Simply Mepis 11: simple enough?

Mepis was one of the distros that I had not tried until very recently. It was often described as the distro for newbies before Ubuntu was around. With Ubuntu's move to Unity and a lot of other distros embracing Gnome 3, more and more users are looking to other, more traditional desktop environments, such as XFCE and KDE.

Mepis uses KDE as it's choice of desktop environment and is intended to work 'out of the box', which is not the norm for a KDE distro. Upon loading my graphics card, Nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP, worked without any tweaking; an impressive feat by any distros' standards. I was able to get the extra effects working straight away. This was the experience with all of my hardware; inlcuding my microphone and webcam. The black and blue theme of the distro looks nice and modern, very appealing to the newbie switching from Windows for the first time.

Some of the stickier points of a Linux distro for a newbie have been addressed, flash and Java come pre-installed, DVDs and MP3 files play without any need for tweaking. There is a good range of software including VLC and Amarok (media players), Libre Office suite, Dolphin, Kopete (instant messaging client), Inkscape and the GIMP. Some exclusions are noticeable, no software has been pre-installed for micro-blogging or torrents. In my opinion these are some essential user tools that most users expect to be present. With such option as Choqok and Ktorrent available it does baffle me as to the exclusion of these applications.

This brings me onto another point in need of development: installing software. Mepis is aimed at newbies, but only includes Synaptic as a graphical package manager. This is the one significant thing this distro lacks: an equivalent of the Software Centre that Canonical provides in it's Ubuntu distro. Synaptic is not a tool for a newbie user, whilst I personally use the command line tool aptitude (which I had to download using the command sudo apt-get install aptitude) this is not ideal for the new user.

Firefox 4 is the pre-installed browser of choice in Mepis 11. The odd thing about this is that by default the page opens up to a blank screen (shown below). Most users like to see something when they load a browser, even if it's just to show that their internet connection is working. I would like to see the startup page being linked to Mepis or a search engine, but a blank page, in my opinion, isn't the best option.

However these issues aside, Mepis is a very solid ditro, with a lot of features that work out of the box, this makes it very difficult to pass up as a good newbie distro. No tinkering to get the basics done, youtube etc will work without any tinkering. This approach may not win the support of the puritan freedom lovers, but this isn't the target audience of Mepis. However the lack of a software centre really does hurt the newbie appeal of this distro. Highly recommended, but make sure there is a Linux user nearby to help setup the system.

Mepis was one of the distros that I had not tried until very recently. It was often described as the distro for newbies before Ubuntu was around. With Ubuntu's move to Unity and a lot of other distros embracing Gnome 3, more and more users are looking to other, more traditional desktop environments, such as XFCE and KDE.

Mepis uses KDE as it's choice of desktop environment and is intended to work 'out of the box', which is not the norm for a KDE distro. Upon loading my graphics card, Nvidia GeForce 6200 AGP, worked without any tweaking; an impressive feat by any distros' standards. I was able to get the extra effects working straight away. This was the experience with all of my hardware; inlcuding my microphone and webcam. The black and blue theme of the distro looks nice and modern, very appealing to the newbie switching from Windows for the first time.

Some of the stickier points of a Linux distro for a newbie have been addressed, flash and Java come pre-installed, DVDs and MP3 files play without any need for tweaking. There is a good range of software including VLC and Amarok (media players), Libre Office suite, Dolphin, Kopete (instant messaging client), Inkscape and the GIMP. Some exclusions are noticeable, no software has been pre-installed for micro-blogging or torrents. In my opinion these are some essential user tools that most users expect to be present. With such option as Choqok and Ktorrent available it does baffle me as to the exclusion of these applications.

This brings me onto another point in need of development: installing software. Mepis is aimed at newbies, but only includes Synaptic as a graphical package manager. This is the one significant thing this distro lacks: an equivalent of the Software Centre that Canonical provides in it's Ubuntu distro. Synaptic is not a tool for a newbie user, whilst I personally use the command line tool aptitude (which I had to download using the command sudo apt-get install aptitude) this is not ideal for the new user.

