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Linux Business Operating Systems Software Linux

Recent Apt-Gettable Goodness From Ark, Conectiva 171

Posted by timothy from the slickness dept.
JimLynch writes "When you think of Linux, certain names spring to mind: Red Hat, SuSE--even Libranet. But you almost never hear someone say "Hey, did you download the latest version of Ark Linux?" Well, it's too bad, because Ark Linux might someday be a viable contender for the Linux desktop crown and it surely deserves some recognition as such at this point. Despite being labeled an alpha, Ark Linux is one amazing little distro." In other distro news, lmvaz writes "Conectiva, the biggest Linux distribution of Brazil and South America released yesterday the 'Conectiva Linux 10 - Technology Preview 2,' bringing the kernel 2.6.1, KDE 3.2 rc1, Gnome 2.4, Mozilla 1.5, OpenOffice 1.1, etc. The release notes are available here and the torrents for download are here. The final release is expected by the end of the first semester of this year. It's a nice bundle for people wanting to help getting the 2.6 linux kernel in shape."
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Recent Apt-Gettable Goodness From Ark, Conectiva More

Recent Apt-Gettable Goodness From Ark, Conectiva

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  • Recognition = money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:35PM (#8082442) Journal
    as in all other things, if you can afford to market a product to millions, you're likely to end up with a larger share of the pie. Whether it's worth it is up to you...

    Simon
    • I don't imagine that debian spend much money on marketing, yet it has a significant share of the Linux pie.

  • Not Debian based, Red Hat based (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:35PM (#8082443)
    It's not exactly apt-gettable goodness I'm afraid (which is too bad, apt-get is slick as hell).

    • Not true (Score:5, Informative)

      by boobsea ( 728173 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:39PM (#8082470) Journal
      APT is now avaliable for RedHat distros.. check out this page [freshrpms.net]

      • Re:Not true (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Fair enough, but the comment in the article was because they thought it was Debian-based, when in fact it is RedHat based. That was what I was talking about.

        I mean I guess we could say that FreeBSD isn't Linux based, but then someone would point out that you can run Linux binaries on FreeBSD. Doesn't change it. :)
      • Why do posts keep getting moderated up for this? It's been available forever, has been posted in many Slashdot stories [slashdot.org] and posts. Is this actually a great feature that tons of people use, or is it something RedHat users just feel a need to exclaim that they're no longer lacking? How many times do I have to respond "The people putting the packages together matter more than the final interface used to install the packages."?

        Does anyone know how to search for "apt" and "red hat" in posts? (I don't see an

        • Why do posts keep getting moderated up for this? It's been available forever, has been posted in many Slashdot stories and posts.
          This is Slashdot... people don't read the stories or the comments, they just post at random.

          Besides, lots of people still seem to be ignorant of the existence of apt for RPM-based systems. Most also don't know about Yum, which is a more RPM-native tool with apt's functionality. Opening their eyes never hurts.

        • Re:Not true (Score:2, Informative)

          by optikSmoke ( 264261 )

          How many times do I have to respond "The people putting the packages together matter more than the final interface used to install the packages."?

          Indeed, I agree -- using apt on *RedHat* is a chore because of this (believe me, I used to use that combination). However, you should not lump all RPM-based distros into this category. Mandrake (with urpmi) works beautifully, and the main reason is they have employed an intelligent package-naming and dependency scheme (like Debian's, I believe) and have a tool

          • I always liked Mandrake's urpmi stuff in theory, but in practice it seems to break in the same ways old RPM stuff breaks: complaints of missing dependencies (though I thought urpmi was supposed to resolve and fetch those automatically), packages that require mutually contradictory packages (probably not urpmi's fault, but still...), and mysterious refusals to carry out commands. I usually end up having to download and install by hand, and when that inevitably fails, figure out what's missing and download t
            • It may depend on what version of mandrake you are running on and what sources you have setup. When I ran mdk9.1, I had about 7 unoffical package sources and there were some problems like this -- mainly due to conflicting versions of the same package on different sources. In mdk9.2, however, I only use main, update (both official), contribs (officially "hosted" but not "supported" IIRC) and PLF (unofficial). These are the well-maintained sources, and I haven't had any problems in 9.2 with them. I think, alth
        • Huh? He corrected someone who obviously doesn't know this.
      • Unfortunately, even if you're using apt on a RedHat-based distro, you're still using RPMs.
    • If you like APT-like tools then check out this!

