Considering moving back to windoze, or more stable distro

Komodo · 2006-07-01 20:55:03

I've been getting really, really frustrated recently with Arch; I'm not dissing the distro or the developers/community, cos everything's awesome (^_^) . It just pisses me off that, with everything being bleeding edge, every program I come across seems to have a few bugs in, and some are seriously detrimental to productivity.

I'm fed up of spending time hunting down the causes of problems; it just feels like a waste of your life, you know? Sure you (and I) can slag off windows til the cows come home, but the fact is that it's so *easy* to use, in the sense that things generally just work, and you don't have half the trouble that you can experience in 'nux. Graphics drivers are way better for ATI cards too, of which I have one.

Gaming is perfectly possible in Cedega/Wine, but again it's such a faff, and as mentioned above, GPU performance may be sub-par. I've not been gaming for a long time now, but I'm going to be building a monster rig over the next 3 months, bit-by-bit, and so have been getting back into the circuit in preparation for fully utilising the shiny new graphics card I intend to buy

I guess I'm posting this to see if anyone else has experienced this morose feeling, and whether anyone has any advice .

I genuinely never expected the day to come when Windows would look like a rosier proposition than Linux, but come it has.

Peace out.

nogoma · 2006-07-01 21:39:14

I think I can kind of understand your feeling; I've been using various Linux flavors exclusively for a while now, and frustration does crop up from time to time. However, I find it's more because there's a lot more "neat stuff" going on in the 'nix world that I just *have* to try out (whether or not it's actually something useful); a lot of times this means running something that's pretty rough around the edges (Xgl being an obvious example). However, when I sit back and think about all the stuff I need/actually use, I think it's all stable and great. Of course, I don't know a) what you're having problems with and b) what you use your machine for. And, yes, granted, gaming on Linux is years behind windows; to me, this is kind of a boon, since it keeps me from playing every damn game that comes along . I get the few games I care about (Guild Wars, Cave Story, and some stuff like Doom that have native linux clients) working, and content myself.

That being said, if you honestly find a lot of the software you're (regularly) using on Arch has problems, and it's impeding your work/studies/whatever, then maybe a more "stable" distro is up your alley. I think we all know Debian's reputation for being steady and stable; maybe that would be a better solution before returning to the evil MS flock :smile: . In the end, as I'm sure others will point out, it's a personal decision! I love Linux and Arch in particular because it works for me, doesn't get in my way, and does what I want. If you don't find that to be the case for you, then hopefully you find another distro or even OS that does.

(Also, I haven't been into the Arch community long enough to know if a lot of the upheavals recently (move to xorg, changing from initrd->initramfs->initcpio, etc) are commonplace, or it's just a particularly hectic time for Arch. I'm sure a more experienced Archer will chime in.)

joepotter · 2006-07-01 22:11:12

I have used Unix/Gnu-Linux/*BSD since I put Mark Williams Coherent (a Unix clone) on a 386 box I got from a clown in Texas who called his company PCs Limited. (later he re-named it Dell as that was his name)

I tend to like a Unix flavor for many reasons, but until about 6 years ago I would always have a Windows OS about someplace.

I would recommend that you go ahead and put Vista or XP on your box on a large hard drive, and put Debian Testing on another large hard drive. Share the Debian drive with Arch. (drives are cheap now)

When you do this, you will tend to run whichever OS suits you the best most of the time. I wager it will be Arch or Debian in the long run. Regardless, at least you will know what suits you.

Have fun.

tomk · 2006-07-01 22:33:17

I was going to post something long and convoluted here, but I won't. If you think WIndows suits you better, use it, and enjoy.

I would just like to say that this is the "Arch Discussion" forum - you know, "Open forum for general discussion about Arch Linux" - and I don't think your apparent predicament fits into that category.

deficite · 2006-07-01 23:06:17

I fell into your situation a while back where I switched back to Windows exclusively for several months. After some time Windows was really bugging me, and the fact that Vista is so disappointing to me made me switch straight back to Arch. I actually installed Arch Linux over Vista the next morning after I installed Vista.

