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Arch Linux – Do it yourself

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Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#71

Post by nextos »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #69
Gracana wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch has been pretty reliable and straightforward for me, but I wish it had a set of packages you could install to get a full-featured desktop. A curated set that included a DE and fonts and programs, or something. I like arch's install process for weird systems where configuring disks and networking would be difficult in most other distros, but once that's done I want to move back to easy street. I don't want to hav…

I think Antergos is a bit like what you are asking for. Such an approach is usually looked down upon in the Arch community. I hate that it is. I love Arch. I love the package system, I love the wiki, I love everything about it. What I don't love is redoing everything each time I have a fresh install. Yeah, it probably takes 10 minutes to get a working system up and a day to get everything as I want it, but I hate jus…

Why don't you script the Arch install process and save the dot files. Then it's a 2-minute process.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#72

Post by antocv »

dman wrote: post #65
coldpie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really like Arch, because contrary to the popular belief it is the most hassle free distro I've encountered. I completely agree. I tried switching to Linux a few times in high school (early-mid '00s), and always had false starts with Fedora or Ubuntu. Usually the package manager would break and everything would fall to pieces. I ended up installing Arch as a Subversion server for some personal projects, and that'…

Could you explain what causes Ubuntu package manager to fall over?

Dependencies. Conflicts with.

Unavailable dependencies from mirrors.

Girlfriends OpenSUSE for example ran fine for a few months and now its stuck in an infinite update/upgrade loop or whatever it is trying to do - I really dont have the time to look into it. But the problem is, zypper cant update but really wants to update. Most likely it is conflicts between different repositories, or unavailable shit from some repository. But how useful would OpenSUSE be without the ability to play mp3 files?

So all her programs are now outdated, getting older and older.

Ive seen the same on most .deb based distros Ive tried - failure to update/upgrade a package or collection of packages - breaks the entire system.

Oh you ran apt-get install something previously? Well now that failed, and I will not let you continue until you resolve the issue, the other package will be REMOVED, and the current package cannot be installed, but for an update is who the fuck cares stfu ragequit* * (installs archlinux).

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#73

Post by Gracana »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #69
Gracana wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arch has been pretty reliable and straightforward for me, but I wish it had a set of packages you could install to get a full-featured desktop. A curated set that included a DE and fonts and programs, or something. I like arch's install process for weird systems where configuring disks and networking would be difficult in most other distros, but once that's done I want to move back to easy street. I don't want to hav…

I think Antergos is a bit like what you are asking for. Such an approach is usually looked down upon in the Arch community. I hate that it is. I love Arch. I love the package system, I love the wiki, I love everything about it. What I don't love is redoing everything each time I have a fresh install. Yeah, it probably takes 10 minutes to get a working system up and a day to get everything as I want it, but I hate jus…

> Such an approach is usually looked down upon in the Arch community.

That's really too bad, because I think a method for sharing curated sets would be great. Maybe the problem isn't so much that sets would be bad, but that it might cause people's expectations of arch to change. Like, if you do everything yourself and it breaks, it's your fault, but if the system does it for you and it breaks, now it's arch's/the maintainer's fault. I don't know if that would happen, but it seems like there might be some danger of a cultural shift.

Anyway, Antergos... It looks like it uses Ubiquity to install, so I'm not sure it seems any better than anything else I've tried, but I'm only just starting to check it out so maybe there's more to it.

[edit] oh, duh, I see now that Antergos is arch-based. It looks nice. I'll have to see what the text-based installer is like.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#74

Post by vitoreiji »

mhax wrote: post #48

Arch is awesome and I've used it at home and work for years, but the rolling release cycle means that you must keep on top of upgrades. I was once a little too slack (no pun intended) and had several hundred packages that needed upgrading and there was simply no easy way of making it work. It was around the time of the systemd introduction, so that may have been a significant complicating factor.

Yes, the systemd introduction was a special time in Arch land. A lot of systems got broken in those days. The only comparable time I can recall right now is when they dropped GRUB Legacy. People who upgraded carelessly were unable to boot. These are the two single big events in 8 years or so I've been using Arch.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#75

Post by charliefg »

richmt wrote: post #34
zx2c4 wrote: post #27

Gentoo is a much more rewarding and educational experience: https://www.gentoo.org/get-started/ https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:Main_Page

I've been using arch for quite a while, and I was wondering if you could explain why gentoo would be more rewarding for someone like me.

Tick 3 for Gentoo:

[] Do you enjoy building everything to the minutest specification, regardless of bins being available?

[] Do you like the idea of building/rebuilding the entire system into your hardware instead of performing a quick fresh installation?

[] Let's say you've been lazy with updates -- would you mind emerge ragging the CPU for 15+ hours?

(Disclosure: I love Arch but (believe it or not) I've been die-hard Gentoo for a couple of years, even got two versions of the same T-Shirt -- which I feel is appropriate)

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#76

Post by levifig »

So glad to see this on the front-page of HN! Arch is a great distro but, like Linux in general, is struggling for support and promotion.

