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On switching to Arch Linux

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Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#81

Post by MatthewPhillips »

agentultra wrote: post #36

I've been using Arch for about three years now and can't imagine using another distro. The install phase is a pain if you want to get a full-blown plug-and-play ready-to-go desktop experience that rivals Ubuntu, OS X, or Windows. It's actually really easy if you just want a bare-bones system that boots into a shell and doesn't install any packages other than what it needs to do just that. Switch to Arch if you're a m…

I think you succinctly describe what most Arch users love about the distribution.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#83

Post by babarock »

pnathan wrote: post #63
swasheck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your definitation of "creating things" narrow and shallow. There's a tremendous amount of creativity that goes into customizing an OS to meet every need you have --- and ONLY those needs.

Sure. But unless you're deploying custom Linux builds, what does that get you, exactly? I have a number of packages on my computer I don't use, and I am not being hindered by their existence. I instead use my brain cycles for creating new software & systems, not retooling the existing one to no end. edit: Please understand that I'm not saying a fully customizable Linux doesn't have its place. It absolutely does. But…

Although I wouldn't word it so aggressively, I too feel compelled to react to your "creating thing" idea. Dismissing OS customization as something that "gets in the way" is a terrible misunderstanding of the role of an OS in "cranking stuff out". The truth is, good configuration of the OS can save you huge amounts of time in your creating "new software & system time".

The truth is, the OS is not supposed to be a black box that lets you run your IDE on top. That leads to extremely redundant systems with multiple failure points. Idiotic as it may sound, proper manipulation of your OS will make you "one" with the machine, and simplify your thoughts greatly.

I'll leave you with a quote found all over the Web: "Those who don't understand UNIX are doomed to reinvent it, poorly".

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#84

Post by [deleted] »

pnathan wrote: post #63
swasheck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find your definitation of "creating things" narrow and shallow. There's a tremendous amount of creativity that goes into customizing an OS to meet every need you have --- and ONLY those needs.

Sure. But unless you're deploying custom Linux builds, what does that get you, exactly? I have a number of packages on my computer I don't use, and I am not being hindered by their existence. I instead use my brain cycles for creating new software & systems, not retooling the existing one to no end. edit: Please understand that I'm not saying a fully customizable Linux doesn't have its place. It absolutely does. But…

[deleted]

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#85

Post by chimeracoder »

mberning wrote: post #33

Sounds like a less stable/predictable version of FreeBSD.

Arch is incredibly stable - you just have to rethink your idea of what stability means in an Arch context.

In Ubuntu, 'stability' means that you can run apt-get upgrade all (I think that's the command), press 'y' a few times (or, better yet, just pipe 'yes' to it) and then forget about it, knowing that your system may not have the latest version of every package, but the latest version in the Ubuntu repos, which is presumably 'stable' with the rest of the system.

With Arch, you have to think before you -Syu. Running pacman -Syu will upgrade all packages to the latest version in the Arch repos, which are usually updated much more quickly, as it's a rolling-release distribution. This means that you may want to check the mailing lists before upgrading important packages, or wait until a later time to upgrade. Or not upgrade at all, which is 'stable' by virtue of the fact that you haven't changed anything. The choice is yours. You can decide what to do on a per-package or system-wide basis, depending on your use case (Personal user & tinkerer? Luddite personal user? Large-scale server? There's no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to keeping a system up-to-date, but Arch is a 'one-size-fits-all' distro in that it allows people to make these decisions for themselves very easily).

Rolling release isn't for everyone - I'll agree. But that's the main difference between Arch and other distributions. (That, and it's highly minimalist by default, whereas Ubuntu and Mint are 'everything and the kitchen sink' by default). But I certainly wouldn't say that Arch is any more or less stable than other Linux distributions (I can't compare to BSD), because it's really just as stable as you want it to be, given your definition of 'stable'.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#86

Post by [deleted] »

bwarp wrote: post #7

I like Arch as a whole but I've found that for my purposes it is a time sink compared to Debian for example. Debian has lots of sensible well thought out defaults. Arch has lots of disparate defaults each provided by the package vendor (as they don't customise packages). It's not a criticism, but a difference to bear in mind.

[deleted]

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#87

Post by agumonkey »

lnteveryday wrote: post #42
agumonkey wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- the arch wiki and community is really solid for bare naked yet simple linux knowledge. (gentoo wiki is my fallback) - The arch way tends to attract users with strong|alternative ideas, IMHO they're a big part in the revival of tiling wm. - Today I switched to nixos though.

You will be missed. Absolutely correct on the wm comment. However, I am an organized, messy person and prefer stacking wm. Currently in favor of openbox, but it may be something else tomorrow.(Note: not archbang, but I am not entirely opposed to archbang as some are. Archbang turned out to be really great for my old laptop that I use primarily as a browser, but nothing beats the real deal when it comes to my everyday…

Arch has kinda blossomed into a nano-debian status, people start to build stuff upon it, archbang, archhurd, it's great.

The former has filled the 'out of the box' niche sort of, now you have a minimalist yet ready to use system.

# note aside, about nixos, I can't tell how it's gonna turn out, but for once it's a linux system with a real paradigm shift. Funny how non-mutable ideas are spreading these days, btrfs, nix, even git.

# second note, have you seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jULGE0rq8M ? makes me wanna say 'tiling' is the only 'management' right now, stacking doesn't do sh*t.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#88

Post by chimeracoder »

heyrhett wrote: post #73

"First of all, nothing works out of the box. You will have to manually set up the driver for your video card, ...Xorg, " I stopped there http://xkcd.com/963/

Technically true, but misleading. I've installed Arch on four machines of various hardware, and this is actually the easiest part of the installation process.

You have to select a driver from a comprehensive list of which drivers work for which cards, and you don't have to make any (non-trivial) changes to xorg.conf, unless you want to set up multiple monitors. (And even then, I was able to avoid that for a long time by using XFCE, which apparently doesn't mind when xorg.conf settings are unspecified/improperly specified).

Yes, everything has to be set up manually on an Arch system, but that's a feature - you know where everything on your system is, and you know that there's nothing you didn't add yourself.

And with the wiki, setup may take some time (again, by design), but the process is incredibly straightforward.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#89

Post by xentac »

shaurz wrote: post #64
pnathan wrote: post #27

I read the article and groaned. My days of "tweak it until it works, just for fun" are pretty much past me (I'm typing this on a Mac, for instance). I like to spend my energy creating things these days. But Arch seems really cool if you want to rebuild Linux systems for fun & knowledge!

Once you have Arch set up, there is very little tweaking that needs to be done. It "just works", well unless you have an AMD or NVIDIA graphics card and a new kernel or xorg comes out which isn't supported yet...

I think this is a little disingenuous. The Arch developers do their best to make sure that nvidia and amd drivers work with new kernels.

Sometimes updated drivers are needed, but not released for months, and the developers have to make the choice between holding back the kernel update for that small minority or releasing it to the benefit of everyone not using that driver.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#90

Post by fam »

pandeiro wrote: post #44
astrodust wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to be a minimalist? Even a Raspberry Pi system, which costs under $50 kitted out with storage, could handle a moderately full install. The only "minimalist" Linux install I've ever wanted was one so stripped down it would boot off of a 3.5" floppy. It's amazing what you can do with a kernel, a baked in read-only filesystem and a tiny loopback device for storing configuration files.

Minimalism means faster boot time, less cruft in $HOME, generally knowing where stuff is, and more time to comb my enormous neckbeard...

IMO boot time isn't a big selling point anymore with SSDs in the market (albeit not exactly affordable). A MacBook Air can boot up within seconds and that's plenty fast for me.
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