Ark Linux Review, A Distro with an Identity Crisis

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a review of Ark Linux 2006.1, which launched earlier this month. Overall, the reviewer likes this free KDE-based distro, but had to question some implementation choices, such as using the less-compatible Konqueror over Firefox for its default web browser. And for a distro that bills itself as 'a Linux distribution for everyone — designed to be easy to install and learn for users without prior Linux' the installation should hide command-line scrolling and be able to more automatically install standard graphics card drivers."

Comments

Konqueror

[IWannaBeAnAC]

So, what exactly is wrong with Konqueror?

Re:Konqueror

[johansalk]

Firefox is a proper browser. Konqueror on the other hand is a file manager, also a file viewer. It's such a good file viewer that you can view either local or remote files, and not only pictures and pdfs, but also html files, meaning you can also view graphic html files on remote servers, aka the web. As such, firefox is dedicated to being a browser where the web is a primary focus, whereas konqueror is more like a swiss army knife where the web is an included convenience.

Re:Konqueror

[pembo13]

Heck if I know, I can't say that I use Konqueror all the time, but I don't use Firefox all the time either. Konqueror seems to be quite a capable browser to me. (esp. since I do not have Flash plugin for it).

Re:Konqueror

[undeaf]

It does a horrible job of overriding webpage colors, unlike other browsers, it does not give the option of assigning a certain color to visited links, and a different color to unvisited links. For me that makes it unusable as a primary browser.

Re:Konqueror

[AaronW]

What I meant to say about Konqueror not being bloated then listing all these things is that for web browsing it only loads the KHTML component, whereas for a text file it loads the editor component. Each component itself is generally not that big. I think the memory footprint of KHTML is a lot smaller than Gecko, hence it being popular for use in embedded devices.

Konqueror looks like a swiss army knife, but it's really just a container for various parts, and new parts can be added to it without having to modify any code in Konqueror due to the nature of KDE.

Re:Konqueror

[miyako]

I use KDE as my window manager almost exclusively (sometimes I use WindowMaker when I feel like something a bit more light weight). Since Konqueror is so tightly integrated with KDE, I really have tried to like it as a web browser, but there are a few things that keep me comming back to firefox. The first thing is the extensions. There are a lot of extensions that are neat, but there are some that have become absolutely nessesary for me, such as aspellfox, flashblock, adblock, and the web developer extension.
The second reason is that Konqueror feels like a file browser, even when you're on the web. It's a great file browser, but for me the look and feel just doesn't translate well for web browsing.
The last reason is that the rendering engine does funny things sometimes. Although not nessesarily bad, having used firefox for so long, things just feel different. Konqueror (and Safari) seems to choke on pages more often than Firefox.
I still think konqueror is a great file browser, for me though it just doesn't cut it as a web browser.

Re:Konqueror

[krunk4ever]

You mean like Explorer. ;p

Re:Konqueror

[Elf_h34d3r]

Bad example...

The Konqueror browser I'm typing this from has 18 open tabs and has been open for probably about a week or two. It's consuming 475MB of virtual memory and 116MB of resident memory, but I have had a *lot* more tabs open in the past. I can rarely keep Firefox going for more than 24 hours or so, and it gobbles up memory at an astronomical rate (even 1.5.0.6).

My Firefox (CVS trunk build, so technically unstable) has been running for about a week also. It has approximately 30 tabs (and was running over 50 two days ago). The memory management is much better in the "unstable" versions of Firefox.

Even with all my tabs open, and 15 installed extensions, it consumes 275MB virtual memory and 120 resident memory.

But I haven't used the "stable" version of Firefox for months, so I can't comment on that.

Re:Konqueror

[JackieBrown]

"There are some that have become absolutely nessesary for me, such as aspellfox, flashblock, adblock, and the web developer extension." You can chose aspell or myspell or whatever you desire in konqueror. Just set it in kcontrol. Adblock has been in konqueror since (I believe) 3.4. It works well. You can even export your adblock list into konqueror. I use 64 bit so I can't use flash on either browser so it does not need to be blocked so I can't compare there. Heck, it even has a web page translator built into it. Any page that requires ie or firefox are usually because they just check for them, not for any other reason. Agent checker is built in for that. I have had it work with much success (even though it annoys me to have to do it.) I try firefox every now and then (in fact started with it) but I always find myself coming back to konqueror.

Re:Konqueror

[JackieBrown]

"My only real complaint is that the adblock feature needs a lot of work to catch up with the Firefox extension." You will probably like this http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=3 8915

Re:Konqueror

[VENONA]

I find it (3.5.4) excellent. It's my default browser, and I have few compatability issues, though YMWV. And of course Firefox is on the system if I do have a problem. I like the cookie control, including being warned about cross-domain cookies. I like being able to move the tabs, or save them into a bookmark folder. It launches much faster than Firefox, though that's less important to me than it might be to others, as it's nearly always running. Being able to enter 'man:whatever' in the location window is something I find extremely handy, due to the nature of the work I do.

You won't have Greasemonkey in Konqueror. That might be a problem for you. I was never a heavy user of it, and a security vulnerability led me to drop the small amount of stuff that I was doing with it. In the same vein, Konqueror has had few exploits published against it. Though that could be purely a popularity thing, I feel it's a somewhat safer browser.

It's kind of tough to present a list of features it might have, which other browsers might lack, because it's very rare for me to need another browser.

If I have one complaint, it's that editing bookmarks slows down if you have a large collection. I have hundreds, and that XML file is getting large. If it became a problem, I could maintain multiple files, of course. But the problem isn't that severe. Just slow enough to annoy you if you're putting in massive changes.

Re:Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox makes use of available memrory, oh noes, ze horror! Did you bought lots of RAM for it to sit there?

Re:Konqueror

[Jugalator]

I'm happy to see a Linux browsexplorer carrying on Internet Explorer's heritage that was unfortunately abandoned in Windows Vista. :-)

Re:Konqueror

[bhalo05]

When you use KDE as a desktop, no, Firefox is far from a proper browser. And the fact that Konqueror is a shell to many things has nothing to do with the quality of KHTML rendering anyway. The point is using Firefox on KDE throws by the window all the feeling you have that you're using an integrated, coherent desktop.

I think Firefox should be installed though as a second browser for those sites that do not render properly on Konqueror... just as many users used to fire up IE whenever Firefox didn't get it right, and this situation was not infrequent when Firefox was not as popular as it is now. I didn't hear many here claiming back then that Firefox was a piece of shit and to stick to IE because of that.

Re:Konqueror

[Spliffster]

"So, what exactly is wrong with Konqueror?"

You probably mean KHTML which is the html rendering engine of Konqueror. Nothing. it's a decent render engine. JavaScript support always laggs a bit behind gecko tho (read XMLHttpRequest, rich text editing, etc.).

Re:Konqueror

[ajs318]

Nothing - provided you are using the latest version. It's fast, it looks good, it supports CSS (even passing ACID2), it has tabs, it accepts Mozilla-style extensions. In fact, it does everything Opera does -- but, unlike Opera, you get the source code.

Konqueror 2.X was a poor imitation of Internet Explorer (without the vulnerabilities). But things have moved on a lot since those days ..... except IE .....

Re:Konqueror

[cortana]

No, but it would be nice if some of it was available for the kernel's buffers and cache occasionally.

Re:Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

since when was konqueror not a proper browser? I've been using it as a "fake" browser for 4 years. It's a perfectly good browser. It just happens to have some features that firefox lacks (like consistency with file management software).

Re:Konqueror

[junglee_iitk]

That's all good and another plus point for Konqueror is that it passes the Acid2 Test, which is a great point. But there are two main points why I keep returning to Firefox: 1. Extensions! I love all the things people can add into there Firefox. Most of them don't even make sense, but they make browsing fun and wonderful experience. Konqueror, on the other hand, has always been one that implements it into the main application. KPart technology is not as extensive and easy to use that XUL. 2. Support! Firefox is the new buzz. All good sites support Firefox, just like all other of them IE. Konqueror is still having problems handling GMail (read Google Talk in it), orkut, blogger etc. 3. Last but not the least, kdelibs. You can download Firefox, untar/unzip it, and use it right away. Who wants to install kde-libs and n number of other things for Konqueror? How feasible it is to ship Konqueror with a disto which is, for example, Gnome based?

Re:Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

... and then slashdot said, "Use the Preview Button!" :-)

Re:Konqueror

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

its a fiasco and no one seems to care, and that is why zealots mod down informative posts, always instead of debating on merits. sometimes they hypocritically mod the second post down calling it redundant to stifle free and open debate. This post will be no exception probably. You will see.

I'm sorry, did you consider your post to be informative? I merely thought it a rambling rant laden with typos and poor grammar. I mean, come on -- you're harping on a bug that you found five years back, and was fixed almost as long ago. I suppose this is informative -- though not in the way you wish. It informs me that I'm addressing somebody obsessed; somebody who focuses on the past to avoid facing current realities, because those realities are not pleasant.

We understand that you do not wish to come to terms with the present. We understand, and we forgive you, Bill. But it is time to move on, wouldn't you say?

Re:Konqueror

[Soothh]

Uhhh, thats easy, its part of KDE thats whats wrong with it.

KDE is teh sUx

Re:Konqueror

[c]

I can easily add folders or book marks to any folder I want with only a couple clicks.

There's actually a Firefox extension providing this same functionality

But overall, I agree 100%. Konqueror's been my primary browser for a good four years or so. I switched to Firefox for a few months, and while there were things it did better (faster rendering, some nice extensions), I switched back within a few months.

The only Firefox functionality which I found useful at the time was adblock, and between squid/adzapper and Konqueror's new adblock (when it doesn't core the browser), I've got that covered.

Firefox does have some nice web developer extensions...

c.

Re:Konqueror

[Peaker]

Konqueror is still having problems handling GMail (read Google Talk in it)

That's what I thought too.

Then I changed my browser identification in GMail to be Mozilla/5.0 and then it suddenly worked.

Apparently Google are screwing up with Konqueror by checking the browser id.
I don't suppose they do this out of bad intentions, but they prefer the site reverting to HTML than not working cryptically.

Re:Konqueror

[Fred_A]

Yeah, Athena widgets and twm forever baby !

Re:Konqueror

[Vexorian]

Why does everybody come up with crazy theories like firefox using 800MB? I seriously have never seen it go above 100 which is high but it is not as bad as some people believe, In fact I am more likelly to believe that people read 80MB as 800 or are exaggerating their experience in order to sound more right (which is ridiculous btw)

Re:Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, firefox grabs different ammounts of resources depending upon what kind of web sites you frequent. It also seems to vary by system. At work I use Firefox on OSX all week and it has no problems. At home I frequent porn sites, and other very intensive web sites. Firefox can make it between 2-3 days before it will just stop rendering some pages all together.

Re:Konqueror

[JCholewa]

> Nothing - provided you are using the latest version. It's fast, it looks good, it supports CSS (even passing
> ACID2), it has tabs, it accepts Mozilla-style extensions. In fact, it does everything Opera does -- but,
> unlike Opera, you get the source code.

