So I downloaded the ISO for the 2007 Live CD.

That was simple enough, the website was pretty straight forward. I didn't see any options for a development version to try out, but I was distracted and in a hurry, so I might have missed it. I was hoping to get a newer version since the 2007 one is quite old. Keeping that in mind...

This evaluation was performed on my HP Pavillion dv9000t (custom), that I used for all the other previous evaluations in the past year (except Ubuntu 7.10 on my Dell laptop).

For the specs of this laptop, see the previous postings with all those details, I'm not going to repost that here again.

The install went easily, I booted in live cd mode, and it worked well. The wireless card was detected and I was able to configure it easily, though it kept giving an error back in the console of "WEP key too long", because their utility seemed to be prepending "open" in front of my WEP key (didn't test it on my WPA network (yet).

But basically it was very simple.

I am not going to list all the versions of the software here, you can easily view that on their website for the 2007 release if you want the exact versions it comes with. I will just give a general run down.

After testing it out in live mode, I figured I would try the actual install.

There is an icon the desktop that simply stated "Install PC Linux OS". Easy enough.

Followed the simple guidance on what to do with partitions. I did not try to resize any windows partitions (not sure if that was an option or not, I'll have to try that some other time. I just used existing partitions from the previous Suse 11 beta 1 install (blech). Installed very easily, minimal options, and intuitive interface.

Install was over very quickly (probably because it's just a CD not a DVD's worth of packages).

Then shutdown install and booted off the hard drive, and it was up with wifi and sound all working.

Very minimal default packages, but intelligent selection of the basics:

* web browser - firefox 2 - ok

* Email - Thunderbird - ok

* IRC - Xchat  - good

* Instant Messenger - Kopete for IM (don't like that one much personally)

* Image/photo editor - GIMP

Various media players.

I went to youtube and myspave to try out the video playing there (flash), and they both worked. This is without any updates.

So far, all the basics are simply just working. So I say Kudos to PC Linux OS for a simple, quick, effective setup. I have not tried to work with it long term. I might come back to it, but I'm planning to try out Debian 4.0 r3 next, and debian has FAR more packages available. However, if Debian is still the way it was years ago, most especially their communities snotty attitude to newbies, I won't support a community if it continues to behave that way. I was treated ok, but I watched them constantly bash new folks asking questions. The Debian folks were just brutal, especially the developers, more so than most other open source communities I've ever been part of.

Anyhow, it's been years since I evaluated debian because of that, so I thought I'd check it out and see if they have cleaned up their act or not.

So, for a beginner, interested in a basic, but quick setup of Linux, PC Linux OS might be a good try. I couldn't say one way or the other yet if it's any good for a power user or developer, I'd have to devote a whole month evaluation to it. Which I might consider at a later date.

I think I might hold off until their 2008 release comes out, and then give it a shot.

I hope this was a helpful brief overview for you.