Review: Chakra 2015.11 "Fermi"

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Not only has it been a while since I've done a Linux distribution review on this blog, but it has been an especially long time (over 2.5 years, in fact) since I've looked at Chakra. I figured that now that KDE 5 (technically incorrect terminology, I know, but please bear with me, as I'm using this for the sake of brevity) is being used in Chakra, it may be time to see how a distribution I've rather liked in the past has evolved. In case you don't remember, Chakra was originally based on Arch Linux, but a few years ago, it branched off into its own independent distribution with its own repositories, though certain tools (like the package manager Pacman) are based on things found in Arch Linux. It focuses exclusively on KDE, and it uses a semi-rolling release model in which core system packages are updated less frequently in order to maintain stability, while front-end applications seen by users most often are updated more frequently to provide a competitive desktop experience.

I tried this on a live USB using the "dd" command; as in my review from over 2.5 years ago, neither UnetBootin nor MultiSystem work anymore for reliably creating Chakra live USB media. This wasn't a terribly difficult thing to do, but in any case, the Chakra wiki contains a little more information for people who might need a little more help with these steps (especially if they are new users from Microsoft Windows who are trying a Linux distribution for the first time). Additionally, note that Chakra can only be used on 64-bit computers. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: KaOS 2014.04

It's been a while since my last review. Now I'm a bit more free because the semester ended over a week ago. At the moment I'd really like to get my hands on the official release of Linux Mint, but that isn't out yet. In the mean time, though, I'm going to check out KaOS.

Main Screen + KDE Homerun Kicker Menu

This distribution caught my eye from a DistroWatch review. That review concludes that it isn't clear exactly what the goal of this distribution is. Looking at the website more, I can't say that it's any clearer to me either. All I can glean is that this distribution aims to please more experienced users with a rolling-release model, maintain a small base of packages so that those will be polished before use, and target newer computers by using KDE and only 64-bit releases. I'll have to try this distribution out to see if there is any more information regarding the target audience of this distribution. I tried KaOS on a live USB made with MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 April 7

There was one post this past week that got one comment, so I will repost that.

Long-Term Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

An anonymous reader asked, "Is there any reason not to use pacman -Syyu instead of pacman -Syy followed by pacman -Syu (or even instead of pacman -Syy followed by pacman -Su)?"

Thanks to that person for posting that. This coming week, I have holidays on Monday and Tuesday, giving me time to relax and perhaps post a distribution review. Other than that, I will probably post another thing about physics as well. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Long-Term Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

I did this long-term review on my normal UROP desktop computer with the 64-bit edition of the OS. Follow the jump to see how it fared. Also do note that there are more days logged because I intend to use it for about 60-80 full hours of work, which is the equivalent of 7-10 full days in the summer, though now I am working on a part-time basis as classes have started.

Featured Comments: Week of 2013 February 10

There was one post this past week that got a handful of comments, so I will repost all of those.

Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

Reader Mechatotoro had this to say: "Very useful review, thanks. I am also tempted to install Chakra..."
Commenter crabdog shared, "Had a bit of a play with it on a virtual machine. It looks pretty cool but would take something even better to make me change from my Netrunner KDE installation which I am still loving."
An anonymous reader said, "Looks like this is the best release the chakra team ever had".
Another anonymous commenter had this bit of support: "Thank you, great rewiev, keep tracking Chakra :)"

Thanks to all those people for commenting on that post. This coming week, I intend to start a long-term review of Chakra, though that of course won't finish for a few weeks. Until then, I may or may not have other distribution reviews out. However, I do intend to post a bit more about physics- and school-related stuff, and that will pick up this week. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Chakra 2013.02 "Benz"

Main Screen + KDE Kickoff

It's been a while since I looked at Chakra, so I was thinking now might be a good time to do that. Plus, KDE 4.10 just came out with a whole bunch of new features and fixes, so I wanted to check that out too. So this is the subject of today's review.

I've tried Chakra a number of times before. It was originally derived from Arch, but since a couple years ago it has been developed in a fully independent manner. It uses a "semi-rolling" release model, in which applications like Mozilla Firefox and other front-end features like KDE are updated on a rolling basis, while core system components are held to be more stable.

I tried this (64-bit version, as there is no 32-bit edition anymore) on a live USB system made through the "dd" command; due to Chakra now using the GFXBoot tool for booting, neither MultiSystem nor UnetBootin worked, and I didn't have any other data on this USB drive, so I was OK with using that tool. This review almost didn't happen because right after the boot menu, the message "invalid or corrupt kernel image" would come up. I decided to give this one last shot by downloading the ISO file again and trying again, and it worked! Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 July 8

There was one post that got a handful of comments, so I will repost most of them.

