Installation:Best Linux boots from the CD and gives you the choice of either a Text-based or graphical instalation. I recommend that you use the text-based installation (I'll explain why later).
The partitioning can either be done with Disk Druid (recommended) or Fdisk. The reason I chose the text-based installtion was that I wanted Best Linux to share a boot partition with another distribution. With the graphical installtion Best Linux wouldn't install unless it was allowed to format the boot partition (which would remove my other distributions kernel which would obviously stop it from booting), I don't know why this was but the text-based installation didn't mind. Also the partitioning is much simpler using the text-based installation.
There is a choice of using either the LILO boot manager or the GRUB boot manager.
It detected and configured my graphics card (a Creative Blaster Riva TNT 2 Ultra) with no problems.
Software Content:
I was VERY impressed with the software content of Best Linux. For a single CD version there was an excellent selection of software, it was more complete than some complete distributions on two or three CDs! It comes with both the KDE and the Gnome desktops. It also comes with StarOffice 5.1, Netscape Communicator 4.72, VM- Ware, WINE, Samba, Apache, Web Design Tools, TV card apps, a good selection of multimedia apps and much more!
Best Linux does not include a telnet server with the Lite version because it is a big security hole, instead a full SSH client and server is included. The Lite version also doesn’t include a FTP server, this is because Best Linux aims to provide a version of Linux for the desktop, for ‘normal’ users. However this can be installed from the full installation CD.
Booting up:
When Best Linux booted up it searched for new hardware and found my TV card (a Hauppauge Win TV) which it prompted me to configure.
It has linuxconf and The Red Hat 'setup' to configure things later.
When Best Linux boots up, it doesn't start the HTTP server automatically. This is easy to rectify. You have to run the 'setup' program and edit the system services.
Conclusion:
Best Linux is a very good distribution that can easily compete with the likes of Redhat and SuSE. I am very surprised that Best Linux isn't more widely used as it really is worth having.
After using Best Linux 2000 Lite and being thourghly impressed, I seriously recomend that you try it.