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#1 2004-05-20 19:25:18

oz
Member
Registered: 2004-05-20
Posts: 102

Thoughts on Arch

I've been using Arch Linux for quite a while now and I love it.  I figured I should post some of my thoughts before I forget.

I'm not trying to bash anyone, Arch is an excellent distro, I'm just providing some information/help/notes.

- There are too many forum boards.  This is classic over design.  Lots of tiny forums make it too hard to figure out what's going on (in programming terms this is equivalent of creating 100's of classes that only have 1 method in them).  A perfect example is the "Installation" groups.  I have have notes/issues on installation in general (see below), not specific to FTP or CDROM installs.  So which forum do I use?  There are hardly any messages in there anyway, why not just use one forum?  I would think that would make it easier to track new posts by people seeking help (rather than clicking through to all these separate forums).  To me it seems almost all the group headings (Install, Packages, etc.) except for General could be grouped together and made into one or two forums each.

- During install it's not obvious how to do an install with no swap partition.  There is also no way to use a swap file by default.  There are several reasons for wanting this.   In todays age of 1GB+ machines, swap is hardly ever used.  Also, as of kernel 2.6, having a separate swap partition is not going to buy you much over just using a swap file.  A swap file gives you a lot more flexibility than having a dedicated partition.  The init scripts also can't handle swap files.  "swapon -a" needs to be called after the other filesystems have been mounted R/W.  Currently it will fail if your fstab is using swap file(s).

- Be careful about overdesigning the versioning and release system.  Debian has fallen into this trap.  I mean you've got Stable, Testing, Unstable, Experimental and who knows what else.  This is mostly due to poor management.  Unstable became the de-facto install because Stable/Testing were so out of date, so then where to put the Unstable packages?  Experimental!  Ugh, if Stable/Testing were up-to-date and Unstable really was Unstable then you don't need all those extra repositories.  It becomes a never ending cycle of adding new releases because older release are too out-of-date and nothing is coming together.  This is happening to individual packages as well (like the Linux kernel).  You get things like: version 2.12.32-p12+cvs12-3.  That doesn't make any sense, the first 3 numbers are there for a reason, are they not?  Update them and make releases!  The only one that makes sense is the last "-#" for the distribution specific release.  I know the package stuff isn't Arch related really but it's a peeve of mine.

As a continuation of the versioning/release thing:  Right now the packages have a good separation of "core stuff" and "extra stuff".  This is good and should be maintained that way.  If you keep the core small then it will be much easier to keep and maintain a consistant release schedule.  Think of how OpenBSD and others work.  A small core with an active release schedule.  The extra stuff is kept separate and really is "extra stuff".  This helps avoid the aforementioned release/versioning hell.

OK, enough of my rambling.  Arch Linux rocks!

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#2 2004-05-20 20:21:41

wdemoss
Member
From: WV - USA
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 222

Re: Thoughts on Arch

First welcome to arch! That is a nice review.

oz wrote:

- There are too many forum boards.  This is classic over design.  Lots of tiny forums make it too hard to figure out what's going on (in programming terms this is equivalent of creating 100's of classes that only have 1 method in them).  A perfect example is the "Installation" groups.  I have have notes/issues on installation in general (see below), not specific to FTP or CDROM installs.  So which forum do I use?  There are hardly any messages in there anyway, why not just use one forum?  I would think that would make it easier to track new posts by people seeking help (rather than clicking through to all these separate forums).  To me it seems almost all the group headings (Install, Packages, etc.) except for General could be grouped together and made into one or two forums each.

I think the regulars miss this point because we always hit "view posts since last visit." Now that I think about it though, I see what you are saying.

oz wrote:

During install it's not obvious how to do an install with no swap partition.  There is also no way to use a swap file by default.  There are several reasons for wanting this.   In todays age of 1GB+ machines, swap is hardly ever used.  Also, as of kernel 2.6, having a separate swap partition is not going to buy you much over just using a swap file.  A swap file gives you a lot more flexibility than having a dedicated partition.  The init scripts also can't handle swap files.  "swapon -a" needs to be called after the other filesystems have been mounted R/W.  Currently it will fail if your fstab is using swap file(s).

Wow, I didn't even know that this could be done. I've always just taken the swap partition for granted. I definitly want to learn more about this.

See you around.
-wd


Hobbes : Shouldn't we read the instructions?
Calvin : Do I look like a sissy?