Long-Term Review: Chakra 2012.05 "Archimedes"

Reader manmath sahu suggested, "prasanth, liked the review very much and the way it's done over a period of 8 days is very useful. please take Stella (a CEntOS remaster) linux for a spin. i found it good, but would like to know about your experience."
Commenter abveritas, who I think is a leading developer of Chakra itself, had this to say, among other things: "Chakra being a rolling release, it is an absolute must to always update the system, before installing any package. Seems quite a few packages were installed during this review, which were build on newer deps, but only the new app was installed, not the system properly updated. One other thing that is an absolute must on a rolling distro, is for all our users to read the news, when seeing a fairly large update, there is no other way to give sometimes needed instructions to update correctly. In this case, using the rm command was very wrong, and in most cases would have killed pacman, the correct way to update was in the news, forums, and all social sites, to make sure all users would be reached.
http://chakra-linux.org/news/index.php?/archives/68-Manual-intervention-needed-with-next-pacman-Syu.html For the rest, really pleased to see you taking the time to put Chakra thtough a serious test, and hopefully we can get some logs, to see why the crashes, since it would be great to try and reproduce, so a fix can be found. Any and all logs you are willing to provide from /var/log would be greatly appreciated."
Reader Jagdeesh Deshpande said, "Good that you got another PC. It has certainly helped to give depth to your reviews. I always try real installations on one of 6 ext4 partitions among sdb6 to sdb11. Hence presently I can compare mint 9, LMDE-64-mate-cinnamon, openSUSE 12.1, and kububtu 12.04 Before a week, I installed kubuntu 12.04 LTS after a long wait for Mint 13 KDE and feel that at last I have found successor of mint9. In openSUSE 12.1 the configuration module for Wacom Bamboo CTH-460 is broken and so I can't make the touch 'off' and this is interfering very badly moving the courser due to my finger's touch while using the pen. In Kubuntu 12.04 the configuration tool is working as in Pardus 2011.2. The trouble with kubuntu is- by default hibernation is disabled. If 'sudo pm-hibernate' (in konsole) hibernates the system, enable it by referring the forum post https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/ubuntu-help/power-hibernate.html Then I added plasma widgets plasma-widget-quickaccess plasma-widget-lancelot and @ 25 applications Now i am very satisfied with it and may not install mint13kde. If Kubuntu 12.04 is not in your list and this creates interest in you to try Kubuntu 12.04, your review will be very much useful for the Linux community. Thanking for the indepth review."
Commenter Kartik had this suggestion: "Hi Prashant, good review. I myself have used chakra for almost 3 months and found it to be a really fast KDE distro. If you are looking for something long term on your PC I suggest you give Mageia 2 KDE a spin. I found it to be very stable, fast and polished."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, there will be another long-term review published, and the review I was going to do of Fuduntu 2012.3 has been briefly incorporated into that. Depending on how things work out, I may be able to do another regular review as well. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Long-Term Review: Chakra 2012.05 "Archimedes"

For those of you who don't know what this is about, this post should clear things up. Essentially, I now have another computer upon which I can do tests of installed distribution sessions for several days at a time. There will be three more posts like this one this summer; I may or may not be able to continue it through the semester. For reference, I used the 64-bit minimal CD for live testing and installation. Follow the jump to read my experiences with Chakra over more than a week of use.

Review: Sabayon 9 KDE

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Over the last several months, I have become a fan of Chakra GNU/Linux. It seems like the best combination out there of stability, newness, and ease-of-use, as it uses KDE and is a rolling-release distribution. But even since before I found out about Chakra, there has been another distribution that aims to do all that, and that is Sabayon.

The last version of Sabayon that I reviewed was version 7, and it has been a while since that review. (If your memory needs refreshing, Sabayon is based on Gentoo and also uses KDE as its primary DE.) Since then, Sabayon has changed its GUI package manager and has of course brought in the usual round of application updates; I think it is now trying harder than ever to appear less amateurish, more professional, and more user-friendly, so we will see how that works out.

I tested [32-bit] Sabayon 9 KDE using a live USB made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 April 1

There was one post that got a few comments, so I will repost all of those.

