Sunday, August 12, 2012

Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes Review: For those who prefer pure KDE

To be honest, I am more into Gnome than KDE. However, as these days a lot of Linux dsitros are preferring KDE over Gnome 3, gradually I am developing a taste for KDE as well. I really liked OpenSUSE & Linux Mint KDE. Chakra is another KDE distro, derived from Arch Linux, with the latest KDE softwares. In July 2012, Chakra Linux came up with the Archimedes update.

From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
I downloaded the 1.5 GB ISO from Chakra website. The boot-up was fast in virtualbox. And I was greeted with a nice-looking boot-up screen.

From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes

Applications
App-wise, it is more of a typical KDE, than a hybrid - what you get to see in other KDE spins. For example, there is no LibreOffice/OpenOffice or Firefox but you get here Calligra Office. Amarok is the default music player. Bangarang is the video player and Kdenlive, the default video editor. Added to it, is a youtube client, Minitube.
From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
Rekonq is the default browser. Further, if you are not very fond of Rekonq, you can download Firefox or Chrome from the Bundle Manager. Firefox 14 is available there. I checked for a few other applications in the repository and it seems to be very up-to-date with the latest softwares from the Linux world.

From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes
From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes

Adobe Flash is not by default and you've to download it from the repository. Wine is provided out-of-the-box which is good as you can install Office 2010 or similar Windows based applications, easily.

CPU & RAM Usage
Chakra uses only 250-260 MB of RAM with only the task manager running. It is, kind-of, lower than other KDE based distros, except may be Porteus 1.2. CPU usage is also 1-10%, with only task manager running.

From Chakra Linux 2012.07 Archimedes

Overall
Overall, I found Chakra to be very stable. Further, it has most of the latest KDE softwares. For those who prefer non-KDE softwares like LibreOffice, VLC, Firefox, etc. this may not be the distro which you are looking for. I would recommend them to go for Linux Mint KDE or OpenSUSE.

You may like to visit my Picasa photo gallery with Chakra screenshots.

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