Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

chicha · 2007-11-19 09:43:59

Hi all,

I have been using Arch for 8 months now.
I recently no more felt has enthusiastic has I was before, for mainly two reasons :

- Some updates broke some functionalities.
- I felt like other distro's Gnome packaging was more eye candy than Arch's one.

I thus tried (again) Ubuntu, Mandriva, and Fedora using Virtualbox. I liked Fedora the most and decided to install it beside my Arch, and see if it could make me abandon Arch.

The answer is no : Arch is still definitely the best distro I have ever tried

So why I didn't quit ?

- I realized that whatever the gui tool you provide to configure a Linux system, one day or another your users will have to understand the background functionality and use the console + config files. With Fedora it came out very quickly because the famous Network Manager does not handle static IP configuration well (do you believe it ?). And I was very surprised that there was very few documentation to help using the config files. Fortunately my LFS + Gentoo + Arch experience helped me a lot . The "Arch Way" is so right about this point.

- The package management : you can provide thousands of packages, one day or another your users will have to make their own package either because you do not provide it our because it needs a patch or a configure option which is not provided out of the box. If I found RPM easier than DEB, there are both at many light-years than PKGBUILD ease of use. Moreover I found pacman much simpler and easy to use than Yum.

- The AUR : every distro make a choice concerning their package repository policy. But one day or another users will need a package outside the main repos. AUR make your life so easier than what you can find with Ubuntu or Fedora, where you have to browse the net to find a repo which override the main repo packages when you only need 1 package ! Also it really make it easy to contribute to the community.

- Eye candy : Fortunately Ubuntu and Fedora people share their contributions to others. I am able to use Fedora's theme, and have all the eye candy I want ! If it is not delivered out of the box it is normal in fact : who have the same feelings as a color blind guy like me ?

and last but not least :

- The updates : What ever the distro you use, you will one day have to cope with an update which broke a functionality. I have had this problem with EVERY distro I used. The thing is that you have to be more careful with a rolling release distro, because you have updates more frequently. Also the update breakage I had was mainly due to upstream bug, not to Arch. Now I will not perform every day update any more. I will only update the system when I know I have time to test every thing is normal and fix the problems if any. Also I will write down a list of packages I want to particularly care about and maybe put them in the NoUpgrage variable in my pacman.conf, so that I am warned when a new update is available for those packages and take some time to look at the update.

Definitely I am going to stay with Arch. The more I try other distros the more I think Arch is a distro for me. THE distro I have been looking for

Here is a little advice to those who, like me, felt like Arch was maybe not the best distro for you : Just try another one. Virtualbox (and others) is your friend. And even install a new distro beside your Arch. But please wait a few weeks before removing your Arch : you could wish you had not removed it sooner than you think ...

Allan · 2007-11-19 10:29:18

Welcome back. Eye-candy is to tempting for many a person... and that doesn't just apply to linux distros!

So do you need to add Fedora (2007) -> Archlinux (2007) -> ? to your sig?

hussam · 2007-11-19 10:35:53

Regarding gui configuration tools, they do make things easier only when that alternative is hard. But in my opinion, things don't need to be 'gui' to be easy to use.
For example, is running 'pacman -Syu' really harder to do than running synaptic in debian?
Is editing /etc/rc.conf (which by the way is quite well commented) really harder than whatever gui startup daemon tool that Debian or Ubuntu use?

I for example have been running Arch only since 2006. I haven't had windows or another distribution on my hard disk at home since then. One of the reasons is that it is relatively easier to make ArchLinux packages or rebuild current ones with different options. Pacman is really a dream come true. I can't wait for pacman 3.1

Regarding Fedora, I have a lot of respect for that distribution.

Last edited by hussam (2007-11-19 10:38:22)

chicha · 2007-11-19 10:42:36

You are so right, Allan : I could also write a post about my temptation to buy a Mac, an iPhone or an iPod and why I resisted
About my sig I only put distros I have been running enough. I only ran Fedora a few days ...

Last edited by chicha (2007-11-19 10:42:52)

chicha · 2007-11-19 10:48:29

hussam wrote:

Regarding Fedora, I have a lot of respect for that distribution.

I have too. In my quest I discovered how much they give to the community, and how far they play the standardization card with Freedesktop. There are nice tools I am going to look forward to use them with Arch such as ConsoleKit and PolicyKit. The thing is that the technological advantage of Fedora over Arch is not so obvious compared to the advantage of Arch's KISS principle, imho.

lilsirecho · 2007-11-19 15:20:37

Chicha;

Welcome home!

