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!
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
How about reading the buttons you click before clicking them? There's a large red warning on the "System Install" button saying it will wipe all your harddisks.
You should have used the "Express Install" or "Parallel Install" options -- but we can't do more than warn you...
Good idea, IF you happen to be located in an area where a phone jack looks a lot like an ethernet jack --- a German newbie would spent ages looking for something on his computer that looks like a bigger [German] phone jack and then conclude he doesn't have an ethernet adapter.
(And attaching the description to the selected language is dangerous too, the phone jack comparison does work in the German speaking part of Switzerland for example)
Thanks for the bug report! We've fixed the typo in the network config in current CVS, so feel free to update (and given the fact the tool was written by a German guy and a Swiss guy, enjoy the fact that the English translation works, apart from a typo;) ).
As for "Ethernet adapter" etc. being too hard to understand, this is quite possibly right, but how do you want to manually configure a network without knowing what it is?
We'd be glad to hear of possible fixes for the next release.
Take a look at ERIC - it's a pretty good Python based RAD.
(If you're using Ark Linux, you can simply apt-get install eric and apt-get install gambas to give both a try)
This is a valid concern, but there are a couple of gtk based killer apps - can you name replacements for any of the following without the dependencies?
gimp
sodipodi
gnucash
mrproject
We're keeping the dependency chain as small as possible (e.g. we're leaving out the gtkhtml dependent parts of gimp and make it call konqueror for its html help system instead) though.
I think the much bigger reason for RPM's somewhat bad reputation is dependency resolution, as in " apt-get is much better!" -- many people still don't know that apt-get can be used with RPMs.
Bad packagers are problematic with any packaging system (but yes, the barrier is definitely much lower with rpm) -- that's why we've added at least a couple more sanity checks (e.g. our rpm disallows packages without BuildRoot:, and we provide sample rpm templates so people can start learning how to build proper packages w/o having to go through the hassle of learning Makefiles and all).
No, definitely not. That's a severe misrepresentation of what happened.
I left Red Hat to start a totally different kind of distribution because I disagreed (and still disagree) with the way Red Hat was heading -- removing KDE credits was just a very small part of that, the much bigger part was removing most KDE applications, and stripping KDE of its identity (such as forcing the ergonomic nightmare known as double-click on users -- I still have to see ans computer newbie who doesn't have problems learning how to double-click).
Ark Linux is very different from Red Hat both in the technology used and the purpose.
We want a dead simple installation, without scaring people off by throwing words they don't understand at them.
That said, since many people are requesting it, we will be adding an alternative installer for techies in the future -- but don't expect this to happen for some more months, we'd like to get our newbie-friendly stuff done first.;)
You're right re the fact that too many distros can potentially be a bad thing.
So why did we decide to start a new one nevertheless [remember that we did so roughly 2 years ago]?
It's easy, nobody else was doing what we're doing.
Our goal was (and still is) to create a distribution that is easy to use for both Windows converts and total computer newbies, while still providing a powerful system we can use ourselves w/ a bit of customization.
One of the key points in Ark Linux is to pick only one application of every kind (who really needs 500 editors and 30 window managers?), to save the (non-technical) user from having to make choices (s)he can't possibly understand.
Why not do this as a patch to an existing distribution? It's obvious -- does anyone seriously think e.g. Debian would accept a feature request saying "remove 5000 packages"? They won't (and for a good reason - for Debian-type users, having the choice is vital!). And just doing it as a script that uninstalls 5000 packages from a previously installed system wouldn't work, because the newbie wouldn't even get to the point where he can run the script.
Yes, by now there are other distributions that try to do the same thing (Lindows, Lycoris, Xandros,...) -- the difference here is that they're commercial, and we'll always be 100% free. That said, there's no point in not cooperating -- if anyone from any other distribution is reading this, we'd definitely like to work together -- but the full extent would have to be determined.
Using a common core is an option - but even there, you'll run into different needs -- e.g. for a corporate workstation or server, Kerberos and LDAP authentication are must-haves (and things lots of applications will link to if they're there, introducing dependencies right into the core of the OS) -- for a home user desktop, they're just unneeded bloat - so you'll end up even with a modified core, if you want to get both right.
"Microsoft does XYZ" means neither "XYZ is the best/right thing to do", nor "XYZ is evil!".
It does mean, however, that 90% of the people (all potential Linux users;) ) know how to handle it -- so in the "Microsoft to Linux transition phase", it's a good thing to make switching from Windows to Linux as easy as possible.
