ON YOUR FREE DVD
PCLINUXOS 2019.06 Tails 3.14.2 KDE neon 5
looking through the LXF archives, we discovered that the venerable PCLINUXOS hasn’t graced our DVD since 2013 – so we used this latest release to remedy this omission. Launched as a fork of Mandrake Linux back in 2003, and rebased on Mandriva in 2007, the project has amassed a dedicated following under the stewardship of the indomitable Bill ‘Texstar’ Reynolds. The project is funded by donations and produces a newsletter using Scribus – who says publishing
(management–ed) needs proprietary tools? PCLINUXOS is a rolling-release distro, and besides this MATE edition, two KDE flavours are available. We went with MATE because the fullfat KDE edition was just too big to fit, and we already have KDE neon on the disc. Besides the usual applications, PCLOS includes some popular proprietary tools: Teamviewer, Dropbox and Megasync (a client for the MEGA cloud storage service). Rambox is a tool for managing multiple web apps from a single place, which is
pretty handy if you use proprietary messaging and IM services like Telegram and Slack but don’t like having them open in your regular browser. If you like the idea of making your own distro, PCLINUXOS includes the Mylivecd script which can make a bootable, installable ISO incorporating all of your customisations. This can be useful for backup purposes, or for making bespoke distros for your friends and family at Christmas, the lucky things.
Some of the applications included are pretty niche; we’re not sure how bothered people will be about the Calibre ebook manager, for example, but you can always remove it. If you don’t like the menu at the bottom, you can customise the layout from System > Preferences > Look and Feel > MATE Tweak.
In response to reader feedback, we’ve also included minimum specifications for distros where this information is available. Note that these are a guide: you could get away with less, or life may be better with more.