Despite being based on the K Desktop Environment, Corel Linux doesn't include all of the K desktop applications. This is a shame, particularly when some of them—like the K FTP program—would have fit in perfectly with the offering for both new and experienced Linux users. In addition, we'd expect to see KOffice bundled with Corel Linux in the future; while StarOffice may not be the most elegant package under the sun, it is approaching ubiquity in Linuxdom (only Slackware Linux doesn't ship now with StarOffice), which should be a concern for Corel.

However, there is a lot of useful software bundled with Corel Linux's two retail versions. It's easy to forget how good WordPerfect was in its heyday, and WordPerfect for Linux is one of the finest applications available for Linux. Corel has wisely bundled it with Bitstream fonts (the exact number depending on which retail version you buy) and a limited drawing program, giving you a complete document-production facility.

In addition, Corel Linux includes Netscape Communicator 4.7 (which includes the Web browser, a mail client, an HTML editor, and Collabra, for participating in Usenet newsgroups), GIMP 1.02, various multimedia packages (CD players, media players, OSS configuration, et al), KVirc 1.1, KRN newsreader, the kwrite text processor, Midnight Commander and Adobe Acrobat. Also present on the system, but not configured to work with the graphical interface, are vi, elm, vim, and joe; missing in action are emacs, pico, pine, and much more. There may be much more missing; since there's really no such thing as a full install in Corel Linux, there's no way to easily tell what's missing or not.

If you want to update your system or add new software, you can do it via Corel Linux Update. This tool works in two different ways: it installs .DEB files (the Debian GNU/Linux method of distributing archives) and it will check against a software list stored on a Corel FTP server. (Sadly, Corel Linux doesn't include kpackage, the KDE package manager.)

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