14 DAY TRIAL // There's no shortage of Ubuntu-based Linux distros but that hasn't been stopping anyone from coming up with another one so far. PC/OS is based on Xubuntu rather than the vanilla Ubuntu distro and, while it comes with quite a few customizations, it doesn't stray too far from its source. The distro is getting close to the launch of its latest update and there's now a new beta, PC/OS 10.1 Beta 2.
"We have released Beta 2 of PC/OS 10.1 There have been several fixes associated with this release. Keep in mind this is a beta and there are still several fixes that have been identified and will be implemented and many more bugs haven’t been found and reported. Do not use the Beta in a production environment," read the announcement complete with the boilerplate beta warning.
With development in the final run, the latest beta brings only several bug fixes and updates though there are still a couple of known issues, which are still pending a fix. First off, the biggest change in 10.1 is that it's now based on the latest Ubuntu 9.10, bringing it in line with the main distro in terms of codebase and main packages. Also note: "When you boot the live session you MUST enter the username 'custom' leave the password blank. This will boot you into live mode."
PC/OS 10.1 Beta 2 reverts to GDM 2.20, as the newer 2.28 was deemed too buggy and unstable. The beta also comes with Broadcom drivers, and Firefox 3.5.8 has been chosen as the default browser in place of Google Chrome, though the developers aren't giving up on the Google browser and the final version may ship with both of them. The team announced that a KDE-based version of PC/OS 10.1 would be coming to complement the existing one, which uses the GTK-based XFCE desktop environment.
PC/OS aims to make Linux more accessible to regular users and have everything work out of the box. Arguably, Ubuntu shares this goal and besides being the most popular Linux distribution, it's also one of the most user-friendly. PC/OS takes it a step further, for example, by bundling video and audio codecs with the release sparing users the hassle of having to install the packages themselves.
Download PC/OS 10.1 Beta 2 right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a beta release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.