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On switching to Arch Linux

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Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#151

Post by mappu »

derleth wrote: post #150
mappu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. (Windows is probably a worse offender with its Windows Live integration, though.)

> I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. I don't see that on my Window Maker desktop. (People either forget or have never been told that Ubuntu is still actually Linux, and can run all the same software Arch and Slackware and CentOS can run. That's the charitable explanation, anyway.)

Of course... every distro becomes the same once you remove their defaults. You can run RPM on debian and APT on fedora. You can compile everything from source on ubuntu and copy binary packages to your gentoo install. You can use ubuntu repositories on debian and vice versa. Amazingly enough, i have the freedom to kill explorer on windows and use an alternative shell+panel there too. The fact remains that Canonical are integrating "the social web" into their desktop and shipping it to you.

At some point you have to make a distinction between the desktop environment, and the increasingly meaningless term "operating system"; once you stray from the defaults, there's no point distinguishing between distros at all.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#152

Post by CJefferson »

chimeracoder wrote: post #85
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 p…

    > Arch is incredibly stable - you just have to rethink your idea of what stability means in an Arch context.
I don't understand what your definition of stable is. Obviously anyone can not upgrade any distribution or software. If I want to upgrade I have to check the mailing lists to see if there are any major issues. That sounds like a source of instability.

How can I update Arch, on a semi-regular basis (at least yearly), without having to worry about upgrade issues? If I can't, then I don't think you can call it 'incredibly stable'. Of course, you can accept the trade-offs, but don't try to 'rethink stability'.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#153

Post by babarock »

derleth wrote: post #150
mappu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. (Windows is probably a worse offender with its Windows Live integration, though.)

> I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. I don't see that on my Window Maker desktop. (People either forget or have never been told that Ubuntu is still actually Linux, and can run all the same software Arch and Slackware and CentOS can run. That's the charitable explanation, anyway.)

I find that it makes more sense to get the minimal and add what I want, rather than get the huge Ubuntu (and it's not the only one) bundle and try to remove everything that is unnecessary as I discover it.

On a complex system I don't know what is installed and how it's installed. It's just too big to apprehend, I will never hold all this in memory. For instance I used Ubuntu for years before discovering that I do not use 'GNU bash' at all, it was a fork called 'dash'. It may be silly and won't make a big difference, but the fact remains that I didn't know for so long. If I had bash and 10 other binaries in total on my system, I would have realized earlier. A lot earlier.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#154

Post by karlzt »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #130
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 appreciate the minimalist philosophy, and Arch is on my todo list (it's even got a vm allocated). However, I seemed to have evolved into a more dual-pronged strategy - Full featured Ubuntu desktop, with relatively stripped down Ubuntu/Cent/OpenSUSE servers running in VMs. For my desktop, I still value 'just works' over minimalism. Things like Spotify just work out of the box. And any software I may want to play wit…

I use Arch with modular kde, which is a balance between minimalism and 'just works'.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#155

Post by siphr »

I suppose, at the end of the day. It is all about an individual's preference. The gift of Linux is Choice. Having said that I've used Arch for the past 4 years or so and I have to admit that, for me at least, it is a beautiful thing. I've never had any issues with it what so ever. The box stays up for months on end without problems, except for the times when there is no power :). Pacman, is by far the most straight forward package manager I've come across. The control it lets you have on what you install on the system (the minimalist approach) is just wonderful. The blog makes it sound a bit intimidating when it really isn't. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#156

Post by derleth »

mappu wrote: post #151
derleth wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. I don't see that on my Window Maker desktop. (People either forget or have never been told that Ubuntu is still actually Linux, and can run all the same software Arch and Slackware and CentOS can run. That's the charitable explanation, anyway.)

