Ark Linux has released its first stable version: after 3 years of development and testing, the Ark Linux team have decided to release the first stable version, Ark Linux 2005.1.The goal of Ark Linux is to build the easiest to use Linux distribution for people converting from That Other Operating System, while keeping it technically sane.
Ark Linux 2005.1 is built around the latest desktop technologies, including
KDE 3.4, OpenOffice.org 1.1.4 (a preview of 2.0 is also available on the Ark
Extra Software CD), glibc 2.3.4, X.Org 6.8.2, and kernel 2.6.11.
The base insall CD of Ark Linux contains everything the average desktop user
will need – other tools, for example compilers and development tools,
additional games and support for additional languages, are available on the
extra CD images “Ark Development Suite”, “Ark Extra Software”, “Ark Server
Software” and “Ark Extra Languages”, and of course in our large online
package repository, easily accessed through the Kynaptic GUI. Experienced
users can use the “apt-get” tool to install software from the repository on
the command line.
Ark Linux 2005.1 can be downloaded from http://www.arklinux.org/ using ftp,
http, BitTorrent or EDonkey.
or just less distros, I always get Ark Linux confused with Arch Linux, two very different distros..
nice to see it is so cutting edge
is waaaaaaay too long. That being said, congrats on getting it out the door.
If not being able to detect your usb mouse, keyboard, wifi, and sata is stable, then it should be good to go in say, another 10 years or so. And yes, i checked the md5. Not that it’s a bad distro, I’m sure it must work on alot of hardware, just not mine. It joins a long list of distro’s that can get most hardware, but miss one or two things. It’s maddening, the lack of co-operation between “big buisness” and open source. I’m all for choice, but there is way too much hardware on the market, causing this to be an everyday thing with computers. There is one exception to this rule, and that is mac. Everything just worked, in large part to this fact: they control the hardware, and they only have to write drivers for one os. I’m not saying mac is better, I don’t own one presently, I’m just saying it worked with whatever i plugged into it.
The most frustrating thing about linux is the hardware support, and we all know why this is(windows 90% market share!). I don’t blame the manufacturer’s, development isn’t free…. but release some specifications for the hardware already.
Is it just me, or do those little figures at the bottom right of this AftWizzard screenshot look a little too much like some of the MSNM logos. It’s been awhile since I’ve used anything Microsoft, so correct me if I’m wrong…
http://www.arklinux.org/screenshots/aft.png
And in response to the countless criticisms of development time that are bound to come up: this is the first version of distro that aims to be nothing but extraordinarily user friendly. You can’t just do that overnight, because although KDE’s design lends itself to being easy to use, the configuration is NOT simple for a novice. I haven’t tried it, but from what I’m seeing it looks like the Ark developers have done a great deal to make configuration an easy task for just about anyone. And did they write Kynaptic, or has this been around for awhile?
Does it now let you choose partitions during install?
Does it now let you choose partitions during install?
No. There have been no improvements made to the installer since their alpha releases. Ark has one of the most dumbed-down and unflexible installers I’ve seen in any distribution.
The Ark control panel strikes me as far too horrible a knockoff of the Windows one. I mean, it looks nice, but have they any shame?!
I’m betting this is “stable” i nthe linux tradition. Stable enough to be a beta where it could use more beta-testers who would not use a “beta” product but are willing to test a “stable” product. That said, I can’t wait to try this one out. Ark has alwayts been rated amongst the best of newbie frindly distros.
hehe … I’m also allways confused with ark linux, and arch linux.
. It’s terrible !
I was going to give it a review, however, I was unable to find a spare partition on either of the 2 test machines that the installer liked.
I went back into Mandrake and freed up a spare partition for Ark to install onto. Nope. The installer failed again.
Try harder next time…. Or switch to Anaconda or YAST installers please
Can I ask everyone to visit <a href=”http://donley.tk“> and fill out the poll HONESTLY
The first time I tried to install as I would with any distribution, with linux partitions already there (no Windows partitions in my HD): no go.
Then I deleted a primary partition (the only one available, in the logical ones I have SUSE and Debian): the installation hard freezes after creating the linux partitions. It still doesn’t see the existing swap. When in the past it managed to go till the end, it always failed to overwrite the MBR and hard froze there.
