So, I just spent a couple days tinkering with kororaa-xgl and kororaa, respectively. I’ll talk about the first one, first.
By Kororaa-xgl I mean the Kororaa-xgl Live CD I mentioned one post previous. It has an “install now” icon/script, which I used.
I would highly recommend downloading and playing with the LiveCD; the effects of xgl are simply wonderful and can’t really be appreciated in those little videos you can see which show it in action. On the other hand, the software that makes it all happen is very much alpha — meaning, no one, including those who are developing and using it, are claiming that it’s going to be stable. The Kororaa-xgl system, once installed, was very nice to look and and use, but not too reliable; if I left it for just a half-hour or more it tended to lock up, reboot on its own (it actually did that a couple times), or slow down considerably. So while I heartily recommend taking a closer look at xgl, it’s not ready for a day-to-day desktop (unless you’re willing to put up with the instabilities associated with it).
Now, moving on to vanilla Kororaa. Kororaa is basically a slick curses-based install script/method for Gentoo Linux; the system you wind up with is 100% Gentoo. The nice part is that a Kororaa installation takes about an hour, while a Gentoo installation can take up to a couple days (I’m including waiting for X to compile, since most people are going to install X-windows). A kororaa, it turns out, is a small blue penguin — apparently the same type that bit Linus Torvalds on the finger and eventually was the impetus for his choice to adopt the penguin as the Linux mascot. The system is based on the 1/3 Gentoo Installation method (Stage 1 NPTL Installation on a Stage 3 Tarball Using GCC 3.4.3; and if that doesn’t mean much to you, you probably aren’t alone. I couldn’t have told you what NPTL was without looking it up), except that Kororaa does most things for you, and does a good job of it.
If you’ve ever been interested in Gentoo, but were daunted by the long installation, I’d guardedly endorse Kororaa. Guardedly only because there will still be a learning curve — once it is installed, it’s Gentoo: portage, emerge, and all, and there’s a fair bit to learn to maintain it properly. In some ways I think it’s easier to learn Gentoo by installing it the old-fashioned way, but Kororaa is certainly quicker, and in every respect is excellent in what it does.