I guess switching back to Windows can be a journey of discovery, like how people sometimes will go out into the wild for a while to rediscover themselves. I know I appreciate Linux a lot more after going back to Windows for a while and I feel I have a lot better grasp on Linux and why certain things are the way they are.

Either way, good luck Komodo. You're one of those fellows on this board I have on my "cool list".

shadowhand · 2006-07-01 23:32:57

Just as a side note, I've been running Arch for a year now, and have only had 2 or 3 issues with instability. I run my own kernel with packages from Current, Unstable, Extra, and my own repo.

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-02 00:57:54

I generally find Arch quite stable, in spite of "bleeding edge" software. It does seem to get a bit buggy after huge upgrades like the switch to GCC 4.1.x, but that goes away eventually, and as more users and devs join those periods will probably get much shorter.

Of course, if you feel that Arch is inadequate, feel free to try another distro... I've heard good things about Zenwalk, Gentoo now has a good number of binary packages, and of course there's always Ubuntu...

twiistedkaos · 2006-07-02 01:23:46

I've goten mad pleanty of times during my short 8 months of using linux. I've throught many times maybe I should switch back to windows because it always seemed to work fine and was much easier to maintain. But everytime I think of switching back to windows I remember the things that really pissed me off about windows.

1.) Spyware and Viruses out the ass. Sure theres many spyware scanners(IE: Spybot) and many virus scanners(IE: AVG, Norton). Butt he thing is, viruses and spyware are constantly changing on the windows OS. And before Spyware and Virus scanners update their database chances are you already have the virus and / or spyware and they've had pleanty of time to take a great tole of effect on your computer.

2.) BSOD No mattter how stable you seem to think windows is, it's not. They just happened to put an annoying Blue screen of death in place of major errors so you think 'hey, atleaste I know what's wrong now' and you have to wait several months before the software is updated and fixed.

3.) Not customizable enough. Sure there's different desktop shells and pleanty of themes(that you have to usually used paid software in order to get themes). Else you're stuck with the 1-3 themes that windows ships with.

Borosai · 2006-07-02 01:25:29

I understand the feeling, although I don't feel the same way at the moment. In fact, I am in the process of converting my system to Arch 100%. It won't be easy since I will lose many programs that I really like (Photoshop, LightWave, Vegas, etc...). Basically, media creation apps, but I really want to eliminate any dependency on Windows...but that's me.

Arch, in my opinion, is quite stable and reliable, but like any other distro, it will have it's quirks here and there. At the moment, I don't have too much installed, so other than X-related problems, everything is going smoothly. Oh, and of course there are a few apps that are in early development...what can you expect right?

But Windows does indeed just work, not so much because it's so great, but because it has so much support from software manufacturers. I recommend getting an additional hard drive and dual boot. I wouldn't want to lose touch with what's going on here, you know? Whatever you do, have fun, and fart on strangers' hands.

iphitus · 2006-07-02 01:37:04

I know how you feel. I dual boot with windows solely for games.

benplaut · 2006-07-02 09:54:35

try debian, ubuntu, or one of the other derivs. They are generally very stable, have a very nice package manager, and alot of devs.

mingfal · 2006-07-02 10:49:26

Windows is my "play station",lol.

phildg · 2006-07-02 11:29:33

You should do what best suits you after all is said and done. If Windows is what works, use it. Theres no point trying to hammer in a nail with an 8mm allen key.

Before ruling out Linux think about other distributions first though, something not quite as bleeding edge as Arch. To be honest Arch is a little too much on the bleeding edge for me, but weighing up the pros and cons including Bleeding Edgeness, Arch comes out on top. So far Arch I haven't encountered stability issues or bugs with Arch, but I lead a simple life and am not a gamer so don't have exotic hardware or software that is more likely to cause headaches.

