Disadvantage of using Arch Linux?

kcirick · 2010-08-15 02:06:05

Hello,

I'm a very happy user of Arch Linux. Lately I've been searching and thinking about trying out other distros, but I can't justify why I would go away from Arch Linux and try something else. More specifically, I was first looking at LFS thinking I would learn more about the inner working of linux, but maintenance seems to be a nightmare (I think that's why people use already well-established distributions, no?). Then I looked at Gentoo, but I didn't find anything that Arch was lacking.

Could anyone tell me the advantage of going with other distributions, or what Arch linux does poorly that others do well? Like I said, I'm very happy using Arch, and I don't want to go with other distributions only "for a change".

I realize that because this is an Arch Linux forum, most people express the good side of Arch (most of which I agree), but I would like to know the dark side, if there are any (so far I can find none).

karol · 2010-08-15 02:10:51

Gentoo has USE flags.
Debian is regarded as a good server distro.

doorknob60 · 2010-08-15 02:11:47

I honestly can't think of anything that I don't like about Arch (any complaints I have are about certain pieces of software (Flash, ATI, etc.) or Linux in general, not Arch). It's worked perfect for me ever since I installed it over a year and a half ago.

DeletedUser201201 · 2010-08-15 02:13:17

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FAQ … se_Arch.3F
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arc … tributions

kcirick · 2010-08-15 02:17:19

Thanks for quick responses. The wiki articles are useful.

Looks like I did find a perfect match by choosing Arch. There is nothing on "why not to use Arch" that fits me.

nixpunk · 2010-08-15 03:50:41

kcirick wrote:

I'm a very happy user of Arch Linux

To me, there is no reason to go on if that's the case. There are many great distros out there, but none of them are perfect. If you find one that makes you happy, stop searching or questioning your decision(s).

Stick with one, get to know it, and become one with it. That's my 10 cents.

Gullible Jones · 2010-08-15 04:06:59

In my experience the major disadvantage of Arch is bugginess. Not Debian sid style total brokenness, but minor, irritating bugs in the latest versions of apps, that haven't been ironed out yet.

A good example is the current version of Qt, 4.6.3, in which the QGTK engine is broken unless you use a full desktop environment. It's only annoying insofar as Qt apps don't match the rest of the destkop, but there you have it.

(Another one is the Gnome/PolicyKit mess from a while back, where suspend and hibernate didn't work by default. That was a more severe example, but still possible to deal with by editing PolicyKit.conf.)

What I'm getting at is that some things in Arch are always going to need duct tape, and probably will look like they've been duct taped once you've fixed them.

Also, Arch's config files are AFAIK unfriendly towards GUI config apps; they make things easier by far for experienced users, but harder for newbies. So Arch is probably not so great as a base system for an "easy to use" desktop distro.

Last edited by Gullible Jones (2010-08-15 04:07:39)

Ari'osika · 2010-08-15 05:54:16

In my experience the "Dark Side of Arch" includes;

All of what Gullible Jones said.
Some problems that arise because of your custom Arch configuration can be and are uniquely yours, (and quite a pain to debug and fix).
Without experiencing other distros (even one's non-linux), you may lose sight and forget about the other "true innovations" and ideas that people may have brought to life in a distro.
Arch is all about choices, and much choice can be a bad thing, like alcohol

Here's an extreme but unfortunately true case (for me at least). Using Arch has turned me into a kind of power-user freak. I know I'll eventually abandon all other distros once I build an LFS-system complete a *BSD-style init and custom written package manager. "Simply to have more control".

Last edited by Ari'osika (2010-08-15 05:55:21)

Kosmonavt · 2010-08-15 08:04:40

1) For a server (not SOHO, but slightly bigger), Arch is not that good, because of unsigned packages (less security) and absence of some equivalent of Debian Security Advisories.
2) Sometimes (not always!) config files aren't well documented and organised. E.g., Apache2 - it took me about 10 minutes in Debian to configure simple server, but in Arch - about an hour. Debianists often polish original documentation, sometimes it even works
3) Surely, a lot of freedom can be bad, if there's too much freedom, especially for newbies.

Through the prism of KISS principle, most of these disadvantages are cost of this principle. KISS and rolling release model aren't supposed to suit all needs, but IMO on workstation/laptop it is quite powerful.

Wintervenom · 2010-08-15 09:11:39

Gullible Jones wrote:

A good example is the current version of Qt, 4.6.3, in which the QGTK engine is broken unless you use a full desktop environment.

export GTK2_RC_FILES="$HOME/.gtkrc-2.0"

Allan · 2010-08-15 10:46:24

The only disadvatage I see is that sometimes there is an overload of awesome.

