ExtremeTech continues its journey into Linux distro reviews. Today is Ark Linux’s turn.
Review: Ark Linux 1.0 Alpha 10.1
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
>>“Ark is a debian based distro. So you can use Apt via the command prompt to install even more software or you can use Synaptic via Mission Control if you prefer a GUI based software manager.”
Ark is an RPM based distro according to distrowatch and Synaptic is an Apt-RPM tool. I never had much respect for ExtremeTech.
> Synaptic is an Apt-RPM tool.
Well, it works fine on my debian box. So I wouldn’t really say that it’s an apt-rpm tool.
“Ark is a debian based distro. So you can use Apt via the command prompt to install even more software or you can use Synaptic via Mission Control if you prefer a GUI based software manager.”
Ark linux is a rpm based distro wich was based of redhat not debian
My God, as long as Ark uses that hideous clownish Keramik theme, I think I’ll keep my distance. That might seem trivial, but remember the OSNews usability motto… “defaults matter!”
Speaking of usability, can you make the title of OSNEWS articles appear in the title of the browser? It’s always fun to see 5 different articles open in tabs titled “OSNEWS.com – Exploring the Future…”. Thank you.
This is the guy that left Red Hat because of some disagreements he had regarding KDE/GNOME. ArkLinux is Red Hat based. OSNews informed us when some employee left RedHat and started this Linix distribution called ArkLinux based on RedHat 8. Eugenia??? anything you want to add? If my statements are incorrect, please correct me.
Yes, Ark is not debian. That was my goof. One of the Ark developers pinged me about it earlier today. I have not had time to fix the story but I will do shortly.
My apologies for the error.
Again, my apologies for the goof in the story. We try to be as accurate as possible but sometimes mistakes do get made. Apt threw me off, I should have double checked it since you can use it on RPM based distros too.
Live and learn. 🙂
I tried it a long time ago. They were helpful, and I tried to help get the SMP and SCSI working correctly for a future release.
It was a great Xandros/Lindows/Lycoris type distro, but few things really were bothering me about the way the OS worked.
Do they still have that wierd root thing going on? From what I remember, root isn’t root, it is another name. Users had more power than a normal user too. It was nice in ways, but very limiting in others. This was over a year ago, so my memory may be fuzzy, but there was a break from the norm that bothered me badly.
Other than that, apt-rpm works as well as apt for Debian. It is all in the way you set up the repository. RPM isn’t evil on it’s own, it is just that the incomplete solution RedHat pushes gives RPM a bad name. RH gives you all the bad news, but doesn’t offer to help fix it. Apt fixes the problems for you.
The thing that really set Ark apart for me, was the great number of custom Ark applications. That is something that is far too often missing from distros. Instead of just lumping apps together and hoping someone will eventually write a configuration app, these guys do it. They aren’t just packagers, they are creating an OS. This is something I learned from them that I am attempting to do for Vector Linux. If I do half as well, I’ll be proud.
I wish them the best of luck, they have put many, MANY hours into stabiliy and ease of use testing. They deserve many good reviews and lots of thanks.
“Do they still have that wierd root thing going on?”
Yes, i’ll try to clarify it a bit. By default, ArkLinux sets autologin on with the user ‘arklinux’ and it has no password, that has been done with the average Joe user in mind, which usually doesn’t care about users and passwords. I do understand however that Linux users aren’t used to this configuration at all, that’s why Ark folks are working on a tool to easily change between both setups.
As for the permisions, root remains being root as it is on any Linux system, just ‘arklinux’ user has some special permisions to let the user install/update software, of course this is configurable.
…looks really nice. I’m downloading the latest alpha right now (at 180 KBPS
. And yes, I agree on Keramik, that thing is the ugliest theme ever made. Ugh.