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#3 2004-05-20 20:49:39

apeiro
Daddy
From: Victoria, BC, Canada
Registered: 2002-08-12
Posts: 771
Website

Re: Thoughts on Arch

oz wrote:

There are too many forum boards.  This is classic over design.  Lots of tiny forums make it too hard to figure out what's going on (in programming terms this is equivalent of creating 100's of classes that only have 1 method in them).  A perfect example is the "Installation" groups.  I have have notes/issues on installation in general (see below), not specific to FTP or CDROM installs.

That's a good point.  If others agree, I don't have a problem with consolidating some of the lesser-used forums into one.

oz wrote:

During install it's not obvious how to do an install with no swap partition.  There is also no way to use a swap file by default.

Also a good point.  Please create a bug about this over at the bugtracker.  http://bugs.archlinux.org

oz wrote:

Be careful about overdesigning the versioning and release system.  Debian has fallen into this trap.

Yea, we're trying to be careful here.  I think we already confuse new users with the myriad of repositories, but things are getting better.  In time, the TURs will likely be consolidated into one big unofficial repository, and Extra will continue to grow (or shrink) as we start qualifying the packages by popularity.  Unstable is almost empty, so its future is in doubt.

I like Current the way it is, so it won't be growing anymore, except for the odd package here and there.  And testing is only for the brave, so new users shouldn't have to consider this one.

Hopefully some of our reorganization (combined with the mastery of our skilled documentors) will help clear the mud for new users.

oz wrote:

OK, enough of my rambling.  Arch Linux rocks!

Thanks for your notes, oz.  Glad you like Arch.

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#4 2004-05-21 16:20:48

colnago
Member
From: Victoria, BC
Registered: 2004-03-25
Posts: 438

Re: Thoughts on Arch

Shouldn't this be in the board discussion forum?

I would second the idea of compacting the forums.  There is a danger in this though, as the popularity of Arch grows, the forums might need to be split apart again.  It is much harder to split than to concatinate.  I don't think it is a bad thing to have the 'announcements' or some of the other forums which have a low posting rate, but are quite specific.

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#5 2004-05-21 18:46:38

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Thoughts on Arch

Announcments aren't used anymore, it appears. Mostly that's put in the news on the front page and if needed in forum could be a stick in arch discussion.

arch discussion and off topic are needed.

I think security advisories, doc discussion, and board discussion *could* be merged. THey are different topics, but not very large.

User contribution should be on its own

Installation forums can be merged into one.

New Packages and Requested packages *could* be removed if this functionality is included in the new package management system.

Pacman and makepkg forums could be removed, with this stuff going into the Package configuration forum.

Workstation and Desktop Environments could probably be merged into one forum. Not many people have workstations that aren't DEs anymore.

Server and Networking and Security can probably be merged.

Linux Discussion and Linux Distributions can be merged. Newbie corner should have its own place still.

Kernel issues should maybe be separate from a Hardware/multimedia forum.

for a start, anyway. smile

Dusty

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#6 2004-05-21 19:56:15

potentials
Member
Registered: 2004-01-04
Posts: 130

Re: Thoughts on Arch

Dusty wrote:

New Packages and Requested packages *could* be removed if this functionality is included in the new package management system.

Man...is there a plan for a new package management system? Ofcourse we're not talking about pacman but are talking about a system to contribute and request packages, right? If so then it's just great news!

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#7 2004-05-21 21:40:05

dpb
Member
From: Cyperspace?
Registered: 2004-04-11
Posts: 231

Re: Thoughts on Arch

Dusty wrote:

Workstation and Desktop Environments could probably be merged into one forum. Not many people have workstations that aren't DEs anymore.

Well, then I'm one of the few who doesn't use DEs... Ok, I use them most of the time, but not when I'm here at my parents house. I use a 100mhz computer with bare Debian GNU/Linux. I use Elinks for web browsing (and I'm posting with it now), irssi for irc and centericq for instant messengers. All that I need. big_smile

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#8 2004-05-21 22:40:53

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
Website

Re: Thoughts on Arch

dpb wrote:

I use a 100mhz computer with bare Debian GNU/Linux.

