8 August 2013

Kanotix Dragonfire LinuxTag 2013 KDE 64 bit Review : Simply efficient , Rock solid distribution .

Kanotix is a Debian based distro started its life around 2004 and inspired by the knoppix live distribution the founder started their own way of improving debian base so started its own new distro named as kanotix.


kanotix  as based on debian had some issues were there  in past so then kanotix was born again with Debian stable .Truely speaking kanotix had some issue of stability in past so some developers left it and form their new distro "Sidux ". And the founder adopted less unstable and shifted their legs into more stable Debian foundation.

Kanotix Mascot is Fangtooth .




On their website

 Kanotix is a rock-solid Linux based on Debian, which contains the newest packages and recognizes more modern hardware than any other operating system in use today.Kanotix is assembled for 32 Bit i586 and for AMD 64 using the most up-to-date kernel with unique patches.

Kanotix was announced at  LinuxTag 2013 conference and exhibition in Berlin a Debian-based distribution (with KDE or LXDE) on a live DVD:

 "I am proud to announce the release of KANOTIX Dragonfire from LinuxTag 2013 in Berlin. Kanotix Dragonfire is based on the recently released Debian 7.0. Besides KDE as the default desktop environment, beginning with this release there exists a lightweight alternative with LXDE. Additionally, we offer a special image similar to the CeBIT special. The main difference is that it has a pre-installed Steam client, a newer MESA version (9.1.1), gfxdetect and a newer glibc 2.17, KDE SC 4.8.4 and LXDE, Iceweasel 21.0, Linux kernel 3.9; LibreOffice 4.0.3...."






Actually I downloaded the Dragonfire 2013 kde  kanotix edition and created a live usb  and refired my Dell Inspiron 2.2ghz processor and 4 gb ram with it and then greeted with kanotix logo wallpaper which is just normal in apperance .



Then  started the installer acitronix which can be found in kanotix main menu .



And then by cliking next started the installer and theres an option of manual partitioning or already partitioned disk this is something different from till now what partion manager system seemed by me.




Actually my system  was already partitioned so choose that already function but this seems not for beginner to start with this distro










So now option of choosing root and user password comes and grub menu is choosen which is as shown here it uses grub 2 and didn't find any info to assign grub password while installing .







Now the confusion here was how to assign /home and /boot partition to choose but I configured it properly but for begineers it can make them find stars.




Thus at last installation started and it finished of in just 7 minutes but on installer it showed about 00:10:35 minutes to install . Thats too funny but after a reboot everything worked .

APPLICATION

Now I actually liked software selection - selecting judiciously from the large pool of  useful  applications pre-installed in the kanotix releases. Following apps are shown below

  • Office: LibreOffice 4.0.3.3 suite (Calc, Write, Impress & Draw), Okular Document viewer,Fax.
  • Internet: Ktorrent, Akregator, Knet attach, ICE Dove mail, Iceweasel web browser, IRC client ,pidgin , skype.
  • Graphics:  Gwenview image viewer,  Ksnapshot ,gimp , xsane.
  • Multimedia: Amarok, vlc  Player, Kmix ,gnome Mplayer , kaffeine.
  • Accessories: Kate text editor, Ark archiving tool, Nepomuk backup, Knotes, Kcalc,midnight commander etc.






On Irc chat you can even meet the founder of distro "Kano"






It  comes with ARMAGETRON game .




kinfo was not found so installed ,


Though I find Iceweasel version of firefox really lightweight and good but still Firefox rules my heart among all  web browsers. But  you can also install other browser through Apper software  manager .


And just after installation got about 178 mb updates as seen below








It comes with an classical default application launcher according to kde  theme .






The default email client available in kanotix kde is icedovemail but you can install other client  from repos.




Actually kanotix  kde comes with it  Gnome Mplayer which is a gtk based apps , I didn't see much kde distro using as their default and also it posses Kaffeine player and vlc player .But I use smplayer  which can be found in default repos Kanotix 
kde comes  with multimedia and restricted codecs pre-installed as it played songs very well in Amarok as its  default audio player. look how media plays in default  media player installed.










It just played youtube video nicely .





I didn't had any issue when going through Indian language websites as I could easily read it which I was not able to do it  in Rosa desktop fresh which I reviewed earlier .


http://gujaratsamachar.com/






It doesn't have inbuilt cloud application but u can use Dropbox , Spideroak ,Yandex etc .only Dropbox is available in repos others u will have to download from their sites respectively.
 



 Beauty n Aesthetic

Kanotix  Dragonfire kde  has lot of customization for folks who love customizing their distros .In terms of aesthetic is just to normal any kde based standard theme  and doesn't have wallpapers specific to brand other than one . It would not change distribution size too much to add half a dozen of wallpapers with kanotix Linux logo would increase loyalty of users and brand recognition, wouldn't it ?.







Aesthetic looks with a beautiful  analog clock widget available in kanotix Dragonfire kde desktop .





After screen lock how it looks





Hardware integration

Bluetooth ,Wifi , touchpad , sound card ,graphic card etc worked well within my use for week and seems it has been  well configured hardware integration for use and everything work out of box for me .Now how well it recognized my Dell Inspiron laptop brightness keys worked well ,also volume keys outperformed than other distro as with keys was easily able to increase or decrease brightness that sounds great for me.







Performance wise it consumes 500mb  ram actually nothing running in background .





TIME TO CONCLUSION

So Question now arises whether to upgrade or not?. It is based on Debian wheezy but added upgradable softwares which doesn't comes in it . Also it is a long time version as based on stable so security issues and update solved . But the thing to go with it then yes but it is tough to decide as their is a choice of kubuntu with kde 4.10.4 or stay with kde 4.8.4 .If satisfied with it then just go for it ,better than debian as it is spiced up .However, make no mistake, Kanotix Dragonfire  is really a good release in itself. If you want to try Kanotix, definitely this is the distro for you , just go for it .


Caution : Not for begineers but intermediate users.

U can try it using ,

Imagewriter , Note- unetbootin didn't worked for me .


NOTE 

If you have any issue just visit their forum you will get answered to all your queries .

http://www.kanotix.com/changelang-eng.html


you can download both 32bit n 64 bit  kanotix Dragonfire kde from here

http://www.kanotix.com/module-Downloads.html







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