PCe17OS, The Second (English)

I've always like the first release of PCe17OS although at first, I had a slight problem with changing to my user login. It was beautiful and it was beautiful. However, I can't truly say the same for the second even though much of the bells and whistles were still intact. I am not saying it is PCe17OS rather the Enlightenment 17 project seemed to be going nowhere, and I really like that DE along with the PCLinuxOS-based E17 project.



Sandor Lisovszki of PCLinuxOS Hungary recently announced the second offering of the second PCe17OS in English so I went and downloaded the 1.3Gb ISO. The announcement can be viewed at the PCe17OS International Support Forum.There were posts on the forum regarding issues with Entrance so that's noted. I tested this flavor of PCLinuxOS with VirtualBox 2.1.4 so basically it should work on an average machine.

First off was setting PCe17OS up on VirtualBox, which was easy enough even for a novice like myself. I allotted it 512Mb RAM and a full 128 Video Memory. I designated 5Gb as its Virtual Hard Disk with the intent of installing it, enabled the sound and USB. I should also note that I changed the Network Adapter to Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (8254OEM). On starting the Virtual Machine with the LiveISO,, the familiar GRUB offered a selection of boots and diagnostics. Putting myself in the shoes of a new user, I let it go with it's default selection - the LiveCD.



Unlike its KDE and GNOME sisters, PCe17OS didn't have a bootsplash. But that's not a bad thing. The user would be able to view the boot up progress and mentally note much of the OKs and Failed. In this case, There weren't any of the latter.



Once again as Lisovszki had mentioned, this particular release didn't have entrance so one had to login via tty (root/root for username/password) and start the session by typing startx.



Once done, an e17 splash screen was briefly displayed.



And the gorgeous PCe17OS desktop complete with useful weather, time and network traffic modules. I am a user who likes dark colors so its appeal to me was instantaneous. I would also like to mention the desktop wallpaper which was indeed PCe17OS specific, and I'd like to give a thumbs up to its designer.



Clicking anywhere on the desktop pops up the menu for e17 and there were quite enough applications bundled on the release to make it useful to any average user on a daily basis.



As this test was on VirtualBox and the host machine was already connected to the Internet, Firefox was ready to use. Otherwise, setting up a network connection should be child's play with PCC.



The heavy-duty GIMP was also installed, and should make wallpaper hobbyist like myself happy and content.



One thing though, As a long-time KDE user, it is the first time I've heard of Exaile, a music manager and player for GTK+ written in Python, and it looked promising. Note: Exaile is available as a package from Synaptic, and perhaps I'll install and try it later.



And as with every PCLinuxOS-based release, the ever-present Draklive-Install Enhanced is easily found on the top group of icons.



I did notice that when I typed in an address in Firefox, the "y" becomes a "z" so it'd be advisable to change the keyboard layout to a US keyboard and 104-key PC unless the user has other preferences.



Another visible feature is the quick access of System Profiler and Benchmark (System Information).



I thought I'd install PCe17OS later so I clicked on the desktop and System > Shutdown.



However, on the shutdown process, I noticed a couple of errors that would prompt me to go to the forum and post these findings, if they were not already reported. The last thing was when prompted to press Enter upon removing the LiveISO, the virtual machine wouldn't fully shutdown therefore I have to manually close it from the VirtualBox menu.

In conclusion, this project is worthwhile pursuing and any help extended to Lisovszki is truly appreciated. He is asking for help in packaging RPMs and artwork so if you are a PCLinuxOS user and have the skills and can help out in the project, you are most welcome by sending Sandor Lisovszki and email or joining the forum.