There is a ton of stuff that Opera does that Konq doesn't. Here's what keeps me coming back to Opera:
* opening previously closed tabs -- Konq only has a tool for opening crashed pages, and that doesn't always work
* saving individual sessions
* putting tabs on the side (I open a lot of pages per session, so tabs on top or bottom won't fit comfortably)
* Fast Forward (auto-recognizing "Next page" links in articles and following them when you click a button or hit a hotkey, also works if you're browsing through a bunch of images linked from a single page
* SiteBar compatibility (this isn't a show stopper -- SiteBar is a roll-your-own version of del.icio.us -- and it's even a little problematic in Opera, but not as difficult)
* widgets (having instantaneous access to tiny apps, like a simple calculator, is much more convenient than waiting X seconds for something like kcalc to load)
* shift-G and G hotkeys to blast away styles and images from a current tab until I need them back (different from using bookmarklets, which only blast until you load another page)
* per-page fine-grained control over flash, ad banners, javascript functionality, animation, et al)
* Links panel, listing all ilnks from current page
* Shift + arrow navigation of links

There's like a billion more. I still like Konqueror and use it from time to time. As long as a browser can do mouse gestures, tabs, session saving and find-as-you-type (features that shared by Opera, Konqueror and properly extended Mozillas) and is reasonably cross platform, I'm comfortable with using it.

Re:Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen >400 and regularly get about 300 on a Windows machine with 512 Mb RAM, no extensions, and no misreading. I can only imagine that we tend to visit different sites (or the Firefox memory woes are different on different Operating Systems).

Firefox starts at about 70 to 80 for me, and just shoots up without ever going down -- and yes, I do need that extra RAM for, oh, other programs.

Re:Konqueror

[Kadin2048]

Although in the end, which browser you want to use is a personal choice, I think spellchecking is superior in Konqueror than in Firefox.

In Konqueror (recent versions, KDE 3.5+ I think), you can have it automatically underline misspelled words, while in Firefox you have to manually run the spellchecker and use it through a modal window. I'm sorry, 1996 called, and they want their spellchecking interface back. There's no reason why you should have to do anything except right-click for alternative spellings; forcing the user to right-click, choose Check Spelling, and then go through the entire text field manually is a waste of time.

That alone is enough to keep me from using Firefox seriously (except on Windows, where I've yet to find anything much better, although I admit to not looking or caring much). Actually I think the MacOS does things best of all here with Safari, because it handles spell-checking at the system level -- every application looks and works the same way, and accesses the same dictionaries. There's no reason for your web browser to use a separate spell-checking system from your email program, or anything else. Pity it's so damn slow at rendering complex pages.

Newer versions of Konqueror also have adblock built in, not as an extension but as part of the browser itself. It's trivial to load up Filterset.G and have a browsing experience that's similar to what you'd have with Firefox. Although I admit, it's not quite as easy to block additional images or servers or temporarily disable blocking as with other systems -- there's definitely room for improvement here. And for Flashblocking, you have to go into the preferences and disable it. (Actually I think both Firefox and Konqueror would do well to look at the shareware PithHelmet for Safari, which even offers some additional features I've yet to see elsewhere.)

Both browsers have things that they could definitely learn from each other, and I'm not sure either one is clearly superior. However, I think that in terms of a cohesive user experience particularly for online forum use, recent versions of Konqueror win out.

Re:Konqueror

[AaronW]

You must be a Firefox developer, because the developers keep denying that there is a problem, yet many users complain about the memory leak. Just do a Google search. The developers keep coming back that it's a feature. No, a feature is when you limit your caches to what the user specifies, not arbitrarily gobble up all of their available memory. I had my cache set to 32MB, since I don't often go back to previous pages and when I do I have a fast connection. Some people don't have problems, but many others, like myself, do. I guess it depends partially on the browsing habits and the sites you go to. I tend to open and close a lot of tabs, which seems to exasperate the problem in Firefox, and also hit some sites that are heavy with Javascript. Note that this was with Firefox 1.5.0.6. With only some light browsing it's currently hovering at 161MB, and I haven't visited many sites or used it much.

I have 1.25GB of memory in my system. According to top, Firefox was consuming over 800MB and Thunderbird will often chew up over 200MB.

Re:Konqueror

[AaronW]

Here's my output from Top, sorted by virtual memory usage. This system has been up for weeks. The java task is the Eclipse IDE. X has been up for a long time. Look at Thunderbird and Firefox. Also look at the amount of runtime they have received compared to the two copies of Konqueror that are eating up 228 and 209MB. With well over 10 times the usage, they're not much bigger than Firefox. Thunderbird is just as bad. I have to restart it frequently as well.

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
25617 root 16 0 478m 112m 5500 R 6.6 8.9 2736:49 X
25883 aaronw 15 0 227m 120m 21m S 0.3 9.6 271:54.25 konqueror
25871 aaronw 15 0 209m 123m 19m S 0.3 9.8 327:27.31 konqueror
3156 aaronw 15 0 202m 89m 19m S 0.0 7.0 13:45.00 thunderbird-bin
26844 aaronw 15 0 173m 75m 21m S 0.0 5.9 18:43.62 firefox-bin

Re:Konqueror

[FishWithAHammer]

I bought lots of RAM so I could run Photoshop at the same time that I ran my dev tools (the only things that keep me on Windows--awesome development tools and Photoshop).

Firefox, after about eight hours of browsing with 4-6 tabs, glomps about 600-700MB of RAM. Yeah. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Keep going, fanboy.

Re:Konqueror

[intangible]

Not to say anyone's wrong, but try using a fresh install of FF with ZERO extensions for a week and see if you're still seeing problems.

How do people . . .

[pembo13]

pull any useful amount of information from this webpages? I started to read, but things were all about the place, started looking for a printer friendly page, and just gave up on the entire article. Geez.

Re:How do people . . .

[MrNonchalant]

Here: http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =186517,00.asp

Re:How do people . . .

[dohzer]

Exactly what I thought.
I went in to find out what the "identity crisis" was and left before I'd read the first page.

Reviewer missed the point

[dbIII]

Konqueror shares libraries with other KDE applications so is likely to have a smaller memory footprint than Firefox.

Re:Reviewer missed the point

[WJMoore]

Yes they would also be the same libraries that Apple forked for WebKit, which is used by Safari. I don't think you can say that Konqueror is not a capable browser. Its much lighter than Firefox and has much better desktop integration, such as with the system wide KDE wallet and inline spell checking.

Re:Reviewer missed the point

[my $anity 0]

I have experienced this. I switched from firefox to konqueror when I had 256MB of RAM. Firefox crashed, and was much slower. Now that I have a GB of RAM, it doesn't matter so much. However, KDE has a lot of libs to load too, it has a lot of memory usage. Konqueror is a light enough browser even WITHOUT the added bonus of using the same libs as the WM/DW, It works rather nicely on Openbox.

Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Anything that is "xxx for everyone" is going to fail. You can't please everyone. If you do you end up with something that has no niche value.

If you're going to build a distro, or any product for that matter, think long and carefully who you really want to target.

Re:Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

But XXX is for everybody!

Re:Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I like Ubuntu. They only claim to be "linux for human beings".

Re:Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[Kjella]

Anything that is "xxx for everyone" is going to fail. You can't please everyone. If you do you end up with something that has no niche value.

I don't know, I think Microsoft has a pretty good track record targetting the lowest common denominator. But like with other products, there's only room for a very few, very big players operating on huge volume and razor-thin margins that aim for "everybody". Most companies find that they just can't do that and find themselves a niche. But there being 100 niche companies doesn't mean "for everyone" is going to fail, it probably just means two or three big ones are already covering that market.

Re:Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you forgotten that there's a word for things with no niche value? It's called "mainstream", particularly when they succeed. But you claim that all mainstream projects fail?

Re:Rule #1: Don't try to please everyone

[pkulak]

I think any company with the motto "porn for everyone" is going to succeed marvelously, actually.

Easy linux for masses

[QuantumFTL]

'a Linux distribution for everyone -- designed to be easy to install and learn for users without prior Linux'

Seriously, isn't this what Ubuntu (or Kubunto, for those who prefer KDE) is supposed to be? Or Red Hat? Or did I miss something?

Am I the only one who finds this article insightful, rather than funny?

Re:Easy linux for masses

[pembo13]

I do not think RedHat/Fedora ever claimed that.

Re:Easy linux for masses

[yankpop]

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I moved to Debian. If all the people who are working on derivatives (Mepis, Ubuntu, Kanotix, DSL etc) put that effort back into Debian instead, we'd be getting much more per developer hour invested. Debian is not *that* hard to install, and if all the people working on easier-to-install sub distros were instead working on the Debian installer...

The relatively low cost of entry for would-be distro producers has definitely spread the talent pool pretty thin, with a lot of duplicated effort. If Microsoft can deal with their customers varying needs with a handful of distros, you'd think we could do the same with ten.

The glut of distros also fuels a distro-junky culture, where hobbyists spend hours and hours testing and tweaking different distros. Imagine what would happen if these people just picked one distro, got it running, and then started developing apps for it instead of posting screenshots of their desktop every day? But if we do that, I suppose we might as well imagine what would happen if all the brain-power devoted to baseball statistics were refocussed on electoral reform or cancer cures...

yp.

Re:Easy linux for masses

[Fred_A]

There really isn't that much of a difference between Debian and the *ubuntu stuff once it's been installed (can't say about the others which I haven't tried). The main thing is that you get to a workable desktop a bit faster with the "user friendly" version. Once you're past that though, you can pretty much use both the same way.
And why wouldn't some of the Ubuntu toolset make it back into Debian eventually ? Some of it is quite good.

Re:Easy linux for masses

[yankpop]

Sure, some of the toolset does most definitely make its way back to Debian. But why should it have to? If Ubuntu was a project within Debian then any tools they develop would be available to the larger community immediately. The current Debian install includes an option list, where you select which package groups you want: laptop, server, desktop etc. If you moved that up in the process and included a few more options like "Ubuntu desktop", then all that work could be integrated together without making any additional demands on the user. Newbies could be directed to the more automated Ubuntu install, while the rest of us can work our way through the standard Debian process.

To be honest, I don't know if the problem is with Debian or the derivatives, but it seems like they could be working in a more coordinated fashion. And Ubuntu appears to do a better job of contributing back upstream than the others. As I understand it, all the Ubuntu code is GPL, whereas the Mepis-specific tools are closed source.

yp.

Re:Easy linux for masses

[Fred_A]

I think the major problem with Debian was the passing of several ice ages between releases whereas Ubuntu is apparently committed on releasing twice a year.

Apart from that, I agree that it would indeed be way simpler if everybody would just work together... That's people for you I guess. At least there's some constructive sharing going on.

So which is it?

[1053r]

He says that he is dissapointed in Konqueror as the default browser (which by the way I haven't had any problem with, ever, but I still use opera) but in the summary he says this:

Price: Free download.
Pros: Easy to install; KDE desktop; good software selection.
Cons: Uses Firefox as the default browser; feels like it needs a little fine tuning to make it as slick as Xandros; didn't automatically install the right drivers for my nvidia card.
Summary: A decent Linux distro that provides a fair amount of useful software, Ark Linux lags behind Ubuntu and Xandros in polish. It seems to be trying to find its place under the sun.

