ArchLinux changing - Purpose

nXqd · 2010-07-08 15:25:14

I'm a long time Windows user, and a programmer too. I prefer command line but I still love to have a beautiful and clean desktop to use
I'm looking around the best suite distro and maybe arch is the one .
I don't have many knowledge about Linux and distros.
Arch is fast / lightweight right ? Speed and minimal / clean interface is my most concern.
How much it cost to have a full install of useful apps [ Music / video / programming ( C, C++, php, ... ) / DE - KDemod ? / chat (pidgin) / Chrome ]
I love the customization of linux and powerful CLI apps.
Thanks for reading this and I'm waiting for your reply

karol · 2010-07-08 15:47:13

> I love the customization of linux and powerful CLI apps.
> DE - KDemod ?
Does not compute ...

> Arch is fast / lightweight right
Arch is what you make it - it has no default DE / WM, you don't need to install xorg-server if you don't use it etc.
My minimal setup runs in 25MB in console / 40MB RAM in X (just a couple dash shells in urxvt and maybe vim). If I start a browser, it uses 150+ MB.

> I don't have many knowledge about Linux and distros.
You can try Arch, if you find it not to your liking, you hop to another distro.

> How much it cost to have a full install of useful apps
A couple hours' of your time.

qchapter · 2010-07-08 15:52:37

Arch can be as light and fast as you want it to be. It puts the power in the hands of the user. Please explore Arch's awesome wiki. This would be a great place to start: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way

I would avoid Kdemod and stick with the KDE packages available in the Arch repositories because the Chakra developers are focusing more on the Chakra project itself and less on Kdemod.

Last edited by qchapter (2010-07-08 15:53:20)

drcouzelis · 2010-07-08 15:52:52

Yes, Arch Linux can be fast and lightweight.

If you want to use Arch Linux then you have to read and learn a lot. For example, to install it, please use the Beginner's Guide. If you want to use Linux but you don't want to learn a lot about it, then you probably shouldn't use Arch Linux.

nXqd wrote:

How much it cost to have a full install of useful apps?

I don't understand. Arch Linux is free. ($0)

karol · 2010-07-08 15:58:11

> Arch Linux is free. ($0)
But if you find it useful, please consider donating:
http://www.archlinux.org/donate/
or buying some schwag:
http://schwag.archlinux.ca/
http://www.zazzle.com/archlinux
http://www.freewear.org/?page=list_items&org=Archlinux

Inxsible · 2010-07-08 16:10:05

Definitely buy some schwag !!

nXqd · 2010-07-08 16:49:28

drcouzelis wrote:

Yes, Arch Linux can be fast and lightweight.
If you want to use Arch Linux then you have to read and learn a lot. For example, to install it, please use the Beginner's Guide. If you want to use Linux but you don't want to learn a lot about it, then you probably shouldn't use Arch Linux.

I sure really want to learn and study about linux.

I don't understand. Arch Linux is free. ($0)

I mean HDD storage

2karol : Wow, nice stuffs . You don't use any DE ? Can you show me a screenshot ?

After playing around, I end up this one :

Thumbnail Edited

Last edited by nXqd (2010-07-08 17:11:08)

karol · 2010-07-08 16:50:38

Please post just the thumbnails and link the full images, OK?

I use [wiki]dwm[/wiki]
This screenshot is not mine, but mine looks similar - http://dwm.suckless.org/screenshots/dwm-20080717.png

This is also dwm.
The above link is from a thread for screenshots - take a look around, if you find sth you like, ask the person who posted it, what apps and settings did he use.

You can have a system sunning in less than 500 MB of HDD space but 1 - 2 GB is more common - it all depends on what apps do you use.

Last edited by karol (2010-07-08 17:07:08)

nXqd · 2010-07-08 17:49:49

2karol
Thanks so much, what I'm looking for is a windows manager not fancy DE in linux. I'm finding my best suite WM, dwm is really fast
Are there any commands to show how many free space left on my whole partition / disk ?
Are there "portable" application or clone tool for linux ?

karol · 2010-07-08 17:51:00

> what I'm looking for is a windows manager not fancy DE in linux.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Window_Manager
dwm is a tiling manager.

> Are there any commands to show how many free space left on my whole partition / disk ?
'df -h'

> Are there "portable" application or clone tool for linux
Sorry, I don't understand what do you need?

Last edited by karol (2010-07-08 18:03:02)

nXqd · 2010-07-08 18:44:56

karol wrote:

> Are there "portable" application or clone tool for linux
Sorry, I don't understand what do you need?

In windows, I'm used to installing my software as portable - mean settings saved in the same folder as app. So if I've problem with the OS , all my settings stay back. And in windows, we've ghost / true image [ Clone tools ]

karol · 2010-07-08 18:47:27

You can do backups and clone things on linux too - for a minute I thought you want to "magically" move your apps from Windows to Linux.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cat … _(English)

Last edited by karol (2010-07-08 18:48:31)

nXqd · 2010-07-08 18:56:57

karol wrote:

You can do backups and clone things on linux too - for a minute I thought you want to "magically" move your apps from Windows to Linux.

at last I'm not that noob
Playing around with dwm, I'm in love with Linux :x

karol · 2010-07-08 19:08:28

> Playing around with dwm, I'm in love with Linux :x
http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/dwm-win32/
I've never tired it though.
Wikipedia has a collection of some dwm-like WMs.

