Is this wrong? Not at all. Each day, many non-commercial distro makes wake up and check various distributions for updated security fixes. They pull source rpms, updated tar.gz’s, and debs into their distro, make minor adjustments, and drop it into their repository. Distros share with one another…they take and hopefully give back. If not monetarily, at least by the number of users that they have that may report bugs or provide fixes.

So what’s the beef that some Distrowatch Weekly commenter’s seem to have with PCLinuxOS? During the past 3 weeks of comments on the DW, some have been hounding PCLinuxOS with accusations saying that the developers hide things from their community and that PCLinuxOS eradicates changelogs and/or lights small dogs on fire while chopping kittens to bits in blenders, etc.

Myth #1: PCLinuxOS Hides the Fact it is Mandriva based (False)

PCLinuxOS.com has always had an “About” link on every single webpage it has ever had. Let’s look at what information has been conveyed there:

“PCLinuxOS was originally based on another distribution under the name of Mandriva
and shares many features of Mandriva such as the Control Center and the
Draklive Installer. Texstar and team would like to thank the
developers, contributors and others associated with Mandriva who may
have indirectly contributed to the PCLinuxOS distribution.”

Let’s look at some other distro front pages to see how they compare. Sabayon Linux has their footer at the bottom with Gentoo in it…but no mention on the front page as to what they’re based on. No real ‘about’ link there either. Move on to Ubuntu. No mention of Debian on the front page. You have to visit the Community >> The Ubuntu Story link in order to find that it is based on Debian. Once again, no ‘about’ link on the front page.

Let’s take a look at the PCLinuxOS Page on Distrowatch shall we? This has been utterly unchanged in 4 years:

“PCLinuxOS is an English only live CD initially based on Mandrake Linux
that runs entirely from a bootable CD. Data on the CD is uncompressed
on the fly, allowing up to 2GB of programs on one CD including a
complete X server, KDE desktop, OpenOffice.org and many more
applications all ready to use. In addition to the live CD, you can also
install PCLinuxOS to your hard drive with an easy-to-use
livecd-installer. Additional applications can be added or removed from
your hard drive using a friendly apt-get front end via Synaptic.”

If that paragraph is an attempt to hide things, I’m Miles Davis.

Considering these two points, I’d say PCLinuxOS hasn’t been ‘hiding’ the fact that it is Mandriva based. I’d say they’re doing quite well with where they have this information. I welcome any comments with information otherwise. If you have specific examples, please make sure they’re from a developer and not a general user…because if general users are where we’re getting our information from, every distro is in trouble.

Laying to Rest the Mandriva/PCLOS Debate originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on July 30, 2007.

This week, Distrowatch Weekly has redone their top 10 distributions and included PCLinuxOS inside of that top ten for the first time ever. In fact, when I began using PCLinuxOS, it was around 15th on the distrowatch charts. If you look at 2005 vs. 2006 charts, you’ll see that out of the top 15 distros tracked, PCLinuxOS was the largest gainer over the course of that year. I like to think that mypclinuxos (started Mar 27, 2006) had a lot to do with that…and I don’t ask for any recognition at all…but take great satisfaction in helping what I believe to be the premiere Linux distribution for new users gain ground.

As stated, Distrowatch Weekly named PCLinuxOS as one of the “Top Ten” distributions and I was very happy about this. What was less than stellar was some of the negative feedback that resulted from this announcement. I realize that much of the feedback is based on false assumptions, ignorance, and fanboism…but just the same, I found a couple of comments I’d like to respond to so that the correct information is available for everyone to see.

So here’s how I’ll address things…I won’t point out individuals in the comments of this week’s Distrowatch Weekly; instead, I’ll just print the comments here and address them. If you want to see where they come from, check out DW Comments section. And now for the first comment:

• “Also PCLOS/MEPIS don’t even offer the choice to install in another language than english, and one has to tweak hard to install another language for the system.”

This is true to a degree. One always has the default KDE AZERTY keyboard settings for localization. One can also say that Ubuntu localized packages should work on MEPIS and Mandriva localized packages should work on PCLinuxOS. This may not be the case in and in this instance, the poster would be correct. The nice part about PCLinuxOS is that we, the community, recognized this as a shortfall and have begun translating to various languages. An international DVD version will be out ASAP after PCLinuxOS 2007 Final is released.

• [referring to DW saying it was hard to overlook PCLOS and MEPIS since they've been gaining hits in the past few years] It’s easy to overlook, since the fanbois are artificially boosting them. Remember Yoper a couple years ago? Putting PCLOS in the top ten only adds to the abundant confusion.

This saddens me. I’d love to see some proof to backup this accusation. If there were proof I’d totally agree because artificially inflating popularity as tracked by Distrowatch is pretty low and frowned upon. Should proof be available, I’d be really interested in seeing it.

