Raiden's Realm: Review: PC/OS 2009v2a

Review: PC/OS 2009v2a (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: Jun 03, 2009 at 10:49am
Section: Reviews
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PC/OS is an interesting distro in that it comes in three forms: Open Desktop, Open Workstation, and Open Server. I think the general idea here is to create three different versions of the distro that are designed to meet the needs of the three core groups of users: Home user, business office, and business server.

But in general I find PC/OS to be an unusual distro in that it doesn't follow the "ooo-ahh" mentality of other distributions. In other words, it looks good, but eyecandy isn't the primary concern of the OS or the developers.

So what makes PC/OS special? Well, let's have a look.

LiveCD/DVD

PC/OS 2009v2a Desktop Edition / PC/OS 2009v2a Workstation Edition

In this review I'll be focusing on just the Open Desktop and Open Workstation, as that'll be the two primary areas that most end users will worry about. As far as the server is concerned, most users who would put it to use for such a thing already know what they're looking for and could more easily determine it's value on their own since their needs would vary between people and companies.

The primary difference between the two that I'll be covering is the list of applications. Open Desktop is setup with the home user in mind, while Open Workstation is setup with the business user in mind. The Open Desktop system comes on a single CD and weighs in around 685mb, while the Open Workstation weights in at a hefty 1.4gb and comes on a DVD.

The disparity in sizes immediately brings to light the differences in their uses. But aside from the general focus of use, and the selection of included applications, they're both essentially just remastered versions of Xubuntu that have been customized with different uses in mind, a slight change in eyecandy and some modifications to the general layout.

Initial bootup of the livecd and livedvd are both pretty much the same, with both booting into the desktop quite fast. The desktops themselves however have some unique differences. You really can't see them at first, as they're minor in nature, unless you take snapshots of the two and then compare them side by side.

The two biggest areas are the menu and the task bar. They're both ordered slightly differently with minor changes in the icon layout on the task bar and the bar widgets themselves. And personally, while I wasn't terribly thrilled with this distro at first (they seemed kinda �boring� to me at first glance), it's slowly grown on me.

Performance wise, the livecd and dvd both perform very well. In fact, with having XFCE as the default desktop environment, you can really feel the added speed in the live environment. I can't say you'll feel like you went from a pinto to a porche, but you will definately see a difference when compared against other live cd's and dvd's.

The included application list is also outstanding! I'm floored with how much is included by default. It's like getting the bells and whistles of Sabayon in a more streamlined and efficient design. It's also considerably built up from Xubuntu. It's still Xubuntu, but with more toys.

One of the more humorous elements of the Workstation version is the games section. I was surprised at the number of solitaire like games. It's almost as if the developers expect you to come to work and fiddle away the time playing card games.

Another striking change from the default XFCE interface is the addition of the BeOS theme. This includes the BeOS style headers and so much more. This should be of great interest to anyone who is a more senior user.

Overall, hardware detection is spot on in the livecd/dvd and it detected everything properly. The only complaint I have is that the screen resolution got detected a little lower than it should have, but that may have just been the detection script playing it safe.

Installation

Doing the installation for PC/OS is simple. If you've ever done the install for Ubuntu or one of it's derivatives, then this is no different, since it uses the same installer. If you haven't, then you simply need to know that the install is more or less just a handful of clicks to go to the next screen, and a little bit of information that the installer will require to get you started. Otherwise, there's not much to say here, as the install was pretty textbook.

Overview

The installed system booted into the desktop pretty quickly, and subsequent boots were about as equally fast. The nice thing about this setup is how fast you can get going. And I mean fast. As soon as it boots up the first time you can immediately begin using the system with no need to fuss with anything.

Sure, you might have things you want to do to specifically tweak it to your liking, but other than that, you really don't have to do anything to it at all to be productive. Just point, click and start earning that paycheck, or creating that budget saving idea.

