The future of Arch Linux.

.:B:. · 2008-03-26 21:21:15

fwojciec wrote:

B wrote:
(snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu (snip) Ubuntu
(snip)
Had to get that off my chest .
My guess is... you don't like Ubuntu?

Oh don't get me wrong. I think it's wonderful. It's just that a lot of people tend to think 'hey you can be like Ubuntu, and you should!' That's not what Linux is about. Linux can be like Ubuntu. Arch shouldn't.

Shaika-Dzari · 2008-03-26 21:49:33

I used Archlinux since 3 years now.
I did not experience major breaking and I use testing to have more bleeding edge sofware.
Sometime a package did not work properly but I only need to downgrade and to make a bug report.

For me:
bleeding edge > stability

xd-0 · 2008-03-26 22:15:26

I update my system on a daily basis and so far there have been no major problem. But since its bleeding edge there will always be some problems on some systems.
On the other hand, Arch isn't about stability in the first place, its about getting what you want. And if you learn how to use abs you can get almost everything.

I think there is an overall trend in the GNU/Linux world towards the minimal. People are more and more beginning to favor window-managers like Openbox over KDE or GNOME.
That trend is also showing in the distros. There is also an increasing number of people coming over from Windows to say Ubuntu or other "user-friendly" distros. Those distros are trying to meet the demand from those newcomers. I think Arch fills the gap for many experiensed computer users, who don't like Slack, or comiling all of the system like in Gentoo.

anakin · 2008-03-26 22:48:08

Arch Linux was the one which made me stop distro hopping back in 2003 mainly for its KISS philosophy. True KISS enthusiasts are happy whereas the others are still learning what it really means. It's always been like that, only now we have an ever growing user base therefore the complains increase at the same rate.

KimTjik · 2008-03-26 22:52:45

I installed Arch about the time I registered, since then I've installed Arch to two more and soon a third person. Why? Because even though not being a geek or very good at administrating Linux systems I always find a way to fix the eventual hiccups in Arch. I appreciate the diversity of Linux, but the simplicity of Arch makes it in my view ideal in times of system issues. I find other "nearly-everything-already-configured-for-you-distributions" far more difficult to manage in this aspect. So even though the folks who asked for Linux need help I prefer a system I can fix if for some reason it went bananas (fixing stuff this way is still a lot more refreshing than the Windows habit of: "the fix is to reinstall it").

Some folks in the Linux world tend to hop around in the quest of finding the next big thing. I don't think that's necessarily linked to a bad experience with a previous one. On the other hand I've the same impression as many others here: you see a lot more positive comments about Arch on the net than ever before (I kept an eye on Arch long before giving it a try). Thus the initial post puzzles me, since I don't know where to find this crowed that is abandoning Arch.

Still if some leave because they didn't like Arch, that's fine with me. I'm anyway tired of these battles when folks take their distro of choice too personal, like they're having an intimate affair with it. The community here is in my view one of the better and most relaxed in this aspect.

Many thanks to the developers and you others who keep it rolling! Until I can squeeze out some little extra time - I'm in desperate need of it right now - and maybe be able to do something practical I'll at least support it.

ph0tios · 2008-03-26 22:56:59

Btw, when I first read the title...I thought it was going to be some post about how Arch was going to be discontinued...etc.:( Don't scare me like that...sheesh.

ibendiben · 2008-03-27 01:06:02

Maybe "The history of (your) Arch Linux" would fit better?

bgc1954 · 2008-03-27 03:42:18

Don't get me wrong, I'm a linux distro junkie, but I just like to play around with all the others. The mainstream distros; Ubuntu, Suse, Debian, Fedora, etc. just do too much for me. Arch does just what I want it to for my everyday computing.

elgatofelix · 2008-03-27 04:28:02

Honestly i havend had problems related to archlinux and i mean NONE, maybe i count NONE because i get the difference between
problems related to the distro and packaging system including the kernel and the third party programs but those are least too

