KLIK: Newbie evaluation

Kanotix 2005-03 has been running for a week now and I'm gradually getting acquainted with it. I got dissatisfied with Xandros 3.0.1 because it's so tender a distro... it has a lot of very specialized apps and libraries which tend to break if one installs the wrong program. Using only Xandros' own repositories it's a stable and very usable distro, but it's not good for a software junkie/experimenter like me. Ubuntu has the same problem. These distros break much too easily if one is adventurous.

I was attracted to Kanotix because it's apparently built almost entirely from a straight debian sid with very few specialized apps or libraries, and so should be much less likely to break when I start trying out new stuff. And I was attracted to Kanotix because it natively includes the KLIK package management system.

KLIK's major strength is that it installs an app together with all necessary libraries and dependencies in one complete self-sufficient file; that way, one could have several versions of the same application, or could have applications with *conflicting* dependencies or libraries, without the applications interfering with each other or with the rest of the system. Deleting the one file completely deletes the app. KLIK also does away with "broken packages", where needed libraries or dependencies are missing from the repository, which means more packages are available for experimentation ^_^!! The penalty is that the app file is often bigger than it normally would be without the dependencies/libraries which could be shared with other apps; for example, Opera is normally @ a 6MB file but in KLIK it is 16MB; not all files are affected to that extent, and HD memory is so cheap anyway.

But KLIK is kind of disappointing in some ways. First, some of the KLIK packages are themselves broken: Opera 8.5 through KLIK wouldn't configure its toolbars correctly; Dillo wouldn't access its bookmarks, and gNotepad+ wouldn't run at all. All those programs acted fine when installed direct from debian unstable. Second is the increased size of KLIK files.

However... Kudos to Mr Probono because KLIK does offer a good alternative for files that are broken in the debian repository, and it offers a quick clean way to experiment with unknown software without affecting the system. But if a desired app is available from the debian repository, and there's no other problem, one probably is better off to use it rather than the same app through KILK.

This is my half-baked opinion after one week's use; your mileage may vary :^>.

In faith, Dave
[email protected]
Viva Texas