Pardus is an interesting OS

[ThinkBuntu]

I'm writing this from Pardus Linux, and I must say that it's an interesting distro. Speed at first was average at best, but now is about average. Fonts are dead-on and the theme is very attractive, giving the whole distro a very professional feel. Configuring fonts is another story. The settings I select appear to reflect relatively, but the font sizes aren't consistently interpreted by the system. Yesterday I installed the 2007.2 beta and I have yet to run into any bugs (cross my fingers), unless you count the odd English word misspelled. I don't think that any English spellchecker came installed, and I can't find one through Pisi, the package manager.

The package manager is decently responsive, its searches go at an average speed, and it's adequate as a whole, but once you select to install or upgrade packages, the service is painfully slow. I imagine that this may be because the packages are likely hosted in Turkey...Package selection is very limited, and I'm very disappointed that they didn't have Bluefish, which I suppose I'll have to install manually.

It includes a program called KNazar: A Nazar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazar_(amulet)) is one of those blue, white, yellow, and black circular glass pieces called an evil eye, I believe. All I know is that when I launch it, it goes into the system tray and says "No harmful looks aloud!" and if I right-click and select "Release" a dialog tells me that "KNazar is stoping [sic] to protect your Pardus Linux from harmfull [sic] looks..." If I choose its About menu item, it simply says that "KNazar is a usefull [sic] part of Pardus Linux"

Hardware support is good as always, but I'm probably the least demanding user hardware-wise: My wifi card is supported by the open source Madwifi driver, optimal resolution is 1024x768, and my graphics card is an ATI Radeon Mobility, which no distro has ever given me problems. But I was impressed to find that when I dropped in my office computer yesterday for the hell of it, it automatically detected the 1280x1024 (or whatever that typical size is) resolution. By contrast, the 2007.1 install didn't do this, which is what swayed me to install the new beta.

In any case, I'd say that the single major con is package selection, but I have virtually everything I need already installed, including codecs. All that I added was VLC, Thunderbird (just because all my email is in Thunderbird settings), Quanta as a stopgap for Bluefish, and Krita to see what the hype's all about. Another thing to note is that packages are nice and up-to-date. Thunderbird 2, Pidgin, and all the others you'd expect are there.

It'll be hard to leave this very professional and spiffy distro, but I may have to if package selection is too much of an obstacle. I understand that there's a community repository that would offer greater selection, but I have yet to enable it.

[Majorix]

I am Turkish like this distro is, and I hate how they try to announce it as the "national distro". Well all I can say is, don't talk for the nation, I don't like your distro and I don't like it being called the way you want it to be (I mean it can't represent anybody or any nation because it is not good enough).

The reasons I don't like this distro are:
- Too small of a repo.
- .pisi packages aren't commonly found, you have to search for them a lot and request for them.
- The support is weak, they usually don't reply or send annoying automated messages.
- I once signed up for their summer camp for programmers, and didn't get accepted even though I had a fairly good background and knowledge of programming. Something is fishy.
- It is made by the govt and whatever you might think, I don't feel at home under that pressure (Yes it makes me feel under pressure).
- Its default desktop envt is KDE, which is not very good of an envt, and it is not like in Ubuntu where you can type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" switching to GNOME.
- It has problems with the drivers for some hardware and usually boots to like 800*600 desktop or stuff (heck it once booted me into 640*480 and took me like an hour to find a way to get to the casual res).

[ThinkBuntu]

I am Turkish like this distro is, and I hate how they try to announce it as the "national distro". Well all I can say is, don't talk for the nation, I don't like your distro and I don't like it being called the way you want it to be (I mean it can't represent anybody or any nation because it is not good enough).

The reasons I don't like this distro are:
- Too small of a repo.
- .pisi packages aren't commonly found, you have to search for them a lot and request for them.
- The support is weak, they usually don't reply or send annoying automated messages.
- I once signed up for their summer camp for programmers, and didn't get accepted even though I had a fairly good background and knowledge of programming. Something is fishy.
- It is made by the govt and whatever you might think, I don't feel at home under that pressure (Yes it makes me feel under pressure).
- Its default desktop envt is KDE, which is not very good of an envt, and it is not like in Ubuntu where you can type "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop" switching to GNOME.
- It has problems with the drivers for some hardware and usually boots to like 800*600 desktop or stuff (heck it once booted me into 640*480 and took me like an hour to find a way to get to the casual res).

