I tested out the livecd of the latest version of kateos[3.2], something that I’d heard about but not had the time to go test it out. So I downloaded the iso [took 3 days continuous download 
). It was 700mb so I thought it would be filled with the same old kde livecd. Heck they’re called kateos, and kate is one of the coolest kde applications around. And what’s with the ‘K’ That’s a dead KDE giveaway anyday if you ask me.
First Impressions:
Okay, when the cd booted up rather quickly for a livecd and for my test machine that had 256 mb ram[tried it on a friend’s computer. I have 1 gb]. I was greeted by a pleasant skinned GDM login, for which the login and pass was specified on the right. Imagine my surprise when I see a weakly skinned xfce desktop. I mean there was a wallpaper but *There wasn’t even a gtk theme* I mean clearlooks was absent, the menu hardly fitted in properly and it came with firefox and thunderbird. Both which looked annoying with no gtk
Right out of the box
This is a distro that’ll make purists gleam with glee. I mean there’s a shortcut for xterm on the desktop, there’s not even a decent good looking terminal. Then it struck me: KateOS is the kind of distro to run if you still live in the vacuum tubes era. Take this: there’s 700 mb of packages and with what? Xterm, xmms, xine, and other basic gtk1 and xorg based applications. It’s perfect for slow sluggish computers everywhere. The system was lightning fast even from the livecd. All applications chosen, except for firefox maybe was chosen for maximum usability and minimal resource consumption. It is pretty cool.
A generous dose of apps:
This distro is designed mainly for beginners who want a no fuss system. There are a few games, lots of other bundled applications. There are many network oriented softwares including clients for the gadu protocol , the seriously-oldskool browser, dillo, xine with plugins to play videos, etc. Xpaint, clocks, etc, etc.
It keeps getting weirder and weirder.
I tried to see if I could install any other applications. Apt get didn’t work. Nor did yum, yast or ark. Then I saw there was no package manager. Absolutely none.
The funny thing was I downloaded the iso without knowing anything about the distro, so I put in proxy and network details and opened kateos.org in firefox. And I found out some…well… interesting facts:
-
IT used to be based on slackware now it’s an independent os (do those exist anymore).
-
Software installation can be done in tgzex format, supposedly free of dependency.
-
The core KateOS installation is rather small [2GB. What computer has 32 mb of ram and 2GB++ space to spare]
-
Smallest possible requirements and maximum security are what they’re aiming at.
-
It’s designed for experienced users.
Final Thoughts
Well, I found kateos annoying, hate me if you must but I’m a sucker for eye candy, and heavy bloated software with amazing package management and KDE for heaven’s sakes. But this is a good project with a better selection of packages unlike say, puppy linux or damn small linux. This is linux for the experienced, and …ahem…ill equipped(?)… user.
Current music: Dream Theater, "Stream Of Consciousness"
Well, I’m incredibly lazy. So I found a new way to motivate myself. I’ll announce publicly that I’m gonna do something by this time [set a public deadline] and hopefully achieve that around the proper time I’m supposed to be achieving it.
Latest Comments
RSS