Review: Kahel OS (Page 1 of 1)
Written by
Samuel Wang
Posted on: Nov 23, 2009 at 04:02pm
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To start off, Kahel OS is based on Arch Linux. Therefore, Kahel OS embodies most of the ideals that Arch Linux has. On top of that, Kahel OS does simplify the installation process that may stumble new Linux users. Kahel currently supports 32 bit. 64 bit support is in progress.
Yes, I have been an Arch Linux user for nearly an year...( migrated from Ubuntu) and have found Arch Linux amazing, This review would attempt to find the improvements Kahel OS has over the standard default Arch Linux. Kahel OS is initiated by Team 8liens
(for more info about them please go to http://www.8layertech.com/)
The version I am testing is August 2009 version 0.8-2. It was to my surprise and joy that Kahel OS utilizes the user friendly GNOME desktop. So without much further ado I started the installation process.
Grub boot 
Upon booting, I was greeted by a console login screen. It's not too impressive, but upon remembering Kahel's roots, I went on without thinking too much about it
Ran the setup command /kahel/setup and was greeted my a text based installer somewhat similar to Arch linux I was at first kinda puzzled. An installer the same as Arch Linux? Whats the point? But upon further prodding, I realized they simplified much of the installation process. There would be no actual need to modify the grub menu lst and the rc conf.
For this review , I chose auto prepare for simplicity sake and at the same time testing the functionality of Kahel's installer.
Another outstanding point is that there will be no need to choose the packages needed for your system.. Therefore , simplifying the installation process by quite a far bit. The packages installed by default would consist of gdm, xorg, hal, gnome and many more.
After installing the packages, I than proceeded to configure the system. Not much to do. Most of it has already been automated. All that was needed was to add a hostname, create your account and change the good'ol root password.
Up next would be to install the bootloader. The one and only default bootloader that comes with Kahel installation cd is Grub ( lilo and grub 2 is available in the repositories).
The auto generated grub config would be sufficient to boot up successfully. For further editing, vi or nano are provided. For the sake of my brain, I chose nano. After editing, I issued the command to reboot and waited in eager anticipation.
With hal installed, most of the configurations, including xorg, worked perfectly fine. Well, and out of the box. 
And I was greeted with the gdm login screen ( note its the older gdm that still supported gdm themes)
Upon logging in, I was greeted by a nice and tangy orange theme. Network works fine too thanks to the autoconfigurations of networkmanager. The theme provided an overall consistent feel, making Kahel a nice and sleek distro. If you like gnome, you would probably love KahelOS. Yes, a standard run of the mill gnome. On the other hand, Kahel OS, a rolling distro, would mean that your days of major and messy upgrades are gone.
Pacman would be the Kahel OS package manager. Kahel also uses package kit as a gui front end for pacman. Though, personally I would have preferred Shaman as the gui for pacman. A word of caution though. Don't bother trying to enable the testing repos, as you would most likely destroy your system in a blink of an eye.
If you think that there aren't enough packages in the repos, you could always check the AUR (arch user repository) where people would upload the pkg build to install software.
Some Arch Linux users would ask why bother with such a distro when one of the plus points of Arch Linux is to allow the user to configure the system him or herself? Well, Kahel OS would be rather convenient for those who want the sleekness and speed of Arch Linux with out spending too much time on it. Plus, the default configuration of Kahel OS only used up bout 180 mb ram upon logging in to desktop.
A quick list of applications that would auto start up are syslog-ng, netfs, cron, dbus, hal, gdm, fam, cpufreq, avahi, network manager, bluetooth, ntpd, rpcbind and cups.
My personal rant would include the default orange theme. Yes, a trivial matter, but every bit and parcel contributes to the system. I cant fault them for using package kit, but I would have preferred if they used a less generic package manager frontend.
Plus points are that Kahel OS is that It is a rolling distro, the simplified installer and a friendly online community. ( yes community support is always important )
I would look forward to see Kahel OS further incorporate Arch Linux's flexibility into the installer and yet maintaining Its simplicity. Like giving users an option to choose a group like full/light desktop or desktop with multimedia needs during the installation proccess. A gui installer would also be an good addition for Kahel OS.
In conclusion, Kahel OS would be wonderful for anyone looking for a fast, sleek, and yet easily configurable system. Why don't you give it a try ?
For more info, please visit their site at http://www.kahelos.org/ and their forums at http://www.kahelos.org/forum/ (note forum will change soon ) and their irc at http://chat.kahelos.org/.
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