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PCLinuxOS 2K4: Mandrake Meets The Live CD

Posted by timothy on from the and-it's-not-knoppix dept.

NoahsLinuxArk2K3 writes "For those of you who may not be familiar with PCLinuxOS, it's a Linux distro derived from Mandrake Linux 9.2, developed by none other than Texstar from PCLinuxOnline (best known for his RPM work for the same distro). The new distro is primarily a Live CD, but can also be installed to the hard drive. It is still in preview release, but at 306 hits per day, it's already #8 on the DistroWatch charts. This review is the first of its kind to surface and it is looking very promising." Update: 12/30 03:18 GMT by T : A semi-anonymous reader writes "For those who dont have a high speed connection, PCLinuxOS 2K4 Preview 4 is available from OSDisc.com for a few bucks." Probably soon it will be at cheapbytes, too.

1 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:LiveCD installers by AMystery · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Your point is valid but you miss the audience. As a computer expert you are probably comfortable with the simpler installers that just do what they need, install the OS. but for those who have just one computer and aren't really comfortable with it, having a nice friendly fully functional OS that lets them try things out, search for help online and generally be up and running in 30 seconds is a boon.

    It takes me roughly 1 hour to install any OS, windows or linux. Since I just have the one system and its getting rather old, that is at minimum of one hour when I cannot be productive computer wise. If I use a LiveCD then as soon as the CD boots I can keep going while the system installs in the background.

    Your point about space is good and I would like to see a LiveCD based Net install. That would work great for new computer users. The CD has the LiveCD image, whatever other files fit and it downloads anything else. However, the CD boots and runs and there is very little wasted space there. You copy the CD to the HDD and its good.

    a LiveCD based install just seems like the future of computer installs. Friends of mine who install windows for a living often bemoan how the installer is silent, like it would be better to have some kind of background music while it runs. That's the kind of thing that non-geek people see as progress. Also it just makes me happier, less down time, more powerful visual interface.