Are you a modder? Join the Popular Mechanics modding community to share your modding tips, tricks and cool case mods. Drop by the message boards to talk modding with other members. Check out my modding blog and set up your own blog to share your mods.Is there a Linux distribution you’d like to see reviewed? A Linux app you’d like to see covered? Post a note in the comments below and I’ll check it out. I can’t promise to review every app or distribution but I’ll definitely check out your recommendation.
Thanks in advance for your review suggestions.
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VectorLinux
Recently i used Greenie what is not perfect for me since i am abroad but my parents in Prague love it
would love to see reviews on the new linux mint 9 lxde and linux 9 fluxbox distros. also, i really like the way your reviews are done and enjoy reading them – they provide a great service to linux users everywhere. – jim
Hi Jim,
i would love to see a review of ArchBang Linux on your site. Yes it’s based on Arch Linux, but it’s (in my point of view) MUCH easier to install and to work with.
I used Arch Linux for several months, i tried Chakra and KahelOS, but belong all this Arch-based distributions, ArchBang really caught my attention.
Hi Jim,
I would like to see review of Kubuntu 10.10 on your website. I heard a lot of good things, I tried it. But, it’s very nice to know your opinion about this distro.
Hi Jim,
Well, we’ve seen both Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.10 now, and since I am an XFCE fanboy, I think it might be nice to see what Xubuntu 10.10 is bringing to the table. ;)
Thanks for the great reads so far!
Hi! I really think you should review Trisquel GNU/Linux! It’s a amazingly good looking, 100% percent free (most distros are not) Ubuntu based distro.
I’ve been trying out and so far it works great! It’s pretty much the only up to date distro being recognized by as free software by GNU which I think makes it interesting.
Also I really think it deserves a bit more attention..
Ups! I just realized that you’ve already reviewed Trisquel :/
Reference the forum post
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/board/f12/debian-live-reprise-quick-review-275/
what about a how to and a review on Debian Live?
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/board/f12/debian-squeeze-live-xfce-build-10-13-10-mini-review-709/
and
http://desktoplinuxreviews.com/board/f12/debian-sid-xfce-live-hybrid-build-mini-review-918/
have two mini reviews of builds I’ve done recently on Debian Live.
Hi! I would really appreciate if you’d do a review on my new distribution, which can be found at dream.dickmacinnis.com. here’s a quick description
Dream Studio contains all the apps you need to create stunning graphics, captivating videos, inspiring music, and professional websites. Available as a free download, Dream Studio can be run directly from DVD, installed to your hard-drive, or even installed onto a USB Flash drive, for the ultimate in portability! Here is a list of just some of the included software:
Cinelerra (with custom UI) – a powerful non-linear video editor comparable to leading solutions like Apple’s Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas, or Adobe Premiere. Cinelerra contains more than 30 visual effects like motion tracking and chromakey, and supports both keyframing and nested sequences.
Ardour (with custom UI) – a professional digital audio workstation designed to replace offerings such as Digidesign Pro Tools, Steinberg’s Cubase/Nuendo, Apple’s Logic, and Sonar. Ardour features unlimited tracks, unlimited undo, and routing to and from any sound source. Ardour comes with support for many different plugin formats, and Dream Studio’s version comes with close to 200 plugins/effects including pitch correction, triggers, compression, eq, reverb, and more. Dream Studio also supports VST plugins.
Cinepaint – used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching, dirt removal, wire rig removal, render repair, background plates, and painting 3D model textures. It’s been used on many feature films, including The Last Samurai where it was used to add flying arrows.
Blender – a free 3D graphics application, similar to 3DS Max and Maya, that can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, water and smoke simulations, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications, including video games, animated film, or visual effects.
Inkscape – vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.
Synfig Studio – a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based open-source 2D animation software package allowing one to create animations similar to those done with Adobe Flash. It has been designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can.
Scribus – professional page layout, akin to Quark Xpress, Adobe Indesign, or Microsoft Publisher, with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout.
Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, Spot Colors, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
Darktable – a virtual lighttable similar to A and darkroom for photographers similar to Adobe Lighroom: it manages your digital negatives in a database and lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable. it also enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.
Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) – a raster graphics editor with features similar to Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool. In addition to free-form drawing, GIMP can accomplish essential image work-flow steps such as resizing, editing, and cropping photos, combining multiple images, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can also be used to create basic animated images in the gif format. At present, GIMP is usable for amateur or professional work with images intended for viewing on monitors and printing on ink-jet printers.
Kompozer – a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding, and is a complete alternative to such commercial offerings as Adobe Dreamweaver and Apple iWeb.
Bombono – a DVD authoring program
Brasero – a CD/DVD burning application
Dream Studio also includes drum machines like Hydrogen (including several drum kits), samplers such as QSampler and SooperLooper, close to one hundred software synthesizers including Bristol and Zynaddsubfx, format conversion utilities like WinFF and SoundConverter, an audio mastering suite (JAMin), and much, much more. Not only that, but Dream Studio comes standard with the following applications for day-to-day work:
Firefox web browser
OpenOffice.org office suite (can read and write Microsoft Office formats)
Evolution mail, addressbook and calendaring (compatible with Microsoft Outlook)
Tomboy note taking
Dream Studio is based on Ubuntu Gnu/Linux. This project aims to be:
1. Simple – To this end we aim to stay as close to stock Ubuntu as possible. This not only allows users to install software from the standard repos and ppas without hassle, but also to find solutions to problems through Ubuntuforums, the Ubuntu manual, and the entire Ubuntu community, as opposed to multimedia distributions such as AVLinux and Dyne:bolic. In addition, we add features such as pulseaudio->jack integration. This goal, in fact, is the reasoning behind naming this distribution Dream Studio: those who know what Ubuntu, Gnu, Linux, GPL, and FOSS are, will quickly find information on these things as they relate to Dream Studio. The new user, however, need not learn these cryptic phrases in order to begin creating.
2. Stable – Although Dream Studio may make comparisons with other distributions, we do hold them in the highest esteem. For this reason, we make use of the most functional, up-to-date packages that the Open Source ecosystem has to offer, such as those you will find in UbuntuStudio, KXStudio, AVLinux, and the Akirad project.
3. Stunning – Dream Studio builds on Ubuntu’s goal of aesthetic beauty, and pushes it further. Unlike distributions like UbuntuStudio (which features a theme quite dissimilar to stock Ubuntu) and KXStudio (which is based on KDE rather than Gnome – which some would say is less polished, on Ubuntu at least), Dream will always base our default themes on those of stock Ubuntu, albeit usually with less coloring (orange in its current iteration). Not only that, but we include custom UI themes for applications such as Cinelerra and Ardour, making them appear more integrated with the rest of the desktop.
We would like to thank Canonical (Ubuntu), Paul Davis (Ardour), the UbuntuStudio team, falktx (KXStudio), GMaq (AVLinux), Paolo Rampiro (Akirad project), the Cinepaint team, the GNU project, Linus Torvalds (Linux), Deviantdark (hydroxygen iconset), and everyone else whose contributions to open source have made this release possible.
How about Crunchbang Statler Alpha 2…both the Openbox and XFCE
I would review Ubuntu Tutix Remix 10.10 DVD edition. I have it running flawlessly on two machines. It features two things not many other distros offer, Adobe .pdf reader, and the Oracle VM Virtual Box, which was extremely simple to set up to run (Windows 7 on one PC, and Mac OS X on another).
@ Dick MacInnis
I tried your distro. You should have had least included Flash out of the box for the intended purpose of your operating system.
I want to see a review on the following. Arch, Slackware, and sls.