J_K9 @ Linux

Ark Linux 2005.2 & Arch Linux 0.7

February 12, 2006 on 2:46 am | In Linux, Reviews |

I have always been interested in Ark and Arch Linux - the former slightly more though, as it looked quite decent in screenshots. I thought that Arch was a few paces behind and not as in touch with its updating side. Having tested them both, I can now say that I had made a pretty good judgement (even if it was originally by their covers!)

Ark Linux 2005.2

I tried Ark first - I was quite excited about it, but without a free system to test it on I decided to run it using VMware Player. So, I downloaded the latest ISO (at the time of writing) of Ark, and promptly began the installation (if you can call three hours later ‘promptly’).

The first thing we see is this absolutely beautifully coloured startup message! Sure, just press Enter (as it says).

As you can see, the installation’s welcome screen isn’t too bad. Ok, it’s no Mandriva, but it’s better than nothing. In fact, when you’re selecting your language and keyboard, it even tells you how to do that! Make sure you move your mouse to the list box and click - if not you won’t be able to select anything. Talk about user friendly! Oh, and I seem to have forgotten to mention that it starts with a language unintelligible to most of us.

The package selection is a breeze, and you’ll be playing tetris while waiting for the goodies to be compiled onto the hard drive in no time. I bet you can’t beat my awesome score! (By the way, that random white text on black is just a little mistake I made with VMware - so, the rest of my score is actually hidden. It’s meant to be 345,000,000)

Great, the installation’s done! After the familiar (or possibly not so) “Please remove the CD and reboot” message, you will obligingly do so and will ultimately be swept away to this hot GRUB screen for distro/OS selection. Funnily enough, I’ve only got Ark on the hard drive - no selection for me!

Once the timer’s reached 0 (or you’ve smacked the Enter key in a furious attempt to get the dang thing moving again) you’ll see a bunch of random text come across the screen and finally be presented with this oh-so-lovely interface! Now, that is some sweet stuff…

And, to top it off, Ark somehow manages to fit a brilliant selection of apps (and one heck of a lot of them!) onto your hard drive as well. All from one tiny 686MB download!

So, my final verdict? With a good selection of applications and a nice ‘everything-just-works’ feel to it, Ark is hot.

Arch Linux 0.7

I was unwilling to write Arch over Ark, but how would this be a fair test if tried one and not the other? So, it was with an enormous amount of trepidation that I changed the reference to the Arch ISO (which I had downloaded earlier) and started up Arch. Here’s the first thing I saw:

No colour? No colour?! This must be some kind of sick plan to make me mad. Anyhow, I continued as if the fact that there was no colour hadn’t affected me…

Excellent…a nice CLI (command-line) installation. I’ve got no problem with that - as long as it’s easy to use (and navigate) then I actually prefer it to all the GUI (graphical) junk.

It turns out that the installer is not ‘fairly straightforward’ at all. For example, when I went to select the packages, I ticked all the groups for installation (ie. every available package). Then, once I’d finished that, I was going to move onto the next section when I decided to check it up again. I clicked on the package selection option, and once again all the groups were unchecked. Did this mean that I hadn’t selected them properly (which I was sure I had, using the space bar for the checking and then ending the selection normally) or that it had removed all my previous selections because I had decided to choose them again? This left me quite confused to be honest, and it was so unclear that I wasn’t really sure if what I had done was right. In the end I concluded that I was merely wasting time thinking about it, and so I proceeded to the package installation bit (pictured above). Things seemed to be going fine, and I couldn’t really be bothered to watch the packages pass by and check if some of the ones I’d selected were there, so I went away and returned with a mug of coffee - to be met by a black screen.

The end of the installation, right? So, I just rebooted and waited for the GRUB screen I’m so accustomed to. But, it didn’t show up… It just went back to the empty black screen (which I’m guessing isn’t too hard to imagine, so I didn’t take a screenshot of it). Was this because I hadn’t installed the boot loader correctly, or did Arch not support VMware Player’s emulated hardware? I guess I will never know…

So, my final verdict? While I don’t really have that much to judge it by, I will give it the benefit of the doubt and pronounce it average.

16 Comments »

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Arch Linux is definitely not the “pick-up-and-play” distro. It is quite Slackware-like and in fact, I quite like it for its good package management (pacman) and the way it’s so light on the system.

Comment by hari — February 12, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
Interesting comparisons - especially for the new user. I tried Arch once, but couldn’t get the hang of it: it didn’t seem stripped down enough to be Slackware or polished enough to be anything else. So I went back to Slackware.

Comment by ray — February 12, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Linux
Hari - Yes, I grasped that from my experience with it I still have to give it another shot though - it probably didn’t work too great within VMware Player, so I’m going to install it on a test machine (which I finally have access to) sometime soon.

Ray - I have yet to give Slack, Gentoo and even Debian a go! The first because I haven’t had time, the second because I’m under the impression that the installation can last up to two days, and the third because to have a package-complete Debian system I’d need to download 13 ISO’s. lol… But I now understand that Ark and Arch are for two completely different audiences - Ark for newbies, Arch for the more advanced. It’s about time I started dabbling in the latter anyway…

Comment by J_K9 — February 12, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP
Slack takes less time than you would think - I can have a working system up and running in under an hour. The updates and installing KDE take the longest time, but I can have a fully up to date, wireless, tweaked system running in around 4 hours. Gentoo does take forever - I got fed up after waiting a day for Gentoo to load KDE. I’m just too impatient. However, that said, VidaLinux or the stage 3 install get you to a desktop pretty quickly. Debian doesn’t necessarily need all 13 isos - all you need is disk one and a good net connection.

This is why Linux is so good - 3 of the distros which traditionally are amongst the longest to install can now be done relatively quickly. If the “pure” version isn’t for you, go to Distrowatch and they have a “family tree” where you can see which distros were ‘begat’ by which distros. Some of the “children” are faster than the originals to install.

Comment by ray — February 13, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Linux
Really? Well, I’m gonna give Slack a try soon anyway. I still don’t have the time for Gentoo, and I don’t have fast enough broadband to do a Debian net install.

This is why Linux is so good - 3 of the distros which traditionally are amongst the longest to install can now be done relatively quickly. If the “pure” version isn’t for you, go to Distrowatch and they have a “family tree” where you can see which distros were ‘begat’ by which distros. Some of the “children” are faster than the originals to install.

Indeed - without Debian, where would Ubuntu be? I’m going to give Zenwalk a try too, so I’ll be able to compare my experiences with it and its parent…

Comment by J_K9 — February 13, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP
I always saw Slack as the peak of my Linux life - one day I would be confident and knowledgeable enough to install and run it. And then I ran it, after grabbing some docs and doing some reading, and I thought “oh, was that it?”

It really is a lot easier to install than you would expect and more fun to use.

Comment by ray — February 13, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Linux
Me too - I was hoping only to hit Slackware once I was as proficient in Linux as in Windows, and when I had learned at least one scripting language. Sadly, the first is still in progress (why did I ever start with M$?!), and the second - well, let’s say it’s in ‘pause mode’
I’ve got both discs for Slack 10.2, so I’m going to try to install it tomorrow. I’ll let you know what happens!

Comment by J_K9 — February 13, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP
Don’t forget Debian either. You can read my Slack-Debian comparisons on my blog under “Linux Related”.

Comment by hari — February 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 on Debian GNU/Linux
Hari - I’ve read it! I just don’t have a fast enough connection to download Debian - but I’ll buy the CDs/DVDs when I do get the urge…

Comment by J_K9 — February 14, 2006 #
Using Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.1 on Windows XP
probably then did my first because I got competing the dead

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