[frgeek-michiana] 30 Days of VL 5.8 - summary
- From: Tom Brown <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: FreeGeek Michiana <frgeek-michiana@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Jun 2007 19:25:27 -0500
Day 31 - June 8
Time to sum up my 30 days with Vector Linux 5.8.
1. Stability
VL is rock solid. I trust this distro.
The VL developers wisely chose Slackware as their foundation. Slack
is among the most road tested Linux distros. It changes at deliberate
speed, not hastily, and cleaves to proven code. The VL team simply
removed unnecessary (according to their goals) kernel modules, libraries
and applications. This makes VL faster and no less stable than Slackware
itself.
2. Usability
VL 5.8 is well suited out of the box for non-power users.
I am not a desktop power user. My needs are more along the lines of a
business user: word processing, web surfing, email, music and an
occasional movie. You can add application development periodically.
I tend not to use integrated development environments (IDEs) because I
am not a professional.
The desktop interface and paradigm should be familiar to most computer
users. New users will need some training, primarily in application use.
Every application does a good job of meeting its intended purpose. For
browsers, VL has included Dillo, Firefox, Opera and SeaMonkey -- more
than enough choice and features for nearly everyone.
VL 5.8, although a functional desktop for non-power users, might also be
a jumping off point for custom/power users. As a convenience, I
installed Thunderbird for email. It was the generic Linux package from
Mozilla which is probably statically compiled with all dependencies
included. I could have downloaded a Thunderbird Slackware package or
compiled my own from source. Checkinstall, the package maker and
tracker, is in the official VL repository. However, if I were a power
user, I would probably choose a full Slack install to have a complete
set of libraries and kernel modules and lots of additional packages.
3. System administration
I don't expect new users to do system administration. If they want to
learn to administer their FreeBoxes, they will need classes. For the
most part, VASM and Gslapt (slapt-get) provide users need to administer
a VL FreeBox.
That said, I ran into several "gotchas" we should keep in mind for training.
First, users need the root password to run Gslapt, the package manager.
And, users must understand the concept of packages, repositories and
mirrors.
On the upside, VL's package management system is bullet-proof if you use
VL mirrors. Gslapt (slapt-get) is more robust than RPM based systems and
appears as robust as Deb based package management.
The unknown here is whole distro version upgrades. I did not do a
version upgrade, and I am not sure that VL provides for such.
Second, I stumbled around trying to add an icon to the desktop and an
item to the main menu. If users install VL 5.8 packages from VL mirrors,
the package manager automatically adds icons and menu items. Once you
know the trick, it is simple to add icons/launchers and menu items for
non-official packages.
Third, my floppy drive wouldn't work. The issue was caused by a
redundant symlink in the udev config. After at least a dozen VL 5.8
installs, this particular BIOS is the only one I've run into that
actually affected by the spurious symlink.
Fourth, VASM caused some network configuration difficulties when I
changed back and forth between dialup and broadband during testing.
Newbs are unlikely to face this particular problem which is easily
corrected manually. You can't use VASM to make the correction so it
takes a tiny bit of training.
Fifth, CUPS is not intuitive to everybody. If users want to install
printers, they should take training or bring their systems to Lab for
tech support.
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