Foresight Linux and Gnome 2.18
Posted by: sito on: March 11, 2007
I have been using Linux as my primary desktop at home for a while now. In fact, recently it has become my only desktop at home, since I uninstalled Windows completely. At work, I use Windows (for documents and MS Exchange) along with Linux running in a VMware virtual machine for all my development setup requirements. At both places (home and work), Ubuntu has been my linux distribution of choice although I do occasionally try out new releases of both Fedora and OpenSuse on VMWare (before slipping back to Ubuntu).
So it wasn’t too much of a big deal when I read first about Foresight Linux. Still I decided to try it over the weekend since it claims to package the latest Gnome before any other distro ‘officially’ picks it up and ships with its own package management called Conary. I must say I am pleasantly surprised by both the latest Gnome 2.18 and with Foresight as well. I think Foresight is still not where Ubuntu is in terms of the total ‘feel’ of the desktop, but for a linux distro it comes out higher than I (personally) would rank OpenSuse or Fedora. The base selection of packages is interesting. Also, the VMWare distribution worked out of the box, which was the most pleasing thing about it all: no mucking around trying to get the maximum screen resolution or configuring the DNS settings manually. Gnome 2.18 is up and running with a soothing theme (IMO) that I don’t want to change. I don’t have the patience to write a full review myself, but this one does good justice to the topic. I leave you guys with a recommendation to try the virtual machine or the live CD and see for yourself. Its available for download here. I personally will track where this project goes towards.
PS: Before I forget, the frustrating part of using the System Manager in the virtual machine is that the default username password is not quite easy to guess. I had to google around and figure out a way to reset the password before it would let me in.
4 Responses to "Foresight Linux and Gnome 2.18"
March 11, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Oh, I did not know it tells the default login/password for System Manager during the install procedure. I just got the virtual machine and I don’t remember seeing this information when I switched it on for the first time. Guess this won’t be a big issue for non-VM users then.
The release is impressive, I agree 
March 11, 2007 at 4:33 pm
It normally appears on the login page to FSM. It might be because its installed differently but could also be because of the new theme. Thanks for pointing it out since I certainly hadn’t noticed.
March 11, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Hey, that seems to be a problem with the live environments. On an install it actually tells you the default is admin:password the first time. Problem is people then tend to forget what they changed it to or try using their user or roots. It’d be better if it was but for the moment its different. There are few other issues in the live versions, like the login doesn’t make it clear the the user is live with no password (clicking the user also works).
On the whole it’s pretty impressive considering it didn’t exist a week ago
PS: Hurrah for RSS feed searches