Call for Opinions on Caldera

[linuxgrrl]

Hello, all. I know that I can search and research... and I have...

On the other hand, nothing speaks better than experience! I am looking for opinions specifically on Caldera. Do you like it? If so, what do you like about it, and what do you think are its strengths. Do you dislike it? If so, what do you find are its shortcomings?

Thanks in advance for your valuable opinions!

[ColdPack]

Well, when I tried it, it installed pretty easily. Took a little tweaking to get my printer to work correctly.
Being a Debian user, though, keeps me from enjoying it as it's based on .rpm.
But, really, it works pretty well. I liked it better than I liked Suse7.0.

[Once-Ler]

OH MY GOD... I love Caldera... geez it has to be the best linux distro out there... So here is my breakdown of it.

Bad: (or things the weak minded might complain about)
1. No individual packet selection on install
2. Its old... it will requir you to update some things (kernel, xfree86, blah)
3. Tech support is funny
4. Doesn't have gnome (so you can't use one of the x version of tetrinet... sniff...sniff... but that is why there is helix gnome)

Good: (oh yeah)
1. I can't really find a specific good thing to say... I know what I don't like about most distros and that is why i kept comming back to caldera
2. I can download blackbox... install it... throw it into my login via kcontrol and it works perfectly... unlike mandrake7ish (2 for sure)
3. Minimal is a lot smaller then most distros... about 200ish megs
4. All my stuff works and its generic to where it is easy to get hardware to work (my system has such things as a voodoo3, USB, SBLive, 3c509x, burner, epson800, blah blah blah)
5. the COAS utility is really easy to use... works well...

Its just a really nice OS... the lastest version (2.4) came out a long time ago and as is... its sold... no funny crashes... or real bugs... hurray for corrporate america :)

[Once-Ler]

P.S. if you decide on it... I can help you get pretty much anything to work under is (even those crazy extra buttons that some keyboards come with...)

[linuxgrrl]

Thanks!

:)

[Beowulfs_Ghost]

Being that Caldera aims their distro at busineeses, they use less cluting edge stuff, but keep the older, more stable parts.

So it's a good stable distro, it just doesn't come with alot of bells and whistles. But that doesn't stop you from downloading all the bells and whistles you want.

[n2linux]

:( hmmm... I'm still waiting for the Caldera 2.4 CD from pogo linux (BTW, It's free)

[Linuxman]

I've decided on Caldera for my main distro and have been using COL 2.3 ofr over a year, with a recent try of 2.4. The install is very good and easy. It detects basic HD size and gives you 7 different options of packages to install. What I did was the everything install, then uninstalled them with kpackage, the kde gui front end to rpm. The only real problem I had, or have, is the autodetect of hardware. it would not detect, nor could I get working, my Ensoniq sound card, but it detected my Soundblaster, and it had a hard time detecting my modem. Otherwise, it has worked out fine for me. I haven't fooled around a lot with it, just installed it and began using it and all its accompanying software. I never had a printer problem either.

[Gunney]

If someone came to me and said that they wanted to learn Linux from the ground up, I would suggest Caldera 2.5. Here's why:

1) Caldera prides themselves on stability. They won't use stuff in their distro that hasn't been tested over a fair time period. You may not get the latest and greatest, but you won't have to fuss a whole lot to get things to work.

2) There's not so many pieces of software that you get overwhelmed.

3) Overall, It's a great Distro. Personally, I'm using SuSE 7.0, but I had the need for a few more tools.

I do not think you can make a mistake by spending the thirty bucks that Caldera wants.. and I WOULD suggest you spend the money cause they have a pretty good book that comes with the software...

Gunney

[vvx]

2.5? I thought the current release was 2.4

[Once-Ler]

Yeah... when did 2.5 come out biznatch??? :D