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Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

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Re: Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

#5

Post by Adaptive »

I switched from Ubuntu to Arch on my servers and linux desktops a while back.

Here's are the key benefits from my perspective:

- shallow mental model: I know where everything is, I know all the moving pieces

- pacman: outstanding package manager.

- aif: dieter has done a great job making a modular install framework.

- AUR: compared to PPAs, AUR is simple and easy to contribute to (both commentary and packages)

It really does take time if you want to understand Arch deeply. Not crazy amounts of time. Less than vim, I'd say ;) but enough that you shouldn't expect instant results. The knowledge gained is very rewarding and applicable to Linux systems in general.

Re: Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

#6

Post by Tautology »

docgnome wrote: post #2

I stopped running Arch when known broken upstream X packages were released into the mainline and the response from the devs was "RTFM, noobs"

You asked a question they couldn't answer, and they didn't want to say "I don't know."

That said Arch does have lots of documentation the answer is probably somewhere in the massive Arch docs.

Re: Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

#7

Post by docgnome »

politai wrote: post #4
docgnome wrote: post #2

I stopped running Arch when known broken upstream X packages were released into the mainline and the response from the devs was "RTFM, noobs"

care to shed more light on the subject?

That's really all there was to it. It was about... 2 years ago? I forget what exactly was broken about the packages. But the bug was from upstream and was known to the Arch Devs at the time they OKd the package built upon broken sources to roll out. It got pulled in by just updating the system. I asked what was going on and got directed to a message about it that I didn't fully understand and when I asked, I was told what I said above. As were many other users confused about the sudden breakage of X.

That wasn't really the first time I'd encountered ultra rude devs. I shortly after switched to Gentoo which I found to give the deep control that Arch did but amazingly was a system that worked properly and the community wasn't full of jerks. Hopefully the Arch community has changed, but I don't really intend to try and find out.

I do run Debian now though.

Re: Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

#8

Post by alexis-d »

Adaptive wrote: post #5

I switched from Ubuntu to Arch on my servers and linux desktops a while back. Here's are the key benefits from my perspective: - shallow mental model: I know where everything is, I know all the moving pieces - pacman: outstanding package manager. - aif: dieter has done a great job making a modular install framework. - AUR: compared to PPAs, AUR is simple and easy to contribute to (both commentary and packages) It rea…

AUR is definitely one of the best thing for me, along with the rolling release scheme, the simplicity and the wiki.

But you say you use it on your servers? I'm not sure I would do it because Arch doesn't focus on stablity like Debian does, and sometimes update to core packages can break other packages, so... Not a big deal on your own computer but on a server? I would be happy to know if you have good reasons to use it on server :)

Re: Arch Linux – "It is what you make it"

#10

Post by hypersoar »

While Arch isn't my primary OS at the moment, I really enjoyed the process of installing it. It felt like the software equivalent of building your own computer. It was very satisfying to learn about all the different parts and assemble those that I wanted,
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