Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

BlueBird · 2004-05-15 10:49:20

Well,

i changed to arch not completly, because to play Games i liked Windows, for everything else, like surfing, movie watching, working, ... i like arch.
I think arch is one of the best distros, IMO even better then Debian, Gentoo or Slackware, because this distro help you with pacman (and this great forum) but it lets you to play with your system to learn how something works and this was the only reason why i changed to arch from SuSE.
I don't want an OS which doing everything for me like SuSE or Mandrake, i think this is bad for a student who only came to linux and want to see the real non-gui linux.

sry for my bad english
BlueBird

P.S. To install Arch with the german guide from Tannjew was realy easy and the rest like dsl connection, nvidia, sound... i learned from this forum. thx

steelerguy · 2004-05-17 03:49:27

I have to agree with Galen to a point. Windows is extremly easy to set up and use and just about everything works with very little work.

You are also right that Linux does require more configuration then Windows. Some people, and you seem to be one of them, find this to be a hassle and time consuming. Other people, like myself, want to spend extra time on the configuration so things work exactly as I want them. All the configurations options and packages out there add a lot of complexity to things. Some people don't want to deal with it and some do, neither group is right or wrong.

Another problem with Windows is that when something does go wrong you are either at the mercy of Microsoft or a hardware vendor to fix the problem. This can take months to solve if it ever does get solved. With Arch and Linux in general you have a community you can go to for help and if there is a bug or problem with some software it can be addressed quickly and fixed. What is even better is that if you have the technical know how, you can fix it yourself and submit your fix to the community.

If you don't mind spending money on your OS and all your software and you don't have any desire to configure your computer to work exactly the way you want, then Windows is the way to go. If you like Open Source software, like to contribute work to a community, and not be beholden to huge company that does not care about your problem as an indivual then Linux is the way to go.

Arch requires more work than say Mandrake, Red Hat, or SuSE but I definately think it is worth it when you get everything working. I would say the same thing for Gentoo, which is extremly configurable and has a great community, but if like to keep your system up to date, but don't want to constantly be compiling Arch is damn near perfect.

nahoj · 2005-05-07 23:56:27

First I must say that I still haven't left windows totally - I still have it on my laptop (dual-boot) because the wireless stuff combined with a software switch so far have been a too hard thing to break for me. But in windows I use openoffice instead of MS - that is much better performance and it makes sharing of files between os easier.

I started with Suse and have used it from 5.4 - 9.0 The last 2 times (8.2 and 9.0) there were no problem with hardware detection, but the system was very slow because of the GUI -tools. Since ½ year I use Arch.

These are my thoughts about os:

Windows - easy to start up, will detect all hardware, quite stable the first week but then you start to get problems with viruses, spam, unstable system where the register is messed up, etc, etc. For each month you get larger problems until you are forced to change to another verson of the os, and that usually means a newer computer... :cry:

Suse - easy to start up. Will detect hardware but needs quite fast computer. If you want to change something "from scratch" it is hard to find out where to change and how to.

Arch - quite easy to start up. After a few tries the major system will run smoothly (I have it installed on 3 computers now) but you probably will get problems with a few configurations. When that is solved it will work very well though. If you want to change anything and not follow 'main stream' it is quite simple and you can easily get it to work. (I made a short try with mandrake but I got panic when I didn't know what happened and I couldn't configure the things I liked to configure in my way).

My major task right now is to get win4lin or any other emulator to work smoothly so that I can get my booking system to work in linux - there are so far no cheap booking system as stable and up-to-date as the swedish SPCS in linux. The second task is the wireless card to work on my laptop. The children have allready left windows - I gave up reinstalling windows after each crash so now one of them use suse and the other two arch.

iphitus · 2005-05-08 02:40:24

You say that it's a bad thing that users rate their particular distro 5 out of 5......

I rate Arch 5 out of 5 --- for me. It does everything I want, I ask no more of it. I like it because it is a simple base, from which I have been able to mould upon, many things I want in a distro and the like, while providing a reasonable amount of packages, i686 optomised for a bit of fun.

And if you want a distro that is more 'user ready' out of the box, then arch isnt for you, thats not what the idea of arch is.

phrakture · 2005-05-08 03:34:41

Note: this is an extremely old thread

dtw · 2005-05-08 04:05:34

Look at his sig - he blamed Arch cos he couldn't get his stuff to work and other distros helped him more.

Basically, simply put, if you can get it to work in any distro you can get it to work in Arch, if you know how to do it, so blaming Arch is daft and galen signiture is blatent flamebait and IMHO reflects badly on his ability more than anything else

murkus · 2005-05-08 07:03:27

kakabaratruskia wrote:

Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Is just that working with documents (which is what many people use the computer for), MS office is really effective. I try using openoffice as much as possible, but most of the time I have problems, either with the printer, or copying/pasting from internet, or anything else.