Revisited: Linux Mint (KDE), Chakra, Fuduntu

Reader Andrew Wyatt, who is also the creator of Fuduntu, had this suggestion (which unfortunately did not work) for my Skype issues: "Try going to Preferences > Sound, then selecting the Hardware tab and then set the Profile to "Analog Stereo Duplex". Next, select the Input tab and then Click the radio button for Internal Analog Stereo (you'll probably find that it is not selected). Now set the Mic volume to whatever you want. Do a test call in Skype to see if your Mic works."
Commenter tracyanne said, " I've already moved to KDE on my Linux Mint 12 desktop. I was running LM 9 with GNOME 2 + Compiz, but an update broke something, basically Compiz stopped working, I could change the settings but they had no affect. So I upgraded to LM 12 and installed KDE then upgraded KDE 4.7.4 to 4.8.1 with the PPA."
Reader Randy had this suggestion: "Here is something for you to try! If you like gnome-do, gnome 2.3, compiz, then you should try Mint 12 LXDE and change the window manager from openbox-LXDE to Compiz! It's lighter than KDE and you can customize it to feel like Gnome 2.3. Best of all you will still have gnome-do available."
Commenter claudecat said, "Mint 12 KDE is a fine choice, and let's face it - gnome 2 is going to be gone forever at some point, and I have my doubts about MATE's longterm prognosis. For an even lighter KDE, you might try Arch or the dreaded Gentoo (230k ram use at idle with the full KDE installed - akonadi and nepomuk disabled). Not sure how or if your apps of choice would work with those however."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I hope to have two follow-up posts to some previous articles I wrote, and maybe something else (or maybe not). Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Revisited: Linux Mint (KDE), Chakra, Fuduntu

I had tried out all these distributions again last week (during spring break) and this week, but I didn't think that each of them warranted their own posts (and this is also why there were no posts last week), so I have decided to combine them all into a short summary of my experiences. I'm doing this because I'm seriously trying to figure out what I should start using after Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" GNOME. I tested the 64-bit (because my computer has 64-bit hardware) live USB sessions of all of these using MultiSystem. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

Review: KahelOS 020212

I have reviewed Chakra GNU/Linux a number of times here both before and after its split from the Arch base, and I have fairly consistently said that it is an amazing distribution and has a great implementation of KDE. But when it comes to Arch-based distributions, I have never tried the other side of the DE coin — GNOME — until now.

Main Screen + KahelOS Welcome Center

That is where KahelOS comes in. It is an Arch-based distribution that ships with GNOME and aims to make it user-friendly, though like Chakra, it expects that users will be at least somewhat willing to learn and work with the system. It was originally targeted at a primarily Filipino audience, but now it has a more international perspective.

I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in a VirtualBox VM in a Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" live USB host with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what this other offspring of Arch is like.

How-To: Make KDE Like Unity

I was going to do a review of PC-BSD, but unfortunately, that didn't work out (more on that later), so I'm doing this instead, though I had planned this for next week.

Vanilla KDE

Many months ago, I did a post on how to make KDE look more like Elementary OS. It was just one way of showcasing KDE's power and customizability. Now, I'm doing the same with regard to the Unity UI present in recent versions of Ubuntu. I know that a lot of people online have expressed displeasure with Unity along with the intention to use KDE instead. But what if you like the Unity UI but want the other features of KDE as well? Then this article is for you.

If you are using Kubuntu, this post is technically moot, because it is possible to use all of Unity 2D under KDE in Kubuntu without any issues; that is because Unity 2D is made with the Qt libraries, which also underlie KDE, so there's some compatibility there as far as I can tell. If you aren't using anything Ubuntu-based, though, then you're out of luck in terms of trying to use Unity 2D, so this is for you. I did this using a Chakra 2011.12 "Edn" live USB, so all my instructions will be based on that. If you are using another distribution, you may have to search online to see how some steps are done. Follow the jump to do it.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 December 25

Happy new year 2012! There were no "Featured Comments" posts the past 2 weeks as there were no comments that got posts those weeks. This week, there was one post that got a whole bunch of comments, so I'll repost a few of those.

