Well, I went ahead and did it.  I installed Mandriva One Spring 2009 on my computer.  I have to say I am liking it quite a bit.  The only thing that wasn't in the repo was Flock so I just downloaded that and stuck it in my home folder and no problemo!  Of course, I had to copy that pesky flash file over but enough of that, I'll stick a 1-2-3 tutorial on the other site for that one (don't worry it's easy).  So, if I ever get the money (haha) to have wireless internet, that baby will be connected in no time!  Also, I can finally use the USB cable that I bought for my phone nearly 4 months ago.  For some reason Linux Mint would not under any circumstances, recognize that cable!  I had to remove my memory card, stick it in a reader and mount that..then unmount it, put it back in my phone and reset everything that was on it that I was using at the time (gawds, just typing that wore me out).  Now, on Mandriva, it's detected right off the bat and transferring items from my phone to Happy Fun Machine is once again a pleasure.  I'm pointedly ignoring any smirking going on in Scotland right about now. 

I just did an in-depth distro review for the first time in quite a while today.  Sorry I haven't had the time to devote to it but I promise I will from now on lol...Okay so let's get to it!!

Today I reviewed Mandriva One 2009, the Gnome Edition.  All I can say is Wow, wow, wow!  I absolutely loved it!!  *I'm pretty sure I can hear a certain friend of mine in Scotland just doing an I-told-you-so dance right now*  So what about it was so great?

First of all, I made a good old LiveCD, my favorite way of testing distros.  Then I booted it up.  I get a nice little splash screen right away and then I sit and wait for a minute.  It took a few but not as long as Fedora to load.  There was an option of hitting the ESC button to load verbose (it tells you what it's doing while it's doing it).  Then it showed me a remarkably Debian looking install type screen, where it asked the usual questions like keyboard, language and time zone before it went to the desktop.

As I said, I chose Gnome because I'm just not a fan of KDE and I personally find Gnome to be more stable (could just be me but I think so) and it loads right into a typical Gnome desktop.  The top and bottem panels are there, with the cute little Mandriva star and the 3 column menu.

Playing a bit in the menu reveals typical Firefox installation for internet.  Also included by default is Epiphany, the unofficial Gnome web browser.  If you've ever used Epiphany it is a fabulous, fast little browser with optional extensions (not many but they are useful). 

Also included standard is the entire OpenOffice Suite.  In other distros, usually only Wordprocessor, spreadsheet and database are included.  I was surprised by a TV application but also surprised only Totem, the Gnome media player was included.  I would recommend getting Mplayer or VLC to compliment this. 

So then I mosey down to the Software Manager and I really liked it.  It was arranged for example, with a category of packages with GUI..how much more newbie friendly is that??  The software manager is in the menu as its own entry but it also lives in the Control Center.

The control center is the infamous center of user operations that is duplicated in the distros of PCLinuxOS and TinyMe Linux and the idea is used in other distros as well.  This is where the user can configure most everything right from a GUI.  This is particularly helpful for a new Linux user.

Some fun little things I encountered were the gnome-panel-manager, which not only told me the battery life available on my laptop but also the current battery life of my wireless mouse too!  The latest Flash player is included and there are other desktop environments available, the default KDE as well as FVWM and IceWM lite.  Evolution (the Gnome standard mail client) is there along with Spam Assassin and parental controls.

I haven't said much about the appearance of Mandriva.  Not to say it's ugly, because it's not.  It just gets completely overshadowed by its awesomeness.  Which is a very good thing!  It is a very nice looking distro, a deep, rich blue and a very polished, classy Gnome look..I'm sure KDE has the more eye-candy looks to it but I prefer the professional look of Gnome.  Compiz-Fusion is ready to go by default and my windows wobbled right off the bat and the desktop is set up to cube away.

I am seriously considering installing this distro..very seriously!!  Especially since my wireless networks were detected right off the bat, a problem ongoing with Linux Mint.  I am also usually a Debian fanatic, since I like the ease of use in installing deb files but I could seriously get to like this...I swear I can feel a Scottish smirk being directed my way.

