If you need a very easy to install, feature complete Linux distribution, do not look any further than PCLinuxOS. This gem of a distribution is an absolute joy to use.

Many eons ago when Mandrake Linux (now Mandriva Linux) was the king of Linux distributions, a certain person called Texstar, used to prepare RPM packages to improve Mandriva Linux. Texstar, then forked Mandriva Linux and this fork became PCLinuxOS. Texstar’s experience, devotion, and perfection to his task, shines through even today in PCLinuxOS.

I installed PCLinuxOS Mini ME 2008 on the following hardware:

• Intel Celeron 2.0 GHZ
• 512 MB RAM
• SIS Integrated video chipset
• Realtek 8139 network card
• Creative Sound Blaster Live sound card
• Viewsonic VG800 monitor
• Liteon DVD burner
• A local Taiwan brand PS/2 wheel mouse

PCLinuxOS Mini ME is a scaled down version of PCLinuxOS. It comes with KDE 3.5.9 with a very basic set of programs. It is meant for users who want to install a very scaled down distro and then install everything else they need, rather than installing the whole kitchen sink as many other distributions do.

Installation

PCLinuxOS boots from a Live CD to a fully usable KDE desktop. To install on to the hard disk, login as root, with the password root and then click the Install icon on the desktop. The installer is fully graphical and is very easy to follow. Like Ubuntu, the PCLinuxOS installer does not allow package selection. The installer detected all my hardware and installed in about 15 mins.

Post installation

On reboot, PCLinuxOS started with a graphical boot up. Once booted up, the system allowed me to choose my keyboard layout and then create a non-root user for daily use. Once I created the regular non-root user, I logged in with my regular user name and password and was greeted by an attractive KDE screen. My screen resolution was set to 1280×1024 as it should be. However, the monitor refresh rate was set to 60 Hz instead of the 75 Hz that my monitor is capable of.

To fix this, I opened the excellent PCLinuxOS Control Center (PC – System – Configuration – Control Center), navigated to Peripherals – Display and then adjusted the refresh rate.

Next, I reconfigured my eth0 device to use a private static IP.

To do this, I navigated to the PCLinuxOS Configuration Utility (PC – System – Configuration – Configure Your Computer), entered the root password, select Network and Internet and then Configure a new connection and finally select Ethernet.

Similarly, I configured my PPPoE connection by selecting DSL instead of Ethernet.

I then configured the firewall (Security – Set up a Personal Firewall). I opened only port 17645/tcp for Skype. All the other ports are blocked. The firewall configuration automatically installed and configured shorewall with the necessary parameters.

My next task was to reduce the number of services that are started at boot up. To do this, I opened the services editor (System – Enable or disable the system services) and adjusted the services. To view information about a service, click Info, to disable a service from starting at boot, remove the check mark from the On boot option, to enable a service to start at boot, check mark the On boot option, and to start or stop a service immediately, click Start or Stop, respectively.

Satisfied with the configuration, I closed the PCLinuxOS Configuration Utility.

PCLinuxOS Configuration Utility thus provides a one stop centralized control facility to configure critical functions of the system – like setting up networking, tweaking hardware and setting up the firewall, to name a few.

I then turned my attention to Synaptic – the graphical package manager.

Synaptic (PC – System – Configuration – Packaging – Synaptic Software Manager) allows one to easily add or remove packages and to update the system.

Using Synaptic, I updated the information from the package repositories and then updated the entire system. Once this finished, I added all the packages I needed such as Firefox, Skype, Open Office, Digikam and many others including all the plugins and codecs needed to play media files. I also installed the Microsoft True Type Fonts using Synaptic.

Synaptic uses Debian’s apt-get and can be used from the command line.

To use it from a command line, open the terminal, su to root and then use apt-get.

First update the package listing using apt-get update.  Always do this before running any other command as this gets the fresh package listing from the repository.

You can update the entire system using apt-get upgrade.

To search for a package, use apt-cache search [package name].

If you do not know the actual package name, search for a related term. For e.g. apt-cache search fonts

This will search for all packages related to fonts.

To install a package, use apt-get install [package-name].

To remove a package, use apt-get remove [package-name].

To remove a package including all its configuration files, use apt-get remove –purge [package-name].

The package repositories can be customized using Synaptic itself or by editing /etc/apt/sources.list as root.

I then proceeded to customize KDE to my liking using the KDE Control Center (PC – System – Configuration – Control Center). I disabled the KDE effects, disabled the sound system and tweaked KDE. My desktop is shown here.

Next, I installed some Firefox extensions such as adblock,downthemall and the netcraft toolbar.

I finally reboot the system to ensure that everything comes up properly on boot. PCLinuxOS booted fine, my screen resolution was the one I set and everything worked properly.

I tested a few flash driven sites, tested the java plugin, watched a quick time trailer and since I installed the plugins [including the ones needed for playing back non-free formats such as Quicktime, MP3 and Windows Media formats], everything worked fine. You can check the plugins installed with the firefox browser, by typing about:plugins on the URL bar.

Conclusion

PCLinuxOS is an extremely easy to use, user friendly distribution that is perfect for Joe and Jane users from the Windows world. The developers have taken the utmost care to ensure that the distribution functions perfectly and that it meets the needs of a large section of Linux users. The out of the box support for non-free formats [in the full edition] is a huge plus for this distribution. The drawback, however is that encrypted DVDs cannot be played out of the box. This is easily remedied by installing libdvdcss2 using Synaptic. PCLinuxOS comes as a Live CD, which means that would-be Linux converts can try it risk-free and run the entire OS from the CD before they decide to install it.

I heartily recommend that all Linux users and would be users try out PCLinuxOS. You might be hooked as I did.

Written by Michael R.M. David