Review: Chakra 2011.12 "Edn"

Reader Antonio Jones said, "I installed chakra today, not bad but i had some issues: - font rendering, i can' t live without ubuntu style of rendering fonts. Chakra don't look cool. Any solution to font rendering? - your bar is semi-transparent, how do you configure it? By the way, chakra looks like one of the best distros around kde. I like Pardus, but seems to have less popularity. Mandriva was a hell for me, but i like the way it does things."
An anonymous commenter had this experience to share: "I installed Chakra recently on a troublesome laptop. This laptop does not like the new 3.0 kernels with any distro. Chakra supplies a LTS kernel which works very well. I'm liking KDE after trying out Unity and Gnome 3. Chakra has a polished feel to it."
Reader 3rabuntu had this tip: "To preview videos, make sure you installed kffmpegthumbnail or mplayerthumbnail then enable it in Dolphin (Settings > General > Previews >Video Files). Also, you need to increase the limit to something like 2000 MB for local files (default is set to 5MB). KDE is a great platform and can be tweaked easily to your liking. It just doesn't have sane default options. Cheers"
Commenter TanKe said, "I have been testing chakra since almost the beginning. I loved to see an Arch made easy but it was terrible then with the software manager (Shaman) and they had a lot of conflicts too. Then they changed to their own packaging based or arch making it more stable but the tools they wrote (installer, package manager and so on fail to work properly from time to time. I'm going to test this very last Chakra to see if everything works this time."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I will have at least one review of some sort out. Another review may come either this week or next week. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting! And once again, happy new year 2012!
(UPDATE: I accidentally wrote the wrong date. I guess I still haven't gotten enough sleep. My bad!)

Review: Chakra 2011.12 "Edn"

There's a new build of Chakra out, and I have some free time to check it out, so I'm doing so now. The other reason why I want to try it now is because a member of my family was raving about KDE in Fedora, so I figured it would be worth my time to dig deeper and see if I can massage KDE into becoming something that I could really like and use regularly. I'll spare any introductions because I've reviewed Chakra enough times already, so I'll skip to the main part of it.

Kickoff + KDE System Monitor

There doesn't seem to have been too much changed from the last version, aside from updates of applications across the board. But now that the day is getting closer for me to look into upgrading from Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora", I'm not just going to do my usual testing, but I'm also going to dig a bit deeper and really see if I can recreate something at least as good as what I have right now. With any Ubuntu-based distribution, it's almost guaranteed to be a trivial process, but with Chakra, I can't say that with as much confidence off-hand. I did all the testing using a live USB made with MultiSystem; I did not test the installation. Also, do note that I tested the DVD edition this time, so it does have more stuff out-of-the-box than the CD edition, which is what I have tested in the past. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 July 24

There were two posts that got quite a few comments each, so I'll try to repost a few from each.

Review: Kongoni 2011 "Firefly"

Reader Znurre said, "Interesting review, thanks! I also agree with your view that 'easy to use' must not always mean 'newbie friendly'. A system that is easy and fast to work with, although pretty advanced as in this case, could very well be a good candidate for that term."
Commenter DarkDuck had another review linked: " Another review for those interested in Kongoni..."
Reader RavS had a slightly different, more general question: "Hi Prashanth. Quite a comprehensive review you have written! well basically I am Linux Mint user and I wanted to do a similar review on my own distro and submit on Distrowatch. Can u tell me how did u submit your entry at the distrowatch? Did u just sent them your article via mail with link of the blog in the subject?"

Review: Chakra 2011.04-r2 "Aida"

Commenter seenivasan had practically the opposite experience: "After impressed by so many positive reviews,I decided to try Chakra.It miserably failed with mulyisystem.The installer failed repeatedly at 90% of the installation process (while copying the INIRAMFS).Then I tried with copying ISO image with dd.I was able to install Chakra wihout any hiccups.But the system ceased at rebooting citing some problems in identifying partitions (depite some tweakig in grub menu). In a deperate attemt to taste the flavour of Arch linux,I installed Arch base system in my Dell inspiron as my fifth OS(along with Windows,Linux Mint, Bodhi Linux and Fedora).I could not establish the dial up connection in Arch linux.I was not able to download packages to switch to graphical environment.I sucessfully chrooted the arch base into my Linux Mint.I downloaded my favourite XFCE packages.I am having Arch linux in XFCE environment.It is fast and I love working with it. I should be grateful to Chakra, as it was instrumental in promting me to install ARCH."
An anonymous reader supported my findings: "Chakra is the best KDE distro I've tried. It seems really fast and light on resources."
Another anonymous commenter had a solution for one of my issues with Chakra: "Regarding to that rekonq issue, there's no search engine enabled by default. You can choose one from rekonq settings --> search engines."
Yet another anonymous reader said, "Chakra is for those who really like KDE, as it is absent of GTK to the point of not installing Flash. One may install GTK stuff, but all up to the user, and the default way is through bundles. That's why it has the best implementation of KDE that I've ever seen. Some options are not available on install, since it isn't a mature distro yet. Never seen any other distro make the latest realease of KDE available on the stable branch as fast as they do, and working flawlessly."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I plan to have an additional 2 reviews out, along with maybe two or three other posts. Once again, if you like what I write, please keep subscribing and commenting!

