The world of Linux never ceases to amaze me. Every functional area has a distro available, a distro for medics, for forensic, for hackers, for different languages, for different regions and the list is endless. Most of these are typically Ubuntu, Debian or Fedora derivatives with softwares loaded to fulfill one or more specific mandate(s). UberStudent is one such distro, an Ubuntu derivative, designed for students and academicians/researchers. Being a PhD myself (before I seriously started using Linux and made on Windows XP), my natural inclination was to try it out and get a feel of it.
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UberStudent 2.0.4 (Distrowatch release note) ISO is really on the heavier side (3.7 GB) and offers two desktop environments: XFCE 4.10, the default desktop, and Mate 1.2. Built on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS base with Linux 3.5 kernel, the image I downloaded offers both the desktops. A lighter version with XFCE or Mate is also available. Right now it supports only 64-bit machines with minimum 1 GB RAM - I would recommond to use a 64-bit machine with 2 GB RAM for optimum results.
I created a live-USB out of it with Unetbootin and the process is similar to Ubuntu. Live boot has a login screen with "uberstudent" as username and password blank. I dislike having to enter a username/password for live boot but anyway! I booted it up on my favorite Asus K54C 2.4 Ghz core i3 with 2 GB RAM laptop and after that installed it on a 15 GB partition to test the distro (it is big and doesn't support 8 GB partition for installation).
Applications
UberStudent applications, though revolve around education and research, include the fun part of student life as well! The lost count of how many applications it has - may be 100, it may be 200 as well! Plenty of applications or download link of almost every major regular application are provided out of the box in the distro along with its core educational/research applications. I won't bore you providing the laundry list but mention some notable applications which are useful from research and regular user point of view.
- Internet: Firefox 17, Chrome, Skype 4 download link, Pidgin, uGet download manager, FileZilla client, Lightread, Podcast client, RSSOwl to read RSS feeds, etc.
- Graphics: GIMP 2.8, Inkscape, Pinta, Pixlr, Gtkam digital cam browser, Photo printer, gthumb and a lot of other applications. It has almost every graphics app you can think of!
- Multimedia: VLC, Audacious along with a host of others (either the applicaton itself or download link provided like Recordmydesktop, Audacity, Openshot, Google Play music player (unfortunately not launched in India yet!), Hulu, last.fm, grooveshark, pandora, etc.
- A complete LibreOffice 3.6 suite by default with word processor, spreadsheet, base, draw, impress, etc. and PDF writer and reader along with a link to download Adobe PDF reader
- Download links for Virtualbox, teamviewer, etc.
- Couple of file managers: Caja 1.4 and Thunar 1.4, both lightweight and offer good functionality
- Wine is provided but I didn't found PlayonLinux - anyway, I can do that small favor as most of the softwares I like are already there in the DVD!
- A host of cards and board games to keep you entertained during breaks!
And wait! I haven't started discussing the main application list yet - the educational ones! I noted all the relevant applications I could think of already existing in the ISO. The screenshots below will take you through the long list.
I was glad to see LyX document processor (a Latex alternative) - writing dissertation/articles on MS Word is simply painful and even LibreOffice doesn't help! A link to Google Public Data is another handy tool, plus Open Library, Calibre, Stop watch, a host of presentation softwares along with Impress, etc. are really handy for sure. Zotero worked well for me post installation of Adobe reader. Shortcut keys work well just like Ubuntu and Guake terminal works with F1 key here instead of the usual F12 keys. Further a handy list of Firefox, Chrome, LibreOffice, LyX shortcuts are provided which is of great help and makes life easier.
An installation of R would have made me happier but I can live with what I am getting here! A bit greedy, eh?
Repository
Ubuntu software center is notably absent here but there's a synaptic package manager to install applications from Ubuntu 12.04 repository. Agreed, synaptic is cumbersome for novice Linux users but the developers more than compensate by providing direct installation links for most of the desired applications like Skype, Scilab, wxMaxima, Virtualbox, TeamViewer, multimedia codecs, etc. which is helpful.
Installation
Installation is like normal Ubuntu 12.04.1 and it is easy taking about 20-25 minutes. Check my article on Ubuntu 12.04 for installation.
CPU and RAM Usage
A bulky distro, it is and it consumes a bit higher RAM than Ubuntu, even with XFCE / Mate. I noted about 600 MB of RAM usage at steady state - my 64 bit Linux Mint 13 Cinnamon installation consumes about 400 MB. I don't mind a 200 MB extra RAM usage for the benefits I am getting installing UberStudent. CPU usage is normal, 2-5%.
Overall
Undoubtedly brilliant and functional derivative of Ubuntu - I can imagine a lot of effort and thought going in creating this operating system. But, why is it so ugly? I really hated the interface when I booted it up. First thing I did was to give it a face-lift. Later I installed a conky and it started looking appealing to me. As I understand, a college/university student would prefer having a attention grabbing desktop - why not provide it by default?
Otherwise, UberStudent offer an exceptional proposition and is much more stable than Ubuntu 12.04.1. Out of the box, it offers a wide range of software and uses lighter desktop managers. User experience is really good - nothing crashed in my 10 days of usage. Touchpad, Wifi, sound, etc. worked right from the word go and to say the least, I am really impressed. Definitely recommended for the researchers looking out for an education/research oriented operating system and you can download it from here.
Thanks for the descriptive review. Funny, as a PhD myself, I found the application selection very nice, but I also thought the distro was one of the uglier ones that I've installed. Like yourself, I modified it drastically from the out-of-the-box experience.
ReplyDeleteAgree, by default it is a bit on the uglier side. But, this is the beauty of Linux, you can mold it the way you like :).
DeleteI'm an UberStudent user myself. Since the date you wrote the review, the founder has released a 700mb LXDE version of UberStudent 2 (impressive enough it offers almost the same applications as the XFCE/MATE editions). The LXDE edition consums only 178mb of RAM after boot :)
ReplyDelete139mb of RAM I just noticed not 178mb, sorry.
DeleteThanks for the information. I have the ISO downloaded but didn't get time to review it. Sounds interesting and will check it out for sure.
DeleteDear Arindam Sen,
ReplyDeleteCompliments, in my opinion you write the best reviews on linux of the whole web! When I'm about to try out a new linux distro I usually check your site first.
UberStudent 4 just got released and since I have a good experience with version 3 (except for a hardware issue), I was hoping you could review it. Maybe you can compare the CPU and RAM usage with other (xfce) distro's out there, like LinuxMint and Xubuntu?
Thanks in advance!
-S
Hi Samir:
DeleteI'll pen down a review on UberStudent 4 pretty soon. Thanks for reading my blog :).
Regards,
Arindam