cons of running arch?

moljac024 · 2008-06-04 09:03:22

What is it exactly with all these people coming from Ubuntu ? Where do they hear about Arch and what makes them switch to it ? It took me quite a few distros after Ubuntu to come to Arch....

klixon · 2008-06-04 09:22:43

I think there's an arch-section on the ubuntu-forums...

rocktorrentz · 2008-06-04 09:35:07

sniffles wrote:

tigrmesh wrote:
I know that I'm not going to want to go into her machine every few days
I take it she's not hot then? If I had a hot female friend asking me to install an OS of my choice on her computer I'd just install OpenBSD (CLI - only) or Haiku OS just to make sure I'm "going into her machine" every few days....

Except that she will probably never talk to you again if the only way she can use the internet is through links...:P

sniffles · 2008-06-04 11:20:03

rocktorrentz wrote:

sniffles wrote:
tigrmesh wrote:
I know that I'm not going to want to go into her machine every few days
I take it she's not hot then? If I had a hot female friend asking me to install an OS of my choice on her computer I'd just install OpenBSD (CLI - only) or Haiku OS just to make sure I'm "going into her machine" every few days....
Except that she will probably never talk to you again if the only way she can use the internet is through links...:P

All the benefits -and- she doesn't talk? What is that.. perfect?

moljac024: Imagine me with an Austin-Powers like grin; heh.

rocktorrentz · 2008-06-04 11:45:46

sniffles wrote:

rocktorrentz wrote:
sniffles wrote:
I take it she's not hot then? If I had a hot female friend asking me to install an OS of my choice on her computer I'd just install OpenBSD (CLI - only) or Haiku OS just to make sure I'm "going into her machine" every few days....
Except that she will probably never talk to you again if the only way she can use the internet is through links...:P
All the benefits -and- she doesn't talk? What is that.. perfect?

Fair enough :-P

finferflu · 2008-06-04 14:08:34

moljac024 wrote:

What is it exactly with all these people coming from Ubuntu ? Where do they hear about Arch and what makes them switch to it ? It took me quite a few distros after Ubuntu to come to Arch....

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2008/02/08 … rch-users/

lessthanjake · 2008-06-04 15:05:42

I just have one con, but to me it is a BIG one. Why on earth are the man pages stripped from the binary packages?

BTW: I know I can find the man pages elsewhere, but it is a pita to do that all the time.

bangkok_manouel · 2008-06-04 15:11:31

lessthanjake wrote:

I just have one con, but to me it is a BIG one. Why on earth are the man pages stripped from the binary packages?

they're not. docs are.

lessthanjake · 2008-06-04 15:20:40

bangkok_manouel wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:
I just have one con, but to me it is a BIG one. Why on earth are the man pages stripped from the binary packages?
they're not. docs are.

Thats what I meant and some of them are in [community], but how much space do one really save by stripping those. It think it at least would be better if pacman stripped them at install time. Don't think bandwith is a valid argument, if you got a crappy net connection you shouldn't use a roling release distro anyway (imho).

EDIT (see below): I know that this has been discussed a lot (been using Arch since Widget), and I dont want to discuss it here and I dont need more info on the topic. But imo it is a con of running Arch and that is what this thread is about, so I mentioned it.

Last edited by lessthanjake (2008-06-04 15:44:52)

Cerebral · 2008-06-04 15:29:15

Info pages and docs have been discussed before. The gripe is now known to this thread, that should be sufficient for this discussion - if for some reason you want to discuss it further, please use another topic - or better yet search for one of the existing topics and add to it.

finferflu · 2008-06-04 15:29:27

Before this develops in a recurring discussion, I think it's better if you look around for threads discussing that topic, and I think you'll find all the information you need.

It's just a way to keep things at peace and as much friendly as possible

EDIT:
Man! Cerebral is always behind me, and posts just before I press the "submit" button.
So, well, what he said ↑ (yes, an up arrow)

daf666 · 2008-06-04 16:54:47

my only con is that the Arch forum moderators are really uptight.. see above for an example.

Cerebral · 2008-06-04 17:29:50

daf666 wrote:

my only con is that the Arch forum moderators are really uptight.. see above for an example.

Haha, BANNED.

