Libranet 3.0 has been a long time coming, and highly anticipated by its devoted customers. Due to the extended period of time since their last release in 2003, I was beginning to wonder if they were falling into the 'catch up' mode of development... the endless loop you can enter when you're low on development staff who are working hard to try to keep up with the rest of the distributions out there... only moving fast enough to be one step behind. Since there was such a large gap in time between the 2.8.1 release and the current 3.0 release, will Libranet stack up? Does it have what it takes to win the hearts of not only the Debian crowd, but the Open Source community in general? Well, my friends, we're here to find out.
Features
Linux kernel 2.6.11.4
KDE 3.3.2, GNOME 2.8.3, and Xfce4
Gcc 3.3
X.org 6.8.2
Evolution 2.0.3
OpenOffice.org 1.1.3
Gaim 1.1.4
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2/Thunderbird 1.0.2
K3b 0.11.20
Libranet 3.0 comes in the form of 5 CDs or a single DVD which are available in the form of downloadable ISO images or as physical media shipped via snail mail. At the time of this review, ISO images are the only option. CD media will be shipping on May 31st, 2005 according to the Libranet site and are currently available for pre-order.
Although the major desktop environments included with this release are, shall we say, a bit outdated, they're well suited for the task at hand: providing a productive desktop experience. There are more up-to-date Debian offerings out there, but there's nothing wrong with working on the desktops provided by Libranet. In the grand scheme of things, they really aren't that old and if you need to bring them up to speed with the current versions, a little creativity with the apt sources list will get you there in a hurry. Unlike other more heavily modified Debian-based distros such as Xandros and Linspire, adding additional Debian mirrors will not cause irreversible damage to your system.
Six degrees of Debian
Debian is one of the oldest and most respected Linux distributions available, so it's no wonder Libranet chose it as a base for their work. Many have done the same including some of the bigger names such as Linspire and Xandros. Debian is stable. Debian is simple to manage. What more could you ask for? This is a perfect combination it would seem, and for many it is, but if you live for the bleeding edge of technology, Debian may not be for you. While there are some distros available that have taken Debian to the edge, it's not the norm. Stability, in the eyes of the Debian maintainers, equals tried and true software... and they're right to a great extent, but you've got to admit that much of the latest/greatest software has proven to be stable enough to run on production desktop systems. They do, after all, have different requirements than server operating systems, and the bar can be lowered where appropriate as long as it doesn't stand in the way of overall functionality.
