I'm not happy with the new Arch changes

paulr · 2007-04-03 19:39:09

I suppose because without occasional new blood it could die. However excellent the main devs are, things can happen in their lives that mean they can't work on Arch as much as they'd like ; if the distro is more popular there are more people 'coming up through the ranks' and more hits on Distrowatch, more reviews help that come up.

I can't for the life of me remember why I gave Arch a go, came across it by accident I think. It's brilliant, and works (almost) flawlessly even compared to "super easy" installs like Ubuntu.

Most of the criticisms of it are nonsensical ; it's *not* difficult to install, it just isn't "GUI", but you do the same sorts of things - that you do in most other distros, it just drops the 'install' before you install X and Gnome/Kde/XFCE and create an initial user etc.

Why this is a problem I don't know, unless you are allergic to the command line. Mostly it's just typing things like pacman -S gnome and editing a few very simple files (mostly rc.conf) Compared to gentoo it's a piece of cake.

Also, it helps when maintaing the non-core repositories if there is more interest and enthusiasm. If you write a bit of code and you get feedback saying "yeah, great, could you add this please" you are more likely to work on it than if it just gets ignored, unless it scratches a real itch of the devs.

That's the problem with the "gentoo" wars ; people who are working hard for nothing see all the flak "you lazy xxxx why don't you do yyyy" and think stuff it, why should I bother - and it's difficult to blame them.

toofishes · 2007-04-03 19:48:18

crouse wrote:

However, DTW "It is not the job of the Arch team to babysit or account for the minority of idiots who mis-use/mis-understand the distro and its facilities. " ...... please don't forget that archlinux.org was/is set as the default repo for pacman in ALL new installs (even the most current iso, i checked) ....... seems like that might need to be changed in the next iso release. It was last time I looked, also the default server to mirror in the ArchLinux wiki tutorial on setting up mirrors...... so, the dev's shouldn't be to taken aback by some frustration on the part of normal users when this comes up. I guess I'm saying, no one's perfect, and the whole throttling down archlinux.org and shutting off rsync mirrors could have been handled a little better, but hindsight is 20/20. As more than one person stated in the other forum thread +1 ftp.archlinux.org should not be default (for pacman) if its usage is discouraged ......... kinda makes sense to me.......

So what do you propose? Slamming some poor mirror by giving it the honor of being first in the mirror list? That would be completely unacceptable and a great way for us to lose a mirror permanently. So we keep our own (albeit throttled) mirror as the first, and encourage people to find the one that suits them best.

And before we get all speculative on the ISOs being downloaded as soon as they come out- there are still a lot of details to work out here. FTP and base ISOs (or something very similar) will likely be released on the more frequent schedule, but the idea of having a current ISO may be reexamined.

Weeks · 2007-04-03 19:55:47

paulr wrote:

I suppose because without occasional new blood it could die. However excellent the main devs are, things can happen in their lives that mean they can't work on Arch as much as they'd like ; if the distro is more popular there are more people 'coming up through the ranks' and more hits on Distrowatch, more reviews help that come up.

I agree. Regular ISOs would enhance popularity. But if they're too often they may decrease it. Users may ignore each release as they happen so regularly (every kernel release), theorising that there will be no major advancement, unlike when the other distributions release a new ISO.

My main qualm here is not with releasing ISOs more often, but with releasing them with every new kernel version. 5/4 months milestones with clear information on how arch is updated (rolling-release) would be much more sensible.

Last edited by Weeks (2007-04-03 19:56:28)

cschep · 2007-04-03 20:34:57

toofishes wrote:

crouse wrote:
However, DTW "It is not the job of the Arch team to babysit or account for the minority of idiots who mis-use/mis-understand the distro and its facilities. " ...... please don't forget that archlinux.org was/is set as the default repo for pacman in ALL new installs (even the most current iso, i checked) ....... seems like that might need to be changed in the next iso release. It was last time I looked, also the default server to mirror in the ArchLinux wiki tutorial on setting up mirrors...... so, the dev's shouldn't be to taken aback by some frustration on the part of normal users when this comes up. I guess I'm saying, no one's perfect, and the whole throttling down archlinux.org and shutting off rsync mirrors could have been handled a little better, but hindsight is 20/20. As more than one person stated in the other forum thread +1 ftp.archlinux.org should not be default (for pacman) if its usage is discouraged ......... kinda makes sense to me.......
So what do you propose? Slamming some poor mirror by giving it the honor of being first in the mirror list? That would be completely unacceptable and a great way for us to lose a mirror permanently. So we keep our own (albeit throttled) mirror as the first, and encourage people to find the one that suits them best.
And before we get all speculative on the ISOs being downloaded as soon as they come out- there are still a lot of details to work out here. FTP and base ISOs (or something very similar) will likely be released on the more frequent schedule, but the idea of having a current ISO may be reexamined.

