From Arch to Ubuntu

penguinstarship · 2007-03-12 14:14:42

I found http://www.osnews.com/story.php/17402/F … to-Ubuntu/ this morning and it was a good read, just thought I'd share. Hope everyone has a good Monday! Lost an hour of sleep

brazzmonkey · 2007-03-12 16:30:59

i suppose i could have written that one (i still run arch on my desktop computer, though).

Dusty · 2007-03-12 16:51:02

Its sweiss!

I keep thinking I should switch to Ubuntu, but every time I try it, I feel the default setup is not quite up to the standards I want, and customizing it is too much work. I think "maybe next release will be good enough for me", but I try it and then Arch shines through... I'm a bit concerned about customizing Arch for a laptop though (thinkpad x60 on order), so I might use Ubuntu on that for a bit.

I actually think the article's a bit unfair to ubuntu, installing KDE from inside gnome-ubuntu seems like asking for trouble to me. Better to install from a Kubuntu install CD. On the other hand, I have no qualms about having both systems installed on my Arch box (except that I don't like either of them...), so I can see wherein lies the problem.

Dusty

Zer0 · 2007-03-12 17:23:01

I remember reading this article earlier this month.. think someone posted the link in #archlinux

My thoughts are.. Ubuntu is great but it's in a whole different class from arch as far as I'm concerned. I came from using Mepis to arch about a year ago now. Mepis was my 1st full time desktop distro but I had gotten to the point where I felt I outgrew Mepis. I needed more control, less "handholding". I did afterall switch to Linux to have more control over my computer. While using Mepis at some point I thought I would try to remove the unneeded packages and optimize the startups etc.. In the end I came to the conclusion that it was taking me more effort to optimize Mepis then to build a Linux "from the ground up". So I found arch and I'll never look back.

Arch lets me install exactly what I want and the startup scripts are very clean.. not the mess that is rc.d(1-6) runlevels found in debian based distros like Mepis and Ubuntu.

Of course if I'm in a hurry I may install a distro like Ubuntu/Kubunutu/Mepis on a machine but never on my main box. I pray for the day arch has a Live CD that's kept up to date and makes install faster. (Archie doesn't live up to this lately). Don't get me wrong though as those distros are still great in a different way.

Aside from all this.. I absolutely love the arch community, very rare do you run into rude people.

Replace Ubuntu for Arch? yeah don't think that's happening on my end any time soon.

heathen · 2007-03-13 01:06:51

i went from ubuntu to arch for similar reasons that Zer0 did, i didnt want all the hand holding...

I've learned a lot about linux in general since my move to arch..
Xorg configuring
fstab configuring (sad i know)
manual partitioning
less reliance on GUI to do my dirty work

I feel overall like I'm actually leaning something, which was the point of moving to linux for me...
Plus it seems to me that the community here is better. not to mention that I dont miss half the days conversations because there are 253,000 people on the ubuntu board...

Last edited by heathen (2007-03-13 01:08:28)

Zer0 · 2007-03-26 18:22:47

I read digg every morning and I think it's quite interesting that for the past week or so I've seen countless entries about how to speed up ubuntu (dapper, edgy and fiesty). I snicker a bit then think back to this post about moving from Arch to Ubuntu.

It's obvious that Ubuntu users feel that speed is becoming an issue.

RaisedFist · 2007-03-27 06:27:31

I came to Arch from Ubuntu because of the slowliness of Ubuntu. I've been playing with Slack some years ago and I felt Ubuntu was way much slower than that, that's why I looked for a distro to put things in place and work for me.... and that's Arch.
I don't know why anyone would want to switch from Arch to Ubuntu.

paulr · 2007-03-27 08:16:12

It's daft comparing the two. It's like comparing an Aston Martin with a Ford Fiesta. They're both excellent examples of their "marque".

