OMG! I’m using a non-Debian Linux distro!

Over the long Memorial Day weekend I decided to do some further Linux distro-hopping, and so wiped out my beloved Crunchbang Linux to test the following distros:

sidux – based on Debian Sid (unstable)
Arch – although I cheated and used an Arch Live CD
Knoppix – also based on Debian
Mandriva – probably the second Linux distro I ever tried (after Red Hat) around the turn of the century

I had intended on installing sidux as a replacement for Crunchbang. Not that I was unhappy with Crunchbang, but because the idea of running Debian Sid was appealing to me. I’m generally not a fan on KDE (or XFCE), but I figured I would install LXDE and play around with that for awhile, although KDE 3.5 on sidux is pretty fast.

Well, things went awry when I tried to update the system using smxi. I believe I inadvertently upgraded to KDE 4 — when I rebooted, things were horribly wrong. I don’t blame sidux for this, but my own impatience, for not more thoroughly reading the documentation regarding upgrading/updating sidux. Oh well, perhaps I’ll try this again sometime. Moving on to:

Arch
There’s something very appealing about Arch to me, although I haven’t worked up the gumption (or the time) to really dig in and go through the steps to install it properly. The idea of installing only EXACTLY what I want, and nothing else, is a very powerful draw. Plus, they have a cool logo! But, instead of doing that, I took the shortcut and tried an Arch Live CD from here:

http://godane.wordpress.com/

The Live CD features the XFCE desktop environment, and a graphical installer option. The installation failed about halfway through. I don’t remember what the issue was. So much for cheating. I REALLY have to suck it up and do a proper Arch install sometime.

Knoppix
There’s a lot to like about Knoppix, including working Compiz from the start. In the end, however, I was seriously annoyed by not being able to change the default Openbox theme. WTF? OBConfig was there, but didn’t work. This should be basic stuff, no?

And so, after reinstalling Crunchbang out of frustration, I happened to read Caitlyn Martin’s review of the latest Mandriva release:

http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090525#feature

I had downloaded and tried out the KDE version of Mandriva One when it was first released, and the live CD was so incredibly slow, that I didn’t consider it as an option. Beautiful, but slow. I was intrigued by the LXDE option available with this release, but I was under the impression that I would first need to install either the KDE or Gnome flavors, and then install LXDE through the package manager. The idea of installing all of that KDE or Gnome baggage, just to get to LXDE didn’t thrill me, so I let go of the idea of trying out Mandriva.

It was in reading Caitlyn’s article that I found out that I could install LXDE at the front end, avoiding KDE and Gnome entirely, by downloading the much larger (4.3 GB) Mandriva Free ISO.

And so here I am, after many fits and starts of downloading the ISO on my desktop Mac, sitting on a non-Debian distro on my Thinkpad T42.

The installation was quite beautiful and flawless, with enough options along the way to make a Slackware user drool. Mandriva enjoyed the top slot at Distrowatch for a long time in the pre-Ubuntu Linux world, and honestly, I personally would choose it over Ubuntu, any day of the week. Mandriva is great at tweaking the desktop environment to create a thing of beauty. Even their implementation of the tray in KDE 4 is not annoying, and I REALLY hate the KDE 4 tray. What they have done with LXDE is also very impressive and attractive. So far, I’m finding Mandriva 2009 with LXDE very likable — attractive and fast.

I think I’ll keep it around a while, and see how it goes.