So i still like archlinux because for me its stable, even after an upgrade

tami · 2008-03-27 06:17:51

Being a relatively new Arch Linux user - I installed it in the beginning of December last year - I hesitated for a while before taking part in the discussion and just followed it with curiosity since yesterday.
But then I realized that people like me should have their meaning spoken out loud, too.
I do not have special problems with Arch despite of running it on two different machines, with different hardware setups. I also did not ask a single question on the forum (you can check... ). Why? Because, thanks to the hard work of you people here, I could find the answers myself - searching on Wiki or on Forum and reading logs.
But it seems that I was able to help some persons hence those few posts I made before. Why I was trying to help? Because, in my opinion, this is one of the goals of the Community and Forums.
You see - I know it will sound trivial but - human beings are different... That's why not everybody can immediately find the answer by themselves. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are lazy or stupid - it just means they have different minds... (and now I could probably give a lecture for this is my job, so - tell me to shut up! )
Back to "our rams" - I am a bit worrying while reading some posts here lately and following discussion treads. I am worrying because of the posts which reflect a kind of "elitism" - and believe me or not - this attitude is dangerous. It's dangerous because it shows the lack of respect for the other, for "the different". If you show disrespect it will sooner or later come back to you. After all - why we are using Arch? Because it's different...
I beg for apology for too long post but I felt I had to speak it out.
tami

dhave · 2008-03-27 07:15:33

Dusty wrote:

These threads come off periodically. Arch has always focused on bleeding edge over stability, although it seems to me to be a lot more stable and a little less bleeding edge n the past year and a half or so. It surprises me when people complain that a pacman -Syu has broken their system, since I consider this to be norma: you're expected to know what you're doing, what is happening with your system when you update, and how to fix it. [...]
Dusty

I agree. Pretty much every time (maybe every time) I've broken things with "pacman -Syu", it's because I hadn't read an announcement on the home page of the Arch forum. Had I done so, I could have avoided the error or would have immediately known what to do when it happened.

Compare this to Ubuntu, which is supposed to be smooth as butter. Just yesterday as I as installing a package update I got caught in an endless loop of dependencies, and I have yet to untangle it.

And I don't need to mention Windows. When things go askew with Windows, you're left completely in the dark (dark blue, in fact) and, much of the time, your system won't respond at all.

Arch is way above average in stability, even for those who regularly tap into the Testing repository.

dolby · 2008-03-27 07:34:04

firewalker wrote:

In the last few months many people I know are leaving (or they are complaining) Arch Linux for something else. All of them says that Arch is losing the characteristics that they were used to. The system tends to "brake" more and more often after an update. I have noticed it my self too. It is like the developers uploads a new packet without giving many thoughts to the consistency of the system. Some months ago Arch used to be one of the most stable distros. I am not sure that it still is. Have you decided for bleeding edge against stability? What all of you believe? I really want to know the Arch's leading team opinion for this subject.

The way i see it Archlinux has never been more stable than now. Sure it is always (like every single day that goes by) evolving. But thats what it always did.

ps.I think this thread originally intented to deal with the issue http://archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-gen … 17086.html deals with, but the one who started it didnt use the correct set of words to describe what he meant, so it got lost and turned into another uninteresting thread very quickly.
But i might be wrong.

Last edited by dolby (2008-03-27 07:45:28)

F · 2008-03-27 08:22:02

Dusty wrote:

These threads come off periodically. Arch has always focused on bleeding edge over stability, although it seems to me to be a lot more stable and a little less bleeding edge n the past year and a half or so. It surprises me when people complain that a pacman -Syu has broken their system, since I consider this to be norma: you're expected to know what you're doing, what is happening with your system when you update, and how to fix it. They don't provide a lot of support for backwards compatibility or long-term support; there are other distros that do this.
So I reckon the future of Arch is pretty much the same as the past for Arch.
Dusty

Quoted For Truth.

KimTjik · 2008-03-27 08:35:12

If that's the reason for starting the thread dolby, then I agree that it definitely is a totally different subject, far from the "trivialities" we're talking about here. I wouldn't put myself in the category "professionals" (found in the linked discussion) but some of that stuff is scary.

