General questions about Arch

kikinovak · 2006-03-05 10:51:33

Hi,

I'm a long-time Slackware user (since 8.0). In the last five years, I must have tried out something like 30 different distros, but I always came back to my simple and robust Slack.

Recently the gospel about Arch spread a bit on our newsgroup, and I want to give it a try. One major drawback of Slack is that everytime I want to setup a complete desktop environment, there's lots of stuff to write build scripts for. That way, I'm sure things stay rock-solid, but it's also very time-consuming.

I can't really give it a try for the moment, since I live in a very remote place in the South French countryside, and there is no fast connection. I can order a CD though, but before that, I have a few questions.

1) Does Arch support D-Bus and HAL? I'm asking because Slack doesn't: they are working on my system OK, but it's a real PITA to setup.

2) Is there a sort of "stable release" policy... or is it a bit like installing Debian unstable? While I can download bigger packages over the weekend (like horses swim or chickens fly ), it takes ages. And then, soon I'll have to install a complete desktop on many machines (I'm sort of the local sysadmin of our village), and I can't afford to depend too much on a net-based installer. On Slack for example, when there's a new version coming out, I download bigger sources for extra packages while I'm in town, burn them on CD, write build scripts for them... and this is a one-time procedure, so when I install it on a new machine, I don't depend on the internet. How feasible is this with Arch?

3) Where is Arch's place in the stable vs. bleeding-edge policy? I prefer to ask this, because I spent some time with Gentoo once: excellent docs, long install procedure... and then a week later, a half-broken system. </flame> I'm bluntly asking this, because I need something really rock-solid. I don't mind using software that's a bit old (though not too outdated like Sarge).

4) Since Slack 10.1 there is no more GNOME, and so I have to manually build a minimal set of (40 or so :?) GNOME libs. On bigger systems I tend to use KDE (not because I like it, but because I need some KDE apps), on smaller systems I like XFCE a lot. On both, I use some GNOME apps like Evince or GnomeMeeting. How easy is it with Arch to install this minimal set without installing the whole GNOME kitchen sink? For example, when installing Nautilus under the hood of XFCE, a false move can hijack the whole desktop setup.

5) How easy is it to tweak packages, e. g. rebuild them with different configure options?

6) What about if I want to manually add some obscure app found on the internet, where I want the CVS version to give it a try? When using Debian for example, I had to jump through burning loops to do this...

I've read through the docs, and I must say that my first impression of Arch is positive: no frills, no bullshit.

Cheers,

Niki

Lone_Wolf · 2006-03-05 11:18:42

1 - yes

2+3 out of my league, more experienced archers can answer that

4 Should be no problem, i am using the gnome-app firestarter under KDE and "pacman -S firestarter" installed about 10 Mb of gnome dependencies.
firestarter works good under KDE, and i have not needed to do any gnome-configuration.

5+6
ABS - The Arch Build System

tomk · 2006-03-05 12:39:26

The phrase that jumps out at me is

kikinovak wrote:

I need something really rock-solid.

I'm a big Arch supporter, but I think even the most dedicated Archer would accept that it's not "really rock-solid". There is a trade-off between stability and bleeding-edge apps, and things do break every now and then. However, they generally get fixed pretty quickly too.

There have been many discussions about this general issue here and on the mailing-list, You might like to do a search and read up a bit. At the end of the day, though, if you're looking for "really rock-solid", Arch may not be for you.

jaboua · 2006-03-05 13:33:12

I would call Arch bleeding edge, it releases packages about the same time as gentoo (and sometimes before gentoo).

