The Ark Linux, http://arklinux.org, press release for its upcoming 2007.1 RC1 release goes, "The Ark Linux team is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1,", proud is the word I would have used. They should be proud. I've tested the Ark Linux 2007.1 Release Candidate 1 brutally, and it stood up to it.

As many bizarre install configurations as I can think of, I did. At one point I had 11 assorted types of storage drives, zip disks, usb sticks, scsi drives, IDE (341-Mbs), EIDE, SATA all on one machine via onboard ports as well as add ons. It was a horrifying site to see. Cables pouring out of everywhere, HDs hanging off the case frame and more. PETC (People for The Ethical Treatment of Computers - Pronounced "Pet See") was trying to break down my door. Quick on my feet whilst under pressure, I tossed a dead hard drive down the street and they ran after it! Diversion! When I powered up this Frankenstein's machine, the town dimmed. “Its alive! Its ALIVE!” could be heard over the screams of Windows users crashing. No matter what I threw at it, Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1installed. 2006.1 did, on the rare occasion and oddball machine, have problems installing and would require special steps. 2007.1-rc1 did not need any of this as far as I could tell. The installs were smooth, regardless of install type.

In expert mode,(my fav install method), QTParted makes a quick and easy job of setting up your hard disk. I don't use (or recommend/condone the use of) Microsoft Windows period (I only retrieve data off it when it goes belly up, which is very often) and I rarely see the need to have more than one distro on a machine, so I don't often need to repartition drives. I just wipe them clean and start fresh. However, for testing purposes, I asked a MS Win using friend (yes I know, the shame) to install 98 and XP on one of the test machines for me. QTParted had no problem resizing the partition so I could add a swap, root and home partitions. Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1 had no problem with the setup and 98/XP booted nicely (as well as they could anyway). I installed other distros as well (Puppy Linux, Yoper and Vector) and had no problem with them, nor did they have any problems after Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1's install. Previous /home partitions on my other Ark Linux test machines worked perfectly, unlike some distros when doing a fresh install of an updated version (Puppy Linux, Yoper and Vector didn't have a problem with this either).

Ark Linux 2007.1 now uses jfs, IBM's famous and rock solid journaling filesystem, as the default file system. "According to reviews and benchmarks of the available filesystems for Linux, JFS is fast and reliable, with consistently good performance under different kinds of load, contrary to other filesystems that seem to perform better under particular usage patterns, for instance with small or large files. Another characteristic often mentioned, is that it's light and efficient with available system resources and even heavy disk activity is realised with low CPU usage" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Jou...System_2_(JFS2) – see the bottom).

Many people right off the bat will think, but why, it's "not supported". If by "not supported" they mean there aren't any tools to resize it and the like, true, but most people don't often resize their partitions. My users, for example (both home and business), need stability, reliability and speed, for large file transfers. Some clients work with audio and/or video files as large as 100 GBs. Transferring them from one drive to another or across two or more computers, jfs out-performed all the others. It was faster, safer and my users have yet to encounter filesystem corruption as a result of large file activity. Such was the case with other filesystems, on many different distros, including Ark Linux.

It's inevitable, as the jfs filesystem increases in popularity and default use, that tools like QTParted/Parted will adapt to include tools developed for jfs. Before tools to repair an item can be created, the item must exist and be adopted into use. The tools will come as they did for other file systems.

After the install, the first thing I noticed was how well my old user directories held up. I usually lose something, a hand full of settings, what have you. My old settings remained and new items took the default. Sweet. Then next thing I noticed was speed, lots of it. In a side by side comparison of 2006.1 (on a Pentium 3 800 MHz 1GB of RAM), the 2007.1-rc1 (on a Pentium 3 600 MHz/512 Mbs RAM) install beat it. Everything was faster. Video playback was smooth. On Amarok, the audio playback never stuttered. File transfers between partitions, drives, and removable media was faster. Boot up was a little faster as well. I expect that will also continue to improve as the bugs are worked out. I recall 2006.1 rcs were slower than the stable release.

Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1 has updated/added a lot of new things; games, graphics apps, video/audio tools, office suites and more. KDE version 3.5.7, gcc 4.2, and general overall refinements help to make this release candidate a winner, worth trying and keeping (until the stable release comes out).

It's rare that a distro keeps my eye for more than a year. Debian was able to hold it for 18 months. Ark Linux has held it for almost three years. It's provided my company and clients with everything we have needed in the last two plus years. Ark Linux is even my primary win-data retrieval tool with a nice compliment of anti-virus applications to strip away those nasty Microsoft viruses. I've moved all my clients, home and business, over to Ark Linux and they've loved it (even the nasty crotchety ones) and have never looked back. Now if only they could get around to writing a review (hint hint)!

Ark Linux has shown a clarity of purpose and goal. Something most distros have lost. In this new rat race of popularity over stability, usability, reliability and functionality, Ark Linux has opted out of the race to hold to its ideas. One of my fav ideals is user first, not popularity, corporate acceptance or support, even money. Ask any user thats come in for help on Ark Linux's live support. All of this lends to an overall excellent Gnu Linux distro.

Think of Ark Linux as the oceans and everyone else as the cliffs, enough said.

Notes:
This review, by the by, was written using Ark Linux 2007.1-rc1. Well, it start off on 2006.1 and migrated to 2007.1-rc1.
No computers where actually harmed in the testing of this distro or any other distro.

About The Author:
Kate Draven (aka Borg Queen) is the owner/op of the small, but growing, Gnu Linux/FOSS only computer company, CyberPunk X Computers (CPX). CPX has been using Ark Linux as it's primary OS since 2005 and Puppy Linux as it's “George A. Romero” distro (it brings really old computers back from the dead).

You could have said something like this (perhaps with a few more details) in the members intro section, instead of using the members intro section to say:

I am not going to attempt to read that tome......

I think your point is that you like Ark Linux, and that you own a computer company.
From your first post, it seems you also lack patience.

Anything we can help you with????

Moved: This thread is more suitable in LinuxQuestions.org Member Success Stories and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Its where I had intended it to go, but a broken mouse decided otherwise. I admit, I was too lazy to change it at the time, once I realized.