Conclusions should end an article, not begin one, but I have to say this from the start: Pardus 2009 is one of the most impressively well-done Linux distributions that I've put my hands on for a loooong time. Coming from Turkey, Pardus Linux 2009 was released on the 18th of July and to be honest, my knowledge about this particular operating system was limited to recognizing its logo and knowing the fact that it has Turkish origins. That's pretty much it.
I absolutely love loading unexplored, lesser-known distros, but, most of the times I am quite disappointed and return to the big names, mostly because they come with all the features and functionality I need straight out of the box (or just very easy to add). Needless to say, I wasn't quite so optimistic about Pardus, especially given the fact that it came with the K desktop environment (KDE). Certainly, it is at its latest 4.2.4 version but my previous experiences left a bitter taste.
Obviously, I can't ditch an operating system without first trying it. Reboot time! Pardus doesn't benefit from a Live environment, so be prepared to modify your partitions before getting a glimpse of it. The main color that will accompany you during the installation process and many parts of the OS is a beautiful, smooth dark red, surely inspired from Turkey's flag.
The first thing you will want to do is change the language to English when the CD bootloader appears, as the default Turkish one will automatically be activated in 10 seconds. (I've just been informed by a reader that there is also an international ISO available which defaults to the English language) If you're from Turkey, disregard that. :) The next steps are super easy to go through: keyboard layout, timezone selection, user creation and administrator password input. Partitioning can be done either manually or you can let Pardus handle all the work, either by using the whole HDD or resizing existing partitions to make some room. Ext4 is used as the default filesystem and Ext3, Reiserfs and Xfs are also available. The last step is a quick overview of all your preferences, and, if everything looks OK, click Begin Install and make yourself a quick espresso while Pardus does its job.
I absolutely love loading unexplored, lesser-known distros, but, most of the times I am quite disappointed and return to the big names, mostly because they come with all the features and functionality I need straight out of the box (or just very easy to add). Needless to say, I wasn't quite so optimistic about Pardus, especially given the fact that it came with the K desktop environment (KDE). Certainly, it is at its latest 4.2.4 version but my previous experiences left a bitter taste.
Obviously, I can't ditch an operating system without first trying it. Reboot time! Pardus doesn't benefit from a Live environment, so be prepared to modify your partitions before getting a glimpse of it. The main color that will accompany you during the installation process and many parts of the OS is a beautiful, smooth dark red, surely inspired from Turkey's flag.
The first thing you will want to do is change the language to English when the CD bootloader appears, as the default Turkish one will automatically be activated in 10 seconds. (I've just been informed by a reader that there is also an international ISO available which defaults to the English language) If you're from Turkey, disregard that. :) The next steps are super easy to go through: keyboard layout, timezone selection, user creation and administrator password input. Partitioning can be done either manually or you can let Pardus handle all the work, either by using the whole HDD or resizing existing partitions to make some room. Ext4 is used as the default filesystem and Ext3, Reiserfs and Xfs are also available. The last step is a quick overview of all your preferences, and, if everything looks OK, click Begin Install and make yourself a quick espresso while Pardus does its job.
With the system installed permanently on the HDD, I was congratulated for a process that a six-year old could easily do. :) Anyway, I thanked the developers for their kind words and procedeed to the mandatory reboot.
KDE is a bit slow to load the first time, but it's not that bad. Even before I could start snooping around, Kaptan Desktop popped up. What's that, you ask? It's a really awesome tool that allows you to configure a lot of aspects of the system in a single run: themes, menu style, wallpaper, desktop search and more.
No matter where you are in the system, you will know that you run Pardus and not some generic distro. The folder and file icons are customized, the menu button is customized, even the ethernet connection icon is different, displaying two blinking lights, green and red, whenever there's network activity.
Let's move on and check out Pardus' software selection. I was delighted by the fact that the default web browser is Mozilla Firefox... 3.5.1!! YAY! Up to date software for the win! And not only that, but it also comes with the latest Flash plugin from Adobe and a really nice, minimalistic theme.
OpenOffice 3.1.0.6 and GIMP 2.6.6 have personalized splash screens that add to the consistent feel of Pardus. Google Gadgets, though already present in the Internet category, couldn't start because of the js-script-runtime module that failed to load. As Pidgin is the only IM client that I can live with in the Linux world, I was pretty disappointed to see only Kopete present. But it was a great time to see how I can install extra programs from the repositories. Pardus handles PiSi (meow!) packages which can be found through the "Package Manager" graphical frontend. There aren't a truckload of programs, quite a small number actually, but, for 99% of the tasks you will need to do, they are more than enough.
By now, I was able to assess the performance of my machine, and honestly, Pardus has to be the fastest KDE 4 distro. Granted, it's still kind of slow with a lot of applications active (I have a pretty old computer...) but I can wholeheartedly say that I'm actually enjoying KDE.
Upon entering the Display control panel, I was recommended to install the 173 series Nvidia drivers for my GeForce FX5500. A trip to the package manager and a logout later and I was ready for some eye-candy. Yep, the desktop effects were automatically enabled; I especially like the beautiful transparency applied to the bottom panel and the blueish drop-shadow of windows. And happily, it desn't even grind my computer to a halt, as it performs reasonably well.
Pardus picked up my USB-connected digital camera immediately after plugging it in and the HP printer was automatically configured so I was ready to view and print my images in no time. Another big plus for Pardus.
Multimedia files, including MP3s, WMVs or MOVs can be accessed from the moment you install the OS, so you won't have to worry about searching and installing suitable codecs. You also have many players to choose from, such as: SMPlayer, GNOME MPlayer, Dragon Player, Amarok or JuK.
Final thoughts
The fact that Pardus made me actually enjoy using KDE 4 is by itself an indication of the overall quality of this operating system. It's easy to install, easy to configure, 100% up-to-date and more importantly, very stable. I've used many distributions that shipped with ages-old software "for improved stability" that performed much worse than Pardus. Hopefully, the future will bring a bigger software repository and maybe support for other desktop environments.
Turkey, you've got yourself one of the finest OSes out there!
Oh, for more information and downloads, visit the Pardus Linux official website.
38 comments: