My thoughts (and yours too!) about Arch (I'm in love already!)

ibendiben · 2008-01-24 09:27:51

wolfden wrote:

I'm a gentoo user since 2004 and have been using sabayon linux for last year and half or so. I can definitely say that the hype you are hearing about Gentoo is sinking is nothing new. Gentoo will survive and portage is very active. The community has never really been a friendly place. There is a lot of egos between devs and users that conflict.
I had installed arch linux a year ago and used it for a bit, but the timing wasn't right for me. I now have arch setup and running beautifully. I'll be keeping my gentoo stuff and running arch at the same time. Arch will be my escape to peace hopefully.

WELCOME

Basn · 2008-01-24 09:41:50

its not a concern, its just my tought when i was useing gentoo
witch was awhile ago.

schivmeister · 2008-01-24 14:14:50

Being in the Gentoo (albeit in a passive way) and Arch paradigm simaltaenously, I would say only Arch is an all-arounder. What's the point of Gentoo? To have a system where the the hardware and software are in harmony (yeah ok sometimes it's exactly the opposite but you get the gist), and that I have achieved to some extent with my almost-year-old Gentoo-based DAW. Lots of headbangings (not to music, but to glibc) are part and parcel of the experience.

So then, what's the point of Arch? To mould your habits, that is all. There are limited merits to anything. Gentoo is the best rock. Arch is the best clay. Gentoo may be the best platform where source-based package management is made easy (think USE, revdep-rebuild, masking etc), but Arch is the middle line where you get the middle finger "anything's fine biatch!" and choose to either headbang to a source-based makepkg -ci or sing along to a binary-based pacman -S, but you will be given what you want in full. You'd still feel at home, maybe just less one or two rooms, with /etc/makepkg.conf, ccache, distcc and ABS. The demerits of Gentoo and the demerits of Arch will eventually return 0 after cross-multiplying them and adding some random integer then dividing that by -1 to the power of 1.

So threadstarter, don't think too much. You will never get the ultimate computing platform/experience, unless it's a non-DRM Mac.

wolfden: welcome, looking forward to some good contributions to this distro/community from you.

Last edited by schivmeister (2008-01-24 14:15:58)

Rumor · 2008-01-24 18:58:22

violagirl23 wrote:

If anyone feels like answering, what are some good differences to note between Arch and Frugalware? In particular, are there big differences in the number of packages between the two? And what are the approximate number of packages each has? (for Arch, at least, with AND without AUR, so I can get an idea).

First, welcome to Arch! your enthusiasm is rather infectious

I can't speak to all of your questions regarding Frugalware. It is not based on Arch, but does use pacman as its package manager.

Perhaps the most immediate diefference is that Frugalware is a graphical distro, or at least it was when last I looked at it. If you installed it, you got gnome, which is fine for some, but is not the Arch Way. Where a new Arch install leaves you with a command prompt and your freedom to go from there where you will, Frugalware makes some decisions for you regarding applications that it installs. Arch is what you make of it and I am sure Frugalware can also be what you make of it, but first you'll have to unmake what they've made it for you.

Wilson Phillips · 2008-01-24 19:14:32

What a bunch of leg humper wannabee's. I can see that lessons are needed.

Don't waste time
Get up there and quickly caress the leg
Mount up
Start humping.

Here is a little logo I made for the team on RX-8club.com
attachment.php?attachmentid=90510

iggyst00ge · 2008-01-24 20:42:05

violagirl23 wrote:

Some of my personal desires in a distro:
1.Bleeding edge with rolling updates (and thus no need to ever reinstall the distribution)
2. A large repository for the package manager
3. Not a newbie distro... a distro for those who like the command line and to do things themselves
4. Good community
5. Customizable
6. The ability to choose between a stable and unstable package on a per-package basis
7. Install from source
Arch seems to satisfy 1,3, 4, and 5 correct? And pretty well satisfies 2, though I can see its package manager is not as big as Gentoo (though bigger than like Slackware).
I guess for the most part it doesn't satisfy 6 and 7 though, right? I realize that AUR is source-based, but on the whole, Arch is binary, so I'm referring to the overall tendency of the distribution.
Is there the ability to choose between stable and unstable packages though, to be as bleeding-edge as possible? (I'm thinking no but thought I'd ask)
. . .
I've also done research on other distributions someone like me might like (especially coming from Gentoo).
This is my current list:
Arch Linux
Frugalware (based on Arch, right?)
Zen Walk
Vector Linux
CRUX (I'm leaning away from this one, as of now)
Lunar
Source Mage
Sorcerer
FreeBSD (but I've decided not to go with FreeBSD, as much as I like installing from source, because their philosophy of stability over currentness (like not having flash 9 because it's not "stable") just doesn't fly with me.. Linux is better for me, I think)
LFS.. okay, not really, but if I ever have a weekend when I'm REALLY bored.........
So what things do you guys like better about Arch, and what things do you like better about Gentoo, or maybe about some other good distros?