Komodo · 2006-07-02 11:40:38

Wow, a plethora of choice replies. Thank you

I realised a problem with using ubuntu or debian; they're not i686 optimized. In spite of naysayers' thoughts on this subject, the speed difference between i386/i686 optimization is huge imo. I suppose I could try Yoper, but I recall being unimpressed with it while trying it for a brief stint 2 years ago.

I've taken what you've all said into consideration, and have decided to do the following: I will install XP on a large hdd as suggested by Joe, using it only for gaming, and reinstall Arch on another hard drive, with no repos except current and extra included. I'll then gradually preen stable apps for all my needs, selecting only those that appear completely bug-free. Furthermore, I'll keep from -Syu'ing more than once a month, since as Gullible mentioned, upgrades can (and usually do, at least for me) cause problems.

I appreciate all your kind words and thoughtful suggestions

Have a great day everyone

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-02 12:07:52

Komodo wrote:

I've taken what you've all said into consideration, and have decided to do the following: I will install XP on a large hdd as suggested by Joe, using it only for gaming, and reinstall Arch on another hard drive, with no repos except current and extra included. I'll then gradually preen stable apps for all my needs, selecting only those that appear completely bug-free. Furthermore, I'll keep from -Syu'ing more than once a month, since as Gullible mentioned, upgrades can (and usually do, at least for me) cause problems.

Whoah wait a minute... That might not be a good idea. It's *big* upgrades that cause the most trouble, stuff like moving the whole new toolchain and all the recompiled apps from Testing to Current/Extra - I'm talking about upgrades that affect the whole distro. I guess that we've passed this year's giant upgrade periods though, so what the heck...

Edit: would you mind linking to some of the threads on bugs you've been getting?

(As it happens I felt similarly frustrated when I started with Arch, was getting crashes and things quite regularly... What was actually going on was that my HDD was dying. I'm not saying that you have defective hardware, it's just that sometimes problems can be caused by some lurking issue that you don't notice at first.)

vacant · 2006-07-02 12:12:36

I converted the Linux PCs at our Cybercafé from SimplyMEPIS to Arch over a year ago. At home I keep my personal Arch partition updated daily. There have been a couple of times when "pacman -Suy" has resulted in a broken system which has always been easily fixable. Every few months I copy my packages cache over to a USB caddy with a bootable hard drive where I have a copy of the Cybercafé setup. I test that for a bit and then take it to Cybercafé and update those PCs.

I think I get the best of both worlds - an up to date personal system and a stable Cybercafé system. All running on Athlons so the i686 compilation really helps.

The only problem I have is that my home PC has an nvidia card but we have radeons and old 3dfx cards so sometimes it can take me a bit of time to get DRI working.

Mr Green · 2006-07-02 12:17:58

I am getting p***ed off at trying to get wine to install media player so I can use me mp3player :evil:

Arch does take some work unlike ubuntu drop the CD in drive & you are done

Arch is not like that & never will be (hopefully!)

If I had the choice I would go with OSX as lesser of two evils ... never will install Windows again (do not know how to!)

Linux to me is a never ending battle .... where you are the master & the distro is your student (or should that be the other way round!)

Sorry to hear you are having problems, I never have had any problems with Arch (*cough) none that I could not fix (or I messed up!) anyway

All the best

MrG

mingfal · 2006-07-02 12:53:22

Seriously speaking ,arch is the most stable distrobutions i've ever used.Even more stable than debian to me,as I faced a lot of broken packages and errors when using the programs in debian's "unstable" repo(the stable & testing is quite out of date).

deficite · 2006-07-02 17:39:25

Furthermore, I'll keep from -Syu'ing more than once a month, since as Gullible mentioned, upgrades can (and usually do, at least for me) cause problems.

