Arch Linux

dhave

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

From: Outside the matrix.

Registered: 2005-05-15

Posts: 1,109

Re: Arch makes life boring!

2) "Try seeing what packages you can 'get away with' removing from your system. Guaranteed to break something eventually. Then you get to try and fix it."

3) "Learn bash scripting and make some scripts for cron to run. You can do rsyncs, come up with an update notification system, clean up your harddrive, backup your system."

Those two made me think of: "Why not make a cron job that randomly removes a package!!"

Some other stuff you could do:

1) Start developing a program that you are missing or join a project which is already developing a similar program.

2) Contribute to OSS projects by creating documentation, graphics or any other stuff.

3) Learn other programming languages.

Edit:
Guess you could always check out this wiki page for some tips:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mutualism_Arch

PJ, I like  your emphasis on doing things that are community oriented and not just spending *all* one's time amusing oneself.

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Donate to Arch!

Tired? There's a nap for that. --anonymous

dhave

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

From: Outside the matrix.

Registered: 2005-05-15

Posts: 1,109

Re: Arch makes life boring!

2) "Try seeing what packages you can 'get away with' removing from your system. Guaranteed to break something eventually. Then you get to try and fix it."

3) "Learn bash scripting and make some scripts for cron to run. You can do rsyncs, come up with an update notification system, clean up your harddrive, backup your system."

Those two made me think of: "Why not make a cron job that randomly removes a package!!"

That truly would keep things from being boring. Set yourself up for a daily attack from a random package removal bot of your own creation. Then try to repair the damage.

This would be an excellent learning experience. Some days nothing at all would happen, at least not right away. Other days the whole system would go crashing down. 

This is the perfect learning exercise for those who like to live on the edge. Russian roulette for geeks.

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Donate to Arch!

Tired? There's a nap for that. --anonymous

PJ

Member

From: Sweden

Registered: 2005-10-11

Posts: 602

Re: Arch makes life boring!

That truly would keep things from being boring. Set yourself up for a daily attack from a random package removal bot of your own creation. Then try to repair the damage.

This would be an excellent learning experience. Some days nothing at all would happen, at least not right away. Other days the whole system would go crashing down. 

This is the perfect learning exercise for those who like to live on the edge. Russian roulette for geeks.

I wonder if the pacman.log should be removed/cleaned, otherwise it would be to easy to fix the system (if the bot is using pacman).

floke

Member

Registered: 2007-09-04

Posts: 266

Re: Arch makes life boring!

Well I wasn't really complaining so much as expressing my admiration.
I'd learn some code stuff, but I really do have a fair bit of actual work to do (tweaking takes a big hit on this as it is!) - but I do get the urge now and again - I used to program a lot when I was a kid, but only with basic - so I reckon I've a wee bit of catching up to do.
As for the BSD's - I like them but they have crappy support for my hardware atm; and as for VM's - I just don't really see the point - I have a vmware server around somewhere but if I want to try a distro then I'll whack it on a spare partition - I quad boot and have two 'spare' distro spaces for playing. I did install Fedora 8 over the weekend, but have only used it for a couple of hours. Have spent chunks of today fixing my broken Debian box, which also rocks. So am now back to boring old work.

Oh well

dhave

Arch Linux f@h Team Member

From: Outside the matrix.

Registered: 2005-05-15

Posts: 1,109

Re: Arch makes life boring!

So am now back to boring old work.

Oh well

Maybe something will break or otherwise go badly at work and you can while away the hours trying to make things right.

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Donate to Arch!

Tired? There's a nap for that. --anonymous

bootiack

Member

Registered: 2007-04-10

Posts: 19

Re: Arch makes life boring!

I know, i am now reduced to thinking about plan9, opensolaris, menutos, dexOS.........all from my arch desktop with iceWM.

lloeki

Member

From: France

Registered: 2007-02-20

Posts: 456

Website

Re: Arch makes life boring!

before arch, I was always like in a hurry, no time for myself.
since arch, I could actually do many things, like scripting some stuff with bash, sed and others, learning python, get my hands on dbus, finally putting my feets on this damn skateboard of mine, taking care of my girlfriend, and actually work at the office, and document stuff I do. all of this in a timely manner, and in a proper way, not the hackish and rushed ugly stuff I was doing before. I also now have time to contribute back to the various communities I'm involved in, via forums, wikis, and my personal projects.

now, I don't feel like I'm losing my time, and actually I feel like I'm doing something worth it.

