Slacking the South African Way: Meeting Kongoni GNU/Linux!

I had been wanting to try some Slackware based distro for some time. Why? If you say you like Linux and haven't tried Slackware, the oldest GNU/Linux alive (yes! Ubuntu is NOT the oldest, for the record! :P), you are missing your roots. Not enough reason, you say? Well, let me add that Slackware must have its magic touch if it has been able to stand the test of time since 1993. Yes, kids; Slackware may be older than some of you; then learn from the experienced and become better!

Now, inexperienced Linux users like me would like to start approaching Slackware one step at a time. Thus, I chose to start my slacking with slackware based distros. First, I took a peaceful stroll at the Zen garden of Zenwalk and now I'm searching for the antelope that befriends the famous African Gnu: the Kongoni.

This was perfect timing: Kongoni GNU/Linux 2011 released Firefly, its Release Candidate!

So, what does Kongoni 2011 have? Here are some pictures of my experience with it:

The Live CD booted with no issue on my system. Quite soon, I was at a familiar KDE 4. If I'm not mistaken, this is KDE 4.6. Interestingly enough, compositing is already enabled, but I could not get the desktop cube to work...maybe because it is a live CD...maybe because it is a release candidate...I don't know. Other effects are active, though.

The Kick-off menu works fine. Although it is not my favorite, Pardus has taught me my way into it already, so I didn't encounter any adaptation problems. Even people from the old school like me can navigate it.
















What's a distro without networking capabilities? I found Kongoni's networking as one of its strong points. It picked my wired connection instantly. Also, it has a wide variety of networking tools among which I found some long time friends: Kopete, for example. As you can see, Youtube videos play out of the box, too.
















What's this little browser I'm seeing? Another old friend: GNU/Icecat! Hey, it's Icecat 4! Nice! I still remember how I found it and downloaded it for my Mepis box. Great to see you here, pal!
















Now it's time for multimedia capabilities. Amarok takes charge of MP3 files while Dragon Player opens video. This specific video is an MP4 file. There were no issues when playing these files.















As for wallpapers, there's not much to choose from. I like the first one, but I'd probably settle for my customized wallpapers here. They are easy to locate and use anyway.















Finally, for young --and not so young--kids who are fond of cellphone-like interfaces, KDE 4 also offers a netbook interface. Personally, I find it hideous, but some say it's the future of computing...

In general terms, Kongoni looks like a good distro. I liked it in spite that it does not come with any office suite. That, for me, is a showstopper, but still Kongoni was well built and nothing I did caused crashes or problems during my test drive.

About the technical aspects of Kongoni, like PIG (did you notice the little pig on the notification area?) or its ability to compile code and install those compilations automatically, I'll try to test them later. My slack time is over and now I have to go to work!