Gentoo Linux has a reputation among Linux enthusiast as being one of the most hardcore distributions available today, and for good reason. While it is fast, stable, and mature, it doesn't have a reputation of being a very accessible distro... meaning not anyone can sit down and install Gentoo and have any expectation of simple success. Vida is Spanish for “life” so will it live up to its name? Will it breath new life into the Linux desktop? We are about to find out...
So we've established that VidaLinux is based on Gentoo right? It is. Isn't Gentoo just Gentoo either way you cut it? Well, not really. What sets VidaLinux apart from its parent is actually twofold. The first thing you'll notice is that it uses Red Hat's Anaconda installer (VidaLinux's customized installer can be downloaded from here). With VidaLinux there is no need to print out a tens of pages of documentation to install your system via the command line interface. Everything is done using the graphical Anaconda interface. This provides a huge benefit to those who might have been intimidated by Gentoo Linux but want to give it a shot.
For those Gentoo veterans out there who might be reading this, VidaLinux 1.1 is essentially a stage 3 install, which means that the core system and all of it's major components are prebuilt. They offer four versions, each optimized for different CPU types: i686, Athlon XP, Pentium 4, and AMD64. This means that while you can't get totally optimized without compiling the entire distribution from source, you can get a distro that's highly optimized for your CPU with a generalized group of settings. What this boils down to is that you can have a pretty fast system in far less time than it would take to compile from scratch... with the loss of a bit of specific optimizations that you might gain by building by hand. Obviously, for some people this makes complete sense. I know that even though I've built stage 1 Gentoo systems on many occasions, I can also appreciate the ability to get a completely functioning desktop in no time at all, but still have the power of Portage at my fingertips.
Installing VidaLinux 1.1
Gentoo's installation is notorious for a different reasons depending on who you talk to. Some find it incredibly difficult, others find it simple, but there's two things that I think everyone can definitely agree on: it's both educational and time consuming. The educational part is most definitely for those who want to learn more about the inner workings of Linux. Gentoo has always been an excellent resource for learning and their documentation is excellent for the purpose. As far as the 'time consuming' part is concerned, we all know that compiling software can take forever, and that's where VidaLinux draws the line through the sand. Their installer takes as much time to complete an install as Red Hat or SUSE might take and with even less required input from the user. The only things I really needed to use my brain for was to find my monitor name in a list, and to partition my hard drive. Actually the latter isn't even really necessary since the option to automatically partition is available, but I almost never use that. I prefer to do that manually due to the way I've got my drives laid out. In any event, if you know Red Hat, you know the Anaconda installer. Nothing new to report here. For those newbs out there... well... what can I say? Your pet monkey can install this distribution with minimal supervision.
L to R: Default desktop; Xchat, teminal, and calendar
Viva La Desktop!
The first time I saw the desktop I was thoroughly impressed by what I saw. VidaLinux has in interface that is almost entirely lacking desktop icons, save for the trash can, but who can argue that this is an important thing to have lying around? The system uses Gnome 2.8.0 as its default window manager, and it's obvious that the desktop designers either are hung up on a Mac OS X or are lusting after one in a big way and are using Linux to get them there for free. The Gnome panel menu is on the top of the screen, along with the clock, task area, and other icons/utilities including a network monitor and weather application. The bottom part of the screen is occupied by another panel with the window list and desktop pager utility. Resting atop the panel like a crown is a gDesklet called the StarterBar (see below). If the topmost panel didn't immediately make you think “Mac”, the StarterBar is surely to cause an immediate Apple overdose... but when speaking of the Apple user interface, this isn't such a bad thing at all. I never thought I'd say I enjoyed a utility like this, but this one is actually functional. It even grows/shrinks its scalable SVG icons as you roll over them with the mouse. Very nice touch. Most of these “OS X wannabe” tool bars fall short in the usability area, but this one actually works and works well. It gives VidaLinux a bit of its character.
The VidaLinux 1.1 Desktop OS StarterBar
Various popular desktop applications in action
While the GTK2+ theming and window decorations were rather Longhornish for my liking they were easy on the eyes, especially after long periods of computing (and it's easy enough to change in the case of sensory overload), I found that the icons were a bit much for me. They were entirely too bright and reminiscent of old Saturday morning cartoons. You'll notice them in the screenshots. that follow. I changed them almost immediately as they were entirely too large and bright to be worthy of more than thirty seconds of my time. I'd recommend a serious second look at the default icon theme for this distro.
On the topic of speed, let me be the first to tell you that this distribution runs very fast. I used the i686-optimized version on three machines here: An Athlon XP 2GHz desktop, a Pentium II 266MHz laptop, and a Pentium III 550MHz desktop... and it ran exceptionally well on all three. As I said, they offer other optimizations but the i686 worked well on all machines. I'm actually curious to check out the other versions as well to see if the performance increase is negligible or if it will blow the doors off of the i686 version. I knew Gentoo was fast, but didn't think I'd really see it in this release due to the fact that it's a stage 3... prebuilt binaries. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.
