 Visitor Reviews |
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Reader supplied reviews for Pearl Linux OS
Average rating
5.8 from 10 review(s)
Version: 13
Rating: 3
Date: 2026-01-22
Votes: 0
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If you are willing to sacrifice performance and functionality for a pretty dock than this is for you.
I found this distro clunky, sluggish and frustrating as it captures the limitations of Mac OS and Windows.
Dropped to the cli and found non "vi" had to separately install Vim. Wanted to get rid of Firefox and Chrome and install Brave.
Brave is in Pearl's Software Manager and I installed it. However, Pearl did not update it's Internet Apps list to include the new software and getting Brave with appropriate icons to some up in the dock began a chase your tail experience. I continued to play around with Pearl for an hour or so and determined that though I like the dock it isn't a distro that is ready for real use.
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Version: 13
Rating: 5
Date: 2026-01-07
Votes: 0
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Looks good on the surface and has a nice layout overall. Package managers SEEM to be good but was unable to test them..why? The wifi connection I rely on was accessed only through a needlessly complicated and obtuse network manager that required every little thing about hardware addresses, connection modes and other rubbish that simply does not belong in any Linux distro in 2026. Wireless connections are of the utmost importance to a laptop owner and while so any Linux distros make that as easy as pie, Pearl 13 certainly doe not. If you own a laptop, take a hard pass on Pearl because there are far better Debian-based operating systems out there in Linuxland.
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Version: 13
Rating: 1
Date: 2026-01-01
Votes: 1
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It is dristributions like this that gives Linux a bad name... it bills itself as one then delivers something totally different. To be fair, I could not try this though I wanted to very badly. I tried to install their version 13 and could not login. It was asking for username and password that is non-existent. I searched their forum and found nothing. Then I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt so I went down to the version 12... burned the disk and couldn ot verify it. I said let me try to install it anyway, but it never went anyplace. So if this is the experience that other users run into then it is not a good look for them or for Linux as a whole -- so I move on... though I wish them good success next time.
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Version: 13
Rating: 4
Date: 2025-12-29
Votes: 5
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The Pearl Linux distro looks attractive, but there are substantial flaws with the build. A number of entries in the Dock are non-responsive, and to install simple programs like VeraCrypt is needlesly obtuse. There are other little nuissances - for example, the first boot opening screen is blank when during installation a password-less logon is chosen. One then needs to log out - not intuitively - and re-login to see the desktop choices. No big deal, on its own, but there are other items, wich in aggregate makes the expeience annoying. The lack of responsiveness is annoying as well. All in all, the distro is not ready for the prime time.
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Version: 12
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-12-29
Votes: 0
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I was only able to install this distro by removing the sd card otherwise calamares borked the whole process. But as for this version 12 it is nicely done. The boot time was quick as with the shutdown. A lot of options for personalizing the OS and visually clean. So far everything is working without error, and the programs are useful. The developer did a nice job providing what a new linux user converting from Windows would be familiar with. The only problem was calamares. Anything beyond a simple install was a problem.
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Version: 13
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-11-16
Votes: 1
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I set this up as a bootable USB stick using UZL-10.
First boot attempt went well until it asked me for a user name & password, which I did not see on boot up.
Rebooted UZL-10 and went to the web site. No password etc. visible but I did see a post saying a small manual was available.
I clicked that link which took me to a site that, in turn, linked to Amazon.
No manual.
Rebooted the USB which froze on partial boot load.
Switched off PC and waited 20 seconds.
Restarted PC at which it went into a boot loop until I stopped the PC again and removed the USB stick.
Restarted the PC and booted UZL-10, logged in, re inserted the USB stick and wiped it using Gparted.
This is sadly typical of the half-baked leet haxxor products that blight the Linix distro world.
2 out of 10 for having a good boot selection.
Otherwise, junk.
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Version: 11
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-02-02
Votes: 4
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I personally find this distro stable reliable and fairly polished. Based on Xubuntu 22.04 it provides the reliability that ubuntu is known for and the ease that xfce and lxde are based upon. the plank makes a nice alternative to the xfce or the lxde panel but we still have the options included with the xfce toolbar above. it has a nice Macish appearance and even though it uses thunar for the file browser it has the MacOS skin over it. I think it would be nice to offer a way to pear our phones to the os OOTB but over all as a Mac lookalike linux distro I think it is doing a very good job with the flexability of a linux based OS.
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Version: 11
Rating: 6
Date: 2022-06-10
Votes: 2
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During bootup I encountered several "failed to ....." messages and , naturally, being a large distro, it took its time.
When finished booting I had no mouse cursor and no internet. I was not able to check out and download programmes from the repositories and actually i was quite disappointed. Even then everything I pressed took e n d l e s s .....
A cup of coffee was brewed faster than Pearls grasp for the non-existant internet .....
Everything else was alright but :)
This distro might still need a fair bit of work to do on it .......
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Version: 11
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-05-26
Votes: 8
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For live system this looks great to me. I'm still wondering how did they put together so many apps with only 3.2GB ISO. There are some few things I would be missing, like fsarchiver, clonezilla, and midnight commander but that's fine. Oh yeah, the FreeOffice suite is a great choice and a surprise to see available, especially on live system.
Maybe it would be nice if some of those rtl88.. wifi drivers would be included as well but I never saw those working in live systems except with ALT Linux and PC Linux OS.
Anyway, this looks like a great distro to me!
Thank you for developer/s!
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Version: 9
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-01
Votes: 13
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I downloaded the ISO and booted it from the pendrive to start it. Very beautiful distro with very nice visual and effects. Everything worked fine. Calamares new installation, and it detected all other partitions of 2 more distros and Windows. Very good software store, I easily installed some apps. I liked it a lot. Congratulations to the developers.
