14 DAY TRIAL // Snowlinux 3 RC, a Linux distribution based on Linux Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" Stable and powered by the Gnome 2 desktop environment, is now available for download and testing.
Snowlinux 3 has been dubbed Crystal and it comes with Gnome 2. There is a good reason for this decision, as the developers have explained it. Apparently, due to some important modifications to Gnome 3 and Unity, the implementation of Gnome 2 was the only way to go.
There are also many important modifications that need to be mentioned. The most important of them is the implementation of Linux kernel 3.2.0 LTS (Long Term Support), which means Snowlinux 3 will be supported until February 2014.
Other significant features are the addition of Mozilla Firefox 14.1 as the default browser, DuckDuckGo as the default search engine (the developers of Snowlinux have signed a partnership with DuckDuckGo a while ago), Dropbox was integrated into Nautilus, Thunderbird 14 is now the default email client, and LibreOffice 3.4.6 has been made available as the default office suite.
As for the “looks” of Snowlinux 3 RC Crystal, the Snowlinux-Metal-Theme is now GTK 3 compatible, the terminal features a black background, a large number of full HD background images for the desktop have been added, and the interface has improved.
The system requirements are also quite acceptable: an x86-CPU, 256 MB memory, 2 GB free disk space, a graphics card capable of 800×600 resolution, CD-ROM drive or USB port. Snowlinux 3 "Crystal" is also fully compatible with Debian's Repository.
Download Snowlinux 3 RC "Crystal" right now from Softpedia. Two flavors are available as the distribution is for both 32-bit and 64-bit platforms. Remember that this is just a release candidate version and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended for testing purposes only.