ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

jiewmeng · 2012-02-09 00:20:27

I am using Ubuntu 11.10 + GNOME 3. Its good except that recently I got frustrated:

- There appear to be an increase in crashes (logout suddenly, or single program crashes)
- Cannot hibernate/suspend (maybe its a hardware issue as when I try booting after that I get long BIOS beep)
- Update to a new kernel breaks GNOME 3 on my laptop

I thought of trying out something else in hope that the experience can be better in terms of

- stability
- performance

I thought of Debian or ArchLinux. If I choose ArchLinux, what are somethings I should know of or how can I convert my Ubuntu knowledge for use in ArchLinux? For example

- How to convert apt commands into pacman ones (install, remove, update, dist-upgrade ...)
- Is there something like ppa's in pacman?
- Can I install applications from apt if I can't find it in pacman?
- I find GNOME3 very user friendly, can I use it? How. Features I like are the Activities Window http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads … erview.png and the Applications Dashboard http://www.gnome.org/wp-content/uploads … p_list.png. I don't mind just using something similar
- Any other differences I should know about before moving over

vwyodajl · 2012-02-09 00:37:24

https://wiki.archlinux.org/

1. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman
2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR
3. not that I am aware of
4. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GNOME3
5. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … ons#Ubuntu

Their wiki is amazing give it a read HTH

Last edited by vwyodajl (2012-02-09 00:38:07)

karol · 2012-02-09 00:37:34

Read the wiki, the Bugenners' Guide etc.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Rosetta may help you a bit.
Not sure what a PPA is, we have https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … positories and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … Repository

Use makepkg and pacman, don't use apt. If the package is not in the official repos, look in the AUR.

Tae · 2012-02-09 00:44:52

In my experience, Arch is very stable. This page explains how to use pacman. I don't know what is a ppa. You can't use apt, but I'm pretty sure all you need can be find on AUR. You can use whatever desktop environment or window manager you want, check it out the GNOME's wiki page. I think you should start here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux

(By the way, I started with Mandrake, then LinEx, then Ututo-e XP, then Ubuntu, then Kubuntu, then Debian and finally I felt in love with Arch).

Last edited by Tae (2012-02-09 00:47:48)

vwyodajl · 2012-02-09 00:50:53

ppa's are just basically what AUR is, user or group modified packages for Ubuntu.

shikitohno · 2012-02-09 03:08:26

PPAs are more like the unofficial user repos than the AUR. For the most part PPA's are just a repo that someone runs to provide alternative binaries to the ones in the main Ubuntu repos or offer packages that would otherwise have to be compiled from source. In a lot of cases, the AUR does pretty much the same thing, just without offering precompiled binaries.

So yes, there's something exactly like PPAs, and then there's another option in the form of the AUR.

h54 · 2012-02-09 04:43:38

I too was having frequent wake from suspend issues, random freezing/crashes, etc. Ubuntu 11.10 Unity was the last straw. I tried using Gnome Shell but it never ran right and again stability was not there. The absolute last straw was last a freeze during one of my programming tests last semester.

Since I made the switch, I'd have to say Arch Linux has been by far the most stable OS I've used to date. Very occasionally (and usually something that I did), gnome shell will glitch but backing out to the virtual terminal (ctrl-f1), killing X (ctrl-c), and restarting the shell always works. Another very appealing feature is the rolling release model and the fact that one can choose what they want to install and nothing more.

As far as converting to Pacman, you will have no trouble. Pacman is far less verbose and easy to learn. As a previous poster said, the Beginners Guide is awesome! The Arch Wiki provides better documentation than that of Ubuntu by a long shot. As far as additional software, the AUR (Arch User Repository) is mind bogglingly large. Everything that is in the Official Ubuntu Repository is likely to be in the AUR and actually up-to-date. I loved the PPA system but the concept of the AUR is better in my opinion; its centralized, easy to search/access, and simple to use.

If you've guessed it, I cannot endorse Arch enough.

edit: The one thing that Ubuntu does better on my particular laptop is connect to wifi faster. Ubuntu would connect in less than 3 seconds where as Arch is ~10 seconds. Its probably a nit-picky thing but it kind of gets on my nerves .

