Review of Storm Linux 2000
noeld@rootprompt.org
Storm Linux 2000 is a Debian based Linux distribution from Stormix Technologies.
I installed and tested Storm Linux 2000 on a 133MHZ Pentium with 64MB
of Ram, a 2.5GB IDE hard drive and an IDE CDROM.
The instructions said that to install you needed to boot from the
CDROM and there were not instructions on how to install by booting
from a floppy. This could be an issue for someone wanting to install
it on an older machine without a bootable CDROM. The CDROM booted to a
boot loader with a large Storm Linux logo. It gave two options: hit f2 for
more help and touch enter to continue.
I continued by pressing enter, "touching enter" that is. It went through a
standard Linux startup with the exception of a Storm Linux graphical
wrapper around the startup messages.
It then shows a Stormix end user license agreement. The end user
license agreement tells us that Storm Linux is released under the GNU
General Public License and identifies the Stormix trademarks.
The next screen is a hardware detection screen that detects if you
have SCSI devices and what type of CDROM you have. It detected my
CDROM and found that I had no SCSI adapters, the next screen
detected my PS2 mouse.
Next it gave me the choice of a text based or graphical install. I
selected the graphical install. It started up X windows and ran a
second hardware detection application. This hardware detection
utility seemed more informative than anything else.
I was then led through a series of screens that let me select my
keyboard type and if I wanted to install X Windows. I selected
install X and it asked me what color depth and resolution I wanted.
It then had me select what monitor I was using and saying that it did
not detect my video card it gave me a large list of cards to pick from.
Once I had selected all of these options for X it gave me a dialog box
that allowed me to test my X configuration. The test screen that it
used was very well designed. It did a good job of assuring the user
that the correct settings for X had been selected.
Once X was setup it brought up a dialog box for partitioning your
hard drive. The options were express, custom and partition magic. I
selected the express partitioning from the dialog. Express did a good
job of partitioning the disk. It ran through the partitioning, formating and
adding the swap without prompting for any other information. It set
up a 160MB swap partition and placed the remainder in my root file
system. This is an option that a new user should have when installing
Linux.
The next screen allowed me to select additional operating systems for the
boot loader. I did not have any additional operating systems on this
machine so I was not able to test how well it worked.
Next was a dialog box to set up the network. It was well set up and
easy to understand.
The next screen prompted me to set up a user account and set the root
password.
Setting the time zone was interesting rather than just give you a long
list of time zones there was a series of dialog boxes that had you select
the continent you are on, then the country and city.
The package selection screen did not seem very fine grained. But on
the other hand de-selecting packages that are required and will be
installed no matter what you choose as I have done under some
distributions is a waste of time. I was sure I had the room so I
selected everything.
It then asked what desktop environment I wished to have as my default
giving the choice of KDE or Gnome. I selected KDE and selected a very
nice option of install both desktops.
That was the last screen I had to fill out. After that it installed
all the packages and then ejected the CDROM and put up a message to
hit the reset button and restart the machine.
After restarting it booted up to the "Storm Linux Loader". Which was
a big blue screen that allowed the selection of which operating system
with the arrow keys. After a short delay it continued the startup.
For the first startup it displayed a long list of setting up messages.
It looked like it ran a process to set up each package that had been
installed. This took a while to finish. Once the setups had
completed it started X and kdm and waited for a login. Kdm is the K
display manager which is KDE's version of xdm.
I logged in with the account that I had created during the
installation. It started the KDE desktop. On the desktop were icons
for the CDROM and floppy that would mount them and then display them
with the kfm file manager. Also on the desktop were icons for
Netscape 4.6 and Gimp 1.1.10. It looked clean and easily
understandable for a new user or someone who was not familiar with
KDE.
I was impressed at how well they had set up the menus. I have been
unimpressed in this area under some other distributions. I
normally run fvwm with menus that I have been banging on for four
years. But I seek after the holy grail of the distribution for the
kids or mom that I do not have to work on for days before they can use
it. The menus they have set up have a large selection of
applications and utilities and were clearly laid out.
There were two GUI programs from Stormix SAT (System Admin Tool) and
the Storm Package Manager.
SAT lets the administrator manage users, network including dns, dhcp
devices and, dialup. When you start it it prompts you for a login
name and a password. It then has a series of windows that allow you
to configure many different things.
The Storm Package Manager is a GUI Debian package manager. It is a
pretty nice tool for a new user user or for someone not familiar with
Debian. It allows you to filter the list of
packages to select from and then select the packages you want and then
pull them from the Stormix FTP server.
Logging in with the Gnome desktop also worked fine. The Gnome menus
included everything that the KDE menus had and added the Gnome
applications. They were also clearly laid out.
I found this to be a well thought out and executed distribution. It
is the closest thing to a kids and mom installation that I have used.
I would recommend it to anyone installing Linux for the first time or
someone looking for an installation for their newbie friends.
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