Something that I think would be cool is to have the installer run the script for sorting the mirrors for speed. /usr/bin/sortmirrors I believe. I know it requires some extra packages, but at least throwing a comment in about it in the installer would be cool. I didn't know it existed for a while, and now i'm getting better speeds and not straining the server. It's a win win!

You know, it's probably in the documentation. I haven't read the docs since my first arch install. So if it is, that should be good enough!

Also, I really appreciate the fact that we can come to these boards and post ideas and the actual devs working on arch will respond. That's really neat. Let's not abuse that! Thank you devs (and other people that make arch possible) for your hard work. Let's process these hard decisions together, as a community, but lets respect their final call and appreciate that we get a say at all!

arch ftw.

jf/ · 2007-04-03 20:35:06

paulr wrote:

I suppose because without occasional new blood it could die. However excellent the main devs are, things can happen in their lives that mean they can't work on Arch as much as they'd like ; if the distro is more popular there are more people 'coming up through the ranks' and more hits on Distrowatch, more reviews help that come up.
...
Also, it helps when maintaing the non-core repositories if there is more interest and enthusiasm. If you write a bit of code and you get feedback saying "yeah, great, could you add this please" you are more likely to work on it than if it just gets ignored, unless it scratches a real itch of the devs.

yeah, i guess u're right. Personally, i just dont want to see the discussion get turned into another "oh, let's go conquer the world" kind of thing, because seriously, that's not what it's about.

Most of the criticisms of it are nonsensical ; it's *not* difficult to install, it just isn't "GUI", but you do the same sorts of things - that you do in most other distros, it just drops the 'install' before you install X and Gnome/Kde/XFCE and create an initial user etc.
Why this is a problem I don't know, unless you are allergic to the command line. Mostly it's just typing things like pacman -S gnome and editing a few very simple files (mostly rc.conf) Compared to gentoo it's a piece of cake.

yup. It's "mostly" all right.

That's the problem with the "gentoo" wars ; people who are working hard for nothing see all the flak "you lazy xxxx why don't you do yyyy" and think stuff it, why should I bother - and it's difficult to blame them.

huh? dont get u there. But it sure sounds like it could be a problem for "too much popularity" as well - see http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=30797

phrakture · 2007-04-03 20:39:00

Well this is quite a lengthy discussion, and I'd respond to some points, but I want to say this. I've said it a few hundred times (and no, I'm not pointing at anyone in this thread... the "you" is proverbial):

Open Source requires effort. We discussed these changes and decided on a good route to take. If you have a difference of opinion, you are welcome to discuss it with the developers. The easiest way is the bug tracker. Again, I'm not talking about ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I'm talking about honest to god work. If you know something that would be better, don't just propose it, or talk about it. Do something. Give us something to work with, so we can consider your idea.

I want to pimp out dale77 here. He took the initiative and created some xdelta wrappers for pacman. And (I haven't tried it) supposedly it works great. We, the developers, decided it wasn't worth the effort just yet on our parts, and were going to put it off for a long time. dale77 stepped up, did the work, and now we will probably include what is there (note: it's non intrusive to pacman) as some part of pacman.

AndyRTR · 2007-04-03 21:08:39

just some notes - we will have 2 kinds of new isos:

- often released small ftp/core-repo only isos after each major kernel release. following the kernel guys this would be a release every 3months what we already wanted for a long time.
- full pkg snapshots on large cds and maybe even dvds with all officially provided packages that are allowed to redistribute. this will not happen that often.

this all depends on where our open discussion about the future repo structure will go - join the Arch google groups.

Weeks · 2007-04-03 22:36:02

phrakture wrote:

Open Source requires effort. We discussed these changes and decided on a good route to take. If you have a difference of opinion, you are welcome to discuss it with the developers. The easiest way is the bug tracker. Again, I'm not talking about ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I'm talking about honest to god work. If you know something that would be better, don't just propose it, or talk about it. Do something. Give us something to work with, so we can consider your idea.

But what if the idea is do nothing?

jf/ · 2007-04-03 22:53:40

Weeks wrote:

phrakture wrote:
Open Source requires effort. We discussed these changes and decided on a good route to take. If you have a difference of opinion, you are welcome to discuss it with the developers. The easiest way is the bug tracker. Again, I'm not talking about ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I'm talking about honest to god work. If you know something that would be better, don't just propose it, or talk about it. Do something. Give us something to work with, so we can consider your idea.
But what if the idea is do nothing?