Firefox 4 is the pre-installed browser of choice in Mepis 11. The odd thing about this is that by default the page opens up to a blank screen (shown below). Most users like to see something when they load a browser, even if it's just to show that their internet connection is working. I would like to see the startup page being linked to Mepis or a search engine, but a blank page, in my opinion, isn't the best option.

However these issues aside, Mepis is a very solid ditro, with a lot of features that work out of the box, this makes it very difficult to pass up as a good newbie distro. No tinkering to get the basics done, youtube etc will work without any tinkering. This approach may not win the support of the puritan freedom lovers, but this isn't the target audience of Mepis. However the lack of a software centre really does hurt the newbie appeal of this distro. Highly recommended, but make sure there is a Linux user nearby to help setup the system.

Simply Mepis 11: simple enough?

Ultimate Edition: does it live up to the name?

I only heard about this distro in the last couple of weeks on the Linux Outlaws podcast, it was mentioned and slagged a bit for the name and general colour, but neither Dan or Fab had actually tried the distro so I thought that I would give it a trial run on my desktop. Specs for those interested are: Dual core 2.8 GHz, 4GB ram, 512MB Nvidia GT6800s Graphics card.

The distro installed fairly quickly using the standard Ubuntu installer. I then encountered my first problem: this distro installs grub 2. Nothing major, instead a minor inconvenience that was soon sorted after a few visits to the online help forums.

The first boot of the distro was very slow, so slow that I actually thought my computer had crashed, but eventually the distro loaded and the default Gnome environment loaded up. The first impressions are lasting: don't look, change the appearance theme. The overall theme of UE 2.5 is black and gold. The desktop background looks dated and the constant black actually makes everything difficult to use, black word processor, black menu, black everything. The mouse pointer is a spinning arrow with a shadow included, this looks very childish and was removed along with this awful theme.

Once past the default theme there is one obvious difference between this and Ubuntu: the number of pre-installed apps. The vast number of apps is quite impressive, if maybe a bit pointless to the seasoned Linux user. Most users have a favourite apps for photos, music, media, games, email, micro-blogging etc so to be presented with a choice of four options to perform a single function may be great for begginers, but I found myself uninstalling a lot of the apps simply to make room on the hard disk.

The hardware was picked up very quickly on my initial boot, with the standard Ubuntu message asking if I wished to use propietary drivers. Compiz was enabling all the effects I desired after a reboot of the system, I did notice that this was considerably faster booting the second time around. The sound card was picked up without any hastle as was my usb webcam with built in microphone, a test call on Skype and playing about on Cheese confirmed this.

One major advantage that UE 2.5 has over Ubuntu 9.10 is that it ships, by default, with the original package manager, great no need to remove Ubuntu's new software centre. The distro runs, as you may expect from an Ubuntu system, debian based backages. The majority of the packages that I tested on the distro ran very well with no obvious performance flaws.

The distro advertises on the website that it comes with KDE, Gnome and XFCE. These can be selected at the login screen. However this was not the case with the DVD image that I downloaded from the official site. It gave me the choice of three Gnome environments, a KDE environment and no XFCE option at all. This feature feels more like an afterthought as the KDE environment is simply a default KDE layout, no customization at all to show that this was the UE 2.5 distro. The KDE environment appeared quite unstable: crashing three times and loading once. The three Gnome options do not appear to differ at all.

To be honest, there is not much to review as an independant distro. It claims to be a fork of Ubuntu and on distro watch it is listed as an Ubuntu based distro. However it is simply Ubuntu with a different theme, one which I had to change very quickly after installation. It has a ton of apps which is great to show the range of programs available to a newbie, but not many newbies will be recommended to go for Ultimate Edition, most would probably go for the stanadrd Ubuntu.

I do not wish to sound too negative. Getting past the awful default theme, gives the user access to a very useable distro. A lot of pre-installed software is included and a lot of the hardware runs out of the box with little need for tweaking. I would highly recommend this to somebody trying out Linux for the first time. For those wanting to try something different to Ubuntu then I suggest that you look elsewhere.

