Cheep Linux X/KDE/Gnome Review

Overall Rating

Wide selection of Linux applications for, indeed, X - both KDE and Gnome.

Quickly outdated.

As a collection of X applications for Linux, Cheep Linux's selection is subject to both the many advantages and some of the disadvantages of free / GPL'd software.

The primary upside, of course, is that you'll get a vast collection of software that would undoubtably cost a small fortune were you to try to purchase it for Windows or MacOS and thanks to the open source nature of Linux distributions the KDE/GNOME split shouldn't prevent you trying all the applications within the Cheep Linux selection - providing the base libraries are installed on your computer, KDE and GNOME applications are able to co-exist on the same machine - don't let the desktop you're running put you off trying applications from the other camp, as it were.

However, the major advantage to buying it, and this applies to the similar collections available from other sources, is mostly restricted to people on dial-up internet connections, since most (if not all) of the packages can be downloaded freely. This combined with the speed of application development for Linux means that most applications on this (and any other) collection CD-ROM(s) will be outdated fairly quickly.

The only reason for purchasing this, then, is that 'freely downloadable' can mean something quite differenet on a 56k dial-up, where a 'mere' 10MB download can consume a considerable period of time, not to mention expense on a per-minute connection. This is where Cheep Linux's offering can provide a considerable benefit - the ability to test drive even outdated versions of such a variety of applications can save time (and, of course, money) in downloading current versions of your prefered packages.

In short - if you've got broadband, don't bother. If you're on dial-up, give it a try, you might discover something you'd never otherwise try.