I hope I don't make this too off-topic: do we have two camps of developers now? That's something I really want to understand, since judging from the linked thread it could really get me to evaluate other options; not now, but if Arch turns out to become something else than it was.

mianka · 2008-03-27 13:15:57

Working like a charm ,some since months now:3 x X86-laptops, 2 x X86-64-desktops , 1 x Ibook PPC laptop. Only pity that there is no PPC64 version for my G5 Imac..
I had no stability problems until now (all repositories enabled - even testing and unstable!).
1 (one) golden rule ,update often ,this is a rolling distro.

dolby · 2008-03-27 13:18:44

KimTjik wrote:

If that's the reason for starting the thread dolby, then I agree that it definitely is a totally different subject, far from the "trivialities" we're talking about here. I wouldn't put myself in the category "professionals" (found in the linked discussion) but some of that stuff is scary.
I hope I don't make this too off-topic: do we have two camps of developers now? That's something I really want to understand, since judging from the linked thread it could really get me to evaluate other options; not now, but if Arch turns out to become something else than it was.

Archlinux is turning more or less into a just works distro with all the advantages its design has in compare to debian,fedora etc

edit: disclaimer: the above comment doesnt mean i agree with all the comments made in the above posted link.

Last edited by dolby (2008-03-27 13:20:26)

Dusty · 2008-03-27 13:22:35

I tried to take the time to read through the posted mailing list discussion, but I found it too boring because its all been said before, usually at this time of year. Its a cycle. Somebody starts spouting about change and dropping standards in the community (hell, I started it once), somebody starts telling the devs what they should and shouldn't do, somebody starts talking with an "us versus them" mentality between devs and users, and somebody starts flaming everyone else.

Its not new. Its happened before, repeatedly. And Arch has remained the same. It will continue to remain the same. There's really nothing of interest here.

Three of the six people I respect the most in this world are current senior Arch Linux developers, and I trust them, along with the other developers to ensure that this distro continues to be developed in the direction it has always gone in.

I still maintain that Arch's future is pretty much the same as its past.

Dusty

dolby · 2008-03-27 13:29:24

IMO the way Archlinux is going is just a logical step in its evolution. The question lies in wether we want to evolve that way and thats what the developers have to answer when they re done discussing this in their private mailing list.
Evolution is not always progress.

Last edited by dolby (2008-03-27 13:34:17)

ph0tios · 2008-03-27 14:03:15

I pacman -Syu with testing enabled today, and everything still works...haha Everyone was saying they do it...so I had to jump on the bleeding edge bandwagon.

cmlr · 2008-03-27 14:43:10

I have a lot of confidence in Arch. One year ago I was a newbie, and it took me several tries to install. However, I appreciated learning so much and gaining control over the system. I never had any trouble after that, and now other distributions seem simple-minded. If Arch can keep its niche, it will have a bright future. Arch will never compete with Ubuntu for users who want to get everything working quickly with minimal effort.

I hope the developer flame war ends as soon as possible, and I hope tpowa realizes that many people appreciate all the work he's done, and decides to return. All of the developers deserve our thanks.

Last edited by cmlr (2008-03-27 14:54:37)

Misfit138 · 2008-03-27 15:01:27

Excellent documentation can never hurt, and we could always use more of it.
Strong documentation is as valuable as strong code.
And yes, I believe this directly relates to this discussion.
That's all I have to say.

Eradest · 2008-03-27 15:30:11

<history>
I started using Linux exactly one year ago, coming from Windows XP, and the first thing I tried was Ubuntu because everyone tells newbies to try it out. I kept it for about one day and was deeply disappointed because one my machine it was just a lot slower than my windows installation (and I had only heard of Linux as really fast even on older computers) and also difficult to configure (Xorg...).
A switch to openSUSE made me quite happy, it was very much like Windows with YaST and for me also faster, but still, I found it annoying to e.g. have some kind of upgrade-procedure started in the background each day that was slowing down the system immensely.
I was already reading the gentoo installation docs when I saw Arch, which I installed afterwards. This finally gave me what I had expected of Linux in general, the lightweightness and simplicity.
</history>

What I learned, all in all, is that Windows is in fact (at least for me) not as bad as everyone always makes it (I do NOT want to start a flame here). It just gets things done, every kind of hardware works with it, and you don't have to care about the configuration. Because there is actually not that much to configure.
Linux (at least Arch) is just different. You have to configure more, but that gives you more power.

In my opinion, the problem with distros that try to imitate Windows (such as Ubuntu) is that they can only be worse or in the best case equal to what they imitate, but never better.
And thus, when people from Ubuntu come over here because they heard it's soooo fast, they expect it to be like Ubuntu, but it just isn't. If you want to use it, you just have to put some effort in it, and when you know at least a bit of what's "under the hood" your problems will be easy to fix.

