VidaLinux : Linux with Mac OS Sense

Vidalinux is a promising new GNU/Linux distribution based on Gentoo Linux and developed in Puerto Rico. It's currently in beta pending the first release -- and as such is full of bugs and problems. However, there's a bright future for this distro with its OS X-like GNOME interface and the new graphical front end for Gentoo's Portage system, Porthole.

Many people rave about OS X's interface, from the colorful Aqua theme to the layout of the menus and icons. Vidalinux does its best to mimic OS X's look and feel, even to the point of including gDesklets, an applet that adds a desktop-based quicklaunch icon bar identical to the dock in OS X.

The dock is handy in OS X because most Macintosh programs don't have a background shell like graphical programs in GNU/Linux, BSD or proprietary Unix. In Vidalinux, the gDesklets applet is only useful when you don't have programs running in front of it. Open one program and the gDesklet icons are hidden from view until you close, minimize, or hide the program with the Show Desktop button.

Here is the news from the developer:

Currently, us the VLOS Developers are developing the next release of VLOS wich is 1.3.1 RC3, this should be a out of the box working system where all you have to do is just install it and just start enjoying the amazing flexbility and features that Linux bring to the open community. We are planning on getting new computers wich will be used to compile basically most of the common software that are downloaded from a Portage tree we are going to be building soon and make binaries out of these compiled software so this way a user only has the task of just selecting wich software to install and binaries get installed instantly, this saves time and usefull for computers not fast enough for fast compilation. Remember, ever since VLOS reached 1.3 it has been avaible for free download under provided mirrors without any restriction. We are asking for donations to be able to reach this goal. Not only is this great for better productivity but also better for faster releases and usability. Wouldn't it be nice to just run the package manager in VLOS and just click the on the package you want and have it in a heartbeat in your desktop menu? Well that is precisely what we are trying to do, but we need donations for these computers to be brought to us in order to start this job. We do not intend for every single penny to be payed, we understand everyone has bills to pay, and food to put on the table, and take care of the best gift given by God, our kids.

Thats all. Btw, you can download the ISO from here.