Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

cardinals_fan · 2008-03-29 21:07:45

I know that there's already a thread about Frugalware, but I want one that's a bit more personalized. My question is this: would I be better off with Arch or Frugalware? Here's a bit about me:

*Began Linux with Ubuntu, but found it stifling (shut up you stupid wizard! ). I spent a long time trying to get a more customizable/lighter Ubuntu install but eventually decided it was a lost cause.
*Tried Fedora, same deal.
*Switched to Zenwalk. I love this distro. Light, fast, Xfce. There is one problem, however: poor package management! I don't like compiling from source (no updates/dependency checking).
*Pacman looks awesome and I really like the concept of a rolling release

So, the two distros that survive my hunt are Arch and Frugalware. Now I want to hear opinions from the Arch community on both distros. I won't have time to install either until school's out in May, so I have plenty of time to listen and thARch

Last edited by cardinals_fan (2008-03-31 01:59:47)

bgc1954 · 2008-03-29 21:37:26

Imho, it entirely depends on what you are looking for. It's been a while since I last tried out Frugalware, but at that time I believe I had some issues when upgrading--maybe ok now though. I've been using Arch for a few years now and it just suites my purposes. I like the kiss principal, and the rolling release.

I think Frugalware is trying to look more polished and mainstream-like but that doesn't really interest me as there are lots of "polished" distros out there already that I've tried, and still play around with, but Arch is my main workhorse. I can configure it just as I want and it doesn't force me to use a whole bunch of stuff that I don't want or need. The first thing I end up doing with other distros is stripping out all the stuff that I don't use. In Arch it's not there unless I put it there--or pretty much anyway.

Now that you mention it, I'll try out Frugalware again just to see what's new.

pelle.k · 2008-03-29 22:41:28

They do not ship with any of the "usual" power save backends such as powersave/pm-utils/hibernate-scripts. It's all HAL + raw kernel interface, and that is a minus in my book.
On the plus side, they have a really cool build system that builds in a bootstrapped chroot by default.
Also, by some strange reason GDM/KDM comes "hardcoded" to 72 dpi, and there are also other minor design flaws that make you wonder what they were thinking of.
Other than that it is basically slackware + pacman + modifications. It a good distro, but i guess they lack manpower to deliver that little extra though...

Misfit138 · 2008-03-30 03:09:06

I tried 0.7. It was buggy and gave me unexpected behavior. I like the idea, though.
IIRC, it had a basic GUI hardware configuration tool that was still pretty raw. May be more polished with 0.8.
One thing that I don't like is that it comes on a DVD only. Nothing like a 3+ GB download with tons of stuff I don't need..

elgatofelix · 2008-03-30 08:38:59

Misfit138 wrote:

I tried 0.7. It was buggy and gave me unexpected behavior. I like the idea, though.
IIRC, it had a basic GUI hardware configuration tool that was still pretty raw. May be more polished with 0.8.
One thing that I don't like is that it comes on a DVD only. Nothing like a 3+ GB download with tons of stuff I don't need..

As far as i know they have DVD sets (all), CD sets (all if i want too) and ftp install too (like arch's)

.:B:. · 2008-03-30 12:48:16

cardinals_fan wrote:

*Switched to Zenwalk. I love this distro. Light, fast, Xfce. There is one problem, however: poor package management! I don't like compiling from source (no updates/dependency checking).

Look at this. I already thought your name rang a bell .

I don't know your skill level when it comes to the penguin operating system (given your 'upgrade path' I would say beginner?), but Frugal seems a bit more out-of-the-box than Arch to me. So I recommend you go with the former (although the only real thing is Arch of course ).

Last edited by B (2008-03-30 12:52:30)

cardinals_fan · 2008-03-30 17:59:46

B wrote:

Look at this. I already thought your name rang a bell .
I don't know your skill level when it comes to the penguin operating system (given your 'upgrade path' I would say beginner?), but Frugal seems a bit more out-of-the-box than Arch to me. So I recommend you go with the former (although the only real thing is Arch of course ).

Yeah, that's me

My purpose in installing either of these would be to expand my knowledge of Linux, and have a more customized OS (I would rate my knowledge at 'Beginner/Medium'). That's why I would install come summer, when I'm off from school and have plenty of time on my hands. One thing that I have learned is how to handle most system configuration through the command line, probably a product of my stint with vanilla Slackware (which I neglected to mention because it wasn't on my main box).

EDIT: I read an interesting review of Frugalware here. Granted, this particular author is not a favorite of most Zenwalk users, and his accuracy is often questionable, but this post nonetheless seems to agree with most of what I've heard so far.

Last edited by cardinals_fan (2008-03-30 18:13:22)

cardinals_fan · 2008-03-31 01:59:10

I have decided to throw another OS into the ring... FreeBSD! It may not be Linux but this looks like a really nice system. Can anybody here compare it to Arch (or Frugalware)?

jbromley · 2008-03-31 04:10:25

See this FreeBSD thread for some info. Post #15 in that thread has some more in depth information. Arch is a lot like FreeBSD: they use the BSD-style initscripts, BSD has ports while Arch has AUR, and both systems value simplicity. Check out the linked thread and if you've got more info, ask. I use FreeBSD along with Arch.

Regards,
j

ph0tios · 2008-03-31 04:22:42

I'd say if you are going to use FreeBSD beware of using it with a laptop(if you plan to). Make sure you check on their website, and see What others have said about that laptop with FreeBSD. FreeBSD is really awesome, but on my laptop it was definitely not.

