Arch Linux – Do it yourself • Hacker News Board

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#111

Post by reallyRaoul » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 7:38 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #99

antocv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> Hopefully they've fixed this by now.

ha. ha ha ha. so many things in effing all distros that are complete and utter ux fuster clucks.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#112

Post by charliefg » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

hyperion2010 wrote: post #100

charliefg wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Good to hear from such a long term user! I can't really see my enjoyment for the system waning any time soon; feel pretty at home with Gentoo. I hear that a lot about staying for the USE flags, and it's becoming a similar story for me.

I'll keep that in mind about the update frequency.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#113

Post by axaxs » Tue, Apr 07, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

bcook wrote: post #82

collyw wrote: post #26

I will recommend Manjaro for anyone that wants arch without the install hassles. https://manjaro.github.io/

I REALLY wanted to like Manjaro, but it was too buggy. When it was running, it was a smoother, more functional GUI than my barebones Openbox window-manager, which was great. But... During the past 5+ years, I rarely ever had a problem with Arch Linux that is not 100% my fault. Manjaro... it had some problem every few days; updates DB would become corrupt, random freezes, login GUI would stop functioning... I suppose…

ah, you want Antergos then.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#114

Post by TuxLyn » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 3:03 AM UTC

Arguggi wrote: post #15

TuxLyn wrote: post #6

I've blogged about Arch Linux back in 2014. If anyone interested; http://www.distrogeeks.com/arch-linux-2014-install/

TFA and your blog post both mention SLiM as a login manager, according to the Arch wiki[0]: "The SliM project has been abandoned (the project homepage is down, leaving a github mirror), and is not fully compatible to systemd, including logind sessions. Consider using a different Display manager or Xinitrc." Lightdm [1] seems to be a better alternative. [0] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM [1] https://wiki.ar…

Yes officially it is, but notice the date the post was made. It was before the SLiM abandoned :-) I use my self and would recommend LightDM instead of SLiM now. But thank you for pointing this out. I'll post new arch install article one of this days ^_^

I would also like to say that I've been using Arch Linux since 2011 and it works for my development needs. I'm using it with 3-monitors on two separate "GeForce GT 610" video cards. I've tried many other distros including Ubuntu and Fedora both GNOME/KDE. I prefer Arch + XFCE + LightDM my self :-)

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#115

Post by wyclif » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 5:58 AM UTC

ddoolin wrote: post #58

kitd wrote: post #52

First Installing Arch Linux is pretty difficult task when you atempt to do it for your first time if you are not familiar with command line and basics of linux. But I would suggest you to install Arch Linux as you will gain a very good insight on how linux works. then If you got no idea what dd is, arch ain't for you friend! ... do not follow

Came here to post the same thing. Very strange 180 there. I had no idea what dd was when I first got into Arch, but if I had let that deter me, I never would have gotten past the first step. I also don't think understanding dd is very critical to being able to use Arch as a whole.

I agree—the problem is that it does not logically follow and is contradictory, but he is right that knowledge of the CLI makes things a lot easier. However, I'm with you in that I don't think there should be any pressure not to try it anyway. I have a custom-built desktop machine that I can install anything I want on, so if something breaks or falls over, I can simply reinstall another OS (while getting real work done on my laptop).

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#116

Post by antocv » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 7:52 AM UTC

kasabali wrote: post #88

antocv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. Which means you didn't try Debian stable. deb based or not doesn't matter, all that matters is distribution policies on packaging, migrations and releases.

Havent tried Debian stable, but then again, I dont live in 1999 either.

What is the nginx version for Debian stable, is it even in the repositories yet?

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#117

Post by antocv » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 7:57 AM UTC

plorg wrote: post #106

antocv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've had apt-related troubles in the past, but they almost always were caused by the use of custom repositories/PPAs. Further, it might seem arcane to have to type "apt-get install -f" to install dependencies for an autonomous .deb package, but I'm not sure how different that is from having to learn, for example, the myriad switches for pacman.

> the myriad switches for pacman.

Pacman doesnt leave me with a broken package-manager when a package fails to install. For example

pacman -S thatprogram

and if it fails, then next time I do pacman -S otherpgoram or pacman -Syu

it goes fine, there is nothing from thatprogram which complains or bugs me. Unlike Ubuntu/Debian where

apt-get install fail

and thus everything I try to do now will fail unless I resolve the fail.

pacman also has far less switches, at least I know only of -Q -Qs -S -Ss -Sy -U and -Ql | grep for something Im looking for. Thats all I need to know really. Like 4 or 5 switches/commands.

But look at apt,

apt-get {things here but not search!} {ugh so many switchs here} apt-{what its not really called search!?} dpkg-{jesus-christ-so-many-options}

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#118

Post by rakoo » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 8:44 AM UTC

Thriptic wrote: post #90

Is arch relatively approachable for a linux noob who has logged a bit of time on Redhat and Ubuntu?

I'd advise against it. There's no point in trying arch just for the sake of it. My advice, based on my own experience:

- keep using the distribution you know

- dig inside its components to understand what they do

- once you understand what they do, try using an alternative...

- ... until you ultimately realize you don't need it that much, or just want to see what it's like without this component, remove it

- once you get deep down in the customization of your distro you start to realize that the top-down approach is interesting but there'll always be something you didn't know. At that point, it makes sense to try the bottom-up approach: start from nothing, and install the components one by one. The point is that since you've already dug inside your previous distro you know what those components are, whether they are needed or not, and what the alternatives are. You won't spend time understanding these and spend more time on the actual building of a distro. This is where Arch comes in.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#119

Post by FreeFull » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 1:18 PM UTC

thrownaway122 wrote: post #63

FreeFull wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have managed to switch from a different distro to Arch without losing my /home by deleting everything other than /home. I imagine it would be tougher if the distro I switched to wasn't Arch.

Some time ago I messed around and somehow managed to break my Ubuntu system so that it wouldn't boot. Instead of bothering to work out how to fix it I just re-installed (with a different version number) and kept my old /home partition. It all worked out of the box.

Yeah, what I meant was that I had my /home on / rather than on a separate partition, and managed to install a completely different linux distro anyway without losing it.

Re: Arch Linux – Do it yourself

#120

Post by hobarrera » Wed, Apr 08, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

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…

Indeed, the great upside about following the wiki for installation, is that you actually learn how all the pieces fit together - and can actually fix things yourself later on (or diverge slightly from the instructions if you want something different).