has been rock stable. I am very happy with this distro and plan to stay with it for a long time.
July 27, 2010 at 9:11 am
Thanks Tex for PCLOS 2010, it is working great.
I tried many distros before (Ubuntu, Fedora, Open Suse), they didn’t recognize wireless card, sound card and video card on my laptop, but PCLinuxOS recognized all of them, so everything works fine on my laptop.
July 28, 2010 at 8:33 am
I have been using PCLinuxOS for about six or seven years now, and it is not perfect, but it is hands down the best I have tried. And I have tried almost everything. It is so stable and reliable that only a hardware failure has ever produced a crash (RAM chip gone bad and video card gone bad). Had the disk get corrupted once when a hard drive was going bad, too, but that wasn’t the OS fault. I’d say that PCLinuxOS is at about 95%, and Windows 7 is at about 75%.
July 30, 2010 at 6:40 pm
I tried out the new PCLinuxOS after previous distro hopping. I’m actually one of the rare ppl that DIDN’T take to kde 3 and preferred kde 4. Anyway, I got an acer aspire 3680 (old laptop) and I put Mint, Opensuse and PCLinuxOS on it…not only did it get the wireless (Broadcom) configured right out of the box but it outperformed my wife’s pc w/ win 7 in terms of speed AND wireless connection! Mint and Suse didn’t even see the card! I have no idea why ppl prefer Mint KDE, Opensuse,Pardus or any other KDE distro over PCLinuxOS!
Recommended for anyone who just wants to USE there computer and look good doing it!
August 8, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Nice Post
August 19, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I have used both the KDE and Gnome distros of PC Linux OS, and I am currently downloading the Gnome Zen Mini Desktop. Update manager and synaptic package manager on Ubuntu work excellent for me. Furthermore, I would like to see an update process for PC Linux OS that is more urgent.
August 23, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Have been using PCLinux for around 5 years now after switching from Fedora/Mandriva and I must say that even though i still keep trying out other distros every few months (Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva, Mint, Ubuntu and many off beat ones too) I have never found anything as good and polished as PCL.
The only Perfect distribution for both newbies as well as power users in my opinion. Its the only distro i can keep using even on my office network without booting to Win7/XP.
Except for my Lotus Notes install breaking after every few updates I have no complaints at all !
In all fairness, Lotus Notes for linux actually doesn’t even run on most distros without major surgery – and even on the officially supported ones it does break on updates of certain libs.
Keep it up TEX.
August 24, 2010 at 1:10 am
I like PCLOS, but never was able to get my AT&T Mercury mobile broadband dongle to work with it. The network manager for some reason will not recognise the SIM card. I’ve encountered a number of posts about this problem, and have found no solutions. Ended up using Mint as it just works with no real problems in Mint 7.
August 29, 2010 at 1:36 am
Yeah, that was my issue also, it keeps telling me to check the sim was inserted, but it works fine with most other distros i’ve tried it with. Sees the device fine, just not the sim. Is weird, and damn annoying. Instead of pretending the issue does not exist, be nice if it was addressed.