(at the risk of going off-topic) then "doing something" is "doing nothing". Nothing is something, and something is nothing. It's not the spoon that bends, but ur mind. la, la, la, la, la. OMMMMM....

Last edited by jf/ (2007-04-03 22:54:50)

Weeks · 2007-04-04 00:25:50

Yes, but what I'm asking is if I give you nothing to work with will you promise to work with it and produce nothing with it oppose to the something to which it is ideologically opposed?

Last edited by Weeks (2007-04-04 00:26:11)

crouse · 2007-04-04 01:24:36

toofishes wrote:

crouse wrote:
However, DTW "It is not the job of the Arch team to babysit or account for the minority of idiots who mis-use/mis-understand the distro and its facilities. " ...... please don't forget that archlinux.org was/is set as the default repo for pacman in ALL new installs (even the most current iso, i checked) ....... seems like that might need to be changed in the next iso release. It was last time I looked, also the default server to mirror in the ArchLinux wiki tutorial on setting up mirrors...... so, the dev's shouldn't be to taken aback by some frustration on the part of normal users when this comes up. I guess I'm saying, no one's perfect, and the whole throttling down archlinux.org and shutting off rsync mirrors could have been handled a little better, but hindsight is 20/20. As more than one person stated in the other forum thread +1 ftp.archlinux.org should not be default (for pacman) if its usage is discouraged ......... kinda makes sense to me.......
So what do you propose? Slamming some poor mirror by giving it the honor of being first in the mirror list? That would be completely unacceptable and a great way for us to lose a mirror permanently. So we keep our own (albeit throttled) mirror as the first, and encourage people to find the one that suits them best.

I see your point toofishes, but from the perspective of a new user, they are all of the sudden flamed for using the DEFAULT mirror..... seems like a BAD idea to me. 1. It causes you to have to continually FLAME people for using the archlinux.org mirror, and 2. It's just going to get worse as Arch gets bigger......so finding a solution to an ongoing problem would be preferable to continually "correcting" people for using the default mirror. I agree, you can't set a specific mirror to be the default mirror, they would end up with the same issue you have. My ideas would be to either

A: Make people set the mirror manually the first time. This should NOT be a huge issue for anyone running arch. Could even be set at install by choosing the mirror (make it part of the install process) closest to you manually, once and then all the repos would be set to that mirror.

or

B: Integrate the sortmirrors script to sort the mirrors on install/first run of network activity. Now I'm not sure which way the sortmirrors script works, sorting by download speed, but pingtime/locale would be another way to sort by as well if one mirror had significantly faster speeds all the time.

Personally, I like A. the best, as I manually set the mirrors on every install I do anyway (over 20+ installs so far), this isn't a big deal, and would be a quick way to force people to get familiar and comfortable with /etc/pacman.d/ files. Install the files exactley as they are now, only comment ALL the mirrors out and remove the archlinux.org mirror from all new iso's that are created.

I will deal with whatever way the devs think we need to do things, as ArchLinux is the best system I've found so far, and I much prefer using it to any of the other distro's I've ever tried/used (and that's most of them out there). I don't want anyone thinking I'm complaining, far from it. I extol the virtues of Arch to anyone that will listen, and install it for anyone that asks. I am just giving suggestions/ideas in case they might be of some use. One of these days, I'll figure out a more constructive way of helping (building packages etc--- still working on learning. Anyone have a step by step tutorial on that laying around ???? ) Devs/TU's/and everyone else that has made Arch possible, thank you, thank you very much

deficite · 2007-04-04 04:28:47

I didn't realize the Arch devs were pursuing this option until reading this thread. Seems a little redundant to me, but if they're nice enough to provide that for us, all the power to them. I'm glad to hear more work is being done on the official installer. Always glad to hear that.

On the mirror issue: I haven't read everybody's ideas, so I may be reiterating somebody else's idea here. I think that the first time "pacman -Sy" is run, pacman should either just print a message telling the user about using sortmirrors, etc. or having a simple yes or no prompt or something asking whether pacman should run sortmirrors for you. This would be unobtrusive, and would stay to Arch's philosophy of being simple and not getting in your way. I do NOT want any automatic sortmirrors running as I have memorized the order I put my mirrors into, and the simple fact that it is completely UnArch-like to do some automagic crap.

