Mandrake was the first Linux distro that I tried and liked a lot. It was a newbie friendly enough distro back then and I still hear (and read) about it these days. Although now it is called Mandriva. LinuxCrunch talks about the 20 new features of Mandriva 2010.

New design for the installer.
Live upgrade
Moblin desktop
Guest accounts
3G features request
Better wireless support
Easier wifi key setup
Better boot time
Better rpmdrake start up speed
Urpmi media auto configuration
Better user information in rpmdrake
Better Drakguard
Better krandr
OpenOffice.org 3.1 and KDE 4 integration
gcc 4.4
Improved diskdrake
GNOME 2.28
KDE 4.3.2
Nepomuk integration
Plymouth boot splash

I really liked it that the installer of Mandrake give us …read more

Because your netbook doesn’t need to feel sucky! And it could work better for you too!
Sounds like an infomercial, doesn’t it? ;  )  But thinking about what defaults you might possibly have, there’s gotta be something better.  And I might be biased but there really are other things better on netbooks compared to Windows.  Whether you believe it or not, that’s what I personally think.  Windows looks too cluttered for me even though it’s not as sluggish as I thought it would be.
Anyway, no need to freak out that your netbook isn’t quite as fantastic as you thought it should …read more

A blog entry on Eleven is Louder reminds me of the fact that there really are a whole lot of distros and that there are some really good ones worth checking out. Argh! So many distros, so little time. I used to check out distros but mainly the ones that run on live CDs because I didn’t really want to mess with the hard drive and I just test them for the sake of satisfying my curiosity.
Among the list of distributions worthy of checking out are:

GoboLinux
Draco
Blag
Enlisy
Protech

Blag has a very interesting name. This distro is fascinating because it …read more

There are many things that could have probably made various users switch to Linux. It could have been because they really felt that the operating system they used to have as something terrible. (Take Windows 98, for example.) Another factor for switching could be what the work required. In any case what makes a person keep on being a Linux user? I suppose that this is a very personal question and I’d really love to read your answers.
Some people I know stay as Linux users for the same reason they switched. It could be …read more

On Arch Linux
My co-worker now uses Arch Linux. He had problems using the RT kernel of Open SUSE. He’s had too many issues with it so he looked for something else that would answer his needs when it comes to the RT kernel and a look-and-feel that he wanted. He found out about Arch Linux, a simple and lightweight distribution. This distro is known for:

using BSD style init scripts
its binary installation
high level customization
its nice package manager: pacman
text-based installer
being more lenient, compared to something like Debian, when it comes to non-free packages

Newbies might feel that Arch Linux …read more

Every now and then we probably wonder about some of the basic stuff when‎ it comes to Linux. You could actually browse here on this blog itself some nifty tips about installing applications in Linux. Here’s a run-down of some of the basics just for you.

How to install *.deb, *.rpm and Source Code Files

*.deb files and *rpm files are commonly available to us users when we search for installers of applications on the internet. If you have never encountered these files before it’s best to know which ones are applicable for the Linux distribution. Both packages apply to …read more

linuX-gamers.net announced its latest release linuX-gamers live 0.95. There are different versions available for download and it depends on your needs.

Lite ISO: Small CD image (700MB)
This has games suitable for children and older computers. You just burn it on a CD with your favorite CD-writing tool.
Lite USB
This has the same games as the Lite ISO version but it is made for USB keys and USB sticks (requires minimum of 1GB USB device).
You could use:
sudo dd bs=8M if=/path/to/lg-live-0.9.5-i686-lite.usb of=/dev/your_usb_device

Or: use the Flashnul utility. You could also refer to this guide to using Flashnul.
Big ISO
Big DVD image (4.7GB) with the …read more

For Fedora 10 and Fedora 11 users, there’s an online guide on how to install Chrome on it. You don’t really need Crossover Chromium now because there are packages of Chromium available at: http://spot.fedorapeople.org/chromium/. You could click the RPM to install it or use the command

rpm -ivh <package-name>

You could also install Chromium via Yum and with that method, updates are automatic.
I tried installing the debs of Chromium before and it was really just too slow so I didn’t really use it. Also, I am not a developer so I can’t really push back any improvements to …read more

The wait is over for Fedora fans as Fedora 11, named Leonidas, because it has been released. You could start with the downloads already. You could get it from the Fedora Project’s download page. There are install CDs and live ones too.
Nifty features:

20-second boot-up. How much faster could boot-up times go? But a 20-second boot-up would be nice.
Automatic fonts and Mime installer. If you’re not familiar with the file format, it’s ok. You could try opening it and you will be prompted if you want to search for the application that will open it. …read more

Looking out for a lightweight distro for the heck of it is interesting. If you look at Distrowatch there are a lot of distros there and the name Crunch Bang just stood out for me so I had to click the link to its page. It is described as a faster Ubuntu.
What is interesting about Crunch Bang?

It happened to be based on Ubuntu so you have access to repositories. And the forums, as well. But of course there might be things that won’t apply to Crunch Bang because it is not an official fork of Ubuntu. …read more