Until this distribution doesn’t get a decent installer, I won’t recommend it to anybody: heck, so many have managed to write a good, easy installer: Mepis, PCLinuxOS, Kanotix, Navyn OS…
And then they could always use Anaconda, something they have always refused to do, don’t ask me why.
Even an obscure distribution like kmLinux has a decent, easy installer.
Hi All,
Yes, I guess installer has been one of Ark Linux weakest link right now. We will try to make this better in the next release.
At the current moment, Ark Linux is only capable of
1. Wiping out the entire harddisk and use everything for Ark Linux (System Install)
2. Use unpartitioned space to install Ark Linux.
It is primitive installer yes, but the main target market of Ark Linux is not Linux power user. It is more towards new comer to Linux users that only use one operating system in their PC.
In the future yes, we would like to have more and more linux power user. We are also a bit underhand now, so any help is welcome.
Sorry for the bad English. (Not my native language
Mission Control ideas never came from Windows XP, it’s coming from Lycoris few years back. Lycoris implemented the Control Center using HTML in around 2002/2003, Ark Linux decided to use the idea and implemented Mission Control using C++ instead of HTML. Mission Control itself hasn’t been re-developed since then.
With KDE Configuration tools more and more usable (especially Setting:/ kioslave) Ark Linux might add something to Setting ioslave and make it our default Control Center.
Just for reference:
Lycoris Screenshot on their control center
http://www.lycoris.com/products/desktoplx/control/
Interview in 2003 carried by OSNews
with Mission Control Screenshot
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3029&page=2
You cannot compare Mac Hardware support with any other Operating system on the market. All mac Hadware is proprietary. You are comparing apple with oranges and trying to make it work. It just dosn’t. Would you like to invision a world where all hardware was locked into each O/S. I know I sure as hell would not.
/rant
Windows is also not 100% believe it or not and there are vendors who refuse to follow anyone standard.
Arklinux has a new hardware detection system that by far works better and more accurately then anything thats out. The problem is that with so few testers and developers and no Billion dollar company pushing us around, like some other un-name distros that im not found of, We only can impliment and test so much hardware before we run out of information to use to continue development. Instead of just coming in and moaning, why don’t you do something useful, like actually use the offical forums to post your problem report while the bug tracker is down, and actually post all of your system specifaction including the make and model of each device that dosn’t work.
The problem today in the linux world is NOT that 90% of manufacturers don’t co-operate its that 70% of Linux users don’t give real feedback to developers so that they can correct problems with compatiablity. Yes sure vendors don’t all support open source development, but who would if they couldn’t get real feedback on problems so that they can be corrected. The typical rant about how linux hardware support is so poor is exactly why it is so poor. People just rant on about it and then never leave the developers with even a shred of information on what hadware did not actually work. Then to top it off they usually do the same thing the next release but expect us to have some how magically read their mind and added support for their hardware even though they left us no information on what _was_ broken. Come on, leave real feedback in the right places and not just random rants.
ant
Have you checked out there website? I did. I checked there forums too, first. A good indication of the quality of Linux distro is the promtness of there replies, the amount of people having sucsess with the distro, and the helpfullness of the community. All areas are lacking terribly, which is why I never posted anything there. It’s already been asked before, and the lack of prompt replies, was why I posted here. They shouldn’t shocked at my reply, it’s been the same all along. Alot of people trying to do the same thing I did, getting the same response ” It’ll be fixed when stable is released” . Well , it’s “stable”, and still the same.
As far as moaning about things, I have done my share of bug reporting, and have tried to help out where i can, but I am NOT trained in computers, it’s a hobby ( ok an obsession !)that is intirely self taught.
I still believe that untill the manufacture’s release the inf. to open source as well as w$n, it’ll always be like this. There’s not much I can do as an end user to write drivers. I’m willing to punch in terminal commands and send in input, if they would be willing to ask for it. If you take a cruise through the Mepis, Ubuntu, or other mid-size linux distro’s, you see alot of this… it’s a community. People helping people.
