Two statements in your article don't go well together, namely:
"Ark Linux is, without any doubt, a distribution designed for users without experience"
and...
"Here, we can configure almost everything in Ark Linux (some modifications must be made by manually editing text files, such as screen resolution for example)"
Editing text files isn't newbie friendly, and unless your screen happen to be 1024x768, most often you'll need to change your screen res on a newly installed Linux system...
Thank you for the comment Da Kairn and I must say you are right, editing text files isn't newbie friendly, but IMHO, screen resolution is one of the biggest downs when talking about "newbie friendly" in all the distributions I've tried until now.
There are still things to polish and fix in this distribution, sure, but I think they did a really nice job and they "promise" to have a graphical tool for screen resolution; you can read it here.
Is ark linux rpm-based, mandrake-based or source. I would be more into it, if it was based on arch and was still as newbie friendly.. I am slightly peaked at this distro.
How big is the repo? Is it similar to Ubuntu or Debian in size. Is it as fast as the slack-derived distros such as vector linux, zenwalk, and dare I say a distro known for its speed {arch linux - not slack-based}.
So far, for new friendly a few distros like Linux Mint, PCLOS2007, Mepis set the bar. There are others that are newbie friendly as well, but require a little willingness to use the CLI and then that becomes more friendly than even the gui. Trust me. I used to be GUI driven, and then I fell in love with the CLI even though I hardly use CLI as much now. All linux distros can become what you desire it to be.. Some makes the start very easy.
Ark Linux uses a combination of apt-get and rpm for its package management. More information about that particular point can be found here.
About the speed, I think Ark is probably as fast as Vector but I can't be sure about that since the computer for this review is not the same as the one we used for reviewing Vector. If you are really interested I can install Ark in the same machine and see how it feels.
Hi again, Martin. It's true that many distros have trouble with the screen resolution configuration. Even Ubuntu gets into trouble when installed on a computer with higher res than 1024x768. Some distros, like e.g. linux mint does have good graphical tools.
Also, my point is partly that I feel most Linux reviewers are too uncritical.
If you read reviews around the web, you'll see that most distros get smashing scores because of their intuitive installers, good hardware autoconfig and sensible software selection. This is all good and well, but can be said about most modern distros. If one is going to recommend one distro over another, one should focus on what, if anything, makes it stand out compared to others. Seems to me Ark consists of a good installer, fairly standard KDE setup and rather basic config tools. OK, decent system, but, as a newbie, why would I choose it over, say, Ubuntu, Mint or PCLinuxOS?
Hi again, Da Kairn. You are asking me: "as a newbie, why would I choose it (Ark) over, say, Ubuntu, Mint or PCLinuxOS?". Well, that is a really difficult question to answer.
First, probably, every newbie has a different need or approach, but let's think in some hypothetical situation.
But before that, I must ask myself: "Why am I looking for some other distribution or OS?". In my opinion, the main reason is dissatisfaction. Something is missing in my actual OS or distro so I need to look for another one.
So, let's say I am a "happy" Win98 user who is a little tired of it and there is no support anymore for this version. I've tried XP but my computer would explode if I keep using it, seems to be too much. I need something different but I don't want to spend any money in a computer right now.
I've heard about Linux, many people is talking about it and seems to be happy with it so maybe I will give it a try.
But, where to start?
Ok. Let's make some search. Uhm... "Linux". Well, Results 1 - 10 of about 333,000,000 for linux. That's a lot. Hey! here, in the first page, Wikipedia, let's go... Linux kernel? What is that... keep reading and this: "Linux is now packaged for different uses in Linux distributions".
I have it! I should find some distribution.
"Linux distributions" in the search box and now I have 2,590,000 results, that's better... Let's go to the the first one, linux.org and here is some list of distributions, but... Mainstream/General Public? Embedded? Red Hat based?. What is this?. Uff, this linux is starting to be very complicated. Let's take a look in some other place.
Wikipedia, I've been already there. So, ibiblio... this one is too slow, and the list is too big here. Now, linuxhq and here is some list again: Linux antarctica: "Great Success ! Apache is working on your cPanelŽ." Ups, seems like this one is not ready updated.
Five result: Distrowatch.com. Let's see the menu here, Major Distributions, Search. Let's make some search. Distribution category: Beginners, BSD, Clusters. Ok, beginners is what I am looking for; and first on the list of beginners is Ark.
"Ark Linux is a Linux distribution designed especially for desktop use, primarily for people without prior Linux experience."
