Arch Linux

Abakaba

Member

Registered: 2005-11-25

Posts: 11

I'm back: my experience with Arch

By looking at my profile, you can see that my last post before this one was...some time ago. To put is short: I fled Arch in panic. Back to the slow, safe, pampered world of Ubuntu.

Ahh..

I arrived here (at Arch 0.7.2) with the intention of finally learning Linux. Kernel panics, krashes, system updates that just messed everything up, change of hardware policies from one day to the other. Massive confusion for a newbie. More than ever before in my life. Of course, I cant't with certainty tell whether it was because of Arch or because of my overall life situation at the time. But it was hell. I didn't learn a bit about linux

But I got bored with Ubuntu. Tried this, tried that, tried Sabayon. Sabayon appealed to me, but as always with laptops and distros that try to cover as much ground as possible, there were hardware issues. Backtracing the problems and then trying to fix them didn't seem too appealing. That's when I stumbled upon the news that 0.8 was out.

What the...I'll give it another go. After all, there were some things I did like about Arch: pacman and at least the prospect of learning linux by not having everything given to you on a platter.

Three days now, and not a single hickup. I have learned TONS about linux. I suppose bits of information that were stuck somewhere on my cortex have finally started to sink in, but they wouldn't have unless this my second experience with Arch hadn't gone so smooth.  NOW it is  a great learning distro. Sorry, I just can't agree with those who say it has always been. Arch has sure evolved. Of course, you knew that, but still--good job everyone!

mcubed

Member

From: Portland, OR USA

Registered: 2006-04-02

Posts: 18

Re: I'm back: my experience with Arch

Ha-ha.  I'm in a similar boat.  I fled Arch, if not so much in panic, then in frustration and exhaustion.  Too much I couldn't figure out, even with the help of the wiki and community of users; too much I didn't know enough about to get anywhere with.  So I went to Debian and settled on Etch (testing) after experimenting with Sarge (stable) and Sid (unstable).  And, like you, eventually got bored, especially in the past few months as Etch has entered its freeze in preparation for release.

I still have Etch installed because I know it "just works" and I'm not confident enough in Arch's stability (or my ability to deal with breakage and bugs here and there) to have Arch be my only system.  I'm planning a gradual transition over to Arch, as long as things go well enough, and leaving Etch around as a safety valve.  One day maybe I'll decide once and for all whether the current "testing" version of Debian, whatever that may be at any given time, or Arch is the right distro for me; right now all I know is that both are my two favorite distros out there, even if I have a love/hate attitude toward Debian and a love/fear attitude toward Arch.  :-)

Still, I agree --- great job everyone!

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"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream." --S. Jackson

STiAT

Member

From: Vienna, Austria

Registered: 2004-12-23

Posts: 606

Re: I'm back: my experience with Arch

Hmh, i quite never left arch after i found it. I just tried ubuntu for about 2 hours when the hype was going on, found out that its a regular, quite boring and restrictive distribution and was back again .

First of all, let me tell you something:
Arch always has been the way it is now. At least it has been the past 2 years, quite stable.
The problems you experienced probably came due to heavy kernel and hardware support changes arch went trough. The time arch 0.7.2 broke within upgrading basically was the time for arch 0.8, where already beta iso files existed. Too bad, they were not released within this changes, would have brought a lot of new users in less struggles.

Take a breath, arch 0.8 landed and it's perfect right now. You will like the new release cycle of arch, releasing within every kernel stable, therefore there won't be that much problems any more when updating a freshly installed distribution.
Though, with arch running you willl have to jump in the cold water, and change quite everything manually. Be aware, but most likely there will be announcements about this. Hopefully next time not when the change is THERE but when the change will come up within the next few weeks.

// STi

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Ability is nothing without opportunity.

rayjgu3

Member

From: Chicago IL usa

Registered: 2004-07-04

Posts: 695

Re: I'm back: my experience with Arch

like STiAT
once arch got into my pc it has not left
& i only thought i had knew a thing or 2 bout linux
turned out i didnt know enough to get mouse in X (boy what a PEBKAC i was<Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair>)
but it didnt take too long thanks to the very friendly people in the forums(not one RTFM response to my ?'s that i recall) & the wiki
yes there have been several issues from time to time kernel panics , sound issues, nvidia driver problems but if i took the time to read the front page news & pay closer attention to the forums i could have avoided alot of those problems. still havent learned that but i have learned how to get into my install via install cd , or chroot to revert back to prior kernel if needed or turn off some things like the sound to be able to boot up
arch is not for newbies its for the experienced linuxian/linuxite/linux guru or willing to read & learn

taken from About Arch Linux So, to sum up: Arch Linux is a workhorse distribution designed to fit the needs of the competent linux user

i came here a newbie willing to read & learn + help when i can by doing so id like to think ive become a "competent linux user"
maybe some day you can be too :):):)

if you get too frustrated with it walk away for a while as a friend once told me "when it comes to computers i always win.... i know how to turn it off":D