Well I suppose it's fairly obvious if you've gotten to this point that the look of The New Linux User Companion has changed a little.  I was playing around with the feature of my web host that allows modification of the html and css.  So I felt a little mini makeover was in order.  Enjoy!

Here is my first new distro review in a while and since it was odd of me to do one right now, I decided to do an odd choice of distro to review!  This time, it was a NetBSD derivative that I decided to take a crack at.  I have been reading up on BSD and decided that it would be fun to try it out but I hadn't made the leap yet, since I love my Linux Mint so much....
First of all, Jibbed is NetBSD based, not Linux based (like my usual offerings).
So what were my impressions of my very first foray into BSD?  Well...not bad!  To me, Jibbed felt very much like Xubuntu, the Ubuntu with Xfce desktop.  Of course, as you dig into the File Manager (Thunar) you will find certain differences in file folders.  Initially, I couldn't figure out how to run the darn thing (type startx in the terminal line).  I wasn't sure how to add applications (are they called apps on BSD?) but the ones that were there were quite familiar: Firefox, Abiword, Pidgin, Xfmedia and Thunar file manager (which I really love, it's so small and fast). 
The look was the typical Xfce desktop (I believe version 4?) very cute with the mouse and all and the typical offerings of ways to tweak the Xfce.  I hadn't messed with Vim before and that was a very interesting application, not of much use to me at the present but has a lot of potential. 
Aside from the inability to figure out how to find a repository, I felt pretty comfortable in Jibbed.  It's not all that newbie friendly but a good choice for a first delve into BSD. 

Okay I have a few items of interest to report.
1.  NewLinuxUser.net is BACK UP!!!!  Finally!!! and by using different nameservers, I should hopefully be able to avoid this problem from now on.  Yay!!  (fingers crossed...maybe I shouldn't have written that yet lol)
2.  Next is that I am working on a new website for my band.  It will be out, about, up and running sometime this week as long as I have time to work on it.  More on that to follow.
3.  My band and I had our second show at the Uptown Tap and the self reviews are mixed.  I didn't feel like we did all that well but our audience liked it so that is what matters the most, thanks to everyone who came out to support us and our good friends, Tongue-N-Gruve have our gratitude for letting us open for them.
4.  Back to Linux News, I have two distros that I will be reviewing here pretty soon.  I can't say when exactly I will get to them because I have to get our band site up but it won't be too long before I get at least one of them done.  Stay tuned!

Okay, sorry about that.  My main website at www.newlinuxuser.net has been down for a while.  Supposedly, it was an issue that was supposed to be fixed on the server right away and they had before so I didn't think much of it.  Then a friend told me it was still down, so likely it's been down nearly 2 weeks!! GRRRR!  So, I decided I had had enough and I switched servers..again...for the third time.  I have noticed that this site hasn't been down once, so now the other site is on this server too!  So hopefully, no more issues with the website after tomorrow!!  Check back then, sorry!!

Sorry for the inconvenience but currently my main website, The New Linux User (www.newlinuxuser.net) is down.  I am having some kind of issue with the server to where I can't even log in.  I have a support ticket going so who knows how long it will take.  If it goes on too long, I might just switch everything over to Weebly.  So far they have been great, really reliable and easy to use...although my main problem then would be that I have all these html files and Weebly works on Flash.  So right now, I am trying to be patient and see if the server issues get fixed before I take drastic measures.

Sorry if this causes any inconveniences to anyone (besides me lol) and hopefully everything will be fixed (very) soon.

