sábado, 16 de agosto de 2014

Having Fun with Pisi Linux 1.0

This is my customized desktop with the Ghost theme.
I installed Pisi Linux 1.0 KDE two days ago and I've been exploring and customizing it to my heart's content.  This has been my experience so far:


1.  Yali did not let me use a partition I had prepared previously.  It was necessary to use Yali to delete my partition and create it again for Pisi to start installing on it.  That has happened since my old times with Pardus. 

2. Once installed, Pisi greeted me with a new color at the boot-up.  I like the black background on both GRUB and the booting screens.  The log-in window looks better, too.

3.  Unfortunately, the bug that causes glibc-locales-es not to be installed is still there.  As a result, a Spanish localization throws an "unsupported locale settings" warning and the system ends up being in both English and Spanish.
   The problem can be solved by opening a terminal and typing
    
    sudo pisi ur && sudo pisi it glibc-locales-es

However, unlike with the previous releases, I realized that this time I also needed to manually download kde-l10n-es.  I used the package manager, but that can also be done by entering this in the terminal: 

    sudo pisi ur && sudo pisi it kde-l10n-es

After that, I had to go to system preferences, locale, language, and there I had to set Spanish as my preferred language.  That took care of the problem.

I set a panel as an auto-hiding launcher of my favorite applications
4.  LibreOffice and the other applications have not let me down.  Pisi comes equipped with most of the software I use.  I just had to install VLC and a few games and accessories.  I customized Firefox with a cat theme (and set it to Spanish thanks to the add-on "Language Pack Install Helper 2.5").  I also used the same Firefox theme on LibreOffice.

5.  Now VLC handles sound of .MP4 files better.  Still, some sound funny.  The same goes for .mkv files: there is an improvement but there are still sound glitches that do not occur if I play the files with other applications.

6.  I am very pleased to see that all the KDE glitches I encountered in the previous release are gone!  Now there are no Kwin rendering problems with the desktop cube, nor with the background while rotating the cube.  Also, now my log-in sound works all the time.

 I did notice a small rendering glitch, however.  It happens on the Ghost window decorator when you resize a maximized window: the left and lower left sides of the window glow are incorrectly displayed, but that only lasts until you move your mouse.  This is it:


What about wireless connections?  Mine worked flawlessly from the start.  Youtube videos?  No problem.  Even my bank's page with its annoying plugins (designed for Internet Explorer) works.  I've also plugged it to a TV screen and it has been up to the job

Compared with the testing releases, the final version of Pisi is absolutely an improvement: the system is fast, responsive and very stable.  It is still lacking software (it has  6325 packages at the moment), but it has pretty much what I need, especially if we remember that this distro is made by a very small team.  I will use my Pisi system at work next week and I'll keep having fun with it.  Pisi, in spite of its limitations and all the obstacles that have delayed its release, is truly a little jewel and seems very promising.

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