Software Reviews

Had to try this one.  I used Mandrake 7.0 once apon a time, but times change, and I converted to Suse for a very long time.  I was a Suse convert up ’til 10.2.  Today, however, I may have changed my thinking.  Time will tell.

Mandriva One was a simple install.  Very elegant.  It saw my D-Link pcmcia DWL-G650 wireless card right off the start without any regurgitations.  My Latitude D600 seems to be working flawlessly.  I am writing this review using Mandriva with Firefox (which comes with it, as does open office).

I am disappointed that I see no games on the initial install, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t add them.  I had no problems viewing any web media, but got the obligitory “you need the codecs” message when I tried to play my favorite “Waterworld” DVD.   The “Software Installer” was nice enough to point me to a download link - an advantage vs. Suse’s Yast - which you have to tell it where the repositories are.  I installed both the codecs and the “extra codecs”.  It did NOT find any instances of libdvdcss which was dissapointing, but a short trip to rpmfind.net was bountiful, and the Software Installer liked it.

However, after installing those two pieces of software, it ran my Waterworld (my personal standard for DVD player testing) without a problem.

Nice feature is that it installed with Compiz Fusion.  For those of you who don’t know what that is - check it out on youtube.  It’s a nice addon to (in my case KDE) your desktop environment that has some neat eye candy.  One minor problem ( imho ) is that you couldn’t view the movie while in ‘cube mode’ of compiz.  It continued playing, but when moving the cube, the movie went to blue screen.  After dropping the cube, it went back to normal though.

All this, ease of use, and it is the bottom of the line product?  I just might upgrade to their “Power Pack”, which claims to Play Windows based games like World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2142, Civilization IV and more - FLAWLESSLY - right on your Mandriva Linux desktop

All in all - I didn’t cuss, swear, kick, scream, or even bleed during the install and use of this distro, and I may have found a new favorite - Mandrake rides again??

Mandriva One - definately worth a look.

Yesterday I had the opportunity of picking up the March 2008 copy of “Linux Format” Magazine.  Included with it was a Distro disk that came with Ubuntu 7.10, OpenSuse 10.3 Live, Mandriva One, Debian 4.0, Simply Mepis 7.0, PCLinuxOS 2007, Zenwalk 4.8, Knoppix 5.1.1, Fedora 8 Live, and Damn Small Linux 4.2.3

I plan on spending a day on each, taking them all through a robust installation, speed, interoperability, and robustness test.

If $17 isn’t too much for you to afford, I suggest picking up a copy of this one, just to get the disk, and you can easily flip through multiple distros and get a taste of what’s out there for yourself.

Avast Home Edition is a complete antivirus package, that is certified by Checkmark & ICSA.

Avast includes an easy to use on demand scanner with skinnable simple interface, on access scanner, e-mail protection, Instant messaging protection, and much more!

Best of all - it comes as FREEWARE!  Just download it HERE.

It ain’t civilization - it’s freeciv…. because civilizations should be free!

Freeciv is a Free and Open Source empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. The game commences in prehistory and your mission is to lead your tribe from the stone age to the space age.  Object of the game is threefold:  1) Survive, 2) Grow your country, 3) Build a space ship and make it to Alpha Centari.  Other players may try to kill you off via wars.  You can make alliances, study technologies, and build weapons.

Freeciv is a great game, played both standalone or online against individuals or in teams. Graphics are good, getting better. Actively played and revised by it’s authors.  Servers are actively operated.

Freeciv can be downloaded HERE. You should play quite a few practice games before trying an online game though.

Arachnophilia located at http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/ is a FREEWARE cross platform productivity program, originally designed for programming in HTML. Since it’s inception, it has grown to be used in the writing of C++, Java, CSS, PHP, and many other types of files.

Arachnophilia is a learning program in that you tell Arachnophilia how to behave. If you don’t like how a toolbar button acts, you can simply right-click it and edit its contents

Installation is straightforward, and no issues were encountered.  Even the windows version worked with no incident.

Suse 10.3 installed with Compiz -

While the special effects were GREAT on my Dell Latitude D600 - there were some instabilities that I noticed.

Most were minor, and could be ignored, but one major one stuck out like a sore thumb.

It forced an exit of the X-Windows system, and wouldn’t let you back in without a reboot.

Correct drivers were installed, and the system worked fine without Compiz - but with it, things just didn’t work out well. Wondering if reverting to Suse 10.2 would fix the Compiz incompatibilities??

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