Last edited by h54 (2012-02-09 04:49:13)

jiewmeng · 2012-02-09 13:19:23

@h54, sometimes, I wonder if the crashes are from Ubuntu to GNOME 3. What Desktop Environment are you using or is used by Arch?

stronnag · 2012-02-09 17:37:24

Can only agree with @h54, moved most (4 of 6) of my machines over since 11.10. Gnome Shell on Arch is so much better than Ubuntu and the whole thing is so much stable. No more brain dead Ubuntu special patches taking otherwise stable stuff down. Likewise, I cannot endorse Arch enough.

h54 · 2012-02-09 18:01:03

jiewmeng wrote:

@h54, sometimes, I wonder if the crashes are from Ubuntu to GNOME 3. What Desktop Environment are you using or is used by Arch?

I thought the same too but I'm running Gnome shell and rarely have issues with it. The issue must lay with Ubuntu because Unity is built on top of Gnome Shell and as far as what I read, you can't remove Unity without breaking Gnome Shell. My guess is that even though one may have Gnome Shell selected, Unity is still lurking about...

vwyodajl · 2012-02-09 19:36:23

I have just finished fully converting all my machines, work and home to Arch, ditched SL, CentOS, Fedora on those machines. What made me fall in love with Arch was the ArchArm branch, I converted my drones to using Arch about 6months ago and from the success on my planes, I started with my most touchy on Linux laptop and it performed better than any other Linux OS that its had on it and that was the final sell for me on Arch.

shikitohno · 2012-02-09 19:39:14

I don't know if it's necessarily just Ubuntu. After upgrading to Gnome3 in Fedora, I started having intermittent crashes that would drop me out to the GDM screen. When I joined their help channel on freenode, after describing my symptoms, fenrir02 (or something similar, he's always there) immediately asked if I were using Gnome3, and told me that Gnome3 would just run a lot of unnecessary processes that were prone to making laptops overheat until they crashed, as was happening with me. I never looked into it, so take that with a hefty bit of doubt before you can confirm it for yourself, but that's the explanation I was given. Since switching to a WindowMaker, then Ratpoison and finally settling in with i3, I think I've seen a grand total of two or three crashes due to overheating (one of this laptops weakspots) in a good several months, versus the four or more a day I was getting with Gnome3. I just can't wait until I get in my new hard drive for this machine and then I'll being ditching Fedora for Arch. It'll be the last system I have to move over, and since trying Arch about a year ago, I still love it. Only have had two issues with it, and one was due to faulty wiring at my friend's house frying my hard drive, and the other due to an upstream kernel bug. The first was my own fault, and the second was easily remedied in all of five minutes.

Last edited by shikitohno (2012-02-09 19:39:38)

Psykorgasm · 2012-02-09 20:04:57

As much as I wish to endorse Arch...

Unless you read the beginners guide, or at the very least have the quick install page next to you and go in blind, you will end up feeling lost, angry and one of those people that like to make rage posts on the internet about how Arch is broken and doesn't work

Before I switched ~2 years ago, I played about with Arch in a VM for about 3 days (could have done with just one day really) but I learnt the ways of pacman, getting the relevant config files set up (rc.conf inittab +now ntpd netcfg) - The install went very smoothly including getting basic config complete, then after and getting things installed & set up for a visual working environment other then a tty went just as smooth.

Installing arch is very simple, it's just different. I'd really suggest VM'ing it to get your feet wet!

ancient_archer · 2012-02-09 20:45:40

I would just say that sometimes do not be so fast to update the packages - sometimes they may break something so you should read the news and sometimes wait until the issues are resolved. For example, once there was a problem with updating pacman to 4.0.

But in general, I would say it is a quite stable distribution

piratebill · 2012-02-09 22:00:20

I made the switch to arch from ubuntu a few months ago. I shared similar concerns. I was worried that some obscure package I got from a PPA wouldn't be in arches repos. The AUR has everything the main repo doesn't. Everything I had running in ubuntu runs flawlessly in arch. I have two main systems, a desktop using KDE and a laptop using Gnome3. Both are much more stable now than they ever were with ubuntu. Heck, I had some things that never even worked right in ubuntu functioning perfectly now in arch (sleep mode for example). Spend an hour or two learning how arch works and you will never want to go back.

fsckd · 2012-02-09 22:02:55

If it's not in AUR, make a request.

