I've been using Slackware for several years and like it a lot, but the most 
recent version had problems I couldn't resolve. I think the problems were 
more with the version of KDE it uses than with Slackware itself, but 
nevertheless, it annoyed me. Two problems with Slackware for me were 
updating, and installing certain games with SDL libraries. Updating always 
broke things so I never did it, and when I installed some games, upon launch 
I would get four instances of them running. Could never figure out why that 
happened. 

So, I wanted to try a Debian-based distro because of the ease of updating and 
package management. I liked the earlier versions of Mepis, but updating was 
problematic. Sound never worked, and the most recent two versions (2004.06 
and 3.3) had printer problems for me. Printer would set up but failed to 
initialize when I needed it.

I tried Kanotix 2005.01 and like it a lot! It's a live-cd that has a harddrive 
installer. It's based on pure Debian Sid, so once it's installed and you want 
to update, it doesn't use a mix of repositories and sources that may break 
things. 

The Downside: 

1. Sid is unstable (but it's more stable than any Mandrake I ever tried.) 
2. Sid doesn't have security updates, but I don't care. Patrick Volkerding 
even said that if one doesn't install and run servers and only has a simple 
desktop system, security updates are largely unnecessary.
3. The harddrive installation isn't as polished as Mepis. Setting up a 
separate /usr or /home partition can be done, but takes some work and 
knowlede. I managed to do it, though.
4. There are very few games, and no screensavers by default. I had to download 
them, and I still can't find a package with my beloved Bouncing Cow *sigh*

The upside:

Everything worked right off the bat: Sound, printer configuration, modem and 
firewall configuration (it comes with Guarddog), and adding packages a-la 
Synaptic. I was able to get the Gnome games (Iagno) without downloading all 
of Gnome. When installed to my harddrive, all the hardware detection still 
worked.

Security is good, and it comes with Guarddog. It's designed for a desktop 
system. No servers get installed, which is nice when someone wants only a 
desktop system. People can download those things if they want them.

Getting my cd-rom drive to work on /hdd gave me fits for a week, but support 
on the Kanotix forum (from Kano himself) was awesome. Turned out it was a bad 
drive, not Kanotix's fault at all. 

The KDE desktop is clean and defaults are very nice, IMO. The screen 
resolution is big enough for my poor eyes. Some distros set up X with the 
resolution so high I can berely read the fonts. With Kanotix, I didn't have 
to go around and enlarge the font sizes for everything. Mepis puts too much 
clutter on the taskbar and desktop, IMO. The taskbar in Kanotix is clean and 
functional. 

The package selection is very nice! 

If someone wants a Debian Sid system without all the hassle of a Debian 
installation, or simply wants a clean and functional desktop system, give 
Kanotix a try.

Siri Amrit
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