Usually, this happens when someone isn’t too happy about how well a distro is doing so they dump on said distro because they feel the distro they use should be up there getting all the attention. What these people forget is that it doesn’t matter which distro anyone uses…THEY’RE USING LINUX! That’s good enough in my book…they choose Linux and in making that choice they are just like me…using Linux. I wish more people could see things this way.

• The problem with these two distros is the “one man at the top” philosophy, rather than having an active development group.

Well, that’s half right. Tex is lead developer but he has many others that assist him. I also know that Warren Woodford has a small team of people that help him. I look at both Texstar and Warren as being “distro architects” in that they are the overall designers and creators of the distro but others chip in to help build the overall framework of the distro.

It’s evident by the beautification project over at mypclinuxos.com which gave PCLinuxOS 2007 Test Releases their awesome themed look and slick appearance that Texstar is open to anyone helping develope his distro.

• The biggest drawback of pclinux is that it is only available in English. I don’t understand why, as their mandriva base have a lot of languages.

This is probably because Mandriva isn’t their base Mandriva offers many of the packages and much of the framework for PCLinuxOS, but PCLinuxOS is it’s own distribution. Earlier last year, Texstar expressed via the developers mailing list his concern about the way Mandriva does its packaging and how it rolls its distro and he wanted to distance himself further from that. this has become apparent in 2007 TR3.

Also, something to note is that PCLinuxOS pulls from MANY distros…Yoper, Red Hat/Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSuse and perhaps even a few I don’t know. The bottom line is…the most visible parts used are from Mandriva…but that doesn’t make PCLinuxOS Mandriva re-wrapped.

PCLinuxOS maintains its own kernel. PCLinuxOS maintains it’s own repository. PCLinuxOS also has a policy of not installing software outside of the repository (if you do, you’re on your own) and yes that means even Mandriva rpms. So honestly, PCLinuxOS looked at in this light stands alone. If Mandriva went belly up tomorrow, PCLinuxOS would continue on quite easily by absorbing the “best of” tools available in Linux just like it always has done.

• I would like to find among the “cons” of Mepis and PCLinuxOS, the total ignorance of the Free Software Philosophy. Technical advantages are secondary.

Really? Last I checked both MEPIS and PCLinuxOS were available for free. Now if you’re speaking of Libre Software (that is, software free of proprietary components) I’ll agree with you…those items aren’t high on the priority list for these distributions.

Instead, higher on the priority list is usability and less confusion for new users. Asking new users to become immediately supportive of a license and philosophy they know nothing about is asking a bit too much. After all, most of these new users haven’t even read the EULA for Windows…what’s going to be incentive for them to read the GPL? What incentive for them to think they should only use FLOSS? There is no incentive. It’s a personal choice and one that should be left up to the individual.

Should a distro be chastised for choosing NOT to be completely proprietary software free? Nope. Because it fills a niche for those users who want THAT DISTRO. Just like they have a choice to choose FLOSS, they also have a choice to not choose it. Distros shouldn’t be chastised for their philosophies on either end of the spectrum.

• I still believe that PCLinuxOS and MEPIS are just re-mastered editions of Mandriva and Ubuntu without offering anything new.

Then try it and see what you think after trying it. By trying these distros it becomes apparent that they are not “re-mastered editions” of Mandriva and Ubuntu. Both MEPIS and PCLinuxOS are independently developed distributions that would be able to stand alone without Mandriva/Ubuntu. They develop all their own kernels and maintain their own independent package pools. Both of them install software using apt-get and both of them are new user friendly. Both of them have one or two click installations of graphics drivers. Both of them have good support for playing video and both of them have flash out of the box.

I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is and try it. If you still think that both of these distros are just repackaged copies of Ubuntu/Mandriva…bring your proof and I’ll publish it here in large, bold headlines.

• In fact, these two projects [MEPIS & PCLinuxOS] ONLY deserve credit for beeing able to deliver a customised version of another project. They are nothing whitout giants like Red Hat, Novell, Mandrakesoft or Canonical. Even if they add a small number of useful feature, they don’t have the community needed to be able to maintain a whole operating system.

These are complete lies on the part of MEPIS and PCLinuxOS. MEPIS maintained itself in the same way Ubuntu is doing since 2003. It only changed to an Ubuntu base within the past year. That means It HAS operated and maintained a whole operating system on its own without Red Hat, Novell, Mandriva, and Canonical. So using your logic, MEPIS deserves credit.