Review: Chakra 2011.04-r2 "Aida"

For a while, I've been reviewing Chakra GNU/Linux using only a VM because I've been unable to create a Chakra live USB system with UnetBootin and have been unwilling to use the destructive live USB tool "dd". Recently, though, I tried doing it with MultiSystem, and it worked fine, so I'm reviewing it today.

Main Screen + Kickoff Menu

Regular readers of this blog don't need much of an introduction to Chakra. It's a formerly Arch-based rolling-release distribution (though it is drifting farther and farther away) that aims to provide a user-friendly distribution with a good, clean implementation of KDE. That said, while it does target newbies, it also targets power users, KDE lovers, and Arch fans at the same time, and it hopes that its users are active in giving back to Chakra; that could be through simple things like filing bug reports or more involved things like actually participating in the development process.

As I mentioned earlier, I tested this release of Chakra using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I also tested the installation in a VirtualBox VM with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS; this was done in a Pinguy OS 11.04 Mini live USB session. Follow the jump to see what it's like, now that I'm finally testing it on real hardware.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 March 20

There were a few posts that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll try to repost most of those.

Review: Chakra 2011.02 "Cyrus"

Reader Znurre said, "Interesting and honest review as always. Good job :)"
Commenter hugo lobo had this clarification: "Thanks for the review. Also, one thing that surprised me was that Konqueror didn't have the WebKit rendering engine option even though it is at version 4.6; all it had was KHTML. Maybe I was supposed to get it from the repositories and I missed it. Exactly. You would have to install the 'kwebkitpart' package and than enable it on konqueror."
Reader DarkDuck said, "KOffice has been renamed to Calligra Suite ages ago..."

Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Commenter be_slayed posited, "Bott's article seemed rather uninformed and irrelevant to me. What do version numbers really matter? IE of course will survive because Microsoft backs it."
An anonymous reader said, "I stopped reading Ed Bott when I realized he was such a shill for M$. I agree with you that all 3 will survive and I hope Opera does as well. I switch from one to another depending. I find that Chrome has some problems with You Tube hanging, FF 3.6 is not as fast as Chrome or Opera and Opera has a few operational problems that I don't like. I find it hard to copy from Opera screens to an email when I want to send something to a friend - no idea why but it just not work as well then. If I could get that to work and also if I were able to pay a few bills with anything but FF I might choose Opera as my main browser."
These sentiments were shared by another anonymous commenter: "I have serious doubts about Ed Bott since reading his article, I am beginning to wonder about his true motives and credibility as a journalist. That said firefox is in no danger in the foreseeable future it is hugely popular and has unmatched extensibility. I use 26 addons regularly they are a vital part of my browsing experience and increase both my productivity and enjoyment on the web. Couldn't agree more re your comments on browsers generally they all bring something to the table and have matured into great tools."
Reader linuxblog asked, "What is about other browsers? Safari? Opera? And then, as soon as Firefox and Chrom(ium) are FOSS, there are (and will be) forks and re-brandings, like Iceweasel, Seamonkey &Co." One clarification that I forgot to mention is that Mozilla Firefox and Chromium are already FOSS and already have forks.
Yet another anonymous commenter had this small counterargument: "RE: Tabs on top versus tabs on bottom If you have the tabs on top directly at the top of the screen it will be easier to access than if you have them closer because if they're at the screen edge you can overshoot your mouse as much as you want and they'll still go farther. On the other hand, if tabs-on-top doesn't put the tabs right to the screen edge, tabs-on-bottom will be closer." The only other problem with this is that even if the titlebar is removed and the tabs really are on the top of the screen, there is typically a 1 or 2 pixel gap between the top edge of the tab and the top of the screen, so that "infinite" distance for the tab height is actually not really there, so that advantage is gone too.

Linux Mint Xfce: Now Based on Debian

Reader Barnaby said, "So much for Debian is not any longer relevant."