PS: I don't want to start a fight here, but I think you want a little extreme, dtw. I admit I have started more flame wars and I have been very irritating ever since I joined these forums, but that's one reason I have never asked and have never been asked to hold any kind of responsibility for Arch. I understand your frustration, but we all have to bite our tongues from time to time and fake a smile here and there.

jf/ · 2007-04-04 05:11:09

deficite wrote:

On the mirror issue: I haven't read everybody's ideas, so I may be reiterating somebody else's idea here. I think that the first time "pacman -Sy" is run, pacman should either just print a message telling the user about using sortmirrors, etc. or having a simple yes or no prompt or something asking whether pacman should run sortmirrors for you.

this should be part of the installer rather (since it is really only run "the first time" as well) - otherwise u end up having to carry the burden of the code for the uncommon (or only once) case for all time (if the check is embedded into pacman's code, it'll have to get run everytime u run pacman).

Last edited by jf/ (2007-04-04 05:12:01)

mcover · 2007-04-04 06:53:23

The official ISO release cycle might have changed, but if I remember correctly tpowa was so kind and released updated versions of, lets say, the 0.7.2 ISOs before .8 became even alpha. And I think that there were updated unofficial ISOs every month or so. So, basically the workload doesn't really change that much (maybe some more "QA" work).

Btw: I think the changes (that are mentioned in this thread) are minimal. What really matters is that Arch itself keeps on working as well as it does.

Ok there is one thing though that annoys me just a little: when new packages are moved to Current/base or removed from it. I love the rolling release system, but there should be an easier way than a dozen scripts to maintain the packages on one's system. I just want to have all the packages in Current/base installed (like it was installed from a very recent ISO). Just doing a 'pacman -Syu' doesn't do the job. Recent example: I had to install 'wpa_supplicant' to be in sync with Current/base again. To admit: thats not the end of the world, but when it comes to maintaining my system, the perfectionist in me comes out .

But apart from that ...

Go Arch!

paulr · 2007-04-04 07:57:02

You could use a speed test on the mirrors, but that would mean you'd have to get the network connection up and running for the install, which it doesn't seem to need at the moment. This could be difficult for some people on wireless networks. I did wonder about randomly picking one, based on the locale maybe, but that might cause problems with mirrors going up and down or coming in and out of existence, which might lead people to think it "doesn't work".

I think the current solution is best ; perhaps the only change is to write a short section in the documentation explaining that "the default mirror works correctly but slowly, and if you want to download upgrades quickly best change it soon".

radumash · 2007-04-04 09:23:25

Hello all.
I've been reading about the new changes in the rolling release and the concerns people are having about
the additional stress archlinux mirrors will be under, with the implementation of more frequent iso releases.
I really can't say that I can measure and judge all the ramifications of this issue (and I don't really care to), as far as I am concerned, I trust the devs to analyze the problem accordingly and make suitable decisions.
My personal opinion is that the installer isn't really important. I just install base with whatever old cd I have
(to be honest, I don't have a really old cd, just 0.7.2, I'm pretty new to arch) and then pacman my system to
the most current form. The installer allows me to partition and format my drives and setup a bse system and I can take it from there.
Of course, there could be other reasons why the change might be good. PR reasons, specific needs of some types of users, etc. As I said before, I'll leave it to the devs to sort it out, I just use the system, and so far, I'm quite happy with it.
But I sould really get to the point of my post, there really is one )
I would like to try a little exercise of arch installation. Here's what I want to try:
I want to install Arch and bring it current with the oldest ISO I cand get my hand on. I mean 0.1 would be great.
So far I have only located 0.7.1, I think, so if anybody knows where I cand find really old ISOs that would be great. I think it would prove, to a degree, that for a generic installation (no special needs), the version of the installer doesn't matter so much.
Ok, any input is greatly appreciated, also, if I'm terribly of-topic feel free to move this post somewhere else, no harm done

A good day to you all,
Radu

mucknert · 2007-04-04 10:48:27

It is not, I repeat: NOT, a PR-decission, it has to do with ease of installation and updating. How many people installed from the 0.7.2 ISO only to end up with an unusable system after an pacman -Syu? Judging from the IRC: a fucking lot. Newcomers ended up with a unuseable system because of that. Regular updates of the ISO serve two purposes. First, people that want to install Arch can make use of newer kernels and therefore, better drivers (usually ) which eliminates one common source of problems due to old base-systems. The second is to minimize problems while syncing the installed system with the newest current. No-one wants to have an non-booting system right after the first update, right?

