Raiden's Realm: Review: Pardus 2008.2

Review: Pardus 2008.2 (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Steve Lawson
Posted on: Feb 18, 2009 at 03:23pm
Section: Reviews
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I HAVE written several articles about Pardus GNU/Linux since it first appeared on the Linux/Open Source scene in 2005, but in one report to coincide with the release of version 2007.3, I wrote the following introduction. "Do you know what I love so much about Linux? It's the feeling you get when you stumble upon a distribution that's pure computing gold."

I then went on to lavish praise on this excellent distribution, created by a team supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. Since then the development team have gone on to steadily refine and improve their distribution; for this 2008.2 update there are no big ticket announcements, just tweaks and improvements to what's already a rock-solid OS.

Nicknamed 'Canis aureus' after the endangered Anatolian jackal, there are two flavours of live and install CDs: One install CD in English and Turkish, one in all supported languages; one Live CD based on KDE3 and based on on KDE4. These can all be obtained via the project's homepage here.

Since the latest minor release more than 120 bug fixes and 60 security fixes were committed to 648 packages included in the KDE 3.5.10 installation CD I was using for the purposes of this article. What has always impressed me about Pardus is the fact that its key elements have been custom-built and, as a result, they work beautifully together. In this update release each element has also been further improved and refined.

So, the enhancements in the Mudur initialization system provide a faster and more robust startup process, along with a better remote file system support. The package manager, PiSi, has an improved package search function, support for handling download errors, GUI and translation updates. The Pardus Display Manager includes the latest drivers for new generation Nvidia, ATI and Intel based display adapters.

And the YALI installation tool has also been updated to offer a smoother and more reliable installation experience.Pardus's own Network Manager tool has had an update and now includes several new features: DHCP related timeout enhancements; Support for Non-ASCII ESSID names; Flexible DNS settings; and support for script execution upon connection and disconnection.

Among the manifold fixes for this release are ones to improve Pardus's installation and performance on Asus Eee netbooks, plus its handling of Broadcom wireless devices - this last one simply adds to Pardus's already superb reputation for handling wireless connections with aplomb. When you first fire up either the live CDs or installation disks, it's important to remember to set your preferred language by hitting the F2 key, otherwise you'll get everything in Turkish (like I once did!).

Pardus's bright orange theme and custom icons are a refreshing change from then usual sombre blues you get (and certainly easier on the eye than Ubuntu-brown), and I love the inclusion of a range of wallpapers featuring the various endangered Asian animals which have been linked with each successive release.

The installer, YALI, does its job with a minimum of fuss with all the relevant questions asked in pretty much the usual manner. Pardus handles all the configuration/user choices prior to package installation, although there is a small amount of personalization to be done via the Kaptan desktop assistant once you first boot into the desktop.

The 2008.2 Pardus kernel is based on the latest stable release of linux 2.6.25, 2.6.25.20, but with a variety of tweaks by the developers for optimum performance. On the packages front, it's an immediately-useful system: Mozilla Firefox 3.0.5, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1.10, Mplayer 20090101 and updated versions of popular applications like KDEPIM, Vim, Gimp and the fun-packed Frozen Bubble are all included.

Pardus generally is good on multimedia, with most formats playable out of the box: I had a commercial DVD, MP3s, .AVIs, YouTube and Apple movie trailers all playing without problems, but I did run up against 'Cannot read disk' errors while trying to get Amarok to play CDs. Managing your system's packages with the PiSi package manager is simplicity itself: Three tabs show you new/installed/upgradeable packages, with categorized choices down the left pane. It's not the largest repository in the world but you will find a program for pretty much every routine task.

So, in Pardus 2008.2 you have an OS that, while not boasting any cutting edge new features, has taken an already impressive rock-solid foundation and tweaked and refined it for even better performance. if you've been put off trying Pardus in the past by concerns over the language barrier then you really ought to shed those fears and get downloading: This OS is here to stay and deserves its place in the ranks of quality Linux distributions.

Come see more of my reviews at my blog.

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