Linuxseekers

Vector linux 5.8 standard gold was released before last Christmas. The code name was 'Santa'.   It is currently ranked at 19th place at DistroWatch ( CentOS is at 18th place;  SLAX at 20th).

Well, Vector linux has been around for quite some time.  This Canadian distro is famous for its speed.  Taking  Slackware as its base has made it very stable.  I personally admire Slackware's philosophy.   Slackware's developers walk the talk !  

For this review of Vector linux 5.8,  i  used my  Dell 600m notebook again.   Pentium M (1.4Ghz with  256mb sdram and  ati radeon 9000).  This time i reviewed the speedy  little Vector linux 5.8 standard gold edition which is free for download.  The download was quite fast at this link http://ftp-osl.osuosl.org/pub/vectorlinux/veclinux-5.8/iso-release/. You can support Vector linux by paying  for the deluxe edition, though. 

In this review of  Vector linux 5.8,  i wanted  to see how speedy the distro is.  I also wanted to test how much Vector linux 5.8's  wpa_supplicant packages can support the WPA-PSK wireless protocol.  The prequisite for this test :-  the IPW  2100  adapter  on  my  Dell 600m notebook was already supporting WPA-PSK protocol.

So much ramblings about my reasons for reviewing  Vector linux 5.8 standard gold edition.   Back to the review proper  !    After i booted up Vector linux 5.8 ,  i only  needed to press the Enter key at the boot prompt  in order to boot the kernel that support ide/sata drives.

Then  the  welcome message will appear  where i could  see the info regarding the specs of my notebook and also the linux kernel version embedded in vector linux 5.8. It's linux kernel  2.6.18. 

The installation was quite straight-forward,  for an experienced user, of course!  You need to prepare your harddisk prior to installing.  Select the FDISK option, not the INSTALL option.  Once you've got the root partition and swap partition right,  the installer will request you to reboot the computer for the effect to take place.  

When my Dell 600m notebook  rebooted,  i met with the boot prompt again, where i needed to do the same thing again:  press the Enter key.   Then, there  was  the  welcome message again.  I needed to press Enter again.   This  'again'  thing  reminded me about the Teletubbies that my 26-month-old daughter watched on her  Macmini.  The Teletubbies in those episodes will repeat the word   again   many times.  By the way,  this  'again and again'  thing may confuse a linux newbie.  I  almost got disorientated   (experience in installing Slackware helped, though).  

Next, i was eligible to choose the  INSTALL option instead of the  FDISK option.  From this point onwards, i was asked to select the swap partition, to select the root partition, and to select additional files ( firefox 2.0, opera 9.10, dillo, 3d arcade games, mplayer, xara, gimp, qemu, various printer drivers, etc ).  Right after that, i was presented by the installer   with 3 choices :   i chose 

" INSTALL   come on mate, go for it !!!".

The real/absolute installing process started.  It took only 8 minutes to install all the files to my harddisk.  Fast,  or  should i say  speedy.    Then  LILO installer showed up.   I chose to install on my MBR because i wanted a dual-boot system.  Well, I could have just skipped  installing LILO and boot the root partition with the vector linux 5.8 disc.  

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