Chakra... Your Thoughts?

[aybesea]

I've been researching other KDE distros (not that I'm planning on leaving any time soon) and came across Chakra. I've run Arch in the past and enjoyed the experience, but from what I can tell Chakra is not just Arch with KDE installed. It is a semi-rolling release (they freeze the OS bit) and they use their own repos. Also, their approach to any GTK apps is very unique in that they don't seem to ever load the GTK libs.

Just wondering if anyone has played with this monster and whether it is good stuff or not.

[oshunluvr]

I looked at Chakra a couple years back when it was nearly new. I had too much trouble with hardware support at the time so I left it alone. I really like the principals they espouse. Personally, I'm doing really well with Kubuntu so like you, I'm sticking around. However, a year or two down the road when I retire again I might just re-visit Chakra. I use a couple other distros around the house and at work, but Kubuntu is definitely my "daily driver."

Keep us updated is you continue playing with it.

BTW: I don't think anyone on this forum (unlike many others) judges any other poster based on distro choice. One of the major contributors here doesn't even use Kubuntu daily any more - opting instead for Aptosid. IMO, this is one of the great things about this forum.

[aybesea]

Thank you for the quick reply. I probably will play with this at some point, since I'm so intrigued by their GTK software "bundling" philosophy (they somehow run things as a chroot'ed bundle). But I doubt it will be a daily distro any time soon since their is just too much stuff missing from their repos. And thanks for the aside... so far this seems to be a wonderful community that I have stumbled upon.

[woodsmoke]

I installed it a year or so ago, it found wireless, my hp 1210 multifuntion printer, and the video card, i think it was an Nvidia 5500 or some such.

woodsmoke

[rms]

Tried it recently, nice, but my wifi which depends on ZyDAS driver was dead.

[jovin]

I tried it out recently too, the default look is damn attractive.
But I had trouble to get into it... I used Arch for a long time, but Chakra isn't as comfortable.
I used a minimal ISO installation because I was too lazy to wait. What a bad experience.

All it has is a good look.
Should I ever give Chakra a second try, I'm definitely not going to use the minimal ISO.