Arch Linux

johnhalbert

Member

Registered: 2019-12-05

Posts: 1

Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

I've been running Ubuntu as my primary distribution for years.  I'm very familiar and comfortable with it.

I'm getting a new machine and really want to move over to Arch, as I like the philosophy behind it.

Am I going to be able to install the same software, though?  Are the available Arch packages the same as what I'd be able to find on Ubuntu?

2ManyDogs

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2012-01-15

Posts: 4,645

Re: Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/

armoredkitten

Member

Registered: 2019-10-31

Posts: 15

Re: Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

As someone who made the switch about a month ago...you should generally be able to find the same sort of software, though obviously it depends on what programs you use. You will likely find some software only available in the AUR (rather than the official repositories), but I haven't had any major issues with packages from there. And if you have any concerns, it's very easy to read the PKGBUILD file to see exactly what it's doing.

Honestly, when I was deciding whether to switch, I ran

apt list --installed

and then used the links that 2ManyDogs posted above to search and make sure that Arch had all the software I was looking for. (There are ways to get the list of packages without dependencies, if you wish. Arch has a much easier way to do this, just FYI.)

It's worth a bit of research, but I don't think you're likely to have too much of a concern with finding the packages you're used to. And quite frankly, there are a bunch of packages in the AUR that are just pulling .deb packages and repackaging them for Arch! So that could potentially be an option as well if you really can't find what you need....

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,523

Website

Re: Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

Am I going to be able to install the same software, though?

Pretty much yes.

Are the available Arch packages the same as what I'd be able to find on Ubuntu?

The package names may differ a bit - but this is most obvious in development tools (as arch doesn't split out libs and headers).

You will find that arch's packages do not come with all the default configurations that Ubuntu may ship.  Our packages are pretty "vanilla" and stick very close to upstream's defaults.  But the wiki will guide you through configuring anything you'd like.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

The AUR is another source of packages for unofficial things as 2manydogs linked for you but again: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ar … Repository
You might find this helpful transitioning to pacman: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman/Rosetta

Last edited by graysky (2019-12-05 21:45:20)

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CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packages • Zsh and other configs

kevdog

Member

Registered: 2013-01-26

Posts: 102

Re: Coming from Ubuntu, What Should I Expect?

No knock on the forums since I like the people here a lot, however if you have a relatively simple question and post it to these forums, you are most likely not going to like the replies you are going to get -- unlike the Ubuntu forums where there are a lot of annoying questions.  Moderators here expect you to have read the wiki pages thoroughly and for you to have tried some methods for fixing your problems before you post.  When you post, your questions need to be direct with supporting documentation such as config files and/or log files.  If you follow that general premise you'll be good. 

Side note -- I'm honestly shocked this thread didn't get flamed!!  Good to be surprised from time to time