Hello 2023: Current Setup and State of Affairs

It's been a while since I posted anything here. Testing various distros eventually loses its appeal and we settle on one or a mix of distributions. I'm not really using Slackware anymore except very occasionally in the form of Alien's LiveSlak on a USB stick and experimenting with Porteus. Slax also once again has a version based on Slackware but I find Porteus the better choice these days if a modular system is what you want. All this is toying around though.

My day to day work is done on a mixture of MX Linux KDE edition, AntiX, and Linux Mint. Yes, the one with systemd. Simply due to the fact that it is the one distribution that I tried that managed to set up the Nvidia driver without further fiddling and work correctly with my hybrid graphics laptop to allow for some advanced Steam gaming. The other reason would be that it is the one distribution where Cinnamon really shines in combination with the Mint tools. If not for that I'ld be going Plasma only. This combo has proven to be more than adequate to deal with anything I throw at it and is a great production setup.

PCLinuxOS 64 KDE 2020.1015 in Review

This is a consumer oriented distribution formerly based on the long defunct Mandrake Linux that is now independently developed but still shares some characteristics with other systems based on that family, distant cousins so to speak that can usually be identified by them using the former Mandrake Control Center. Once upon a time PCLinuxOS, or PCLOS in short, was at the top of the Distrowatch rankings but has currently dropped to 24th place.

Evaluating Artix Linux with OpenRC, KDE Edition

In an article for Distrowatch in July I looked at Artix Cinnamon and Plasma editions with Runit to start up and manage services. That indicated a problem in the sense that if reliant on software written for Systemd that no ready-made Runit service scripts are available for one will have to create their own. Specifically, I had a problem getting my VPN client to work. Let's see if this works any better with the OpenRC flavour of Artix.

Kanotix 'Silverfire' - Underappreciated but still going strong

Kanotix is one of those Linux distributions I keep coming back to. I last reviewed it in 2011 when Kanotix 'Hellfire' based on Debian 6 was new. Since then it's been rather quiet but the project is still going strong but it might have slipped under the radar of many Linuxers over the years. Kanotix is always based on the latest Debian stable but development builds are also available and it still has some tricks under its sleeve.

KDE 4.10.5 and Linux 3.9.9 Now in Slackware-Current

No sooner had I updated my Current partition to the recent 3.9.7 kernel and already last night KDE 4.10.5 and Linux 3.9.9 landed. Here's a link to the changelog for your convenience. What a massive piece of work. That not being enough, and with a freshly remastered iso from Eric Hameleers' script, today there are several more updates for kde-workspace (Rebuilt) and upgrades for ModemManager and NetworkManager among others.

Slax 7.0 - Slax Is Back

December 2012 saw the final release of Slax 7.0 after more than three years without an update, quickly followed by several bug-fix point releases. In 7.0.3 the ability to act as PXE server was re-introduced, which had been present in earlier versions but was missing from the early 7.0 branch. I tried it in VMware Player, VirtualBox, from Live CD as intended and installed to external USB connected to an Acer 5551 laptop with ATI graphics, 4 GB Ram and a Phenom II X3 processor.

Calcalute Linux Desktop 12 KDE - Keep It Rolling, Baby

Well, I wasn't going to do any reviews until later this year, but several of a recent flurry of releases caught my attention and my  interest and I made some time for checking them out. One of them is Calculate Linux. Others have reviewed it before and found themselves inundated with offers of Russian brides and other more vile advertisements, but I won't let that put me off because, as I can reveal, I like the product itself very much.

Chakra GNU/Linux - Interview with the Development Team

Every once in a while you come across a distribution that makes you re-evaluate your preferences and challenges your perception of what the underlying base or a desktop environment is like because of the presentation and the overall package. Chakra GNU/Linux is such a distribution. It focuses on KDE only and, as it grew out of the KDEmod project for ArchLinux in KDE 3 days, still provides optimized packages, and this, in my opinion, shows.

Slackel, Custom Slackware Current with Newest KDE 4

Just a few days ago I was writing about getting a newer version of KDE 4 with Porteus or from Eric Hameleers' Ktown repository, and I have also been checking Chakra GNU/Linux to see what KDE is up to. Now we have another distribution, or custom respin, of Slackware current branch on the table that's at least news for me.