Arch uses a "rolling release" system, the arch releases are only like snapshots. If you want you can get all the packages you want and burn them to a CD at any time you want, but I think it would be prefferable to have pacman installed on the box in the city. That way I belive you can use "pacman -Sywc packages" to get all the packages you want with deps when you're in town and copy the packages it downloaded to /var/cache/pacman/pkg to a CD, and install with "pacman -U /mnt/cd/packages/*" for example to install them when you get home.

hypermegachi · 2006-03-05 16:17:27

i just want to make it clear that even though arch is "bleeding edge", the official repositories are still the released stable versions, not bleeding edge cvs/svn.

the problems usually arrise when a huge update comes that affect fundamental system properties (check forum history on initrd, udev, and recently xorg7).

otherwise, arch is rock solid, with the latest stable software. btw, to avoid the mass update problem, just check the main page regularly, and put those packages on hold in pacman.conf. that way you won't end up updating something like initrd and restart to a kernel panic.

btw, if you're really knowledge with linux in general, you might wanna try frugalware. it's based off slackware. it uses arch's pacman, have something similar to ABS called Frugalware Source Tree (FST). they don't have rolling releases like arch, so every couple months you can expect a release.

they are small though, and don't have AUR. but if you're knowledgable with bash, you can easily modify the PKGBUILDs in AUR and convert them to FrugalBuilds.

stonecrest · 2006-03-05 17:47:48

kikinovak wrote:

2) Is there a sort of "stable release" policy... or is it a bit like installing Debian unstable? While I can download bigger packages over the weekend (like horses swim or chickens fly ), it takes ages. And then, soon I'll have to install a complete desktop on many machines (I'm sort of the local sysadmin of our village), and I can't afford to depend too much on a net-based installer. On Slack for example, when there's a new version coming out, I download bigger sources for extra packages while I'm in town, burn them on CD, write build scripts for them... and this is a one-time procedure, so when I install it on a new machine, I don't depend on the internet. How feasible is this with Arch?

There are two easy ways to accomplish this. One, download the arch binary package (*.pkg.tar.gz) and pacman -A it from the cd. The other is download the source and the PKGBUILD (and any associated .install files and patches, you'll find them all together) and then just 'makepkg' when you get back to your box.

kikinovak wrote:

5) How easy is it to tweak packages, e. g. rebuild them with different configure options?

Very simple. Look into PKGBUILDs (type 'abs' and you'll get a list of them or you can view some at aur.archlinux.org).

kikinovak · 2006-03-05 18:00:40

Thanks for all these detailed answers. I'll order a copy of the latest Arch release, and then give it a try.

ralvy · 2006-03-05 23:45:04

I'm a long-time Slackware user (since 8.0). In the last five years, I must have tried out something like 30 different distros, but I always came back to my simple and robust Slack.

That's why I use Slack in the office instead of Arch.

3) Where is Arch's place in the stable vs. bleeding-edge policy? I prefer to ask this, because I spent some time with Gentoo once: excellent docs, long install procedure... and then a week later, a half-broken system. </flame> I'm bluntly asking this, because I need something really rock-solid. I don't mind using software that's a bit old (though not too outdated like Sarge).

Arch is not solid enough, in my opinion, to put you at ease here. That's why I use it at home, but not in my office.

5) How easy is it to tweak packages, e. g. rebuild them with different configure options?

Very easy. Read up on ABS.

6) What about if I want to manually add some obscure app found on the internet, where I want the CVS version to give it a try? When using Debian for example, I had to jump through burning loops to do this...

Again, read about ABS. I use that for apps not in the Arch repos.

I've read through the docs, and I must say that my first impression of Arch is positive: no frills, no bullshit.

That's why a Slacker will warm up to it.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-03-05 10:51:33

General questions about Arch

#2 2006-03-05 11:18:42

Re: General questions about Arch

#3 2006-03-05 12:39:26

Re: General questions about Arch

#4 2006-03-05 13:33:12

Re: General questions about Arch

#5 2006-03-05 16:17:27

Re: General questions about Arch

#6 2006-03-05 17:47:48

Re: General questions about Arch

#7 2006-03-05 18:00:40

Re: General questions about Arch

#8 2006-03-05 23:45:04

Re: General questions about Arch

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