And finally, you have to think about the mac thing some more. They state the hardware that goes into the computer, but they don’t dictate how a piece of hardware is to be built, but they do recieve all the specs to the stuff they put in there. Hence, they can write drivers quite easily. “Would you like to invision a world where all hardware was locked into each O/S. I know I sure as hell would not.” What made you jump to that conclusion? My point was a set of standards for X86 or X86-64 is what is needed, so we can be on an even playing field with all os’s writen for that hardware.
I am the poster of “installation fails here”
Where did I mention Macs?
I was only comparing between linux distro, and I was saying that a few one man/small team distros have installers that are more than decent.
Even less I mentioned Windows, except for saying that you won’t find it in my HD.
“The problem is that with so few testers and developers and no Billion dollar company pushing us around, like some other un-name distros that im not found of, We only can impliment and test so much hardware before we run out of information to use to continue development. Instead of just coming in and moaning, why don’t you do something useful, like actually use the offical forums to post your problem report while the bug tracker is down, and actually post all of your system specifaction including the make and model of each device that dosn’t work.”
Actually there was a time when Ark was quite popular. Personally I was a member of a mailing list, but when I realized that things were going to take forever, and the arrogant attitude of some developers, I decided that it was time to move on. The Ark developers were too busy developing the latest and greatest and they couldn’t care less about the most basic: a decent installer. Was this a distro for newbies or for themselves? A newbie doesn’t need the greatest and latest. If you ask me, Libranet 2.8.1 is much more newbie friendly than Ark.
Few developers and testers? Just to make an example, I’ll never forget JAMD linux, the work of love of one man. He modified Anaconda and I never heard anybody complaining that the install was too difficult. It is only a pity that he decided to move on. But to this day I can install and use JAMD in my rather new hardware.
– Users may accidentally erase all their partitions
– Cannot install into an existing Linux partition, you have to delete one with fdisk from another system first
– Also doesn’t reuse an existing swap partition but creates a second one
– Overwrites the MBR without asking
– Failed to boot after nevertheless
Once you have fixed these faults with a rescue system and installed synaptic, it’s a slightly over-average KDE 3.4-based desktop distribution.
> The problem is that with so few testers and developers
How about making test releases first instead of declaring a random snapshot a “stable release”?
– Users may accidentally erase all their partitions
In all fairness there is a warning with bold red letters saying that the option to use the entire HD for Ark will remove all other partitions on the disk, this is one of three possible installation options. Anyone running through an installer without reading the bold red text at least once shouldn’t complain later when something goes wrong.
Blaming Ark because there are potential candidates for Darwin Awards in the world makes a very poor argument, fortunately for you some of your other points were valid.
Can you please let us know what hardware you’re using? We tried all hardware we have access to (but given Ark Linux has been running on a $0 budget for 3 years, that’s not exactly a lot), and didn’t see any of the issues you mentioned — and obviously we can’t fix stuff we can’t reproduce.
“Blaming Ark because there are potential candidates for Darwin Awards in the world makes a very poor argument,”
Sorry, but this is a bit contradictory. If Arklinux is meant to be idiot-proof, it should take into account that Windows refugees are used to clicking “next”
“(but given Ark Linux has been running on a $0 budget for 3 years, that’s not exactly a lot),”
Bero
Till this day it beats me why, when I made a small donation through paypal, it was never collected. In the end it was refunded to me.
Ark was in an alpha state release for 3 years here people. You want to talk about test release, try that on for size. What other distribution you know had an alpha test for 3 years. Don’t give this, should have been test release thing. it was there long enough to be tested. Many sites just refused to post news about new alpha candidate releases. Thats not our fault. As It appears making a stable release was the only way to get anyone to test it. Correct me if im wrong now, becuase I mean we have seen such an over flow of tester in the last 6 months, I mean a whole 5 people in the arklinux channel and whole 5 post in the forums. Watch out !
As far as prompt replies go. I do have a life you know. I’m not paid to sit and answer your questions up to the second. I honestly don’t see why you could not have waited atleast 24 hours for a response.