(emphasis added)
This article wasn't too particularly useful, and even contradicted itself! Well, maybe next time.

Re:So which is it?

[ozmanjusri]

So which is it?

It's Konqueror. The Ark Linux devs give their reasons in one of the forums:

We think that Konqueror is a much better browser. Konqueror follows the standards (in particular CSS) more closely than any other browser, it integrates better with the rest of the system, it doesn't drag in hundreds of libraries nothing else needs, and its user interface is better, because it doesn't make weird decisions like using the wrong button order. (We think the weird "Do you want to do this? [No] [Yes]" button order used by Firefox and a couple of other projects is plain wrong, because it contradicts normal language use -- what's the last time someone asked you in plain English "Do you want to xyz? No or yes?"?

If you absolutely need it, you can simply apt-get install firefox though.

http://forum.arklinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=65&highl ight=firefox

Re:So which is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called a typo. He wouldn't have made a fuss about Firefox missing if Firefox weren't missing. Critical thinking is a skill you may want to consider developing.

Re:So which is it?

[VENONA]

Other problems with the review. I couldn't care less about his opinion on whether scrolling text is too user-unfriendly and should be hidden. But he had problems with installing additional software, and that bit ended with, "Not sure what happened there, but at least I was able to get my additional software installed."

Did he look at the logs, look and find no information, or ???

YAN desktop image doesn't tell anyone anything, considering that you can make a KDE desktop look like pretty much anything, and a lot of users do. I know mine looks almost nothing like a current default KDE. Who chooses a distro based on what the default desktop looks like? I'd rather have seen more information on the install problem than that waste of real estate.

I got the feeling that he's pretty much a pure GUI user, and just doesn't know or care an awful lot about what goes on behind the scenes. But even from that perspective, he might have taken the opportunity to tell viewers if KDE'ss log viewer was installed, since he certainly needed to look at a couple of logs. It's not on his list of installed software, but then he doesn't even show a category for system utilities, and he does mention that he used KDE's package manager. Or he could mention whether he could play MP3s or WMVs out of the box, or something.

At the end of the day, he never did explain the identity crisis bit of his title, which was "Ark LinuxA Distro with an Identity Crisis".

I did get a chuckle out of the irony of finding this fluff on a site that bills itself as ExtremeTech: Build it, tweak it, know it. Better than nothing, I guess, but not great.

Re:So which is it?

[creepynut]

I got the feeling that he's pretty much a pure GUI user, and just doesn't know or care an awful lot about what goes on behind the scenes.

He doesn't care, and neither should the users.

I don't care how the inside of the car works, how the inside of the computer works, as long as it performs its task. Now, don't get me wrong, it's beneficial to know, but it doesn't mean he should need to know, or even care.

Re:So which is it?

[Fred_A]

Very true. The casual computer user shouldn't have to know or care how the machine works. A good distribution should be able to hide the gears from people who don't want to see them while still letting others access them easily. Mandrake (presumably Mandriva too) and Ubuntu do this well.
However I don't know if Ark is geared towards casual users or Unix people.

OTOH, even the Unix people get tired of tinkering after a while and like their machines to "just work" (while still having access to the Unix tools). Which is why things like Ubuntu are popular with a large cross section of users, geeks and non geeks alike.

Idiots on a Stick...

[KeithLDick]

Works for me

Tetris!

[calculadoru]

Oh come on, before you start bashing them - look, they have a nice Tetris game for you to play while it installs!
That's got to be worth something, no?

Re:Tetris!

[Osty]

Oh come on, before you start bashing them - look, they have a nice Tetris game for you to play while it installs! That's got to be worth something, no?

Sure, if the year is 1999 and the distro is Caldera.

Re:Tetris!

[gbobeck]

Ah yes... the good ole days ('99-'00). If I remember correctly, Caldera also offered PacMan in their installers.

Of course, I never got to play either one. Even back then, *hell no, I didn't SCO*

Re:Tetris!

[JackieBrown]

I wonder if the SCO will sue Arch for that? (Actually with SCO's track record they probably will.)

Re:Tetris!

[Red Alastor]

Oh come on, before you start bashing them - look, they have a nice Tetris game for you to play while it installs! That's got to be worth something, no?

Maybe but when you install (k)ubuntu, you can read Slashdot at the same time :)

Re:Tetris!

[psxman]

Screw that, I played Nethack while I installed Gentoo. *insert joke about ascending in the time it took to install Gentoo here*

Re:Tetris!

[Osty]

I wonder if the SCO will sue Arch for that? (Actually with SCO's track record they probably will.)

SCO probably won't, but how long do you think it'll take before The Tetris Company, LLC, sends them a cease and desist? As background, The Tetris Company seems to think that they have a copyright or trademark on the actual gameplay of Tetris, which is complete bunk. They do have a trademark on the name, which might cause problems in this case (the embedded tetris clone is called "Tetrix", which is a bit close to "Tetris" for comfort). Unfortunately, the kind of people who make tetris clones tend to be independent developers doing it for fun or to hone their skills, and generally don't have the financial means to fight the lengthy court battle necessary to prove The Tetris Company wrong. See Quinn, for example.

No, unless you're willing to put your money where your mouth is, you're better off embedding a breakout clone, or pong clone, or asteroids clone, etc instead of a tetris clone. You're just asking for trouble.

Re:Tetris!

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, Microsoft is going to copy this idea and allow you to play Solitaire while installing Windows Vista...

Re:Tetris!

[dbIII]

I wonder if the SCO will sue Arch for that?

Since it wasn't their work it is likely! I believe a guy at trolltech wrote the tetris game for the installer in an afternoon.

To add to it

[b1ufox]

Is something wrong with the review or is it just bad editing?

Konqueror,among the only few browsers( Opera and Safari) can pass the W3C's ACID test.

Only problem is not much of support is given to Konqueror by may websites like gmail e.g

if they can improve on it, it ll definitely be a good deal for KDE.

Re:To add to it

[arose]

You on the other hand fail the facts test. Acid2 is not a W3C test:

Acid2 is a test page for web browsers published by The Web Standards Project (WaSP).

Passing the Acid2 doesn't mean all that much:

Everything that Acid2 tests is specified in a Web standard, but not all Web standards are tested. Acid2 does not guarantee conformance with any specification.

So if a browser passes it can be because:

• it has really great standards support
• it has the bits tested by Acid2, but everything else could be broken
• it has been optimized for the test and does not actually conform to the standard even in the tested bits

Re:To add to it

[truedfx]

Passing the Acid2 test does indeed not mean much, but there's one important thing you left out: not passing it guarantees the browser does not conform to relevant web standards. (Or that Acid2 is broken, but that's true with any test.)

Re:To add to it

[Kjella]

Passing the Acid2 doesn't mean all that much:

Well, ACID2 tests a lot of corner cases (like, IMO really obscure stuff). But I doubt you'd be able to do corner cases if you didn't know where either of the edge cases are. That said, the people that are using standards compliance as an argument between non-IE browsers is really grasping at straws. Sure, there's a few differences in how well they emulate broken behavior by IE but nothing that really sets them apart.

The biggest issues have nothing to do with passing that test:
1. Internet Explorer - the de facto "standard"
2. Plugins like Flash, or ActiveX
3. Extendability (extensions, kparts)
4. OS Integration (Konquerer is obviously a clear winner on KDE)
5. Cross-platform (Can I run the same browser when I need to use Windows?)

Re:To add to it

[arose]

4 and 5 are excluding each other IMHO, the best you can hope is the same rendering engine. So while I use different browsers on GNOME and Windows (Epiphany and Firefox) I still get the same rendering and good integration.

Re:

[RuBLed]

You see.. Microsoft was ahead in this "sharing libraries" game. IE was the ultimate example :)

Konqueror

[AaronW]

I have been using Konqueror a lot. I got fed up with Firefox when after 24 hours of browsing it was consuming 800MB of RAM, even though the cache size was set at 32MB. I have found that Konqueror is often faster, uses a lot less memory, and is generally more stable. There are a few sites where I have had trouble, but I've also had problems with some sites with Firefox (and a few of those worked with Konqueror). Konqueror has gotten a lot better, especially 3.5. A number of additional fixes went into 3.5.4. My only real complaint is that the adblock feature needs a lot of work to catch up with the Firefox extension.

The file dialog for Konqueror, when I download and save binaries, is infinitely better than the one in Firefox. The UI on Konqueror is also much easier to customize, adding or removing buttons at will. Some of the buttons I find quite useful, like scaling the web page larger or smaller. I also like the fact that plug-ins run as a separate process than the browser and I can run them niced. It also means I can run a 64-bit browser and integrate 32-bit plugins.

I also like the bookmark toolbar better in Konqueror. I can easily add folders or book marks to any folder I want with only a couple clicks.

As a file browser, Konqueror is actually quite nice. It's not the big bloated mess people make it out to be. In fact, if anything is a big bloated mess, it's Firefox. Konqueror uses kparts, so that if, for example, I open a .c file in it, it loads the shared libraries for the editor, or if I click on a multimedia file, it loads kaffeine. Just about everything in KDE is a part, so they can be reused. PDFs are also great in Konqueror when it uses kpdf instead of that bloated Acrobat mess.

Hell, I can't even open more than one instance of Firefox, even on different machines if my home directory is shared over a network. Konqueror has no such problems.

The Konqueror browser I'm typing this from has 18 open tabs and has been open for probably about a week or two. It's consuming 475MB of virtual memory and 116MB of resident memory, but I have had a *lot* more tabs open in the past. I can rarely keep Firefox going for more than 24 hours or so, and it gobbles up memory at an astronomical rate (even 1.5.0.6).

As far as rendering web sites goes, I believe Firefox had problems with Slashdot for the longest time, while Konqueror did not.

apt-get firefox

[x3nos]

Overall, the reviewer likes this free KDE-based distro, but had to question some implementation choices, such as using the less-compatible Konqueror over Firefox for its default web browser.

Simple:

apt-get firefox
enter

From the Ark Linux website: Ark Linux uses a combination of rpm and apt-get.
That wasn't so hard was it?

Re:apt-get firefox

[GnuAge]

Now try that with Mozilla or Seamonkey. Whoops, not in the repositories, and they won't install with the standard Mozy tar.gz installer unless you first install the "deprecated" gtk1 package with apt-get because kynaptics is broken and they are probably going to move to Adept, except it is even more broken at the moment. Not something a Newbie will figure out, I'm afraid.

Re:apt-get firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

apt-get install firefox :)

Let's be accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

To be more accurate, KHTML is the actual rendering engine, while Konqueror encapsulates it and adds the other functionality (ie. tabs, configuration screens, etc.) necessary to create a full-fledged browser.