As far as multimedia goes, aside from including VLC, the system is really lacking in overall movie and audio support. It's not like there's nothing there, but what is there really leaves something to be desired. There's also some small developers tools in the Workstation version for whoever wanted to use them. So for an aspiring geek, it's a useful addition.

Another interesting feature is the addition of Google tools, such as Google Calendar, Google Docs and more. Now obviously these aren't offline tools, so you'll still need an internet connection, however, PC/OS uses an interesting program called �Prism� to run them. Prism is apparently a browser in disguise, and a very compact one at that.

It's also a fully featured browser. All navigation tools are gone, such as back, forward, reload, the address bar, and other such things, but with a little bit of ingenuity, you can easily get to the google homepage, and then leap off from there to pretty much anywhere on the web. I even got into Youtube and watched a video just to see how much it could do and how far I could go.

Now that might not seem like a useful feature to you, but really, I had fun, because it's somewhat of a challenge to surf around and you really have to get creative to get places, but Prism would make a good time killer and would quickly improve your internet navigation skills if nothing else. Plus you could make a little game out of it to see all the cool places you could go before hitting a dead end and having to start over again.

And for those who are interested, Prism is based on Firefox 3.x.

Another interesting difference that stands out between the Desktop version and the Workstation version is in the office area. The Desktop version only has Abiword and a few others office tools. The Workstation version has the full blown Open Office suite.

The same goes for other application areas as well. Which in many ways makes the Desktop edition something of a PC/OS lite, and the Workstation version as the PC/OS full. Technically, given what's there, and how confusing the two names are to a wide number of users, they should have just said lite and full. It would have been better.

Hardware support in the installed OS is phenomenal, just like in the LiveCD/DVD. The only complaint again comes in the area of screen resolution. For some reason it can't get the full sized screen like it should. Not sure why, but it just can't.

Configuration is point and click easy. Of course, the XFCE control panel has always been easy to use, so it's no surprise there. And just like with XFCE, all configurations change immediately upon selection, so if you don't like something, you can just click on it and change it back.

Another interesting surprise is the native addition of Wine. It's already installed, setup, and ready for you to use whenever you want. There's also an incredible number of utility programs included. I haven't seen this many pre-installed utility programs in one place since either raw KDE, or Sabayon. And it's even more surprising to realize that all this stuff is installed, and yet performance isn't hurt any.

Software installation is done via Synaptic, which is good, and at the same time somewhat unsurprising (this is an Ubuntu derivative after all), but that does help make it newbie friendly.

Conclusion

Overall, I loved PC/OS. At first I wasn't sure what to think of it, and really was somewhat underwhelmed to say the least. But the more I got to playing with it, the more it grew on me. After a while I found that I was rather impressed with all it offered and did.

And the interesting thing about PC/OS is, it can easily be either a newbie distro, or an experienced user's distro, as it's flexible enough to fill both rolls. Plus, if you have friends or relatives who want to start into Linux and need a distro they can just hit the floor running with, I would easily recommend PC/OS.

This would also be a great program for business environments as well, since it can be easily remastered to include configurations and applications for office use, on top of the wide selection already available by default. Or you could simply change what's there (such as removing the games to increase productivity.

) to make a more streamlined distro for general office use.

Once it was remastered, you could easily set this up to be either a stand alone drop in desktop solution, or even a thin client. I'm not sure how hard it would be to make this into a thin client OS, but from what I saw, it shouldn't be too hard, and with everything necessary for standard office work already being there, it would be a good choice for businesses to use.

The only thing I would really say though is that, if you choose one of the two end user editions, you might want to lean more heavily towards the Workstation version. Sure, that's more business focused, but given that there's between a half and two thirds more applications, many of which are very important for the average user (like Open Office) available in the Workstation version that isn't available in the Desktop version, the Workstation version is more preferable.

It also works extremely well on older, or lower end hardware. So you don't need a beast of a machine to get it working. Something as tiny as an AMD 1700 could run it without many problems. Either way, PC/OS gets a thumbs up from me. Just be sure you have a high speed connection to the web, as you'll need it for accessing some features of the OS.

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