What if the day before you upgrade an update just comes out and it breaks stuff? Only upgrading once a month is not going to prevent much anything at all because Arch is constantly evolving. If you want to be really safe I guess you could watch for the testing moves and check the boards and make sure people aren't having problems and then upgrade after the testing move.

Seriously speaking ,arch is the most stable distrobutions i've ever used.

I run testing and unstable all the time and I've only had problems like maybe one time. I don't even remember what the problem was, so it probably wasn't that major. Still, if Arch is a little too bleeding edge for you, I was once considering trying Zenwalk. Doesn't look like a half-bad distro. Also, Ubuntu is a pretty good compromise between fresh and stable. I didn't find it to be too out of date at all, but yet it was pretty solid. I mainly went back to Arch because of KISS.

McQueen · 2006-07-02 19:46:46

If you want to be really safe I guess you could watch for the testing moves and check the boards and make sure people aren't having problems and then upgrade after the testing move.

I haven't had any system critical problems with Arch (that were package related), but IMO a person should ideally be able to run and update Arch on a frequent basis without ever having to visit the forum, mailing list, etc. That should only be necessary for the occasional hick-up. Indeed, that is what running a reliable OS should be all about. However, I don't think we are at that point. If we (I say 'we' because everyone can help even if it is just filing bug reports or testing new packages) can not eventually reach this level of reliability, then I think in some ways we are hampering ourselves from becoming the kind of distro that Arch has the capacity to demonstrate.

iBertus · 2006-07-03 04:17:22

Mr Green wrote:

I am getting p***ed off at trying to get wine to install media player so I can use me mp3player :evil:

I have Windows XP installed via QEMU to a very small image for just such issues. I have a few necessary apps (ArcGIS, MapSend) that don't run correctly on Wine but run very well using this method. With kqemu loaded, it's almost native performance too. I selected QEMU because it's open source and I don't require the advanced features of VMWare, but YMMV.

deficite · 2006-07-03 04:33:45

McQueen wrote:

If you want to be really safe I guess you could watch for the testing moves and check the boards and make sure people aren't having problems and then upgrade after the testing move.
I haven't had any system critical problems with Arch (that were package related), but IMO a person should ideally be able to run and update Arch on a frequent basis without ever having to visit the forum, mailing list, etc. That should only be necessary for the occasional hick-up. Indeed, that is what running a reliable OS should be all about. However, I don't think we are at that point. If we (I say 'we' because everyone can help even if it is just filing bug reports or testing new packages) can not eventually reach this level of reliability, then I think in some ways we are hampering ourselves from becoming the kind of distro that Arch has the capacity to demonstrate.

I don't think you read all of my post. I've never had any problems either, but obviously Komodo has so I was suggesting some things HE might try. I personally think Arch is already stable enough to update on a frequent basis. I even update using testing on a frequent basis.

profoX · 2006-07-03 15:30:20

Arch testing isn't stable to me, because all the stuff that was going on a while ago killed alot of programs for a week or 2. Even if it happens one time. That's not stable. I don't know about current, but I'm planning to switch to current, because I think that might suit me better now.

As for changing your distro, I use Ubuntu linux on my laptop. It's great. Runs fast. Almost everything works out of the box, and it's stable.

Gullible Jones · 2006-07-03 15:46:25

profoX wrote:

Arch testing isn't stable to me, because all the stuff that was going on a while ago killed alot of programs for a week or 2. Even if it happens one time. That's not stable. I don't know about current, but I'm planning to switch to current, because I think that might suit me better now.

Arch Current is quite stable, you may see bugginess there on rare occasions but no breakage.

profoX · 2006-07-03 16:02:33

bugginess is normal (every now and then, for a short period of time), the breakage is what concerned me in testing

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-01 20:55:03

Considering moving back to windoze, or more stable distro

#2 2006-07-01 21:39:14

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#3 2006-07-01 22:11:12

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#4 2006-07-01 22:33:17

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