A quick way to compare KHTML to Gecko (the rendering engine of Firefox) is to look at the source code for each. What one will immediately notice is that while both are written in C++, the code of KHTML is far cleaner than that of Gecko. Gecko suffers from an over-architecturing, which directly leads to code bloat and unnecessary complexity. KHTML, on the other hand, has been designed to be simple and clear, without an overly convoluted architecture.

What we end up getting with KHTML is a rendering engine that is of a far higher quality than that of Gecko, mainly because the developers are so easily able to extend it. With the upcoming KDE 4 release, which will likely be portable to Windows and Mac OS X, the portability advantages of Gecko's architecture will be rendered obsolete.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[fbjon]

Holy smokes, a portable KDE? I must've missed a meeting, how does that work? Can I replace the windows shell with it? (explorer.exe)

Re:Let's be accurate.

[IamTheRealMike]

A quick way to compare KHTML to Gecko (the rendering engine of Firefox) is to look at the source code for each. What one will immediately notice is that while both are written in C++, the code of KHTML is far cleaner than that of Gecko. Gecko suffers from an over-architecturing, which directly leads to code bloat and unnecessary complexity. KHTML, on the other hand, has been designed to be simple and clear, without an overly convoluted architecture.

That's a little unfair. In fact I have read the source code to each and I wouldn't say one is far clearer than the other. Maybe that used to be the case but they've cleaned Gecko up a lot in the past few years. It's true that the Mozilla dialect of C++ is a little more obtuse than the Qt dialect, however, Mozilla is a hell of a lot more portable than KHTML is not only between operating systems but also between compilers, and that makes a big difference. Gecko also has a lot of features that KHTML does not have - for instance the combination of the fact that its objects are easily exposed to JavaScript and XUL is what makes the Firefox extensions culture so vibrant. Where are the extensions to Konqueror? There might be a few, I guess, but nothing like what you have with Firefox. It's hard to see how they could have made extensions so powerful without the platform parts like XPCOM which make the C++ harder to read.

What we end up getting with KHTML is a rendering engine that is of a far higher quality than that of Gecko

Meaningless assertion, not backed up by fact. I claim the opposite. Gecko is fast, very standards compliant and trivial to extend using reasonably well documented APIs and technologies. For instance look at XTF. It has support for a lot of new things like SVG, MathML, designMode and so on. KHTML might support these things, depending if you use the Apple fork ... or it might not.

With the upcoming KDE 4 release, which will likely be portable to Windows and Mac OS X, the portability advantages of Gecko's architecture will be rendered obsolete.

No, I rather think it won't. The portability of Geckos architecture already allowed it to make massive gains on Windows, the only platform that matters statistically. Where was KHTML in all of this? Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad rendering engine at all, but to claim a Windows port of KHTML will make Gecko obsolete is rather naive. Maybe KDE 4 will rock my world but right now it's mostly a set of marketing web pages and fancy codenames for various abstractions over already quite abstract technologies (HAL, gstreamer etc).

Re:Let's be accurate.

[The Mysterious X]

Has been available forever here.

Developement on a native port is relatively new though, see here.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[squiggleslash]

To be fair, while Gecko may have a reputation for being less elegant than KHTML, it's also got a history of being more compatible with generic web content than KHTML. It's extremely difficult to write an elegant, compatible, web browser. The best you can hope for is to write something that's elegant and compatible with standards-compliant code, but 99% of webpages are not "standards-compliant" by a long shot.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[StormReaver]

"...but to claim a Windows port of KHTML will make Gecko obsolete is rather naive."

That isn't at all what he said. He didn't say that the new KHTML will make Gecko obsolete. He said that the new KHTML's portability to Windows will make Gecko's portability advantage obsolete.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[Per Wigren]

a portable KDE? [...] Can I replace the windows shell with it? (explorer.exe)

No. The KDE libraries are being ported so you can code/port KDE applications for Windows and MacOS X using features of KDE such as KParts, KIO (ssh://, audiocd://) and so on. More or less with just a recompile. That will give you a native app for that OS, not the whole environment.

I'm sure someone will port things like Konqueror and Kicker though (KWin is very X11-specific), so maybe you'll be able to run the complete KDE desktop on Windows as a shell replacement in the future but that is AFAIK not in the todo-list at the moment.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

The need for Firefox-style extensions is due to the fact that the overall architecture of Gecko and Firefox is seriously flawed. Since the C++ codebase is so inaccessible to all but a small group of developers (due to its overwhelming complexity and lack of clarity), they had to come up with their JavaScript/XUL extension doodad. Such an extension scheme is needed because Firefox and Gecko are so difficult to natively extend using C++.

When such additional functionality is needed for Konqueror, on the other hand, it's just written in C++ and integrated with browser. What we end up with are extensions that far more stable, far quicker, and far less memory intensive than the equivalents for Firefox.

Gecko is fast, very standards compliant and trivial to extend using reasonably well documented APIs and technologies. For instance look at XTF. It has support for a lot of new things like SVG, MathML, designMode and so on. KHTML might support these things, depending if you use the Apple fork ... or it might not.

Perhaps Gecko is fast compared to Internet Explorer's rendering engine. But please, compare the most recent version of Firefox against the most recent versions of Konqueror and Opera. Make sure you load local files, to avoid delays in the network. What you'll find is that Konqueror and Opera are faster on the vast majority of pages. As for SVG and MathML, KHTML has supported those technologies since the 3.5.x release series. That's in the normal branch, too, not whatever Apple has worked on. With each subsequent release its SVG support has been improving.

It wasn't Firefox's portability that allowed it to gain popularity on Windows. It was the fact that it was basically the only alternative to a massive pile of fecal matter (Internet Explorer), people got fed up enough, and switched. Had Opera been free a couple years back, it's quite possible that they'd be up there with 25% or so of the browser marketshare.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[Hast]

Do you have anything to support those arguments? You make wild broad generalizations regarding code quality but don't prove anything to back it up. Hell you're even an Anon Coward who don't give out your name. While I don't know who the parent is and if he has actually looked at the code but he did leave enough info so I can look him up.

And AFAIK Opera has been free (ad supported) for a long time. Even in the dark ages when Mozilla was just beginning to take off.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[sublies]

When such additional functionality is needed for Konqueror, on the other hand, it's just written in C++ and integrated with browser. What we end up with are extensions that far more stable, far quicker, and far less memory intensive than the equivalents for Firefox.

..but what you lose is the ease of use that has made Firefox's extensions so popular. Learning enough JavaScript to create an extension is a trivial matter for most people, which is why there are so many to choose from. True, many are probably not stable, could be faster and use less resources, but the payoff is in the massive innovation. Firefox's extensions have opened the doors of F/OSS development to a very broad spectrum of users.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I can back it up. Other people can, too. Anyone who knows C++ can look at the code to either projects, and can make the judgement for themselves. If they have any background with developing large scale C++ applications, their analysis will mirror mine.

I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to do the research for yourself. I've provided the links to the source repositories below, for your convenience. Keep in mind that they're both the development branches, so the code itself for both may not be perfect. The clarity of the developmental KHTML code compared to the equivalent developmental Gecko code shows how much better the KDE development process is.

Here is the KHTML source code: http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/KDE/kdelibs/khtml/
Here is the Gecko source code: http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/

And I'm not sure why you see fit to engage in personal attacks against me, just because I have proven that your browser of choice (obviously Firefox) is technically inferior to Konqueror. I do ask that you investigate this matter for yourself. Peruse the source code for each project. You will clearly see that the KHTML code is of a far higher quality than that of Gecko.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[timbrown]

Well, you can write plugins for Konqi, be they DCOP based service menus ala konqil.icio.us, or direct C++ extensions ala Digg.com plugin for Konqueror.

Re:Let's be accurate.

[Anonymous Coward]

look at the code KHTML is better.
look at the code gecko is better.

I think what he wants is for you to actually cite how the code is better. Maybe you could cite an example, in the simplest terms possible, of how the KHTML code is superior? Mostly for my own sake (C++ was never my strong point).

Re:Let's be accurate.

[eloki]

Since the C++ codebase is so inaccessible to all but a small group of developers (due to its overwhelming complexity and lack of clarity), they had to come up with their JavaScript/XUL extension doodad.

Um, you know that the XUL/Javascript is what much of the browser UI/functionality itself is written in, right? In the end, anything which requires C++ as opposed to "webbish" syntax like XUL and Javascript is going to be less tractable to the majority of users. This applies to both Gecko's code and to Konqueror's, and would have a non-trivial part in accounting for the vast decific of Konqueror extensions compared to Firefox. Of course, popularity on Windows accounts for a major part of it as well, but even if Konqueror had been on Windows and beaten Firefox to it, requiring C++ would have limited how many extensions got written.

What's the point of this?

[SumeyDevil]

Seriously, ANOTHER Linux distribution? Who is going to use this? I know the whole "different strokes for different folks" but no newbie is going to use this, they're going to use Ubuntu. The people that are going to use this distro are the tinkerers that have the knowledge and capability to customize their own distro to meet their own spec. Distros like this piss me off. Shit like this is holding Linux back. Instead of forking every time and serve a user base of 200, why don't you use your talent and skill to polish a distro that's actually going to go somewhere!

Re:What's the point of this?

[Reed Solomon]

Ark Linux has been around since before Ubuntu even existed. I've been using it for at least two years and love it (Though they could use more developers, unlike Ubuntu, it's a completely volunteer effort) I can't stand gnome and find Ark, once installed, feels right to me with its KDE based desktop (and OpenOffice uses KDE the kde look theme). It's hard to explain but I enjoy using it and am glad it exists, it really only needs a little bit of polish to be great. I don't like debs but I like apt-get, so I'm glad Ark is the only distro that standardizes on apt-get with rpm. Plus it'l be nice when Adept works with apt-rpm too. Ark also has a live CD version on its web page somewhere.

Re:What's the point of this?

[BorgxQueen]

Q: What's the point of this?
A: To create, explore, understand and to share with the world. The four greatest reasons behind hacking.

Q: Who is going to use this?
A: My clients, my company, my friends. I run small but growing GNU Linux company in NJ. My clients, home users (including my best friend's 87 year old mother who "rocks on the Ark"), 3 recording studios, 2 photography studios, 1 independent film studio and last but not least me. All my critical systems user Ark Linux 2006.1. Which, btw, is the only "full sized" distro that will run on my "Hell Labs" test machine. An AMD k6-2 500 with 256MBs of RAM with a Trident 4MBs PCI video card. Ark works completely.

S: but no newbie is going to use this, they're going to use Ubuntu.
R: And almost all of them ran back to MS Windows. I convinced them to try again with Ark and they love it.

S: The people that are going to use this distro are the tinkerers that have the knowledge and capability to customize their own distro to meet their own spec.
R: Which means its powerful enough for experienced users (such as myself). Thank you.

S: Distros like this piss me off.
R: Good to know we are doing something right. Thanks again.

S: Shit like this is holding Linux back.
R: Isn't that somewhat similar to someone in the proprietary software field said regard software diversity? Can you say MONOPOLY?

