Ark Linux H2O - 2007.1

Ark Linux is a distribution whose goal is ease of installation and use for users without prior Linux (or computer) experience while being robust enough to satisfy the needs of advanced users. This distribution is mainly aimed towards desktop use. Two versions are available for download, Ark Linux Home which is a cd for a complete linux desktop and Ark Linux Live, a bootable CD that will launch Ark Linux without the need to install it. Ark also gives us the possibility of installing it from a USB memory stick, but for this review we will use the normal CD installation we just downloaded. If you are interested in installing Ark from a USB stick you can find the instructions at this address.

System requirements:
The minimum system requirements for Ark Linux are:

• i586 class processor or superior
• at least 64 MB RAM
• 2.5 GB of free hard disk space.

As we said, these are minimum requirements, at least an i686 class processor with 128 MB RAM are recommended.

Installation:

For this review we downloaded the Ark Linux Home version from here. The computer was our Fujitsu-Siemens C-1110.

Some days ago, we wrote that the installation of Freespire 2.0 was the easier and simplest we found. That was then, now, Ark Linux is making us review our statement: Ark's installation program is just amazing.

For installation, the program give us four options:

System install: this is the easiest one, only one click and the system is installed. No user interaction is required but it will delete and use ALL the hard disks attached to the machine. This option is perfect for users without any experience installing Linux or any operating system.

Express Install: on this option Ark will use any unpartitioned space in the hard disks.

Parallel Install: Ark Linux will resize any DOS/Windows partition and use the free space.

Expert Mode: in this case, it is possible to create and edit partitions. Ark recommends this option only if you know what you are doing.

We decided to try the installation program in two modes, System Install and Expert Mode.


The first screen of the installation process gives us the chance to select the language, the keyboard layout and the timezone.

System Install:
This option is really impressive; only one screen is deployed (for selecting the installation mode) and after this is selected Ark takes absolute control of the process. No user interaction is required, and there is a nice surprise waiting for us: Ark gives us the change to play some Tetris sessions while we wait for the installation to finish. The installation process takes almost 25 minutes in our C-1110, that is, 25 minutes playing Tetris, so when the installation is complete, we found ourselves asking the question: already done? . . . wow!



Besides Tetris, a little progress report is displayed.

As we said before, if Freespire's installation process seemed to be the easiest one, the number one spot in our ranking is now taken by Ark Linux without hesitation.



Expert Mode:
For our second installation, we chose the Expert Mode. After selecting that option in the initial dialogue, we found ourselves inside the program QtParted, which is a graphical front end for the application GNU Parted. QtParted is a clone of Partition Magic.

In QtParted we are able to create and edit the partitions in the hard disk in a very simple way, and when the changes are made, we just go to the menu File menu, then to Commit for writing the changes and then back to the Ark installation program.

It is very important to remember that we must activate some of the partitions. We do this by simply right clicking over the partition and then selecting "Set Active".

After QtParted made the changes, we must select the mount points and then decide if the partitions must be formatted or not. We must also choose where to install the boot manager (GRUB).

Now we can just relax and enjoy some Tetris while the installer copies all the files to the hard disk. After the process is finished, we restart the machine and enjoy our brand new Ark Linux.



As you can see, the only difference between the System Install and the Expert mode is the possibility to create or edit partitions and select the mounting points.

Notes about the installation:

• The default filesystem for Ark 2007.1 is jfs; this is the one you should use if you choose the System Install option. If you want to change this, there is an option in the installer that allows you to pick non-jfs filesystems during the installation, but it must be entered at the initial bootup prompt: fs=Fylesystem.
• There is no package selection in any install mode and there is no possibility to choose the screen resolution either. Ark Linux will not go beyond 1024x768 and because Ark Linux does not have a graphical application for this task, if you want to have higher resolutions you will need to edit the X configuration file by hand. You can find instructions to do this here.
• On the first boot, Ark should take you directly to a graphical environment. If is not the case it means that something went wrong throughout the installation process (probably the graphics card wasn't detected correctly). Explanations about how to recover from this error can be found here.
• The Express and Parallel modes are available only if Ark detects another operating system or some DOS/Windows partitions attached to the system. We were able to verify this behaviour the second time we installed Ark.
• Maybe the most curious detail about all of the Ark's installation process is that at no moment we were prompted for a root password or any user creation procedure. This is because the security approach of Ark Linux is, in a way, very peculiar.
  