Now, I'm no believer in "Linux on the Desktop" any time soon (will it finally be 2015? :P), but I'm a firm believer in Linux as a multi-purpose tool that any hacker worth his/her salt should not only have in their toolbox, but also be proficient on. And not just for server usage, which is a bit more common, but on the desktop. I learned a LOT about computers from running distros like Gentoo and Arch, where you have to make decisions and learn the process and components that make things tick.

I highly recommend Arch. It's a super flexible and clean distro, that requires a bit more upfront investment to get installed, but I find it easier to maintain, with the biggest and friendliest support community, and very customizable.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#77

Post by vitoreiji »

SSLy wrote: post #50
crypt1d wrote: post #43

Surprised to see a tutorial on Arch linux on front page. As a sys admin, I appreciate the effort to tune everything to your needs, and Arch has its place there for sure. As a user, I just want things to work. So I usually stay away from tweak-everything-you-can distros. So now on one hand you have the distros that do pretty much everything for you (ubuntu style), and on the other you have to do the tweaking for yours…

I use arch for few years already and I've found out that actually one does not need to make any tweaks - in 99% of cases, just install the package you want and it just works. The only thing I've replaced is font rendering pipeline -- I use the outstandingly beautiful bohoomil's repository[0]. And that's it, everything else is right there. [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Infinality#Custom_repos...

I recently had to reinstall my arch and was pleased to find this repo. It is much easier than installing everything from AUR and trying to keep it consistent. And my fonts look even better now.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#78

Post by laumars »

nextos wrote: post #61
olalonde wrote: post #42

> The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it! -Linus Torvalds Surprisingly, Linus is actually quite critical of the more technical Linux distributions. Here's another quote from him: > And when it comes to distributions, ease of installation has actually been one of my main issues - I'm a technical person, but I have a very specific area of interest, and I…

I don't think Linus opinion is necessarily against Arch. I am using Arch precisely because I don't want to fight my OS! I also found Gentoo, let alone Linux from Scratch, very complicated and time consuming. The nice thing about Arch is that it hits the sweet spot between simplicity, technicality and easiness. In my opinion having vanilla binary up-to-date packages is the way to go.

I completely agree. Arch is one of the more "technical" distributions to get to a desktop. Particularly when compared with Ubuntu and such like. But once the desktop is running, Arch is one of the easiest distros to maintain.

For example:

1) despite the many criticisms levelled at a rolling release model, I've found it to be more reliable and generally less painful than upgrading between Debian / Ubuntu (for example) releases.

2) pacman is, in my personal opinion, a nicer command line tool than apt-get / apt-cache / aptitude / etc. I do quite like some of the RPM-based tools though (yum, zypper, etc).

3) Adding 3rd party repos in Arch is probably on a par with PPAs, however yaourt (AUR) almost makes it completely unnecessary to ever look for another 3rd party repo again.

That's not to say everything is perfect though: Occasionally updates need to be applied manually; being bleeding edge can be a double edged sword sometimes; and I really did prefer the old BSD-inspired rc.conf over the new system of various files scattered around /etc and the much debated systemd. But each to their own on that one.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#79

Post by FusionGaming »

Gracana wrote: post #66
nextos wrote: post #35

I really like Arch, because contrary to the popular belief it is the most hassle-free distro I've encountered. As vanilla and up-to-date as possible, but with the right amount of automation (binary pkgs and great simple utilities) baked in. That said, some distros like nix and guix are addressing a much needed problem now---how to be able to get reproducible builds. Sadly, they haven't learnt many lessons Arch taught…

Arch has been pretty reliable and straightforward for me, but I wish it had a set of packages you could install to get a full-featured desktop. A curated set that included a DE and fonts and programs, or something. I like arch's install process for weird systems where configuring disks and networking would be difficult in most other distros, but once that's done I want to move back to easy street. I don't want to hav…

You can try evo/lution installer. I've used it and it lets you install the basic arch OS and then lets you choose a DE which it configures for you. It also install basic things such as a login manager and network manager. It also gives you a vanilla arch install.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#80

Post by auxym »

Gracana wrote: post #66
nextos wrote: post #35

I really like Arch, because contrary to the popular belief it is the most hassle-free distro I've encountered. As vanilla and up-to-date as possible, but with the right amount of automation (binary pkgs and great simple utilities) baked in. That said, some distros like nix and guix are addressing a much needed problem now---how to be able to get reproducible builds. Sadly, they haven't learnt many lessons Arch taught…

Arch has been pretty reliable and straightforward for me, but I wish it had a set of packages you could install to get a full-featured desktop. A curated set that included a DE and fonts and programs, or something. I like arch's install process for weird systems where configuring disks and networking would be difficult in most other distros, but once that's done I want to move back to easy street. I don't want to hav…

There's a few distros out there that are based on arch but come with well set up desktops. I've had a good experience with manjaro.
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