This does not mean, of course, that we can't experiment with totally different user interfaces at the same time -- but having a Windows-like interface for the "converters" is definitely a good thing to get them to consider migration.
Ark Linux is indeed not based on Debian -- but it's most definitely apt-gettable.
We use the apt+rpm combo to handle package management.
The reasoning is simple - apt-get is definitely the best tool for package management out there -- but there are lots of valid reasons to disagree over a dpkg vs. rpm choice.
We decided in favor of rpm because it's easier to build packages -- since we're developing a distribution primarily for not overly technical users, all the technical things involved with building a dpkg package would be a major problem, while anyone who has figured out shell scripts a bit can easily learn creating rpm spec files.
The reasons we started Ark Linux are simple -- even the best customization tools for existing distros won't make it possible for newbies to use them.
How would a newbie benefit the easiest-to-use tools being available for a traditional distribution if he can't get beyond the partitioning step of the distribution installer, which must please experts?
It is just not possible to create a distribution that makes a good newbie home desktop, a good corporate workstation and a good server all in one.
Furthermore, most traditional distributions refuse to diverge from the established standards -- which is, sometimes, necessary, if you want to do something new (like, for example, being easy to handle even for a total n00b).
The goal of Ark Linux is to make Linux dead simple to use while still keeping the system a powerful platform for people who know what they're doing.
Re:Linux, BSD, and everything need one thing....
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Ark Linux
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· Score: 1
I agree that it's a bad idea to run everything as root - that's why Ark Linux doesn't do that. Still, newbies don't understand and usually don't want to enter root passwords etc. just to install a new application, so it needs to be addressed.
I don't see much of a problem with the approach of allowing a user to run specific, known good, tools as root - it gets rid of most of the problems of running everything as root.
So let's see what the problems with running everything as root are, and if they still apply with our solution:
A broken application can crash the whole system by writing to/dev/mem or the likes, because it isn't run as root -- doesn't apply, because we only run known good applications that need root privileges as root.
Trojans -- Doesn't apply. A cracker will may convince a user to launch a "dangerous" (read: root) tool - but since all the "this is run as root" tools are GUI admin tools, the user will have to click something to do dangerous stuff. And if someone is _really_ stupid enough to click "delete" after a cracker's script invoked kpackage, I guess he deserves it.
It's easy to mess up, e.g. by typing "rm -rf/" without understanding what it does, or by just typing "rm *" with the intent to delete files without an extension (DOS users would expect this...) -- applies to a certain extent, but not to a dangerous one - you must do _really_ stupid things to mess up your system badly with kpackage, kuser and the likes.
Buffer overruns in user applications - if there's a buffer overrun in e.g. an IRC client, a malicious user gets root -- doesn't apply, because IRC clients etc. don't run as root
If you leave and forget to lock the screen, other people can edit your users and do other evil stuff -- applies, but (1) isn't relevant for a home user system and (2) if you need security, you shouldn't run in single user mode anyway
As for whether we're flexible enough to learn "real" Linux, I think so. Terminal emulators etc. aren't on the panel, but they're there and they're in the menus. We even include vi (though mostly for ourselves;) ) for people who want to learn things the *nix way.
And, of course, all the ease of use things (like pam modules for launching some apps as root) can be turned off.
I've been running Linux for roughly 10 years now, and I'm satisfied with using Ark Linux for myself (though I did turn off some of the newbie friendly stuff like CD autorun), so I guess it's ok for people who grow out of being a newbie.
If you don't like it, let us know what we need to improve. (Of course, we're free to ignore your suggestion if we don't agree.)
Since a couple of people have asked, yes, there are some Ark Linux related mailing lists:
arklinux@arklinux.org - generic list
arkwatch@arklinux.org - this list is notified every time a package is built in the Ark Linux devel tree (dockyard). Read-only.
arklinux-bugs-list - this list is notified of bugs in Ark Linux (as reported at bugzilla.arklinux.org
.
To get on one of the lists, send a mail to listname-request@arklinux.org, and put subscribe in the subject.
(e.g. to get on arklinux-bugs-list, write to arklinux-bugs-list-request).
Re:Red Hat 8.0 *IS* ``easy for the masses''
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Ark Linux
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· Score: 3, Informative
No...
Show it to any newbie, and you'll see.
What the **** is a partition?
Why do I need 50 editors? Is that emacs thing good? Should I use vi?
User administration? What the ****? This is _my_ computer, I don't want a *****ing login! I don't need that in Windows, therefore it's easier to use!
Why can't I edit the menus?
And that's just 4 of the comments you _will_ get.
