Let me first start off by saying that I really didn't find anything "ugly" about this particular linux distribution. I've been spending a lot of my time lately installing and toying around with various distributions including the latest Mandrake copy 8.0 beta and Redhat 7.1 beta. Of all three of these, I think that Caldera is the better of them all. Here's why:

Hardware detection was fantastic - I had no problems with any of my hardware not being detected and preconfigured throughout installation. I was able to test different configurations on the fly to see whether they would work during regular use. This way I wouldn't have any headaches when I finished installing it. (But you can read about these fantastic features on their website :))

Excellent Documentation (both online and offline) - Redhat tends to push you to their website to get documentation regarding various aspects of Linux in general and your GUI. However, Caldera makes this an important part of your operating system. They put everything in front of you so you can go through without knowing little about Linux. When you click on the documentation icon, it doesn't go online looking for a website. Instead, it pops open a window with the TOC right there. If you can't find your answers there, you can surf to the caldera website and use the userguide to find out more about setting up various services.

Webmin - This is GREAT stuff. You can pretty much manage every part of the operating system through a web-based control panel. You can manage your applications downloaded from the internet, to the servers that are running as services, to booting configurations, to network configurations. You name it -- it's right there.

Hope this helps!



Recommended: Yes