      http://www.t17.ds.pwr.wroc.pl/~misiek/rozne/fc2/ po ldek-for-rpm-based-distro.txt
    • Connectiva is the original "apt-get for RPM with repositories on the CD and updates" distro. Everyone else who has has produced an apt-rpm distro has taken their work as a basis, and you can even see Connectiva's name in the apt-get binaries somewhere, though I don't remember how I ran across it. My distro (LinuxTLE) uses their apt work, as well.
      So, I'm sorry to inform you that, for once at least, the editors were not wrong on this, and their "apt-get goodness" doesn't need to mean debs.

  • Ark Linus is the best, except (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:36PM (#8082453)
    For some reason, it contains two of every binary.

  • Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gantrep ( 627089 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:37PM (#8082457)
    Why do we need so many distros when we already have 1 or 2 well developed, well supported good ones? Instead of making a thousand for different purposes, why not just make it easier to customize Red Hat or Suse to fit all those purposes(i.e. LinuxBBC, uclinux, etc)?

    • Answer (Score:5, Informative)

      by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:40PM (#8082474) Journal
      I'd suggest it's a combination of 'not-invented-here' syndrome, along with a gross under-estimation of the amount of work required. There are exceptions, but I'd guess most fall into this...

      Waay back in the mists of time, when slackware was on single-figure floppies, I wrote and distributed the 'MDK', a unix-like distribution for the Atari-ST using MiNT as the unix-like kernel. It's bloody difficult, even with the relatively-tiny number of packages that I used, to keep everything in sync. It didn't help that compiling gcc took 8 hours, either :-)

      Simon.

    • Re:Question (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:19PM (#8082669)
      Because when you have only one [redhat.com] or two [debian.org] choices, you might find yourself with one of the two choices stabbing their loyal end-users in the back (I have a friend named Fedora who swears it'd never happen however ...).

      When you have 150.000 choices, 149.995 of them may suck, and most of them may disappear eventually due to the process of survival of the fittest, but at least you can fall back on something. Less choice isn't good.
    • Likely because we don't have so many good distros.

      RedHat is really bad, at least in all my experience.
      Debian has a lot going for it, but I find it very counterintuitive.
      I like SuSE, but it's proprietary, so that's a no-go.
      Mandrake's organization is so bad, it's painful, and I've had severe errors with every install I've done of theirs.
      I like Slackware, because I know how it works and it has never fucked me over. On the other hand, it does very little for me, which is likely why it doesn't blow it.

      Can't sp

    • Re:Question (Score:2, Informative)

      by Bero ( 93841 )
      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,
      • Hi Bero, been awhile since I saw your name mentioned -- IIRC it was back when Mandrake got started. Interesting points, I've been wondering if it was possible to do it all in a single distro. It may be possible IMHO but it hasn't been done yet.

        For years now I've thought that there needs to be a single software DB that *all* of the package managers and installers can use, even for source tarballs. FWIW I'm using Fedora and yum, but I'd like to be able to use the main Debian repositories also. Time to look at

    • Wrong question. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Frater 219 ( 1455 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:20PM (#8082943) Journal
      Why do we need so many distros when we already have 1 or 2 well developed, well supported good ones?

      It isn't a question of "we need", and it never has been. People create new Linux distributions for the same reason a lot of open-source software gets created -- because they want to. This is an obvious result of freedom: people can do what they want to, regardless of whether it is what anyone says "we" need.

      In a free society, the motivation for individuals doing things is not that some authority thinks that society needs the outcome. Rather, it is that individuals choose to do things, for whatever obvious or inscrutable reasons they may have, using their own time, resources, and skills.

