Lormalinux Beta 2
Getting an education in Linux
Lormalinux
is based out of Lorma Univiersity in the Phillipenes, it is designed
for use by Univiersites and students alike. It skips the frivoulus
applications such as games in favor of programing and office
apps. Based on Fedora
Core
it has a lot of Fedora's flavor and feel. While I am not a
major fan of Fedora, Lorma has gone and enhanced Fedora in a way that I
can appreciate.
Installation:
Being Fedora based, it is no supprise that the full Anaconda installer is here, Anaconda is without a doubt one of the easiest and best GUI installers out there. It just works. You are given the opportunity to decide what drive to use, how much and how to devide it up, or you can just let the installer take over the whole thing and make decisions for you. Either route works well and you end up with good results. A few questions about a root password, networking, and your off. Come back a while latter a reboot, and you have Linux. One of the changes recently in Anaconda is that you do not get the opportuity to add users during the install, you can add one on first boot, from there you must go in as root to add any further users. I honestly prefer to have everything done during the install, but this does work.
First Boot:
On restart, you are greeted with Grub bootloader, and as mentioned above, once loaded, you are than given the oportunitiy to add a user. This brings you to the user selection screen which is basic almost to a fault. It is at this point that I discovered my first and really only major issue with Lormalinux, when making the switch from Gnome to KDE as the default (and only installed) desktop, a configuration file was overlooked, specifically /etc/sysconfig/desktop content, this tells the login manager which desktop to chose, it was still set to Gnome, which caused the login manager to error and log in to the safe mode command line only. I backed out and called up the "Session" menu and selected KDE, and than retried, this time I got KDE and off I went. (My Screen Shots)(Lorma's Screen Shots) Now curiously, selecting the correct session does not fix the problem by saving your preference, nor did I find any way of selecting a preference in any of the menus. I did find a statment on the LormaLinux web site that said:
"Edit the /etc/sysconfig/desktop content and change the DESKTOP="GNOME" to
DESKTOP="KDE" this will enable GDM to point to KDE as its default desktop manager.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 February 2005 )"
Installation:
Being Fedora based, it is no supprise that the full Anaconda installer is here, Anaconda is without a doubt one of the easiest and best GUI installers out there. It just works. You are given the opportunity to decide what drive to use, how much and how to devide it up, or you can just let the installer take over the whole thing and make decisions for you. Either route works well and you end up with good results. A few questions about a root password, networking, and your off. Come back a while latter a reboot, and you have Linux. One of the changes recently in Anaconda is that you do not get the opportuity to add users during the install, you can add one on first boot, from there you must go in as root to add any further users. I honestly prefer to have everything done during the install, but this does work.
First Boot:
On restart, you are greeted with Grub bootloader, and as mentioned above, once loaded, you are than given the oportunitiy to add a user. This brings you to the user selection screen which is basic almost to a fault. It is at this point that I discovered my first and really only major issue with Lormalinux, when making the switch from Gnome to KDE as the default (and only installed) desktop, a configuration file was overlooked, specifically /etc/sysconfig/desktop content, this tells the login manager which desktop to chose, it was still set to Gnome, which caused the login manager to error and log in to the safe mode command line only. I backed out and called up the "Session" menu and selected KDE, and than retried, this time I got KDE and off I went. (My Screen Shots)(Lorma's Screen Shots) Now curiously, selecting the correct session does not fix the problem by saving your preference, nor did I find any way of selecting a preference in any of the menus. I did find a statment on the LormaLinux web site that said:
"Edit the /etc/sysconfig/desktop content and change the DESKTOP="GNOME" to
DESKTOP="KDE" this will enable GDM to point to KDE as its default desktop manager.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 22 February 2005 )"
So,
while this is clearly a known issue, there has not been any attempt to
correct it either, I can honestly say that something so basic and easy
to fix concerns me that it has not been taken care of.
What it has:
LormaLinux has a good deal of software, Evolution for E-mail, Firefox and Konqueror for browsing, Gaim, Wine, KDE 3.3.1, The Gimp, Synaptic, Open Office and GNUCash, K3b, Mplayer (which is a bit unstable in this instance), X.Org 6.8.1 and a good deal more all on top of a 2.6.10 Kernel.
What it has not:
Games, however all KDE games are available via Apt-get, dedication to the continuation of the distro, a strong statment to be sure however the distro's message boards are full of questions about it's future. Bittorent of any flavor in any way including through Apt. I expect that both of these are a bow to the intent of the distrobution, with a goal of:
"LormaLINUX is Lorma Colleges' very own Linux Distribution that has been optimized
and customized to meet the needs of educational institutions and its students. It is a
full-featured Operating System specifically created for ease of installation, ease
of use and functionality."