Security in Ark Linux:
The Ark Linux developers had created a module that allows graphical administration tools as root without prompting for a password. It is possible to configure which ones are the non-root users that will have this permission. This module can be controlled by either editing the files in /etc/pam.d or through the graphical configuration tool kapabilities that can be found in Mission Control.



Unlike other distributions, Ark Linux does not grant unprotected access to the default user. Ark has two default user accounts, arklinux and root, and they are disabled. This means that you can log in only through autologin unless you set a password using the user manager.

Ark Linux has the capability to log in on a local text mode console without a password. This allows you to login in text mode if something goes wrong.

If you don't like this approach and you prefer to have a more traditional login scheme, all you need to do is to set passwords for both accounts or create a new user and use it for your everyday tasks.

It is important to remark that accessing any of this accounts is only possible if you have physical access to the computer.

The Desktop:
The graphical environment in Ark Linux is KDE, and there is no default configuration for the desktop but there is a suggested one. At first boot we are welcomed by Kpersonalizer; that allows us to select look and feel configurations.



Besides the usual KDE options there is always an option called Ark that is the one customized by Ark's developers.



The Desktop is essentially the default KDE Desktop, there are no evident changes in the general appearance. It seems like the wallpaper and the launch icons in Kicked were the only modifications.

Applications:
A wide selection is available after installing Ark Linux. Probably, the most notorious detail is the absence of Mozilla Firefox; Konqueror has taken its place as the default -and only- browser.

OpenOffice is the available office suite and Scribus the available application for desktop publishing. Kontact is the email client.

Other available applications in Ark are: K3b, KTorrent, WPA Gui, Gwenview, Amarok, KMPlayer, RPM Installer. The majority of applications are KDE/QT based and even OpenOffice is integrated to KDE using the OpenOffice KDE Integration Project.

Package management:
For package management, we've found the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT); the graphic front end for APT there is Kynaptic.



Kynaptic is, in some ways, a limited application. It is not possible -for example- to make changes to the repositories configuration; if you want to make some changes you will need to edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list by hand; Synaptic is not available in the default Ark Linux repositories.

We were able to install Kaffeine, Midnight Commander and Mozilla-Firefox using the command line without any problems. We were not able to install Inkscape in the same way,

RPM Installer is also available by default in Ark Linux.

Removable media:
Ark Linux recognized without any problems all the removable media that we used for this review. As a plus, there was a nice hotplug visual announcement every time we attached a device to the system.



One little annoying detail: Ark creates two icons on the desktop for every removable medium; if the option "show device icons" is selected in Konqueror's behavior, three icons are created on the desktop for each medium. You can appreciate that in the screenshot below.



A very bad experience:
Ark Linux managed to delete the MBR (master boot record) in one removable ntfs disk we attached to the system. Seems like there is some problem with the ntfs-3g module in Ark.

This problem was not very hard to solve, we just needed to mount the partition with the error recovering option and all the data was successfully recovered.

mount -t ntfs -o errors=recover,ro /dev/sdb1 /mnt/ntfs

Then we needed to backup all the data and make new partitions and formats in the ntfs external disk.

As we said before, the solution was not very complex, but for users without experience this situation may be catastrophic.