As you may see in this little example, all "linux world" doesn't seems to be really "newbie friendly".
Another option: I want to try Linux and I have some friend who has it. So my first distro will be probably Ubuntu or OpenSUSE... who knows.
Another one: I've tried Kubuntu in my PIII with 256 Mb ram. It is maybe slower that my old Win98, I should find something else but with KDE, because I've heard that KDE is more "windows like".
Probably Ark will not be the first distro a newbie will try, but it is not because Ark is technically inferior or less "newbie friendly", but just maybe because Ark wasn't the first distribution he came across.
Is there anyway to create a CD that can be used with "apt-cdrom add" command like in Debian?
Say, I have a couple machines that are not connected to the net in anyway. I also have one machine with Ark Linux installed and connected to the net. I can do install/upgrade/update on this machine. Then I want to take the rpms downloaded from this machine and burn it onto a CD or DVD that can be used with apt in the same way as Debian via "apt-cdrom add" command.
I can do this with Debian (just learned how to do this last week after Googling for tips).
But can I do this with apt on rpm-based distros?
If so, where can I find the detail how-to?
Thanks.
PS: In Debian, it is quite easy to do this:
Let say I have this local deb folder structure as follow:
my-repository
|
|-binary
+-source
Then to create a CD/DVD for using with "apt-cdrom add" command, I just do
$ cd my-repository
$ dpkg-scanpackages binary /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz
$ dpkg-scansources source /dev/null | gzip -9c > source/Sources.gz
Then burn the CD/DVD with the above structure. Work like a charm when I tested the install/upgrade/update this method on both Debian and Ubuntu distros with no internet access.
Hello IMQ. I am not sure if this is what you need, but some instructions can be found here
I hope it helps.
Hi Martin,
I was looking for something else, a much simpler way to reuse the already downloaded rpm packages to update and install rpms on a non-network machines.
The link in your tip point to a customization of an Ark Linux installer CD. Interesting but not what I hope to find.
I will try to post the question on Ark forum to see if someone can help.
Thanks.
BTW, good quick review of Ark Linux. Many of the things you said in the review are what my experience with Ark has been. Except for the ntfs thingy. That was a good tip.
Thanks for the comment IMQ.!
If I can help in any way, just let me know.
This is a review void of many critical details that leaves the readers with more questions than answers. Its obvious that you went through the motions of installing Ark and playing with one or two of its applications, but nothing beyond that. You seem to know some stuff about Linux and have some base knowledge of Ark. Thats all well and good, but readers want to know - Who, what, when, how, why, and where.
*Who develops Ark? Who are its backers or does it have sponsors? Who does Ark Linux have to thank for coming into existence?
*What is Ark Linux? What is its underlying codebase derived from? You covered its goals well, and delved into just how well they deliver on them, but WHAT about functionality in the area of preloaded proprietary graphics drivers, codecs, DVD playback, etc. etc. etc... Not a thing about that, but it is THE single largest thing that new Linux users really care about. I cant imagine why someone would leave behind thier working Windows in favor of another OS that cant, at least, preconfigure ALL hardware and provide 100% functionality in the multimedia arena straight out of the box, with zero configuration required from the user, of course. Anything less is an inferior distro these days, and not worth the time it took to develop it.
*Why did the developers feel they needed to create yet another spinoff distro? Why did you take the time to review it? Seriously, these are valid questions that I, for one at least, would really like to know.
*When was Ark first published? When are they planning thier next release?.. Is this a beta release or a final release?
*How did the developers come up with the "Ark" concept? How did they decide on what to include with the distro (KDE, GNOME, etc) and why?
*Where is Ark primarily based out of?.. UK, US, Europe? Where do they intend to take this distro in the future, development-wise?
Some of these may seem like odd questions, but each and every one crosses my mind on every review I read, closely followed by the "validity check" of trying to figure out just how thorough the reviewer was in writing about such a thing as a Linux Distro. Afterall, a distro is much more than a few developers throwing about lines of code, and the work they have done, along with the community that supports it, deserves ALOT MORE than a casual, yet inept review.
Thank you davemc, I really appreciate your comments.
ReviLinux is a new project, there is still a lot to learn and comments like yours are really helpful.
To davemc:
I'm the main developer of Ark Linux, just happened to read your comment.
So I have a couple of answers for you:
I started developing Ark Linux back in November 2001, out of the need of having a desktop OS that is simple enough for people like my parents to use and install, while still powerful enough to meet my own needs.
Other developers started getting in after I made a first alpha release on CD only and started giving it to people I knew might be interested.