      What you could ask, instead, is: "What motivates people to create more Linux distributions, or other free software that's similar to existing software?" Human action is often inscrutable indeed -- we often cannot even correctly state in retrospect the precise reasons we ourselves make choices. However, I suspect that several factors may enter into the decision to make new software to accomplish the same goals as existing software:

      • Aesthetics. People have particular opinions and preferences for how things should be done. They write code and assemble collections of software that reflect these preferences, so they can work in a computing environment that is more fulfilling or enjoyable to them personally. Thus, people may create software that meets the same functional goals as existing software, but does so in a way they enjoy more.
      • Ethics. Many people believe that free software is a moral good, or that dependence on software under particular licenses is harmful or risky. Thus, people may create software that meets the same functional goals as existing software, but is under a different license. (See GNOME and KDE, or some folks' preference for BSD over GPL.)
      • Confidence. Some people feel more confident in using a tool if they have built it themselves, and therefore understand more fully than a tool built by someone else.
      • Control of development. Likewise, people may see an existing software project as hampered by constraints on its development, and create (or fork) a new one to reap specific benefits of control. For instance, Mandrake Linux was created originally as a fork of Red Hat optimized for Pentium processors. (The "constraint" on Red Hat was 386-compatibility.)
      • Quality. Sometimes, there's existing software that fills a need, but it is known to have flaws, or is built in such a way that it is difficult to prove correct or to make secure. A number of the non-Sendmail MTAs (particularly Postfix and Qmail) have been designed to avoid Sendmail's monolithic architecture and consequent security problems.

      Put another way, it is usually only from a particular (often, biased) perspective that two pieces of software meet all of the same needs and desires. It would be a short-sighted person indeed who complained that GNU Mailman is duplicative of the efforts that went into the writing of Majordomo. After all, people's interest in pieces of software (and in writing and assembling software) is so often individual -- not aggregate or social -- and nobody but the person doing it can really know why.

      • Re:Wrong question. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by OldJohnno ( 545767 )
        I think you've missed a very common reason people build things: it's fun and it can be very satisfying. Why would I design and build a table or chair for example, when there is plenty of quality furniture already available (and I can afford to buy it)? Same reason people are still writing text editors or building distros - they enjoy doing it. And IMO that's as good a reason as any...
      • It isn't a question of "we need", and it never has been. People create new Linux distributions for the same reason a lot of open-source software gets created -- because they want to. This is an obvious result of freedom: people can do what they want to, regardless of whether it is what anyone says "we" need.

        While creating new Linux distributions is an exercise of freedom, it is unwise and wasteful. There is a huge difference between 'competing' software implementations (ex. Sendmail vs. Exim vs. Postfix

        • Re:Wrong question. (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Frater 219 ( 1455 )

          This attitude is highly counterproductive in the open source community, where the tasks at hand are great and the available talent is currently limited.

          Those people's "talent" is only "available" to the people who own it, not to you or "the community". Only the people who choose to do whatever it is they do -- programming, making their own distributions, drawing pretty desktop backgrounds and Mozilla themes -- have the authority or ability to choose what is valuable for them to do.

          It doesn't matter w

          • The volunteers who write and collect free software are not doing it for your sake. You are fortunate that you can benefit at all from their efforts; you have no standing to complain that they "waste" their time on what they see as interesting or worthwhile to do.

            Wow, you are entirely missing my point. Of course people are free to do as they please and nobody is here to command them one way or other. On the other hand, in any community, there is wisdom in listening to others ideas before engaging in ones
    • well, that's what most of the 'different' distros are: "customize Red Hat or Suse to fit all those purposes", the different distros ARE those customisations.

      -
    • Because some of us don't like RedHat or Suse? Why should you

      A) Tell developers what to code? Do it yourself.

      B)Tell me what to use? Use it yourself.

    • Remember the Bluecurve controversy? Bero quitted RH over that, and started Ark Linux, AFAIR.

      Nice distro - once it hits 1.0, if an end-user comes to me asking for a distro recommendation and (s)he much prefers KDE over GNOME, I'd probably recommend Ark.

      It's probably the only large (in size) distro that does not ship GNOME, on the other hand (it does ship the libraries) so I would not recommend it for people who like both desktops. Least of all those who prefer GNOME, if that's not self-evident :)

  • Gentoo? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:38PM (#8082463)
    I use Gentoo; how does this affect me??

    • Re:Gentoo? (Score:5, Funny)

      by c0dedude ( 587568 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:17PM (#8082653)
      We'll tell you when your compile finishes.

