Quick Look: PureOS 3.0
Every once in a while I run into a distro that has me scratching my head and wondering what the developers were thinking. PureOS is just such a distribution. Version 3.0 was just released and announced on DistroWatch, so I thought I’d give it a download and see what it was like.
I had initially planned to do a full review of it on Desktop Linux Reviews, but I ran into a snag with the install (which I’ll talk more about in that section of this quick look) so I decided to do a quick look instead. This quick look is based on the live desktop environment.
PureOS is based on Debian’s testing branch and it includes software from it. There are two versions, PureOS and PureOS Slight. Pure OS Slight users Xfce instead of GNOME, and the download weighs in at 400 MB instead of 700 MB for Pure OS. The selection of software is slightly different for PureOS Slight (Abiword and Gnumeric instead of LibreOffice, etc.).
Desktop
What’s New
Here’s a sample of what’s new in this release:
Main features:
- Kernel 2.6.37 with Squashfs 4.0 + lzma
- Gnome 2.30 + Docky
Office:
- LibreOffice 3.3.0 : Base, Calc, Draw, Impress, Math and Writer (experimental repository)
Internet:
- Iceweasel 3.6.13 (experimental repository)
- Icedove 3.0.11 + Lightning
- Network-manager
- Transmission
- FileZilla
Multi-media:
- Songbird 1.8.0 (while waiting for Nightingale) thanks to GetDeb for the package
- VLC
- Brasero
Graphics:
- GIMP
- Evince
- Simple Scan
- Eye of Gnome
System:
- GParted
- smxi/sgfxi scripts
- scripts and Nautilus actions for modules management: activate, debs2lzm, debs2lzm-file, dir2lzm, lzm2dir et find2lzm (thanks to Nico from Linux-live-CD)
Control Center
System Requirements
I was not able to find a list of requirements for PureOS 3.0. I hope the developers will add such a list to the English version of their site. It’s possible that they might be listed in the French version of the site, but that doesn’t help folks whose native language is English.
Boot Menu
Install
One of the things that drives me crazy with certain distros is booting into a live desktop environment and not being able to find an installer anywhere on the desktop or on the menus. Such was the case with PureOS; I could not find an installer anywhere in the menus, desktop or in the control panel. This was what left me wondering what the developers were thinking.
So I was forced to write this quick look based solely on the live desktop environment. That’s a shame because PureOS seems to have some good things to offer as you’ll find out in the rest of this quick look. I would have preferred to install it and do a full review but perhaps in a future release that will be possible.
Read More...http://eyeonlinux.com/2011/02/14/quick-look-pureos-3-0/
Responses to “Quick Look: PureOS 3.0”
Looks interesting. I may have to try this one out soon...
Don
Installation is possible only from a ‘root’ session because the ‘guest’ account is customized during installation.
Proceed as follows:
- create the partitions with GParted: 1 (or 2) ext4 + 1 swap
- restart the liveCD
- login as root, run the installer from the menu and follow the messages on the screen.