I know how popular ark once was. Everyone left when we decided to make a leap into gcc 3.4 and kde 3.3. At the time no one else had it. we didn’t expect it to take 6+ months to rebuild the entire tree. We ran into alot of problems on the build systems.
I wouldn’t even consider ark mid-sized anymore. There is no community anymore to see others helping others since everyone up and left while we were updating things. *shrugs* Poof instant community I suppose is what you want.
No where did we say it was idiot-proof. If you can’t 2 seconds of you life to read Big Red Bold print, you deserve everything you get. Its like sayinng I’m so desensitized that I don’t read the fine print when I sign a loan on my house. If you don’t then you deserve everything you get, including living in a cardboard box. You can not fault us for thier failure to READ. Correct me if i’m wrong here really.
That is the most rediculous argument I have ever heard, have you even been following the thread?!
The only way to protect someone so stupid they’ll run through the installer ignoring all the bright red bold text and warning dialogs is to keep them away from a computer altogether and that isn’t Ark’s responsability.
“I know how popular ark once was. Everyone left when we decided to make a leap into gcc 3.4 and kde 3.3. At the time no one else had it. we didn’t expect it to take 6+ months to rebuild the entire tree. We ran into alot of problems on the build systems.”
This seems to prove my point: the latest and greatest. But who needs that, the newbies who should be running Ark or the developers themselves?
Until alpha 7 Ark run just fine in my laptop, better than many “stable” releases. Beginning with alpha 8 things began to go downhills. Since I bought my new desktop I have never been able to install Ark. Gentoo, Debian or Slackware are actually easier to install.
So much for Ark being newbie friendly.
Howdy,
I downloaded last night and installed it on a Thinkpad 570. It seemed to detect everthing and install went to completion. However, on the first boot it sets the monitor wrong. My monitor is only capable of 1024 by 768 at 60Hz. My LCD panel is dead on the laptop so I am using an external monitor. I could not see anything, so I wiped Ark and put Mandrake on. I hope to try Ark again in a future release.
“That is the most rediculous argument I have ever heard, have you even been following the thread?!”
I have been following the thread (and the development of Ark for that matter) quite well. What about a second. BIG red warning, maybe with a skull on it?
And while we are at it, is it the user’s fault if after a failed MBR overwrite, the whole HD is left in an unbootable state? I have seen many users complaining about this very issue. I found myself in the same situation, but fortunately I have many resources
This seems to prove my point: the latest and greatest. But who needs that, the newbies who should be running Ark or the developers themselves?
Well he mentioned that they ran into a lot of problems with their build systems. Seeing that a distribution has to be updated from time to time, wouldn’t you prefer that they test their build systems with major tree upgrades while it’s still in testing, rather than release 1.0 and then discover the problem?
From what I’m reading, though, maybe this should be labelled 2005.1b or some such. Considering how much press Ark got a couple years go, I think moving from alpha to beta would have gotten you enough press to get some testing going on.
Realize that you cannot please every 12 year old kid that posts on OSNews. So, don’t waste your energy trying.
I haven’t tried Ark yet, but the screenshots look very nice.
I will agree that Ark Linux may not yet be ready for mass consumption. There are some show stoppers – not for long term Linux users, but certainly for those new to Linux which Ark claims to be targetting.
However, this distro gets ALOT of things right:
1. Super fast GUI. I was sure after the first time I ran Konqueror that it was set to preload. I was surprised to find out preload had not yet been turned on. The GUI is just that fast.
2. We now have another entrant in the Linux distro market offering split builds – not just split KDE builds but split Xorg builds as well. Most, but not all, of the KDE apps can be individually installed and removed in Ark Linux. For instance, say you only want 3 KDE games. With Ark, you can have that. The choice is no longer install all or install none. Each can be individually selected to install or not. The same is true in the other KDE packages as well – graphics, utilities, multimedia, etc. This won’t work with all apps, kate & kwrite, for instance, but it will work for most. Well done.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Xorg packages are split as well. You can remove the Xorg graphics drivers individually, leaving only the drivers you use. Perhaps all rpm based distros are this way now. I wouldn’t know, having not used an rpm based distro in years now. I can only imagine the work it took to arrange this.