Hardware detection was as good as any distro I've ever used. GNOME vs. KDE is a preference, and if you prefer GNOME there are many distros that cater to your tastes. I personally can live with either. It's still a small distro, which is why there's a small repository and not-so-good support, but I was actually able to get my questions answered, in a tiny English forum nevertheless. I know that PiSi can be run from the Terminal as well. I think you're being a little hard on Pardus.

Granted, I'm running Ubuntu because I need a slightly larger repository (or one with just what I need, a la Zenwalk) and I wasn't noticing a speed increase or anything else that would make using Pardus worthwhile. Even so, I'll be keeping an eye on this young OS. I think it has a ton of potential down the road.

[powerpc64]

Yes interesting, very. Their white papers discuss the brokenness of Linux packaging and to me, the proof will be in the pudding. One their Python package system is better polished it should be easy for them to explode the size of their repos (because it is easy to make Pardus packages). That will be the tipping point for Pardus.

[Ultra Magnus]

"I am Turkish like this distro is, and I hate how they try to announce it as the "national distro". Well all I can say is, don't talk for the nation, I don't like your distro and I don't like it being called the way you want it to be (I mean it can't represent anybody or any nation because it is not good enough)."

In my opinion, one of the best things about open source is that it allows other countries to have their own software industry - From everything i've heard Pardus looks pretty promising, and it will be native to you!

Part of the reason I use Ubuntu is because I see it as a British distro (I know shuttleworth is from SA - but cannonical is based in isle of man), and our government is known for its lack of support of science and technology.

I read a charming story about the people of Bhutan making their own debian-based distro and I think its great that the money doesn't just all flow to redmond. Having a well funded, distro of your own means that all that money can comes back to fund other things and that can only be a good thing. (Note - I'm not anti-globalisation, but I'm sure their aren't allot of people here who'd argue that all the money for software should go to one US company!)

[ThinkBuntu]

I was browsing a Linux mag today, and the last page was about a head Pardus developer. My keen eyes revealed to me that both his widescreen laptop and desktop workstation were running Pardus. Either he's fooling us with two live CDs, or he's actually able to work well with Pardus. I'm sure that's required plenty of building from source, though. Once they expand their repositories and speed up the system, I'll be next in line to use Pardus. I noticed that it did a better job of holding my wireless signal than does Ubuntu, just by a thread.

[kazuya]

To each their own. The distros are all good. I use a distro because it serves my purpose best. I could care less about the origin or nationality. The product and joint efforts of the users and developers is what pulls me to Ubuntu for example.

[cunawarit]

The distros are all good. I use a distro because it serves my purpose best. I could care less about the origin or nationality.

Agreed.

As far as Ubuntu being British, Canonical is registered in the Isle of Man, but it being a tax heaven and Mark Shuttleworth being located right next door in Britain, has most probably got more to do with the decision to base it there than any patriotic reason that should sway British users toward Ubuntu... As far as I understand Canonical has people working all over the world, and like many other Open Source it is more of an international effort.

[ThinkBuntu]

Agreed.

As far as Ubuntu being British, Canonical is registered in the Isle of Man, but it being a tax heaven and Mark Shuttleworth being located right next door in Britain, has most probably got more to do with the decision to base it there than any patriotic reason that should sway British users toward Ubuntu... As far as I understand Canonical has people working all over the world, and like many other Open Source it is more of an international effort.

I think you mean "haven" although to businessmen, I suppose it could be a tax heaven.

[floke]

Pardus is a cracking little distro. Of all the distros I have tried, this one came closest to breaking me away from ubuntu - I lasted a week on Pardus alone, and never once booted ubuntu, which for me is a record. I made a thread about it here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=428858) (- don't post in it though, its dead and I don't want to hijack this thread).

It had the fastest boot time I have ever seen, looks great, and is the easiest install I have ever done. The only reason it's not on my PC now (although I still boot it at work alongside ubuntu) is because I've been experimenting with other distros and am waiting for 2007.2. The repos are small as well - you can add extra PiSi stuff, but I always found the packages to be a bit limited; and the vast majority of support is in Turkish, which became a bit off-putting when I wanted to learn more about its unique features (such as Comar, on which there's practically nothing written). Oh, and it also has a new security model in which you only enter passwords in the terminal, not the gui. I made a thread about that too (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=433064) (but, again don't post in it, lets keep the discussion here).

I all, I liked it a lot. Room for improvement, but I reckon it will do very well.

[ThinkBuntu]

Pardus is a cracking little distro. Of all the distros I have tried, this one came closest to breaking me away from ubuntu - I lasted a week on Pardus alone, and never once booted ubuntu, which for me is a record. I made a thread about it here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=428858) (- don't post in it though, its dead and I don't want to hijack this thread).

