With no hang-ups about open-source, and focusing on ease-of-use, the PCLinuxOS 2013.04 Linux distribution has received its latest quarterly update. It owes its origins to Mandrake/Mandriva Linux, and retains many of the inherited configuration tools.

Being a 32-bit OS targeted at the non-technical desktop/laptop users, this distro includes all of the software packages you would expect. There is Firefox for web browsing, Thunderbird for emails, VLC for playing videos, LibreOffice for a productivity suite, k3b for CD/DVD writing, and so on. You will see no "IceWeasel-ing" here — non-opensource programs such as Google Earth, Flash player plugin, and NVIDIA graphics card drivers are all supported. As with any current distro, you can download and install additional software from "package repositories".

I found PCLinuxOS 2013.04 stable for my usage across a day, bringing the latest stable Linux kernel and reasonable Wireless-N network support. The download page offers three variants — Full Version (1.6 GB), MiniMe (550 MB) and FullMonty (4 GB); all of which can be run directly from disc, installed to hard drive, or installed to USB pen-drive.




Of significant note, is that the default download is based on the KDE4 desktop environment and hence is memory hungry, slowing down to a crawl if you have less than 1 GB of RAM.

TAGS: Linux