3. Ark Linux includes a new way of managing root vs user accounts. I don’t understand fully how it works. I do know you can open Konqueror, Konsole or Kynaptic as root, without having to put in a root password. This might be an annoyance if you have used Linux for years and like to su on the command line. But for those new to Linux which Ark wishes to target, I would think this would be a convenience, as it makes the system function more like what they might be used to. If you wish to su, check the Ark website for details.
All is not perfect with Ark and most of the issues have to do with the installer. Yes, you can wipe every single hard drive on your computer if you don’t stop and read before clicking buttons. BUT, the installer defaults to formatting any unpartitioned drive. You would really have to not be paying attention to miss this.
There are some show stoppers for those new to Linux. For instance, in my install, the network card driver was not automatically set up to load at boot. Neither was dhcp automatically set to start at boot either. A simple “modprobe eepro100 && dhclient eth0” fixes this once the system has booted. Perhaps I should place that in /etc/rc.d/rc.local. But no user new to Linux would know to do that.
Also, the Xorg configuration at boot is not ideal. (But then, neither is Xorg on Kubuntu.) The fonts looked good, but the resolution defaulted to 1024×768, when I prefer 1280×1024. Minor tweaking fixed this, but again, it isn’t something a new user to Linux would know how to do.
Kpackage, my personal favorite package manager for KDE is installed by default but doesn’t seem to work. It can poll the servers for updated software, but removing software seems to do nothing. Kmenuedit is installed, but doesn’t appear on the system menus, for some reason.
So no, Ark Linux is not perfect yet. Overall, I like the direction it is going. I can see where the goals they have achieved for the distro are within reach, even though they might not be totally there yet. I would recommend it to intermediate to advanced KDE lovers though. For new Linux users, I would say “not just yet.”
It’s so easy to customize KDE in Ark and so damn fast, I may have to give up Gentoo.
Actually your post wouldn’t even deserve a reply
“Realize that you cannot please every 12 year old kid that posts on OSNews.”
And you, I suppose, are a big boy with a deep knowledge of linux and other operating systems.
“I haven’t tried Ark yet, but the screenshots look very nice.”
At least have the decency of trying it before uttering B$hit.
What about Ladislav from DistroWatch, is he also a 12 year old kid?
But I suppose you don’t have a clue of what I am talking about
By bero (IP: —.adsl.green.ch) – Posted on 2005-03-20 19:00:29
Can you please let us know what hardware you’re using? We tried all hardware we have access to (but given Ark Linux has been running on a $0 budget for 3 years, that’s not exactly a lot), and didn’t see any of the issues you mentioned — and obviously we can’t fix stuff we can’t reproduce.
Fair enough, and please allow me to utter my deepest apologies for my crass remarks. I was a little hot that nothing worked after all, your old 7 series worked once before.so I was a little dissapointed, to say the least.
I have a :
Gforce 250 chipset
Gforce sata 120gb
wd 160 gig ide
amd 64 3000+
1 gig ram
dlink dwl-g520
logitech mx501 usb mouse
standard ps2 keyboard
viewsonic q71 monitor
nvidia gforce 5700 le vid card
cmi8738/c3dx pci sound
sony dvd/cd burner
Also, appreciate all of your work on such a small budget. You are far more talented than i am, wish i could do more.
> What other distribution you know had an alpha test for 3 years.
Duration doesn’t matter if changes until last year/month/day happen.
> Many sites just refused to post news about new alpha candidate releases
Yeah, sure. distrowatch.com is known for rejecting distro news. 😉 There was simply no new release between the at least a year old Alpha 12 iirc and the “final stable release” now.
> I mean a whole 5 people in the arklinux channel and whole 5 post in the forums.
Your fault. Do Alpha/Beta releases. Everyone assumed Arklinux is dead for long.
I don’t think the usb modules are getting loaded at boot. It took me a minute to figure out why the pritner wasn’t working. None of the usb modules are loaded at boot, as far as I can tell. I placed them all into /etc/rc.d/rc.local and the printer came right up and worked. Could this be why the usb mouses are not being detected or working?
I have been following the thread (and the development of Ark for that matter) quite well. What about a second. BIG red warning, maybe with a skull on it?
