PCLinuxOS

Reader supplied reviews for PCLinuxOS Average rating 8.1 from 120 review(s) Please specify which version of the distribtion you are reviewing. Please select a rating in the range of 1-10. Please write at least a few sentences about the distribution while limiting your review to 4080 characters. What are your thoughts on PCLinuxOS? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- apt2024.102023.072022.122021.112020.10152019.122018.062017.112016.032014.122013.102012.082011.092010.122010.072010.12009.22009.120070.920.91 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 2024.10 Rating: 2 Date: 2025-07-15 Votes: 0 PCLinuxOS is a sad case of a declining distribution. It was once one of the most popular distributions out there, and today it remains one of the only distributions which does not use systemd or even elogind, but its development process and stubbornness in certain facets make it unusable for the wider community. Its continued existence hinges soley on its BDFL, with a close call happening last month where the only packaging computer used to provide PCLOS users with updates quit working. The lack of a build farm shows that PCLOS really is a one man band and without him PCLOS would be "Discontinued" status. There is a PCLinuxOS Debian Edition which is seen as the heir to the throne, but it's really just a mundane spin of Debian with the name PCLOS slapped onto it. PCLinuxOS is more like a retirement home than a distribution for getting work done, in other words it's more of a sanctuary for a shrinking number of veteran PCLOS users and their friends. If you use anything other than the KDE Darkstar Edition, you get a proprietary remote connection application called Anydesk with no option to remove it. Other proprietary software is included like Spotify. You can actually remove these applications by uninstalling the packages before running the live installer, but for a distribution targeted towards the elderly, including a tool commonly used to scam the elderly with no guide on how to remove it is not ideal. Installing PCLOS, you have no choice to use encryption and using filesystems such as Btrfs or XFS are not encouraged despite being available to mount and use. Under the hood, PCLinuxOS uses sysvinit which is a nice change from typical desktop-oriented distros, but it falls apart when you take a look at the startup scripts and the cruft that has been left there for decades, for instance rc.local which is meant to only contain user startup hooks is full of random other hooks for various things the user may never want or need, rather than in mandrake-everytime which, besides the name showing PCLOS' age, would be a more ideal location for those sorts of things. As a matter of fact, a lot of what makes PCLOS work is spaghetti code from different people over many years. PCLinuxOS uses RPM packages with an old and unmaintained version of APT that supports it called APT-RPM. The packages created for PCLOS are often inconsistent with random patches and no unified install locations, build options, etc. which leads to a bothersome file hierarchy, man pages that are often nonexistent, missing language support, and bugs which are present that would otherwise not be there. Blame often gets thrown on upstream rather than on the chaotic packaging. PCLinuxOS is 64-bit only with an ia32-libs package which just takes random 32-bit libraries and sloppily throws them in /opt, so you are probably better off using flatpak if you want to make use of multilib applications. KDE5 and KDE6 repos are split so certain things that may be needed by both are stuck in the KDE5 repository. For instance, Qt5 applications will not blend into KDE 6 owing to this. Overall, while PCLinuxOS is simple to set up, it is not a predictable distribution for the aforementioned reasons. It's not welcoming to new users because the response is often to just "Use the Debian Edition" which is probably worse than just using vanilla Debian, especially when you consider that things which make the distribution stand out such as RPM or its continued use of ConsoleKit2 get thrown away and it becomes a mere reskin of Debian. If you want something with its roots in Mandrake, you are probably better off using OpenMandriva. If you want something that does not use systemd/elogind, you may be better off learning a source-based distribution like CRUX or Venom. Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2024.10 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-06-19 Votes: 4 I've been using PCLinuxOS since 2006. I've installed it my self, and the only problems I ever had were things I did wrong. This distro works very well consistently. I love the fact that it has no SystemD. The repositories have a great selection of software, updated regularly, with most anything you might need. Updating works well. Installing it to a new computer is a breeze. I also have a copy on a USB drive so I can boot it up away from home if needed. I use the Xfce desktop and it's wonderful, but if you want another DE, you can choose from several others, with KDE being one of the defaults. The forums are a great source of help, and the people are very knowledgeable. 10 out of 10 for me! PJD Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 2024.10 Rating: 10 Date: 2025-06-05 Votes: 4 I use it daily with all my home devices, in a laboratory I have created 25 workstations no problem, it has excellent tools developed to allow you to create your own custom iso to use on other hardware or keep as a copy, of course you have to learn to know it and use it plus point is the excellent forum very friendly, as always every step to new platforms can create obstacles here after a short time you feel at home. A period of learning is needed, but it happens, you never give it up. I remember that Pclos has existed for a long time, maybe it is less attractive but try it the integration with kde is fantastic ... Was this review helpful? Yes No See all 120 reader reviews of PCLinuxOS...