Experiences of a software consultant with various Linux distributions

I like reading comments under the posts of my Linux blog.

Some of these comments are short. Some of them are extended to several paragraphs. And some of them deserve a separate post. That's why I decided to re-publish a comment by Balaji Neelakantan to the post "What would be my own ideal Linux distribution?" as a separate story. 

I hope you will enjoy. Fasten your seatbelts! Let's go!

Is Salix XFCE 13.37 better than 13.1.2?

Nobody can argue there are 2 major Desktop Environments now in Linux world: GNOME and KDE take lion part in installed Linux desktop systems. Most Linux distributions are released with at least one of them available.
But since system requirements for resources of KDE and GNOME are rather high and growing, there is more and more space for lighter desktop environments like LXDE and XFCE.

I have written a review of Salix XFCE 13.1.2 not long ago. It was a chance for me to get closer to this wonderful Slackware-based distribution. That time I promised to try installed version of this distribution once I have new laptop to fiddle with. The time has come!
Salix XFCE has 2 versions available for download now: 13.1.2 is the only with Live mode, that's why I tried it in my previous article. But newer version 13.37 is also available for installation. This version was released in mid-May 2011. It weights less than 700Mb, so I downloaded it and burnt onto CD-RW.
Let's see how Salix XFCE 13.37 behaves itself on my new laptop Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1505.
Reboot. Choose to boot from optical drive. Let's go!

SalixOS: older brother of SLAX

My second advent into world of Linux happened somewhere in September 2010. It was so much unusual experience for me that I decided to put my thoughts and feeling into this blog. What was in the beginning? No, it was not Word. It was SLAX.
SLAX OS is pocket oriented Linux distribution based on Slackware. That's why my first post in this blog is named "How to put a system in a pocket". SLAX itself is very user-friendly and easy for beginners. I must admit, I was lucky enough to start from SLAX.
But today I will not talk about SLAX. And I will not talk about Slackware. I will talk about older brother of SLAX - Salix OS.

Salix OS is not intended to be "pocket size" OS. But, as I  will tell you in next few paragraphs, it can be put into the pocket.
But first of all, let me introduce Salix OS. It is Linux distribution based on Slackware and intended to be "simple, fast and easy to use". It is released in 4 options: KDE, XFCE, LXDE and Fluxbox. I am great fan of KDE, but because I am currently interested in replacement for Linux Mint XFCE, my choice this time was for XFCE edition.
Unfortunately, Live version of Salix XFCE is only available for version 13.1.2 (released in November 2010), whereas installation version has been already upgraded to 13.37 (released in May 2011). Did this stop me? Of course not! So, ISO image of Salix OS 13.1.2 XFCE is downloaded and ready to use.
What is surprisingly interesting, process of creation of Live USB is described in Salix Startup Guide. All you need to do is to copy files from ISO into USB root folder and run a script. Where have I seen similar before? Yes, it is the same approach as SLAX uses. Unfortunately, this process did not work for me, because Live USB creator script requires 63 sectors for MBR and my USB stick only had 62.
No problem, Live CD is still an option and CD-RW was burnt using same ISO image.
CD-RW is in the optical drive of my Compaq C300 laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from CD. Let's go!