Feather Linux 0.5.5 Review

Introduction

There has been quite a bit of talk about mini Linux distro's recently so I decided to take a look at some of them. Given the large number of small distro's I narrowed my search to only those less than 200 mb, a live CD, desktop oriented, and those that have had a release in the last couple of months. After reading a few reviews and looking at a few of the websites I decided to take a longer look at Feather Linux.

Why would you want to have a distro that is so small? There are several reasons: mini distros are faster, they make you evaluate what you really need in a distro, just because you can, but lastly and most importantly - because it is just too cool not to have a complete Linux distribution on a little 8cm CD!

About Feather Linux

To quote the Feather Linux website: "Feather Linux is a Linux distribution which runs completely off a CD or a USB pendrive and takes up under 64Mb of space. It is a Knoppix remaster (based on Debian), and tries to include software which most people would use every day on their desktop." Feather Linux is the work of Rob Sullivan. I downloaded version 0.5.5 which is based on the latest version of Knoppix (3.4) and includes the a Kernel and the Fluxbox window manager. To quote me: "Feather Linux has all the software you need to be productive and a desktop too."

Boot

I popped the CD in the drive and started the computer. Almost immediately there is a nice graphical screen with the Feather Linux penguin and the slogan "Feather Linux - A desktop orientated distro which fits in under 64 mg." Press enter to continue or F2 for boot options and help (if you don't do anything it will automatically continue booting after a short delay).

Then it detects your processor, USB devices, automatically configures devices (with a progress bar) and configures the network card. All the time it is telling you what it is actually doing. I'm sure reading what is happening makes the boot process seem faster than seeing nothing at. The hardware detection was absolutely faultless - as you would expect for a Knoppix based distro.

After that it asks you a series of questions:

Xvesa or Zfbdev xserver? I chose Xvesa

USB Mouse? I said yes.

What screen resolution would you like? I picked 1024x 768

Choose a color depth. I went for 32bit.

DPI? I skipped this.

Change default key mapping? I opted to say no.

Shortly after that I was presented with the desktop.

Fluxbox

Fluxbox is the default desktop/window manager in Feather Linux. You could also choose to use evilwm by typing "knoppix evilwm" at startup if you prefer. I decided to stay with Fluxbox.

Fluxbox is a Blackbox based window manager with tabs (multiple "workspaces"). To launch applications in Fluxbox there is no "K" or "start" button, instead you simply right click on the desktop. I had never come across this concept before and must say it is brilliant in its simplicity. The default theme ("style") is a nice dark grey and electric blue edged one and there are 18 styles included to choose from.

As well as style you can also configure the focus model, window placement, maximization, tabs, icons, workspaces and mouse wheel among other things. As well as console configuration there are also several system/administration apps including "mount.app" a graphic drive mounting program which makes accessing drives quick and easy. All in all Fluxbox is a very nice desktop/window manager indeed and I am very tempted to start using it on my main installed distro PCLinuxOS.

An html getting started guide is automatically opened for you. This is a thoughtful touch for users not familiar with Feather Linux and includes information on how to access the internet, mounting drives, screen resolution and sound issues, the different web browsers included, saving your configuration, flash and java and man pages and documentation.

The main desktop also has shortcuts to the most common applications: Console, Xpdf, Sylopheed (email client), Xcalc, Scite, Zile, Nano, Ted (word processor), Emelfm, Xmms, VNCViewer, Naim, ABS (speadsheet), Dillo (web browser), Xpaint, xzgv and axyFTP.

Applications

There are at least 100 separate applications included in Feather Linux. The applications I use on a daily basis are a web browser, word processor and a file manager so I will summarize these as well the email and spreadsheet programs included.

Dillo is the main web browser in Feather Linux. It includes tabbed browsing and can handle frames and SSL. Dillo is a perfectly capable browser and and was able to visit and view all my regular websites without any problems at all. The homepage is set to Google which I thought was very helpful for a live distro.

Ted is a simple word processor. It works with RTF files and can handle pictures, symbols, tables, 4 main fonts and includes a spell checker. Ted is more than capable of coping with the basic word processing functions such as writing a letter.

The file manager is EmelFM. EmelFM is two paned with "directories" on the left and their file contents on the right side. At the bottom you can type shell commands and view the results in the panes at top. EmelFM is simple yet very effective.

Sylpheed is the email client. What can I say, it is like pretty much every other email client, folders on the left, message list on top right and message preview on bottom right. It does everything you need to deal with your emails, what more can I say?

The spreadsheet application is ABS. It can do formulas, charts, macros and different fonts. Everything 90% of the population needs in a spreadsheet.

All of these applications do the job, nothing more and nothing less, but they will allow you to be productive. I can't really do them complete justice in 2 or 3 sentences so I would suggest  taking a look at their websites too. If you want bigger applications, a great function is included in Feather Linux to download and install OpenOffice, Abiword, Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, Apache and GIMP.  

A full list of the applications included with Feather Linux along with descriptions can be found here on the Feather Linux website.

Overall Impressions

The basics I look for in any distro are good hardware detection, a nice usable desktop and the ability get straight on the internet. Feather Linux does all this, and in only 64 mb too! It won't quite replace my main desktop distro but it has definitely a place in my bag right next to my USB key.

Given that you have to make some configuration decisions at start up (although I hope the startup will be automagic like Damn Small Linux's soon) and you can't (understandably) use Open Office and Firefox immediately I wouldn't give Feather Linux to Aunt Jane, however I would strongly recommend it to any power users, anyone looking for a distro to run on older hardware or someone that just wants to carry Linux around (literally) in their pocket. Another big bonus about mini distros in general is that you can download them on a dialup connection.  

I decided to concentrate on Feather Linux however Damn Small Linux, Morphix and Slax are definitely worth a look too and and if you want to see full lists of mini Linux distros go to this page at Linux.org and look for "Minimalist" or go to Linux Links.

Barney Matthews