A Brief Berry Review
The Basics of Berry Linux
Yuichiro Nakada is the developer of this Fedora-based distribution that is available in Japanese and English. Few Berry reviews emphasize the fact that the system was based on the popular Fedora distro with good reason, there’s not much about it that reminds you of Fedora during work in a Graphical User Interface (GUI), especially if you have a preference for the GNOME desktop environment as I do.
Berry Review: Office Work
I give Berry Linux an excellent rating when it comes to office productivity. Users are provided with Base for database development, Calc for electronic spreadsheets, Draw for electronic drawings, Impress for creating professional presentations, the formula editor, Math, and the powerful word processor, Writer. All of these bundled applications are there without any downloading from a repository, and they create Microsoft (MS) compatible files for exchange with Windows users.
Games to Play
A Berry review probably wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t at least mention the games. Those who realize the harm that playing violent games or those promoting the occult does might be pleasantly surprised to see that the old, but once famous PacMan (on SNES) can be played using nothing but the arrow keys. Some will enjoy some of the other games that come bundled with the distro as well. Fortunately, Linux distros can always be “extended” via downloads from the repository.
Berry Linux for Windows Users
One thing I found nice about Berry Linux is the fact that it includes a Windows Emulator (WINE) for Windows users who would like to make the switch to Linux without giving up certain programs that were written only for Windows. Also, you’ll see the blue “E” of the Internet Explorer web browser which actually calls Mozilla’s FireFox. This Berry Review is over the 1.0 release so this might not be the case in previous or future releases. Understandably, some would not really find it helpful to remind of MS Internet Explorer when actually using FireFox, nevertheless, others would. Windows Notepad, the simple text editor, along with Regedit, and Wordpad are also already emulated for those who work with them.
Graphics and Multimedia in Berry Linux
The famous GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and Inkscape SVG Vector Illustrator come bundled in this flavor of Linux. Graphic artists and web page designers often make use of the free GIMP instead of purchasing the expensive Adobe Photoshop. Berry Linux also offers much for sound and video. There’s the TVtime Television Viewer for watching TV on your Personal Computer (PC), Kaffeine for media, the multimedia and audio player called Audacious, and the K3b Compact Disc (CD) and Digital Versatile Disc DVD) burning software.
The Internet and Other Operations in Berry
I was happy to see the Konquerer web browser as a choice for web site surfing in addition to Mozilla’s FireFox which can be problematic at times. Unfortunately, Berry doesn’t seem to be any more friendly for dial-up users than any of the other newer releases of Linux distros, Puppy Linux being the exception. Again, Fedora users shouldn’t think that because Berry was based on Fedora it will be familiar from the beginning. I ran it on-the-fly and when I went to delete a file, I found that I had to right click on it and choose “root actions” instead of “move to trash” or “delete” or something else that seems more logical. Also, I thought it was a little “off” to use the word “leave” to lead users into the option to log off or shut down. This is probably nothing more than an awkward translation from the original Japanese. Hopefully, this Berry Review will entice those who aren’t exactly happy with their current choice of distribution to explore this flavor.