In the same vein, PCLinuxOS has deviated from Mandrake 9.2 continually (which was when it forked) and now doesn’t use Mandriva for it’s primary code base. It also maintains all of its own packages, rolls its own kernel, and has it’s own developers. Also, I’m quite familiar with it’s community since I operate a community website with over 2k members for it. I have to tell you that if tomorrow Mandriva dried up…PCLinuxOS would be just fine.

Stating that the efforts of Texstar and Warren do not deserve credit is completely ludicrous. This person needs to extract his/her head from their backside. Both PCLinuxOS and MEPIS have the community to maintain their own distribution because both of them ARE maintaining their own distribution.

• I am not saying that they are not good (MEPIS and PCLinuxOS). I used them both in the past (and still do occasionally) and they are great Live CD distros, but when security patches are not getting released on the timely base it stops being fun. I would never suggest them for any serious work. MEPIS at least has commercial support, where PCLinuxOS has ???

I assume here that the poster is speaking of the code freeze on .93a base when they speak of security patches not being released. This is a first in the PCLinuxOS community and last as well. The reason .93a version has been frozen is because all developer attention has been focused on 2007 version. There are major changes (shifting many packages away from Mandriva, new GCC/Glibc requiring completely rebuilt repository) that require too much time for volunteers to work at it.

PCLinuxOS 2007, for the first time since PCLinuxOS’s inception, will need to be a ‘from scratch’ install. Previously, you could install .71 and apt-get up to current. Since there is a new GCC version, all packages needed recompiled which means a complete re-installation must take place. To prepare, all effort has been placed on getting 2007 accomplished and .93a has been removed from most download sites. There are those of us out there that still have boxen running .93a but we do so at our own risk as PCLinuxOS is BETA software and says so before you install it.

Remember, Ubuntu and Debian developers often get paid to work on their distribution…by many different companies (not just Canonical). SuSe developers are paid. Xandros developers are paid. MEPIS pays itself through its commercial wing.

PCLinuxOS is volunteer based. Where is its commercial support? There is none…because it’s put together by a group of like minded individuals who want to make software better than what is available. Will there ever be commercial offerings for PCLinuxOS? Who knows? Maybe? But for now, I don’t think examining whether or not a distro has commercial support should be criteria for an enthusiast website to determine what is one of the top ten visited distributions.

• yeay! People continously praise pclinuxos for their inclusion of proprietary stuff etc. without being aware of these things violates licenses, patents, is strictly illegal and what not, nice..

  Also very nice is how most of their packages are just rebranded mandriva packages (rebuilt with their own release suffix and changelog removed) and they don’t even provide sources for the packages they modify..

Here is your sources for PCLinuxOS [1][2]. Evidently you’re a bit too lazy to google it. As for inclusion of proprietary stuff, we’ve already went over that previously…I’m not going to beat a dead horse. I’m also not going over the ‘re-branded packages’ statement as we’ve already addressed that as well.

If you have questions about PCLinuxOS, I’ll do my best to answer and if I can’t, I’ll find someone who can…even if the answer isn’t one I want to give. It’s my aim to be honest which is why I have such problems with comments like those above.

Hopefully, this clears a few things up for people.

Debunking Confusion in PCLinuxOS originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on April 3, 2007.

Many blogs also have taken up this topic and, when determining the best Linux desktop, gushed about Xandros, Freespire, Ubuntu, and MEPIS. The thing I find odd is that they forget the little guy that’s outpacing all the others…and that little guy is PCLinuxOS. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why PCLinuxOS is, IMHO, the best Linux flavor for new users.

1. Hardware Versatility & Compatibility

PCLinuxOS comes in three flavors for the current .93a release. Those three are minime, Junior, and Big Daddy. Minime is a minimal 299MB iso with a functional KDE desktop. I’ve seen postings in the forum that this runs nicely on a 350Mhz PII and I’ve successfully had it running on a Celeron 900 with 256MB PC100 RAM. So I know that it works for older computers. If you don’t want a speedy desktop that you can custom build with synaptic and would rather have a few default applications installed right away…try Junior. You can also get the whole she-bang using “Big Daddy”. It’s really up to you…I dig this concept as well since it allows you to build from the ground up or hit the ground running right away.

Hardware detection with PCLinuxOS is fantastic. Wireless and ndiswrapper are configured through a central control center (see #4). PCLinuxOS is compatible with many old computers as well as new ones. PCLinuxOS will detect just about anything you throw at it. Most Linux does now but with the LiveCD project at berlios, PCLOS has an ace in it’s hand…it’s a fantastic project that allows great hardware detection. I’ve seen so many people have operational PCLOS desktops immediately after install…no tweaking needed. I’m amazed at this aspect of this distro.

If you want the solid performance of PCLinuxOS with full access to all repositories and software updates on a speedier desktop, you might try SAM Linux. SAM is PCLinuxOS as a base with XFCE for a desktop. SAM worked quite nicely on my Celeron 900 as well with even more speed than minime…which is understandable since XFCE is notibly faster due to less bloat.

