Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: 09.19.2007 at 12:52pm
Section: Reviews
Ark Linux is a distribution that strives to provide the end user with the easiest possible install and the greatest ease of use. Indirectly derived from Red Hat Linux, it really strives to set itself apart as the preferred distribution for the new user to Linux. But exactly how user friendly is Ark Linux? Is it friendly enough for a new user to use and install? Well, let's look at what it offers and what the desktop can do.
Installation
Upon booting up the install cd, I came across what I believe is a rather funny opening screen. Its not that it asks you how you want to install Ark, but rather it's the way they do the screen that's funny. The screen gives you a simple list of quick install, advanced install, and expert install. That's pretty typical of most distributions. The part that makes it so funny is what it does next. If you notice the screenshot below, Ark actually has the audacity to tell you how to use your mouse. 
That's the part I found funniest. But in an odd way, that can also be good because since they're targeted towards the new user, giving them a little nudge in the right direction can't hurt any.
After selecting your language, of which Ark appears to cover a wide number of them, you're immediately on your way towards having a fully installed Linux system. That's actually quite impressive given that most distros ask you enough questions during install, even in the easy install mode, to make an IRS agent proud. Not all, but a fair number do. Even in expert mode, the number of questions you're asked is utterly minimal. This distro has to have one of the simplest install systems I've seen in a while. Another funny I ran into was that while the system is installing, the installer offers you a game of Tetris you can play to help keep you occupied while the installer does its work. The odd part is, you really never get time to enjoy the game because the install is so short. It took just under twenty minutes to install the full system An impressive achievement by any stretch of the imagination.
The developers were even nice enough to include an option that asks you if you want to finish your game first, or reboot now at the end. Kind of funny, but oddly appropriate I guess. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to give up your game right away. Especially if you were winning.
Testing the System
When you first boot the system, you may notice that the initial bootup takes a bit longer than some other distributions do. Not sure why that is, but it may just be final hardware and system setup. Once you're past that point you'll find that you're greeted with the KDE first use wizard. What makes this interesting is that mixed into the settings for this is several options that are apparently specially tailored for Ark. It's quite an interesting surprise. Once on the desktop I went in and looked around a bit and found that Ark uses KDE 3.5.7 for its desktop environment. That's an immediately plus with me. Digging into the OS a bit further I found that everything had been really simplified with few power user options that hadn't been replaced with some kind of simplification tool. One good thing to note though is that the KDE control center is, for the most part, completely untouched. A pure, unadulterated KDE control center. I was very happy to see that. But now you might ask, "Doesn't that defeat the theme of simple put forward by Ark?" Not really. If you still want simple, Ark has included something called "Mission Control" which takes the KDE control center and downsizes it into a very simple and easy to use PC management system. One big downside I did find though is that if you want to do any kind of hardware management, outside of changing resolutions, you'll need to dive into the console in order to do it.
Next I tested peripheral support to see how well it would handle some of the extras items I found listed in the control center. One of those was a digital camera. While I only had a Kodak C330 easy share to test with, it didn't matter. Ark never saw it. Nor did it see the joystick I tried either, even though both of these were listed as items in the control center that Ark supported. Since I've never personally seen either one of these options before, some of these problems may be due to their newness. But at the same time, that may not be entirely the case considering what else I found as I continued to test the system. I found USB support to be shaky at best. I plugged in a pen drive to copy over a few files and ended up fighting Ark to get it to handle the drive properly. At one point during my testing it even zeroed out a few test files on the drive and in another instance it completely wiped the contents of the drive. Not very reassuring in my opinion. It's something the developers will need to work on for the future. I did a little surfing around to see if I was the only one having this issue and was surprised to find that I'm not. Several others who tried Ark encountered the same issues.
