What is your best favourite KDE distro?

I have recently received a comment on the post about Pardus Linux, which made me think a lot.

The question in comment was:

What is your best favorite KDE distro? Mageia, Pardus, Kubuntu, Mandriva, PC Linux OS, Mint KDE.... which? :) I will use your choice :) thanks too.

omergex

First of all, I am very pleased that person looks at me as at specialist and asks for advice in system choice. Obviously, that is the point of this blog – to choose OS for your computer. Look at the top of the page to confirm.
Then, I should admit that’s a very good question actually.

Kongoni: You have the right to remain silent

I have written about Linux distributions from different parts of the world. Australia, Cambodia, Turkey, Russia, Latvia, and even Brasil.
This time round I'll make a trip to a continent which I have not visited yet: Africa.

Kongoni is Linux distribution developed in South Africa. It has name with roots in Shona language.
Kongoni is based on Slackware. There are not many Slackware-based Live distros (SLAX, Porteus and Nimblex - those I know). That makes each new review in this area very interesting for me.
Also Kongoni claims to contain only Free Software Foundation approved software. Moreover, Kongoni uses Libre kernel, where all the non-open source binaries are removed. Although Kongoni is not listed as FSF-supported. My previous experience with FSF-supported systems was pretty much different. What does Kongoni have to offer?
Latest version (Kongoni 2011) was released recently. Funny enough, it was released twice.
The reason for double-release was inability to run Live USB from iso image. Bug report says that person was successful in creation of Live USB using Unetbootin.
First of all, I downloaded the image (just below 700 Mb) and tried to "burn" it to USB stick. Neither Unetbootin nor dd command helped me in this. My Unetbootin has latest version (549) and I tried it under Mageia, Debian and Windows XP. Same result.
I was in despair. The only way which I saw was to burn CD-RW. Old-fashion way, of course. But it worked.
Do you want to try Kongoni yourself? Why not order a CD via Buy Linux CDs site?
So, my CD-RW is in the drive of my Compaq C300 laptop.
Reboot. Choose to boot from optical drive. Let's go!

6 wonders of CentOS 6.0

Do you know what CentOS is?

No, this is a not a OS which costs you only one cent to buy. Although, I bought a DVD with Linux OS for 0.01 GBP once, it was not CentOS.
CentOS is actually free Operating System based on RedHat Enterprise Linux. In other words, group of enthusiasts took out source code of RHEL, which they have to publish as part of Linux license, re-branded it as CentOS and published for open and free usage.
I have already written couple of reviews of CentOS. They were versions 5.5 and 5.6. As you can remember, I was not much happy with either of those versions.
It took quite a lot of time for CentOS team to move from version 5.5. to 5.6. RHEL managed to churn out version 6.1 by the time of CentOS 5.6 release. But guys from CentOS team decided to roll up the sleeves and catch as fast as they can. So, just 3 months after version 5.6, new version CentOS 6.0 was released.
Live CD image was not in initial release, but appeared few days later. As you can understand, Live CD  weights just under 700 Mb.
Unfortunately, there is no information on official web site how to create Live USB from CD image. Wikipedia says that Unetbootin can create one, but it did not work for me. Finally, dd command was my choice.
USB stick is prepared and plugged into the port. Reboot and choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Good Bye, Kubuntu!

Hello, Linux Mint XFCE!!!

Long-long time ago... about 8 months back... I created a system landscape on my laptop. It consists of 4 systems being installed at the same time. One of them is Windows XP, as it came with laptop and I still use it occasionally for specific tasks. Three of them are Linux systems. Which ones? I wrote about this when I described my quadro-boot.
Nothing is immortal. Time passed by and I got tired of both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. I got quite disappointed by changed introduced in version 11.04. That was a time to change.
First change took away Ubuntu and put Mageia 1 KDE instead. Yes, I changed Unity/GNOME system to KDE system. Some time I had two KDE systems working in parallel: Mageia 1 KDE and Kubuntu. But that was not the final destination.
Now it is time to change Kubuntu. What was a choice?
If you look at systems, you see that I have GNOME (Debian) and KDE (Mageia). Would it be nice to have something else installed? Yes, and this something else is XFCE.

To be precise, Linux Mint XFCE.

I wrote about this operating system earlier when I tried Linux Mint XFCE in Live mode. Then there was a roller coaster, because not all of the Mint XFCE features worked for me. But anyway, decision was made.

8 Places to Find Help for Your Linux Server

One of the age-old criticisms of Linux-based operating systems is that they are complicated, not easy to learn, and not user-friendly. Those who actually use Linux, however, know this is not the case. Like any new technology, you do need to take time to learn it, but once you do, it will open up doors for you, allowing you to unleash the full power of your server.
The following are eight places where you can find help for your Linux server. They are not listed in a particular order, so you may decide to favor certain ones first over others. If you use the web, be sure to bookmark any help you find, and also make sure you backup any configuration files or other data before you make changes.

+1 is here!

Have you heard of +1?
Sure you have!
If you have not, here is explanation of what it is.
+1 is your way to show other Internet users that something interesting is on the page. When you "+1" the page, it will be marked on Google search results so people can understand that and find interesting content.
Do you find content of this site interesting? Then "+1" it! You can find "+1" button under each post, next to your usual "Like" of "Tweet" buttons.
Just do it! Just +1 it!

Do you want to +1 this post? Here is the button!

...and you can still find it below the post, on its usual place.

Pardus 2011.1: Turkish Delight

I am not sure about you, but Pardus 2011.1 was one of the more awaited Linux releases this summer for me. Why? Because I considered it to be one of the candidates to replace my previous "boots". Unfortunately, I was not patient enough and already started process of migration from *buntus. Mageia is my current choice for KDE system.

If you still don't know what Pardus is, I can tell you. This is indepent Linux distribution developed by Turkish government organisation TUBITAK.
I have already written about previous version of Pardus 2011. That time I was very delighted by this system, and people in comments also left positive feedback.
Anyway, I was very happy to learn that Pardus 2011.1 was released. It happened on 12th of July, with about a week delay from roadmap plans.
Pardus 2011.1 has code name Dama Dama. This is Latin for Fallow Deer. Also this Turkish word in has 2 English translations: checkers and king. Or maybe King checkers?
Image of Pardus 2011.1 weights 1.3 GB, and I could only put it to DVD-RW and run on Toshiba laptop. Official site says Unetbootin is not supported, and only other methods are to use Mandriva Seed or dd command. But anyway I do not have USB stick large enough to get this image.
So, DVD-RW is burtn. It is in the drive of my Toshiba L500 laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from optical drive. Let's go!