Last edited by karol (2010-07-08 19:10:46)

quarkup · 2010-07-08 19:27:26

try fluxbox (its very lightweigh, intuitive and yet simple, elegant and fast)
also try the best of the CLI apps, like mpd+ncmpcpp (media player daemon + client), weechat and the like

btw: welcome to the linux community.

antis · 2010-07-08 20:22:02

I don't know what hardware you are using, but if you are low on resources I'd give e17 (enlightenment) a try. I just installed it on my atom based HP mini and things are flying.

At first I gave Gnome a go but the switch to e17 has really made a huge difference. If you like to tinker with settings and look & feel of your WM I think you'll like enlightenment and with ecomorph you'll get that extra touch to it

schen · 2010-07-09 02:04:24

I also like dwm. To add extra eye candy, try patching it for transparency support(look in the patches section of dwm.suckless.org) and add xcompmgr. It's a lightweight compositing window manager that can add fading, drop shadows, and transparency for some programs, like urxvt.

Google · 2010-07-09 02:30:22

I think Awesome3 is great out of the box for anyone who wants to jump straight into tiling and keep a system tray, clock and application launcher out of the box.

fsckd · 2010-07-09 04:07:16

Awesome 2 is awesome too.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Last edited by fsckd (2010-07-09 04:07:57)

nXqd · 2010-07-09 05:46:31

Thanks so much for the help guys
I'm reinstalling my Arch now, and I'll try dwm first . There's a lot of WM out there, what I really love in Linux Comm is they use apps as they wish FluxBox, OpenBox, dwm, they're all used
But dwm is quite cool and fast , I'll try it first . There's a lot in testing / AUR . . . Just the first step, thanks guys again .
Can you guys name the popular music player / video player / terminal apps ?
I used to use Foobar in windows and I've found one player, does it play flac well ? [ I'm lossless fan ]
Video player : Codecs ?

* There're a lot of terminals out there, I'm truly surprised . The default one is xterm right ? Are there any serious problem between them ? I'm looking for a lightweight guy, xterm is nice but Arch mates seem to use urxvt a lot, why ? And do they support unicode ?

// Linux apps always has a "geek" name

Last edited by nXqd (2010-07-09 05:46:55)

stryder · 2010-07-09 06:17:41

You can use foobar with wine. I use audacious. Plenty of music managers as well. VLC and mplayer are the common video apps.

nXqd · 2010-07-09 06:28:32

stryder wrote:

You can use foobar with wine. I use audacious. Plenty of music managers as well. VLC and mplayer are the common video apps.

No I won't use any windows app on linux . I'm going to pure Linux [ No virtual machine I means ]

sultanoswing · 2010-07-09 11:03:59

I like amarok as a music player - but it can hardly be described as lightweight - and it will pull down a bunch of KDE packages as dependencies.

The wiki will help you with installing extra codecs. I also run foobar in WINE, and it's fine.

No need to backup our program settings as such - simply use a separate partition as your '/home' mountpoint on installation, and choose to not format it. Voila - all of our settings will be preserved. Another way to do this is copy your /home/username directory to another drive, then simply copy it back once you've reinstalled.

karol · 2010-07-09 13:48:07

> Can you guys name the popular music player / video player / terminal apps ?
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Common_Applications
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lig … plications

You should get familiar with pacman. One of it's options is to export a list of installed apps, so you can easily reinstall them in you have to. As other folks wrote, you don't have to backups many GB of programs - you can always [1] download them from Arch mirrors. It's enough if you know which apps do you need.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pac … l_database

[1] http://arm.kh.nu/search/
ARM is here for the old packages, no longer present in Arch repos. If for some reason you need an old version of some app, check there.

Both urxvt and xterm support unicode, I prefer the way urxvt does it (you can mix fonts). Besides, it can be run as a daemon, so it's easy on your RAM. If you don't need bash, you can use dash - a lighter (but less-featured) shell:

$ ./shellram
COUNT: 9
RESIDENT: 4 MB
VIRTUAL: 18 MB

I have 9 dash instances running, and they eat only 20 MB RAM - about half as much as bash.
You can alway start w/ dash (make it your login shell) and then just type 'bash' to get bash shell :-) Zsh is also fine.

> I used to use Foobar in windows
It's one of those apps you'll miss - many many people do.

> I like amarok as a music player - but it can hardly be described as lightweight
Amarok is a sumo player.

> Linux apps always has a "geek" name
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=72150&p=1

Last edited by karol (2010-07-09 15:49:30)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-08 15:25:14

ArchLinux changing - Purpose

#2 2010-07-08 15:47:13

Re: ArchLinux changing - Purpose

#3 2010-07-08 15:52:37

Re: ArchLinux changing - Purpose

#4 2010-07-08 15:52:52

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#5 2010-07-08 15:58:11

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#6 2010-07-08 16:10:05

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#7 2010-07-08 16:49:28

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#8 2010-07-08 16:50:38

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#9 2010-07-08 17:49:49

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#10 2010-07-08 17:51:00

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#11 2010-07-08 18:44:56

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#12 2010-07-08 18:47:27

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#14 2010-07-08 19:08:28

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#15 2010-07-08 19:27:26

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