Mission Control:
Mission Control is Ark's control panel. Here, we can configure almost everything in Ark Linux (some modifications must be made by manually editing text files, such as screen resolution for example)



Mission Control has a very nice appearance, it is very simple and easy to use. The available tools are:

• Advanced settings
• Desktop and appearance
  
• Install Software
  
• Internet & Networking
  
• Printers and Hardware
• Region & Scheduling
• Sound and Multimedia
• Users and passwords
• Video & monitor
  

From Mission Control, it is also possible to launch the default KDE Control Center, a command prompt and "My Linux System", which is just Konqueror opening the directory / .

Some controls are KDE native, while others are specific to Ark, like Kapabilities, which allows us to edit the user's permissions and privileges in the particular security approach used by this distribution.

Mission Control is a simple yet powerful application. The navigation is intuitive and, as we said before, almost all the system can be controlled and configured from it.

Conclusions:
Ark Linux is, without any doubt, a distribution designed for users without experience. We can safely say that it fulfils its purpose in a excellent way. From the installation process to the configuration of some deep options in the system, almost everything is made in a nice, friendly, easy and intuitive graphical environment.

KDE's performance in this distribution is comparable to Vector Linux's, so it is possible to install Ark Linux in fairly old computers without feeling uncomfortable with the overall speed of the system.

Ark Linux's desktop quality is paramount to the one found on mainstream distributions. Even when there are some details to fix and problems to solve (like the ntfs support, for example), Ark Linux presents itself as a very interesting and promising option.

Maybe it is recommendable that you first try Ark Linux before installing it to the hard disk.

If you like KDE, is very unlikely that you will be disappointed with this distribution; if you prefer Gnome, maybe this is not the right distribution for you.

Links:
Official web site
Ark Linux at Distrowatch

Your favorite distribution is (results)

So, here are the results of our first poll question, thank you everyone that participated.











The chart:


The numbers:

Total Votes: 107

Ubuntu: 15
Puppy: 13
PCLinuxOS: 12
Kubuntu: 10
Mint: 9
Debian: 8
Gentoo: 7
Vector: 7
Mepis: 5
Fedora: 4
OpenSUSE: 4
Other: 4
Arch: 2
Sabayon: 2
CentOS: 1
DreamLinux: 1
Mandriva: 1
Slackware: 1
Zenwalk: 1

Freespire 2.0

"The Freedom of Choice" is the slogan for this distribution and this is its associated definition: "Freespire is a community-involved, Linux-based operating system that combines the best that free, open source software has to offer (community involved, freely distributed, open source code, etc.), but also provides users the choice of including proprietary codecs, drivers and applications as they see fit. With Freespire, the choice is yours as to what software is installed on your computer, with no limitations or restrictions placed on that choice. How you choose to maximize the performance of your computer is entirely up to you."

We reviewed the 2.0 version which is based on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn along with additional software from six broad categories:
- CNR Plugin
- KDE
- Enhanced applications and features
- Proprietary software
- Proprietary codecs
- Proprietary drivers

More information about Freespire can be found in the official website or in Wikipedia.

For this review we used our C-1110.

The Live experience

Booting from the Live-CD we just downloaded gives us the choice to directly install Freespire or to start a live session. Since we wanted to have a first impression of this distribution, we choose to go live first and then make the full installation later.

Booting time, from the first screen to the End User License Agreement took four minutes. This is a long time if we compare it with other distributions we reviewed. However, since Freespire does not seem to be a mainly Live-CD OS but instead a desktop replacement, we feel that this time is acceptable.

After the End User License Agreement screen, we must adjust the volume, choose a couple of configuration options and at then, at last, we can see the Freespire desktop.
The first impression is not so great, the selected icon theme, the kicker (main Kde panel) configuration, the cursor theme, unaligned icons on the desktop and the clock configuration feels a little unpolished.

The general performance rather poor. The system reads the CD on every action we made (even when we opened some menus more than one time). The CNR icon on the desktop gave us an error message and session was slow in general. If we were to judge Freespire based on the live session, we would certainly not install it.

