Libranet to ArkLinux: ‘An experiment in migrating from one distro to another’ can be found at TuxReports.
Libranet to Ark Linux: An Experiment in Migration
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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While I enjoy a good game of install as much as anyone, I just can’t understand why anyone can have it as their main hobby.
It gets rather dull after a while. But even so, it seems that most of the linux reviewers on the net spends most if not all of their sparetime doing just that.
I like linux. But the reason for me to love it would be that it would never have to be reinstalled. I have heard of very very few who hasn’t done that about 50 times.
At least windows only have to be reinstalled once a year or so…
I think the reason is simple. People generally buy one copy of Windows ever few years. So what other version can you install?
There are dozens of Linux distributions so people can try them all out, which is probably why a lot of people re-install Linux so often, me included. Sometimes, though, that’s not always a good thing!
I think in the Linux world, we can always look for something better, or make a choice after tasting all the different flvours.
I did the same thing, but after a while, I found RH/Fedora is the best for me (FOR ME ONLY, dont start flame war please), but I am still looking and trying for something better.
I use to play the install game, until I hit Gentoo, then I stopped. I think this review shows consistency between one distro to another.
Sylpheed-claws installed fine on my Ark Linux from source (9.1 with all updates from dockyard). This was on 10/18/2003. Did you have the development CD software installed? I use Gentoo on my workstation but Ark Linux on my laptop and it is very responsive. The only complaints I have are VERY bad fonts in Mozilla and Firebird and no full installs of Gnome available (garnome didn’t work for me).
I’ve been using arklinux for a while, i decided on arklinux because i wanted something with the lastest packages (like xfree4.4) and that didn’t make me waste my time compiling them.
So i downloaded the first cd of arklinux only, i figure that i could use synaptic later to get everything else i needed and save myself some disk space.
Installing is definitly weird because i had to delete my previous linux partition to create unpartitioned space so i could use the “express install” option that kept my windows partitions intact.
It installed in 15 minutes or so, pretty fast. It booted in single user mode ala windows so i had to restore the root account wich was disabled.
Everyting worked fine, except my (crappy oem) wireless usb mouse (wich was not a problem because i also have a ps2 mouse connect as backup for when the batteries run out on the wireless mouse) and the usb cable modem wich never works on linux in usb mode anyway. I simply connected the cable modem via ethernet NIC to make it work (i could have used that NIC for something else).
As i thought synaptic worked fine for most stuff, the only problem being that the arklinux repositories don’t have many packages yet, but i can get the packages from somewhere else so that’s not really a problem.
Other than that i had no major problems with arklinux, it’s a really cool distro.
i downloaded a ISO of Ark, tryed to install it in a extra disk partition, tryed several times with different options and it was a no go, this distro needs more polish, and a more customizable install routine letting the user decide on partitioning and mount points, a dumbed down Linux is just as bad as Windoze…
after a hour i tossed the CD-r in the trash…
… this distro needs more polish, and a more customizable install routine letting the user decide on partitioning and mount points …
This is why it is called an alpha release. FWIW, the installer is being reworked.
Did they fix the user setup yet?
Last I checked out Ark you had only one user, and a bunch of kludgy workarounds to dumb down Linux’s user setup to mimic Windows.
This was the biggest drawback to Ark that I saw.
Well… That and their package manegement.
And dependency checks…
Oh, and their patchy KDE setup.
But I do have to say that the look and feel of their configuration tools was pretty nice.
A direct ripoff of Windows XP, but nevertheless it looks pretty.
i am all for Linux on the desktop, i would like to try Ark again someday when they got the bugs worked out, it would not bother me if they copyed Redhat’s installer for getting the OS installed…
Adding users is easily done and you can assign different users different rights to the config utilities very easily.
Their package management is via an RPM version of Synaptic and I think it works very well. It has full dependency checking and the ‘Dist Upgrade’ button that makes adding updates for everything on your system very quick.
Adding users is easily done and you can assign different users different rights to the config utilities very easily.
Their package management is via an RPM version of Synaptic and I think it works very well. It has full dependency checking and the ‘Dist Upgrade’ button that makes adding updates for everything on your system very quick.
Adding users is easily done and you can assign different users different rights to the config utilities very easily.
Their package management is via an RPM version of Synaptic and I think it works very well. It has full dependency checking and the ‘Dist Upgrade’ button that makes adding updates for everything on your system very quick.