Well, I'm a former Gentoo user myself, so you're in good company here -- there are a LOT of us. I've also gone through the same distrohopping you've done.

For pure source-based distros, you're really much stuck with Gentoo or BSD. Lunar, Source Mage, and Sorcerer just aren't nearly as mature as those two. Paldo and T2 are promising in concept, but they're almost brand new. Something that wasn't mentioned elsewhere is that Debian can be compiled from source, and, like Arch, can be a minimalist install if you want it to be. Debian Etch is conservative, but you can pop out to the other repositories for the more recent apps if you're so inclined. Its about as stable and customizable as you can get. If you want to live on the edge, try Sidux, which manages to tame Debian unstable (most of the time).

If you like Slackware but want something a little more friendly, it's worth checking out the Slackware derivatives, such as Zenwalk, Absolute, Vector, Wolvix, Kate, etc etc. Zenwalk is one of my favorite distros, 686 optimized, fast, lean, great community, customizable, Slackware package compatible, and elegant in its simplicity. Can also be set up to be a "rolling" distro if you activate the testing repository (see their forums). LOVE Zenwalk. Great XFCE implementation, but only so-so KDE, which is why I eventually looked elsewhere. Getting better with each release and worth an installation on a second partition for a look, especially if you use XFCE.

Finally, people who only use Ubuntu without even trying anything else are missing out. Ubuntu might ultimately be perfect for them, but it's a shame they don't try something else to see if it's more stable, faster, has better out of the box hardware support, or has better configuration tools. I suppose it's okay for them to stick with something that works fine, but not necessarily WELL on their box, but it's also not something I'd be particularly proud of. That's ultimately why I installed Arch again -- I wanted something fast, elegant, stable, and customizable to the way that I work. Once it's up and running, my machine works with me, not against me. No worries.

Chris

dmartins · 2008-01-24 22:32:31

Wilson Phillips wrote:

What a bunch of leg humper wannabee's. I can see that lessons are needed.
Don't waste time
Get up there and quickly caress the leg
Mount up
Start humping.
Here is a little logo I made for the team on RX-8club.com
http://www.rx8club.com/attachment.php?a … ntid=90510

LOL Maybe a little crude, but funny all the same.

Welcome to Arch!:P

edit: I am also a former Gentoo user and have tried it again recently when the project I was working on required a bare minimum system. I soon came to realize that Gentoo's and Arch's base installs are pretty much the same.

Last edited by dmartins (2008-01-24 22:38:39)

esters · 2008-01-25 09:31:00

I've been a full-time Linux user for the past 1,5 years. Played with Debian for about a year and got interested in Arch Linux (which in that time was in 0.7.2), because i liked the principle of simplicity, centralized system configuration file aka rc.conf.
After I gained some experience and was ready enough to switch from Debian to Arch, there were two things that bug me.

First of all it is pacman, the package manager for Arch. Well if you compare it to apt-get, it is slower IMHO. (Resolving dependencies, package searching is *slow* and it's repository is way smaller than debian's default repositories "main contrib non-free")
Just for the numbers :

# pacman -Sl | wc -l
4165

ftp.fi.debian.org main contrib non-free
21446

Secondly - Arch is a rolling release distro, thus there is one path - the rolling way , i was used to "stable" "testing" "unstable" (I've used unstable for ~6 months and Testing for ~8months), but i can deal with that. In the end - why is THIS removed from the packages which are out of the testing repository, i mean if a package breaks in core , extra or community you need to rebuild the package. Quite unKISSing it is, IMO

But still i like arch

brebs · 2008-01-25 10:39:26

Plus 6,561 in AUR

Debian hasn't even got darkplaces in it

esters · 2008-01-25 11:21:08

One of the reasons i moved to Arch was because Debian didn't had following apps in repository :
Gimmix
epdfview
and several other

and also making .deb packages requires lot of time and patience, where Arch has a simple plain text file and by reading the wiki for about 30 minutes i created my own package

Last edited by esters (2008-01-25 11:21:47)

dolby · 2008-01-25 13:07:34

hooray!

Xilon · 2008-01-25 13:17:37

One thing about debian you need to remember is that it actually has half the packages it claims, due to the *-dev packages. But of course, debian has way more packages than Arch, still I don't miss a thing.

iggyst00ge · 2008-01-25 15:29:14

Xilon wrote:

One thing about debian you need to remember is that it actually has half the packages it claims, due to the *-dev packages. But of course, debian has way more packages than Arch, still I don't miss a thing.