Installation

First we choose the keyboard layout, then we have two options: "Take over an entire disk" or "Advanced Install". We choose to take over the entire hard disk. After that, we must give a name to our computer and create a user (Full name, user name and password). After that, we must confirm that the data is correct and then we will have the last chance to cancel the process. We must say that this is the most user friendly and simple install we made and it took no more than 11 minutes.




First boot:
A lot faster than the live session, we found ourselves with the Kdm welcome screen. Again we must accept the End User License Agreement and then again we must adjust the volume; after that, another configuration screen.

Now we can see a "web browser" based on Firefox that takes us directly to the CNR login page.

We must note that the default search engine in the web browser is Live Search and not Google (the usual Firefox search engine).

The web browser has some details to be fixed:
• If we open some page from the desktop icon (like CNR), the splash screen doesn't close until we click on it.
• Opening a new tab means opening a new "home page" and not a blank page.

These details can be easily fixed using about:config, but many users are totally unaware of these configuration options.

Package management

For package management purposes, Freespire has two options:
1. Advanced Packaging Tool or APT: is the package management front-end used by Debian GNU/Linux and its derivatives

2. CNR (Click and Run): is a software distribution service created by Linspire and is based on APT.

APT well known by us. Using this option, we were able to install, for example, Kaffeine.

Then we tried CNR: A wide selection of software is available; one click and Inkscape is installed.

We did not have the same luck when we tried to install Virtualbox: we first needed to install the appropriate kernel modules before we were able to make a successful Virtualbox installation. It seems like CNR was not able to fully manage the dependencies for this package.

Conclusion:
Despite a relatively negative live experience, after installing Freespire to the hard disk, we have found a solid and interesting distribution. Of course, there are some details to be polished, but we find it highly recommendable for new users. The install process is extremely fast and simple; the package management with CNR is the most user friendly we have tested so far.
For experienced users, some customizations may be annoying, but for new users, this is definitely one of the first options to consider.

Links:
Official Website
CNR
End User Licence Agreement
Freespire at Distrowatch

Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook C-1110

This is another computer we have for reviews. The configuration is as follows:



Processor: Pentium M 1.30 Mhz
Ram: 760 Mb.
Hard Disk: 40 Gb 5400 rpm.
Chipset: Intel 855GM
Display: 15" TFT "active matrix"
Max. resolution: 1024 x 768 ( XGA )
Video: Intel 855GM - AGP
Sound: Compatible AC '97
USB: 2x 2.0

Puppy Linux 2.17

Following with our lightweight distributions reviews, it is time for Puppy Linux 2.17.

Puppy Linux is a live CD but also can be a desktop replacement; actually, Puppy Linux was created with the mission of being easy to install to USB, Zip or hard drive.

Booting:

In this process, Puppy asks us about some options like country (or region) and some screens for configuring the graphic server (the options are Xorg and Xvesa); screen resolution and color depth must be also selected; now we are ready for the real thing.

Desktop:

"Woof, woof" is the welcome sound that we get when we see the desktop. These sounds tell us that the audio system is up and running.
The general view is nice and only one click is needed to open the applications; after the click, speed is very impressive, even in our Armada M700.


Despite his size (82,6 Mb iso image) the software selection is also very interesting. The word processor we find is Abiword, which is not as versatile as OpenOffice Writer, but it has everything that the average user needs. We have also found the Gnumeric spreadsheet application.

In this version Mozilla-Firefox is not available, but instead we have found the Seamonkey suite (browser, HTML editor, e-mail client and address book); we were surprised to see that flash support is available out of the box as well as support for mpeg, quicktime, msvideo and ogg.

Kernel:
2.6.21.5 for this version.

System configuration:

The network connection is not working out of the box, but Puppy has a very easy to use application to do the networking setup.

This is done step by step starting with the driver selection and then the network parameters. It is also possible to use the same application for configuring a wireless network.

