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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"

#61

Post by imrehg »

albertzeyer wrote: post #46

I never used Arch but I have used Gentoo for really long. Everything what I read about Arch sounded a bit primitive to me. Are there any advantages of Arch over Gentoo? Or are there good comparisons?

So far the main difference I've seen:

With Gentoo you have to compile everything yourself (as much as I can tell).

With Arch, you _can_ compile everything yourself, but don't have to: official repos have packages precompiled, but the package source is there if you want something different.

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

#62

Post by Levi »

slowpoke wrote: post #26

I've been a GNU/Linux user for a bit over a year now, I think. Started out with Ubuntu 10.04 dual booted with Windows, then completely ditched Microsoft in favor of the better operating system some when in January. A bit later, after getting bugged by a good friend and fellow hacker on IRC for a while, I finally set out to install Arch, and got hooked. Arch Linux can, in my experience, best be described as a journey.…

This is true to my experiences as well.

I started with Archbang, then CTKArch, and then finally installed my own from scratch. Archbang and CTKArch are excellent liveCD versions of Arch but in the end I found I did not like the personal choices made by the creators of those releases. My system is now truly mine. I am in love with it.

My system is stable, and bleeding edge - an oxymoron.

Intellij is in the damn repositories... MondoDB 2.0 - the day it was released was in the damned repositores.

Anything else can't compete.

After installing Arch, and failing at least 3 times and being successful 2 other times, I found an appreciation for the way in which Arch did things. My first version was a Mac OSx clone with some personal touches. It was beautiful; but I was too ambitious and went with BTRFS which was a mistake. So I reinstalled and now I'm on XFS and things purr.

I can setup a development environment in less than 10 minutes using pacman and then keep it updated easily.

To setup the equivalent environment on Ubuntu would take much longer for me.

I am not a linux newb nor a guru, but after using Arch I feel like I can hold my own.

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

#63

Post by w1ntermute »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #48
tmhedberg wrote: post #19

I've been using Arch as my primary OS for about 1.5 years and have no inclination whatsoever to move away from it. Like many people, I previously used Ubuntu, but grew fed up with the focus of their development efforts on areas which I considered to be inconsequential. Seeing the direction that Ubuntu has taken since then, I'm glad I made that decision when I did. For me, the best thing about Arch is simply how flexi…

What interface are you using? I use wmii on my arch boxes.

From his comment about Haskell, I'm guessing Xmonad.

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

#64

Post by pavpanchekha »

davidhollander wrote: post #44
skeptical wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"shallow mental model (...) It really does take time if you want to understand Arch deeply" You made me curious. Those sound like they are the opposite of each other. On the article... the same old. Not for me. I like learning, but not just anything. Learning how to use the configuration of dozens of software pieces is NOT on my to do list, specially when it's pretty obvious I won't have room on my mental memory for…

The "shallow mental model" most likely refers to fewer initialization files and locations. When starting out, most everything you need is in /etc/rc.conf . Also, Arch and its package manager don't use /usr/local/, instead simply using /usr. "It really does take time" most likely refers to the fact that you are responsible for building up the OS yourself. So unlike in an OS like Ubuntu, where you do not have to know w…

It may also be that figuring out the entire Ubuntu stack is near-impossible, whereas with Arch this is at least approachable.

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

#65

Post by pavpanchekha »

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.

Consider the complexities of APT: package substitutions, virtual packages, provides, requires, recommends, suggests, replacements and patches as pinning and... There's just more complexity involved. Compare the SysV init system, or systemd, or upstart, to the BSD init system that Arch uses. Now, I'm not saying that Arch is better --- something like Systemd has many more features than what it replaces, and in lots of ways it is better. But it is indeed a more complex system.

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

#66

Post by Adaptive »

orblivion wrote: post #22
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…

Can you explain to me what's so great about pacman? As of the last time I used Arch (a few years ago), you can't roll back to an old version unless it happens to be cached on your system. For a rolling release system it creates a lot of hassles. It seems like a very straightforward package manager, what does it have that apt doesn't have, for instance?

I think some of the other comments have addressed this, but I'll comment on the rollback issue.

If you just want to rollback you can download the current package if it's not in your cache. If you want and rollback to previous version, there's downgrade and the Arch Rollback Machine https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrade#ARM

Really, though, it's never been an issue for me. I've yet to encounter a situation where I nuke my cache and don't have rollback packages available. It boils down to a management issue. If you are nuking your package cache, I assume you are smart enough to have determined your system is running correctly first. There are cases where you might still want to rollback after clearing your package cache, so there is ARM.

Personally, if I ever hit that situation (absolute worst case scenario) I have backups and can reinstall an Arch system in minutes. Haven't had the need yet.

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

#67

Post by cageface »

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…

I've seen this cycle repeat endlessly in software:

1. New, popular system/language/app appears and gradually adds features and complexity in response to user requests as it catches on. Devs are personal and responsive. Users feel engaged.

2. Users grow disenchanted with the increasing complexity of the system. Developers burn out on support workload and slowly become more remote.

3. A new shiny, simple alternative appears and users flock to it with a storm of feature requests. Go to 1.

Of course you want to avoid non-intrinsic complexity, but a lot of things are only simple because they don't really do much.

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

#68

Post by Adaptive »

dorian-graph wrote: post #53
Adaptive wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

I'm not sure if Linode is using archserver but I don't believe they are. I don't see the advantage over vanilla arch isos.

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

#69

Post by j-kidd »

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…

Also, in Debian, you have one guy maintaining a bunch of core packages: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=573745#310

If you deploy Debian/Ubuntu on servers, your fate is pretty much dependent on this guy, unless you roll your own packages, which wastes precious time.

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

#70

Post by Adaptive »

skeptical wrote: post #36
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 (...) It really does take time if you want to understand Arch deeply" You made me curious. Those sound like they are the opposite of each other. On the article... the same old. Not for me. I like learning, but not just anything. Learning how to use the configuration of dozens of software pieces is NOT on my to do list, specially when it's pretty obvious I won't have room on my mental memory for…

It's the "go" (as in the game) of Linux distros. Easy to understand, long to master.

For instance, I recently switched off of using netcfg to wpa_supplicant instead. netcfg is an awesome way to manage network configs, but I am to the point that I enjoy and want to tweak my network configs to be faster (faster to get the network connection up, not faster throughput).

Most distros will take a very safe, works-in-all-cases approach to networking and sacrifice some efficiencies that can be squeezed out of the process. Since the system is very simple to configure, I can easily dump all that cruft (and in this case the "cruft" is the already pretty lean and efficient netcfg) and just use ip, iw, and wpa_supplicant.

It takes a bit of time to learn those tools, not long, but it's time. It's valuable because iproute2 is the Way going forward.

Just one example, but there are plenty of others.

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