ANOKNUSA · 2012-02-09 22:57:03

Seems like folks have already touched on the important stuff, so I'll just chime in with a couple points. First, with regard to switching from APT to Pacman: Don't bother trying to "translate" the commands of one into those of the other. Rather, think about what it is you want this lovely package manager to do, and look up how to do it. This will avoid any "But in Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Spin-Off Distro #6302834 you did it thisway!" mental hang-ups. Do you want to install or remove a package? Remove orphaned packages? List dependencies? List all installed packages, and then sort them according to whether they're dependencies or explicitly installed, stand-alone packages?

[/Sales Pitch Mode] Pacman is incredibly versatile, but its real beauty stems from the fact that all of its command flags are organized in such a way that it's easy to catch onto them: All commands related to installation read "S*" (for "sync"), those related to removal read "R*", those related to package information with "Q*" (for "query"), and so on. If you want to see all package-information-related command flags, for instance, then you can type "pacman -Qh" to list all "Q*" commands.

==[ READY FOR INPUT ]== 

>>> pacman -Qh
Password: 
usage:  pacman-color {-Q --query} [options] [package(s)]
options:
  -b, --dbpath <path>  set an alternate database location
  -c, --changelog      view the changelog of a package
  -d, --deps           list packages installed as dependencies [filter]
  -e, --explicit       list packages explicitly installed [filter]
  -g, --groups         view all members of a package group
  -i, --info           view package information (-ii for backup files)
  -k, --check          check that the files owned by the package(s) are present
  -l, --list           list the contents of the queried package
  -m, --foreign        list installed packages not found in sync db(s) [filter]
  -o, --owns <file>    query the package that owns <file>
  -p, --file <package> query a package file instead of the database
  -q, --quiet          show less information for query and search
  -r, --root <path>    set an alternate installation root
  -s, --search <regex> search locally-installed packages for matching strings
  -t, --unrequired     list packages not required by any package [filter]
  -u, --upgrades       list outdated packages [filter]
  -v, --verbose        be verbose
      --arch <arch>    set an alternate architecture
      --cachedir <dir> set an alternate package cache location
      --config <path>  set an alternate configuration file
      --debug          display debug messages
      --gpgdir <path>  set an alternate home directory for GnuPG
      --logfile <path> set an alternate log file
      --noconfirm      do not ask for any confirmation

[/Sales Pitch Mode]

As for your question about GNOME3: very few things in the Linux world are distro-exclusive; if something was created to work with the Linux kernel, it doesn't matter what distro you use. Between the official repositories and the AUR, pretty much every existing GUI is available (or at least, every one that more than one person cares about). Of course, if you spend enough time in these forums you'll learn pretty quickly that many of us prefer to use more minimal, stand-alone window managers, since we're the sort of people a project like Arch attracts. Finally, the prime distinction between a PPA and the AUR is that, using the AUR, the individual end-user is expected to do the work that would normally be left to the maintainer of a PPA. If you want to download nightly builds of the Arora branch of Firefox, for example, you'll need to acutally build the program from source, rather than expecting someone else to do it and simply installing a pre-built binary, and then update the package as often as you like. While this is more daunting and time-consuming at first, in the long run it offers a greater variety of software and much more control over one's system than Ubuntu can ever give anyone.

cfr · 2012-02-09 23:01:50

If something is really vital to you, check whether it is available or not before deciding on Arch. pacman can offer a lot and AUR is great. (Actually, right now not so great as I'm one of the people who can't currently access it properly but somebody is already looking into this.) But there are certainly packages available through Debian, for example, that are not available for Arch. Also, although some AUR packages are really excellent, some are poorly maintained or orphaned.

This isn't a criticism. Arch is a much smaller community and it isn't anybody's purpose in life to make sure I can get exactly the software I want. (At least, it isn't my purpose and I sure hope it isn't anybody else's!) I was surprised by just how much is available. But it just isn't true that anything you can get with apt you can get through pacman or AUR and so if any particular package is critical, it makes sense to check it out ahead of time.

I know it is possible to make requests but I assume they're only acted on if somebody competent is interested in the package so if you want something a bit obscure, I would guess it might not happen. (I haven't made a request for pretty much this reason.) That's perfectly reasonable but the chances will obviously be higher that the package will scratch the itch of somebody competent with the numbers using Debian than those using Arch.

In some ways I find this quite nice. The sheer number of packages available from Debian can be a bit overwhelming and it can be difficult to figure out which of the many possible package might be best to install. But there's obviously a downside, too. There's a package I could really use having access to and Debian has it but Arch not...