PCLinuxOS has been nothing but solid for all my computing needs, whether XFCE, Gnome, or KDE. In all, hardware on PCLinuxOS is just as much a no brainer as it is on Ubuntu, MEPIS, Xandros, and Freespire…with three flavors to choose from.
2. Software

PCLinuxOS is meant for the desktop. It’s meant to be used for your day to day operation. It’s user-centric, not developer-centric. Since PCLOS is geared toward every day users and for desktop operation it contains access to thousands of programs that desktop users find useful. With less emphasys on maintaining packages for the server, the lead developer is able to concentrate on the desktop and actually listen to us, the users…and listen he does. PCLinuxOS is one of the only distros out there that I know of where I got a response from the head developer when I asked him a question or wanted a program added to the repository. That sets it apart from other distros. Texstar (the head developer) takes pride in his product and listens to his intended audience for direction…he doesn’t just hear them…he listens. 5,000+ software packages (and counting) in the official repository speak volumes for this fact.

3. It Just Works

Many new users go distro hopping, trying to find something that ‘just works’ for them. People often say in the official forums that PCLinuxOS is “The Distro Hopper Stopper“. It does seem to fill what is missing for so many new users. There’s a reason it has raced into the top ten distros at distrowatch.com this year…for so many users, it just works. ATI and Nvidia drivers are only a synaptic intall away…everything works right out of the box. This is one of the reasons new users should consider PCLinuxOS.

If one were to compare shopping for any product out there with shopping for a Linux distro…would you want the product that required you to ‘fix it’ before you could use it? You just order XYZ mp3 player from Amazon…but when it arrives, you have to configure it, tweak it, and hack it until it’s usable. To me, this doesn’t make sense. If I find a distro that requires less configuring and tweaking to get me up and running and one that provides the best experience…I’d stick with it.

For me, there is no other choice. I use PCLinuxOS because it requires me to invest the least amount of time (and since my wife uses it as well, the least amount of worry) spent configuring, compiling, and setting things up. PCLinuxOS users’ needs are no different than other Linux distro users. They need to edit, listen to, and organize their music. They need to design the layout of that web page. They need to develop programs and write code. They need to slice and dice all aspects of their desktop experience. If you are one of those other distro users, I commend you for using Linux since it puts you in the drivers seat. Keep at it and keep at using and spreading Open Source software and Linux. If you’ve made the switch to desktop Linux and haven’t tried PCLinuxOS in the past month, I recommend you do so…you’re missing out on a gem of a distro made for you, the desktop Linux user.

I also commend PCLinuxOS for providing the users with the “desktop experience” it provides which allows those users to do this fluidly and with the greatest amount of efficiency. People that try and use PCLinuxOS know right away that something is different. It’s the attention to detail and fluid design that combine together give the user that “desktop experience” that no other distro can. For me, it made using Linux fun.

4. PCLinuxOS Control Center

When I first switched to Desktop Linux, I immediately noticed that there wasn’t a control panel where I could go for a ‘one stop shopping place’ to control my applications and running services. Having been a slackware user for about 4 years at the time, it didn’t matter much to me…but when I thought of new users coming in as Windows refugees or having no computer experience…it made me cringe. How could Linux not provide a central place to control their system? Sure, KDE has the control panel to control appearance, layout, and behavior…but what about network interfaces? Can everyone use ifconfig? Does everyone know how to modprobe? Most likely not.

PCLinuxOS makes a fantastic effort in this realm. With the PCLinuxOS Control Center, you are in the drivers seat of your operating system…not along for the ride. You control boot options, hardware, mount points, networking, security, system configurations, sharing, network services, authentication, and groupware; all from a handy control center that is point-click easy. The Control Center is the single greatest reason I’ve converted more users to PCLinuxOS than any other distro. It’s also the single greatest reason that new users should consider PCLinuxOS first before all other flavors of Linux.

5. The Community

Sometimes, smaller is better. Go with me on this and get your minds out of the gutter. PCLinuxOS has quite a bit smaller community than Ubuntu, MEPIS, Mandriva, and Fedora Core. All of those distros have quite a huge following. So how is it that such a small distro can march into the top ten at distrowatch and hold its own? The community is a huge reason. This small community has produced some of the greatest tools for their users: The wiki, the New User Guides, PCLinuxOS Magazine, Kids Safe PCLinuxOS, and countless other projects and startups. There are so many things happening within the community right now, there’s always a place to become involved or to stand back and watch things happen (politely tagging along for the ride). I really feel great about the directions that PCLOS is moving in and the future of this desktop. The thing I take most heart in is that the developers listen to their community.

