Vector SOHO is provided on 2 CDs, but not as a live disk. Encryption is not supported. I won’t go into the details of my struggles, but the resulting advice is:
1. Use the default graphical installer: the keyboard-based one will not work.
2. Do not use the ‘custom installation’ option: at the best it doesn’t work, at the worst it locks up.
3. If any stage of the installation behaves strangely, cancel, re-boot, and try again.

Three user interfaces are installed: KDE, Xfce, and Fluxbox. KDE is the default, but this can be changed at the log in. As usual on my computer, KDE was very slow and only usable after disabling the Nepomuk indexing system. The menu is the new-fangled type, and when I switched to the traditional one the System and Utilities options failed to display. Xfce was well behaved and Fluxbox seemed satisfactory, although I didn’t check it too closely. Both the KDE and Xfce versions enabled me to use my USB speakers.

There’s a lot of software: LibreOffice, Scribus, Dia, Gimp, Inkscape, Firefox and Opera, Pidgin and Kopete, Kmail, Amorak and Juk, no less than 6 media players, and 44 games. For an office system, Gnucash, Wine, and an alternative email client (Claws or Thunderbird) would seem more suitable than all those media players and games. All the main programs ran from the CLI without leaving warnings, except for Kopete, Juk, and Kplayer. Media codecs were installed and all formats played properly in Gnome-mplayer, Umplayer, and Kplayer, but not in the other 3. The Flash plugin was installed in the browsers but didn’t work. Software installation is handled with Gslapt, which is fast and reliable.

The standard version of Vector is fine, but this one has problems. If you want an office system with Xfce, you’d be better off starting with Vector Standard and adding more software. If you prefer KDE, try Mepis, which will also give you encryption.