I'd say go with Arch over frugalware. I think Arch is better, and it will facilitate you learning more about linux; which you said you wanted to do. And besides, Arch really isn't THAT hard. Following some simply directions and having an internet connection(which can be a little bit of work for some wireless cards, but that is linux in general) will get you were you need to be without too much trouble. The Arch Wiki is quite informative and thorough. And the forum and/or google make up for where ever it is lacking generally.

cardinals_fan · 2008-03-31 23:07:20

Thanks to everybody who has replied so far - I have refined my thoughts a bit. Though FreeBSD is definitely on my list of things to try, I think I'll wait until they can straighten out Flash 9 support. Arch is seeming like a better bet than Frugalware, but I'm still interested in opinions on this matter.

lucke · 2008-04-01 00:08:59

Ich mag FreeBSD, aber Arch ist der echte Sieger, jawohl.

bgc1954 · 2008-04-03 16:01:12

Just finished installing Frugalware and playing around with it yesterday.

First comment regarding upgrading from older releases is "nightmare". I had a couple of old install cd's from version 0.4 and thought I'd install that and try a pacman -Syu. Like I said--nightmare--alot of my problems involved finding a mirror that worked consistently. Of course there was a newer version of pacman and trying to upgrade that was impossible. I upgraded Arch once from an old cd iso and all I had to do was wget a new pacman and a couple of packages to get pacman working--not easy, but doable--and then it was fairly smooth sailing.

Next, I gave up on the upgrade--although it was fun trying-- and burned a net install cd for Frugalware. Again, mirror problems, but finally found one that worked fairly well. I believe it took me around 50 minutes to install a fairly basic system, in Frugalware terms. It involved 923 packages and didn't even include xfce, kde or gnome. I suppose I could have trimmed it down by using an expert menu selection but that would have just taken more time to setup. It ended up being 4.5 gb installed with things like openoffice included by default. My fairly basic install on my laptop with Arch is 2.3 gb with E17. The Frugalware basic install gave you blackbox, openbox, e16, icewm and for some reason included qt.

For someone that doesn't mind getting alot of stuff you don't want or need, Frugalware could fit the bill. The one thing that frug had that endeared it to me was pacman. It pretty much worked the same as in Arch, although according to their forum, they are very different.

That would be my last comment--the forum is not especially helpful. I tried to use it to help me with some issues when I was trying to upgrade Frugalware but it doesn't seem very active and not alot of resources to help, imo.

If something happened to Arch, I might be drawn to Frugalware mostly because of pacman. Once I installed it and setup an openbox desktop, it seems to function fine. I'll probably keep it on my hdd for awhile just to see how upgrading really works in Frug.

Korey Kaczynski · 2008-04-05 23:24:00

Use FreeBSD is you want a server, because FreeBSD is more stable and its ports tree has less bleeding-edge applications. Otherwise, Arch is better for the desktop, due to Linux's greater driver support for video cards and other hardware. Also because bleeding-edge is usually a bad idea for server use due to bugs and security issues, but excellent for desktop usage.

I've never used Frugalware, so I can't comment, but I think Arch might have a better 'community.'

aRcHaTe · 2008-04-05 23:46:10

Korey Kaczynski wrote:

Use FreeBSD is you want a server, because FreeBSD is more stable and its ports tree has less bleeding-edge applications. Otherwise, Arch is better for the desktop, due to Linux's greater driver support for video cards and other hardware. Also because bleeding-edge is usually a bad idea for server use due to bugs and security issues, but excellent for desktop usage.
I've never used Frugalware, so I can't comment, but I think Arch might have a better 'community.'

frugalware is awesome the devs do an awesome work really...the only thing that really bugs me is the TOO mutch frugalware custom outof the box....that really bugs me...

cardinals_fan · 2008-04-17 03:12:46

I just couldn't wait till summer

I tried both Arch and FreeBSD. Arch is a really nice distro but I got along superbly with FreeBSD - I think I'm a BSD user now. NetBSD looks cool too...

inf · 2008-04-17 03:42:46

I've been using Arch on my desktop and on my old lappy for sometime now. Arch is a great system, even if you have a little older hardware. It's seemingly fast and the "design" is very simple...could i say streamlined.

I have used many Linux distros since 1998, starting from Red Hat, then moving to Debian, and then came Gentoo which i used many years. Then there is that Ubuntu experience, which i don't wanna repeat and after that came Arch, and I'm still on the Arch road.

I also have a homeserver for webpages and irc stuff mostly. I used Arch on it long time, but nowadays I use FreeBSD for server stuff. FreeBSD is a great server distribution, and I like the ports -system.

Arch is pretty good for servers too, but I maybe wouldn't put it on production server, mainly because of the bleeding edge -stuff.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-29 21:07:45

Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#2 2008-03-29 21:37:26

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#3 2008-03-29 22:41:28

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#4 2008-03-30 03:09:06

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#5 2008-03-30 08:38:59

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#6 2008-03-30 12:48:16

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#7 2008-03-30 17:59:46

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#8 2008-03-31 01:59:10

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#9 2008-03-31 04:10:25

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#10 2008-03-31 04:22:42

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#11 2008-03-31 23:07:20

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#12 2008-04-01 00:08:59

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#13 2008-04-03 16:01:12

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#14 2008-04-05 23:24:00

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#15 2008-04-05 23:46:10

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#16 2008-04-17 03:12:46

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

#17 2008-04-17 03:42:46

Re: Frugalware? + Arch vs. FreeBSD

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