Thread: Hardware detection software

Hardware detection
I have had absolutely no problem with detection of my Realtek 8139 network card, monitor resolution, HP scanner, HP Deskjet 3940 printer, USB drives, digital camera and AC 97 audio. Reading and writing to NTFS drives was a breeze. In a nutshell: everything just worked! Of course, these peripherals are fully supported under most other distros too, unless there's something royally wrong with them.

Software section
On the multimedia front, I didn't face any trouble playing DVDs with the default KMPlayer O.lO.Oc. Neither did I have any problems with dropping frames (picture quality), and assorted default video settings. Of course, I would have preferred Kaffeine instead of KMPlayer. I can play MP3s without a fuss with Amarok 1.4.10-superb sound quality here too. KsCD handled all my audio CDs, and the inclusion of w32codecs was welcome. The versatile K3b 1.0.5 took care of all my burning and audio ripping needs.



Video ripping with K3b, however, required the installation of the necessary libraries, and KMPlayer refused to play VCDs and encoded DVDs. It's a no-brainer fixing
these issues, but I still would have preferred it if things had worked out-of-the-box.
On the office productivity front, you have the reliable Open Office 3.0 suite, while on the graphics front, you will find the scanner utility Kooka, the digital camera utility DigiKam and a PDF reader. I wish the GIMP was also included. Yes, I sure can download missing packages like the GIMP and Kaffeine video player with Synaptic just as easily, or add the numerous packages from the Debian 5.0 DVD included with the LFY to my repositories with Synaptic.

The Internet section, by default, has the usual suspects like Firefox 3,0,6 and Konqueror, KMail, Guarddog (a firewall utility) and Jbidwatcher (a utility for those addicted to buying things from sites like e-bay).