Like Mint and Snow, ZevenOS offers two quite different versions, one based on Ubuntu, one on Debian. Neptune is the Debian one, and it’s available with KDE or as a lightweight version with LXDE and Enlightenment. This test was of the KDE one.

The installer is very basic compared to the normal ZevenOS one: only ext4 is available, encryption is not offered, and no questions are asked about time zone or keyboard: the system clock is used and either a German or American keyboard.

This is a light and responsive KDE: it idled at 223MB. The configuration centre, MAGI, enabled me to set up the correct keyboard and timezone. Unfortunately, although it allowed me to select my USB speakers, they didn’t actually work.

The software provided included LibreOffice, Gimp, Kolourpaint, Chromium, Icedove, Kopete, VLC, Gnome-mplayer, Amarok, and Kdenlive video editor. Media codecs are included and all formats played perfectly. Running the main programs from the CLI, I got warnings for LibreOffice and Kopete. The real problems started with LibreOffice, which lacked its spellchecker. The graphical software installer couldn’t find Hunspell, so I installed it with apt-get: still no checking. Then I tried Chromium, and the Flash plugin, although installed, simply refused to work.

The normal ZevenOS is a good distro, but Neptune has too many problems. And in a distro where the forum is normally conducted in German, all problems are serious.