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Arch Linux turns 10

archlinux.org

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Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#11

Post by tadfisher »

Vergle wrote: post #3

Happy birthday! And... A question for people using arch: If I install arch correctly and study the basics, will I need to spend time maintaining it? I like the idea of having a distro I can customize and play with to really learn how linux works, but when I want to stop messing about and get work done, it would be nice for it to be as stable as OSX. Unrealistic?

Rolling-release distros and low-maintenance updates are pretty orthogonal concepts. That said, once you get it set up, it's only the major, breaking changes that require real work to maintain, and these are posted regularly on archlinux.com.

I update once a week, keep configs up to date with "yaourt -C" (yaourt is available in the AUR), and read archlinux.com prior to updates to avoid issues.

One caveat is that you need your /boot mounted if you keep it separate, or else anything that depends on linux-headers (like filesystem drivers :/) will break if there's a kernel update.

If you want stability along with the tweakability, go with Debian.

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#12

Post by exch »

Vergle wrote: post #7
abtinf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that I have arch working for my needs, I spend hardly any time maintaining it. The only issues come up when some sort of breaking change is released, and in that case there is always an article right on the arch homepage for steps to migrate to the new package.

and I suppose if your needs are limited cause you only need common services (emacs, firefox, tmux) those incidents will be pretty unusual?

Very unusual. The one time I had a fair amount of issues to resolve was when Arch switched to python 3 as the default, instead of 2. Fortunately, this is not something they do lightly or frequently.

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#13

Post by stock_toaster »

ditoa wrote: post #2

Congratulations to all those past and present involved with Arch. Over the past few years Arch has become my favourite personal distro due to how much control it gives me over my system without being _too_ complicated. Here is to another amazing 10 years for Arch as well as everyone working on other Linux distros. You are all pretty damn amazing in my opinion. Thank you for all you do and please don't stop =D

> Congratulations to all those past and present involved with Arch

Thanks! I still feel good about being listed on the fellows page as a past developer. :)

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#14

Post by tadzik »

Vergle wrote: post #3

Happy birthday! And... A question for people using arch: If I install arch correctly and study the basics, will I need to spend time maintaining it? I like the idea of having a distro I can customize and play with to really learn how linux works, but when I want to stop messing about and get work done, it would be nice for it to be as stable as OSX. Unrealistic?

For me it is (unrealistic). Every update is fear that something will break. Vim, kmail, even gtk themes. You don't know the day or the hour.

At least that's how it is for me. I know many people who have no problems with updates breaking stuff in Arch; maybe it's the fact that I'm using a full-blown KDE instead of a mere xmonad or such. But I wouldn't recommend Arch to anyone who expects stuff to work.

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#16

Post by bitwize »

Arch rules. It is literally just what I wanted from a Linux distro: the dead simplicity and austere Unix-ness of Slackware combined with the up-to-the-minute-ness and easy source package integration of Gentoo. A true gem and reminder of what Linux is and can be, when Ubuntu makes it seem like we've lost our way...

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#17

Post by badboy »

3 machines running on Arch Linux and no major issues up to now.

It's just perfect for me. I love how easy it is to quickly build a new package (not that I need to write PKGBUILDS myself often, most things are available in the AUR)

Happy Birthday!

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#18

Post by phzbOx »

tikhonj wrote: post #10
phzbOx wrote: post #4

I love Arch. Best distribution by far in my opinion. Sadly, I had huge problems one week ago when I did a full system upgrade (took me 2 days to fix everything that was corrupted and lost lots of money because of it) but then it was my fault. (Never use --force with a system upgrade!) To be fair, there should be a warning when you try to execute the command as it's probably not what a user would want to do.

I think having to use an option like '--force' is considered warning enough. Which is, I think, perfectly reasonable. Of course, I don't know your exact scenario, but that's how things seem to work.

Yeah, well the thing is I never had to use it before. But a package required it, so with a quick google-fu it said to include --force. What wasn't clear is that you had to do a --force for only that package.. while I simply added it to my already crafted command. (I.e. ctrl-p --force ). Let's say I've learned that one the hard way ;)

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#19

Post by cron »

tadzik wrote: post #14
Vergle wrote: post #3

Happy birthday! And... A question for people using arch: If I install arch correctly and study the basics, will I need to spend time maintaining it? I like the idea of having a distro I can customize and play with to really learn how linux works, but when I want to stop messing about and get work done, it would be nice for it to be as stable as OSX. Unrealistic?

For me it is (unrealistic). Every update is fear that something will break. Vim, kmail, even gtk themes. You don't know the day or the hour. At least that's how it is for me. I know many people who have no problems with updates breaking stuff in Arch; maybe it's the fact that I'm using a full-blown KDE instead of a mere xmonad or such. But I wouldn't recommend Arch to anyone who expects stuff to work.

IMO, minimalism is as much a defensive strategy as it is an aesthetic for Arch users.

Re: Arch Linux turns 10

#20

Post by bougyman »

Happy birthday, my beautiful Arch! I've only been a devotee since October, 2010, and I don't know how I got along without it. While others are fighting with old. outdated bugs, I get to fight only the newest, shiniest bugs.
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