Author: Gayan

VirtualBox is a good operating system-level virtualization platform alternative when compared to other more popular utilities such as VMware, because it is free & open-source. However, the by-default hardware integration between the host & the guest operating system, is not as tight as it is under VMware, at least in my experience. For instance, if you were to run a GNU/Linux distribution such as CentOS, under Windows 8.1 (the host), then you might immediately notice that the mouse pointer movements are not quite responsive or sensitive, or that the screen resolution cannot be set to its maximum etc, compared to the host operating system. But all…

My previous encounter with ‘OpenMandriva Lx’ consisted of mixed feelings. It was not the fastest to boot, sometimes the system got stuck while booting & shutting-down, memory usage was also a bit high… but its KDE desktop responded really well when put under disk I/O stress. To put it into a simple context, there was definitely some room for improvements. The latest version, ‘OpenMandriva Lx 2014.1’ which got released recently, is basically a bug fixed update for the previous ‘2014.0’ and thus there are no major new features. And as a result, I decided to test it from a performance based perspective only. However, major…

The past month or two have not gone in favor for a couple of major GNU/Linux distributions. Few are well delayed from their original release schedules, which is also why I have not written reviews as much as I used to in the recent past. However, there were a few that got released and one such distro that caught my eyes was ‘SparkyLinux’ because I never had used it before. This according to its developers, is a fast & lightweight OS, aimed at both old and new computers. The core however, is based on Debian’s ‘testing’ branch, and to tell you the truth, after seeing it, I did…

Netrunner is a GNU/Linux distribution that revolves around the KDE desktop. It is released in two different versions. One is called the ‘Standard release’ which is based on Kubuntu’s core, and the other is called the ‘Rolling release’, and it is based on Manjaro’s core (which is basically ‘Arch Linux’ core). Both versions include proprietary multimedia codecs (Adobe flash included) & proprietary applications such as Skype by default, something that most users will appreciate. Since I have never used this distribution, I decided to download the Kubuntu 14.04 LTS based release that got released a few days ago. Unlike the ‘Rolling…

Linux Mint 17 (code named ‘Qiana’) Cinnamon which was released a couple of days ago is based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS core, and being as such, it will be supported until 2019. Linux Mint comes with four desktop editions: ‘Cinnamon’, ‘MATE’, ‘XFce’ & ‘KDE’, although currently, only ‘Cinnamon’ and ‘MATE’ editions are available, ‘XFce’ and ‘KDE’ should arrive shortly. I was always more interested in ‘Cinnamon’ desktop as it is their primary desktop, so as usual, for this review I downloaded the 64-bit version of the ‘Cinnamon edition’ which includes the latest stable version of ‘Cinnamon’ (2.2), Kernel 3.13, X.Org 7.7 & MDM 1.6, mainly. ‘Cinnamon’…

‘OpenMandriva Lx’ is a community maintained GNU/Linux distribution that is based on the Mandriva Linux’s Free edition (now abandoned). It has been many years since I last tried Mandriva, and it was actually one of the first distributions that I used (it was then called ‘Mandrake Linux’), so I was very excited to see this release. That said I had no high hopes for ‘OpenMandriva Lx 2014.0’ as it is just two years old, although it was founded by few former employees of ‘Mandriva’ and they (including many other developers) spent about an year developing this, the second, release, I…

Ubuntu 14.04 (code named ‘Trusty Tahr’) is the fifth ‘Long Term Support’ release, and being as such, these releases are thoroughly tested & include less features (since they demand too much changes being made to the codes) as the targeted audience is those who prefer a more stable OS that is backed-up by updates for a few years. That being said, this LTS release does contain some noticeable changes most of which are not that visible to end-users. For instance, by following the footsteps of the regular 6 months based releases, 14.04 LTS now also uses the ‘Deadline’ disk I/O…

‘Manjaro’ 0.8.9 was released a couple of days ago, featuring three official desktop editions – XFce 4.11 (default choice), Openbox 3.5.2 & KDE 4.12.2. Since I had already reviewed the previous 0.8.7 (‘Ascella’) release, featuring the XFce edition, this time I decided to go with the KDE version. There were a couple of reasons why I decided to try the KDE spin. First of all, it looked stunning (thanks to the custom ‘KFaenza’ icon theme and the ‘Air Black Green’ KDE window decorator theme). Secondly, as always, ‘Manjaro’ gives you bleeding edge software versions – thus an up-to-date KDE desktop…

I am not a DJ, but after seeing one of my friend’s work as a DJ, I also wanted to try it a bit (just for fun 🙂 ), and that is how I came across ‘Virtual DJ’. It is easy to use, beginner friendly, & there is a free version available which despite some of its restrictions, is still an excellent piece of software. ‘Virtual DJ’ is also one of the leading MS Windows based music mixing software and many DJ hardware devices (such as those from ‘Pioneer’) include built-in support for ‘Virtual DJ’. But as a GNU/Linux user, the…

‘ExtFS for Windows’ is a free program from ‘PARAGON’ software group that enables Windows users to access their Ext 2/3/4 file systems directly from ‘My Computer’. I have had used this program in its early days not ever since, but recently I came across it quite accidentally and decided to give it a go under Windows 8. But before I begin, let me give you a brief introduction to this utility because I think it is important. This tool uses another utility called ‘Dokan’ (a separately developed utility, now abandoned). To spare you with the boring technical details, ‘Dokan’ acts…

Most people that use the GNU/Linux operating system do not like to deal with the command-line at all, though having a basic understanding of it (such as memorizing commands for mounting devices and copying files for instance) can come in real handy sometimes. That said however, when dealing with files under command-line, say that you had to use it to backup your data because the desktop session was not working anymore, it is pretty common that one should come across files that contain spaces in their names. And unless you are aware of this simple trick, it can be quite…

KaOS is a new GNU/Linux distribution that comes with a unique focus. From a software point of view, it is a distribution that is build from scratch which revolves around the KDE desktop and the Qt (user interface builder) toolkit, and comes with a carefully selected set of software applications. Though few GTK (another user interface builder, Qt and GTK share a colorful history) are available through the online software repository, none is included in the downloadable ISO disc images. The same philosophy is applied to the online software as it contains somewhat a small number of packages when compared…