As a Slackware user, I remember getting flamed quite heavily in an IRC channel I joined after first installing it. Rightly so…I was asking the dumbest questions and not even trying to search for things…but of course, I didn’t know how to search. Had someone shown me the proper way of doing things, I might have had a flameless time with Slack. With PCLinuxOS, I envy new users. They get to be a part of a community that welcomes them in and treats them as equals regardless of experience level. They get a fantastic wiki that takes their hand and walks them through setting up their desktop and feeling comfortable in their new environment. Many of the “gee whiz” items that new users ask about and get flamed for are solved for them in the wiki and if it isn’t, the forums are friendly and welcoming.

6. Try Before you “Buy”

PCLinuxOS is a Live CD. You can boot up and run the entire operating system without installing it. This allows you to take a look at things before you “buy” (you don’t buy since it is 100% free) aka commit it to a hard disk. Ubuntu went in this direction as well with their last version. SuSe also has a Live CD as well. This is a great way for new Linux users to experience Linux. With Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, it is taken a step further…you’re able to install the operating system while using the Live CD. After the install is finished, a reboot and you’re up into your shiny, new desktop.

One of the niftiest features of PCLinuxOS as a Live CD is that you can install the CD to RAM and pull out the disk. This means that you’re running the entire operating system from RAM…which also means fantastic speed. PCLinuxOS becomes a Live RAM distro at that point. It does take a while to load to RAM, but after you’re up and running you’ll be amazed at the speed. You can install the OS in this mode as well.

7. Community Projects

I am the webmaster and administrator at MyPCLinuxOS.com. This is a community projects site for PCLinuxOS. If the community has a want or need for the OS, we start a project and rally support around it. We then take that idea and make it a reality. The new user guides and wiki were a product of this and other fantastic projects are springing up ever single day. There is a SOHO edition in the works, a MythTV Edition, the PCLinuxOS Beautification Project, Edulos – PCLinuxOS Eduction Edition, the PCLinuxOS Magazine Project (now on it’s third issue), and other projects. I encourage you to get involved if you use PCLinuxOS and help give back to your favorite distro. If you’re not using PCLinuxOS and are curious about what’s going on, come on in and register at MyPCLinuxOS…drop us a comment or question and we’ll do our best to help you get the information you need. Please remember that this website is ONLY for community projects…all official help requests should go to the official forums at pclinuxos.com.

8. Pride and Ownership

All of the reasons above combine to make this last reason hit home. The userbase of PCLinuxOS really takes pride in their distro. The pride comes from having a stake in the way in which PCLinuxOS is developed. See, Texstar is a unique developer in that he listens to his users and adapts his development to suit them. Of course, you can’t please everyone but Tex does a fantastic job with about 90% of the userbase and the other 10% are a synaptic install away from being happy.

When you have a community that develops with you, you develop with the community. Texstar has seen this happen from the early and small beginnings when PcLinuxOS was just a fork of Mandrake 9.2. Fast forward to today where PCLinuxOS is a conglomeration of many different distros with an active community that takes pride and ownership of their favorite desktop Linux. I don’t know how he did it, but others should take note and duplicate it. PCLinuxOS is near and dear to its users and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

In closing, I really feel that PCLinuxOS is on track to be the best Linux desktop users can get for free today. I’m sure there are supporters of other distros out there that are saying “But my_distro does this too!” or “my_distro has all of the things you’re talking about as well”. In that case, congratulations on finding a great fit for you! I commend you for using Linux and am glad we’re members of the same community! Just remember that the same size glove does not fit everyone…if you’re helping others in their Linux journey…make sure that your bias toward one distro doesn’t limit the choices that the new user deserves. I always give new users that I help the choice between all of the major desktop-centric distros before I tell them which one I think is best…it’s great to see what happens when the decide. And remember, if your distro is the best for that new user…they’ll choose it and use it. Just make sure that in the spirit of open source you do not limit their choices in the beginning. Hopefully, you’ll take another look at PCLinuxOS and include it in the list of those you present to new users!

Why I Choose PCLinuxOS originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on October 13, 2006.

First, don’t be intimidated by the shell. It’s more powerful than a cmd line in windows and you’ll have complete control of your computer from the confines of this awesome tool. Plus, you’re about 15-20 seconds away from having your desktop back up and running by executing only a few commands.

In order to fix your xorg.conf file, it’s important that we become root…so login as root and let’s fix your xorg.conf file in 4 commands.

