Put together your own distribution with PCLinuxOS

Linux distributions for older hardware often come with frugal software and modified, lean desktops. Work environments like Gnome and KDE on the other hand are not suitable for older hardware. Their numerous additional programs and visual effects add too much of a burden for older machines, and makes working with these interfaces impossibly slow.

Therefore, the developers of the PCLinuxOS have radically downsized the software and interface of the popular KDE desktop to adapt it for older hardware. The results of this downsizing have been packaged into a lean version of the distribution with which users can click together a Linux derivative.

PCLinuxOS [1] has continuously been maintained and evolved for the past twelve years. It is a popular distribution in the United States and has a large developer community. Originally based on Mandrake, the operating system has been going its own way for years now and is now available in various versions for 32- and 64-bit architectures.

KDE has emerged as the primary desktop. The developers for PCLinuxOS have focused their efforts on easy operability and all-around use. To comply with the wishes of many users, PCLinuxOS also comes as an ISO image with the alternative work environments MATE and LXDE.

The MiniMe version of PCLinuxOS is one particularly interesting innovation. It represents a significantly trimmed-down edition that includes the KDE desktop.

It can be quickly adapted by the user, once it is installed on bulk storage. You can use its own graphical tools to put together a unique distribution based on PCLinuxOS.

The MiniMe version comes as an ISO image of just under 570MB for 32-bit hardware. There is also a 650MB image for 64-bit architectures. Both images are available on the homepage for the distribution [2].

Unique Characteristics

One of the unique characteristics of the PCLinuxOS is its highly simplified system management. Beginners and newcomers to Linux have no problem administering the operating system even without previous experience.

The centerpiece of the system management is the PCLinuxOS Control Center , which was originally developed by Mandrake. For 10 years, it has had continuous maintenance and development and still counts as an innovative tool for system administration.

As with Yast from openSUSE, the control center bundles all of the important settings options into a unified interface with various categories. Because the dialogs all have the same graphical user interface, there is no need for a beginner to invest time in learning how to operate the system (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Oldie but goodie. The control center bundles all of the settings options together.

Ready to Start

The operating system offers various options when it starts for the first time in the GRUB boot manager. For example, the user can boot in live mode and simultaneously install the system on bulk storage. We used live mode for performing the first test.

This test was carried out on a 10-year-old HP Compaq Notebook equipped with Dothan, a second-generation 2GHz Pentium M processor, which has only 512MB working memory. The operating system booted from a USB stick into a no-frills KDE desktop on this outdated computer with surprising speed after a localization query. The desktop contains only a few icons and a starter for installation on bulk storage (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The desktop looks spartan and tidy.

One look at the menu for the MiniMe version reveals a radically slimmed-down system. Although there are many menu entries, these contain little software. Only the More Applications | Configuration menu includes numerous entries. Typical application menus such as Office , Entertainment , and Graphics do not exist.

The system has a well-known graphical assistant from Mandriva. It helps the user generate a locally installed system via one click on the Install PCLinuxOS button on the desktop.

This installation process does not include set up of user accounts. It is only after finishing the installation and executing a warm start that the automatically called routine asks for the access data for a root and user account. Then, it is on to the KDE desktop where the system shows how modest it is.

The system load on the single core processor is very small, and an empty desktop without any applications installed requires just 220MB of working memory.