S: Instead of forking every time and serve a user base of 200, why don't you use your talent and skill to polish a distro that's actually going to go somewhere!
R: It is going somewhere. Onto my clients and friends computers. I'm using Ark Linux for my company's only distro and thus far it has served me so well, I decided to join the Ark Linux team. Perhaps a tiny little company run by a woman out of "Joisey" doesn't mean much to people at large, but it certainly seems to scare the hell out of Microsoft and software vendors (I'll ask them to blog next time they call, begging me NOT to sell GNU Linux based computers).

Last thoughts:
Ubuntu, Debian, RedHat and the like have millions of dollars behind them and hundreds if not thousands of employees working for them and yet, Ark Linux has achieved nearly the same results. In some cases, they have done better than their rich, well staff counter parts. A word on Polish? MS Windows is well polished but polish, doesn't save your data when you computer suddenly crashes. Polish doesn't protect your privacy, or protect you from HOLES in the OS so large millions of viruses can get through, even with firewalls and antivirus software. Polish doesn't protect you from DRM BS that's really a smoke screen for trying to cash in more than once on a product you already purchased.

Which would you rather have? A car that looks great, costs a fortune but can't move itself out of your driveway? Or an old chevy that can make a Mac Truck leak its oil? A chevy you can recreate to match youself? You do the math.

Proudly signed,

Kate Draven
CyberPunk X Computers

Re:What's the point of this?

[GnuAge]

I'm glad Ark is the only distro that standardizes on apt-get with rpm

Why are you glad about that if you like RPM based distros with apt-get? Anyway, there are other such beasts in the wild. BLAG comes to mind. Doesn't PCLINUXOS use apt-get? I'm sure there are others.

Also, I believe the live CD doesn't come with an installer, unlike most of its ilk.

yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[twitter]

As such, firefox is dedicated to being a browser where the web is a primary focus, whereas konqueror is more like a swiss army knife where the web is an included convenience.

So, what's the mysterious "less compatible" component? Every now and then I'll find some page that won't work. Once in a blue moon, a right click Firefox open will do better, so I keep it around. The problem is mostly with non free junk like Macromedia Flash and IE specific navigation.

I use Konqueror as my primary browser because it's file handling is so excellent. The web looks like an extension of my computer and I like it that way. It renders standard compatible web pages without a problem and it's split tab capability (think the old Windoze 3.1 file manager) makes it an excellent research tool. Integration of tools like kpdf and kget make a seemless browsing experience that is top notch. Next to that, Firefox feels cramped.

But, hey, I could be missing something. What is it?

Re:yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[misleb]

But, hey, I could be missing something. What is it?

Extensions.

I'm currently running 6 of them in Firefox. 7 if you count the Filterset.G updater (for Adblock Plus)

1) Adblock Plus. Hardly ever see ads.
2) Tidy HTML validator. Validates and "tidys" up any HTML without having to query an external server. Works on sites that require a session or authentication or just aren't public yet.
3) Remove It Permanently. Just right click and remove any part of a page you don't like. The ad div at the top of Slashdot? Gone.
4) gTranslate. Right click on a foreign word and translate it via Google right in the context menu.
5) Slashdotter. Adds a little functionality to Slashdot such as right click reply to post. Select the text to repond to and it quotes it for you.
6) Web Developer Tools. Indispensible tool for debugging HTML and CSS.

I think I use one or two others at work. I'm considering Greasemonkey.

-matthew

Re:yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[iced_773]

But, hey, I could be missing something. What is it?

Accessibility. Because of my visual disability, I have to have light text on a dark background, meaning I need to override the specified colors on many web pages, which Konqueror doesn't let you do. Firefox does. Even IE does.

But, hey, I could be missing something. Where in Konqueror can I do this?

Re:yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[ozamosi]

If you cannot see anything that isn't light-on-dark, you probably want to have it the same way in the rest of your system, right? So, just switch KDE theme, and Konqueror will use the same settings.

Re:yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

A file manager is a file manager

A browser is a browser and never the two should mix

I find Konqueror a right royal pain in the butt

which is why Seamonkey is king of the browsers

not anon just cant be assed with all this registering stuff

Pete .

Re:yeah, yeah, where's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

But, hey, I could be missing something. What is it?

Hmm... Opera?

/. title

[Anonymous Coward]

  I like the article title. It is linux that has identity crisis and not the distro. Why can't we all work together to build a single better operating system? It would confuse fewer end users.

Re:/. title

[Anonymous Coward]

eh! you sound like on e of those crazy freebsd punks. besides, you'd have to get stallman and torvalds to agree on important stuff, like say the license and even the os name. meanwhile some punks will be busy cobbling together their "purple cat linux" distro in their parent's basement... isn't that what linux is about anyway? (not that i want that personally, i'm a bsd-punk myself)

Oh, the Irony!

[Anonymous Coward]

In this review Extremetech complains about having Konqueror but NOT having Firefox.
But they CAN simply install it with apt-get, as noted by the poster above.

In their linked review of Xandros http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1996405 ,00.asp/, however, they complain about NOT having Konqueror. But they CAN'T install it. . .at all. . .and then they call Xandros better in the Ark review.

Hey Extremetech, make up your mind!!!

fuck Tetris gime pinball

[Anonymous Coward]

every real os comes with a pinball game. and since this is linux its gotta work in both x and vt100. for fucks sake!

what's with that, after all?

[Phil Urich]

That's actually one of the reasons that I tend to use Konqueror when I'm booted into Linux (I've got XP-SP1 and Kubuntu on the machine I'm typing from), it just screws me up so much when Firefox gives the No/Yes thing. I mean, what's that about? The Windows version of Firefox does things conventionally, why does the Linux version have to be so counter-intuitive?

Re:what's with that, after all?

[miro f]

That's the way it's done in GNOME (if you follow the HIG properly). I imagine this is because Firefox on linux was more aimed at GNOME users, rather than KDE. So this is in fact acting consistantly, if you happen to be using GNOME

Re:what's with that, after all?

[cortana]

Nah, it sucks for GNOME users too. We use Epiphany. :)

Re:what's with that, after all?

[JCholewa]

There are ways to change the Firefox No/Yes button thing. One way is here, and I think there's a way to do it in about:config

How about some constructive criticism?

[Chaffar]

The article (and most posts) have been focusing on things that aren't particularly relevant. Why Konqueror ? Why not Firefox? Who cares? You can install Firefox with a single line in the konsole.

What else is bad... the installation should hide command-line scrolling and be able to more automatically install standard graphics card drivers.

Why hide the command-line? Does it "put off" users? Will it provoque an epileptic reaction in newbie? ... Again a totally useless comment in itself.

As for installing the graphics card drivers, well if I'm not mistaken it's done on purpose to avoid legal repercussions in the US.

That being said, I haven't used the distro, but it does look pretty easy to use, just as much as Ubuntu (or should I say Kubuntu), and judging by the default programs it installs, it seems that they have tried to avoid bloating the thing with shitloads of apps that most users will never touch.

Oh, and the default desktop background is butt-ugly, so you should install Ubuntu which comes with a much better default background :)

Re:Of course not!

[jibjibjib]

Are you calling philosophy stupid? I'm sure I'm not the only one here to believe that users are stupid and philosophy isn't.

Re:default browser should be lynx instead

[jibjibjib]

That brings up another interesting point:

Why are there no good text-based browsers? I know there are usable ones, but can anyone name a single text-based browser that supports AJAX? A text-based browser where CSS positioning actually works? A text-based browser which has tabbed browsing?

None of these features actually require a graphical display. There's even a CSS media type specifically for character-based terminals. But for some reason people seem to have this idea that just because text-based browsers are using decades-old display technology they should also be decades behind in functionality.

Re:Who cares about saving 4% of memory footprint!?

[dbIII]

Sharing? A User does not care about 4% less hard disk consumed or 4% less memory consumed.

Isn't the entire point of this paticular linux distribution to be to run as fast as possible on older hardware where that extra few percent may be enough to start the disk swapping?

Swiss army knife? Call it KParts integration

[vdboor]

Konqueror on the other hand is a file manager, also a file viewer. It's such a good file viewer that you can view either local or remote files, and not only pictures and pdfs, but also html files, meaning you can also view graphic html files on remote servers, aka the web. As such, firefox is dedicated to being a browser where the web is a primary focus, whereas konqueror is more like a swiss army knife where the web is an included convenience.

This myth should actually be seen as a compliment to KDE. Why? The components you mention all come from the standard KDE libraries, or they are supplied by additionally installed applications. Konqueror is just a shell, host for all of them. Just like ActiveX/OLE integrates applications seamlessly together in Windows.

Konqueror can host a KHTMLPart, KatePart (text editor), file-viewer part, image-viewer part. They can all be developed by separate appliations. Install a PDF viewer, and Konqueror can load it's PDFPart too. The networking support you mention come from the standard KDE-IO libraries, they haven't been klunged into Konqueror at all (every KDE application has KDE-IO and KPart support!).

Saying that this would remove developer resources from KHTML isn't really true. Developers working on a PDFPart likely wouldn't have ended up coding for KHTML anyways.

Re:Swiss army knife? Call it KParts integration

[rising_hope]

Clearly you're speaking hypothetically and have not actually used OLE much? Seamless is just about the last word that comes to mind. Basically, it attempts to load an application within an application, and switching between objects causes massive system lag, bizarre display habits, and a very rough user experience. It's all fine and well in theory, but in practice there's a good reason why M$FT has discontinued OLE development.

Re:default browser should be lynx instead

[WWWWolf]

can anyone name a single text-based browser that supports AJAX? A text-based browser where CSS positioning actually works? A text-based browser which has tabbed browsing?

ELinks? Supports limited Javascript, limited CSS, and does tabs. Can't quite run most Ajax stuff, but it's still a surprisingly capable text-based browser. The world isn't stuck in Lynx, you know =)

gecko support in KDE ?

[Spliffster]

FTFS:
" ... such as using the less-compatible Konqueror over Firefox for its default web browser."

i am not a KDE user, so i wonder what happend to the gecko support in KDE http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040911-4175 .html ?

if it gets to HTML compatibility, it is really just the render engine that matters (IMHO) and if konqueror can use gecko where is the difference ?

Cheers,
-S

Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[Toreo asesino]

I've noticed the default nv driver for NVIDIA cards in Linux seems to be incredibly slow! Ok, it get's you up & running and it's not exactly difficult to install the proper nvidia driver which runs like the clappers, but it just amazes me how sluggish the default one is - dragging Windows around in X-Windows gives severe tearing effect.

Anyone else suffer from this? My graphics card is the G-Force 6600, and I've tested this on Ubuntu 6 and FC5.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[larytet]

...and dual screen support for laptops or more precise complete lack of it.

It took me a day to make brightness Fn keys to work on my Vayo - eventually i discovered a small utility and edited some shell script. I posted the solution on the message board. Needless to add that this kind of "system configuration" well above of what most users could do.

I gave up the dual screen. Actually dual screen works - option where i have same X on both LCD and external display, but unfortunately my Vayo is a wide screen and external screen you know - regular 1280x1024. I need two X sessions to get something like WinXP gives

WiFi support with encryption - took me a couple of hours of googling i found mentioning of KnetworkManager on one of the message boards. All step-by-step instructions included installing 3rd party drivers, compilation of kernels and what is not.

