djst's nest

Hands on VidaLinux Desktop OS

In my Gentoo Linux review last week, I said I won't uninstall Gentoo because I already depended on it. While that's still true in a way, I did find a way to keep my promise and still switch to a new distribution. :) Before I start raving about VidaLinux, I must point out that I really was happy with Gentoo and didn't have any real reason to try another distro except for plain curiosity.

Installing

As I said in the Gentoo review, the major weakness (and to some extent the strength) of Gentoo is the complicated installation process which, if you're unlucky, can include weeks of trying to get your hardware working properly. While this is an educating and interesting process, what I want in the end is a working replacement for Windows XP to be used full-time. This means an operating system that takes care of all the hardware details so I can focus on the actual use of it. This is where VidaLinux comes in.

If you've ever installed Red Hat 8 or 9, or Fedora Core 1, 2 or 3, you've seen the anaconda installer before. This is the installer software used in VidaLinux. With anaconda, installing Linux is actually easier than installing Windows. For those familiar with Gentoo Linux, this is basically a stage3 install, meaning that all the programs are prebuilt binaries optimized for Pentium 4, Ahtlon XP or i686. The actual Linux kernel is similar to what you would get with Genkernel in Gentoo, meaning not 100% optimized to your hardware, but fully working and generally without missing hardware support.

On the surface, the VidaLinux installer seems to work seamlessly without any problems at all. However, I happen to know of a few Linux shortcuts and one of them is switching virtual terminals by pressing Ctrl+Alt+[F1 - F7]. The graphical installer is on virtual terminal 7 and I found out that you could see the actual portage output on terminal 5 (Ctrl+Alt+F5). That terminal revealed some problems with the installer, such as the Gnome gksu command not being installed properly. So the installer isn't flawless yet, but the problems with it are minor. They should hire someone to correct their spelling though, as it was easy to tell that VidaLinux isn't made by people speaking English as their native language:

Powerfull, stable and easy to use Linux distribution

We like to thanks all for your support to this project.

Using VidaLinux

About half an hour after inserting the installation CD you're presented with a nice default Gnome setup. Personally, I want things my way, so I immediately set Gnome up to use the theme I've grown used to from Gentoo (the Milk 2.0/Glossy P combo). After tweaking things for a short while, I realized that VidaLinux had already solved most of the hardware problems I was experiencing in Gentoo. For example, my monitor now properly shuts down after a specified period of time. In Gentoo, it never really did. It just blanked the screen, regardless of my screen saver settings. The mouse wheel also just works, although the back/forward thumb buttons still don't do anything special.

Maintenance

VidaLinux is as easy to install as Fedora, and at the same time as easy to administrate as Gentoo. It's really the perfect combination of two worlds. As with Gentoo, Portage is the system that handles program installation, upgrade and uninstall. With VidaLinux, you also get a graphical alternative to Portage, called Porthole. While GUI generally is easier to use than a text based interface, Porthole seems unnecessarily complicated. For me, using emerge is a lot simpler than clicking a lot of buttons. Porthole needs more work to be a usable GUI alternative to Portage, and it wouldn't hurt getting a better name either. I don't know if it's just me but I'm getting non-computer related associations from the name...

Impressions

After using VidaLinux for a couple of days, I can say for the first time that Linux is my primary operating system! I rarely feel the need to reboot to Windows anymore. In fact, this whole review was written in Linux, using The Gimp as the image tool to create the small screenshots and gedit to write the text and markup. I also burned my first CD-RW disc in Linux today using Gnome's built-in CD/DVD writer tool nautilus-cd-burner, which worked flawlessly.

The thing that remains to be solved has been solved is a problem with the sound card. For some reason, my integrated AC97 sound card can't play two sounds simultaneously. If for example I play an MP3 using XMMS, other sound events such as incoming messages in Gaim will be queued and played once the MP3 has stopped. I've had this problem with all modern Linux distros so it's nothing with VidaLinux in particular. On the software side, I really miss a decent DC++ client that is accepted by the popular hubs. That's one of the few things that makes me keep my dual boot setup with Windows XP.

Update: Thanks to the tip from Seth Kinast, the problem with the sound card is partially solved! I just had to add a few lines of code in a config file to get it working. This should really be in by default. The problem is still there on multiple logins though. If for example I log in and then Sofie wants to log in too using the gdmflexiserver command, no sounds are being produced from her session and she can't adjust the volume either.

Conclusions

The million dollar question. Would I recommend VidaLinux to people? Yes! Absolutely! This is unquestionably the best Linux distribution I've ever installed. It's the kind of distribution even my mom could install, if she had a computer with some unallocated hard drive space. At the same time, it's the kind of distribution my Computer Science classmates in the university would feel comfortable administrating. The things that made me love Gentoo is still there in VidaLinux, it's just preconfigured to get you started within 30 minutes instead of three days. The thing that will ultimately make VidaLinux a better alternative than other "mainstream" Linux distros such as Mandrake or Fedora, is Portage.

For the first time, the majority of my hard drive space is dedicated to Linux. I just converted my 120 GB NTFS partition to ext3 (I chose ext3 because I've heard rumors of ReiserFS not being as stable and reliable as ext3 and I don't want to gamble with my data). With "converted" I meant moving the data to other partitions, wiping the NTFS partition, create a new ext3 partition and finally move the data back again. I'm still keeping a 25 GB partition in the FAT32 format, which is shared by both Windows and Linux.

Enough said. Just go ahead and install it! I'm pretty sure you'll like it.

A few words about my desktop wallpaper used in the screenshot. Normally, I'm not much for using desktop wallpapers at all. Just a plain blue-gray color is fine. But this wallpaper shows off the nice transparent features of the gDesklets I'm using. Also, it adds that much wanted geek touch to the system. Sofie actually likes Paris Hilton, so she has no problem with it either. :)

Posted by djst at January 30, 2005 4:45 PM