Also, if you look at the technology behind it, you'll notice it's suboptimal.
Red Hat 8 is an interesting idea, but I think they got it pretty wrong, and made the OS worse by stripping it of some of the best tools and leaving in vastly inferior ones.
User interface wise, Ark Linux does a lot more than putting another theme on top of Red Hat 8 - we've replaced all their UI stuff.
Try it out for yourself and you'll see the difference.
Re:Four years and half too late.
on
Ark Linux
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· Score: 2, Informative
And that's exactly what we're trying to do. We've tried to put in only the best of its kind for everything (where best is, of course, subjective - you may or may not agree with our choices), occasionally opting for 2 if there's really a need (e.g. OpenOffice is probably the best office suite overall, especially since people will need to open M$ files sent by colleagues -- but it's totally unusable on a slow machine, where KOffice runs circles around it).
As for performance, we're trying to give it - e.g. we've patched glibc to use a much faster malloc (we didn't really like the --enable-fast-malloc option in KDE - why give a fast malloc only to the UI and leave the rest of the system slow? That needed fixing...), and we're using prelinking from the start.
"One installer" is potentially a wrong approach. Consider the different needs: An experienced server admin trying to set up a fallover cluster for his website needs an installer that lets him configure everything, and ideally even install custom packages during system installation. A home user who hasn't seen Linux before and doesn't know much about computers needs all decisions made for him, with as little customization as possible. I dare to claim it's impossible to write an installer that's perfect for both. Having 2 different installers that use common code, sure.
You're forgetting the corporate interest behind some distributions. Someone from the outside (and not even from the inside, for that matter - it's not that I haven't tried), can't just go to Red Hat and say "Hi, I'm going to build your home user edition, please give me access to your build system so we can share everything!". That's why Ark Linux tries to remain compatible, but has to do a lot of things on its own.
We invite all other distributions to cooperate with us, and we'll cooperate with them.
Re:Another one?
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Ark Linux
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· Score: 3, Informative
1. stop basing them on red hat. If red hat is so great, use red hat.
Red Hat has a great base system, but is not the best distribution over all. Red Hat Linux is, in my opinion, a lot like a rusty old car with a great engine (think glibc, gcc,...) in it. So what would you do in that situation? Right, you'd salvage the engine and put it into a better car. That's what we're doing.
2. Gime me some actual reason why this is better than red hat, mandrake, suse, conectiva or the red-hat flavour of the week.
It's not better, it's for a different type of users. If you intend to set up a server, don't use Ark Linux.
Ark Linux is an operating system for home users - something the distributions you've listed have failed to achieve (it's VERY hard, if not impossible, to write an OS that's a good server, a good home OS, and a good corporate workstation - there are totally different needs for those 3 areas. Our philosophy is to pick one, and do that one well, instead of doing all 3, and doing them just ok.
Re:same bero from RH?
on
Ark Linux
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· Score: 2, Informative
Yes.
I originally started working on Ark Linux as a proposal for a Red Hat home user edition - but obviously they didn't care.
If you find any genuine security problems in Ark Linux or our web site, please let us know - the one causing the bad links was not a real security problem, it was shameless people exploiting the fact that we didn't do censorship on the support forum.
Anyway, you're officially granted permission to run port scans etc. as long as it's not for the purpose of damaging our system.
Slashdot Mirror
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!
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:
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.
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)
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 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.
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
How about reading the buttons you click before clicking them?
There's a large red warning on the "System Install" button saying it will wipe all your harddisks.
You should have used the "Express Install" or "Parallel Install" options -- but we can't do more than warn you...
Good idea, IF you happen to be located in an area where a phone jack looks a lot like an ethernet jack --- a German newbie would spent ages looking for something on his computer that looks like a bigger [German] phone jack and then conclude he doesn't have an ethernet adapter.
(And attaching the description to the selected language is dangerous too, the phone jack comparison does work in the German speaking part of Switzerland for example)
Thanks for the bug report! We've fixed the typo in the network config in current CVS, so feel free to update (and given the fact the tool was written by a German guy and a Swiss guy, enjoy the fact that the English translation works, apart from a typo ;) ).
As for "Ethernet adapter" etc. being too hard to understand, this is quite possibly right, but how do you want to manually configure a network without knowing what it is?
We'd be glad to hear of possible fixes for the next release.
Take a look at ERIC - it's a pretty good Python based RAD.
(If you're using Ark Linux, you can simply apt-get install eric and apt-get install gambas to give both a try)
We're keeping the dependency chain as small as possible (e.g. we're leaving out the gtkhtml dependent parts of gimp and make it call konqueror for its html help system instead) though.