Hard disk installation:
The Universal Installer is ready to help us to do the job and we have options for installing it to the hard disk, USB drive, flash IDE drive or internal ZIP/LS1200. Instructions are very simple and the installer guides us step by step towards a successful installation.

System shutdown.

Before shutting down Puppy ask us if we want to save the changes we made in this session, so we can have the same system in the next boot.

Final considerations:
Extremely friendly, Puppy Linux is recommended for new users. Configuration options are perfectly understandable and the user shouldn't have any unexpected problems with Puppy.
Thanks to its speed, this distribution can be used to bring new life to old computers like our M700.
It is possible to run Puppy Linux almost from any media and also side by side with any other distribution you may have in your hard disk . . . very impressive!

Release notes
Puppy at DistroWatch

A damn small review: Damn Small Linux 3.4

The goal of this distribution is to have a fully working linux system in a ISO image not bigger than 50 Mb. DSL is a Live CD but it's also possible to make a hard disk installation.

Damn Small Linux is based on Debian and Knoppix

Booting:

110 seconds booting in our Armada M700, without any problems to recognize the components. Once booted, most of the applications load right after clicking the icons, being Mozilla-Firefox the one that takes a little more time to start.

Desktop:

The desktop is very well arranged. A single click is required for launching the applications. The windows manager by default is Fluxbox but it can be changed to JWM.

To start with, we found Dillo, a ultra light browser that presents us with an HTML document with some help to get us started. We also have Mozilla-Firefox, but without flash or java support.

A complete list of applications can be found here.

Kernel:
2.4.26 and there are no plans to move to 2.6.X versions in the near future.

Hard disk installation:

It is possible to install DSL to the hard disk and for this purpose DSL has an application with some limitations (it can not create/change hard disk partitions). We would recommend this application only to advanced users.

Conclusion:
Damn Small Linux is really small but we can safely say that its benefits are not. By default, it has all the tools that you may expect from a linux system.

It is extremely fast in our Armada M700.

Maybe our old computer went back in time and felt again like a top of the line PC. For this kind of computer, Damn Small Linux is damn perfect.

DSL at Distrowatch

Notes about screenshots

You may have noticed that even though we said we used our GX50 for reviewing , for VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO one of the screenshots was taken on an Atlhon 64 3200+.

This is because we are using virtualization to take the screenshots before the X server is up and running so, we need to make the install process two times minimun.

If somebody has a suggestion about how to skip this step and still have a nice screenshot, it will be greatly apreciated.

Thank you in advance.

Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO or lightspeed Kde

Speed, performance, stability -- these are attributes that set VectorLinux apart in the crowded field of Linux distributions.

That is the statement you will find in the website of this Canadian distribution based on Slackware.

Distrowatch has Vector Linux in the Old Computers category and for sure that is the case for the standard edition. There are four editions of this distribution:

Standard Edition: Specifically designed for use on older computers; Xfce desktop environment. It forms the stable base of the other editions.

VectorLinux Deluxe Edition: This edition is available as a mail order CD, it is the standard edition plus a printed user guide and around 350 MB of extra applications.

VectorLinux SOHO Edition: The SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) Edition maintains the VectorLinux philosophy of speed and stability, but it is designed for modern computers and is based around the KDE desktop environment.

VectorLinux LIVE Editions: LIVE Editions are bootable CDROM's that enable the user to test a distribution in their own system. It is also possible to install live editions on the hard drive, but it is recommended to choose the Standard or SOHO editions instead if you wish to do this.

Currently, VectorLinux has three Live Editions: Standard, SOHO and Standard-BERYL. The latter shows off the amazing 3D desktop of the Beryl system.

System requirements:
Processor: Pentium III processor or better
Hard disk: 3.2 GB for the system
Memory: 256 MB, but 512MB recommended
Video card and monitor capable of 1024x768 resolution, 24 bits
Standard mouse, keyboard, sound card, CDROM, etc.

