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
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