LXF 103 DVD Side 2

Welcome to Side 2 of this distro-packed DVD! Here we have five more distros, two of which are bootable straight from the DVD, and the other three are supplied as ISO images. You can run these on a real PC or try them out in the VirtualBox PC emulator, as described in the magazine. (Note: see index.html on Side 1 for information on Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandriva, Mepis and Debian.)

The five distros on this side are:

• PCLinuxOS 2007 - A rapidly rising star in the Linux world, second only to Ubuntu in terms of popularity on DistroWatch. Originally based on Mandriva, it runs in Live mode straight from this DVD so you can try Linux without installing! (Also includes an installer; more info in the mag.)

• Knoppix 5.1.1 - One of the earliest Live distros, famed for its excellent hardware detection and oodles of apps. Runs straight from this DVD - boot your PC from the disc and choose Knoppix at the boot menu.

• Fedora 8 - A Live version of the popular Red Hat-sponsored distro, well known for being bleeding-edge and including the best and newest goodies. Supplied as an ISO CD image.

• Zenwalk 4.8 - Looking for more speed? Zenwalk is a screamingly fast Linux distro, originally based on the venerable Slackware. Uses Xfce as a lightweight desktop environment. Supplied as an ISO CD image.

• Damn Small Linux 4.2.3 - The perfect distro for very old machines, DSL will even give you a fully working desktop on a 486 with 16MB RAM! Burn this to a CD-R (it's only 50 megs) and boot it, or try it out in VirtualBox.

So, those are the five distros on this side of the DVD, but there's much more to explore too. Along with the aforementioned VirtualBox to test out the distros, we have all the window managers covered in our Roundup, the best new software selections from HotPicks, three great games and much more. Enjoy this bumper disc - if you have any questions or suggestions, please get in touch!

Mike Saunders
New Media Editor
Linux Format