10. PCLinuxOS
Could this be an Ubuntu-beater in 2008?
Desktop KDE
Architectures x86
URL
www.pclinuxos.com
PCLinuxOS is unusual among the distros here in that it did not start out as a distro. It evolved from a package repository for Mandrake to become a Live CD distro, and then gained an installer to become a fully fledged installable distro.
PCLinuxOS still boots as a Live disc with the installer being run from the desktop. This method has been adopted by more distros now, most notably Ubuntu.
We looked at PCLinuxOS 2007, which is the latest full release, but some of the packages are somewhat older than is some of the other distros with more recent release dates. PCLinuxOS 2008 is in development and may be available by the time you read this.
This isn't a problem with PCLinuxOS, because the repositories generally contain the latest versions of packages, you don't have to wait for a new distro release to update. So although the CD installs KDE 3.5.6, you can upgrade to 3.5.8 with a few mouse clicks.
As well as installing for the CD to your hard disk, PCLinuxOS has a tool to create a new Live CD from the contents of your hard disk, creating a custom CD is as easy as installing the software you need and running mklivecd.
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