I have decided to go and review OpenSuSE 10.2 because Mandriva 2008 has not fully downloaded yet. After I write the review of OpenSuSE 10.2 I will move on to Mandriva 2008.

Thank you for your patience, as I may not get another post out for a while,

Ryan Orser

UPDATE(November15th2007): in this article I am not saying that yum is out of date only the gui for the package manager.

Here is a review of Fedora 8 code named ‘Werewolf ‘!

I downloaded the DVD version of Fedora 8. In this guide I will give tips about the installation, customization, and for you that have nvidia graphics cards you will get to know how the installation went for that.

The installation went well, though it did take 45 minutes to install all of the development, regular and some other packages. In total there were 1089 packages to download and to install. It all went fine and was almost as fast as the 35 minute CentOS which had less packages to install. Since it only takes 45 minutes I was able to work on some non computer work.
Customization, hmmm, the customization is ok while you work, though its gets worse over time. The so called “changing background” that changes according to the time of the day, well lets just say this, it didn’t change at all. I went through a bunch of customizations. I changed the window themes, the color of the themes, and the folder themes also. Overall the themes were just not as appealing as I thought they should have been. I have been using the new Fedora 8 for more then 5 days. Fedora 8 was also on my laptop which was powered on for 48 hours while I was updating it, changing how it looked, and writing this review also.

So far I believe that I can say that it is an OK distro to try again if you have already tried it, though there is not as much innovation going on as in Ubuntu. If I was working on the Fedora team I would try to put a better package manager since it looks way out of date.

If there was any new innovation it should be seen within the next few releases of Fedora and Redhat.

Well now we’re on to the Nvidia graphics card driver installation. The Nvidia graphics driver is really just like CentOS, I just need to figure out how to stop the xserver. So far I would say that with other Distros like Ubuntu, I could just with a click of a button install the graphics driver with the restricted manager. Though I am not that experienced with Fedora, or CentOS, or even OpenSuSE, I can say that I would probably figure it out over time.

Overall I would give this release of Fedora a 3/5 smilies which is good enough to use for people who are not wanting to use a variety of Linux distributions and just wanted to stay with something less difficult to use.

Pros: Easy to use, works like a charm,

Cons: out of date package manager, does not let you use ‘sudo’ without using ‘su’ first.

I will review Fedora 9 when it comes out though I do hope it has some more innovations that come along with it, especially a better package manager, and a restricted manager.

I have been working on a Fedora 8 review. Since I have been working on it I have not had time to work 0n any regular posts.

Ryan Orser

Fedora 8.0 is going to be up for a review. I am downloading it now.

CentOS 5.0 Review

First off, this review isn’t the easiest to do since I have tried so many other distributions before this one: Vector, Xubuntu 6.06 – 6.06.1, Ubuntu 6.06 – 7.10, Fedora 7, OpenSuSE 10.1 – 10.3, and now CentOS. Which if you count all of them up they add up to eleven!

Though I have used so many distributions I have been able to see the good and the bad in all of them. (good, bad)

CentOS was an easy install (1,0). However, I needed to add some kernel options (like noapic, pci=routeirq) to get the system to boot on my laptop (1,1). There were a few nice things that I noticed in this Linux distribution, including: ease of use (2,1), good graphics (3,1), and very good themes (4,1).

One weak point in CentOS is installing Nvidia drivers. I did the manual install from Nvidia and it took a while to find out how to stop X.org (4,2). Booting CentOS is a very slow process without the extra kernel options for my particular computer (4,3).

So far the score is 4 good and 3 bad.

Next on my list of things to talk about is the interface. The interface of CentOS is not unlike any other GNOME desktop. It is always customizable (5,3), easy to look at(6,3), and easy to use(7,3). I mean easy to look at since it doesn’t look boring at all (8,3). Customizable is always a good thing (9,3) and since it’s easy to use, it will be able to bring you the preferred feeling that you have customized it (10,3). The only thing is that the interface if you have used it for a long time without configuring it so that you like can become a little bit boring, (10,4) though if you look at it for a little while you can see that its really almost like the Ubuntu panels (11,4).

Now the score is 11 for good 4 for not so good. I will now rate the ease of use, customizability, and ease to look at: overall a 5/5 on ease of use, 5/5 on customizability, and **3/5** for how the desktop is on the eyes.

Over all the final score on the CentOS is a 24/30. This is exactly 80%.

** Please leave a comment if you wish to comment on the ease of use to look at it. I only gave it a 3/5 because I have used this structure before and I am going to have to change it. **

I am just about ready to release the review of CentOS Linux in about 1 -2 days. That is all for now. More posts later today.

Hello everyone! I have decided to review a lot of Linux distributions over the next few weeks. The first Linux Distro that I am going to review is CentOS 5.0. I have already installed CentOS and the review should come out in the next few days or so, when I have played with it enough.

A few of the Others that I will try are:

• Mandriva 2008
• PCLinuxOS (which ever is the stable release at the time)
• More to come!

Well I downgraded my OpenSuSE installation to an earlier release…. 10.1. I started using the OpenSuSE 10.3 but found it a tad on the slow side because of the games that it has installed, as most of them needed 3-D graphics for which I did not have installed. Anyways I will post up some pics soon.

Ryan Orser

Smart monitoring….article from slashdot.org:

Smart Monitoring PC Hardware Launched By NVIDIA

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday November 06, @10:04AM
from the i-see-you’ve-been-playing-some-portal dept.

MojoKid writes “NVIDIA has just introduced a new open-industry standard for real-time monitoring and control of PC power supplies, chassis, and water cooling systems. Dubbed ESA, which stands for Enthusiast System Architecture, the company hopes the standard will be adopted across the industry. A new wave of ESA compliant hardware that can be monitored and controlled via a standard interface could ensue, like smart health-monitoring power supplies and other components, that would increase system stability and reliability. ‘The ESA standard is built around the USB HID (Human Interface Device) specification and has been submitted to the USB-if HID subcommittee for discussion and approval. ESA is essentially a hardware and software interface that takes data collected by analog sensors and converts it to digital information that can accessed via software. Below are a handful of slides taken from an NVIDIA-produced presentation on ESA.’”

I now dual boot OpenSuSE linux with Windows XP Pro. I have to use XP for School work and I use OpenSuSE for fun. So far it works right out of the box except for wireless since it does not see the access point.

Thats all for now,

Ryan Orser