Granular Linux Distro Preview is Worth a Look

Linux.com has an interesting look at Granular Linux, a desktop-oriented distribution that's primary goal is to be easy to use. "With a single CD's worth of included programs, Granular Linux manages to cover a significant portion of normal end user needs, and those applications not already installed can be easily added through Synaptic. The slight problem with video and more serious problem with sound of my machine suggest that Granular is not without its issues, especially when most other distributions work properly on this hardware, but as this is a preview release of version 1.0 I think it can be more or less forgiven. I'd definitely recommend Granular to anyone with an interest in trying out a new distribution. "

It's just PClinuxOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another distro. I R-ed the FA, and it seems this is just PCLinuxOS with a different name and a different wallpaper.

Nothing to see here.

Based on

[dvice_null]

It is based on PCLinuxOS ("free, easy-to-use Linux-based operating system for the home"), which is based on Mandriva.

Just read the review...

[absurdist]

...and that was five minutes of my life I'll never get back.

USB-based Live OS's: FaunOS and PuppyLinux

[1 a bee]

I haven't tried this distro, but will give it a shot. Talking new distros, especially live ones, I've been playing with FaunOS [faunos.com], a Linux-based live system for USBs. It's based on Arch, and its pretty damn fast. The other USB based distro that I've tried Puppy Linux [puppylinux.org] is better if you want to run old hardware, or don't have enough RAM; but I find FaunOS just more complete. Anyone else out there booting from USB?

Click the link

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It's about how Vista's not long for this world. It quotes a fairly reliable source.

TFA is about Yet Another Fine Distro. It seems like there are ten thousand of them now. Choice is good.

So yeah I hope this one's got more than a year left in it.

It seems like just yesterday we were discussung the death of Vista's predecessor XP. How time flies...

Re:I hate the phrase "easy to use".

[uvajed_ekil]

I've found LinuxMint to be fairly easy to use so far, at least as easy as any other distro I've tried (which is all the biggies, 15-20+ over the years). I've tinkered with Linux off an on since 1994 or 1995, but the current iteration of Mint (Daryna, based on Ubuntu and Gnome) is the first distro I've been able to use for everything I do, given my limited linux/UNIX knowledge.

My desktop still dual boots XP pro and Ubuntu, but my laptop, which I use probably 90% of the time, only runs LinuxMint now. Mint does some things well "out of the box" that other distros don't, like play DVDs and work with my wifi card, which are a must if Windows users are to be converted. Yes, it uses some closed-source drivers and stuff, but it is still free and works damn well for some of us. I've even toyed with Virtual Box and installed XP with just to see if it would work. That install went fine, and XP seems to work, even though I was previously unable to install it without the VM because there are no XP drivers for my hardware.

I may be more persistent than the typical user who feels abused by MS, but I honestly believe the current crop of desktop linux distros are getting VERY close to truly becoming Windows replacements. They still aren't "set it and forget it" easy, but they are close, and less fiddling is needed once you have everything set up. I'd love to see a bit of consolidation in the linux community, rather than the ridiculous number of distros we see now, and a focus on hardware compatibility and drivers that install without any hassle. If we get that, anyone will be able to install and use linux.

Yet another fine distro

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Distrowatch [distrowatch.com] is tracking 566 distributions now, 353 of them active.

Linux.org [linux.org] shows 455.

There's a rather long list on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

None of these lists is anywhere near complete or definitive. One of the challenges these days is picking a good distro. Usually people develop a fondness to one family of distributions and stick with it for a single purpose. The thing is that each distribution has its merits and fans. Each one has support forums and repositories and developers. It's a whole ecosystem of operating systems competing for the attention of users. I like the Debian based Ubuntu and its derivative for the desktop but PCLinuxOS spawned from Mandrake seems to have legs these days. It's hard to beat the Knoppix based bootables for recovery, diagnostics and utilities too.

I so much prefer that to an entire ecosystem of malware developers competing to hose my Windows box, and the antithetical software vendors selling cures (mostly snake-oil).

The cool thing about people being free to roll their own distro is that even a little guy can have grand ideas and if he implements them well, kaching! He's got a seller. A few months of good marketing and he can sell services for the rest of his days. If it's good but he loses interest or it doesn't rise to that level, someone will just fold his great ideas into their own distro until it gets absorbed by them all. That's called "progress", and you don't get it from a Windows Distro family like Vista.