Review: ROSA 2012 "Marathon"

Its good to see he continuation of Mandriva (as it and Mandrake, was where i started in Linux full time) but i wonder what ROSA has to offer to set it apart from the other KDE based distributions out there, things which make it worth being taken seriously (bar its two unique tools and theme which don't offer much extra it seems). The crash during this review doesn't bode well for its stability but i would imagine that will be worked out over time.

I will certainly be testing ROSA out as generally i have heard good things, wouldn't mind seeing what all the hype for myself.

Not a bad review :)

Quoting:I tested ROSA on a live USB system made with MultiSystem.

Quoting:The crash during this review doesn't bode well for its stability ...

I usually find reviews of distro's as live systems pretty much useless. Doing a proper install, real or virtual, after the installation with updates, tells me more about a distro. If it's not a full blown review I won't waste my time reading.

I agree. Why are there so many reviewers that only use live systems or vms for testing distros? Laziness? Neither method is thorough enough to be of use to anyone wanting to actually install a distro - which, after all, is the intended purpose for most of them.

Actually, ROSA 2012 Marathon is a live CD. However, it doesn't support MultiSystem. If you test something in a way not supported by the distributor it's an unfair test.

@patrick: My review of ROSA 2012 will be on DistroWatch on Monday. It is quite at odds with this review. For one thing, ROSA moved quite a ways away from Mandriva 2011, and I don't just mean fixing bugs. For example, Mandriva (and Mandrake before it) used the drakXtools for system configuration. They are almost entirely gone in ROSA. In addition, ROSA has some new and unique applications developed by ROSA Labs with features not found in other competing apps. The ROSA desktop is a very highly customized build of KDE 4.8.3. ROSA designed the Mandriva 2011 desktop so there are similarities, but KDE has continued to evolve and so have the ROSA customizations.

Is ROSA stable? In a word, yes.

I got the feeling that this review didn't do it a great deal of justice alright, i always loved the drakXtools configuration suite and the ability to control compositing from the login screen, pity. Yeah the new applications look neat enough. as i said i will definitely be testing this one, out of curiosity at least.

@caitlyn

Quoting:Actually, ROSA 2012 Marathon is a live CD...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the assumption that full desktop Live CD's are for testing the distribution, mainly for hardware compatability and general look and feel. A desktop distributions main intent is to be installed. Doing a review based on a Live CD, doesn't tell me much. So I stand by my original comment and look forward to your full review.

I know there are some distributions like Slitaz, Puppy, Knoppix, etc. that are designed to be run live, and their reviews should be based on that.

@smallboxadmin: I don't disagree with you :) I'm just pointing out that the distribution media offers the choice of installation or running live.