J_K9 @ Linux

First up: FoX Desktop 1 Professional

July 24, 2006 on 12:44 am | In Linux, Reviews |

First up in my “One A Day” project is one I have been watching for a while: FoX Linux.

This is an Italian distribution, based on Fedora Core, which aims to be an ‘all-in-one’ solution for all your Linux needs. I will explain this in more detail later on, but here is a short description by its developers:

FoX Desktop is one new distribution based on Fedora CORE and re-adapt
for users desktop.
FoX Desktop in fact is adapted to all those who uses the PC to navigate in
internet, use programmes, and for chatting… This new distribution is
structured on a single cd, so it should be easy to download and exchange.
Optimized for the CPUs of type i686 , and this guarantees greater speed.
FoX Desktop 1,0 includes:

- Kde
- Samba
- Firefox
- Gaim
- Gimp
… And a lot more!!!
Plus for the developers and for all the people that what the
possibility of choosing applications the will be arriving in the future
several
PacKs!
Follow us!

Alright, so their English is not too great, but the English in the distro itself is actually fairly good.

The Test Box

These are the main specifications of the computer I tested this distribution on:

• Athlon 64 4000
• 2GB RAM
• 250GB Seagate Hard Drive
• 256MB NVidia GeForce 7900GT

Those are the main specifications, plain and simple. A powerful box.

Over to FoX

I burnt the FoX Desktop 1 Professional ISO to a DVD+R, and rebooted. Here is what I saw:

The first thing that sprang to mind upon seeing this? Polish. This distro promised to have a lot of polish, and it looked like the developers had put a lot of work into its design - it pains me to spoil the surprise, but they did not fail me.

It was clear that this was the case as the installer (anaconda) loaded:


The installer was very user-friendly, and my favourite part was the following:

It gives you a choice of what kind of installation you want. Now, I know this is fairly standard among distributions, but this had split the usual “Desktop” into two categories - “Personal Desktop” and “Workstation”. That alone deserved some praise!

The installer was extraordinarily fast - I had a complete, working Linux desktop ten minutes later. That is not an understatement; it really was that fast, and the variety of applications it installed in this time is equally amazing. I chose the generic LCD driver and 1280×1024 resoltion, and I also configured my network card and some other things (like my root password). It automatically detected my Windows partition, and offered to set it up as an option in GRUB (a bootloader) for me. I then went on to the package installer (which, as I said, was extremely fast), and once the installer had finished doing what it does, it (kindly) asked me to remove the CD from the drive and to press the big, red “Reboot” button. Ok, so I lied, it isn’t red; but it is big.

I rebooted as it had requested, and let GRUB load. I chose to boot into FoX, and let the startup scripts run - these were also very fast. I was then presented with a “Setup Agent,” which allowed me to set up a standard user account, change some final settings, and make my experience all the more pleasant. Next came a pretty KDM login screen. The first thing I noticed was the Mac-like background, which you will see later. I’d also like to point out that the “generic LCD” driver worked perfectly, and that FoX was running at my screen’s native resolution - you don’t want to know the hassle I have had doing the same on Windows, and it is not because of a lack of expertise.

I logged in using the username and password I had just set in the Setup Agent, and KDE loaded in a few seconds:

As you can see, the interface is indeed Mac-like. There is a Dock at the bottom, like OS X’s, and the toolbar at the top of the screen. The Dock has magnification capabilities (just like OS X’s), which was quite fun to play with (it’s stunning how easily I am amused). Your favourites applications are in the Dock (feel free to drop the ones you do not want there out of the Dock, and drag the ones you do into it), and you can access the other ones in the KDE Menu by clicking on the fox icon. Your non-Fox partitions are on the right side of the Dock. Polish sprung to mind yet again - this was a beautiful desktop, from the Dock to the icons.

I opened the “FoX Support” link on the desktop, and my home folder as well. This is a beauty which every eye must behold:

As I have said, the interface is excellent. The 3D acceleration of XGL is not offered out of the box, but there are similar features, such as the following “display all windows” feature (which you can access by clicking on the blue icon which is third from the clock on the left, in the top-right corner):

Another thing which greatly impressed me was the FoX Control Center. This appears to be based on KDE Control Center, but it is much easier to use. Everything is organised into six separate tabs - categorization at its finest. Take a look at the image below as an example (note my mouse hovering over the FoX Control Centre icon in the Dock as well):

I assume you’ve been looking at the full-size pictures… Have you noticed something about the theme? Isn’t that theme similar to Windows Vista’s? By Jove, it is. I like this theme more than Vista’s, to be honest - but one can deduce from these images that FoX’s developers have taken a Linux distribution and added what are arguably the best features of Mac OS X and Windows to the already-excellent mix.

In Conclusion

The developers have put a lot of work into making a great distribution, and their efforts have paid off. I have been thouroughly impressed by FoX Desktop 1 Professional, and will be sad to remove it from my computer for tomorrow’s “One A Day” distribution. Please try it out if you get the chance - this is a distribution not to be missed, and I will try to increase its exposure in the future, as it is something that it merits in its own right thanks to its developers. This is a top distribution, and I rate it: 9/10