That's one of the things that surprised me about Arch -- the repository is smaller than Debian's, but I have less difficulty finding what I want here.

Chris

tomk · 2008-01-25 16:12:00

Package count - it's one of those things that comes up every now and again, and it's pointless every time. The question a prospective Arch user needs to ask is not "how many packages does Arch have?" but "does Arch have the packages I want?".

And in the odd case where the answer is no, the next question should be "what can I do to make <obscure_app_name_here> available to Arch users?".

esters · 2008-01-25 17:30:23

In both occasions Tomk, Arch provides me with what i need, as i mentioned in my previous post, Arch has a very simple, logical structure of making packages, so if i don't have the particular package nor in the repositories nor AUR, i do some reading & experimenting and if i succeed, share the PKGBUILD to others. Easy as pie

violagirl23 · 2008-01-27 05:55:53

Just for the numbers :
# pacman -Sl | wc -l
4165

Plus 6,561 in AUR wink

Well that's one interesting thing about Arch vs. Gentoo.. that most packages are in AUR. In Gentoo I find it just the opposite by FAR (I cut out some unnecessary parts of the code):

megini violagirl23 # update-eix
[0] "gentoo" /usr/portage/ (cache: metadata)
Database contains 12369 packages in 151 categories.
megini violagirl23 # update-eix
[0] "gentoo" /usr/portage/ (cache: metadata)
[1] "sunrise" /usr/portage/local/layman/sunrise (cache: none)
Database contains 12811 packages in 151 categories.

So without the Sunrise overlay, which is like AUR, the database has 12,369 packages. But with it, it has 12,811 (as of last week). So Sunrise is only really adding 442 packages... a MUCH smaller number than the AUR, which seems to overnumber the repositories themselves. It's not bad, just different (plus I realize pacman & AUR are two different mediums as well, AUR being source-based). I find Gentoo's Portage little open to change, however. It seems much easier to be able to get things *into* Arch, whereas new features submitted to Portage usually don't seem to go through and/or are ignored, many times things stuck on Sunrise and new features never on Sunrise never going anywhere. It just seems less open to its own community, while pacman seems more open to new packages. I kind of like that.
Well, I just got the hard drive tonight, am shuffling around files to make room, and will hopefully get Arch installed tonight or tomorrow if all goes well.

brebs · 2008-01-27 06:17:00

Sunrise is an uneasy compromise. Gentoo bugzilla is where new ebuilds mainly go (and should go, in the ideal world where they don't usually just sit there forever), and it's unclear how to get a count of those.

violagirl23 · 2008-01-28 05:42:30

That's true. It seems like Gentoo has more to begin with in its official repositories but it's *so* much harder for the users to make any contributions to it at all. *shakes head*
Right now I'm just trying desperately to get the Arch Linux installer to work.... it hangs at boot, in fact, not even very far into boot.
All I get is
Load vmlinuz................................................
The dots go for a while and then just stop... it just hangs there and doesn't do anything.
I tried adding the options...
arch noapic
arch noapic acpi=off
and even arch noapic acpi=off pci=routeirq nosmp just for the heck of it.
And yet... none of them worked... and I'm getting fed up. Gentoo minimal Live CD works just fine without any special options fed to it as well.. >.<
I'm thinking of trying the ftp version (i'm using core right now), and if that doesn't work, trying to use an older install cd.
I remember when I first tried out Linux, my friend had me *try* to install Ubuntu. The newest version just refused to install, and an older version did. I had to get rid of it anyway, however, because it had no way to update itself, having somehow not installed a compiler? I don't know. But I never wanted Ubuntu anyway, so I really don't care. I just know that going to an older version at least got it working, so maybe it will work with Arch too. It was the same with Windows XP... it just wouldn't install on this computer.
I'm just annoyed and really want the installer to *not* hang. XD Grah.

Last edited by violagirl23 (2008-01-28 05:43:32)

bionnaki · 2008-01-28 05:46:50

ftp is the way to go. I wouldnt use the core cd unless I had to.

sounds like there's something wrong with the cd. maybe burn it at a slower rate.

violagirl23 · 2008-01-28 05:50:49

Maybe I'll just do the ftp anyway... that is pretty much what I did with Gentoo. I remember I was guided through using the minimal install cd and literally got everything from online.. it took like 3 days. XDDDDDDDDDDDD
Haha, as for burning at a slower rate, I burnt the core one at 16x and even had it verify it after... and i'd even done an md5sum check! Oh well. I'll try the ftp one tomorrow then. *crosses fingers*

bionnaki · 2008-01-28 06:39:10

the downloading and installing of core via ftp will only take about 10 mins.