Porteus, The Portable Community Linux

Porteus grew out of the fan project that gave us the Slax Community Remix, a continuation of Slax 6.1.2, the last official Slax release for quite a while, dating back to August 2009.
As the team grew more adept they put their own stamp on their interpretation of what a Slackware based Live system should be like and slowly moved away from the old Slax base and from some of its design principles.

Hell Freezes Over in Slackware Current

The 'Current' development branch in Slackware hasn't moved for a while. Almost a year after the last stable Slackware the repositories are still on KDE 4.5.5 and Xfce 4.6.2, and here's why! The Benevolent dictator for life has finally had enough.

Inspecting the Gentoo 12.0 Live DVD

Following a recent request I downloaded the Gentoo 12.0 Live DVD for a test drive. I tried Gentoo many years ago but gave up after a few hours due to the time involved, and my knowledge back then was a lot more rudimentary than today. Gentoo is a source distribution that is supposed to be configured and compiled from stage 2 or stage 3 tarballs, although images are available that allow you to cheat and skip the early part of kernel compilation etc. via minimal install images.

Three Spins You May Not Have Heard Of

Always on the lookout for something interesting I found three more esoteric spins of major distributions and set out to give them a quick test run.
This was helped by a streak of bad luck recently which resulted in me suddenly having two partitions available.

Slax 7 Is On The Way

Chances are you already know this if you're into Slackware based live distributions that are using SquashFS for an easy to manage modular architecture. Development has picked up again, and on Tomas M's blog there is also a nice video of what's called a Slax 7 technology preview. Looks like Porteus, the project spawned by the fan community as Slax-Remix, will soon not be the only choice.

Quick Look at Sabayon 6 Continued (KDE)

To give Sabayon a fair shake and with the aim of comparing it to recent releases of other KDE  distributions I also downloaded the amd64 image for the KDE 4 edition, which comes in at a hefty 2.13 GB, with a few surprising results (torrent here). First of all, boot options, boot loader background and splash, artwork and overall style and feel is very similar to the GNOME edition which makes for a good coherent theme across all spins.

Quick Look at Sabayon 6 (GNOME)

Earlier this year we had a poll regarding which distributions to review, and Sabayon received enough interest so here we are. Besides, Sabayon Linux is always fun to try, to see which start up music and themes they come up with this time, and to play with the media center included. I also find the dark blue themes employed in recent versions quite appealing.

Kanotix 2011-05 'Hellfire' Review

A more recent review of Kanotix can be found here. This week, following the review of SimplyMEPIS 11, I will be looking at the latest Kanotix release. Kanotix is one of the older Debian derivatives and was inspired by the Knoppix Live distribution, also based on Debian, for which the founder 'Kano' had his own ideas how to improve it, like adding a hard drive installer. Knoppix was at the time using KDE as the main desktop but has changed since to LXDE.

SimplyMEPIS 11 - My First Experience with MEPIS, Ever

A disclaimer in the beginning: I have been aware of (Simply)MEPIS since at least early 2005 when it used to be on the front and cover CD's of various magazines during that year but have never explored it. I like my Debian 'straight-up' or not at all, and, given that MEPIS is based on Debian stable and given how easy it is to add repositories to the sources list, I felt no need for anything else. Also, regular readers will know I'm not much of a fan of the bigger desktop environments lately, but as MEPIS comes with KDE 4 by default I will try not to let that bias my assessment. With that in mind, let's proceed.

Salix OS have released 13.1.2 KDE & KDE Live

On 30/10/2010 the Salix team announced the release of a KDE spin of their latest 13.1.2 offering. This is a boon for everybody whose favorite desktop environment is KDE 4, and from reading the announcement this a standard KDE SC with all the apps that normally gives you, so not much to say about that. It also includes Koffice and perhaps most interestingly has added the Kaffeine media player and the Clementine audio player, a successor to Amarok.

The Chakra Project - Innovating on KDE and Arch Linux

The Chakra project started out releasing a live CD based on Arch Linux with KDE 4 for the desktop, initially to make it easier and quicker to install an Arch system with their favorite environment, while also providing an unofficial Arch live CD to test drive the distribution. It is in their own words for anyone who likes the KISS principle of Arch and the elegance of KDE and the Plasma desktop. The project is providing images for both the i686 and x86_64 architectures.

They currently have new betas of their upcoming release 0.3 'Ashoc' out. For anybody who would like to test themselves, they can find the images here for download.