      • Re:Gentoo? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Dasher42 ( 514179 )
        Ark's philosophy is very good to see. I think it has its place on the installation side of things.

        What I think is undersold is that fact that Gentoo can be used perfectly well based on binary packages. The reference platform contains a chunk of packages that can get you up to using KDE without a single compile.

        See, what all that ports business is about is upgradability. It used to be a pain for me to manage upgrades to my RedHat 7.x boxes, with RPM dependency hell. Now I have a laptop, a dual Xeon ser

  • Ark Linux in not "apt-gettable" (Score:4, Redundant)

    by 0x1337 ( 659448 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:38PM (#8082465)
    Ark Linux is not based on Debian, but is instead based on Red Hat. See the article - they admit that they've goofed.

    • Incorrect (Score:3, Informative)

      by boobsea ( 728173 )
      Ark is not debian based, as you state, but apt is avaliable for RPM based distributions:

      http://ayo.freshrpms.net [freshrpms.net]
    • yep, and as a result, i have no interest in ark linux. this is a huge, slick, press release. If I want a good desktop linux thats well developed and based on red hat, I'd use Mandrake (and I did, until I was shown the light that is apt-get and debian.. turns out I'm more comfortable with CONSOLE based tools).
    • apt4rpm (if I recall correctly) was developed by Conectiva employees, and Conectiva has used apt for several years, possibly since their first public release. They're not based on Debian, correct -- they're more like Mandrake, a Red Hat based distro that has diverged as it's matured.

      timothy

      • APT4RPM was developed (ported to RPM systems would be more accurate) by Conectiva about three years ago and was adopted officially on Conectiva Linux 6.0.

        It's very mature by now, has a strong community (check the project page [conectiva.com.br] and the mailing list [conectiva.com.br]) and has a lot of cool features that are not (yet?) available on Debian systems (like LUA scriptable interface, apt-shell, meta-repositories, instalation of packages by filenames, etc.).

        There's an article on LWN about it in particular which is worth reading f

    • 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 dpk

  • End of the first semester? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nothing says "professional" like scheduling release times around school semesters.

    "We'll fix those security vulnerabilities once these pesky midterms are done".
    • Its better than having your operating system ( made in you native language ) made by a corporation which contributes very little to your nation. Also keep in mind that Linux worked on the Linux Kernel while in school. Anyway, i know your making a joke but it erked me.

  • A comment... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by c0dedude ( 587568 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:45PM (#8082498)
    Alright, let's stop letting microsoft do all our visual design. Evidenced here. [extremetech.com] That looks remarkably like WinXP's Control Panel. I'm sorry, but the general trend in desktop distros, especially ones with KDE, is to make things look like windows. Can we please try to innovate a little more on the user interface? I use Enlightenment, I think it does a fairly good job of this. I mean, some of the top downloads for themes are based on Mac's OS X. We need a defined Linux-look and feel that's not based on something developed by someone else. The Linux desktop should not try to be a clone of the Windows. see here [lindows.com].

    • Re:A comment... (Score:5, Funny)

      by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:08PM (#8082625) Homepage
      Fersure. Quit copying Microsoft, and start copying someone who knows what they're doing -- Apple!

    • Re:A comment... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aliens ( 90441 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:17PM (#8082657) Homepage Journal
      We need a defined Linux-look and feel that's not based on something developed by someone else

      Well the problem with a defined look is that well it's a defined look. While we have so many choices you'll never have a defined look. Do we go with Englightment? Gnome? KDE? TWM? And then how do you make everyone use that?

      So going towards the Windows UI and tweaking it along the way is possibly a good thing. Remember MS has spent millions probably on researching the User Interface for Dummies. If we want linux to be on the worlds' desktops you can't ignore MS and Apple's work.

      • So going towards the Windows UI and tweaking it along the way is possibly a good thing. Remember MS has spent millions probably on researching the User Interface for Dummies. If we want linux to be on the worlds' desktops you can't ignore MS and Apple's work.

