Korora aims to be the easiest-to-use Fedora-based distribution. It is supposed to be very easy to install and use. I was interested by this, and I decided to review it and see if it lives up to its promise.
1. First impressions and ease of use
The ISO is 1.8 GB in size and can be downloaded from https://kororaproject.org/download. There are GNOME, Cinnamon, KDE, and Xfce versions. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with Guest Additions out of the box.
Interestingly, the panel is at the top compared to Linux Mint’s implementation at the bottom:
It still feels easy to use though, and anyone who sits down can use it without any questions.
Ease of use score: 10/10
2. Installer
Korora, like Fedora, comes with the Anaconda installer which is nice and easy to use. You can read about another blogger’s experience here: http://www.zdnet.com/article/hands-on-a-screenshot-walk-though-fedoras-anaconda/
Here are some screenshots:
Installer score: 10/10
Release date
|
ISO size (GB)
|
Distribution base
|
Default filesystem
|
Install time
|
Boot time
|
Size of install
|
Desktop RAM use
|
Kernel Version
| |
KaOS 2015.02
|
2/24/2015
|
1.4
|
Independent
|
XFS
|
18:03
|
0:36
|
4.6
|
415
|
3.18.7
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04
|
2/25/2015
|
1.1
|
Ubuntu Vivid (15.04)
|
ext4
|
12:57
|
0:27
|
4.2
|
457
|
3.19.1
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
2/6/2015
|
1.4
|
Arch
|
ext4
|
11:33
|
0:27
|
4.7
|
351
|
3.16.7
|
Netrunner 15
|
2/16/2015
|
1.9
|
Ubuntu Utopic (14.10)
|
ext4
|
16:20
|
0:41
|
6.4
|
714
|
3.16.0
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
11/4/2014
|
4.4
|
Independent
|
Btrfs (used ext4 because of known bug)
|
15:29
|
0:39
|
4.4
|
422
|
3.16.6
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
2/17/2015
|
0.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
5:50
|
0:34
|
2.2
|
348
|
3.16.0
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
11/29/2014
|
1.4
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
8:45
|
0:42
|
4.5
|
343
|
3.13.0
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
3/22/2015
|
2.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
20:54
|
0:47
|
7.4
|
745
|
3.13.0
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
2/6/2015
|
1.7
|
Fedora 21
|
ext4
|
13:24
|
1:04
|
5.0
|
602
|
3.18.3
|
Average of all distros
|
1.8
|
13:41
|
0:39
|
4.8
|
489
|
3. Design
Similar to Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon, Korora looks current but not futuristic like KDE 5 based distros do. Again, though, there’s nothing wrong with that.
The login screen, however, is quite sparse unlike the attractive one featured in Mint 17.1:
I know I’ve said that font rendering was the best on Mint. I’m mistaken, it’s even better on Korora, especially on the web, which many distros seem to struggle with. Bonus points for including Cantarell for the window titles, which works especially well here.
Since it isn’t pure GNOME Shell or Unity, Cinnamon can be customized to your liking.
Design score: 9/10
4. Applications
Korora comes with the default GNOME-based application set:
Web Browser - Firefox
File Manager - Nemo
Email Client - Thunderbird
Text Editor - GEdit (not forked!)
Image Viewer - Image Viewer (GNOME)
Terminal Emulator - Terminal
Music Player - Rhythmbox
Office Suite - LibreOffice
Mostly, these are the same apps that come with Mint 17.1 Cinnamon. Unlike Mint, Korora includes Google in Firefox, but it has to be enabled (only two clicks though).
Applications score: 9.5/10
5. Installing packages
Being a Fedora fork, Korora uses Yum as its package manager. Although it’s simple to install packages using the terminal, it’s much harder to use a GUI to do it. The default tool is Yum Extender (Yumex). It is definitely not as easy to use as Mint’s software center.
Installing packages score: 7.5/10
Final Thoughts
Korora definitely lives up to its goal of being an easy to use Fedora-based distro, but installing packages could be made much easier using a better software center. It’s much easier to install packages using the terminal, at least at this state, and it compares quite well to Mint 17.1 in all other aspects.
Final score: 46/50 = 92%
Distro name
|
Final Score
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
99
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04
|
97
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
95
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
92
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
91
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
93
|
Netrunner 15
|
90
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
84
|
KaOS 2015.02
|
80
|
Average of all reviews
|
91
|
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