First, let’s get to the right directory to work with xorg.conf:

[root@lostmain ~] cd /etc/X11

Next, let’s remove all xorg.conf files and any backups (usually saved as xorg.conf.old or xorg.conf.bak) with the next command:

[root@lostmain X11] rm -f xorg.conf*

The -f flag forces the deleting of the files without prompting and the * means that we’ll delete any file that starts with xorg.conf. That means xorg.conf.bak and xorg.conf.old will be deleted right along with our original xorg.conf file as well. Now let’s fix this by using the shell PCLinuxOS Control Center. That’s right, you don’t have to have KDE fired up and running to access the PCLinuxOS Control Center…you can do it right here:

[root@lostmain X11]mcc

Now use arrow keys to go into hardware and configure the display. When choosing a monitor, the quickest and easiest way to get back into a GUI is to use the “Generic” setting. I chose Generic 1280X1024 @ 76 for my Samsung Syncmaster 710N 17″ LCD screen. Next up, If you have the ATI or Nvidia driver installed, it will ask you if you’d like to use it (choose yes). It will then ask if you’d like to change any options…the default is usually ok. Now it will take you in to test the configuration. If you see the rainbow test screen, you’re set. If not, you’ll have to change things (normally resolution) until you’re able to see it. The test screen will ask you if you’d like to use the settings it is using to test the screen…hit yes (it might be “ok”, I’m going from memory here) and you’ll be dropped right back to the shell.

Now we could just start kdm/xdm and an Xsession here…but it’s much easier for new users to simply reboot so:

[root@lostmain X11] reboot

Next time you start up things should be back to normal. Isn’t it nice to be able to have quick resolution to many Linux problems via the PCLinuxOS Control Center? What a great tool!

That was one of the main reasons I chose PCLinuxOS over other desktops…it has the PCLinuxOS Control Center available for me to configure samba, groupware, LDAP, Printers, etc….pretty much anything I need to configure in Linux is ready and waiting for me in this fantastic control center. It usually puts new users at ease as well since they’re used to the control panel in Windows. I know when I was first introduced to Linux I noted that there was not a central place where I could control all things Linux (although /etc in Slackware is handy ). This Control Center puts all other distros to shame it’s so complete. Plus, if you’re missing anything…a quick word to the devs and chances are you’ll see it included very soon. So get used to that PCLinuxOS Control Center!! Remember that you can call it via the shell as well with the pcc command. Hopefully, this little tip has been helpful to you.

PCLinuxOS .93 xorg.conf problem quick fix originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on October 4, 2006.

I recently moved and during the move found a couple of old hard drives. Dusting off and installing one brought back some memories…it contained an install of SimplyMEPIS 2003.10, which was my second install of that particular OS. This got me thinking…I wondered what benefits MEPIS garnered from my old, defunct enthusiast site mepislinux.org? At the time and shortly thereafter, no benefits were clearly visible. In fact, with my somewhat loud depart from the MEPIS community, there were many claims that both my site and I did nothing for the distro.

With Google Trends, statistics are at my fingertips. Using this site, I’m able to look back in time and see if my old 12 page review did any good at all to help MEPIS along…I was very surprised to see that I was part of the highest surge MEPIS has made to date according to Google Trends.

First I needed to identify what I should search for. The term “simplymepis” comes to mind since it is the flagship offering aka coin phrase for MEPIS. However, this search didn’t yield as much data as one for MEPIS…although I did note that comparing the two trends shows that they mirror each other quite a bit. I finally settled on choosing the trend word “MEPIS”. Let’s take a look at the broad view for MEPIS, we can see four distinct surges (drops followed by immediate, quick recoveries). All of these surges happen in the last part of 2004 and the first part of 2005:
The largest surge is evident in 2004. Let’s take a look at this surge by narrowing our data to 2004 only (pictured below).

As you can see, the larest surge in 2004 happened in October. Indeed, the largest surge for MEPIS ever happened during this time. Coincidentally, my 12 page review of SimplyMEPIS came out on September 29th, 2004 and was picked up by various news websites the week following. I remember that this was the deciding moment for me to switch to a hosted platform…that review brought my apache box (running slackware) to a snails pace for about 3 days (although some quick tweaks and an apache restart helped things quite a bit).

Next up we see a rapid decline in searches for MEPIS after Oct-Nov 2004. It was during this time that I closed my site with a large, public send off. Reasons being the stifling of free speech in the MEPIS community when a forum member critiqued a business direction that MEPIS chose to go (My nick was TKS). The original announcement has been deleted from MEPIS.org but google cache still contains the announcement and the original front page comments from mepis.org (once again, I am TKS). The important part of this thread was the fact that I was defending someone’s right to comment, not the comments themselves. A day later, 6 November 2004, I closed my site forever. This means that the review had been in place one month, one week and had received 400k plus unique views. Not bad at all for a review. How did the trend look? Let’s see. Well, not a huge drop but a decline nonetheless.