I only heard about this distro in the last couple of weeks on the Linux Outlaws podcast, it was mentioned and slagged a bit for the name and general colour, but neither Dan or Fab had actually tried the distro so I thought that I would give it a trial run on my desktop. Specs for those interested are: Dual core 2.8 GHz, 4GB ram, 512MB Nvidia GT6800s Graphics card.

The distro installed fairly quickly using the standard Ubuntu installer. I then encountered my first problem: this distro installs grub 2. Nothing major, instead a minor inconvenience that was soon sorted after a few visits to the online help forums.

The first boot of the distro was very slow, so slow that I actually thought my computer had crashed, but eventually the distro loaded and the default Gnome environment loaded up. The first impressions are lasting: don't look, change the appearance theme. The overall theme of UE 2.5 is black and gold. The desktop background looks dated and the constant black actually makes everything difficult to use, black word processor, black menu, black everything. The mouse pointer is a spinning arrow with a shadow included, this looks very childish and was removed along with this awful theme.

Once past the default theme there is one obvious difference between this and Ubuntu: the number of pre-installed apps. The vast number of apps is quite impressive, if maybe a bit pointless to the seasoned Linux user. Most users have a favourite apps for photos, music, media, games, email, micro-blogging etc so to be presented with a choice of four options to perform a single function may be great for begginers, but I found myself uninstalling a lot of the apps simply to make room on the hard disk.

The hardware was picked up very quickly on my initial boot, with the standard Ubuntu message asking if I wished to use propietary drivers. Compiz was enabling all the effects I desired after a reboot of the system, I did notice that this was considerably faster booting the second time around. The sound card was picked up without any hastle as was my usb webcam with built in microphone, a test call on Skype and playing about on Cheese confirmed this.

One major advantage that UE 2.5 has over Ubuntu 9.10 is that it ships, by default, with the original package manager, great no need to remove Ubuntu's new software centre. The distro runs, as you may expect from an Ubuntu system, debian based backages. The majority of the packages that I tested on the distro ran very well with no obvious performance flaws.

The distro advertises on the website that it comes with KDE, Gnome and XFCE. These can be selected at the login screen. However this was not the case with the DVD image that I downloaded from the official site. It gave me the choice of three Gnome environments, a KDE environment and no XFCE option at all. This feature feels more like an afterthought as the KDE environment is simply a default KDE layout, no customization at all to show that this was the UE 2.5 distro. The KDE environment appeared quite unstable: crashing three times and loading once. The three Gnome options do not appear to differ at all.

To be honest, there is not much to review as an independant distro. It claims to be a fork of Ubuntu and on distro watch it is listed as an Ubuntu based distro. However it is simply Ubuntu with a different theme, one which I had to change very quickly after installation. It has a ton of apps which is great to show the range of programs available to a newbie, but not many newbies will be recommended to go for Ultimate Edition, most would probably go for the stanadrd Ubuntu.

I do not wish to sound too negative. Getting past the awful default theme, gives the user access to a very useable distro. A lot of pre-installed software is included and a lot of the hardware runs out of the box with little need for tweaking. I would highly recommend this to somebody trying out Linux for the first time. For those wanting to try something different to Ubuntu then I suggest that you look elsewhere.

Ultimate Edition: does it live up to the name?

Distro choices - hinderance or handy?

I remember the first time that I considered putting Linux on my home machine, my main problem was: which one? I had heard about Linux previously, but I had no idea which to choose from, where to start or even who to ask. In my lack of knowledge I actually believed that there was an operating system called Linux and the rest were simply copies.

After a year trying several different distros and complaining that there was 'Too much choice' I have now completely changed my opinion on this. The choice is what keeps us interested. I never thought of an operating system as being aimed at a specific user.

Ubuntu is clearly one of the most popular distros, mainly due to the fact that a lot works 'out of the box' with little need for any major setup if you do not wish to do so. For the casual user, Ubuntu is simple to use, has a lot of software in the repos, is generally the best known Linux distro and is one of the best supported with loads of forums and magazines appearing on the shelves of many newsagents.