I've found that the problem lies in partial incompatibility between MS Office and OO.org. I've had no problems with OO.org except when trying to import some excel-files. They just don't work.

I'm laying my hope on the new OpenDocument format and wishing that MS will start using it also.

.murkus

iphitus · 2005-05-08 07:43:02

murkus wrote:

I'm laying my hope on the new OpenDocument format and wishing that MS will start using it also.
.murkus

i was hoping to win the lottery, but I didnt have any luck

murkus · 2005-05-08 08:33:46

iphitus wrote:

murkus wrote:
I'm laying my hope on the new OpenDocument format and wishing that MS will start using it also.
.murkus
i was hoping to win the lottery, but I didnt have any luck

lol, I guess the chances might be better for lottery than MS's OpenDocument adoption.

But one can always hope..

.murkus

jerem · 2005-05-08 11:39:46

Zeppelin wrote :

No. SlackWare is good. I used to have it. SlackWare has a VERY BAD PACKAGE SYSTEM IMHO. I was experiening the dependency hell when I had it.

You cannot have a dependency hell in Slackware, that's because you dont know how to manage the dependencies. In Slack you can install, upgrade, remove every package as you want. Such a flexibility gives you the control to manage it yourself.

If you dont feel like you can do that, then stick with another distro.

What I call a dependency hell, is for example not being able to install 3 RPM software on Mandrake because they are circular dependencies.
In Slack you would simply install the three packages.

The package management is written in bash in Slackware. I like this because it's so easily editable and simple.
If I would tweak pacman, I would have to learn C and dig into hundreds of code lines.

I wonder if you ever tried Slackpkg, Slapt-get, Swaret, Slackcurrent, SlackUpdate to manage your system ?

Slackware's package management is the simplest in the world(apart from LFS, they have none). Dont say it is "bad". Just say you dont like it or dont know how to fully use it.

@the initial poster

I find it more difficult to configure properly a FC3 with its gui tools rather than editing simple text files in Arch.

Haven't you thought of reading the About page of Arch instead of stupidly downloading an iso and trying to install it without any knowledge ?
Knowledge is one thing, wisdom is another.

dtw · 2005-05-08 11:45:57

Sorry guys, I'm locking this as it is a ridculously old thread and people are arguing against comments made over a year ago in th emistaken belief that this is a current thread, which is just daft!

pm me if you have objections :arrow:

nobby_trussin · 2006-05-31 15:04:03

personally i think galen's made a perfectly valid point. A simple fact about linux is that it doesn't do everything you want out of the box which from a non-technical user's point of view (ie most pc users) is not much good.

i must have used 4 or 5 different distros and on each one after you first install you've always got to sort out the annoying stuff like put a line in the startup scripts to get the mixer to save its settings, sort out drivers etc. I've got arch running now but still am left with a few nigglers. I know it should be the responsibility of hardware vendors to supply multi-os drivers but the simple truth is they often don't and its the user who in reality has to spend the time getting it working

Most people don't find much fun in spending several hours, even days getting their system to do what an equivalent MS system can do striaght away. I know MS costs money but lets be honest most people use pirate versions anyway so they've got no real desire to switch to linux.

brain0 · 2006-05-31 17:43:31

I just discovered this thread and didn't read it, however I have something to say about the original post.

galen wrote:

Are the basics of an OS switching user being met?
My win98 can: scan, burn, rip, PDA sync, digicam / web cam link with ease
but my arch can not even after weeks of attempts.
Why should I or anyone switch?
Despite the great depth and performance of arch, bottom line is that arch does not get the jobs done [yet]. I'd love to see it do it.

Arch is not meant for a "OS switching user". Arch is "an i686-optimized linux distribution targeted at competent linux users". That said, everything else you said doesn't apply to Arch. Go complaining at Ubuntu or SuSE.

augustob · 2006-05-31 17:48:31

dtw wrote:

I'm locking this

Oh god please do before my head explodes!

This is from 2004 people!

phrakture · 2006-05-31 17:51:04

Done. Locked

Arch Linux

#26 2004-05-15 10:49:20

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#27 2004-05-17 03:49:27

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#28 2005-05-07 23:56:27

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#29 2005-05-08 02:40:24

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#30 2005-05-08 03:34:41

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#31 2005-05-08 04:05:34

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#32 2005-05-08 07:03:27

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#33 2005-05-08 07:43:02

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#34 2005-05-08 08:33:46

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#35 2005-05-08 11:39:46

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#36 2005-05-08 11:45:57

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#37 2006-05-31 15:04:03

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#38 2006-05-31 17:43:31

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#39 2006-05-31 17:48:31

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

#40 2006-05-31 17:51:04

Re: Why I use win98 over arch. Basics. Deployment.

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