Differences between Linux Mint and PC Linux OS?

[klemperal]

It seems to me that these two distros have a similar goal in so far as both aim to be very beginner friendly, beautiful, and usable. With both distros having a similar goal, what sets Mint apart from PCLOS or vice versa? I'm not interested in flaming here--I'm just interested in what some differences are (besides Mint being based on Ubuntu and PCLOS being based on Mandrake). Oh, and no detail/difference is to small to mention. A couple of small things like the right click option to set a picture as my wallpaper or to uninstall a program is what sold me on Mint. Its often the little things that matter the most

[msuggs]

The major difference has to be that it is KDE based and Mint's main edition is Gnome. The other killer for me is that it has doesn't have the multimedia codec support out of the box that Mint has. No release since March 2007 seems a bit slow to me as well.

[klemperal]

The release cycle certainly is much slower. What has me a little confused too is that, while there is an official gnome edition now for 2008, it's tucked away in their forum and not in the main download page.

The other killer for me is that it has doesn't have the multimedia codec support out of the box that Mint has. No release since March 2007 seems a bit slow to me as well.

I didn't know that. I thought that PCLOS had everything Mint had except for DVD-CSS.

[Fred]

klemperal,

Probably the biggest difference is one you haven't recognized yet and initially won't make much difference to you. Mint is Debian/Ubuntu based and uses the apt packaging system. PCLOS is Red Hat/Mandrake based and uses the rpm packaging system. One system is not necessarily better than the other but they are rather different and both have their strengths and weaknesses. It would take a book to try to explain the differences so I'll leave it up to you to research the issues involved until your heart is content.

Fred

[klemperal]

Yeah, yet another reason I chose mint was because it is based on Ubuntu. Ubuntu being hugely popular distro equates to a ton of documentation and information posted online which makes trouble shooting Mint (or just linux in general) that much easier to a new user like myself.

[msuggs]

I didn't know that. I thought that PCLOS had everything Mint had except for DVD-CSS.

hmm, I meant to say the 'same' multimedia codec support. That said, w32codecs and dvd encryption are big omissions in comparison to mint.

[msuggs]

Ubuntu being hugely popular distro equates to a ton of documentation and information posted online which makes trouble shooting Mint (or just linux in general) that much easier.

This is very true. Between here and the Ubuntu support on offer there aren't to many problems that can't be easily solved.

[MALsPa]

Oh, and no detail/difference is to small to mention.

Well, since you said that...

I had PCLOS 2007 installed for some months last year. And I had 0.92 installed before that.

One thing that bothered me was that Synaptic was not as good as what I've been used to in distros like Ubuntu, Mepis, Mint, and Debian. I guess because of what Fred mentioned above, apt-get vs. Redhat Package Manager.

In PCLOS, Synaptic was much slower when it came to upgrading or shall say "reloading," as I recall.

Also, I don't think that there was any place to view "Installed Files."

And there was no way to view a terminal window when changes were being applied. When I asked about this at the PCLOS forums, texstar was kind enough to reply: "Maybe take a look at aptitude? I think it has a ncurses interface that might fit what you are looking for?"

Those are really some things that I could live with, but they were irritating to me. Other than these Synaptic issues, I thought PCLOS was a great distro.