The conclusion are a bit bizarre. I think Arch Linux is brilliant, but it isn't really "simpler" than ubuntu. It is if you know what you are doing - but any rookie is going to come across the base install and think ...... what is all this about. Ubuntu can be installed by a complete idiot and will (IME anyway) work more or less straight off the bat.

As an example ; printers. He complains about the dialogue being so simple as to be useless. Well, in arch you have to install cups, the foomatic components, set up cups to run at boot, connect to localhost:631. And it all works - for my printer.

In ubuntu, you do known of this ; you click Administration/Printing, your printer is detected, you get a default ppd for it, type in a name, and it's ready to go.

They're aiming at completely different people and markets. Arch is way quicker, bleeding edge, and requires some knowledge of how to set up Linux boxes (albeit not that much). Ubuntu is slower and runs out of the box.

hypermegachi · 2007-03-27 13:47:44

the *ONLY* thing that other distributions might have over arch is one thing: polish

install ubuntu? first thing you see is a nice ubuntu gdm login, plus their customized preferences/admin in gnome, which i really like.
install fedora? first thing you see after a 4 minute boot time is a really nice fedora logo gdm login, and then the bluecurve theme.

arch is too "stock" sometimes...but at least it doesn't break after dist-upgrade (every time i've tried it, it's broke my system and guys on the forums tell you reinstall rather than fix)

grizz · 2007-03-27 13:51:23

hypermegachi wrote:

the *ONLY* thing that other distributions might have over arch is one thing: polish
install ubuntu? first thing you see is a nice ubuntu gdm login, plus their customized preferences/admin in gnome, which i really like.
install fedora? first thing you see after a 4 minute boot time is a really nice fedora logo gdm login, and then the bluecurve theme.
arch is too "stock" sometimes...but at least it doesn't break after dist-upgrade (every time i've tried it, it's broke my system and guys on the forums tell you reinstall rather than fix)

heh my kdm login looks beter than ubuntu ;p

STiAT · 2007-03-27 14:18:52

- Had SuSE - dropped it
- Had Mandriva - dropped it
- Had RedHat (Fedora) - dropped it
- Had Gentoo - dropped it
- Had Arch - loved it
- Tried Ubuntu - dropped it
- Reinstalled Arch - still love it

I also love the way of makepkg, it's really the perfect ease of making packages.
I never got along with RPM distributions, always disliked .deb, liked slack quite a lot, just the categroies were weird.

I'm on arch, as you can see, since december 2004 now, and quite happy within the whole system, and begin more and more to play around. Arch could have been created just for me, so perfectly it fits.

Arch does not break after a dist-upgrade since there are none ... it's rolling and rolling, you know...

General linux users:
In my company, 3 out of 4 people using linux on their desktop use Arch. They switched from CentOS Fedora and Debian to Arch, since they liked it better, especially creating custom packages.
One still uses Fedora - he's just too lazy .

Desktop:
The reason arch isn't reasonable for a common user desktop is simple. It features rolling releases, and with package updates it can be that some files need to be modified.
Actually, you can ignore the most packages - will you ever hit all of them? Won't it break compatibility one day? We don't know.
Since Arch does not feature a own security-fix repository, or a release support, where just security fixes for the releases are provided and no major releases are done, it will never be a real desktop to common users, this distributions are SuSE, RedHat, Ubuntu and i guess a lot of more.
Not to mention that supporting releases just with fixes for a longer time would require a lot of manpower, arch simply doesn't have.

Kind regards,
STi

hypermegachi · 2007-03-27 18:33:42

i prefer having upstream bug/security fixes rather than backported to older versions.

endtroducing · 2007-03-30 09:47:33

I've been on Ubuntu for 2 month now. Im going back to arch. It's faster, stable, and nice to get real work done. The artwork needs improvement though.

crouse · 2007-03-30 14:16:45

From Arch to Ubuntu ....... that would be like one step forward.... then two steps back... correct ?

