This does not mean that I now dislike the other distros I have fallen in love with. My desktop computer runs Ubuntu Feisty and my laptop runs Fedora 7. The desktop in my office will soon run Sabayon.
Two weeks ago I facilitated a five-day workshop on Linux. The principal goal of the workshop was to teach participants how to install, configure, and maintain a Linux-based computer system. Only two of the eighteen participants had previous experience with Linux. The rest were all newbies.
I didn’t want the participants to experience only one distro, so I taught them to install and configure three popular Linux flavors, namely PCLinuxOS 2007, DreamLinux 2.2, and Ubuntu 7.04. The main reason why I chose these distros is that they use different desktop environments. PCLinuxOS uses KDE, DreamLinux runs XFCE, and Ubuntu utilizes the Gnome system. Another reason is that these three flavors use the same package manager. It is my personal opinion that Synaptic is the best of all package managers on the planet.
The participants found PCLinuxOS to be the easiest to use, DreamLinux as the most beautiful, and Ubuntu as the hardest to master. It is most probably because PCLinuxOS looks and feels very much like Windows XP that the participants (who are all XP users) found it intuitive. They also commented that the PCLinuxOS Control Center really makes managing the system almost effortless. They also noticed that all the hardware worked perfectly after installing any of the three distros.
I also taught the participants how to use common free and opensource applications for word processing (Writer), presentations (Impress) spreadsheets (Calc), web browsing (Firefox), email (Thunderbird), image manipulation (Gimp), playing audio (Amarok) and video (Kaffeine).
The fact that flash, java runtime environment, mp3 and other proprietary codecs are installed by default in PCLinuxOS and DreamLinux, the participants did not find any problem at all when they watched youtube videos, run Chikka, play music, and visited their favorite sites. They didn’t even notice that they were there. Thus when they switched to Ubuntu, they found it a bit tedious to install flash, j2re, and all the necessary codecs to play music and videos when both PCLinuxOS and DreamLinux worked out of the box.
It is beyond the scope of this short post to list all the advantages and disadvantages of the three distros, but based on my experience with my workshop participants, I think it suffices to say that PCLinuxOS and DreamLinux are probably the best distributions to use to introduce new users to Linux.
Linux Mint is a distro built on Ubuntu with the multimedia extras installed out of the box. It is compatible with the Ubuntu repositories so you have a large number of applications available which I value. Also the Ubuntu support channels contain a wealth of knowledge should you need help.
Personally I am using Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS on my backup PC.
Hi Padz, I’m glad you were able to post this. It just goes to show that you can thrive on a place with artificial scarcity of internet connection and still talk, eat and sleep Linux. It makes me imagine Tux carrying a Philippine flag on top of a mountain like the photo op of Mt. Everest climbers.
Really, you’re not a Linux Freak.
Hi manoypadz,
It’s been a while that i haven’t heard any news from you… I was just interested to know more about PCLinuxOS especially that it is already at the top of distrowatch but to my surprise I hit your webpage after clicking a certain link in Today’s popular content of tuxmachines.org
I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux for almost a year but I am now interested to try PCLinuxOS after reading your article.
I am really both surprise and happy that I got to your web page and for the reason that we are both Linux users and most especially I will be able keep in touch with you again.
God bless,
Aris
Hello GW, thanks for the info. I have actually also used Mint for a few weeks early this year. Yes, Sheila, Linux is so part of me now that I cannot live without it. He he he. Aris, great to see you here. Asa na man ka karon? Naa ka sa Pinas or somewhere in the world?
naa ra ko Pinas and still in Cebu… I’m working at Lexmark R & D as a programmer. Ikaw? naa na ka Cebu? hope to see you soon and please contact me if you’re here in Cebu…
There is a Dreamlinux 3.5 Releas Candidate availbe for those who feel like testing and getting a sneak preview of the upcoming DL 3.5.
http://dreamlinuxforums.org/index.php/topic,3391.msg22044.html#msg22044
Dreamlinux 3.0 was the first complete rebuild from the ground up after the switch to pure Debian. Obviously (just like a new distro) there were teething problems which were fixed in the 3.2, 3.2, 3.3 upgrades, and cured a lot of harwdare-specific problems as well as a few graphical bugs.
Dreamlinux still holds a constant Top 10 place on Distrowatch and I believe that the new 3.5 is going to keep it there.
richs-lxh