Okay, turns out one of my web pages was missing in action.  Apparently, after I wrote the review on Sabayon Linux, I forgot to upload the file (dee de dee) so my second page of distro reviews was gone.  Sorry for any inconvenience that may have caused (by that, I mean irritation) and it is now up, with both reviews of Sabayon and Dreamlinux now present and accounted for.  Any future craziness on that site can be reported to me at :  pariah@newlinuxuser.net

Okay here is another review, right on the heels of the last one, it seems but I was trying to find a good distro for a friend that wouldn't require much in the way of wi-fi knowledge (I have none) and I downloaded Dreamlinux 3.5 brc to give a whirl as I have heard it mentioned many times in distro-discussions.

As usual, I made the boot disk (instead of once upon a time, it's going to be "after I made the boot disc") I popped it in and loaded it up.  It started right up and began booting.  It does a verbose boot so you can see what it's doing the whole time, while accompanied by a little Tux at the top..nice touch.  By the way, as a side note, this is a Brazilian distro although everything was in English, there are other language offerings. 

Once it started up, I noticed that the desktop environment is Xfce, so it would require fewer resources to run than a full Gnome desktop.  The theme was a nice sky blue with a polished, glassy look to the theme and icons.  The AWN (Avant Window Navigator) dock starts up right away at the bottom, with a regular panel at the top.  The icon set for the dock is nice and polished and there are 3 theme choices right off the bat. 

Going into the menu, I was surprised by the interesting choices included in this distro.  Brasero is there as well as Sound Juicer and Sound Converter, Rhythmbox and Totem.  EasyTag was also present for easy tag editing on your music files.  Nice touch, I thought. 

Then it got a bit interesting.  Not only is GIMP present, but also InkScape, which I had never messed with before.  I am downloading it as soon as I am done here.  It was fun and easy to understand unlike Wilbur I'm afraid haha.  Also there was an offering by Avidemux, a video editor.  This distro is trying to appeal to a wide base of media users.  It's working.  Compiz Fusion is present right off as well as Emerald Themes and a theme switcher for eye-candy goodness.  In the control panel, wireless drivers are an option, as well as Hard Info, which is what it says, info about your hardware.  It correctly told me I have an Athlon processor.  However, Bluefish told me I have a Celeron processor..hmm...anyhoooo, another application, PowerNow, gave the option for AMD processor possessors to use less power with the click of a button.

As for the internet, the offering is IceWeasel.  As you now can see, this is a Debian based distro.  IceWeasel is the debranded version of Firefox (it's the same with a different name).  One of the favorites in the toolbar is a tab called TuxSoftware.org where Debian users (Ubuntu, Mint, Dreamlinux, Mepis etc) can download applications using an application installer.  There was a couple of applications that I had not heard of that I wanted so to have been informed of this website was a positive bonus for me, thank you Dreamlinux!

Overall, I liked the looks and the performance of everything i tried out on Dreamlinux.  The speed was good, nothing crashed, everything looked great.  The only thing I didn't see was how to get the wireless drivers but I don't need them at the moment anyway....I give Dreamlinux a healthy A.  Enjoy!

This is the very first Linux distro review on this new website!  The honor goes to Sabayon Linux, a distro I had been aware of for quite some time.  Getting this laptop was just the excuse I needed to try it out.

So I downloaded the .iso and made my boot disc and popped it in.
The "catchphrase" of Sabayon is "where art meets inspiration" and this is certainly true.  Combining Sabayon's red and black theme with KDE's eye-catching desktop made for an amazing visual experience.  Simply put, Sabayon is beautiful.  Like, wow, beautiful.

Since KDE is the desktop of choice for Sabayon, all the "K" essentials are there, like Kate, Kwrite, Konqueror, K3bSetup (which cautions that it may screw up your system).  As this was the 'Mini' version, some things were understandably left out, such as Firefox.  I kind of thought this an odd choice as Amarok and Mplayer were present, but they know their business far better than I.  KDE brings its usual Windows-y feel to the desktop with its panels, control settings and excessive warnings concerning confirmations.  All in all, a very pleasant Linux experience.  While nothing stood out for me as far as userability, the looks of Sabayon will undoubtedly draw its fair share of new users.  Definitely a good newbie friendly distro.