No, just kidding - seriously though, we try to keep the forums a nice place, and I've seen far more uptight forums. But anyway, I already said that dealing with me was a con. haha

jamtat · 2009-08-10 17:47:45

After about 2 years of using Arch I can confirm that it's very much like running Debian unstable. Pretty much the same problems apply. Each time you update the system, you run the risk of breaking something. Brokenness runs the gamut from very minor to major. So far, I've had X break on me, automount broke on me, and with my most recent pacman -Syu my sound setup is broken. Those are the more major problems I've had running Arch. Each has required a fair amount of sleuthing to fix--I actually never managed to fix automount, though some update I later did eventually got it automagically working (although now inserting media brings up two sets of alert messages, doubtless because of some system tweaking I did [the details of which I've now forgotten] while trying to fix the problem). To be fair, I've seen these sorts of problems with every Linux distro I've ever used, though I would say some seem more prone to it than others (Arch and Debian testing more so than Ubuntu, for example). And of course this sort of thing can't be escaped in the Windows world either: update to a new version of Windows and you're liable to lose the use of half of your peripheral hardware (third party drivers are not available). Just some further observations.

James

Last edited by jamtat (2009-08-10 17:49:12)

OneEyedPimp · 2009-08-10 18:18:56

The biggest con is that you will have to be pretty intimate with your install. It will act like a naggy girlfriend, when something breaks it _will_ be your fault. Then you will throw lots of effort into fixing it; but eventually it will reward your for your effort (the analogy has to stop here...;-) )

Another thing is you get what you ask for. This is what draws alot of people, myself included, to this distro. I run exactly what I want, when I want, and How I want. So once youre done with the base install, you will have to choose what you want to install from the ground up. The wiki is awesome, but if you do not have alot of time to dedicate to this computer, it may not be the best distro.

Having said that, you will see a performance improvement with old systems. I love installing Arch on older and cutting-edge systems because it runs soooo fast. :-)

joaca_rj · 2009-08-10 19:36:56

*( The dead rises, dancing Michael Jackson's Thriller....)

Berticus · 2009-08-10 19:37:19

It's targetted towards x86 and x86_64 (i.e. no ARM, MIPS, PPC, Renesas, etc. support). Although, it seems that's not a concern of yours.

I'm looking into getting an Openpandora and Touch Book. Both have the Texas Instrument OMAP3530 (ARM Cortex-A8). Well... I'm not completely sold on Touch Book yet. But for Openpandora, I'll use either Gentoo or keep their Angstrom Linux OS; I don't think there's an Arch option.

Openmoko (Samsung 2442, I believe that's ARM) and Dingoo A320 (Ingenic, MIPS) won't be able to run Arch. My iRiver H320's, iRiver H120, and iAudio X5 won't run Arch.

As for running into Glitches on my PC, which does have Arch, I rarely run into them when updating. I ran into a glitch last time I updated, but that was because one package was updated, and mplayer wasn't. I simply compiled mplayer from svn, through pacman, and it was fine. The other times where I have run into glitches were when I forgot to mount /boot when updating the kernel.

techprophet · 2009-08-10 20:48:56

Cerebral wrote:

daf666 wrote:
my only con is that the Arch forum moderators are really uptight.. see above for an example.
Haha, BANNED.
No, just kidding - seriously though, we try to keep the forums a nice place, and I've seen far more uptight forums. But anyway, I already said that dealing with me was a con. haha

You should see the shadowbane emulator forums...I got a warning because my sig was too big (by 12px) and others have gotten warnings for referring to banned members in a non-condescending manner.

Berticus wrote:

It's targetted towards x86 and x86_64 (i.e. no ARM, MIPS, PPC, Renesas, etc. support). Although, it seems that's not a concern of yours.

'tis the unfortunate truth. I run x86_64, but the performance gain is minimal except when converting music/movies. But as far as incompatibility goes, there isn't much. You may have a time with flash, but that's about it.

Arch Linux

#26 2008-06-04 09:03:22

Re: cons of running arch?

#27 2008-06-04 09:22:43

Re: cons of running arch?

#28 2008-06-04 09:35:07

Re: cons of running arch?

#29 2008-06-04 11:20:03

Re: cons of running arch?

#30 2008-06-04 11:45:46

Re: cons of running arch?

#31 2008-06-04 14:08:34

Re: cons of running arch?

#32 2008-06-04 15:05:42

Re: cons of running arch?

#33 2008-06-04 15:11:31

Re: cons of running arch?

#34 2008-06-04 15:20:40

Re: cons of running arch?

#35 2008-06-04 15:29:15

Re: cons of running arch?

#36 2008-06-04 15:29:27

Re: cons of running arch?

#37 2008-06-04 16:54:47

Re: cons of running arch?

#38 2008-06-04 17:29:50

Re: cons of running arch?

#39 2009-08-10 17:47:45

Re: cons of running arch?

#40 2009-08-10 18:18:56

Re: cons of running arch?

#41 2009-08-10 19:36:56

Re: cons of running arch?

#42 2009-08-10 19:37:19

Re: cons of running arch?

#43 2009-08-10 20:48:56

Re: cons of running arch?

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