Depends on how you define things.
I define a "KDE only distribution" as "a distribution that doesn't include any other desktop environments".
There's no reason not to include good applications just because they happen not to be written with our favourite toolkit.
Furthermore, starting with the next release, we'll be using the
GTK-Qt theme engine to make GTK applications integrate better with the KDE desktop.
I think the much bigger reason for RPM's somewhat bad reputation is dependency resolution, as in " apt-get is much better!" -- many people still don't know that apt-get can be used with RPMs.
Bad packagers are problematic with any packaging system (but yes, the barrier is definitely much lower with rpm) -- that's why we've added at least a couple more sanity checks (e.g. our rpm disallows packages without BuildRoot:, and we provide sample rpm templates so people can start learning how to build proper packages w/o having to go through the hassle of learning Makefiles and all).
No, definitely not.
That's a severe misrepresentation of what happened.
I left Red Hat to start a totally different kind of distribution because I disagreed (and still disagree) with the way Red Hat was heading -- removing KDE credits was just a very small part of that, the much bigger part was removing most KDE applications, and stripping KDE of its identity (such as forcing the ergonomic nightmare known as double-click on users -- I still have to see ans computer newbie who doesn't have problems learning how to double-click).
Ark Linux is very different from Red Hat both in the technology used and the purpose.
This is a feature, not a bug. ;)
;)
We want a dead simple installation, without scaring people off by throwing words they don't understand at them.
That said, since many people are requesting it, we will be adding an alternative installer for techies in the future -- but don't expect this to happen for some more months, we'd like to get our newbie-friendly stuff done first.
Volunteers to speed it up are welcome of course!
You're right re the fact that too many distros can potentially be a bad thing.
...) -- the difference here is that they're commercial, and we'll always be 100% free.
So why did we decide to start a new one nevertheless [remember that we did so roughly 2 years ago]?
It's easy, nobody else was doing what we're doing.
Our goal was (and still is) to create a distribution that is easy to use for both Windows converts and total computer newbies, while still providing a powerful system we can use ourselves w/ a bit of customization.
One of the key points in Ark Linux is to pick only one application of every kind (who really needs 500 editors and 30 window managers?), to save the (non-technical) user from having to make choices (s)he can't possibly understand.
Why not do this as a patch to an existing distribution? It's obvious -- does anyone seriously think e.g. Debian would accept a feature request saying "remove 5000 packages"? They won't (and for a good reason - for Debian-type users, having the choice is vital!). And just doing it as a script that uninstalls 5000 packages from a previously installed system wouldn't work, because the newbie wouldn't even get to the point where he can run the script.
Yes, by now there are other distributions that try to do the same thing (Lindows, Lycoris, Xandros,
That said, there's no point in not cooperating -- if anyone from any other distribution is reading this, we'd definitely like to work together -- but the full extent would have to be determined.
Using a common core is an option - but even there, you'll run into different needs -- e.g. for a corporate workstation or server, Kerberos and LDAP authentication are must-haves (and things lots of applications will link to if they're there, introducing dependencies right into the core of the OS) -- for a home user desktop, they're just unneeded bloat - so you'll end up even with a modified core, if you want to get both right.
"Microsoft does XYZ" means neither "XYZ is the best/right thing to do", nor "XYZ is evil!".
;) ) know how to handle it -- so in the "Microsoft to Linux transition phase", it's a good thing to make switching from Windows to Linux as easy as possible.
It does mean, however, that 90% of the people (all potential Linux users
This does not mean, of course, that we can't experiment with totally different user interfaces at the same time -- but having a Windows-like interface for the "converters" is definitely a good thing to get them to consider migration.
Yes, definitely listening. ;)
You've mostly described Ark Linux in your wishlist.
We do pick only one of every kind where possible, and our choices mostly match yours.
Ark Linux alpha 10 is more than a month old -- that was long before mozilla 1.6 was released.
The current development tree (dockyard) has mozilla 1.6.
Ark Linux is indeed not based on Debian -- but it's most definitely apt-gettable.
We use the apt+rpm combo to handle package management.
The reasoning is simple - apt-get is definitely the best tool for package management out there -- but there are lots of valid reasons to disagree over a dpkg vs. rpm choice.
We decided in favor of rpm because it's easier to build packages -- since we're developing a distribution primarily for not overly technical users, all the technical things involved with building a dpkg package would be a major problem, while anyone who has figured out shell scripts a bit can easily learn creating rpm spec files.
