After reading through LXF, I tried loading openSuse 11.1 with the failsafe settings and it worked in VirtualBox.  So I’ll now be reviewing openSuse 11.1.  Here’s the screen as it booted up.

and after it loads up, it gives a nice explanatory screen.

So I last looked at openSuse 11.0 in Aug 2008.  I’m not sure exactly how much has changed from 11.o to 11.1.  I re-read my old review to get some perspective on what I said last time.  Once I’ve gone through a distro at least once, I don’t see a point in repeating myself.  Rather I look at how the distro has evolved since last time.  Follow that link a few sentences back to see what I originally said about openSuse.  As with Linux Mint 6, this time I’ll be evaluating the distro installation process - since I didn’t get to do that before as well as the program installation process.  openSuse was listed in my Fedora 10 review as the distro with which to see how awesome KDE 4.2 is - so I’ll be testing that as well.

The latest LXF magazine arrived with Linux Mint 6, Slackware 12.2, and openSuse 11.1.  I was originally going to review openSuse, but I have been unable to successfully boot either into VirtualBox or just by booting my computer and running it as a LiveDVD.  ( ed. note:  I just checked the magazine and they suggested booting in failsafe mode, so I’ll try that out in a couple of days)  So, we’ll be starting with Linux Mint 6.  I reviewed Linux Mint 5 Light back in July 2008.  Since I wasn’t using VirtualBox at the time, I only tested it as a LiveDVD and that may have been the source of some of my problems testing the software installation.  Plus this time I can review the installation process.

Especially to my beautiful wife!

This month’s Linux Format Magazine includes Fedora 10.  I u pgraded to Fedora 10 a few months ago via a yum upgrade.  I started by looking at Xfce as I’ve been using Xfce non-stop ever since starting " I’m Not Mad" in November.  Xfce is much lighter than Gnome and I’m able to use Blender more effectively.  Fedora 10 comes with Xfce 4.4.3.  Overall, nothing major has changed on the surface although I know they’ve been doing a lot of work under the hood.

I’ve started up Picture of the Day again in an attempt to hone my photography skills.  Here are the last three entries - ending with the one for today.

I’ve had the Roku Box for a few months now.  It costs $99 and I bought it for one simple reason:  my wife and I object to having to use Windows and Internet Explorer to watch Netflix’s Instant Programs.  As a secondary reason, we’re not in college anymore and we object to having to watch on our computers.  We want to be able to watch these on the TV just as if we had rented little silver discs.  The Roku box is tiny.  Here’s a shot of the front:

During inaugural week I was in Hawaii.  Given how cold it was in the Balitmore/DC area that week, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be there.  I stayed at the Embassy Suites Beach Walk in Waikiki and I cannot say enough good things about the hotel.  When we first checked in we were offered some tropical drinks both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.  The rooms were suite style and very well kept.  Every morning they had a whole bunch of complimentary breakfast food - including omlets made to order.  They also had a happy hour every night with free drinks and cheap snacks. Of course, I took my Canon 400D and Fujifilm A 345.  Overall I did pretty well.  Out of 800+ pictures only 63 were out of focus.  Also, for sake of mentioning it, 61 were of my wife.  That’s a new thing for me as we usually don’t take the usual tourist-y pictures.   Our first day were were still on Eastern Time so we got up at 0400 and went to watch the sun rise.

I had done a second review of Gentoo 2008.0.  People suggested I do a completely commandline install and I did.  But my blog post got corrupted and I’m not typing that up again.  My Gentoo install was unsuccessful anyway.  So I fared no better with the commandline than with the GUI install.  I’ll give it another shot sometime in the future.