There is a problem with having too many warnings, if you don’t have enough users are more likely to have problems, but if you have too many users will complain. Either way you cannot please everyone.
And while we are at it, is it the user’s fault if after a failed MBR overwrite, the whole HD is left in an unbootable state? I have seen many users complaining about this very issue. I found myself in the same situation, but fortunately I have many resources
That has nothing to do with Ark not being idiot proof, nor does it have anything to do with my original post or replies. What you are complaining about here is something that every distribution has: a flaw in supporting some hardware.
I’m assuming that youre emphasis on losing data probably means it happened to you, thats unfortunate but its no reason to tear the distribution appart hoping to find problems. One thing you aren’t keeping in mind is that there are lots of Linux distributions out there, if you don’t like Ark I would encourage you to find one you do like rather than continue what is turning into a pointless argument.
I’ve used your distro for a couple of years and it works good. The installer does need upgraded, but other than that all is well here.
PS–I dont know any non computer people who would attempt to install an OS windows or linux. So if you dont know what you are doing and dont bother reading bold text, you get what you deserve.
Celerate
I’ll shut up after this, I promise.
My beef is *only* with the installer, not with the distro overall, which was (and maybe still is) very promising.
Don’t you think that my point is fair? The installer is the first (from any point of view) part of any OS.
Just to make an example, Solaris 9 froze in the first seconds of the install. Solaris 10 installs flawlessly in my PC and, from what I have read, on many others.
Not inclined to write an installer? “Borrow” one from somebody else. I don’t think there is any shame about it and this is what OSS is all about: why reinvent the wheel?
A new installer should already be in the works from what I’ve heard, it may be a while but then making any product good requires time.
I can understand people having some frustrations with the installer, its not Anaconda, or Lizard, or YaST but Red Hat, Caldera and SUSE which created those had a head start.
The Ark core developers want to make their own installer and I think its a good idea because it means they have more choice and say in how the program works. It may be a little rougher at first but when its done the ends should justify the means.
Just installed it.
As others have said, the installer is primitive and confusing at best. First, the language that was selected was Catalan with a Canadian flag beside it (why is that?). I had to switch to the console, fdisk /dev/hda and delete my partition two before installing.
Once installed, I didn’t have any network; the solution was simply to go in the Mission Control and enable DHCP on it; not very newbie friendly. Mission Control is superb by the way.
The whole “root password is blank” is confusing when you have an app requiring root access and asking for a password. On my at work Debian sarge install, I’ve added myself to the wheel group and have enabled PAM trust access and I don’t get those popup so I know there is a better way to go about this.
Install and boot up time seem a tad slow.
The set of apps available is very nice and well selected. Overall GUI presentation is great. The bootup screen is a nice touch, althought a bit ruined by the cursor appearing on-screen and at shutdown being overwritten by the shutdown messages.
Couldn’t seem to be able to mount my Windows network share with the provided utility.
Anyway, just spent a few minutes with it, but it is not as polished as I was expecting it to be even at the surface level.
I wished Ark would join another team has they have a lots of neat things to contribute but maybe not enough to justify a completly separate distro.
“I wished Ark would join another team has they have a lots of neat things to contribute but maybe not enough to justify a completly separate distro.”
PCLinuxOS and Ark would be a great merger, IMHO
Well i am downloading as I speak, i am very hyped since it is the first real distro to use kernel 2.6.11 and kde 3.4, as far as having problems with usb mouse, well i can deal with that. Lets just hope there are no other supprises along the way! To be honest i am just wanting to get away from debian at the moment, ever since i upgraded from testing it has felt unstable, go figure unstable wouldnt be stable.
….are your friends:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hdb2 3.4G 1.5G 1.8G 46% /
/dev/hdb3 34G 39M 33G 1% /home
none 252M 0 252M 0% /dev/shm
“The whole “root password is blank” is confusing when you have an app requiring root access and asking for a password.”
Once the system has booted, open the superuser terminal from the KDE system menu. Type “passwd” and put in your preferred root password twice. Next, type “passwd arklinux” and put in the preferred user password twice. Then you are all set.