On Jan. 18, SAM Linux Desktop released a Preview of SAM Linux Desktop 2006-1.

While back in 2004, SAM used to be a MiniCD live distro, now if fills a full 700 MB CD.
Get it from ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/sam/.

Based on Mandriva Linux 2006 with fresh software from 2006.1 Cooker, SAM is a LiveCD with the possibility of installing it on the HDD. Enhanced for home use with "non-free" apps like RealPlayer 10, Macromedia Flash plugin and Java, it should be IMNSHO a serios competitor of MEPIS -- it's just SAM uses XFCE 4.2.2 as its desktop environment.



You will be astonished of how much was stuffed on a single CD! You can see a list here. Some highlights of what comes with SAM 2006-1 Preview:

Kernel:	2.6.12-12
Base system:	xfce 4.2.2 + libgnome 2.12.0.1
File managers:	GNOME Commander 1.1.6, Nautilus 2.12, Midnight Commander
Office:	Oo2.0.0, Abiword 2.4.1 (in German!), GNUmeric 1.6.1, Dia, Planner 0.13, Gnucash, grisbi 0.5.7, gToDo 0.14
Browser:	Firefox 1.0.7, Dillo
E-mail:	Thunderbird 1.0.7, Evolution 2.4.2.1, Sylpheed 2.1.8 (GTK+ 2.8.9)
Graphics:	GIMP 2.3.5, gThumb 2.6.8, GQview, mtPaint
More:	Sodipodi, xsane
Multimedia:	Beep Media Player (missing?), MPl.ayer, RealPlayer10, Rythmbox
Small games:	Atomix 1.2.4, xskat 4.0 (obviously in German), PySol 4.82, xdémineur
Emulators:	DosBox, Frodo, Qemu, GnomeBoy Advance, VisualBoy Advance, Zsnes
CD/DVD Burning:	GnomeBaker 0.5.0, Graveman 0.3.12-4, Coaster 0.1.4.2, Nautilus burning
Editors:	Bluefish, SciTe, Leadpad
Chat:	gaim 2.0.0 beta1, Gnome Meeting, Skype
FTP Clients:	Gftp, gwget
P2P:	gtk-gnutella 0.95.3, aMule 2.0.3, Bittorrent 4.3.3 Beta
News:	Liferea, Pan
Configuration:	Mandriva Control Center, Xfce Setup, GDM Setup, Smart Package Manager
Monitoring:	Gdesklets (crashes), Gkrellm
Firewall:	Firestarter 1.0.3 (stopped)
Remote Access:	gnome-ppp, LinNeighborhood, RemoteDesktop, ssh, TightVNC

1. The Live Experience
Despite of what happened to me with Mandriva 2006.1-0.3 (Cooker), SAM Linux Desktop 2006-1 Preview worked like a charm! Maybe it originates from another Cooker snapshot...
To login after booting, use the credentials sam/sam. The login is disabled for user/password root/root.

The ADSL could be configured using the Mandriva Control Center, and I was up and running unlike under Mandriva's Beta.

Sure thing, the Xfce is configured with RedmondXP as a WM style, with the Nuvola theme. Not really interesting if you don't try to mimic a WinXP, but Xfce is very flexible when comes to theming, so there are plenty of choices here.

The Music Player icon on the panel was linked to a missing Beep Media Player, but MP3s worked immediately in RealPlayer, and also in Rythmbox, but only after running manually gst-register.

2. Getting to the Installation
To install SAM Linux Desktop 2006-1 Preview to the HDD, open a terminal as root and type: livecd-install. It will get you through six graphical steps which will take some time, but meanwhile you can browse the Net or do whatever you want, the system just works!

Some (unnecessary) documentation about how to install it dates from Nov. 17, 2004, so don't take it litterally: HTML, PDF.

The install can be conducted in English, German, French or Italian.



The only glitch with the install is a known bug: the fourth step will not show any progress bar until the end! (We've been told this will be fixed in the final version.)

However, the activity can be monitored by reading the output from the terminal where the installation script was started:



At some point, some cute Mandriva penguins will show in a slide, fullscreen, it's not clear why. Anyway, it's important not to forget to Install LILO (step 5) and to create users (step 6).

NOTE: Since SAM does not have by default the package gnome-utils, hence no gnome-screenshot was available, the above images are captured using import (ImageMagick), thus w/o windows' decorations.

3. On the Installed System
After the reboot, some Mandriva Cooker problems show up. PCMCIA was broken, so I had to change in /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia the line PCIC=yenta_socket into PCIC=i82365, then restart the service (as root):
It looks like the Live was better configured in some regards. Not only HW detection, but IMHO GNOME Commander and Nautilus were looking somehow better than in the installed version -- the first picture is a screenshot from the installed version. More screenshots on SAM's website.

Nevertheless, changing the theme and disabling the spatial Nautilus brought it back to something more usable to me:


Like in the LiveCD, USB flash drives are not automatically detected and mounted, but if you will mount one before starting the installation:you will end up with an installed system having a corresponding entry in /etc/fstab, in my case pointing to /mnt/win_d (yes, and a corresponding boot entry in LILO)!

Making it looking nicer usually requires on a laptop/TFT to enable "Use sub-pixel hinting" for Font Rendering (Xfce Settings Manager). The theme is to be changed in the same Xfce Settings Manager.

You will notice that the splash it uses is not the one from XFCE, but a SAM one, from /usr/share/SAM/splash.jpg.

A glitch could be considered the fact it booted with a German keyboard, but that can beeasily changed in Mandriva Control Center.

Also, as expected from a Mandriva derivative, my Touchpad was gratified with a regular PS/2 Mouse driver, so no sliding and tapping here. Oh well.

4. Getting Even More Programs
That's easy once you have Mandriva Control Center. At least for beginners in Mandriva, the easiest way is to enable all the repositories:Now you can add the software you was longing for, in my case some more GNOME stuff :-)

Again, the first shot at the beginning of the article shows it able to install Ruby, for instance. Server and development stuff (PHP, MySQL, Apache) have to be added manually.

For someone coming from Debian or from Ubuntu, the repositories might seem not that comprehensive, but you're not limited to them, of course.

If you want to start Nautilus manually (not from a shortcut), make sure type "nautilus --no-desktop", otherwise you will screw your desktop and your right-click menu!

Now, the overall experience was surprisingly good, so I can only hope it will last on my laptop more, much more than other distros tested on it!

Sure thing, it's not with GNOME, but it's not with KDE either :) And it has the potential to be the best non-KDE Mandriva derivative! (PCLinuxOS is KDE-only, right?)

Oh, and the German touch left traces here and there: there is a tooltip with umlaut, « Xfce Menü » :-)

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