Ubuntu: Even the Computer-Averse Can Use It

Commenter joeoshawa had this little story: "I have an ex-wife i still get along with who never bothered with computers till a few years back. Her computer knowledge consisted of literaly 'the mouse thing moves the pointer and i know what the keyboard is for' She had no idea what windows was and no idea of what an operating system is nor how to use one. I decided to teach her to use ubuntu for various reasons and she has never looked back. When she tries to use her mothers pc which runs xp she gets fed up and says 'Its so hard to use and you have no programs mine i just click and it works i hate this thing,' I do love ubuntu....."
Reader Innocent Bystander had another story: "Here is my "$friend": a person who, after two years, cannot still figure out when to single click , when to double click. The right-click is total mystery. This person doesn't understand why you can't just hit the power button to turn off the computer instead of selecting Shutdown in the menu. As a result, she never turn off, b/c she is not sure she remember the shutdown process. For this kind of user, a Windows machine will last less than 1 month. I installed her Ubuntu, but she still managed to delete the top panel. I guess she tried to do something and clicked on every mouse click possible. At the next upgrade, I will install her Linux Mint." Honestly, I don't know how much Linux Mint will really help.
Commenter Megatotoro said, "I'm not an Ubuntu user but I couldn't possibly agree more. Being a former Windows user all the way back from 3.11 to XP, I must say that once you really know Linux, you realize it is indeed friendlier than Windows. Of course, people think otherwise because they are used to their old ways, which sometimes are not the easiest."
An anonymous reader said, "I like the latest ubuntu. I like the feeling that it recognised my printer straight away and printed a test page without any fuss at all ...This above all gave me incredible confidence in it. Of course it will be better than windows, if it isn't already it will evolve to be superior in time...."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. My spring break is over, so I'm back in college, meaning I'm going to be quite busy again. That said, I hope to have a couple reviews out relatively soon, but I can't promise anything in particular for this week. Once again, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Chakra 2011.02 "Cyrus"

Main Screen

Chakra GNU/Linux has become one of the distributions I now test regularly. Its appeal to me lies in the fact that it is based on Arch Linux (and is therefore comparatively quick and configurable), yet it comes with KDE already configured along with a more user-friendly system installer and package manager. I've already tested versions Alpha 5 "Panora", 0.2.0 "Jaz", and 0.3.0 "Ashoc". I figured I would test version 0.4.0 "Cyrus" whenever it got released, so I chose to wait until the news showed up on DistroWatch to test it. Unfortunately, that never happened; the latest news regarding this release was about 0.4.0 "Cyrus" Beta 2. Then, two days ago, I saw a news entry on DistroWatch about Chakra, specifically regarding version 2011.04 "Aida" Milestone 3. I wondered if the 0.4.0 "Cyrus" release had been scrapped entirely, so I headed to the Chakra website to check it out. It turns out that version 2011.02 "Cyrus" (renumbered from 0.4.0 for reasons I will also talk about shortly) was released in February itself and is now the current stable release; it was just never announced on DistroWatch. Darn it! Why doesn't anyone tell me these things?

As I just mentioned, the numbering changed from 0.4.0 to 2011.02. It looks like the Chakra developers moved away from the goal of a stable 1.0 release and chose to emphasize the rolling-release cutting-edge nature of Chakra by switching to a year-month numbering system. That said, the old numbering system clearly showed that Chakra is still alpha-release software; I don't know if I'm supposed to think the same thing with the current numbering system — more on that later.

I tested Chakra in VirtualBox with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS and an available 10 GB virtual hard drive for installation. In response to a couple comments as well as articles on other blogs that I have seen, this is for a few reasons: I can't make a Chakra live USB without wiping it clean (dd) and I don't have too many blank CDs/DVDs lying around for these purposes, I can better control how Chakra responds in lower-resource environments (though admittedly 1 GB is still plenty), and I don't need to worry about messing up my installed systems on my computer. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: Chakra 0.3.0 "Ashoc" (on FreeTechie)

Yay! I've scored my first guest post!
I did a review of Chakra 0.3.0 "Ashoc" for FreeTechie, and website administrator Ben Kevan has been kind enough to post it there. Here's a short excerpt from it:

Many of my regular readers have heard a couple times before that Chakra is an Arch-based KDE distribution. However, since its alpha releases, it has diverged enough from Arch and KDEmod to become to Arch what Ubuntu has become to Debian: while they share package types and many upstream repositories, there will be quite a few incompatibilities. So while they are fundamentally tied together, they are at the same time now essentially separate projects. Though Chakra and KDEmod made each other more popular within the Arch community, now Chakra is splitting from the KDEmod project and creating its own Arch-based implementation of KDE. [...]

Please read the rest of the review here and please support Ben Kevan and FreeTechie by reading and commenting on the site's articles. There are some really good tutorials and reviews there as well.
Enjoy!