So what does it all mean? Perhaps nothing. But it’s fun to ponder if my review which had over 400k unique views before the site closed actually helped propel MEPIS into the top 10…then again, it could just be coincidence right? Either way, as the webmaster of 2 PCLinuxOS support sites, a project leader for 2 projects in the PCLinuxOS community and a very active member of the PCLinuxOS community…I have to wonder where I’d have been had free speech never been stifled. I can imagine that I’d have remained very active, supportive, and perhaps a loud and unwavering voice for MEPIS. As for now, the trend has turned downward despite riding Ubuntu’s coat tails and life goes on. But it was fun to think about things past with my old friend MEPIS. I’m just glad I have only a positive trend in my horizon.

Devnet

Statistics and Trends of an Old Friend originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on June 26, 2006.

IMHO, a Live CD is about trying out Linux…not just rescue functions or data recovery. It’s about being able to run an entire operating system as read only from your CD-ROM. It’s about showing the power that Linux has. It’s about having an entire desktop with all the eye candy fixins in sub-5 minutes to attract new users. In a sense, it is a “try before you buy”…in this case download. It’s about detection, installation, configuration, and automation. While Knoppix does a good job on this…actually it wrote the book on it…there are those distributions out there that now PUMMEL Knoppix in detection. Two that come to mind are PCLinuxOS and MEPIS.

I figured that PCLinuxOS would be the major player at this years members choice award…mainly for the reason that it really advanced this year at distrowatch.com. In 2003, it was 44th. In 2004, it skyrocketed to 9th. That’s the fastest moving Linux distribution that is currently being tracked by Distrowatch. So, when I read Knoppix as the choice…I was surprised. Then I thought about it for a minute, isolated the real problem, and became a bit ticked off.

This isn’t about choice and it definately isn’t about a Live CD…it sure isn’t about the best. It’s about the most popular. Unfortunately, this is becoming the ‘in thing’ for open source. Linux has become chic. Well, maybe shabby chic. Nonetheless, Linux has arrived mainstream and brings entoe all of the things (good or bad) something that goes mainstream will bring with it.

When open source first got its start, there wasn’t a huge following. There were a few people posting at BBS’s and Usenets or chatting on IRC that co-developed applications and handy software packages across the net. Fast forward to today’s society. Processor speed has gone through the roof, bandwidth/download speed is no longer an issue, and information is available at the speed of point-click.

Now, Linux has become a ‘cool thing’ to run and use. I picture Adam Sandler in Billy Madison saying, “Everyone knows that running Linux is the coolest” and everyone answering, “if running Linux is cool, then I’m Miles Davis!”. This is what really gets my goat…that there are people out there running Linux because its cool or because it’s the ‘in thing’ to do and for no other reason. These same people flock to forums or IRC channels and post, “My Amarok thingie won’t work! I played my Brittney Spears song on it and it doesn’t work anymore. Help!! Must hear Brittney Spears..X!!!X<!X!)OO!” If they dignify a response at all it takes at least 3 reformations of the question before anyone can isolate their real problem…which usually comes out to be operator error.

Yes it is good that Linux is popular…it is good that open source is popular. This doesn’t mean that all things are “right as rain” though. It means those that are true to open source have to sift through the BS and make sure that they are supporting their choice for the right reasons. It means that those of us that support our choice need to stop ourselves from jumping on the bandwagon that everyone else is hopping on.

Some of you might be asking, “Well, what about Firefox…everyone hopped on THAT bandwagon and look at it!” Yep…it’s doing great. Now how many open source projects can do what firefox did? How many did it before them? Now you should understand what I’m getting at. If you support a distro and get caught up in the mix with those that are there just because its cool…then that will blind and maim intentions and directions. A distro or open source project must stay true to itself and not allow itself to become a prada bag or gucci tailored pants…that was never and isn’t the intention of Linux…and it isn’t and never will be the intention of the GPL…let’s face it, prada and gucci aren’t free.

So the YayHoos will be out in full force touting X project as the best…pouring their “wisdom” about like a salt shaker dropped on the floor. Unfortunately, this means that for all the good and knowledgeable people that use Linux, there will be just as many evil idiots that do as well…bah, they don’t even need to be evil…they can just be idiots and cause the same problems. The only thing positive I have to say about it is…at least they’re running Linux…so they’re only half of an idiot…but for some, that is more than enough.

That’s my two cents…stay true to yourself and your choice and don’t buy into the hype.

Why I Hate Mainstream originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on February 8, 2005.

Here’s the list of distros I’ll be posting w/ screens on:

1. Mandrake 10.1
2. Libranet 2.8.1
3. PCLinuxOS Preview 7
4. SimplyMEPIS 2004.04
5. Fedora Core 3

Some of you might be wondering why I don’t have ‘X’ distro listed in there. The reason is that I’m looking for the following criteria: 1. Full version is free 2. Noted by the Linux as very new user friendly 3. the distro’s not Ubuntu (REVISED: Ubuntu is now in the mix due to reader response).