I guess i can describe myself a pro. 15 years of software development for may be five different OS, numerous programming languages, etc. I can handle command line and actually like to do things this way. But in my view X configuration files is a full time job.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[miro f]

I always wondered why there wasn't a decent configurator for xorg. SUSE's YaSt is pretty decent (although dreadfully slow) and SUSE Enterprise Desktop was the only one that I never needed to drop to the console for (even installed XGL without editing any text files) it seems that it's impossible to modify x settings without a decent knowledge of the xorg.conf file.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[cortana]

It's called xorgcfg (formerly xfree86cfg).

Having a config file is flawed in the first place.

When my system boots up, the Linux kernel constructs a list of all the hardware in the system. This list is read by udev, which sets it all up by loading the correct kernel module and doing other things for each piece of hardware. It's fast, simple and works really well. So why on earth doesn't the X server do the same?

Instead we're stuck in the early 90s, with a crappy config file and sixteen different frontends to editing it, all of which are shit.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[arkhan_jg]

The nv drivers are the open-source reverse engineered ones that come with Xorg. They don't have access to most of the specs of the cards, and have to do 3D in software. Basically, they're bearable for 2D work, but since Nvidia don't disclose most of the info needed to write proper drivers (NDA's and all that) the only choice for high-speed use is still the binary closed source nvidia driver.

There are questions over whether the GPL prevents the distribution of the closed-source binary driver precompiled for use with a particular distro's kernel; which is why most distro's have now switched to the GPL Xorg nv driver by default, and let you 'taint' the kernel with the binary driver yourself if you wish, which is definitely legal. For the ramifications of this sorry state of affairs - where convenience butts heads with principles - see what happened to koraa

The situation is very similar for ATI cards.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[TheRaven64]

It does for most cases. I happily run X on my FreeBSD box with no config file. It detects the display resolution correctly, the 2D driver to use, my mice (well, ThinkPad nipple and sometimes a USB mouse), and keyboard. The only time I need to edit a config file is for 3D acceleration (DRI). I don't know why DRI drivers are not automatically detected; perhaps it's because some people might want to run without them?

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[cortana]

Yes, it's fine as long as you don't care about 3D, or being able to plug in a new mouse or joystick or graphics tablet or monitor without restarting the X server entirely.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[TheRaven64]

I already stated that I sometimes plug in a USB mouse at times, and it works fine. No, I don't restart X to do this, why would I?

Enabling 3D is a bit more complicated; if it were just a matter of loading the correct DRI driver, X could do it. Unfortunately, you also need to make sure the OS has loaded the correct DRM module. In cases where you even want DRI - ATi and nVidia insist on using their own (non-DRI) framework for writing x.org drivers. My personal view would be that they should add DRI autoloading support, and just make it harder for people who use binary drivers, but defaulting to not using DRI is probably sensible for stability.

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[miro f]

xorg config is nothing near the ease of use of YaST.

I don't like the idea of not having a config file. What if you want to change something? What if the auto-detection doesn't work? Obviously this is simply done with an automatic detection as well as some sort of xorg.conf-custom file.

Unfortunately, getting anything to change in the UNIX world requires a lot of impetus...

Re:Speaking of standard graphics drivers...

[cortana]

Your mouse only works because the kernel itself provides a device that unifies all mouse events together into the same virtual mouse. You are unable to access the data from individual mice--and if you want to plug in a new joystick, keyboard, graphics tablet, monitor, midi device... etc then you're screwed.

3d should not be more compilcated. udev will already load the nvidia or ati kernel modules based on the vendor/device IDs of the video devices present in the system; the X server has no reason at all to worry about OS-specific stuff such as loading kernel modules.

Here's why

[njdj]

Why are there no good text-based browsers?

Well, if you want one, why haven't you written one?

Seriously, most developers choose not to spend their time developing for what you correctly describe as "decades-old display technology". (I'm a developer, by the way.) I can't speak for all developers, but personally, I don't get much of a kick out of developing something that I will never use myself, that will have very few users anyway, and that will have fewer users every year.

Now, if you really, really want a good text-based browser and you're not a developer yourself, you can get others to develop one by paying them to do it. There are web sites which will help you to find people, for example GetAFreelancer.com (Google will find others).

If, as I suspect, you don't want one enough to pay for it with your money, don't be surprised that others aren't willing to pay for it with their time.

Oh come on.

[quag7]

Hiding scrolling text is ALWAYS evil. I don't care what Windows users are ALLEGEDLY used to and prefer. Anyone who would prefer less information than more information - especially given the possibility that something can go wrong - is not someone I want making decisions about how Linux distros work.

I've never used Ark Linux before, but the idea that somehow by castrating Linux and making it look and feel like Windows it will somehow compete with or replace Windows strikes me as highly unlikely.

Apple - which, depending on what numbers you buy into, has even a greater market share than Linux, though has barely put up any kind of substantial fight against Microsoft in terms of the number of people using it - and where the Mac *has* succeeded is in the ways it is different from Windows. I wonder how many Mac users would applaud a choice by Apple to change something in the Mac OS so as "not to scare off Windows users." Answer: almost none. Or perhaps, none. Frankly, and I'm not even a Mac user, a Mac user who took that attitude would disappoint me as someone who is at least amused by OS partisanship.

If you are going to use Linux, or FreeBSD, be ready to use a command line. Some people can get by without it because they don't do much, or have incredible luck and every upgrade works perfectly and nothing ever breaks, but frankly, the population that is served by hiding the command line is miniscule compared to those of us who appreciate - and in fact use Linux or a BSD *because* of that command line.

I'm really getting tired of this idea of making "Linux ready for the desktop" in the sense of making it flashy and "slick" like Windows. I've got no objection to making Linux look nice and function logically in terms of its GUI, but not at the expense of dumbing it down and hiding its strengths, which a lot of people want to do.

I want VERBOSE error and status messages, and as much access to the console and logs as possible. Transparency all the way down. I want this in Windows too since I'm forced to use it for work but I'm not going to get it.

The command line is what makes UNIX-like OSes what they are - to me, anyway.

I'm sick of people trying to make it Windows, or make it like Windows, or look like Windows.

I'm not particularly interested in sacrificing functionality so people who are afraid or unwilling to learn command line basics.

As for the default browser, for god's sake, can we stop pretending that it MATTERS WHAT IS INSTALLED BY DEFAULT. Can we stop pretending that the main concern about Linux is what COMPLETE COMPUTER ILLITERATES will make of it? Sheesh. INSTALL AN ALTERNATE BROWSWER IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE DEFAULT CHOICE LIKE SO MANY WINDOWS USERS DO WHEN THEY DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL FIREFOX.

Guess what? In Linux you can install what you want, change the wallpaper, and change your menus and shortcuts around. Shocker!

Macs aren't (and rightfully so) measured against Windows in terms of similarity to Windows's philosophy of design (and look and feel) and neither should Linux. By which I mean, they're not measured against it as if not being like Windows is a deficit.

The idea is to present a significant alternative to Windows which is better (verbosity of the OS is definitely a plus - how many people like the way a Windows fresh install tries to hide system folders, file extensions, and resort to other such dicketry? Not me and frankly not anyone I know, including those who have a fraction of interest in computers than I do). How many people applaud having a completely withered, pathetic command line in Windows? Not me. How many people think having everything so GUI-centric in Windows has improved peoples computing skills, overall productivity, and so forth? I'm not bashing GUIs and wizards; I'm just saying that the command line should be a transparent, well-documented alternative so if the average user wants to automate simple tasks (like rotating wallpaper hourly or something), it's clear and obvious how to do that.

Re:Oh come on.

[Cal Paterson]

I totally, and completely agree.

And I probably couldn't have said it better either.

Re:Oh come on.

[trytoguess]

Hmm... you're absolutly right. If only there was a middle ground, say multiple variations of the OS which caters to mutiple niches. Course that only a pipe dream, no?

Re:Oh come on.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm not particularly interested in sacrificing functionality so people who are afraid or unwilling to learn command line basics.

I agree with many of the points you made, but the above sentence strikes me as a little wrong headed. Why would you have to sacrifice functionality by providing a non-CLI interface? Ideally the interface is somewhat abstracted and programs should be fully accessible from both the CLI and the GUI. I think it is important to remember that adding a GUI does not remove any functionality from the CLI unless you do it very, very badly.

Re:Oh come on.

[crystalattice]

I agree with this. I noticed that SUSE 10.1 hides the install process too. All it shows is a little spinning circle or splash pages that tell you nothing. Maybe some people don't want/need to see what all is going on behind the scenes, but at least let me know progress is being made and the system hasn't locked up.

My favorite distro that I've tried is Gentoo. Sure, it's a pain in the butt and I wouldn't recommend it for most Windows-converts, but I learned so much about how Linux works and how everything interfaces that I actually enjoyed the experience. Windows tells you nothing and hides everything in the Registry. Hacking the Registry is worse than editing a config file, which is why there are so many GUI-driven Registry hacks.

Sure, Windows is "dumbed-down" enough that casual users can reasonably work with it, but when something breaks they have no idea what to do.

Re:Oh come on.

[elgatozorbas]

If you are going to use Linux, or FreeBSD, be ready to use a command line. Some people can get by without it because they don't do much, or have incredible luck and every upgrade works perfectly and nothing ever breaks,...

Maybe it is aimed at people that indeed don't do much or, more accurately, don't use many different tools. Lots of people only use their mailer, text processing and browser.

...but frankly, the population that is served by hiding the command line is miniscule compared to those of us who appreciate - and in fact use Linux or a BSD *because* of that command line.

Why do you think so? Maybe this population is small among current linux users. However, by definition those already have another distro of choice. While I like to be in control and even don't always appreciate automatic dependency handling (don't want to start a war here, but I run slackware), I can imagine that MANY users are frightened by text passing by their screen (rapidly).

While I liked the sound of the negotiations of our 19k2 modem ten years ago (number of tries etc.), my sister hated it and never wanted to be confronted with those 'eery sounds'.

Re:Oh come on.

[quag7]

And yet at some point, something *will* go wrong, just, perhaps, not as often. I hear stories about Linux geeks who get, say, their moms to convert to using some kind of Linux because they can support it remotely. Though I'm sure there are people who use Linux like this independently, I don't encounter many of them. Most Linux installs have a Linux fan to maintain them, whether that is the user or the "computer genius son."

And I really can't wrap my head around why the irrational fear of scrolling text is something that should even be given an ounce of mental bandwidth in terms of an OS's design, look or feel. People have to *get over this*. Hiding that text especially during the initial install, is a net loss. Hiding information once you have things up and running and they just "work" is maybe another thing.

Hearing a modem does not provide any substantial benefit to the experience of using a dialup connection except to the extent that, the first time you use it, I would hope the speaker would be turned on by default so you know that it is working, and so the average user knows what to expect in case things start to go wrong down the road. Once things work and you know what a proper handshake sounds like, THAT is the time to turn the modem speaker off. A better analogy would be to surpress suppress all diagnostic messages from the modem - a bad idea until you're up and running.

