The problems with Berry start when you boot it and have just one second before the menu disappears. The installer is very simple: it doesn’t set the clock, the keyboard, or even swap. Far worse, it forgets to set the root device in the grub.conf file. The configuration tools are not those of Fedora, and some don’t work. The keyboard has to be set with a script, and nothing I did could persuade it to use my ethernet port.

The software, from Fedora, is good and there’s a surprising amount of it for a CD: LibreOffice, Gimp, Inkscape, Firefox, Thurderbird, Umplayer, Kaffeine, Audacious, Timidity, Wine, and even a few games. Unfortunately, the space has been saved by leaving out things like the man pages and the GUI package installer. Apart from a minor warning from Firefox, all the programs ran from the CLI without complaint. Codecs and flash are installed and work.

With most major distros having Japanese support, and the excellent Vine Linux produced in Japan, it’s difficult to see who would want Berry.