        Yes, but that means Linux, instead of having its own niche in the visual realm, will always be playing catch-up to Windows/MacOS. Do you really want the Linux GUI to be compared to Windows forever? "How much does this look like Windows? Not enough!
        • I agree, I just got an old G3 to learn OS X with and I gotta say it's very slick.

          If that's what you've been wanting from linux since 96 why would it be bad if we copied it?

          And I don't mean that we should copy these interfaces pixel for pixel, but we could take it and make the improvements that each need.
    • I thought the goal of KDE *was* to be exactly like Windows. Is it not? To make Linux attractive to the general masses of Windows users?
      • Since KDE can look like virtually anything you want it to, how can it be modelled after Windows? If the default looks like Windows, that's probably because more people are comfortable with it. But, then again, KDE default mouse behavior doesn't follow Windows', so they need to change that to be exactly like Windows, so I'll fire that off in an email to the developers. Thanks for your flamebait ... oops I meant input.
    • "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 g
    • First you need a structure.

      Once you've decided on the abstractions to represent (devices, file systems, My Documents etc.) and how they are modelled you can then worry about L&F.

      The main problem with the Windows GUI is the chaotic nature of the abstractions chosen, not the L&F.

    • I wrote a /. submission about this control panel style several years ago when Redmond Linux (now Lycoris) decided to use it. It is based on UI usability studies done by some major players, including, but not limited to, MS, but was not a copy of MS at the time. IIRC, it was that the two pane approach with more advanced features available on request was determined to be the way to go.
      So, it's in the public record as a good idea. Just because MS did it doesn't mean that they did it first or that it was th
    • Ummm, true. Personally I prefer Enlightenment, if it wasn't such a PITA to get it in Fedora OK. FWIW I still have all of the GTK themes and E themes archived from RH7 days, just in case I figure it all out. Hints?

  • Connectiva mirrors (Score:3, Informative)

    by DerOle ( 520081 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @03:56PM (#8082570) Homepage
    Go here [conectiva.com.br] for FTP and HTTP mirrors of the site.

  • Adios, Karma. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bfg9000 ( 726447 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:10PM (#8082631) Homepage Journal
    I don't want to attract flames en masse, but I am about to. Flame accordingly.

    A large part of leadership is doing what's best for the project, and that includes a) giving up control when required, and b) reorganizing where required in order to best utilize resources. This discussion of Ark Linux (which I've heard of but is basically a small player) has helped me to realize that we're being held back by our disunity as a community and our insistence on doing everything by ourselves individually instead of focusing on more communal efforts in which resources are shared for the common good.

    I think that the Linux distro leaders (not just Ark, I don't mean to single them out) should begin looking into the possibility of friendly mergers, a la the "mostly failed United Linux". There's a massive duplication of effort in the Open-Source and Free Software communities, and it is literally draining the already limited resources of the community. We have easily 100 different distros, 90% of them are clones of other distros or are so similar as to make themselves irrelevent, and they are all hard at work adding the new Gnome, the new KDE, the new *whatever* into their newest version instead of actually doing something innovative with their time. Linux still has useability issues that existed at the beginning, but everybody's too engrossed in dividing the miniscule Linux market share a hundred ways rather than working together to create a single magnificent system that would dwarf the proprietary competition and create massive acceptance and use of open software and operating systems.

    I understand that the guys who have their own distros love their distros and think that they are the best distros out there, but really, is that as important or worthwhile as working together on creating something totally new, rather than just duplicating other people's distributions and putting your own name on it? There are some great hackers out there putting out distros, but they'll never make a name for themselves compiling a distro that less than 20 people will use regularly. They should focus on doing something new, filling a niche that hasn't been filled yet.

    As Tina Turner sang, "We don't need another distro". But there are lots of things we DO need, and reaching out to others to propose joining forces would free valuable and talented people up to to valuable and talented things. I'm not questioning the motives of the distro leaders, and I don't mean to offend anybody or come off as bossy and demanding. I'm just saying that if we want Linux to succeed, we have to work together and make sacrifices. We should strive for unity and cooperation where possible, because we are currently NOT using our resources effectively.

    • Re:Adios, Karma. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dslbrian ( 318993 ) on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:30PM (#8082703)

      There are some great hackers out there putting out distros, but they'll never make a name for themselves compiling a distro that less than 20 people will use regularly. They should focus on doing something new, filling a niche that hasn't been filled yet.