Of course... every distro becomes the same once you remove their defaults. You can run RPM on debian and APT on fedora. You can compile everything from source on ubuntu and copy binary packages to your gentoo install. You can use ubuntu repositories on debian and vice versa. Amazingly enough, i have the freedom to kill explorer on windows and use an alternative shell+panel there too. The fact remains that Canonical a…

> every distro becomes the same once you remove their defaults

You can remove some of the defaults and not all of them. For example, I still use the default Ubuntu package repos. I'm still getting value out of the default Ubuntu system without needing to run every single default.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#157

Post by derleth »

babarock wrote: post #153
derleth wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd count Ubuntu's Me menu as integrating "the social web" into the desktop. I don't see that on my Window Maker desktop. (People either forget or have never been told that Ubuntu is still actually Linux, and can run all the same software Arch and Slackware and CentOS can run. That's the charitable explanation, anyway.)

I find that it makes more sense to get the minimal and add what I want, rather than get the huge Ubuntu (and it's not the only one) bundle and try to remove everything that is unnecessary as I discover it. On a complex system I don't know what is installed and how it's installed. It's just too big to apprehend, I will never hold all this in memory. For instance I used Ubuntu for years before discovering that I do not…

> I do not use 'GNU bash' at all, it was a fork called 'dash'.

If I'm reading this right, you must be one of the very few people on Earth to use dash when you have the option to use bash.

Anyway, I don't use bash, either, but that's because I moved to zsh before Ubuntu even existed. I think I was using Slackware then.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#158

Post by haha_rioja__ »

anigbrowl wrote: post #109
tammer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I've been an incredibly happy Arch user for two years now (have it on all my home systems) which may indicate my bias. Whether I'm an "outcast" or a "neckbeard" is entirely for others to decide. What I can tell you is that based on your comment, you simply have never experienced the joy of building something from scratch. Rather than defend Arch explicitly, I'd like to use an example. I like bicycles. I c…

However, using this approach, when something goes wrong (as inevitably will happen with all machines, mechanical or digital) my reaction would most likely be be to look down at the problem, scratch my head, then walk my ass to the bike shop. You could just learn to maintain/repair the store bike, which has after all been designed to work by someone, and probably does most of the time. I've ridden bikes for years and…

You could just learn to maintain/repair the store bike

Personally, I find Ubuntu like a store-bought bike that uses a bunch of non-standard parts. You may have a complete tool kit, but you don't have the right tool for this bike.

Or: when I troubleshoot Ubuntu, I learn Ubuntu. When I troubleshoot Arch, I learn Linux.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#159

Post by bwat47 »

shanemhansen wrote: post #43

Arch is fun to play with. A couple years ago the fact that everything was i686 optimized was a big deal. These days just about everyone is using 64bit. It's a good choice for embedded linux systems and servers (Beyond Oblivion used arch for their servers). Speaking from experience, life is just too short to run arch on a laptop. Heck, I have a hp pavilion dv7 with switching graphics and even that was a pita to get st…

I run arch on a laptop with no problems at all. I specifically got a laptop with intel graphics and wireless so I have a great experience with any distro :) Arch required almost no setup when it came to graphics/sound/wireless. Just had to install xf86-video-intel and xf86-input-synaptics.

IMO its best to stay the hell away from switchable graphics period if you intend to use linux.

Re: On switching to Arch Linux

#160

Post by bwat47 »

shaurz wrote: post #72
mcrittenden wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. I think we're talking about two different things. By "nothing works out of the box" I mean that you need to set it up yourself. For example, the Beginner's Guide leads you through setup of your video driver [1], ALSA [2], Xorg [3], and wifi [4]. These are all things that require manual work. Maybe there's a more appropriate term for this than "doesn't work out of the box" (?) but it's the first term that…

For wifi it's much easier to install networkmanager, add it to DAEMONS (after dbus) and then configure your network with one of the KDE/GNOME networkmanager applets. It pretty much just works after that. For example I plugged in a USB wifi adaptor and it automatically appeared in the applet and found various SSIDs. For sound, the best solution that worked for me was ALSA + esd. I could never get PulseAudio to work pr…

I've had a great experience with pulseaudio + gnome 3. Some people consider gnome 3's tight integration with pulse a downside, but so far its given me the best sound experience on linux.

On arch after installing gnome 3 my sound just works flawlessly, even my usb headphones.

I did have issues with pulse when I used XFCE though.

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