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Arch Linux – Do it yourself

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Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#91

Post by jefurii »

coldpie wrote: post #36
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…

> 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'…

> ... 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's what finally made it click.

Glad you've had a good experience with Arch. I've been using Debian and derivatives for years. I've occasionally seen hiccups with apt but I can almost always trace them to network trouble rather than the distro itself. In the other cases, reading the manpages or googling a bit helped unbork the system. It sounds like you didn't exercise your sysadmin/debugging skills.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#92

Post by Arguggi »

doktrin wrote: post #87
burntsushi wrote: post #3

There's value in a shorter more targeted tutorial, but the canonical install instructions for Arch are instructive and detailed: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_guide Also, if you want to use Arch in a dependable way, subscribing to arch-announce is important[1]. It's a low traffic mailing list that notifies you of any manual steps you may need to take during a package upgrade. (I've been using Arch…

This deserves to be a visible comment. The arch documentation is pretty phenomenal, and may be some of the best distro-specific documentation I've ever come across. That said, I've just moved back to mint after about a year with arch. At the end of the day, arch required a little too much of my time and attention. Still a great distro, though.

Shameless plug: I've been trying a list with every issue I encounter while using arch [0], as of today I've had ~10 issues in ~170 days. Each issue has taken me ~5 minutes to solve.

[0] https://arguggi.co.uk/blog/list.html

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#93

Post by pgtan »

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.

My latest gentoo discovery: sys-fs/static, took me some time though to setup the system. Server runs for couple of months now without any problems. And completely free of systemd, pulseaudio, and udevd.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#94

Post by elektronjunge »

vitoreiji wrote: post #74
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.

And the /bin symlinking... systemd and GRUB legacy were bigger. But about annually there's something arch land that will break even the most minimal installations if you aren't careful.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#95

Post by coldpie »

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?

Honestly, I don't know. I'm not really familiar with non-Arch distros, and I only install a different distro maybe once a year, so I've never dug into the problem. The first thing I do when I install a non-rolling-release distro (usually one of Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora) is update the software using the package manager. The upgrade process almost always fails in some way and leaves me with a broken system. On the odd installation where it does work, it will then inevitably fail on a future update after a few months of dormancy.

I figure it must be something I'm doing, but I don't know what it could be, as updating is literally the first thing I do.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#96

Post by coldpie »

pimeys wrote: post #44
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'…

I've been using Arch on my workstation and on my laptop for several years already. I can sign all the points you gave in here and I really appreciate how easy it is to setup and use the distribution. Although many years ago I had problems when updating, in the recent years everything just works and I don't need to worry about upgrading the whole distro every 6 months.

Yeah, there were more upgrade conflicts years ago before most system software switched to the "conf.d" directory-style configuration system. Now the Arch-provided config upgrades cleanly as the user configuration is separate. Upgrade conflicts have been very rare lately.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#97

Post by mitosis »

jvreeland wrote: post #84
vitoreiji wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The filesystem package changes have caused no end of issues to people who did't read the news and just Syu'd :)

Exactly. You're not supposed to pacman -Syu without looking. Part of your duty when you choose to install Arch is to take a few minutes every week to keep on top of what's new. Call it basic hygiene.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#98

Post by coldpie »

jefurii wrote: post #91
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'…

> ... 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's what finally made it click. Glad you've had a good experience with Arch. I've been using Debian and derivatives for years. I've occasionally seen hiccups with apt but I can almost always trace them…

Yes, part of it is ignorance on my part. I'm not familiar with DEB or RPM package management conventions. For example, on RPM systems, it turns out you can install two RPMs of the same name, but different versions! And this is the default instead of upgrading! Boy, that took ages to debug.

But really, installing a system and using the system-provided package manager to perform a system update should "Just Work." And my experience is that this almost always ends in failure, and usually in a broken system. I dunno.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#99

Post by coldpie »

antocv wrote: post #72
dman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 repo…

Well put, that mirrors my experience. A year or two ago (recent history), I had an issue where I tried to install a 32-bit package on a 64-bit system accidentally. apt (or apt-get, or deb, or gdebi, or aptitude, or synaptic, or Software Update, or Software Center, or something else, I forget which one) detected conflicts and the default action had I pressed enter would have been to uninstall every 64-bit package on the system that conflicted with that 32-bit package or any of its many dependencies. That's not sane. Hopefully they've fixed this by now.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#100

Post by hyperion2010 »

charliefg wrote: post #75
richmt wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-ha…

Soon to be 10 year gentoo user. I've toyed with various update frequencies, and have found that multiple weekly updates is a good way to stay sane. That said, there are those time where you just have to help an emerge see itself through.

I originally came to learn, but I've stayed for the USE flags. The number of times I have needed or wanted some feature on a package in arch (which I use for my linux vms) and have had to dig through the documentation and set up a compile environment for a package for an hour is absurd when I realize that all this is solved in 30 seconds by setting the right USE flag on gentoo.

Gentoo also has the best/most up to date python support of any distro I have found.

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