If you don't want anything too obscure, it shouldn't be a problem, though.

Shark · 2012-02-09 23:58:45

If you decide for Ach Linux (i was for 2 years Ubuntu user - i am not geek :
-read begginers guide (links are in upper comments or in arch wiki)
-pacman is a package manage of archlinux and it is much easier and intuitive than apt-get/aptitude
-there is no PPAs because archlinux runs the most up-to-date software. If you don't find application of your choice in official repositories than you have AUR where you have to compile (the processs is automatised) your applications.
-though Arch is rolling release distribution it is stable. I have never in one year experienced a crash. Never. You will hit some problems but you will get it fixed.

-------Always read wiki and forums before you post a question/problem. Wiki and forum is a great "repository" of knowledge.

I have used Debian Testing too and i was really satisfied. But i am more satisfied with Arch Linux because of KISS principle and vanilla packages. Enjoy!

Last edited by Shark (2012-02-09 23:59:42)

shikitohno · 2012-02-10 05:13:05

Shark wrote:

-there is no PPAs because archlinux runs the most up-to-date software. If you don't find application of your choice in official repositories than you have AUR where you have to compile (the processs is automatised) your applications.

Aww, this post was going so well up until now. Unofficial user repositories (linked earlier in the article) provide the exact same service as PPAs offer. For an example [repo-ck] is an official repo for Arch, and offered in a PPA for the same content in Ubuntu. PPA and unofficial user repo are just two different names to describe the same notion, unofficial repos providing precompiled binaries for packages that would otherwise have to be compile from source, or in some cases offering alternate binaries compared to the main repos. Also there's something of a logical disconnect in your statement. You seem to imply that because Arch stays closer to the bleeding edge compared to other distros, it's impossible for a knowledgeable repository maintainer to keep their unofficial repo up to date.

Shark · 2012-02-10 09:34:51

@shikitohno
Sorry, i have missed the unofficial repositories up in previous post. Other resason is that i have never look for these repositories because i usually use AUR. Now, about up-to-date issue and unofficial repository: many applications in PPA are the same as in official repository but are more new than the official repository. When i was on Ubuntu i have used a lot of PPA's apps which you can find in official repositories of Ubuntu simply because they were newer and were without some bugs that were annoying me. In that way you should understand my statement. Sorry if i was not clear.

Last edited by Shark (2012-02-10 10:22:40)

GERGE · 2012-02-10 09:56:02

Your question is not actually about PPA's. That up-to-dateness problem you are talking about is a result of fixed releases of Ubuntu. As Arch is rolling release, you will always have the lastest versions of the programs you want; unless you don't want to, that is. AUR is used for different purposes in this up-to-dateness case. Like how VLC only starts to support 10-bit playback with as-of-yet unreleased 1.2 version and how you can get it with AUR package vlc-dev.

shikitohno · 2012-02-10 11:34:30

I understand the AUR will likely have just about everything you'd want. Just saying it's out there if you (for some odd reason) don't want to use the AUR at all, or you're on a less powerful machine where it'd be time a resource prohibitive to be building a lot of programs from source. For example, I'd rather just use repo-ck for running a kernel with those patches on it on an older machine, rather than building each new version with yaourt or makepkg. There might not be a ton of situations where I'd avoid the AUR totally, but in some situations and for certain packages, it can certainly be useful to have those unofficial repos floating around.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-02-09 00:20:27

ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#2 2012-02-09 00:37:24

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#3 2012-02-09 00:37:34

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#4 2012-02-09 00:44:52

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#5 2012-02-09 00:50:53

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#6 2012-02-09 03:08:26

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#7 2012-02-09 04:43:38

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#8 2012-02-09 13:19:23

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#9 2012-02-09 17:37:24

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#10 2012-02-09 18:01:03

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#11 2012-02-09 19:36:23

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#12 2012-02-09 19:39:14

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#13 2012-02-09 20:04:57

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#14 2012-02-09 20:45:40

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#15 2012-02-09 22:00:20

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#16 2012-02-09 22:02:55

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#17 2012-02-09 22:57:03

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#18 2012-02-09 23:01:50

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#19 2012-02-09 23:58:45

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#20 2012-02-10 05:13:05

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#21 2012-02-10 09:34:51

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#22 2012-02-10 09:56:02

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

#23 2012-02-10 11:34:30

Re: ArchLinux from a Ubuntu Background

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