For this review we found that it was good to use our Optiplex GX50

Installation and initial configuration:

We decided to review the SOHO version so it was not possible to do it without installing it on the hard disk.

After the first screen gives us booting options, Vector Linux takes us right away to the installer asking for confirmation to start the job.

The first step is to configure the hard disk partitions; this is the scheme that we used:

After reboot we keep going with the installation.

Now we select the swap and root partitions; the filesystem for / (reiserfs) and after that, we go through three screens selecting optional packages like Openoffice or the Opera web browser.

Now the install process starts and we can see the progress bar and some credits for the distribution.

When this process is finished we must choose which boot manager we want to use, the options are Lilo and Grub and we go for Lilo because this is the default for Vector Linux; then we select to install it in the MBR. Then, the splash screen for Lilo must be selected and some booting parameters (blank for us). Lilo is installed and configured.

Now, the system configuration. Timezone, auto configure hardware, network, sound, xwindow, administrative options (root password, users, etc.).

We must note that until we arrived to the network configuration, right after the install process it wasn't necessary to access the network device in any way so we must conclude that all the packages installed were actually in the CD that we downloaded.

Some more configuration options are presented, like the screen resolution and color depth, working mode after booting (text or graphic) and services to start as a part of the booting process.

Now we must enter the root password and create a user.

Now, after 28 minutes have passed, Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO is finally ready for its first boot from the hard disk in our GX50.

First boot and initial impressions.
We choose to start in user and graphic mode and because of this, we now see Kdm giving us a nice welcome. User and password and... here we go.

The first view of the desktop is really nice. The Kde environment startup speed is very impressive. I think I would choose some different theme for the mouse pointer, but that is a very personal choice.

We can see some icons in the desktop: personal folder, mediums, e-mail, package manager, some link to help and Vector documentation, the default browser (Seamonkey and not Konqueror as we would expect in a Kde distribution) and Pidgin.

Single click is used to open items on the desktop; I would also change this because many users are really used to double clicking to open items (some of them use double clicks for following links on webpages).

As it is expected, all changes in the appearance can be made in the Kde Control Panel which even include some settings for Gtk (ussing Gtk-Qt). The main menu is the Kde's default one.

I would also change the window decorations.

Configuration, localization and package management.

Some of the first things that we tried to do were to change the default language of the system and to install some applications like Kaffeine (which is not included by default in this distribution).

For language setup in Kde we were able to use the control center, but for a system wide change we needed to edit this file: /etc/profile.d/lang.sh

Now we tried to install Kaffeine and for this we needed to use the packages manager called Gslapt. After searching Kaffeine we saw that it wasn't available and for this we went to Edit, Preferences, and Sources. There are many sources listed but only few of them are selected; some are exclusive for VectorLinux and some are Slackware sources; this gives us the feeling that there is full package compatibility.

We selected all VectorLinux sources and after some time refreshing the sources we found ourself with some strange surprise: most of the packages are listed at least 5 times. The next screenshot will give you an idea of what we are talking about.

Now we also selected the Slackware 11 sources (because VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO was released before the Slackware 12 version) and now the packages are listed even more times.

We found Kaffeine and we were able to install it.

We decided to try Firefox and the result was this:

The changes in Gtk don't seems to affect Firefox. You can see the font sizes for example. Yes, maybe we can change this thing using about:config but I think the developers should pay some attention to these small details as well.

As we said before, we tried to change the language and we were successful in some way, but OpenOffice has some packages for doing this and we weren't able to find these packages in Gslapt.

Software selection:
A wide selection of packages is available in VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO, for example, five browsers are available: Dillo, SeaMonkey, Firefox, Konqueror, Opera; most of then with flash support and no java. Two instant messengers: Pidgin and Kopete. One thing that caught our attention is that they decided to use Xara Xtreme instead of Inkscape as a graphic editor.