Although I personally did not use Ubuntu for long, I have to admit that it is central to the growth of Linux. It is pointless giving a casual user a Gentoo disc and asking them to give it a try. So not everybody likes Ubuntu, there are plenty of other options for newbie users: PCLinuxOS, Pardus, Mepis, Mint and probably a thousand others I won't name. But the fact of the matter is that the Ubuntu community is growing, Dell have started to sell laptops with an Ubuntu os installed, and the support whether in magazine form or online is probably the best Linux has to offer.

For the users with some experience looking to continue their distro development we have Debian and Fedora as the two main candidates. Debian, which Ubuntu is built on, prides itself on stability. Again this is good for the casual users as they do not need to do much once it is setup and crashes are very rare as the software is very well tested. However this means that users do not get to experience the 'latest and greatest' technologies, but if people are happy with this then it is not a problem.

Fedora is on the other end of the spectrum. It still appeals to mainstream users, however the Fedora team as quite happy to include a lot of testing and beta releases in their main distros. I personally have found Fedora very easy to setup and test, but also quite easy to download an unstable program and wreak havoc on your system.

OpenSUSE seems to be more geared towards office workers, however one thing that the development team have done well with is their implementation of KDE. Should you wish to try out KDE there are few distros that do it better than OpenSUSE. I personally have no experience of Mandriva, but my mates have told me that it is aimed at the programmers among us, a bit more coding and command line functions are used than in the mainstream distros.

Studio 64 caters for the users interested in multimedia, Supergamer and
Live.linux-gamers.net aims for those who have left the old system, but still remain fun loving. However it is worth pointing out that Linux is an age behind other operating systems when it comes to games, all the major releases are for consoles or win, however very few get ported to Linux.

Myth TV is a distro that is designed to be connected to the TV rather than on a desktop. For those of us in the UK it is similar to our Sky+ as it allows the user to pause and rewind live TV, on the plus side you can then also play games, watch video files, listen to music files. However it is difficult to setup initially: you have been warned.

Then there are the power users, easy to spot as they never like anything 'out of the box' everything must be tweaked and I have to put myself into that category. These do not usually come with much pre-installed software, but it allows the user to be in complete control.

Arch is a good place to start if you wish to build your own distro. Some may argue for the packages Ubuntu and SUSE have produced but these are mainly graphical interfaces and won't get you used to the internal workings of a Linux system or using the command line. Arch ships with a small (128MB I think) liveCD that drops the user into the command line. Setup your network and start building up your very own distro using Pacman, not the game, but Arch package manager. It is not difficult to build up your own distro with Arch, the guidelines on the website are very clear and comprehensive, but should not be tried by an inexperienced newbie.

If others want a bit more of a challenge then Linux From Scratch (LFS), Gentoo or Slackware all rise to the occasion. All need a lot of research and sound knowledge of the Linux system and competent command line use. Trust me, it is so much easier to have a laptop beside you when building one of these distros as you may need quite a bit of help.

As I said at the start, I honestly believed that the number of Linux distros available was not a good thing. To a newbie, it confused me, I didn't know where to start, I was diving into the unknown and the problem was I couldn't decide which unknown path to follow.

However after a few years of experience I would be very sad if the Linux distros started to disappear. I would recommend anybody start at Ubuntu, if they are casual users simply wanting to surf the net and write a few letters then don't move. It is a stable operating system with a lot of support. But, if like me, you want to explore then Linux offers the best virtual safari of operating systems. There are thousands of Linux distros: you may not like some, you may love others, but guaranteed there is something for everyone and that is one of the key strengths of Linux operating systems.

I remember the first time that I considered putting Linux on my home machine, my main problem was: which one? I had heard about Linux previously, but I had no idea which to choose from, where to start or even who to ask. In my lack of knowledge I actually believed that there was an operating system called Linux and the rest were simply copies.

After a year trying several different distros and complaining that there was 'Too much choice' I have now completely changed my opinion on this. The choice is what keeps us interested. I never thought of an operating system as being aimed at a specific user.

