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Battle of the Beasts: Wolvix vs. Pardus

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Another exciting month has almost passed. So far, I tried and tested two equally fantastic and capable Linux distributions. Wolvix 1.1.0 and Pardus 2007.3 are well-crafted distros that truly deserve some attention. Some might ask which one is better between the two. There’s only one way to find out. Let’s put Wolvix and Pardus on stage and start a distrowar.

Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for our two distro warriors. On the right corner, weighing in at 483MB, please welcome the Norwegian Wolf, Wolvix. On the left corner weighing in at exactly 686MB, please welcome the Pride of Turkey, Pardus.

Now sit back, relax, and read on. It’s Wolvix vs. Pardus, wolf vs. leopard, dog vs. cat. Let’s get it on! :)

Distrowar Arena (Test Machine Specs):
Board: Intel Corporation D102GGC2
Processor: 3.40 GHz Intel Pentium D
Hard Drive: Samsung 80GB ATA with 8GB allocated to VM disk
Memory: 2GB DDR2 RAM with 256MB allocated to VM memory

Tale of the Tape:

Distro Name: Wolvix| Weight: 483MB| Country Origin: Norway| Distro Origin: Slackware| Package Mgt.: TGZ| Default Desktop: XFCE| Distrowatch Rank: #66




Distro Name: Pardus| Weight: 686MB| Country Origin: Turkey| Distro Origin: Gentoo| Package Mgt.: PiSi| Default Desktop: KDE| Distrowatch Rank: #64




Speed Test:
Installation Time- Winner, Wolvix!
Boot/Start-up Time - Winner, Pardus!
Responsiveness- Winner, Wolvix!

Decoding:
Wolvix edged out Pardus by just a small margin in “Installation Time (the time it takes to finish the installation)”. Meanwhile, Pardus is the clear winner in “Start-up Time (measured from Grub menu to the main desktop)” because it completely booted for around 52 seconds, whereas Wolvix took more than 3 minutes to finish booting. Because Wolvix uses the lighter XFCE desktop manager, it tends to be a little bit quicker and more responsive than Pardus which uses KDE.

Aesthetics
:
Default Theme- Winner, Wolvix!
Extras- Winner, Pardus!
Artwork- Winner, Pardus!

Decoding:
I made Wolvix the winner for “Default Theme” because I love its simple and elegant look. Pardus won “Extras and “Artwork” for its added desktop eyecandy, like the transparent effects and the enhanced Kickoff style menu, and also for its great looking icon sets.

Features:
Pre-installed Applications- Winner, Pardus!
Available Packages from Repo- Draw!
Ease of Use- Winner, Pardus!

Decoding:
For “Pre-installed Applications”, Pardus won due to the fact that it is bigger in terms of size than Wolvix, which means it contains a larger number of pre-installed software. Quality wise, they both include great software packages out-of-the-box. Also, they equally have plenty of “Available Packages from Repo” that is why I called it a draw. For “Ease of Use”, Pardus is my choice because of its straightforward graphical installation and package management, and for its uncomplicated Control Center.

Stability:
Hardware Detection- Draw!
Software Management- Winner, Pardus!
Error Handling- Winner, Pardus!

Decoding:
Since Pardus and Wolvix had no problems in properly detecting and configuring my hardware, it’s a draw for “Hardware Detection”. Pardus won “Software Management” because of its highly capable and Synaptic-like package manager called PiSi. I gave “Error Handling” to Pardus for the reason that I encountered fewer issues with it than with Wolvix.

Final Score:
Pardus = 7
Wolvix = 3
*Winner, Pardus!

Conclusion:
Pardus won by quite a large margin mainly because in my own opinion it is more polished and complete than Wolvix. However, I can’t fully assume that Wolvix is the ultimately loser in this battle since my judgment was solely based on the results of my tests and on my hardware alone. To be really fair, I need other people’s opinion. So, to those who have also tried these two distros, feel free to give us your thoughts.

Anyway, our distrowar is all for fun and should not be taken seriously. If you want to take this gravely, it’s your choice. Just don’t blame me if you’ll encounter heart problems (hehe).

2 comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 23, 2008

    I use pardus its fantastic... everyone must try it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pardus is good and fast.

    ReplyDelete