Last edited by lloeki (2007-12-12 19:35:03)

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To know recursion, you must first know recursion.

sven

Member

Registered: 2005-02-01

Posts: 311

Re: Arch makes life boring!

After using Arch for almost 3 years, I am having a problem, too. It works so well and I manage to do things the way I want that I am starting to forget some things about Linux in general Computer becomes more like a black box - again! Luckily at work we are using the buggy Windows XP. At home I must search through my old memos to find a solution to a problem that has occurred before.

Last edited by sven (2007-12-15 10:18:09)

F

Member

Registered: 2006-10-09

Posts: 322

Re: Arch makes life boring!

I used to think Windows was more stable. Then I realized the uptime on my linux box included two Windows reinstalls.

*shrugs* So now I don't have any Windows machines in my house. Its been smooth sailing thus far. ;p (this is not to say of course that I don't use VMs, but I use them sparingly)

timlofgren

Member

Registered: 2007-09-21

Posts: 2

Re: Arch makes life boring!

While I'm a relative newbie to Arch, I've been playing with Linux since Red Hat 5.0. The only times I've seen a *nix box less stable than Windows was when I've screwed something up. Arch is no exception, and the only problems have been ones I've created. A guy I work with has been using Arch for a few years, he has uptimes of 200+ days. I have yet to see Windows Server beat that...

I too have lost any justification to distro hop.

Last edited by timlofgren (2007-12-18 23:54:41)

kazuya

Member

From: Texas

Registered: 2007-09-05

Posts: 24

Re: Arch makes life boring!

I am far from bored. I just started. It is ridiculously stable and predictable to work in. I am getting to doing more development stuff on my laptop on arch. So boring is not a term I would use. I still have some other partitions on some other machines for playing around on; My new thing would be jumping into the development components or applications to really get a feel for them. I cannot fault the OS or distro on anything given its goals. I am very content. But, if a gui for pacman such as YAPG flourishes, I am all for it. I would use it to see in detail what I have installed and what is available. It would surely make the transition for newbs very easy; However, If that had been the case, I probably would not have gotten familiar with the CLI which is even more powerful than the gui once understood.

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Opensource; Become a part of it.

Mantaar

Member

Registered: 2007-12-17

Posts: 70

Re: Arch makes life boring!

Arch, XMonad, Haskell. My favorite hobbies, distro- and WM- and Language- hopping have no point anymore...

Aw, well, one could always learn a language like Piet I guess. Or, you know, like... get stuff done.

I could practise more on the bass guitar...

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Guy #1: I'd totally hit that.
Guy #2: Dude, I'd hit that so hard whoever could pull me out would become the King of England.
--College Walk, Columbia University (Overheard in NY)

gunnihinn

Member

From: Torreón, Mexico

Registered: 2007-10-28

Posts: 79

Re: Arch makes life boring!

Well not quite - but it's so bloody perfect that I can no longer distro hop with any rational purpose!
I miss my hopping- but seriously love this OS.

Oh, I don't know. Usually I'd agree with you, but I just had a fair amount of excitement after a system upgrade; first the sound went belly-up, and after that was fixed the X server decided to exit the building.

All in all I'm grateful for two things: This doesn't happen very often, and that I've taken the time to learn how to use screen and console apps.

hussam

Member

Registered: 2006-03-26

Posts: 488

Website

Re: Arch makes life boring!

ArchLinux bloody perfect ? Well, it is a smart distro, but Windows is still far more stable.

Sorry for that.

You don't have to be sorry. I understand your point.
Linux, as an operating system, is more stable and better designed than Microsoft Windows.
The only problem is that with windows, you get one kernel for 6 years. This means that Microsoft has to make it 'good enough' for the gold release and 'stable enough' by SP1. All this is after years of testing. With Linux, you get a new kernel every few months. This really isn't enough time to test an operating system kernel.

But to be honest, I've had more problems when I ran windows than after I switched to ArchLinux.