ZevenOS 3.0 Neptune "Brotkasten" KDE Review: Refreshingly different!

ZevenOS, a German based distro, is quite a familiar name in the Linux world. Typically they bring out two classes of distro

A lightweight XFCE distro based on Ubuntu, with the look and feel of BeOS, which actually never captured my imagination
A heavier KDE based Neptune based on Debian testing


Last week I came across the release note of Neptune in Distrowatch based on Debian Wheezy and I was

Linux Mint 201303 "Debian" Mate: Very good semi-rolling Mate distro from Debian testing

Last week I reviewed Linux Mint 201303 Debian Cinnamon and was extremely pleased with the smoothness, refinement and performance it offered. Further, LMDE offers a semi-rolling distro with little requirement of reinstalling it again (if everything works properly after each update though!). Next I thought of reviewing the Mate version to make an assessment. Honestly, I haven't used much of Mate

Linux Mint 201303 "Debian" Cinnamon Review: Debian simplified and offers impressive performance!

One thing I really like about Linux Mint is the refinement and completeness they render to each and every release. I have been using Linux Mint since 2009 and except for the repetitive art-work, I have never been disappointed so far. Normally Linux Mint releases mimic Ubuntu and mostly require fresh installation. I tried upgrading a few but with no luck and hence, had to do a fresh installation

move from Garageband to Linux : can it be done ? - Part2

- read part 1 first -

Hi all,

To make it a bit easier to understand what exactly we are trying to accomplish i would like to tell you first what our current setup(s) looks like :

1) the setups
As you probably know we have been using Hydrogen live for a while now and that worked out quite well so far.  The Hydrogen setup consists out of a midi drum controller, an old laptop-in-a-box (LT1 on the drawing) and some extra wiring to be able to use the Left and Right output as 2 individual channels :

Read more »

Trisquel 6.0 Review: High performing and extremely elegant! Free Software advocate or not - a definitely recommended distro for all Linux lovers!

The birth of Ubuntu is possibly, pivotal to the Linux history. Reason? Without Ubuntu, possibly we won't have heard the names of 50% distros in the Distrowatch top 100 list! You will find all kinds of Ubuntu derived distros there - mostly spiced up Ubuntu which work right out of the box with all free and non-free multimedia codecs and restricted softwares loaded in them! However, last week I

GhostBSD 3.0 Review: Complete operating system and FreeBSD on steroids!

For quite sometime I was thinking of trying out a Unix operating system, something a bit different from the usual Linux distros I try out every week. I didn't want to jump directly to FreeBSD and hence, I chose the Gnome derivative of FreeBSD, GhostBSD. Eric Turgeon announced the release of GhostBSD 3.0 on 10th March 2013. The reason for my choice of GhostBSD over FreeBSD is obvious - I wanted

move from Garageband to Linux : can it be done ? - Part1

We (my cousin and I) are currently working on a rather interesting experiment : the goal is to move my cousins setup from Garageband (on OSX) to Linux.

First some background on the current setup(s) and where we want to end up:
Currently I'm running AmSynth + Calf Monosynth on my Ubuntu laptop and Stijn (my cousin) is running Garageband on his Macbook 13".  We both have a midi keyboard hooked up to our laptop and  use the built-in sound card.
An important detail : we are using these laptops live on stage so whatever we run it needs to be rock solid and easy to set up.

The idea to switch to Linux is not new, in fact I already dual-booted Stijn's Macbook some time ago, but it was more of an experiment because it wasn't clear what we really wanted to do with these laptops.  Since that time we started using the laptops for some songs we play with the band so now we have a better understanding of 'who-will-do-what' and also what sounds we need.

Being guitarist with 0 piano playing skills we use an _absolute_ maximum of 3 fingers to play the keyboard, so you can probably guess that we mainly use the laptops for a couple of monophonic electro/dance riffs and also some more old-school sounds like Hammond or piano as backing to create a richer sound.
Sounds pretty simple, but in fact that covers almost the complete spectrum of existing synth types : soundfont player, modular analog synth emulators, sound modeling synths ...

This should be interesting to see how/if we will move from Garageband to Linux.

To be continued ...

- read Part 2 here -

Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail Daily-build Review: With latest apps and a better looking Unity

My latest Ubuntu 13.04 Beta 2 review

With every progressing release, Unity desktop is getting significantly better. In Natty and Oneiric, I actually hated Unity for it's inefficiency and decided to stick to Linux Mint and Sabayon for the time being. However, with Ubuntu Precise 2nd update (12.04.2), my opinion on Unity actually changed. Though still not customizable but efficiency has

Kubuntu 13.04 Alpha 2 Review: Very promising

Kubuntu may not be the best implementation of KDE but definitely one of the most followed. For me, Kubuntu has been always a judicious mix of KDE and Gnome applications along with a boring default interface. Of course, with a change of wallpaper, KDE widgets and bringing in some KDE themes made it really shiny and attractive. Even Kubuntu 12.10 had a real boring and plain-vanilla default

Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS Review: Now I like Unity!

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is possibly one of the most landmark long term release for Ubuntu and Canonical for a couple of reasons. Number one, it is the first long term release with Unity desktop. Second, first time the LTS is supported for 5 years. Love it or hate it, Unity has now become synonymous with Ubuntu. And after reviewing a lot of distros with stock Gnome 3 as desktop, I now understand why

ROSA Desktop Fresh 2012: Very efficient & elegant stock Gnome 3 distro

I have been following ROSA Linux since 2012. Now that possibly not everything going right for Mandriva Linux, the emergence of ROSA has assumed paramount significance. ROSA has not only enhanced the Mandriva based, but also created its own very distinct theme, especially for KDE. Even I am an ardent admirer of the unique design that ROSA brings on the table. Every ROSA release so far has been