KateOS

So, as usual, I have been keeping an eye out for a nice little distro. People ask about Linux more and more and I have just been recommending Ubuntu or the live disc for Fedora or OpenSUSE. Last week I found KateOS, a Slackware-based distro out of Poland. It combines the simplicity and stability of Slackware with a dependency-aware package manager (managing Slackware packages, of course). This means that the aspiring power user can figure things out without having to worry about the little nonsense that makes pure Slackware a bit of a chore at times. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Slackware to death, but KateOS is a very polished distro (in their own words, "polish"ed is a play on its country of origin).

It is available in a full DVD (or CD series) with a text installer, a live CD that runs XFCE, and a minimal install CD (300MB) from which you can use the package manager to add a bit of flare after having gotten the core system running. So go check it out! http://www.kateos.org

Personally, I used the miniISO version, which has the typical Slackware text installer, and was up and running KDE 3.5.7 with Firefox-2.0.0.12 in a matter of a couple hours.

The live CD did a pretty good job of detecting my not-too-special-hardware, and with a few Slackware-reminiscent tweaks, you can have all of your specialized hardware up and running!

Registered Linux User #370740 (http://counter.li.org)

Acrobat Reader 8 and Firefox

It's been awhile since I blogged, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been fixing things that aren't broken or using lame workarounds...

Just today I was annoyed that when I clicked on a pdf in Firefox (latest stable - 2.0.0.12), it would behave as if the plugin were loading the file, but nothing would be displayed (blank window). I ascertained from the "about:plugins" output that two versions of the Acrobat Reader were loaded - 7 and 8. I checked the system installation plugins directory and found only one version. Then I looked into my local profile, under .mozilla - there is a file called pluginreg.dat there, and inside of the firefox subdirectory. These are auto generated, but Firefox can run without them. I renamed them to *.bak, symlinked the nppdf.so that was in my .mozilla/plugins/ and .mozilla/firefox/plugins to the current version, and re-launched Firefox. Worked like a charm!

Hope if somebody else has trouble with multiple versions they can benefit from this...

Registered Linux User #370740 (http://counter.li.org)