My OperaDay of the Distros - Round One - Foresight Linux
Thursday, December 11, 2008 10:36:24 AM
Tech News -
1) I've started testing on the "Day of the Distros". I started out trying a compile from source distro in a Virtual Environment to get used to being in total control of the OS (more on that later) while I had other ones downloading. I decided Foresight Linux would be first up for a real test run though.
2) Install went fairly smooth. A few issues though included that it couldn't start the Xserver using my ATI card (ATI Mobility Radeon X1400). Hmmm?
3) I think they should call this distro Hindsight Linux, because it still lacking in the partitioning of the disk. I couldn't set up an LVM (despite there being an option for one as a partition type).
4) I also couldn't set up an encrypted home and/or swap. In an age where security matters, this is a major deal to me. Maybe not to some home desktop users, but then again, maybe.
5) Updates on this particular disto are slower than on Ubuntu or on Fedora. This is another set back for them.
6) A major plus, boot time was absolutely amazing. I had a full desktop in UNDER 30 SECONDS (thats from power on to full desktop in 30 seconds). This may make it worth the very slow update speeds. If it's taking so long because it is actually optimizing the packages or something like that, I would be ok with it taking a little longer to update, if not, I see no reason for it being so slow.
7) Also noted - This distro isn't able to use compiz out of the box like some others. This isn't a huge set back, but it is still a set back in my book.
8) Another minor annoyance is that it doesn't recognize the scrolling ability on my touchpad out of the box. I like to use the touchpad to scroll pages in firefox and opera and well, everywhere I need to scroll. I'm a speed freak, and this is something that slows me down.
9) Yet another plus for them, it did get my video resolution right out of the box, and that's always a plus, but incorrect resolution on my hardware is becoming a thing of the past.
10) Another downfall for them comes in the package manager they chose, Packagekit, it doesn't list the software in categories like most distros do, and it doesn't even display the full list of packages like synaptic. Very sad to see.
11) I hate to keep focusing on the negative, but I just don't see enough positive in this distro, yet another fault is that suspend 100% does not work, neither does hibernation.
12) A positive for them - Scrolling in firefox and opera (even though I had to use keys until I configured Xorg myself for the touchpad scrolling) is amazingly smooth. Not jerky at all like in some other distros out there. Kudos for that at the very least.
13) Also worth mentioning, is the fact that I haven't (yet) run into any dependency updates, which some distros are infamous for.
14) Another plus for Foresight, is that flash works on websites without any issues.
15) Yet again, a negative for Foresight, is that my sound under PulseAudio is not currently working. Again. And I know it's not the hardware, because it was working in certain applications on Ubuntu, just not the majority of the time.
So this is just the start to the testing of Foresight Linux. You'll probably hear back from me this evening after I've had a few hours to play with it and see what it's all about. I can tell you now though, it's not the Desktop system for me.
On a side note, I went through yesterday and updated the tags on all my other posts. This should make finding them (and me) on google a lot easier.
A second side note, I did discover a quite promising looking Desktop/Workstation OS called X/OS based on Fedora while I was searching. I may look into that as a "Professional Operating System" BUT more on that and other distro tests later.
...
Happy Hacking
PiklesOnFire
1) I've started testing on the "Day of the Distros". I started out trying a compile from source distro in a Virtual Environment to get used to being in total control of the OS (more on that later) while I had other ones downloading. I decided Foresight Linux would be first up for a real test run though.
2) Install went fairly smooth. A few issues though included that it couldn't start the Xserver using my ATI card (ATI Mobility Radeon X1400). Hmmm?
3) I think they should call this distro Hindsight Linux, because it still lacking in the partitioning of the disk. I couldn't set up an LVM (despite there being an option for one as a partition type).
4) I also couldn't set up an encrypted home and/or swap. In an age where security matters, this is a major deal to me. Maybe not to some home desktop users, but then again, maybe.
5) Updates on this particular disto are slower than on Ubuntu or on Fedora. This is another set back for them.
6) A major plus, boot time was absolutely amazing. I had a full desktop in UNDER 30 SECONDS (thats from power on to full desktop in 30 seconds). This may make it worth the very slow update speeds. If it's taking so long because it is actually optimizing the packages or something like that, I would be ok with it taking a little longer to update, if not, I see no reason for it being so slow.
7) Also noted - This distro isn't able to use compiz out of the box like some others. This isn't a huge set back, but it is still a set back in my book.
8) Another minor annoyance is that it doesn't recognize the scrolling ability on my touchpad out of the box. I like to use the touchpad to scroll pages in firefox and opera and well, everywhere I need to scroll. I'm a speed freak, and this is something that slows me down.
9) Yet another plus for them, it did get my video resolution right out of the box, and that's always a plus, but incorrect resolution on my hardware is becoming a thing of the past.
10) Another downfall for them comes in the package manager they chose, Packagekit, it doesn't list the software in categories like most distros do, and it doesn't even display the full list of packages like synaptic. Very sad to see.
11) I hate to keep focusing on the negative, but I just don't see enough positive in this distro, yet another fault is that suspend 100% does not work, neither does hibernation.
12) A positive for them - Scrolling in firefox and opera (even though I had to use keys until I configured Xorg myself for the touchpad scrolling) is amazingly smooth. Not jerky at all like in some other distros out there. Kudos for that at the very least.
13) Also worth mentioning, is the fact that I haven't (yet) run into any dependency updates, which some distros are infamous for.
14) Another plus for Foresight, is that flash works on websites without any issues.
15) Yet again, a negative for Foresight, is that my sound under PulseAudio is not currently working. Again. And I know it's not the hardware, because it was working in certain applications on Ubuntu, just not the majority of the time.
So this is just the start to the testing of Foresight Linux. You'll probably hear back from me this evening after I've had a few hours to play with it and see what it's all about. I can tell you now though, it's not the Desktop system for me.
On a side note, I went through yesterday and updated the tags on all my other posts. This should make finding them (and me) on google a lot easier.
A second side note, I did discover a quite promising looking Desktop/Workstation OS called X/OS based on Fedora while I was searching. I may look into that as a "Professional Operating System" BUT more on that and other distro tests later.
...
Happy Hacking
PiklesOnFire