It seems that educational insitiutions and thier students don't need such things, I guess I can see not including a bittorent client, however anyone wishing to have one can easily get one, there are many available, and being based on Fedora there will be many that will install very easily.
Usage:
Over all this is a very cohesive and easy to use distro, Lorma has addressed one of my biggest dislikes about Fedora in ditching the "up2date" application in favor of Synaptic. I very much like Synaptic's abilities to resolve dependencies and install what you need quickly and effeciently. Updates are a simple click to update the local repositories and than a click to mark all updates and then apply, sweet, simple and easy. Additionally Lorma eliminates Fedora's need for 4 install CDs using 1 and than providing a solid repository of applications for the rest of your needs. If that fails to satisfy, there is always Fedora's massive volume of applications which at this point should install seamlessly, which I did test with several apps and had no problems. There is some customization to the look, but it is mostly the obvious areas at this point, the wallpaper, K-menu icon and such. The look is good but a bit contridictory of Lorma's intent. The wallpaper for instance is a fun Tux killing Butterflies varient, I personally love it, but if the idea of the distrobution is to be used by educational institutions and it's students, a less fun and foolish background would be appropriate. Speed and stability seem fine with the exception of the Mplayer plugin to Firefox. Frequently when playing video files Mplayer would crash Firefox and itself trying to close. This is an issue I have not had with other disros. Not major by any extent, but annoying none the less. I can say that other than this minor issue, and the default log in issue, I have had no other problems to speak of. The over all feel is solid and reliable, very much Fedora like but somehow better.
Conclusions:
I can say that this is a distro worth a good look, based on Fedora solidity with a few changes that make it more logical; not the least of which is the usage of Synaptic rather than up2todate. It feels good, looks good and works well. With some more attention and work I believe it could become everything the developers want it to be.
What it has:
LormaLinux has a good deal of software, Evolution for E-mail, Firefox and Konqueror for browsing, Gaim, Wine, KDE 3.3.1, The Gimp, Synaptic, Open Office and GNUCash, K3b, Mplayer (which is a bit unstable in this instance), X.Org 6.8.1 and a good deal more all on top of a 2.6.10 Kernel.
What it has not:
Games, however all KDE games are available via Apt-get, dedication to the continuation of the distro, a strong statment to be sure however the distro's message boards are full of questions about it's future. Bittorent of any flavor in any way including through Apt. I expect that both of these are a bow to the intent of the distrobution, with a goal of:
"LormaLINUX is Lorma Colleges' very own Linux Distribution that has been optimized
and customized to meet the needs of educational institutions and its students. It is a
full-featured Operating System specifically created for ease of installation, ease
of use and functionality."
It seems that educational insitiutions and thier students don't need such things, I guess I can see not including a bittorent client, however anyone wishing to have one can easily get one, there are many available, and being based on Fedora there will be many that will install very easily.
Usage:
Over all this is a very cohesive and easy to use distro, Lorma has addressed one of my biggest dislikes about Fedora in ditching the "up2date" application in favor of Synaptic. I very much like Synaptic's abilities to resolve dependencies and install what you need quickly and effeciently. Updates are a simple click to update the local repositories and than a click to mark all updates and then apply, sweet, simple and easy. Additionally Lorma eliminates Fedora's need for 4 install CDs using 1 and than providing a solid repository of applications for the rest of your needs. If that fails to satisfy, there is always Fedora's massive volume of applications which at this point should install seamlessly, which I did test with several apps and had no problems. There is some customization to the look, but it is mostly the obvious areas at this point, the wallpaper, K-menu icon and such. The look is good but a bit contridictory of Lorma's intent. The wallpaper for instance is a fun Tux killing Butterflies varient, I personally love it, but if the idea of the distrobution is to be used by educational institutions and it's students, a less fun and foolish background would be appropriate. Speed and stability seem fine with the exception of the Mplayer plugin to Firefox. Frequently when playing video files Mplayer would crash Firefox and itself trying to close. This is an issue I have not had with other disros. Not major by any extent, but annoying none the less. I can say that other than this minor issue, and the default log in issue, I have had no other problems to speak of. The over all feel is solid and reliable, very much Fedora like but somehow better.
Conclusions:
I can say that this is a distro worth a good look, based on Fedora solidity with a few changes that make it more logical; not the least of which is the usage of Synaptic rather than up2todate. It feels good, looks good and works well. With some more attention and work I believe it could become everything the developers want it to be.
Contact me at:
webmaster@capnkirby.com