As a past user of Ubuntu, I can tell you that it doesn’t hold a candle overall to any of the distros I’ll be investigating and will therefore NOT be included into this group. If you need Ubuntu snapshots and reviews…go google it and you’ll come up with at least 500 misguided ones. I suppose if there is any feedback about Ubuntu here I can probably give my two cents on it.

As I posted earlier, I recently installed Mandrake Linux 10.1. I was quite impressed with the default install and how it appeared. Now that I’ve had about a week to analyze it I can share some observations.

First and foremost, this OS is eyecandy. Everything looks and feels organized and soft. There aren’t any hard, right angled fonts, icons, or windows. You look at the desktop and get a sense of completeness. Â I can’t explain it any more than that. For appearance, Mandrake is hands down the most eye pleasing free distro available.

The second most noticeable thing is the organization of the menus. Everything has its place and there isn’t a ton of confusing menus to mess things up. For instance, with most KDE default installs on distros that don’t preconfigure them for you (i.e., slackware) you find ALL of the KDE menus intact. This means that when you go to the more applications link in the K-Menu, you find EVERY SINGLE APPLICATION INSTALLED. This makes the menu branch out and get quite confusing and frustrating. If one knows how to tweak this, it isn’t a problem. But for those that are just starting out in Linux, it’s very confusing.

I like the fact that it is very easy to configure the various aspects of your desktop and the settings. They have the menu organization down to a tee. I really think this is the way a Linux distribution should be after it is installed. It is simply KDE done right. You’d think with all of this going for it, Mandrake would rate high on my list…but remember, I’m thinking more along the lines of this distro being ready set go right out of the box. So it fell short on a few points.

The first place it falls short is package management. I realize that Mandrake is trying very hard to have a ‘package warehouse’ like that of Linspire and Xandros…but it falls very short. I tried to upgrade for any security holes numerous times without any success. Also, requiring the user to ‘register’ in order to receive said updates put me off somewhat. If I’m just installing an operating system…I want to accomplish my goals ASAP without adding my email address anywhere in order to accomplish them. So, I was a bit annoyed by this little detail. Perhaps they should make it so it asks on the 2nd update try.

The second place Mandrake falls short is configurability. I know many of you are going to hop all over me for saying this touting “It’s totally up to the individual to configure it” and you’re right…it is up to the individual. But what new user is going to know how to do this out of the box? If I were a new user, I’d be going to the Mandrake Control center for everything I needed…kinda like the Control Panel in WinDozeXP and I wouldn’t want to snoop around to find anything else. I know that this could be a ‘KDE’ or ‘Gnome’ thing depending on the OS…but you’d think that a distro that has developed as many custom menus and such for Linux would go the extra step and take ‘Y’ out of the equation…i.e. making it just one step easier to configure the look, feel, and styles of the desktop.

The last place Mandrake fell short for me was sound. I had no sound at the first boot. No probs I thought….I ran ‘alsaconf’ and pumped up the sound volume making sure it wasn’t muted. I tried the sound again with no go. So…no matter what I did, I couldn’t get the sound going without having to jump farther into the command line that I should have to with a distro such as this. Eventually I did get the sound going. It seems Mandrake detected my onboard sound as active even though it was deactivated in BIOS. Odd, because it is the only distro that has done so. However, I couldn’t ignore the fact that sound wasn’t good to go after a few intervening actions on my part.

Overall, I’d give Mandrake a thumbs up though. This is a pretty solid distro. I can’t wait to see how it fares with my wife. She is really good about checking into what programs can and can’t do and will really put these distros to the ‘new user’ test. As promised, I’ll cycle through each distro myself during the next couple of weeks and post my thoughts on it. Then at the end of this period, I’ll install one of the five listed at the beginning of this post and I’ll have a true new user come and check out each. I think sticking with a distro a week for her to test will be a good idea. That should give her enough time to truly ‘feel’ what it is like and decide for herself if it will get her stamp of approval. I consider this type of test MUCH more unbiased than one you’d read on some large new site…mainly because new users don’t do the reviews…and I’m sure you’d agree that having someone new to Linux take a look at a distro would provide some really interesting feedback.

Thanks for reading and stick with us…it looks to be very interesting.

PS: On the horizon…I’m uninstalling Mandrake 10.1 right now to look at SimplyMEPIS 2004.04. I should have initial reports back sometime in the next few days.

The Point is Click Linux; a managed theme… originally appeared on Yet Another Linux Blog on December 10, 2004.