Gullible Jones · 2010-08-15 12:57:36

Wintervenom wrote:

export GTK2_RC_FILES="$HOME/.gtkrc-2.0"

Doesn't work at the moment. This is a known bug in Qt 4.6.3.

ataraxia · 2010-08-15 15:11:24

Not being taken seriously by certain kinds of people. These generally fall into two groups:

1- The ones who haven't "graduated" to Arch-level usage yet. I'm sure you know this kind of person, who thinks Arch is "barbaric" because it isn't dumbed-down, or (even worse) only likes paid-support, corporate offerings. To these people, an Arch user looks like an über-nerd stuck in the past.

2- The "jaded" ones who have gone "beyond" Arch, and now consider taking the time and effort to do something manually to be a waste. Less common in most circles for sure. These people used to run Debian or Slackware for years, but now just use Ubuntu or Mac OS X. To these people, and Arch user looks like hobbyist hacker who needs to "grow up" and find more worthwhile things to spend time on.

schen · 2010-08-15 15:52:23

ataraxia wrote:

Not being taken seriously by certain kinds of people. These generally fall into two groups:
1- The ones who haven't "graduated" to Arch-level usage yet. I'm sure you know this kind of person, who thinks Arch is "barbaric" because it isn't dumbed-down, or (even worse) only likes paid-support, corporate offerings. To these people, an Arch user looks like an über-nerd stuck in the past.
2- The "jaded" ones who have gone "beyond" Arch, and now consider taking the time and effort to do something manually to be a waste. Less common in most circles for sure. These people used to run Debian or Slackware for years, but now just use Ubuntu or Mac OS X. To these people, and Arch user looks like hobbyist hacker who needs to "grow up" and find more worthwhile things to spend time on.

So true.

Xyne · 2010-08-15 16:02:58

this

tlaloc · 2010-08-15 16:17:35

Perhaps the best news on this is that xyne is back - mod policies may have been a little bit rough (over the last week, or so).

kcirick · 2010-08-15 17:28:04

It seems like whatever Arch fails to excel, Arch does excel in other parts other distros fail. (like nixpunk says, no distros are perfect).

On top of this, I do agree with the split of the Arch community as "power users vs linux beginners". The solution is to realize and understand the philosophy of the Arch Linux and not to take all of the comments personally.

Acecero · 2010-08-15 19:30:35

kcirick wrote:

It seems like whatever Arch fails to excel, Arch does excel in other parts other distros fail. (like nixpunk says, no distros are perfect).
On top of this, I do agree with the split of the Arch community as "power users vs linux beginners". The solution is to realize and understand the philosophy of the Arch Linux and not to take all of the comments personally.

The only reason that others think that Arch fails to excel, is because they fail to see how it excels. In this case, "Arch is not for everyone™" as people pointed it out.

archman-cro · 2010-08-15 19:45:01

Xyne wrote:

this

Wow, that thread was a blast! XD

choener · 2010-08-15 20:36:19

The 'Arch' part of the name sounds _a lot_ like a rude german word for your behind! This is curtesy of a colleague of mine who cannot stop laughing when he hears the name. That makes suggesting Archlinux as a Fedora replacement at work rather fun. ;-)

eldalion · 2010-08-15 21:29:18

Kosmonavt wrote:

1) For a server (not SOHO, but slightly bigger), Arch is not that good, because of unsigned packages (less security) and absence of some equivalent of Debian Security Advisories.

Don't mean to hijack this thread but I'm curious to see how people who run a server with Arch deal with the security stuff on a daily basis.

Sometimes I wish PKGBUILDs would include an explanation for an upgrade, like foobar-4.0-4 => foobar-4.0-5, upgrade reason: rebuilt without --shinybling flag. Not sure if any other distro/package manager does this though.

kcirick · 2010-08-15 23:02:05

choener wrote:

The 'Arch' part of the name sounds _a lot_ like a rude german word for your behind! This is curtesy of a colleague of mine who cannot stop laughing when he hears the name. That makes suggesting Archlinux as a Fedora replacement at work rather fun. ;-)

It's more fun if you say it in French "Arche", where it sounds exactly like the German word you speak of. I actually like the name, though.

cesura · 2010-08-16 04:15:12

When Allan breaks something.

jasonwryan · 2010-08-16 04:34:53

Can we keep this on-topic please?

Four consecutive off-topic posts suggest that this thing may have run it's course...

fsckd · 2010-08-16 05:36:40

Allan broke the thread.

Anyways, not mentioned in this thread so far is effort to maintain an Arch install. It is not much but is certainly prohibitive for many people I've spoken to. Compare to other distros where upgrades are done every few weeks. High maintaince is in the very nature of a rolling release, bleeding edge distro.

However, I don't think kcirick would be complaining about anything like that.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-08-15 02:06:05

Disadvantage of using Arch Linux?

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