Most people that don't seem to understand the change have obvioulsy never seen the problems some users run into with the old system. There are technical reasons, this is not a PR-Gag! And if it works out: the better!

iphitus · 2007-04-04 11:37:07

Settle down all.

Release Schedule: It's become clear, that installing from older ISO's and syu'ing often has problems. Most of these are kernel related, and the kernel has relatively infrequent releases, so it made sense to follow these releases.

These will not induce much more stress on the mirrors, as most users just Syu. It just means that anyone looking for an ISO will get an up to date one rather than an old one, and it will actually work unlike the problems we've had in the past with 0.7.2.

The release naming was changed to stress this, these are snapshots of the repositories at a point in time, not a 'release', and should remove some of the confusion around arch's release system.

Time: Releasing ISO's more frequently is not an issue, and we have the developer power to accomplish this as tpowa has shown, updating the 0.8 pre iso's frequently.

Throttling: The throttling is required, there's no debate about this. The default mirror will remain as archlinux.org, although you're free to suggest other methods of handling this. One such method could be setting mirror at install time, which should fix things for new users.

These are not PR-gags they are technical reasons, as mucknert said.

If you have productive suggestions or code fixes, please file bugs/feature requests.

James

radumash · 2007-04-04 12:02:38

Hey there.
First of all I have to say that I don't know if mucknert and iphitus were replying to my post or a previous one.
I'm going to assume they are replying to mine.
I believe what you are saying about the technical problems people are encountering. Personally, the only trouble I've had after doing a -Syu after install was a kernel panic ( ) ) but that was only because I didn't read the instruction about changing the initrd image in the grub config. And it was easily repaired and could have been easily avoided by me paying attention.
Another thing... why are you getting worked up over the letters PR. There's no reason to get excited.
I understand that there are good technical reasons behind the shift (actually, I assumed as much from the beginning, I only hadn't experienced them personally) but the outside world gets an image of Arch as a more lively project and this community gets more media coverage, is that a bad thing? PR is good. Relax.
Even if you'd say that this is just to pump some energy into the release schedule, if you say it works, I don't mind, really.

Ok, good work and best of luck,
Radu

PS. If you didn't reply to my post, ignore this last one...

neotuli · 2007-04-04 12:09:36

I think the arch install CDs should be green from now on.

pjeremy · 2007-04-04 12:24:18

Perhaps pacman could display a message along the lines of "Please change mirrors" if it uses the default mirror or perhaps integrate a redirect on the archlinux.org mirror or within pacman, either completely random or randomly based on the geographical location of the pc as well as displaying the message. That way archlinux.org would get less load and the other mirrors wouldn't be slammed as toofishes said.

vacant · 2007-04-04 12:26:10

The only advantage I see in the new release schedule is that new users have less to download when they do their first "pacman -Suy".

The only time I remember thinking a pkg update should have triggered an install iso update was the change from mkinit to mkcpio which meant loads of new users did a "pacman -Suy" after install and couldn't reboot because they didn't change their boot menu entry.

Apart from that I can't see any pressing reason for install iso releases to be tied to any particular pkg, kernel or otherwise. No harm in tying it to the kernel but releasing an uptodate install iso every three months would be just as useful IMHO.

dtw · 2007-04-04 14:00:29

I would imagine mirror config should become as an important part of the install as configuring grub - seeing as it is the main determinate of the single most regular admin task that you will undertake on your Arch system

I'm pretty sure I could bang out a flat file mirror database that can be installed as a pkg and then script a guess at your best mirrors based on your continent and then rank the top five with the script during install. The dbase could be updated easily and even expanded to include qualitative flags. The script could then be run on other requirements rather than location.

[sarcasm]

Then I could attach it to a feature request in the bugtracker and watch it ruminate for 6 months.

[/sarcasm]

dtw · 2007-04-04 14:02:40

vacant wrote:

The only advantage I see in the new release schedule is that new users have less to download when they do their first "pacman -Suy".
The only time I remember thinking a pkg update should have triggered an install iso update was the change from mkinit to mkcpio which meant loads of new users did a "pacman -Suy" after install and couldn't reboot because they didn't change their boot menu entry.
Apart from that I can't see any pressing reason for install iso releases to be tied to any particular pkg, kernel or otherwise. No harm in tying it to the kernel but releasing an uptodate install iso every three months would be just as useful IMHO.

Clearly you need to read iphitus' post.

Mr Green · 2007-04-04 14:24:07

' I'm not happy with the new Arch changes'

Then install Frisky Ferret then ;-S

Arch Linux

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