questions/switching to arch (full time)

miesnerd · 2008-07-21 01:57:48

Hi-
For a few months, I've been tinkering with arch. Yesterday, i decided it was time to put arch on my main computer as my only OS. So its 100% arch now.
As such, I have a few questions.
In the past, i had kde4mod and gnome installed (for different users) and when a Xorg update came thru, neither user could login to a graphical system. So i had to start over. Is there a way to prevent this from happening were I to want to install kde4mod again?

What about a good program for tv schedules?

Also, Im coming from generally using debian based systems. If I find something I want and it only comes in .deb or .rpm, what's the program to convert it? How do I eventually get it on my system? Also, is the process of getitng a .tar.gz onto my system different than it would have been on a debian system.

abhidg · 2008-07-21 04:03:28

I don't know why you couldn't login to a graphical system ... maybe a
problem with your drivers? What card do you use?

There are quite a few programs for seeing TV schedules on Linux, just google for them..
It's rarely something which comes only in deb/rpm (then it's usually closed source). The
best way to install such packages is to take the source, see how it is supposed to be
installed and then make a PKGBUILD for it and using makepkg to build a native Arch
package which can be handled by pacman.

By .tar.gz I suppose you mean source packages, right? Again the best way is to make
a PKGBUILD; as making native Arch packages is *far* easier than making deb packages
(and using checkinstall does not create a proper deb package; it lacks dependency
information).

See: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PKGBUILD
Also: man PKGBUILD, man makepkg

miesnerd · 2008-07-21 04:47:02

thanks.
Since you said its probably a .deb or .rpm, I'll give you two excellent examples of when its not (thus, why I need this)
-Open Office beta's are distributed as .deb, .rpm, and .tar.bz2.
-R programming language for statistics is easily available in repos, but you can also download it as source. No package (that I saw) for R in arch.
Dont get me wrong-- I love arch, and im growing into it, but it will require me to get over some humps where the debian based distros provided easily installable programs for me.

About OpenOffice-- if I install it as a beta-- i think right now, its beta 2 or something-- when the rc comes out, or when the final version comes out, how will i uninstall this from my system? Does pacman manage programs that have been installed by source? ABS?
Thanks for the link.

Sjoden · 2008-07-21 05:42:28

You can get openoffice through pacman, since its in the official repositories.

pacman -S openoffice-base

If you really wanted to, that .tar.bz2 is the source, and you could do it the unclean way of ./configure, make, make install, or you could make your own PKGBUILD, but there isn't really a need to do that.

Now, each time you run

pacman -Syu

Pacman updates your local database and updates core pkgs like the kernel, and stuff like openoffice. Pacman can manage any package that used a PKGBUILD to install it. But it wont update it if there isn't an update in the repositories. If it is something custom, you would need to make a new PKGBUILD to install the update, which most likely would be a version number bump, and thats it.

Last edited by Sjoden (2008-07-21 05:44:04)

miesnerd · 2008-07-21 05:45:57

so interpreting the last post, is it just not worth it to try out the builds on open office's beta that arent yet in the repos?
That's kinda how i read that. I've always really like the openoffice project (and the direction they're going, specfically) and have enjoyed trying out the latest and greatest.

miesnerd · 2008-07-21 05:47:30

oh, I already have openoffice 2.4 and the 3.0 beta, build m_10 installed. (btw, I love how arch puts them both into the menu-- its the only dist I've used that gets that right).
What I wanted to try out was m_23, but m_10 is the newest one in the repos?
Maybe should I be using a package from AUR?

Arch Linux

#1 2008-07-21 01:57:48

questions/switching to arch (full time)

#2 2008-07-21 04:03:28

Re: questions/switching to arch (full time)

#3 2008-07-21 04:47:02

Re: questions/switching to arch (full time)

#4 2008-07-21 05:42:28

Re: questions/switching to arch (full time)

#5 2008-07-21 05:45:57

Re: questions/switching to arch (full time)

#6 2008-07-21 05:47:30

Re: questions/switching to arch (full time)

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