Fpr a description of what this actually means (unless you're a developer not much).

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxMzA

Maybe you should start a thread for OpenSUSE, to describe its advantages & disadvantages.

Like you I continue to follow this forum, but I'm not really hopeful.

Indeed, Arch & its derivatives do use their own package management. The format is an XZ compressed tarball, but (unlike Slackware) there is dependency handling. Similarly to Pisi, the install is done in one step, c.f. .deb where all packages are unpacked then all are installed.

The usual drawback to not using one of the big two packaging systems is fewer packages available. For Arch & derivatives this is considerably eased by the Arch User Repository (AUR ) system, which allows package build scripts to be uploaded to a repository. The bundled tools for building from the AUR are officially supported by Manjaro (unlike Arch itself). That said, I've only had to go to AUR for a few packages (e.g. plplot, ms fonts gnu-data-language).

In the spectrum of derivative distributions, Manjaro has a similar pattern to Ubuntu i.e. they have their own repository servers and build system, the core packages are configured to fit the distro's needs while many others are just rebuilt using the un-modified Arch build scripts (similar to Ubuntu's Universe). At the moment the core team are putting a lot of effort into improving the core infrastructure such as the Manjor Hardware Detection scripts (mhwd), so updates aren't that rapid. The long-term plan is to have a rolling release but to lag a little behind Arch to allow more testing and so prevent the broken systems that can occasionally happen with Arch.

Probably the most dramatic difference I find from both Kubuntu and Pardus is that the boot and shutdown times are much shorter.

This is a new distro, still at the beta stage. The aim of the developers is to make a derivative of Arch that ordinary users can install and use. While the primary desktop is Xfce, there are KDE and Gnome versions as well.

After trying it on a VM as part of the testing of gtk-fortran I felt it was something different from most others. It has now replaced Kubuntu on my main laptop and Pardus on my media box. While there are still a few rough edges, it looks to be heading in the right direction and is well worth a try.

Link to the home page: http://blog.manjaro.org/

I don't think it's always possible to quantify what makes a distribution special.

IMHO Mageia is a serviceable distro but it doesn't have that something extra that I can't quite put my finger on.

Before we start any flame wars let's remember that although it is reasonable to assume that everyone here found/finds Pardus to be a solution to their needs,  we may well have liked different aspects of it and hence will find that our most comfortable alternative places are different. By all means chip in with your favourites but remember it's only personal preferences not an absolute "this is where we should all go".

Another very promising looking distro is Manjaro (http://blog.manjaro.org/).

It's a user-friendly derivative of Arch (and having been experimenting with it for a while I can definitely say that that's not an oxymoron). There are still a few rough edges as might be expected for a first beta release that's only been out in the wild for about 3 weeks.

I am aware of at least one other Pardus refugee active on the Forums (and a few others I'm sure I remember from here though no longer active). There are also several active forum members from Turkey, but the names are not familiar.

The default desktop is XFCE, but a KDE version is available and works well.

Other than having the Pardus Grub boot screen I don't see much in my (very limited) experimentations to distinguish it from (say) Siduction.

As regards language, it seems mainly OK in en_GB, except that the "about" messages that display while the installer is running (as opposed to the progress messages) are in Turkish.

It looks like it's based off Debian (not quite sure if it's Squeeze or Wheezy), rather than an evolution of Pardus_2011.2.

Anyway, I'm downloading to give it a spin in a VM.

Not good 

Perhaps it's just a problem at the hosting site or with connections to Turkey, but I doubt it.

I just get a 'server not found" error if I try to open the link with firefox, and also with http://www.pardus.org.tr. (Or any other bookmarks I have to pardus.org.tr sites)

I agree there. For me right now I think the best alternative looks like Siduction.

I think however that most if not all of the individuals who set up their own distros in recent times had plenty of experience in distro building. I don't think that nowadays one could get away with "learning on the job" the way that Patrick Volkerding and Ian Murdoch did almost 20 years ago.

Phoenix was the name of an OS developed by the University of Cambridge that ran on IBM mainframes in the 1970's and 80's. (The name came from the Phoenix building which was the home of the computing service). I don't know if they still have any interests in the name.
 

Just a quick heads-up that module-virtualbox-guest and module-virtualbox-guest-userspace are now compatible with the current kernel. virtualbox-guest-utils has yet to catch up and depends on an earlier version of the modules.

I think (but I'm not sure) all three are needed to get resolution greater than 1024x768 -- certainly going to full-screen on the original install worked as it ought, while now it stays as a 1024x768 box in the middle of the monitor.

I need to cross-check to see exactly which X driver is in use.

Thanks, I'll try again when I get home this evening.