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-03-30 15:49:16

Ubuntu has a totally different target group so I would not compare the two of them. Arch could also become extremely user-friendly by providing a whole lot of GUI tools, but that's not, what the Arch Way suggests. Is there anyone around who knows about the principle of Ubuntu? Providing an operating system each and everyone on the entire planet is able to use?

deficite · 2007-03-30 21:42:31

Arch is better for me because I actually know what's going on in my system. Ubuntu has a lot of "helper" crud that gets in my way. Nothing beats config files IMHO.

chaosgeisterchen · 2007-03-30 21:51:58

deficite wrote:

Arch is better for me because I actually know what's going on in my system. Ubuntu has a lot of "helper" crud that gets in my way. Nothing beats config files IMHO.

Except for a person not understanding at all what they are all about. Unfortunately, the majority of people is not willing to put any effort in learning things the right way around.

deficite · 2007-03-31 01:27:35

I didn't know jack about config files when I started using Arch and reading the install instructions was more than enough to get me going. If you recall "Arch is better for me...".

I've introduced Arch to people that know nothing about computers and less about Linux and they've been able to pick up Arch. With our new (ish) wiki, it's even easier. I do realize that some people just want to click at stuff all day. I'd rather use the command line, but I'll use a GUI. However, there were some things in Ubuntu that I just couldn't get to work. Things like my wireless (problem's been solved, but for a while I couldn't even use internet due to the fact that the GCC that Ubuntu installed was a different version than the GCC used to compile the kernel, thus me yelling at the computer due to Ubuntu's short-sightedness on that issue. I can't remember what release did that, I think it was Breezy).

Last edited by deficite (2007-03-31 01:28:48)

paulr · 2007-03-31 13:33:20

endtroducing wrote:

I've been on Ubuntu for 2 month now. Im going back to arch. It's faster, stable, and nice to get real work done. The artwork needs improvement though.

Five minutes forum browsing acquired me an attractive GDM Theme and Wallpaper, both Arch branded. Clearlooks and Tango Icons, Beryl if I want it ....... very nice and clean.

Zer0 · 2007-04-02 16:09:24

1) Once I use helper "crud" aka gui tools I usually want to know what the heck those tools do so I learn to edit config files myself (besides there's always more options/tweaks this way).
2) Arch always seems to have this "for advanced users" tone to it but I think this is not true. If your willing to learn then it's easy as pie! Arch has plenty of documentation and a helpful community. When I think "advanced" I think of a distro where help & docs are not available, so pretty much "you better know what your doing because you wont find help here"... Arch is far from this!

Point: if you willing to learn, the help is available. Hell the effort of searching the wiki or forums isn't that hard

Crooksey · 2007-04-03 20:21:39

Not to happy with this article, the guy dosent even seem confident in linux..

I've been an Arch user for roughly 3 years. I'm pretty much familiar with it all - The way it boots, its configuration and its package management. I've also heard a lot of good things about Ubuntu, and wanted to try it for a long time

3years, more like 3 weeks tops.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-12 14:14:42

From Arch to Ubuntu

#2 2007-03-12 16:30:59

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#3 2007-03-12 16:51:02

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#4 2007-03-12 17:23:01

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#5 2007-03-13 01:06:51

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#6 2007-03-26 18:22:47

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#7 2007-03-27 06:27:31

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#8 2007-03-27 08:16:12

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#9 2007-03-27 13:47:44

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#10 2007-03-27 13:51:23

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#11 2007-03-27 14:18:52

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#12 2007-03-27 18:33:42

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#13 2007-03-30 09:47:33

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#14 2007-03-30 14:16:45

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#15 2007-03-30 15:49:16

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#16 2007-03-30 21:42:31

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#17 2007-03-30 21:51:58

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#18 2007-03-31 01:27:35

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#19 2007-03-31 13:33:20

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#20 2007-04-02 16:09:24

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

#21 2007-04-03 20:21:39

Re: From Arch to Ubuntu

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