Digging further I found that Ark saw both of my cd and dvd drives. The downside to that is Ark thought they were hard drives and couldn't mount them. As a side effect to that, the system couldn't play any audio cd's or dvd's. To further grind the knife in I found that wireless didn't work right at all, and most of the USB devices, including wireless mice (wired mice seemed to be the only USB item that *DID* work), had issues on the system. Some of them pretty severe and show stopping. What's odd about that is that the same wireless mouse that ran fine during the install and during previous testing with another system, failed to work right in Ark and kept having to be unplugged and replugged and even hard rebooted to get it to work. To be sure it wasn't the mouse that had taken a dump I tried it on another system and even booted into Knoppix and found that it worked fine. So it's obviously not the mouse. Also, Ark failed to properly detect several other pieces of hardware on my system as well, including my video and network cards, both of which are mainstream cards that are well supported. Video worked for the most part, but I couldn't do anything 3d. Certainly no Beryl. As for the network card, while I found that it had added the network card, I could do nothing on the network. This card has not failed once in any other distro before or since. If you put a live cd in for another distro such as PCLOS, everything works fine. So the fault here lies entirely with Ark.
But aside from the hardware issues, on a software level, Ark is a very good system. I figure that if the developers sort out the hardware issues, Ark will rival some of the other major distros that are designed for new users in many ways. And speaking of that software, let's have a look at what Ark does offer you in that area.
Software and Multimedia
Out of the box, Ark comes with a fair amount of good software already installed and ready to use. When you first boot into the system, you'll find Korganizer already setup, running in the systray and ready to use should you need it. You'll also find that a link to Kontact and three of the main OpenOffice applications are available to you in the quick launch bar. The available version is 2.2 and includes all of the elements of the office suite. I found the load times for OpenOffice to be pretty good and it seemed to run without any real glitches. Digging further I found tons of great KDE apps and applets available to help the end user should they need to do any of a wide variety of things. I tested MP3's and found that they played well, and that Ark uses the KMPlayer by default for these. Certainly not the best player, but a good enough one. Amarok is also included in case you decide you want to try something else. Sadly though, when you dive in looking for internet apps, you may find a lot of KDE applications, but you won't find Firefox, Opera, or any other mainstream browser or internet applications.
Now if you want to add those, you an simply install them via the package management system. Ark uses a clone of Synaptic called Kynaptic. Obviously I wasn't able to get the internet running, so I don't know how well Kynaptic works, but I do have to say that it's not a package manager I like. It was too over simplified to the point of being essentially useless. Also, you had to really do some digging just to find the installer as it wasn't very well labeled or well placed. For a distribution to properly service the new user, it needs to have key tools and utilities as icons on the desktop. Something a user can see that's clearly labeled "install software" or something similar, as it is in DesktopBSD. A user new to Linux should not need to go on a scavenger hunt to find their most important items when they first load the system. If you want to keep a new user, you have to hold their hand a bit when they first start using the system and blow their socks off as soon as they're in the door. PcLinuxOS, DesktopBSD and several others do this nicely by providing just the right amount of help to get the new user started without going overboard and dumbing things down too much or making it too hard to use.
You really need to strike an even balance between the needs of the new user and the needs of the experienced user if you want a system that will not only meet a new users needs, but can grow with them as they become more familiar with Linux and more experienced with it. If you only help them get in the door, they'll tend to hit a point where they've grown beyond your system and will thus move on to another system that provides their needs, or they may go back to what they once had. It's an observation that all Linux distros which cater to the new user should consider.
Now as for the KDE menu, I found that in good shape and relatively untouched, save for a little reorganizing that puts things in an order that tends to be much easier to navigate. The selection of games that Ark offers is also quite nice. So that's a plus if you play a lot of the little solitaire and pocket sized games on your computer. There's even a minesweeper game if you're bored enough.
Conclusion
Overall Ark is a pretty decent OS for the new user. It's got some rather bothersome show stopping bugs that need to be worked out before I can recommend it to new users, but like any little lump of coal, at some point in time it's going to turn into a little gem. So there is a lot of hope there for the future. Depending on how well Ark matures over the coming months and years, especially in how it handles hardware, I can't really see where this particular distribution couldn't easily find its way onto my short list of recommended distributions for the new user. It's certainly got the potential.
If you'd like to download, try, or just explore Ark Linux, you can find them on the internet at: http://www.arklinux.org/