      For some of the "little" distros, disparity spurs innovation. Some people focus on PC distros, some like embedded, some like doing live CDs. No one player is going to cover all these bases.

      I find it odd that some people think that the whole community should move as a united mass toward some commercial goal. I've got news for you, not all people have commercial goals. Not all people have your goals, and not all people need to have any goals. There is such a thing as an enthusiast. People have hobbies, and some of these enthusiast types like to do distros. So what if no one else uses it, it serves their interests, and to them mabye thats all that matters.

      • True, but it would be nice if we could be more innovating configurations of some meta-distro, particularly a live-CD-capable distro (e.g., Morphix [sourceforge.net]) instead of building distros from bare metal.

        With live CDs, having highly-targeted Linux distros is not much different than having an application that you just happen to launch by booting from CD. A robust, 85%-defined-via-a-distro-builder app meta-distro would make creating targeted live CDs as easy as creating application installers. One could even picture a

    • Think of all these side projects as a testbed where experimentation can produce new ideas. Hopefully, the best ones rise to the top.

      I believe it is analogous to the investment in R&D a commercial outfit would make.

    • Re:Adios, Karma. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bero ( 93841 )
      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

    • Choice (Score:2)

      by nuggz ( 69912 )
      The point of free software is that you can make a choice. You aren't stuck by what anyone else thinks of a situation, you can do what you think is best.

      Yes this will lead to what outsiders think of as wasted effort. But it is obviously worthwhile to the person who is expending it. People should be free to spend their time, money and energy on whatever they want.

      A community of choice and freedom will not have a single orderly progression, but that is okay.
    • Can't disagree with you more if I tried.
      What you are basically saying is "Hey you, you hobby programmer! Stop doing that thing that you're doing because you're having fun and do something else that you might not enjoy as much but is at least not done yet by somebody else. And do it quick dammit if you wanna beat MS someday. Whaddya mean you don't give a rat's a**?"

      There's a lot of duplicated effort because Linux is very much still a hobby OS for many people. To tell them to get organized and contribute to
    • This is based on the false premise that these contributors would continue to work on Linux if they were no longer "allowed" - whatever that concept is meant to imply here - on the things which interest them. Further to that it also implies the establishment of a Linux "authority", one determining which projects are valid or not. Linus himself disagrees with this.

      Linux is not a proprietary top-down mandated project. It's a volunteer effort encompassing the gamut from multinationals to government to high sch

  • Mozilla 1.5? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by localghost ( 659616 ) <dleblanc@gmail.com> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @04:16PM (#8082651)
    So they have the latest beta of KDE, but they can't have the most recent stable Mozilla release?
    • 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.

  • Its a joke, don't mod me down.

  • wtf? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It always annoys me that every time a redhat/kde-based distro comes out, people complain that it should include gnome. If you want redhat-gnome distribution just get the damn fedora core and you'll be all set. There isn't a good, free, redhat complaint kde distribution (I'm not counting mandrake...that thing is not nearly as simple as redhat...it has way too much stuff in it. Fedora core has just the basic things in it and thats the reason why i like it). I can install suse and be happy with it, but they do

    • Re:wtf? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Bero ( 93841 )
      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.

      • Re:wtf? (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Last time I used ark linux, it didn't let me customize my patritions/hard drives. Is that fixed in later versions?

        • Re:wtf? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Bero ( 93841 )
          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!
    • one word. Debian.

      Why put up with what others want in a distro, when you can decide yourself. I don't see why people are so hung up on RPM either.

  • Ark Linux? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Isn't Ark Linux the dstribution someone made solely because of Red Hat removing the KDE Credits from Red Hat 8.0? Isn't a distro based on a pissing contest a bad idea?

    • Re:Ark Linux? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bero ( 93841 ) <bero.arklinux@org> on Sunday January 25, 2004 @05:47PM (#8083060) Homepage
      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.
  • i read thru the article and still cant figure out why there appear to be three isos for this distro when only 1 is necessary and the third not even mentioned. anybody know what it does?

    btw, the torrent should be moving along pretty well, im giving over 200k up

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