violagirl23 · 2008-02-02 04:05:13

Update:
Well I've been using Arch for a few days now and am slightly more able to formulate my opinions on it, though I obviously would have to use it for at least a few months to really get a feel for it.
And there are some things I really like and others I dislike so far.
Mainly, pacman
Now that I've used Pacman, I DO like it better than Portage. I was a little disappointed at its size of the repositories, but I haven't tried AUR yet (downloading yaourt tonight!), so I think this would pretty much satisfy me anyway.
I have to tell you, I was amazed when I did pacman -Sy and it only took a few seconds! I'm used to emerge --sync where you have to upgrade the ENTIRE portage tree. I like Arch's system MUCH better and feel like I can keep the package manager up-to-date much easier.
Also, pacman seems LOADS faster to me. It always seems like you do emerge <something>, and Portage sits there for quite a while with Calculating Dependences before it tells you what it would install. But Arch was like... instantaneous. Does this have anything to do with it being binary? Because it doesn't *seem* like it would, the Portage ebuilds do have the dependencies written right in them.
But either way, I was incredibly impressed with pacman's speed and like it a lot. It now pwnz Portage in my opinion, especially taking the AUR into account.
I like the user community here and the general atmosphere and system (especially the voting system on AUR) much nicer than Gentoo's too.
And Arch seems very flexible in many respects.
Now there are some things about Arch that are downright frustrating me right now. I feel like I have no control over my own system in some respects, and I dislike it. I agree with KISS, but I don't think that it should make your life more complicated, just simpler. Unless I'm totally just doing something wrong, Arch seems to be missing some command-line utilities that make controlling things loads easier. Like update-modules. There doesn't appear to BE an update-modules command. And the lack of my favorite Gentoo command modules-rebuild (though I understand this is distro-specific) is just disheartening, because it makes rebuilding modules not in the kernel (such as ndiswrapper) when you recompile it a snap (otherwise, how can you keep track of them all!)
In my opinion these things are very KISS.
The one that is really killing me is when I first did cd /etc/init.d/;ls, only to find it was completely empty!!!! I almost fell over! I have NO clue how the heck I am supposed to restart, stop, etc. ANYTHING, like I have absolutely no control over these processes. This has already led me into several roadblocks and made Arch very un-KISS for me. Copying over Gentoo's /etc/init.d/alsasound just failed miserably (though I can't say I'm surprised XD)
Also, alsa has just been MURDERING me by refusing to work at all (god i hate old isa sound cards) even though it worked on gentoo... but I don't blame arch for this *too* much... it is an ANCIENT sound card
So basically, I guess I like a lot of things about Arch but feel that the system-management options are a bit lacking, to the point where I might consider just sticking with Gentoo. On the other hand... now that I know the power of Pacman... it's hard to get myself back to Portage...
>.< What to do....

But I'm glad I'm getting to try it out and will experiment with it for a while.

Edit: AHA! So for Arch /etc/rc.d = /etc/init.d
Well that explains LOADS
I was going NUTS here
Though I still want my update-modules...
*sob*
XD

Last edited by violagirl23 (2008-02-02 04:11:38)

Misfit138 · 2008-02-02 04:19:23

What about depmod -a ?
Also, there is no convoluted init structure replete with symlinks pointing to an /etc/init.d directory, like on other distros. Arch uses a very simple BSD-style init, located in /etc/rc.d/.
So network restart, for instance would be /etc/rc.d/network restart.
Alsa is in there too, along with hal, dbus, fam etc. Check /etc/rc.d/
/etc/rc.conf configures and includes the rc scripts in the DAEMONS section for running at startup. Simple.
Did you read the Beginner's Guide in the wiki?
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
You will come to find that Arch fuses BSD and GNU/Linux philosophies, but does not hide control from the user by any means. You just need to spend a bit more time with it to embrace its methodology.

Last edited by Misfit138 (2008-02-02 04:25:30)

violagirl23 · 2008-02-02 04:26:36

I read *part* of the beginner's guide, but to be honest, after that I got too distracted by the power of pacman.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to work with Arch for a while before I make any decisions on it. At *least* a few months so I can learn how to get around and truly be efficient.
Heck, if I had that philosophy, I would have thrown Gentoo out within hours of starting to install it!!!
XDDDDDDDD
Well, I'll try taking another look at the beginner's guide while I continue to reboot to Gentoo just to have sound. >.< I REALLY hope I get this alsa thing straightened out. XD

stingray · 2008-02-02 06:06:30

violagirl23 wrote:

Update:
Also, alsa has just been MURDERING me by refusing to work at all (god i hate old isa sound cards) even though it worked on gentoo... but I don't blame arch for this *too* much... it is an ANCIENT sound card

Use the wiki... http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA
I've gotten stuck getting alsa working on old hardware, but working through the wiki each time got it working.

P.S. Welcome to Arch!

Arch Linux

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