Recently, my desktop PC's power supply had burned out. While I could easily have just bought a new power supply for $30(at most), I had decided to buy a new, better PC. What I got was a dual-core(2 Pentium D processors) monster in a crazy XBlade case for $500. It came with Windows XP Pro pre-installed, but I quickly noticed something about it: it wasn't a legit copy! How did I know? First, it had Norton Antivirus 2005. And, I found a little application called "KEYGEN!!!" hidden away in the Recycle Bin.
So, being a lawful citizen I decided to wipe out XP and install Linux on this bad boy(I just paid $500 and I'm not going to pay over $100 more just to "get right with Microsoft"). Sadly, the only Ubuntu disc I had was a Gutsy beta disc and it just would not install. I did however have a copy of PCLinuxOS 2007 ready to go on a Linux Format DVD I had(Note to self: must renew subscription). The Live session ran great, and the installation process was painless. But the installation wasn't really done after first boot. Once KDE started up, a little package update applet told me I had over 400 updates available. Yikes! But I expected that, so I proceeded to use Synaptic(yes, PCLOS is an RPM-based distro, but it uses apt-get/Synaptic instead) to install the updates.
After the updates were done, I had considered the installation complete and set up PCLOS for my specific needs. In part 2, I will talk about what I did customizing PCLOS and why I'm seriously considering making it my distro of choice for a while.