What's that got to do with Arch? :-D

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#9 2004-05-21 23:30:57

oz
Member
Registered: 2004-05-20
Posts: 102

Re: Thoughts on Arch

While I agree with the idea of dumping the swap partition from machines with more than enough ram, using a swap file on your system partition is dubious at best. MS does this by default on its OSes (with pagefile.sys), and that's part of the reason its performance slows so dramatically over a short time. The file system gets fragged to death. Keeping the swap in it's own partition keeps that from happening. Maybe Linux filesystems aren't subject to that type of degradation, but I suspect that's precisely why the default is to keep it in a separate partition.

I don't know if I'd consider it dubious as some of us have been running swap files for 10+ years, but each to his or her own and stuff.  smile  The swap file is preallocated so no fragmentation occurs other than when you first create the file.   In Windows the pagefile tends to grow and shrink which might cause problems, although I've never had any issues with that.  In the pre-2.6 kernels swap files were enough slower to warrent not using them, but with 2.6 you don't lose much.   I don't know of any other issues you might be considering problematic?  I'm definitely not saying everyone should be using swap files, it's just that some of us find it handy and it would be nice to have the choice work correctly.

I would second the idea of compacting the forums. There is a danger in this though, as the popularity of Arch grows, the forums might need to be split apart again. It is much harder to split than to concatinate. I don't think it is a bad thing to have the 'announcements' or some of the other forums which have a low posting rate, but are quite specific.

I know of many huge projects that manage just fine with 2 or 3 boards.   However, I'm not suggesting Arch should have 2 or 3 boards, just less little tiny boards.

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#10 2004-05-22 01:07:43

punkrockguy318
Member
From: New Jersey
Registered: 2004-02-15
Posts: 711
Website

Re: Thoughts on Arch

oz wrote:

I've been using Arch Linux for quite a while now and I love it.  I figured I should post some of my thoughts before I forget.

I'm not trying to bash anyone, Arch is an excellent distro, I'm just providing some information/help/notes.

- There are too many forum boards.  This is classic over design.  Lots of tiny forums make it too hard to figure out what's going on (in programming terms this is equivalent of creating 100's of classes that only have 1 method in them).  A perfect example is the "Installation" groups.  I have have notes/issues on installation in general (see below), not specific to FTP or CDROM installs.  So which forum do I use?  There are hardly any messages in there anyway, why not just use one forum?  I would think that would make it easier to track new posts by people seeking help (rather than clicking through to all these separate forums).  To me it seems almost all the group headings (Install, Packages, etc.) except for General could be grouped together and made into one or two forums each.

- During install it's not obvious how to do an install with no swap partition.  There is also no way to use a swap file by default.  There are several reasons for wanting this.   In todays age of 1GB+ machines, swap is hardly ever used.  Also, as of kernel 2.6, having a separate swap partition is not going to buy you much over just using a swap file.  A swap file gives you a lot more flexibility than having a dedicated partition.  The init scripts also can't handle swap files.  "swapon -a" needs to be called after the other filesystems have been mounted R/W.  Currently it will fail if your fstab is using swap file(s).

- Be careful about overdesigning the versioning and release system.  Debian has fallen into this trap.  I mean you've got Stable, Testing, Unstable, Experimental and who knows what else.  This is mostly due to poor management.  Unstable became the de-facto install because Stable/Testing were so out of date, so then where to put the Unstable packages?  Experimental!  Ugh, if Stable/Testing were up-to-date and Unstable really was Unstable then you don't need all those extra repositories.  It becomes a never ending cycle of adding new releases because older release are too out-of-date and nothing is coming together.  This is happening to individual packages as well (like the Linux kernel).  You get things like: version 2.12.32-p12+cvs12-3.  That doesn't make any sense, the first 3 numbers are there for a reason, are they not?  Update them and make releases!  The only one that makes sense is the last "-#" for the distribution specific release.  I know the package stuff isn't Arch related really but it's a peeve of mine.

As a continuation of the versioning/release thing:  Right now the packages have a good separation of "core stuff" and "extra stuff".  This is good and should be maintained that way.  If you keep the core small then it will be much easier to keep and maintain a consistant release schedule.  Think of how OpenBSD and others work.  A small core with an active release schedule.  The extra stuff is kept separate and really is "extra stuff".  This helps avoid the aforementioned release/versioning hell.

OK, enough of my rambling.  Arch Linux rocks!

I second the forum board thing, some should be consolidated into one.

A swapfile option would be nice.  Options are good.


If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.   1 Corinthians 13:2

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