Ark Linux is developed by volunteers all over the net and does not have any sponsors (unless you want to count OSUOSL, which provides free hosting for arklinux.org). This is probably why it hasn't received as much attention as many other distributions - we're running on a $0 budget.
Ark Linux is not based on any other distribution (but it does borrow some stuff from various other distributions - we take what makes most sense to us).
Being 100% Free Software, we don't include proprietary drivers, but we're usually among the first to ship free drivers with equivalent functionality (e.g. Ark Linux was the first distribution that included the r300 DRI driver, and already has the Nouveau driver available in its repositories, even though it is not used by default).
We also make proprietary drivers available through a separate apt repository, so installing them is usually painless (we actually go a step further than most others here - we even make some Windoze wireless drivers preconfigured for use with ndiswrapper available where no native driver exists).
DVD playback and most video codecs work out of the box, being headquartered in Switzerland, we fortunately don't have to worry as much about ridiculous anti-competition regulation as many others.
Why did we need to start another distro? First of all, because back in 2001, there was no sane desktop distribution. The few ones that tried usually did crazy stuff like running everything as root, or forking off at some point and never syncing with upstream, obviously falling behind quickly. Second, we'd probably still do it today because we still haven't come across another distribution that works the way we want it to (From a user's perspective, especially the security concept is unique, other distros tend to get in the way of the user with password prompts etc.
From a developer's perspective, we probably have one of the most maintainable code bases.)
2007.1 is a final release - the first public release was on January 25, 2003 (in the time between November 2001 and January 2003, we made a couple of non-public releases - non-public mostly because we didn't have a server to host them on, bandwidth was expensive back then).
Some of our decisions:
The primary reason for picking KDE over GNOME is code quality. G_OBJECT and the likes are really ugly kludges that waste more developer time than they're worth. A good core library makes everything that follows much easier.
While this may not affect the
My comment was truncated... So here's part 2:
While this may not affect the end user at a first look, it does affect the end user indirectly -- if we had to write all the stuff we're writing with GTK, we would be nowhere near where we are now, and the lack of even more config tools would certainly affect the user.
We chose rpm over dpkg because building rpm packages is much easier - anyone who has figured out basic shell scripting can create an rpm package - dpkg packaging is more or less reserved for real developers because others don't understand the Makefile syntax etc.
We want low barriers to entry for our contributors.
And of course, the controversial decision of making Konqueror the default browser:
1. being build around KParts, it can handle a lot more file types than any other browser including even IE
2. It is very well integrated with the rest of the OS
3. Since its code base is much cleaner and smaller than its competition's, it is likely to progress faster than its alternatives
4. It doesn't take up any valuable extra space (firefox itself is not that big, but the libraries it requires are -- adding firefox would add almost 20 MB on the CD - or more than 60 MB on the installed filesystem)
5. If nobody starts using it as the primary browser, webmasters will keep coding garbage like "if(browser==IE) doSomething(); else if(browser==Firefox) doSomethingElse(); else alert("this can't possibly happen");".
In general, our decisions are made on the developer IRC channel, if there isn't a consensus (most of the time there is), the rule is "whoever does the work gets to decide".
Our release cycles are based on "when it makes sense" rather than a fixed schedule - the next release will be once KDE 4.0 is released and has stabilized enough to use it as the primary desktop (making it likely to be released in December 2007 or January 2008.)
We'll probably have another minor release in between, but that will be only/mostly bugfixes.
Planned highlights of the next release:
- move to KDE 4.0
- new hardware hotplugging system, allowing things like assigning a permanent name to a device (think "/dev/My Red Memory Stick"), and making extra driver installation easier
- working Java plugin out of the box (based on IcedTea)
- Port OpenOffice.org KDE integration to KDE 4.0
- Of course, staying on top with current releases elsewhere - gcc 4.3, OpenOffice.org 2.3 (or possibly 2.4 by the time), ...
- New core system library that makes system functionality (e.g. setting an IP address) easy and well integrated into Qt/KDE coding style
Our primary problem at this time is that we have more plans than developers - so some things we're doing take longer than we like.
Hope this clears up all the questions you've had - if it doesn't, feel free to ask.
Well davemc, were you as surprised as i was at the reply to your post? Your a fortunate dude. I thought you actually would have to go to the distro website & forum to get all that info. you were seeking. I think i would just like to try the Ark distro based on the point brought out on this page. Easy to install, and easy to use. That makes it worth a look to me. And then, it just might be my favorite distro!? mike
Commenting by HaloScan
