There are distributions that would be better suited to a complete Linux newbie than Ubuntu. Arguably two of the best are PCLinuxOS and Mint.

I recently decided to give OpenSuse 11.0 a spin on some of the computer terminals at work, replacing PCLinuxOS.

A friend of mine asked me to give him a Linux distribution as soon as possible, so I decided to see if PCLinuxOS was fine for him right now. I also decided to test their early implementation of KDE 4.

The last time I looked at PCLinuxOS was version 0.92, which according to DistroWatch was about 3 years ago. I was asked to take a look at it again, so here I go.

After running into Problems with Mandriva 2009.1 with my sound cutting out and making static sounds and sometimes not working at all I decided to give PCLinuxOS a try.

Every so often I wander over to Distrowatch to see whose at the top of the leaderboard (calculated byPC Linux OS page views on Distrowatch ) for Linux desktop "popularity". I fully expected to see Ubuntu at the top and maybe Fedora Core in second place. I was surprised to see PCLinuxOS in the number one position.

I originally intended this post to be a review of 2007 Final for PCLinuxOS. However, after finishing it up, I realized that posting a review wouldn’t have the desired effect of truly showing off PCLinuxOS to everyone. It would just be a “business as usual” type of post. So, I decided to do a analysis on what I feel sets PCLinuxOS apart from many Linux distributions.

In my opinion, Linux Mint is one of the top 3 distributions out today for basic desktop usage. It features incredibly useful Mint-specific tools that make it the perfect distro for beginners. All flavors of Linux Mint usually come with a jaw dropping look and feel. I decided to look at both of these while using the recent release of Linux Mint 9 KDE

Device drivers have started making binaries specially for PCLinuxOS. This further indicates the level of popularity PCLinuxOS has gained.