The reasons we started Ark Linux are simple -- even the best customization tools for existing distros won't make it possible for newbies to use them.
How would a newbie benefit the easiest-to-use tools being available for a traditional distribution if he can't get beyond the partitioning step of the distribution installer, which must please experts?
It is just not possible to create a distribution that makes a good newbie home desktop, a good corporate workstation and a good server all in one.
Furthermore, most traditional distributions refuse to diverge from the established standards -- which is, sometimes, necessary, if you want to do something new (like, for example, being easy to handle even for a total n00b).
The goal of Ark Linux is to make Linux dead simple to use while still keeping the system a powerful platform for people who know what they're doing.
Still, newbies don't understand and usually don't want to enter root passwords etc. just to install a new application, so it needs to be addressed.
I don't see much of a problem with the approach of allowing a user to run specific, known good, tools as root - it gets rid of most of the problems of running everything as root.
So let's see what the problems with running everything as root are, and if they still apply with our solution:
As for whether we're flexible enough to learn "real" Linux, I think so. Terminal emulators etc. aren't on the panel, but they're there and they're in the menus.
We even include vi (though mostly for ourselves
And, of course, all the ease of use things (like pam modules for launching some apps as root) can be turned off.
I've been running Linux for roughly 10 years now, and I'm satisfied with using Ark Linux for myself (though I did turn off some of the newbie friendly stuff like CD autorun), so I guess it's ok for people who grow out of being a newbie.
If you don't like it, let us know what we need to improve. (Of course, we're free to ignore your suggestion if we don't agree.)
To get on one of the lists, send a mail to listname-request@arklinux.org, and put subscribe in the subject.
(e.g. to get on arklinux-bugs-list, write to arklinux-bugs-list-request).
Show it to any newbie, and you'll see.
And that's just 4 of the comments you _will_ get.
Also, if you look at the technology behind it, you'll notice it's suboptimal.
Red Hat 8 is an interesting idea, but I think they got it pretty wrong, and made the OS worse by stripping it of some of the best tools and leaving in vastly inferior ones.
User interface wise, Ark Linux does a lot more than putting another theme on top of Red Hat 8 - we've replaced all their UI stuff.
Try it out for yourself and you'll see the difference.
And that's exactly what we're trying to do.
We've tried to put in only the best of its kind for everything (where best is, of course, subjective - you may or may not agree with our choices), occasionally opting for 2 if there's really a need (e.g. OpenOffice is probably the best office suite overall, especially since people will need to open M$ files sent by colleagues -- but it's totally unusable on a slow machine, where KOffice runs circles around it).
As for performance, we're trying to give it - e.g. we've patched glibc to use a much faster malloc (we didn't really like the --enable-fast-malloc option in KDE - why give a fast malloc only to the UI and leave the rest of the system slow? That needed fixing...), and we're using prelinking from the start.
An experienced server admin trying to set up a fallover cluster for his website needs an installer that lets him configure everything, and ideally even install custom packages during system installation.
A home user who hasn't seen Linux before and doesn't know much about computers needs all decisions made for him, with as little customization as possible.
I dare to claim it's impossible to write an installer that's perfect for both.
Having 2 different installers that use common code, sure.
That's why Ark Linux tries to remain compatible, but has to do a lot of things on its own.
1. stop basing them on red hat. If red hat is so great, use red hat.
...) in it. So what would you do in that situation? Right, you'd salvage the engine and put it into a better car. That's what we're doing.
Red Hat has a great base system, but is not the best distribution over all.
Red Hat Linux is, in my opinion, a lot like a rusty old car with a great engine (think glibc, gcc,
2. Gime me some actual reason why this is better than red hat, mandrake, suse, conectiva or the red-hat flavour of the week.
It's not better, it's for a different type of users.
If you intend to set up a server, don't use Ark Linux.
Ark Linux is an operating system for home users - something the distributions you've listed have failed to achieve (it's VERY hard, if not impossible, to write an OS that's a good server, a good home OS, and a good corporate workstation - there are totally different needs for those 3 areas. Our philosophy is to pick one, and do that one well, instead of doing all 3, and doing them just ok.
Yes.
I originally started working on Ark Linux as a proposal for a Red Hat home user edition - but obviously they didn't care.
If you find any genuine security problems in Ark Linux or our web site, please let us know - the one causing the bad links was not a real security problem, it was shameless people exploiting the fact that we didn't do censorship on the support forum.
Anyway, you're officially granted permission to run port scans etc. as long as it's not for the purpose of damaging our system.