If people fear having information, that's unfortunate conditioning by the Microsoft way of doing things. I am not one of these people who spends a lot of time ranting about Windows, but I will say that one facet - their tendency to obscure, obfuscate, or otherwise deny diagnostic information by default (some of this can be turned on if you know where to look) has no up side that I can see.

Like many people here on Slashdot - like you perhaps, I'm basing my opinions on this from the perspective of someone who uses computers, has been a fixit tech in a computer shop in the past, and who has done phone support for users of all levels. Trying to troubleshoot remotely without easily accessible diagnostic info is a drag - especially if the user already has problems describing his problem beyond "it's broke."

Re:Of course not!

[Gli7ch]

I think it's "the philosophy" that's a problem, as in the "Open Source or Die" approach. Not philosophy in general. I'm just saying that it's dumb Linuxers care more about the source code of graphics card drivers than the ability to include said drivers to make it easier for people to actually use the operating system.

Re:default browser should be lynx instead

[Cal Paterson]

It's annoying isn't it?

I find that alot of the more advanced features are spread between elinks and links2. CSS, javascript, encryption etc. Even more frustratingly is that lynx seems to have better defaults etc than either.

Not to talk down lynx/links/elinks - even as they are, they're usable in ways that firefox and konqueror aren't.

Java?

[MrNougat]

Is Java installed by default? Because installing Java for Linux is a massive pain the ass. I can see all the power users now, downloading their favorite distro, installing, deciding to get Firefox - then they wanna do a speed test at DSLReports. Uh oh, need Java - screw it, I'm going back to Windows.

(Unless I'm doing something wrong myself, in which case I am most certain that I will be corrected.)

Re:Java?

[argent]

Blame Sun. If they didn't require you to download Java from them every Linux distro would have it nicely packaged by default and it'd just work.

IMHO, if Sun's going to require people download and install Java by hand, Sun needs to have a team dedicated to nothing but making that process as easy as possible for EVERY platform. If they're not, they need to let third parties do it for them. If neither, then I say *don't* install Java and complain to every website *using* Java about their lack of civic responsibility.

Re:Java?

[MrNougat]

Why is it, then, that every HP or Dell computer (and probably others) comes with Java preinstalled with Windows?

I agree that Sun needs to be a little more open with the use of their free as in beer Java browser plugin. But if it can be done for Windows machines coming out of computer manufacturers, why not in a Linux distro?

Re:Java?

[argent]

Why is it, then, that every HP or Dell computer (and probably others) comes with Java preinstalled with Windows?

Microsoft and/or HP or Dell has paid Sun the necessary license fees to redistribute it for general use. The free Java is only available direct from Sun or as part of a Java-based software package.

Re:Java?

[MrNougat]

Gotcha (although I'm sure that Microsoft is not redistributing Java, since it was Sun that took them to court to get them to dump Microsoft JVM).

Konqueror is more secure than Firefox

[argent]

It's not that Gecko is insecure, it's that the way Firefox extensions install and run mirrors (albeit at the application rather than the rendering engine level) the ghastly security hole that is ActiveX.

There must not be a mechanism in a web browser (or any other application that displays untrusted content) for a document to request privileges above and beyond those that are actually required for displaying untrusted content. Rather, the user must request privileges by installing a plugin or extension outside the encapsulated user interface.

Re:Konqueror is more secure than Firefox

[Athenais]

But unlike IE and ActiveX controls, you can only install Firefox extensions from sites on a whitelist (which by default includes only the local machine and the mozilla.org site), which means jrandomcrackerwebsite.com can't even ask you to install Comet Cursor Fx without either putting it up on a peer-reviewed site or making you jump through hoops ("please open up about:config in your browser and add our site to your whitelist").

I don't think having a simple, in-the-browser interface for installing browser extensions is inherently bad--just that having a simple, in-the-browser interface usable by any website out there for installing system extensions with administrative privileges is inherently bad.

Firefox has something like 10-15% of the browser market these days, doesn't it? How much Fx extension malware has there been?

Re:Konqueror is more secure than Firefox

[Jerf]

There must not be a mechanism in a web browser (or any other application that displays untrusted content) for a document to request privileges above and beyond those that are actually required for displaying untrusted content. Rather, the user must request privileges by installing a plugin or extension outside the encapsulated user interface.

That's already how it works. "A document" can't ask for extended privs. Show me the HTML snippet that invokes "extended privileges" in a standard Firefox. There actually is a way to ask, and there actually is a deeply-buried about:config setting that a developer can set to allow these privs to be obtained, but on a normal browser it'll just fail without the user even being asked, and even with that secret setting set you still have to click through a dialog box.

Instead, you have to explicitly download and install an extension, which is no different than my downloading anything else. Documents on the web at large still can't use these extensions to obtain more privileges unless the plugin explicitly provides for it, and I can't think of any off-hand that do that. If I'm willing to download an extension and run it, all bets are off anyhow, and that is ultimately because the operating systems of today are weak and have an all-or-nothing security model, which the browser can't do much more about than it already does.

This is not the same as ActiveX, where in the worst case a new program could be downloaded without the user's knowledge, although those were bugs, not features. Pages could be written that would do anything with an ActiveX control that would be downloaded and installed with a single click. There is no equivalent to this in Mozilla. There is no way to write a page that depends on a plugin that results in that plugin getting downloaded and executed all in the same page context.

All that leaves you with is an argument that the browser shouldn't be able to install extensions into itself, which I suppose you could argue, but I find it very weak. The distinction between programs just isn't meaningful enough at this present time to make that worth caring about. If the "extensions installation program" ran with meaningfully different privileges, maybe I'd be willing to consider the argument further, but at the present time it just doesn't matter whether it's a separate program or not.

Re:Konqueror is more secure than Firefox

[argent]

Instead, you have to explicitly download and install an extension,

Last time I wanted to do that I had to install an extension to let me install an extension from a downloaded XPI file on my local disk rather than installing it directly from a web page through an "install" link.

It was a few days after that I switched to KHTML-based browsers, though I've been using Camino a bunch lately... the problem isn't inherent in Gecko, the way Microsoft's ActiveX flaw is inherent in their HTML control... it's just that Camino is the only decent Gecko-based browser I've found.

Anyway... the fact that following the install link (which doesn't actually require the user clicking on the link) pops up a bunch of annoying dialogs that ask you to whitelist the source site* and then wait through a countdown before clicking "OK" doesn't change the fact that the actual request to perform the install is made by the document you are viewing, not by the user. It doesn't matter whether the "extensions install program" is the browser or not, what matters is that it's possible for a web page to request that install.

* This just mean an attacker needs to come up with a XSS attack on at least one site that serves a popular extension.

Re:Konqueror is more secure than Firefox

[argent]

But unlike IE and ActiveX controls, you can only install Firefox extensions from sites on a whitelist

This, at the worst, means you need to insert a XSS attack in your exploit.

I don't think having a simple, in-the-browser interface for installing browser extensions is inherently bad

Not if the extensions are sandboxed, no.

Whether they run with local user privileges or system privileges is a secondary issue.

This is similar to Apple's decision to have "Open Safe Files AFter Downloading" turned on by default. They consider an installer a "safe file" because the user has to approve a dialog before the install proceeds. To begin with, there are no "safe files", there are simply "safe applications"... and an installer is NOT a safe application to use to open an unsafe file. In addition, an approval dialog is not a security mechanism, whether that dialog requires you to wait for a 10 second countdown or not.

Firefox has something like 10-15% of the browser market these days, doesn't it? How much Fx extension malware has there been?

Firefox is considerably safer than IE, true. It is, however, unsafe in a way that doesn't improve the user experience, and is completely unnecessary, and that Konqueror isn't unsafe in.

The same argument can be made for Safari. Apple has an increasing share of the desktop market, and even with stupid design decisions Safari or Firefox (or even Internet Explorer on the Mac :) ) are significantly safer than IE. That doesn't mean that it's a good thing for them to play with fire the way they're doing. Especially when following reasonable security guidelines actually improves the user experience by removing annoying extra dialogs.

(and, note, Safari is KHTML-based... this is not a flaw in Gecko or KHTML/Webcore the way the IE flaw is a flaw in any application that uses Microsoft's HTML control, it's a flaw in Firefox itself)

Re:Of course not!

[bky1701]

Ummm... Yeah, sure... it has NOTHING to do with the fact they can't use them AND keep the system open in the way they want AND not get sued. Blame copyrights for it, or yourself for not taking the time to do the little bit of work needed to install the damn things right.

I don't know about anyone else, but I have had no problems with any Linux's graphics card drivers, except one, mainly because I didn't have any idea what it had. You would have to have ether a REALLY outdated/unknown computer OR not even be able to pick your gfx card from a list if you can't deal with drivers. Both cases, your problem.

Umm..

[Intrinsic]

And for a distro that bills itself as 'a Linux distribution for everyone -- designed to be easy to install and learn for users without prior Linux' the installation should hide command-line scrolling.

OMG, get a life... :O)

KDE on Cygwin

[JCholewa]

I tried kde-cygwin. It works, but it's hard to compile new packages, so you're stuck with what the project gives you. The version of cygwin also makes a difference -- I had to downgrade the cygwin dll in order to get KDE 3.4 to work.

It's very impressive, but slow. I ended up running kde apps from a fixed-size X server window running the ion window manager.

Real KDE for Win32 can't come fast enough!

24 hours of browsing is bad for you

[BeardsmoreA]

Go out and get some sunshine (let alone the jokes about going blind...)

Re:Who cares about saving 4% of memory footprint!?

[Vexorian]

Are you a bot or something retarded like that? Are you comparing Mac with a 2001 version of redhat? What the heck?

TFA missed some stuff

[GnuAge]

Arklinux automatically sets up a user called arklinux who has no password and essentially root privileges. You'd think that might be worthy of a comment. The system automatically boots to this arklinux user. I thought I was using Windows. You can give arklinux a password so no one uses the account and set up a new regular account with a password, but that wouldn't necessarily occur to a newbie.

There does not appear to be a GUI tool to configure file sharing. Even Konqueror won't do it. If you right click on a folder and try to create a share and it stalls out after excreting a dialogue box. I think even KateOS is more polished (I've never actually used KateOS, but it is from Poland, hence the reference).

Oh, and the reviewer is lucky he used the System Install rather than going down the Expert path. The version of qtparted they used seems to be broken. See the Arklinux forum.

Trying to start Celestia and Stellarium (and Dog only knows what else) causes X to buckle.

Another problem with smaller distros is that there isn't much of a community to help you if you are having problems. For instance there are fewer than 200 posts on the Arklinux forum spread over two languages. On the other paw, if I'm having problems with Yetis I can go over to the Bigfootforums where there are roughly 230,000 posters who can help me out. The Ark developers respond on the forums when they can, but really, they need to spend their time being developers. One of the things I look for in a distro is a well-developed, friendly community, not so big that you get lost in the shuffle (e.g. Ubuntu) but large enough so there will be someone who can help you. Maybe Mepis or Slackware sized groups, perhaps 25-75 posts per day.

