I have been testing out OS4 for quite sometime, primarily their XFCE spins with BeeOS theme (in 13.6 release, of course, they changed it for better!). Mostly, they bring out user-friendly spins with all available multimedia codecs and plugins to make OS4 a good option for Linux novices as well as experienced users. For this review, I take up the latest update of OS4 KDE spin. OS4 OpenLinux 13 series is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and is supported till April 2017. The OS4 developers are moving towards KDE in their Enterprise Edition and possibly, KDE is right now in their center of things rather than XFCE.
The OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 release note states of the "fastest KDE live image" showcasing the best of KDE, namely:
Naturally I was intrigued to test it out. I have used KDE 4.11 in Kubuntu 12.04 LTS earlier. I wanted to check what incremental benefits OS4 offers over Kubuntu.
The 32-bit ISO with pae kernel is about 1.6 GB in size. Even for 64 bit machines I prefer 32-bit ISOs with pae kernel as they are faster than the 64-bit ones and certain apps work better on 32-bit structure (like Skype). Anyway, the heavy ISO indicated that OS4 would be loaded with applications, and it didn't disappoint.
I created a live USB with unetbootin in a 4 GB pendrive. A live boot was followed by installation on Asus K54C with 2.2 Core i3 processor and 2 GB RAM. I removed all previous Linux installations from the laptop by using gparted live USB before the installation.
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| From OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in |
The OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 release note states of the "fastest KDE live image" showcasing the best of KDE, namely:
Today we are pleased to announce the release of OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 and OS4 Enterprise Linux 4.1.4. OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 is our updated KDE release that we provide for users. With OS4 OpenLinux 13.7 we have created a best of breed KDE desktop based system and the fastest KDE live image available. With that we also updated the OS4 OpenLinux core system with all applicable kernel bug fixes and updated kernel with new drivers and speed improvements. OS4 Enterprise Linux has undergone some major changes here. OS4 Enterprise Linux will be KDE-based for the rest of its life cycle. Xfce is still available via the custom image service. The DWM tiling window manager is still installed via default.
Naturally I was intrigued to test it out. I have used KDE 4.11 in Kubuntu 12.04 LTS earlier. I wanted to check what incremental benefits OS4 offers over Kubuntu.
The 32-bit ISO with pae kernel is about 1.6 GB in size. Even for 64 bit machines I prefer 32-bit ISOs with pae kernel as they are faster than the 64-bit ones and certain apps work better on 32-bit structure (like Skype). Anyway, the heavy ISO indicated that OS4 would be loaded with applications, and it didn't disappoint.
I created a live USB with unetbootin in a 4 GB pendrive. A live boot was followed by installation on Asus K54C with 2.2 Core i3 processor and 2 GB RAM. I removed all previous Linux installations from the laptop by using gparted live USB before the installation.
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