Ubuntu is clearly one of the most popular distros, mainly due to the fact that a lot works 'out of the box' with little need for any major setup if you do not wish to do so. For the casual user, Ubuntu is simple to use, has a lot of software in the repos, is generally the best known Linux distro and is one of the best supported with loads of forums and magazines appearing on the shelves of many newsagents.

Although I personally did not use Ubuntu for long, I have to admit that it is central to the growth of Linux. It is pointless giving a casual user a Gentoo disc and asking them to give it a try. So not everybody likes Ubuntu, there are plenty of other options for newbie users: PCLinuxOS, Pardus, Mepis, Mint and probably a thousand others I won't name. But the fact of the matter is that the Ubuntu community is growing, Dell have started to sell laptops with an Ubuntu os installed, and the support whether in magazine form or online is probably the best Linux has to offer.

For the users with some experience looking to continue their distro development we have Debian and Fedora as the two main candidates. Debian, which Ubuntu is built on, prides itself on stability. Again this is good for the casual users as they do not need to do much once it is setup and crashes are very rare as the software is very well tested. However this means that users do not get to experience the 'latest and greatest' technologies, but if people are happy with this then it is not a problem.

Fedora is on the other end of the spectrum. It still appeals to mainstream users, however the Fedora team as quite happy to include a lot of testing and beta releases in their main distros. I personally have found Fedora very easy to setup and test, but also quite easy to download an unstable program and wreak havoc on your system.

OpenSUSE seems to be more geared towards office workers, however one thing that the development team have done well with is their implementation of KDE. Should you wish to try out KDE there are few distros that do it better than OpenSUSE. I personally have no experience of Mandriva, but my mates have told me that it is aimed at the programmers among us, a bit more coding and command line functions are used than in the mainstream distros.

Studio 64 caters for the users interested in multimedia, Supergamer and
Live.linux-gamers.net aims for those who have left the old system, but still remain fun loving. However it is worth pointing out that Linux is an age behind other operating systems when it comes to games, all the major releases are for consoles or win, however very few get ported to Linux.

Myth TV is a distro that is designed to be connected to the TV rather than on a desktop. For those of us in the UK it is similar to our Sky+ as it allows the user to pause and rewind live TV, on the plus side you can then also play games, watch video files, listen to music files. However it is difficult to setup initially: you have been warned.

Then there are the power users, easy to spot as they never like anything 'out of the box' everything must be tweaked and I have to put myself into that category. These do not usually come with much pre-installed software, but it allows the user to be in complete control.

Arch is a good place to start if you wish to build your own distro. Some may argue for the packages Ubuntu and SUSE have produced but these are mainly graphical interfaces and won't get you used to the internal workings of a Linux system or using the command line. Arch ships with a small (128MB I think) liveCD that drops the user into the command line. Setup your network and start building up your very own distro using Pacman, not the game, but Arch package manager. It is not difficult to build up your own distro with Arch, the guidelines on the website are very clear and comprehensive, but should not be tried by an inexperienced newbie.

If others want a bit more of a challenge then Linux From Scratch (LFS), Gentoo or Slackware all rise to the occasion. All need a lot of research and sound knowledge of the Linux system and competent command line use. Trust me, it is so much easier to have a laptop beside you when building one of these distros as you may need quite a bit of help.

As I said at the start, I honestly believed that the number of Linux distros available was not a good thing. To a newbie, it confused me, I didn't know where to start, I was diving into the unknown and the problem was I couldn't decide which unknown path to follow.

However after a few years of experience I would be very sad if the Linux distros started to disappear. I would recommend anybody start at Ubuntu, if they are casual users simply wanting to surf the net and write a few letters then don't move. It is a stable operating system with a lot of support. But, if like me, you want to explore then Linux offers the best virtual safari of operating systems. There are thousands of Linux distros: you may not like some, you may love others, but guaranteed there is something for everyone and that is one of the key strengths of Linux operating systems.

Distro choices - hinderance or handy?