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Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

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Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#41

Post by jasperry »

trabant00 wrote: post #16

While some may see it as a learning tool I have used Arch on my workstations for 14 years. The last time I remember having to manually fix things was when it migrated to systemd. I am a linux sysadmin so I might be biased but I think people overestimate the effort required to get exactly what you want and nothing more out of an Arch setup.

A more recent update that required some work was switching to PipeWire for audio. But it was mainly about knowing which packages to remove and replace, and now audio works without a hitch for me, better than PulseAudio ever did.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#42

Post by bradrn »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #40
bradrn wrote: post #19

> The installation process, and the documentation behind it, lead to the third virtue: a complete installation tends to be very small and simple, because you only install the bits you need. If you don't know what bits you need, the documentation will help you to work it out, and the result is something that is both fairly minimal and that, with luck, you understand. You know what's in there because you installed it.…

> Then I tried installing Arch in a VM… and it took me several days and several attempts, but when I finally got it working I felt, for the first time ever, like I actually understood the system I was using. Honest question: why days? I have installed arch multiple times in the past decade and I don’t remember anything exceptionally out of the ordinary. You just follow the step-by-step instruction and you are good to…

> Honest question: why days?

Because I was a total novice. I barely even knew what a partition was, let alone anything else. Now, of course, I find it much simpler.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#43

Post by BaculumMeumEst »

I appreciate the straightforward install and wide availability available of packages, but in practice always using the latest packages system wide can be annoying.

For example right now the latest gdb is broken on both my machines, and since i’m not as keen to participate in troubleshooting new software I think I’ll be moving to a more stable distro pretty soon

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274056

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#44

Post by digitallyfree »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #3

Interesting to see the documentation emphasized here. I don't use Arch, but I often see the arch wiki in google results for linux stuff I look up. Makes me wonder why wikis aren't used more for documentation.

I'm a deb-based user but I constantly refer to the Arch wiki to understand best practices and solve problems. No other distro has this level of self-serve documentation that's actually updated and easy to understand.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#45

Post by bombcar »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #40
bradrn wrote: post #19

> The installation process, and the documentation behind it, lead to the third virtue: a complete installation tends to be very small and simple, because you only install the bits you need. If you don't know what bits you need, the documentation will help you to work it out, and the result is something that is both fairly minimal and that, with luck, you understand. You know what's in there because you installed it.…

> Then I tried installing Arch in a VM… and it took me several days and several attempts, but when I finally got it working I felt, for the first time ever, like I actually understood the system I was using. Honest question: why days? I have installed arch multiple times in the past decade and I don’t remember anything exceptionally out of the ordinary. You just follow the step-by-step instruction and you are good to…

Even if you follow a guide exactly as stated, you will often find when done that you now know more about the steps you took and want to immediately start over so it's closer to what you want.

The same thing happened to me the first few times I installed Gentoo. Could I have migrated the first install to what I wanted at and had at the end? Sure, if I had the knowledge I didn't have at the time.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#47

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

ddevault wrote: post #13
anthk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Great documentation? Yes. Compared to BSD's, mediocre and subject to dramatic changes by nature.

Well, great documentation with the caveat that good upstream documentation is always preferable to the Arch wiki.

Main virtue of Arch. They don’t patch. Upstream documentation will apply as is.

I think Arch generally got its philosophy right. It’s pretty much the minimal set of tools to get an easy to update binary distribution. They don’t touch what they don’t have to.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#48

Post by pantalaimon »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #43

I appreciate the straightforward install and wide availability available of packages, but in practice always using the latest packages system wide can be annoying. For example right now the latest gdb is broken on both my machines, and since i’m not as keen to participate in troubleshooting new software I think I’ll be moving to a more stable distro pretty soon https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=274056

It's possible to downgrade packages though

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/downgrading_packages

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#49

Post by jorgemf »

rmbyrro wrote: post #29
bradrn wrote: post #19

> The installation process, and the documentation behind it, lead to the third virtue: a complete installation tends to be very small and simple, because you only install the bits you need. If you don't know what bits you need, the documentation will help you to work it out, and the result is something that is both fairly minimal and that, with luck, you understand. You know what's in there because you installed it.…

If we could combine Ubuntu's easiness of use with Arch's simplicity and performance, that'd be my ideal distro for work. I love Arch for its simplicity and performance. But it just wasn't productive for me to get everyday tasks done. I'm not advanced Linux user, occasionally I'd need hours to get seemingly simple stuff done. For a hobby desktop, fine. For a work tool as a developer, I moved back to Ubuntu (though I h…

As I developer I solved my issues with arch using the latest dev tools in arch and running the code in a docker container. That way I also solve all developers issues with dependencies as everybody runs the same docker container with the same libraries.

Re: Arch Linux turns 20: Small, simple, great documentation

#50

Post by jorgemf »

laerus wrote: post #32

pacman corrupted my installation twice in a year. Obviously I did something wrong but who knows.

probably you installed something manually at some point, otherwise pacman does nothing wrong. Rarely you have to touch something manually because a mayor upgrade, but I think it has been like 4-6 times in 20 years for me.

If you want to install something manually in arch it is better to create a package first (if it is not already in aur). That way pacman can check for corruptions before installing anything

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