Chakra Project Review - A inovative fork of arch

Chakra Project Linux Distribution - A state of art, fork of arch :-)

This comes as a surprise to me. I tried arch before, it was pretty cool like I mentioned here.

This distro is a fork of arch, as in, it's based on arch, but with a continuous work in progress to implement unique tools, develop it to make it more focused on stability, fully KDE oriented and only KDE. 

So why it isn't  "based" on arch, but a "fork" ? Simple, as in, simple. 

For example, when I meant stability oriented, I meant that the "base" system is only updated when fully tested to deliver a stable experience, however, top applications like desktop experience (kde and related apps) are all updated as they are released. But even the base system is pretty updated, for example, it uses kernel 3 while most "stability" oriented distributions like debian still use kernel 2.x. 

The Live experience (which is a process that you can test the distribution without installing it) will ask the user if he wants to use non-free software, if he selects Yes, then during the Live experience and when the user proceeds to the installation, will automatically install nvidia for nvidia cards and Catalyst for ATI/Radeon graphic cards.  

Now, let's start with the installation.

Automation is a usefull tool these days, if you don't want to spend a lot of time installing and personalizing package by package what your distro will have. The installation is pretty unique with a KDE feel all over. Easy setup without a big knowledge of Linux. Everything is just there with a fancy, yet clean GUI. 

With arch, you'll have to install a base system, then Xorg, then the display drivers, then a window manager, then a desktop shell and in the meantime, configuring as you install. Well, Chakra does all that for you. This is a perfect distribution for novice and geek users, because there is only so much you can do with Chakra Linux and go as further as you want to.

There is somehow a perfect balance, between using the distribution for all your wanted tasks, and maintain it as you wish. Everything worked out of the box straight away. 

I installed the nvidia drivers then using pacman using the following methood:

sudo pacman -Syu
sudo pacman -Rdd libgl
sudo pacman -R xf86-video-nouveau
sudo pacman -R nouveau-dri

sudo pacman -S nvidia
sudo pacman -S nvidia-utils

sudo nvidia-xconfig

Using the following tutorial here. Help for ATI users is also there :-)

Some unique features about Chakra: 

- Appset-Qt - A software manager to manage all the software that you wish to install, uninstall and update with a "news" in the main window, to let you know what's going on in development. Once you select a package, you'll have all the dependencies installed. It's a front-end for pacman, and a pretty good one too ;-)

Thank's to abveritas @ freenode network for the screenshot, since mine was in Portuguese :D

- Software Bundles - Ready to click - download & run without any necessary dependencies. For example, gimp requires pretty much almost all gnome-base system and libs, and here, the development team was able to get gimp working without any sort of dependencies, kinda like a portable application. And it has pretty much the basic needs of a common user! :-)

Neat eh ? Everything is just there, no need to smash your head forever against a wall. No more headaches about a software that won't install because it requires X and the X requires Y but why won't install because Z isn't installed. :P This way everything is downloaded and ran when required by the user. For example, flash is not installed by default, but once you download a browser, it comes with flash. So it's a pretty complete experience.

Also, Chakra does not use Arch repositories, as they differ on version numbers and vision of implementation.

There is a lot of under the hood work that make Chakra diferent from any other distribution. The team os focused on a KISS idea (Keep It Simple, Stupid). The fact that is KDE oriented, using mostly KDE tools to manage the distribution configuration, having some personalized unique tools, brings a lot of power to the end user, the fact that is pretty fast, highly customizable, powerfull tools to both novice and advanced users, makes chakra a distribution of choice. 

It's still though, a very young Linux Distribution but with a very promising future, delivering a cutting edge experience to the user with unique tools.

To implement:

The team will start to implement soon "akabei", which is a package manager different from pacman bringing a different GUI for a software manager and will support package signing, which pacman still doesn't at least at 100%, which is a lot safer.

Implementation of lvm, raid, etc.. 

Improved installation processed, called "Tribe" at the moment. It works for what it's needed and solid, but there is still a lot of work in progress since most of announced bugs are installation related. 

I did not ran into any problems during installation, for what I needed, tribe was rock solid and worked like a charm, but then again, I was doing a standard install on a second hard drive :-)

Chakra has an outstanding wiki and online support via IRC @ freenode #chakra. People were very helpfull and friendly and any question I asked was promptly answered. 

Final: Chakra is an outstanding and interesting Linux Distribution to learn with a very promising future. I can't wait to see how it turns out in a few months with all of the ideas to implement. This will make Chakra a unique distribution and in no we might see Chakra based Linux distributions coming out :-) 

Website

Download

Special thank's to abveritas @ freenode for the tips :-)