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Latest Reviews
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 13
Rating: 3
Date: 2026-01-22
Votes: 0
|
If you are willing to sacrifice performance and functionality for a pretty dock than this is for you.
I found this distro clunky, sluggish and frustrating as it captures the limitations of Mac OS and Windows.
Dropped to the cli and found non "vi" had to separately install Vim. Wanted to get rid of Firefox and Chrome and install Brave.
Brave is in Pearl's Software Manager and I installed it. However, Pearl did not update it's Internet Apps list to include the new software and getting Brave with appropriate icons to some up in the dock began a chase your tail experience. I continued to play around with Pearl for an hour or so and determined that though I like the dock it isn't a distro that is ready for real use.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 13
Rating: 5
Date: 2026-01-07
Votes: 0
|
Looks good on the surface and has a nice layout overall. Package managers SEEM to be good but was unable to test them..why? The wifi connection I rely on was accessed only through a needlessly complicated and obtuse network manager that required every little thing about hardware addresses, connection modes and other rubbish that simply does not belong in any Linux distro in 2026. Wireless connections are of the utmost importance to a laptop owner and while so any Linux distros make that as easy as pie, Pearl 13 certainly doe not. If you own a laptop, take a hard pass on Pearl because there are far better Debian-based operating systems out there in Linuxland.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 13
Rating: 1
Date: 2026-01-01
Votes: 1
|
It is dristributions like this that gives Linux a bad name... it bills itself as one then delivers something totally different. To be fair, I could not try this though I wanted to very badly. I tried to install their version 13 and could not login. It was asking for username and password that is non-existent. I searched their forum and found nothing. Then I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt so I went down to the version 12... burned the disk and couldn ot verify it. I said let me try to install it anyway, but it never went anyplace. So if this is the experience that other users run into then it is not a good look for them or for Linux as a whole -- so I move on... though I wish them good success next time.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 12
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-12-29
Votes: 0
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I was only able to install this distro by removing the sd card otherwise calamares borked the whole process. But as for this version 12 it is nicely done. The boot time was quick as with the shutdown. A lot of options for personalizing the OS and visually clean. So far everything is working without error, and the programs are useful. The developer did a nice job providing what a new linux user converting from Windows would be familiar with. The only problem was calamares. Anything beyond a simple install was a problem.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 13
Rating: 4
Date: 2025-12-29
Votes: 5
|
The Pearl Linux distro looks attractive, but there are substantial flaws with the build. A number of entries in the Dock are non-responsive, and to install simple programs like VeraCrypt is needlesly obtuse. There are other little nuissances - for example, the first boot opening screen is blank when during installation a password-less logon is chosen. One then needs to log out - not intuitively - and re-login to see the desktop choices. No big deal, on its own, but there are other items, wich in aggregate makes the expeience annoying. The lack of responsiveness is annoying as well. All in all, the distro is not ready for the prime time.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 13
Rating: 2
Date: 2023-11-16
Votes: 1
|
I set this up as a bootable USB stick using UZL-10.
First boot attempt went well until it asked me for a user name & password, which I did not see on boot up.
Rebooted UZL-10 and went to the web site. No password etc. visible but I did see a post saying a small manual was available.
I clicked that link which took me to a site that, in turn, linked to Amazon.
No manual.
Rebooted the USB which froze on partial boot load.
Switched off PC and waited 20 seconds.
Restarted PC at which it went into a boot loop until I stopped the PC again and removed the USB stick.
Restarted the PC and booted UZL-10, logged in, re inserted the USB stick and wiped it using Gparted.
This is sadly typical of the half-baked leet haxxor products that blight the Linix distro world.
2 out of 10 for having a good boot selection.
Otherwise, junk.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 11
Rating: 8
Date: 2023-02-02
Votes: 4
|
I personally find this distro stable reliable and fairly polished. Based on Xubuntu 22.04 it provides the reliability that ubuntu is known for and the ease that xfce and lxde are based upon. the plank makes a nice alternative to the xfce or the lxde panel but we still have the options included with the xfce toolbar above. it has a nice Macish appearance and even though it uses thunar for the file browser it has the MacOS skin over it. I think it would be nice to offer a way to pear our phones to the os OOTB but over all as a Mac lookalike linux distro I think it is doing a very good job with the flexability of a linux based OS.
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 11
Rating: 6
Date: 2022-06-10
Votes: 2
|
During bootup I encountered several "failed to ....." messages and , naturally, being a large distro, it took its time.
When finished booting I had no mouse cursor and no internet. I was not able to check out and download programmes from the repositories and actually i was quite disappointed. Even then everything I pressed took e n d l e s s .....
A cup of coffee was brewed faster than Pearls grasp for the non-existant internet .....
Everything else was alright but :)
This distro might still need a fair bit of work to do on it .......
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 11
Rating: 9
Date: 2022-05-26
Votes: 8
|
For live system this looks great to me. I'm still wondering how did they put together so many apps with only 3.2GB ISO. There are some few things I would be missing, like fsarchiver, clonezilla, and midnight commander but that's fine. Oh yeah, the FreeOffice suite is a great choice and a surprise to see available, especially on live system.
Maybe it would be nice if some of those rtl88.. wifi drivers would be included as well but I never saw those working in live systems except with ALT Linux and PC Linux OS.
Anyway, this looks like a great distro to me!
Thank you for developer/s!
|
Project: Pearl Linux OS
Version: 9
Rating: 10
Date: 2021-06-01
Votes: 13
|
I downloaded the ISO and booted it from the pendrive to start it. Very beautiful distro with very nice visual and effects. Everything worked fine. Calamares new installation, and it detected all other partitions of 2 more distros and Windows. Very good software store, I easily installed some apps. I liked it a lot. Congratulations to the developers.
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