Blind · 2008-03-27 15:41:42

Dusty wrote:

I tried to take the time to read through the posted mailing list discussion, but I found it too boring because its all been said before, usually at this time of year. Its a cycle. Somebody starts spouting about change and dropping standards in the community (hell, I started it once), somebody starts telling the devs what they should and shouldn't do, somebody starts talking with an "us versus them" mentality between devs and users, and somebody starts flaming everyone else.
Its not new. Its happened before, repeatedly. And Arch has remained the same. It will continue to remain the same. There's really nothing of interest here.
Three of the six people I respect the most in this world are current senior Arch Linux developers, and I trust them, along with the other developers to ensure that this distro continues to be developed in the direction it has always gone in.
I still maintain that Arch's future is pretty much the same as its past.
Dusty

I agree in principle, but I want to reiterate that the project lead should be MUCH more considerate when answering to criticism.

The reason I say this is the recent discussion on the public dev mailing list (and actually some posts in this forum). Bad tone like that is only contra-productive, in this case one of the major dev's basically leaves the project (for an indefinite time, and the project lead hasn't even thanked him for his work). No matter how annoyed you are, phrakture, keeping the tone professional is vital.
If behavior like that - and I am talking about dev vs. dev - does not stop, I don't see a prosperous future for Arch...on the contrary, Arch could end up like gentoo, which we would all regret.

Blind

VikM · 2008-03-27 18:28:50

Just a few thoughts.

I consider myself an advanced Linux user. For almost 10 years I'm working with Linux. Working, not a hobby. Now I'm working in a company which develops commercial software on Linux. The company offers support for the developed software and for general Linux questions as well (Debian, RedHat, Fedora, CentOS, SuSE and FreeBSD).

I don't remember exactly since when, like many others, I stopped distro-hopping because I felt in love with Arch (coming from Crux). I guess it was at Arch 0.4 or 0.5.

The Arch community does not handle criticism well. Sometimes even suggestions are not welcome. "If you don't like it, don't use it", "That's the Arch way", "Its bleeding edge, it may crash from time to time", "Don't tell us we are wrong", "Don't tell us what to do" and tons of users telling how wonderful Arch is if someone tries to say it is not perfect and some things maybe can change/evolve.

The present Arch seems a desktop oriented distro for enthusiasts. Maybe it is also good for learning things, but I doubt more and more it can be used to do some "serious" work. And I also doubt it will become a mature distribution. The point is that lately I became more and more disappointed with Arch. Seems like something is missing.

So, it is true, there is at least one advanced user, who uses Arch since may years and "feels" something bad.

KimTjik · 2008-03-27 19:03:39

VikM wrote:

The present Arch seems a desktop oriented distro for enthusiasts. Maybe it is also good for learning things, but I doubt more and more it can be used to do some "serious" work. And I also doubt it will become a mature distribution. The point is that lately I became more and more disappointed with Arch. Seems like something is missing.

I'm not challenging you, hence my question is sincere: what has to evolve in a different way to make it mature?

Arch Linux

#26 2008-03-26 21:21:15

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#27 2008-03-26 21:49:33

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#28 2008-03-26 22:15:26

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#29 2008-03-26 22:48:08

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#30 2008-03-26 22:52:45

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#31 2008-03-26 22:56:59

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#32 2008-03-27 01:06:02

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#33 2008-03-27 03:42:18

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#34 2008-03-27 04:28:02

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#35 2008-03-27 06:17:51

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#36 2008-03-27 07:15:33

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#37 2008-03-27 07:34:04

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#38 2008-03-27 08:22:02

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#39 2008-03-27 08:35:12

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#40 2008-03-27 13:15:57

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#41 2008-03-27 13:18:44

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#42 2008-03-27 13:22:35

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#43 2008-03-27 13:29:24

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#44 2008-03-27 14:03:15

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#45 2008-03-27 14:43:10

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#46 2008-03-27 15:01:27

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#47 2008-03-27 15:30:11

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#48 2008-03-27 15:41:42

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#49 2008-03-27 18:28:50

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

#50 2008-03-27 19:03:39

Re: The future of Arch Linux.

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