There is a new Linux distribution released almost every week, sometimes, even every day. The latest is one called Stella, and the first version is Stella 6.3. Stella is a desktop-focused remix of CentOS, and Stella 6.3 is based on CentOS 6.3.

If you are familiar with CentOS, you know that out of the box, it is not really designed as a desktop distribution. Stella changes all that, as it is primarily aimed at desktop users, while retaining the core enterprise features and capabilities of CentOS.

And you can see that just by looking at the package manager. The package categories tell you that everything you can find in CentOS is also available in Stella. Plus desktop applications that you will not find in any default installation of CentOS. For example, an application listed in the screen shot below, is ROSA Media Player (ROMP), the default media player in ROSA Desktop, a distribution based on Mandriva Linux.
Stalla Package Manager

Because it is loaded with desktop applications and media codecs not available in CentOS, you can play most audio and video file formats out of the box. Here it shows a favorite online video playing in Firefox.
Stella Video Player

The next few screen shots show what the desktop looks like and some of the applications accessible from the menu. This one shows installed Internet applications.
Stella Internet Apps

Installed Office applications.
Stella Office Apps

Installed multimedia applications.
Stella Multimedia Apps

Updates manager.
Stella App Updates

The system is not without error, though.
Stella Repo Error

Administrative tools in the Preferences menu.
Stella Preferences

System-wide management applications in the Administrative menu.
Stella Desktop

A paragraph on the distribution’s website says, “If you’d like a slightly outdated but stable, Gnome2 based OS to play with, then feel free to give Stella a try.” You may download it from here or here.