We can confidently state that the default software selection is very generous.

Conclusion:
This is our first encounter with VectorLinux and before we tried it the idea of reviewing Kde distributions was associated to powerful machines but, after analyzing the requirements for this distribution, we decided to try it with the minimum and we must say that we are surprised to see that Kde is able to travel at lightspeed.

We are very impressed with VectorLinux 5.8 SOHO. Before this, we thought that Kde working at this speed only a dream on machines like our GX50. Also the stability is something that caught our attention, but maybe this particular aspect is a legacy from Slackware.

The bad: very poor localization for a desktop system and the package management still needs to be polished.

VectorLinux at Distrowatch

Austrumi 1.5.1

Everytime I am about to buy some new shoes I am very impressed with how good the same models look in the version for kids. It is maybe the small size itself that makes these models (even if they are the same as the adults ones) look a lot better.

I had the same feeling when I reviewed Austrumi Linux 1.5.1 which is a business card size (50MB) bootable Live CD Linux distribution from Latvia and is based on Slackware Linux.

Hardware requirements:
CPU - Intel-compatible (pentium2 or later);
RAM - at least 128 MB (if 128 Mb or less, then run boot: al nocache);
HD - not needed;
CD-ROM - bootable CD-ROM drive.


Booting:

There are 5 options for booting and they are:
al nocache don't attempt to cache CD
al noaufs read only filesystem
al text run text mode
al noddc for old monitor
al lang_XX where XX – locale (el, en, it, lv, ru)

We used al lang_en so we have the system booting in english (the default is latvian).

The total time for booting was around one and half minutes in our Armada M700 with a 4X speed CD driver.

The first impression after booting is very good. Some landscape as wallpaper and a bar in the top of the screen is everything we can see. We can say that between all the lightweight distros we tried until now this is the one that looks better.

It is important to say that the network is not up after booting and some configuration is needed.

Hard drive installation:

Austrumi is provided with a simple application for installing the system to the hard disk. Seems like that application only copy the content of the CD to the hard disk and it is also capable of create/edit disk partitions and formating it in case that is needed.

We installed Austrumi in our Armada M700. The process is simple and fast but the CD must be inserted in the unit because if is not there you will see some error and there are not many explanations about it.

The time for booting is now even better (almost a minute) and the entire system is taking only 30 mb of space in the memory. The default language is Latvian again, but that is easy to change using the main menu.

Default applications.
Maybe the most notable detail is that there is no email client installed in this distribution and instead of it you will find a webmail application. I wasn't able to make it work so I can not give my opinion about this particular application.

Some of the programs you will find in this distribution are
Office: Abiword, Gnumeric and Homebank
Audio/Video: Mplayer
Graphics: Gimp, Inkscape

The default file manager is emelFM2 and you will also find Midnight Commander from the terminal. The default browser is Firefox and it is preloaded with three extensions which are Shazow, Translator and DownloadWith.

It is important to note that Austrumi also has an application for remastering the CD and it is possible to create personalized versions of Austrumi using this application.

The complete list of applications can be found here.

Conclusion:
I don't have too much to say about Austrumi. It is extremely light and gives new life to old computers like our Armada M700.

Austrumi is not free of some errors like the lack of documentations or some errors in translations but besides this details, Austrumi seems to be a solid distribution and accomplish very well the purpose it was created for.

I would give Austrumi an 8.5 over 10.

Austrumi is exactly like the shoes for kids. I really like the way they look but I wouldn't be able to use them.

Austrumi at Distrowatch

Dell Optiplex GX50

Another computer we will use for the reviews is a Dell Optiplex GX50.


Configuration:

• Processor: Pentium III 866 Mhz. (Coppermine)
• RAM: 256 Mb.
• Hard disk: 20 Gb.
• Video: Intel i810
• Sound: Intel (driver intel8x0)
• DVD-ROM, USB 1.1, floppy.