On the plus side, Arklinux does have a very snappy and responsive "feel" to it, and I rather liked some of the customizations the developers chose. Maybe part of that is due to its cutting edge nature, particularly GCC 4.1, KDE 3.54 & X.Org 7.1 (which also accounts for some of the instability and video card problems).

It seems like if you put all the developers together from some of the smaller but very promising distros, say, Frugalware, Arklinux, Ultima, and Vectorlinux Soho, for Slackware-derived up-to-date KDE-centric Linices, you could come up with a really kickass operating system. But I am not sure developer time is necessarily additive, absent a pay-check because of issues of geographic proximity and human egos.

Re:TFA missed some stuff

[Bero]

Arklinux automatically sets up a user called arklinux who has no password and essentially root privileges.

The user does not have any "dangerous" privileges - please see the description on how the security system works.
While it diverges quite a bit from traditional Unix, this is part of what makes Ark easier on the average user than most of its competition (except for the "autologin as root" ones, which are actually scary).

Oh, and the reviewer is lucky he used the System Install rather than going down the Expert path. The version of qtparted they used seems to be broken. See the Arklinux forum.

The version of qtparted we're using is good, but there has been a typo in the post-parted handling code that caused the installer to format some partitions on complex layout with the wrong filesystem.
This has since been noted and fixed (in the snapshot versions -- there will be a bugfix release soon too).

Trying to start Celestia and Stellarium (and Dog only knows what else) causes X to buckle

On some graphics cards. There has been a bug in DRI (the 3D drivers) that caused the X server to restart as soon as an application makes use of 3D functions.
This problem has not shown up in any of our own testing because we happen to be on hardware that doesn't show this (one of our primary problems is lack of test hardware -- keep in mind that Ark Linux is run on a $0 budget by (mostly) poor people).

The bug has been reported and fixed since -- the fix is in the current snapshot release and will also get into a bugfix release soon, right now you can fix it by running "apt-get update; apt-get -t dockyard-devel install xorg".

It seems like if you put all the developers together from some of the smaller but very promising distros, say, Frugalware, Arklinux, Ultima, and Vectorlinux Soho, for Slackware-derived up-to-date KDE-centric Linices, you could come up with a really kickass operating system.

This is true to a certain extent (Ark is not slackware derived by the way) - but there are some points the developers of those distributions could never agree on, e.g. package management (Ark will not give up rpm and apt-get, the others will probably not give up tar.gz), edge vs. older stuff, default browser (see the flamewar here ;) ), ...

Some of those points could be addressed by simply making a couple of different versions that build on the same base, but since some of those issues are rather deep inside the system (package management...), that would be rather tricky to do.

That said, we're certainly open to cooperating with others -- if any other distributor is reading this and interested in cooperating on some things, please drop us a note!

Correction ;)

[cortana]

Sun have finally seen the light, and have created packages that allow distributors to include Java in their operating systems: https://jdk-distros.dev.java.net/.

After a few back-and-forths with Sun's legal department, even Debian have packaged it for their non-free section: http://packages.debian.org/src:sun-java5. Users can simply install the sun-java5-plugin package. In a few days time, the packages will be eligible for inclusion in the forthcoming Debian 4.0 ("etch") release.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of the main reasons I haven't been using konqueror ... Thanks for the tip.

Ubuntu Christian Edition - You Bastards?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you link to a review of this crap while singularly failing to even mention Ubuntu Christian Edition proves to me that you're all h8ers and headed straight to Hell. I smile at that prospect, scumbags. Ha Ha. Ha Hee Ho. Ha. Ho Ha Hee Ho Ha. Ha Ha. Ha. lol. ROTFL!!!111!

Is this a way to drive traffic to extremetech?

[Anonymous Coward]

5 or 10 lines per page so you can cram more ad impressions down users throats sucks.
Does OSTG own extremetech too? :(

I Prefer Konqueror

[Anonymous Coward]

It loads faster than firefox. I only use firefox on the rare occasions that some java scripts don't work in Konqueror. Anyway I don't see a problem since it is real easy to change default browsers and email clients.

I can't use Links simply due to its name

[KWTm]

When I first heard about Links (thank you, Steven Darnold, for your BasicLinux project!), I was impressed by how much more functional and user-friendly it was than Lynx. So I tried to find out more about it, install it on my other Linux systems, etc.

I found that I was completely unable to Google for it. Have you any idea how often the word "links" appears on web pages that aren't referring to this particular web browser? Trying the term "links web browser" doesn't work, either --it's still completely obscured by noise.

Finally, I heard about elinks, and a bit of what can be described as rivalry between links and elinks. So I switched over to elinks completely.

I know we complain about dorky-sounding names for OSS projects, but I wish a bit of forethought had been given to the name of the "links" software. On the other hand, the next time I come up with a DRM ubercracking software, I'll name it "the" and let the MAFIAA Google for it.

Note: that was years ago when I was still using Mandrake 8.1. For those of you who are interested, you can now find Links via Wikipedia and you can also Google for "Links2" to find it.

what is wrong with the command line

[Anonymous Coward]

It never ceases to amaze me just how many people get wet nappies the moment they see a command line or text
scrolling up a screen .

The text console / terminal is a lot more powerful and friendly than ever any GUI will be , Yes ok i am using KDE
but a lot mre is done in an consol than ina GUI based program edit a file you cant hold a candle to "joe" simple clean
functional if you want a bit more wellie "emacs" althou i could never get to grips with it then there's "vi" some people love it
personally it smacks too much of that abonamation "edlin" ye gads
(hey taxi driver want that horn inserting where it hurts just blow it again and find out (too lazy to get off there butts))

no there is still need for and there will never noty be a need for the command line and a consol 2 of the tools that make Linux GREAT

Pete .
  not anon

Reply to the review from the Ark team

[Bero]

Here's a reply we've sent to the reviewer -- mostly it's asking for more information, but it also makes clear why we think some of the biggest "flaws" are actually features. ;)

Hi,
thanks for reviewing Ark Linux!
We've read your review and found it very constructive - we're already working
on some improvements (the current snapshot
[http://arklinux.osuosl.org/dockyard-devel/iso/ark linux.iso] already does
away with most of the text mode stuff on installer startup).

There's also some things that aren't entirely accurate, and some things we
need more information on in order to fix them:

The installer offers 4 (not just 2) options, depending on the configuration of
your system -- the ones you omitted are Express Install (uses up all
unpartitioned space, leaves the rest alone -- this option is grayed out
unless you actually have a big enough fragment of unpartitioned space) and
Parallel Install (shrinks a FAT partition and then uses the unpartitioned
space) -- this option is grayed out unless you have a big enough FAT
partition).

We were a bit puzzled about the graphics card not being detected correctly;
Are you sure it wasn't detected correctly as opposed to it simply not having
the right Mode entries in xorg.conf? This is addressed in the FAQ section on
our website: http://www.arklinux.org/index.php?page_id=149&lang uage=en

If it really didn't detect your graphics card, please send me the output
of "lspci -vn" so we can figure out what went wrong there.

The browser choice is a matter of opinion -- you're free to disagree with our
choice, but here's the top reasons why we made it and why we stand by it:

• Konqueror is much more than just a browser -- it can open anything
  registered with KDE, making it very easy to make it handle additional stuff:
  For example, if you click on an rpm file in Ark's Konqueror (no matter
  whether it's on the local filesystem or on a website), you get a graphical
  tool that will let you install the file. There's no easy way to get
  comparable functionality with any other browser.
  Similarily, we can just embed kmplayer into Konqueror to play any video, in
  the current version, even including WMV9. There are Firefox plugins for
  videos, but they're always lagging behind mplayer.
• Konqueror integrates better with the rest of the system.
• Konqueror's user interface is better - it generally does what people expect
  it to do, and it doesn't use the wrong button order that causes lots of
  people to click on the choice they didn't want to make (of course that bit
  could be fixed in Firefox)
• Konqueror is much smaller, and is what allows us to keep the basic
  installation to 1 CD -- Firefox with all the libraries it depends on (even
  excluding the ones we include in a default install) would need about 20 MB of
  additional space on the CD.
• Konqueror's rendering engine is better for standards compliant websites --
  Konqueror even passes the Acid II test, which Firefox fails pretty badly. The
  sole reason why there are sites that show ok in Firefox but not in Konqueror
  is that Firefox has a bigger user base, therefore web designers adjust their
  pages to its bugs. This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem -- Konqueror
  isn't getting accepted widely because there are some (though rather few)
  sites it doesn't render correctly, and webmasters don't bother fixing it
  because "nobody uses Konqueror anyway". We've decided to make our (small)
  contribution to start getting rid of the problem.
• Konqueror makes progress much faster. If you look back a couple of years,
  you'll remember Konqueror as a bogus browser that can render only the most
  basic websites correctly, while the Firefox predecessor of the time was a
  pretty decent browser and Firefox has remained that. Konqueror has managed to c

Re:Reply to the review from the Ark team

[Anonymous Coward]

You said a mouthfull of truth.....

Wow.

[sootman]

A dozen +5 comments and every single one is about browsers. Anyone have anything to say about the distro?

Re:Of course not!

[Anonymous Coward]

You would have to have ether a REALLY outdated/unknown computer OR not even be able to pick your gfx card from a list if you can't deal with drivers. Both cases, your problem.

You mean you have to be a normal person not to be able to install Linux? You just illustrated my point. People are marketing Linux "to the masses" and then making it harder than necessary to get running. How about we "close" off the system, just the tiniest bit so we can make the product USABLE for NORMAL PEOPLE.

Am I the only one?

[bXTr]

I read this as Arkansas Linux and expected the screenshots to be on loose leaf paper and drawn in crayon?

KHTML is simply better than Gecko.

[Lost Found]

Konqueror is not only more secure than Firefox, it's faster, uses less memory and is more _standards compliant_ than Firefox.

You mention all these things like MathML that Firefox supports or will support. Why are the developers focusing on parsing these things when they still can't pass ACID2? (I will remind that Safari and Konqueror, both based on KHTML, were the first browsers ever to pass ACID2)

Re:Of course not!

[bky1701]

That's the same idea being used in the "war on terror"; freedom causes problems, so lets distroy it! Closing the system "a tiny bit" can't be done. There is NO HALF WAY POINT. It's ether open, or it's not. And if it's not open, then it's in the same boat as Mac OS and Windows, and will die over night. A little loss of useablility (and there are a number of normal people who know their GFX cards - and if they don't, many distros that will auto set it if you have REASONABLE hardware. Ie, not made by Joenoname GFX Inc.) is worth the system still having what people use it for, you think?

Ark Linux Review, A Distro with an Identity Crisi

[CommanderIsm]

Konqueror is great and most importantly it works - Firefox needs lots of extensions to make it attractive and subsequently slow - still faster than opera though, so unless you've got a supercomputer it's Konqueror everytime for me