It had the fastest boot time I have ever seen, looks great, and is the easiest install I have ever done. The only reason it's not on my PC now (although I still boot it at work alongside ubuntu) is because I've been experimenting with other distros and am waiting for 2007.2. The repos are small as well - you can add extra PiSi stuff, but I always found the packages to be a bit limited; and the vast majority of support is in Turkish, which became a bit off-putting when I wanted to learn more about its unique features (such as Comar, on which there's practically nothing written). Oh, and it also has a new security model in which you only enter passwords in the terminal, not the gui. I made a thread about that too (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=433064) (but, again don't post in it, lets keep the discussion here).

I all, I liked it a lot. Room for improvement, but I reckon it will do very well.
My favorite aspect of Pardus was the design. It had the quality of Mandriva with the crispness of Mint, which needless to say made for a great look.

I didn't stick with it simply because it ran slowly. If it had PCLinuxOS speed, including PCLOS' mediocre package management speed, I'd probably still be using it, but in general I found it to have below-average speed, including during the boot. And my hardware's pretty decent so this usually doesn't happen. The Pardus World Forums are actually quite good for support. Answers come back faster than you'd expect and are dead-on.

Also, the community repository actually has everything I'd want for the most part. Bluefish, Agave, and a bunch of other common apps. Anyway, I'm using Debian and am happy with it.

[floke]

I agree, the download speeds from the repositories were very slow - a bit like SuSe. Which reminds me? How come you're on Debian now? ;)

[ThinkBuntu]

I agree, the download speeds from the repositories were very slow - a bit like SuSe. Which reminds me? How come you're on Debian now? ;)
Zenwalk 4.6 had networking bugs, and they still pay no attention to wireless users, including just the incompetent Wifi Radar app. Laptop settings are a major hassle as well, and they still don't have a solution for Suspending to RAM on lid close.

Arch was great for me, except certain things were just big hassles. GNOME panels would crash sometimes, speed was no better than Debian, and certain things like Suspend to RAM required using an alternate kernel that I wasn't prepared to trust.

openSuSE was neat for a while, and worked great, but in the end was too slow for me. The same goes for Ubuntu, and because I know enough now to make Debian work just like Ubuntu, I'm using that. Blazing fast!

So my faves have been, for a while, Ubuntu, openSuSE, Zenwalk, Debian, and Arch (and now Pardus once they turn that corner). I've found Debian to be my favorite of these.

[floke]

Sorry to drag the thread OT: If you have wireless issues (and how is wifi radar rubbish? Its the first thing I ever load on a vanilla ubuntu install in case network craplet dies) then how did you get Debian running? I tried Etch a few weeks back and the 3945 chipset seemed like a nightmare to get up-and-running.

Back OT: Pardus for me was fantastic with wirelss - even ran my old man's Broadcom OOTB (the only others to do that were Elive and Sabayon - though this then failed to detect the keyboard, which is a bit of a show stopper :o!).

There seemes to be loads of stuff going on with Pardus, but beyond the small English section on the forum, its all Turkish.

[ThinkBuntu]

Sorry to drag the thread OT: If you have wireless issues (and how is wifi radar rubbish? Its the first thing I ever load on a vanilla ubuntu install in case network craplet dies) then how did you get Debian running? I tried Etch a few weeks back and the 3945 chipset seemed like a nightmare to get up-and-running.

Back OT: Pardus for me was fantastic with wirelss - even ran my old man's Broadcom OOTB (the only others to do that were Elive and Sabayon - though this then failed to detect the keyboard, which is a bit of a show stopper :o!).

There seemes to be loads of stuff going on with Pardus, but beyond the small English section on the forum, its all Turkish.
Wireless drivers are fine in any distro for me, because I know how to build them if they're not installed (and Module Assistant is absolutely superb in Debian for this sort of thing). Wifi Radar has a huge bug with Madwifi modules that brings your system to its knees speed-wise as soon as you start to run it over your wireless interface. It will detect networks slowly, but never can connect at all.

[Raffo]

I used pardus as my default OS for a month, because i screwed up my debian install. After that I installed ubuntu, but I still have pardus installed...

[ThinkBuntu]

I'm having a great time with Pardus. Very bleeding-edge, but the system is rock solid in terms of stability. Example: Amarok 1.4.6 released on the 21st, and on my first upgrade (on the 24th) my Amarok was upgraded to this version. By comparison, as of today, "up-to-date" Arch and Debian Sid still aren't on 1.4.6, and are both still on 1.4.5-5.