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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"

#51

Post by windsurfer »

jodoherty wrote: post #38
Legion wrote: post #35

I think I am going to have to give Arch a try. One thing that has kept me on Ubuntu family distros is font rendering. Ubuntu's patches for freetype, cairo, xft, etc are quite simply requirements for me for a desktop Linux. Some distros have these by way of some guy maintaining his own set of patched packages. I have always been reluctant to rely on these. I was thrilled when Linux Mint came out with Linux Mint Debian…

I always had the opposite experience with font rendering. I always have to disable all hinting and turn on subpixel rendering to get results I like, since I prefer thicker glyphs that have more consistent forms, kerning and spacing at all sizes, even in print (ala Mac OS X) rather than having glyphs that have been forced into pixel boundaries and smushed closer together at smaller sizes for maximum glyph readability…

May I ask how subpixel smoothing is not a form of hinting?

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

#52

Post by Rusky »

LeafStorm wrote: post #47

The biggest draw of Arch for me is pacman. The system itself is incredibly simple (and incredibly fast), but more importantly, it's really easy to design and compile your own packages for it. To make a Debian package, you have to edit a bunch of control files, run a bunch of shell scripts, and then it packs all that up in some obscure cpio-based format. With Arch, on the other hand, it's one program - makepkg - with…

Definitely agree. The AUR makes it really easy to manage software not in the official repositories- without that it becomes difficult to keep track of what's installed and often impossible to uninstall.

However, it would be nice if pacman used signed packages, especially in light of the recent kernel.org situation.

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

#53

Post by dorian-graph »

Adaptive wrote: post #14
alexis-d wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had precisely the same concerns. I first set up a basic webserver on Linode since they had images for Arch. I was skeptical particularly because I've screwed stuff up on Arch systems during an "aggressive" update. It's been rock solid and I deal with updates through a basic test methodology. I keep a mirror of the system on a VM and update that first. I am also very conservative about what packages I update. I'm on…

I just checked out ArchServer and it looks like the project is winding down.

http://www.archserver.org/

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

#54

Post by beej71 »

dragonquest wrote: post #20

I've heard this argument multiple times that Arch Linux is what you make of it and it really teaches you Linux, but I'm getting older and trying out lesser distro's now. :) However while I admire its passionate community, I'm genuinely curious, how does it differ from Slackware? In the sense, how exactly does Arch differ from Slackware in terms of teaching you the guts of your own system?

I used Slackware for something like 13 years, and have been using Arch for maybe 2. If you'll allow me to post a link to my own stuff, I put together a blog entry about exactly this question:

http://beej.us/blog/2009/12/arch-vs-slackware/

Both Slack and Arch are excellent, but not quite the same in their objectives. I run Arch on my netbook and desktop (with FVWM) and love it.

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

#55

Post by VMG »

cpeterso wrote: post #37
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…

In what way does Arch have a shallower mental model than Debian? Or pacman superior to apt-get? I'm not trolling. Debian is a pretty vanilla Linux and has a huge package repository.

Debian has dpkg-* , apt-* and aptitude. Now I now they all have their purposes and whatever, but Arch has only pacman.

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

#56

Post by VMG »

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…

> It really does take time if you want to understand Arch deeply.

I'm don't get what you mean. I've been using Arch for 4 years or so and I don't think I know much more about the system internals than I did 3 years ago, because there aren't many.

The system config is stored rc.conf, the package manager is configured in pacman.conf. That is Arch Linux. You open these with vim, read the comment, edit, save, that is it. If you break something, tough luck. Other distros will half-assedly babysit you through the system config and leave you confused. That is the main difference I think.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

windsurfer wrote: post #51
jodoherty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always had the opposite experience with font rendering. I always have to disable all hinting and turn on subpixel rendering to get results I like, since I prefer thicker glyphs that have more consistent forms, kerning and spacing at all sizes, even in print (ala Mac OS X) rather than having glyphs that have been forced into pixel boundaries and smushed closer together at smaller sizes for maximum glyph readability…

May I ask how subpixel smoothing is not a form of hinting?

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by lmz »

LeafStorm wrote: post #47

The biggest draw of Arch for me is pacman. The system itself is incredibly simple (and incredibly fast), but more importantly, it's really easy to design and compile your own packages for it. To make a Debian package, you have to edit a bunch of control files, run a bunch of shell scripts, and then it packs all that up in some obscure cpio-based format. With Arch, on the other hand, it's one program - makepkg - with…

Nitpicking here, but it's RPM that uses the CPIO based format. Debian .debs are ar archives with control and data tarballs. The data.tar.gz is pretty easily inspectable.

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

#59

Post by rkowalick »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #41
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…

- shallow mental model: I know where everything is, I know all the moving pieces How is that different than Ubuntu (or any other distro once you've used it enough)? (serious question, considering the same switch myself)

I have been using Ubuntu now for a little over a year, and honestly, I find it incredibly tedious to do the most mundane amount of configuration. I want to adjust what programs get run at start up.

On Arch Linux, I go to /etc/rc.d and remove or modify any scripts, which are clearly labelled.

On Ubuntu, I think I need to weed through the dozen or so numbered /etc/rc directories and find what I need and modify. I got pretty frustrated about this.

I don't know where I'm going to be able to modify the modules that get run when my computer starts on Ubuntu, but with Arch, there is a clearly labeled array in the rc.conf file called modules.

It just seems like looking under the hood of ubuntu is something I'm not supposed to do, and arch requires you to when you install it, but it is tremendously simple.

I want to switch back.

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

#60

Post by jodoherty »

windsurfer wrote: post #51
jodoherty wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always had the opposite experience with font rendering. I always have to disable all hinting and turn on subpixel rendering to get results I like, since I prefer thicker glyphs that have more consistent forms, kerning and spacing at all sizes, even in print (ala Mac OS X) rather than having glyphs that have been forced into pixel boundaries and smushed closer together at smaller sizes for maximum glyph readability…

May I ask how subpixel smoothing is not a form of hinting?

How do you see it as a form of hinting unless we have different definitions of what hinting is?

As I would define it, hinting is the modification of the appearance of the font at smaller sizes, usually away from the actual outline design of the font and the original spacing, in order to make it fit into pixel boundaries for the purpose of clarity and readability. Used with subpixel rendering, you can get sharp, punchy text that is even more readable, but I wouldn't consider subpixel rendering by itself to be hinting.

If anything, unhinted subpixel rendering (where any auto-hinting has been disabled and all font hints are ignored) allows the font to look more like the intended outline design in spite of being rendered at a small size on a low resolution screen by boosting the horizontal resolution and interpolating the values between points where the outline crosses partial pixel boundaries. That is, it allows all the glyph metrics to remain intact at smaller sizes while improving readability, whereas the very notion of hinting implies that those properties have been intentionally modified for the purpose of readability.

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