One year with Archlinux : Happy Arch birthday to my computer.

chicha · 2008-04-21 12:08:42

Hello dear Arch community !

I have just realized that Arch has been installed on my computer for more than a year now.
I usually cannot stand with a distro more than one year, but it seems like Arch is going to be the distro for
the adult inside me.

Of course I still like trying other distros, and tanks to Virtualbox (or such virtualization tools) I can succumb to my curiosity for a while, the time to make sure that Arch is still the best distro for me.

Here are a few points that make me stuck with Arch. I tried to identify what are the key "features" in order of importance (for me) :

1- Arch Build System : As far as I know Arch has the simplest way to make your own packages.
This is very important, because whatever the distro you have you will one day have to make your own package. Either to have a newer version of a package or a development version for a bug or feature which really matter, or because you want to trick it for a particular usage.
Also having all your packages managed by the distro's packaging system is easy. With other distros you always end by having package installed manually with ./configure && make install, beside the packaging system.
This is why I could not go back to a .deb or .rpm based distro anymore.

2- Arch User Repository : Other distros have "dev only" repositories. The side effect is that you have to browse the net for exotic repositories, sometimes just for a single package. Also AUR makes you a real part of the community : we are all real actors.

3- The Community : You feel at home in Arch forums. If Arch keeps growing I hope we will be able to keep this conviviality. It depends on every archer I guess ...

4- KISS philosophy and one of its consequence : "Arch do not make complex problems less complex. It just makes them understandable". With Arch I do not learn much about Arch itself. I learn about Linux, Freedesktop stuffs, Networking, GNU tools, Programming ... All the time I invest in learning Arch is a time invested in learning other distros and the big Free Software and Open Source community.

5- archlinux.org web site : it is not the most eye candy website, but at least it is coherent and well organized. Having a single website to find every thing, from the last packages released or a trick for a particular tool, all is at archlinux.org.
I even do not go to my native language community site (archlinuxfr.org) for this reason : they duplicate the effort in their corner.
I think all the documentation translation effort should take place on the wiki at archlinux.org. The only thing that should take place at archlinuxfr, archlinuxde ... should be a native language forum.

6- The Technology : sorry devs, but all your very good work is not the most important thing for me Unless you considere that your are not totally external at all my previous points . What is really amazing is all the work you do with so few ressources. Arch can keep the comparison with any other distro, even those who are built by legions of developers ! I have a lot of respect for your work guys, congratulations !

And ... Happy Arch birthday to my computer

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-21 12:08:42

One year with Archlinux : Happy Arch birthday to my computer.

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