VSIDO on the Sunday Morning Linux Review

[VastOne]

VSIDO on the Sunday Morning Linux Review

The VSIDO discussion starts at about  the 1 hour 5 minute mark

Mary gave us a 3.9 cups of coffee with a Debian swirl of half-half rating, and although I am not quite sure what that means but I think it is a good one

Having said that, it brings up several issues that we need to address.

1 - WICD vs Ceni ... In both environments it seems additional work needs to be done to get WIFI working out of the box.  I would like to resolve this once and for all, if possible

2 - Fluxbox reload needs to be addressed. Once you make a change to Fluxbox, you need to reload it.  I think this is just a general knowledge thing because you have to do the same thing with OpenBox

3 - Mary successfully loaded KDE!!!  Know we know it is workable!  I find it interesting that we were all joking about it and someone actually installed it perfectly!

4 - I need to explain the nitty gritty stuff in more detail.  Things we take for granted, SID, smxi, VSIDO-Welcome script, bum, Pithos, puddletag, kernel remover, apt-tools, aliases, etc etc.. the real VSIDO's values, I need to broadcast these in ways that show that they are the reason why you should use VSIDO.  I am open to advice on what we can do to facilitate this

5 - With this review and Larry's incredible review, I anticipate a mass amount of questions and new users.  I think you all here at the VSIDO Community is well prepared for that

Thank you Mary, Pat and Tony and everyone else involved with the Sunday Morning Linux Review

[VastOne]

Here is the written review

Mary Distro Review – VSIDO

Time: 34:27

My distro review this week has been a whirlwind of preparation, primarily because I started in one direction and ended up with an entirely different distro. My initial choice was Pisi Linux—but I then discovered that Pisi Linux is only in the alpha stage—I didn't care if it had a KDE desktop, I am not reviewing an alpha version unless there's an interesting angle to it. So, this week's distro review is based on Debian (It beat out an Arch derivative running e17 by a whisker). It caught my eye on a blog Jed's Desk. This week I take a look at VSIDO.

VSIDO can currently be installed with a choice between three popular Linux Kernels; the latest Debian Kernel, the latest Liquorix Kernel, or the latest Siduction Kernel.

The Vitals:
Name: VSIDO
Maintainer: Terry Ganus aka VastOne
Distro Latest Birthday: The release iso was updated on 3/22/2013.
Derivative: Debian Sid with Experimental and siduction sources pinned for specific applications
Kernel: 3.8-trunk (but Liquorix and Siduction kernels are available for download via script)
Review Desktop/Window manager: Fluxbox (with options for openbox, and XFCE). During the test, I installed another desktop during testing.

Note that VSIDO is for 64-bit machines.

Live Environment:

The live environment showed a small launcher panel across the bottom. A system monitor readout, monitoring kernel version, uptime, CPU and memory usage, temp, and network activity sat unobtrusively at the top of the screen Nice and compact.

The modules I look for first were loaded:

Graphics: ( nouveau)
Wireless:  (iwl4965) (but no internet for a while as it turned out)

The Defaults
Browser: Ice Weasel
Office Suite: None. More about that later...
Mail Client: None
File Manager: SpaceFM, Thunar when in XFCE

The Install Process:

Installing VSIDO was a straight-forward affair. The steps are familiar and I liked the fact that it had all the accounts and passwords entry boxes on a single screen, allowing me to easily tab from field to field supplying the needed information

Partitioning also was easy. The instructions were easy to understand and, for someone who may be fairly new to the process, I don't think they'd get confused. The install Grub step which, in the past has given me heartburn, was easy to see and the brief explanation was on point. There was even a third option where GRUB could be installed to the MBR of the root partition which, according to the information on the screen, is what you want for a USB install. I chose to install it to the root partition of the install, so my main grub install would not be affected. VSIDO even took the time to articulate in complete sentence what was going to happen. "Grub will be installed to the root partition of SDA6 " Do you want to continue? Heck yeah!!

The install commenced...dispense the consumables.

The install ended with: "If everything went well your new system should be ready. Do you want to try it out?" It was an articulate install.

Installed Environment:

I rebooted and quickly got to the desktop. The first time in you're presented with the option of going through a post-installation script: vsido-welcome. It will install additional applications including office applications, printer setup tools and image editing tools. This approach allows the distro to stay confined to a CD. A requirement is a working internet connection which I didn't have at the time. So I exited the script and checked the forums.

Using Ceni, I configured my wireless but still no access with the outside world. I could ping, myself, the router, but nothing past that. Using a wired connection worked perfectly, so I did away with knetwork manager and checked wicd to start on when booting. Problem solved.

Although most of my testing occurred while using Fluxbox, I also checked out LXDE since several LXDE apps /libraries were already available in Fluxbox. To my surprise, the left-handed mouse setting I tried to make earlier was in place.

Using Fluxbox was somewhat interesting. Different tools...your launch menu is available regardless of your cursor's location on the screen.

VSIDO also includes the smxi script, run from the command line after exiting X, if you really want to try something a little out of the ordinary (http://smxi.org/). This script allows you to enable additional capabilities such as downloading additional kernel sources so you can install and boot a different kernel than the one that came with your distro, there is a script to run after install. It installed the sources for the Liquorix kernel, Siduction kernel, etc. It also walked me through a series of questions regarding the kernel I want to use, repositories to set, packages to download, etc. I had Debian, Debian-multimedia, Siduction, Liquorix, Remastersys, to name a few. After those settings are in place, it's time to update your system. You can opt for a dist-upgrade or a regular one. I chose dist-upgrade. I then updated grub via Kubuntu —to make my new kernel options available. I wanted to add the other kernel options.

As far as package management is concerned, VSIDO has it well covered in VSIDO. There was a)Gdebi Package installer for any deb file; and both Synaptic Package manager and Aptitude package manager depending on your preference. I tested the package management system by installing the full KDE Desktop, which is done simply by checking KDE-FULL

Other interesting Programs:

Kernel remover – Removes extra kernels you have lying around. When I attempted to use it all I got was "There is only one kernel installed on the system. Nothing to be done!

Bleachbit - tool to remove the kerfluffle from your hard drive. I removed over 900MB of stuff, mostly from the apt archives.

System Information (Hard Info) – was mostly helpful but did report that no batteries were found on my system.

Remastersys – a program for Debian-based, or derivative software systems that can: Create a customized Live CD/DVD (a remaster) of Debian and its derivatives. Back up an entire system, including user data, to an installable Live CD/DVD. (backup, Grub restore, USB startup tool)

Pithos – Pandora Front end. Using it requires a pandora account.
Puddletag – audio tad editor for NGU/Linux similar to the Windows program MP3tag.

Nitrogen – it says it's lightweight background browser for X. Actually, it just sets your desktop wallpaper, but does let you browse for a suitable picture.

BUM BootUp Manager – A utility to manage what services run at startup.

Application finder – Acts like a launch menu –show categories and applications within each category. I really liked this tool.

D-feet – D-Feet allows users to call methods and trap signals from other applications and services that are running on the computer D-Bus.D-feet was originally developed by Redhat.

Fluxbox Settings menu – was there to help with settings.

Rating:

I was impressed with this distro and, after easily installing a full KDE desktop and running VSIDO from there, I like it even more.

3.9 cups of coffee with a Debian swirl of half-half.