Posted by
michael
on from the includes-two-of-every-application dept.
An anonymous reader notes that OFB has a short blurb about a new Linux distribution, Ark Linux, based on Red Hat and chasing the ever-elusive goal of being "easy to use for the masses".
Yes, the announcements on slashdot, osnews, ofb.biz and pclinuxonline came as a total surprise to us.
We aren't 100% ready for the user base we're trying to address yet (there are a couple of installer bugs left, and we're lacking a good internet access config tool -- that's why it's called an alpha), so we tried to remain low profile [and didn't put much effort into the website] -- but now that we've been taken to the public, there's not much of a point in continuing along those lines.
There's also not much of a point in putting up screenshots if you know the look will change before you intend to tell the public.
Who knows, maybe we'll find some new contributors (maybe even for website design and graphics?;) )
Re:Four years and half too late.
by
Bero
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Ark Linux did not exist four and a half years ago. In fact, we didn't want to go public yet - we don't like preannouncing vaporware (though the current alpha version is actually usable, if you can overlook the rough edges) -- so there wasn't much need to update the website etc. until someone decided to notify the media of our existance.
The 4 1/2 years reference from the original poster refers to the creation of the Mandrake distribution, which started with similar goals, but developed into a different direction.
Mandrake is a good distribution, and suitable for desktop use if you know what you're doing a bit - but Mandrake is an all-purpose operating system, and therefore too complicated for many newbies (this may be hard for us geeks to understand, but people do get confused at the notion of 50 editors, 4 desktop environments and 20 MP3 players).
Ark Linux will focus on being a home user OS, and just that. IMO, if you want to please too many totally different needs at the same time (and "server", "techie workstation" and "newbie home user" are 3 _very_ different needs), you have to make too many tradeoffs.
Take off the tinfoil and a quick read of the site..
- 4 clicks to install = good - giving simplification a shot = good - developed own installer (i guess) = good
- no info about what to do with an iso = bad - explained in terms of red hat = bad - unanswered questions on page = bad - needs:
screenshots
info on hardware requirements
info on supported locales (or is it just English)
info for developers on "why develop for distro x"
needs a "why use our distro" page for users
- might be interesting if you could do work just by popping CD in (without partitioning or doing a big install).. or is that what it does? dunno.
Re:Ark Linux web site is a farce with pr0n on it
by
Bero
·
· Score: 5, Informative
What you've seen is the result of someone from the IP 68.13.232.26 (ip-68-13-232-26.ok.ok.cox.net), located in Atlanta, using Phoneix 0.5 on Windows 2000, abusing the fact that we've tried using an open support system.
The idea behind the system was simple - anyone can ask questions, and anyone can reply. Pretty much like a Wiki. So in a way, we got hacked - but since there was no protection for this area of the website, I wouldn't call it a security problem in the distribution. And we learned from it - the support system is now censoring bad posts. I find it sad that these things are necessary, when ideologically, we'd much rather fight censorship.
We made one mistake - namely that we trusted people wouldn't abuse it. This guy used malicious HTML tags to redirect the support system to his crap site.
Dear "hacker", you can be proud - you just circumvented nonexistant security blocks! I'll vote for you at the l33t h4x0r of the month contest.
Slashdot Mirror
See BeroLinux on SF which was then integrated to Linux Mandrake PR
wolruf@gmail.com
No screenshots??!?
;) )
Yes, the announcements on slashdot, osnews, ofb.biz and pclinuxonline came as a total surprise to us.
We aren't 100% ready for the user base we're trying to address yet (there are a couple of installer bugs left, and we're lacking a good internet access config tool -- that's why it's called an alpha), so we tried to remain low profile [and didn't put much effort into the website] -- but now that we've been taken to the public, there's not much of a point in continuing along those lines.
There's also not much of a point in putting up screenshots if you know the look will change before you intend to tell the public.
Who knows, maybe we'll find some new contributors (maybe even for website design and graphics?
Ark Linux did not exist four and a half years ago.
In fact, we didn't want to go public yet - we don't like preannouncing vaporware (though the current alpha version is actually usable, if you can overlook the rough edges) -- so there wasn't much need to update the website etc. until someone decided to notify the media of our existance.
The 4 1/2 years reference from the original poster refers to the creation of the Mandrake distribution, which started with similar goals, but developed into a different direction.
Mandrake is a good distribution, and suitable for desktop use if you know what you're doing a bit - but Mandrake is an all-purpose operating system, and therefore too complicated for many newbies (this may be hard for us geeks to understand, but people do get confused at the notion of 50 editors, 4 desktop environments and 20 MP3 players).
Ark Linux will focus on being a home user OS, and just that.
IMO, if you want to please too many totally different needs at the same time (and "server", "techie workstation" and "newbie home user" are 3 _very_ different needs), you have to make too many tradeoffs.
Take off the tinfoil and a quick read of the site..
- 4 clicks to install = good
- giving simplification a shot = good
- developed own installer (i guess) = good
- no info about what to do with an iso = bad
- explained in terms of red hat = bad
- unanswered questions on page = bad
- needs:
screenshots
info on hardware requirements
info on supported locales (or is it just English)
info for developers on "why develop for distro x"
needs a "why use our distro" page for users
- might be interesting if you could do work just by popping CD in (without partitioning or doing a big install).. or is that what it does? dunno.
What you've seen is the result of someone from the IP 68.13.232.26 (ip-68-13-232-26.ok.ok.cox.net), located in Atlanta, using Phoneix 0.5 on Windows 2000, abusing the fact that we've tried using an open support system.
The idea behind the system was simple - anyone can ask questions, and anyone can reply. Pretty much like a Wiki.
So in a way, we got hacked - but since there was no protection for this area of the website, I wouldn't call it a security problem in the distribution. And we learned from it - the support system is now censoring bad posts. I find it sad that these things are necessary, when ideologically, we'd much rather fight censorship.
We made one mistake - namely that we trusted people wouldn't abuse it. This guy used malicious HTML tags to redirect the support system to his crap site.
Dear "hacker", you can be proud - you just circumvented nonexistant security blocks! I'll vote for you at the l33t h4x0r of the month contest.