If you can boot from USB, try FaunOS for a dual arrangement of archlinux which has 500 packages and boots in 45 secs with a 2GB flash device. Has pacman and save session to flash drive.

Have fun with arch!

chicha · 2007-11-19 15:41:39

lilsirecho wrote:

If you can boot from USB, try FaunOS for a dual arrangement of archlinux which has 500 packages and boots in 45 secs with a 2GB flash device. Has pacman and save session to flash drive.
Have fun with arch!

My wife is supposed to offer me a 4Gb USB key for my birthday (I hope she will not forget ).
I really want to test stuffs like FaunOS or even build my own Arch LiveUSB. I am tired with burning liveCD, and a virtual OS is not always good to test host hardware.

Be sure I will have fun !

alex_anthony · 2007-11-19 23:19:19

chicha i completely understand about updates...
On ubuntu, an update ruined hal completely and there was no solution until next release (except in backports)
On Arch, recent problem with hal, resolved in next update...
Ahh rolling release

lloeki · 2007-11-21 14:34:19

After my recent Arch 'betrayal' on a Ubuntu Gutsy trip (which I somehow enjoyed), I went on with Fedora 8 some days ago. I was impressed by the early X server as bootsplash, and the system-config stuff. I was NOT impressed by yum, so much that I replaced it with smart as soon as possible. But they both lack the difference between 'voluntarily installed' and 'installed as dependency', allowing for autoremoval of dependencies (like pacman -Rs and apt-get autoremove).
After a week I noticed other quirkiness here and there (like gnome_pam_keyring simply not working for zero obvious reason), and magical stuff occuring here and there (like the backdrop changing color depending on the time of the day), but there were more troubling things which I gave up upon so I just installed Arch right back to latest from inside fedora (pacman.static magic).

now that I built my own kernel with fbcondecor patch and fbsplash (both nice to my eyes and important when I showcase linux to windows guys) in a snap, I'm happy again.

chicha · 2007-11-21 14:53:31

lloeki wrote:

magical stuff occuring here and there (like the backdrop changing color depending on the time of the day)

In fact this is a feature, which I like very much by the way. Installing Fedora's theme with this changing color background is in my TODO list

lloeki wrote:

I just installed Arch right back to latest from inside fedora (pacman.static magic).

You are so right !
I have never found a simplest way to install Arch than using pacman.static
No liveSomething needed, no cd-rom waste, etc ... You build your system from your existing one step by step, it can take as long as you want or can be very fast depending on your humour. You can halt your computer and resume the installation at anytime. pacman.static is the best distro installer I have ever seen

dhave · 2007-11-21 15:27:09

I often try to stay out of distro discussions because I realize that everyone has his or her own preferences. However, just a couple of days ago, I was researching a problem getting Konqueror to handle file associations properly. One of the Google hits was in a Fedora forum. I was amazed at the lack of expertise in some of the posts that were intended to be helpful -- I'm not talking about people asking questions, I'm talking about people trying to "help" others. Several times the advice was just to reinstall all of KDE. I felt sorry for users of so many distros who, because their distro is designed to "protect" the user from the system's inner workings, are denied real understanding of how to maintain their systems.

I've always appreciated in Arch, Gentoo, and Slackware that there are truly knowledgeable people who are happy to lend advice, and that the distro itself is designed to encourage exploration. The goal is always to learn more, try to work through problems, and try to understand why something's not going right, not to just zap everything and start over (though I admit that on occasion that is the best solution).

raul_nds · 2007-12-02 02:38:58

dhave wrote:

The goal is always to learn more, try to work through problems, and try to understand why something's not going right, not to just zap everything and start over (though I admit that on occasion that is the best solution).

Like KDE?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-11-19 09:43:59

Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#2 2007-11-19 10:29:18

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#3 2007-11-19 10:35:53

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#4 2007-11-19 10:42:36

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#5 2007-11-19 10:48:29

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#6 2007-11-19 15:20:37

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#7 2007-11-19 15:41:39

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#8 2007-11-19 23:19:19

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#9 2007-11-21 14:34:19

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#10 2007-11-21 14:53:31

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#11 2007-11-21 15:27:09

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

#12 2007-12-02 02:38:58

Re: Why I was about to quit ... and why I didn't

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