Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

eyolf · 2008-08-14 15:21:34

I mentioned in another thread that I finally convinced my wife that it would be a good idea for her to use linux instead of her constantly slowing-down windows environment on her oldish Acer laptop with 256mb of RAM. I first tried Ubuntu, but no matter how I tweaked it, it was painfully slow. So I decided to try out Arch, which I use on my own machine and know fairly well by now. I promised to report back on the progress, and here it is:

I can truly say that there is a noticeable speed improvement. I don't know where it comes from, because I had trimmed down daemons and modules to the minimum, but where ubuntu (with gnome, xfce or kde) quickly took up all ram and flooded swap space, the Arch installation doesn't need nearly as much swap space. This is not based on any scientific study, just an immediate impression, and I don't know why ubuntu would need more system resources, but that's how it seems.

The main point of this post is: what would be the ideal way to set up arch in such a way that it would seem pain- and effortless for an ordinary user? I.e.: how to make an "Arch-buntu". For myself, I've gotten used to the occasional struggles that a KISS system involves, or the manual intervention, which is a good thing if the point is to learn or to take full control of one's system, but not if all one wants is a Just Works environment.

Here are some ideas:

DE: I switch between KDE and wmii/awesome myself, and although ppl say that Gnome is more of the Just Works kind, I've installed KDE for her too, and there haven't been any complaints yet... Resource-wise, it would probably be better with Gnome, since she mainly uses firefox, thunderbird and OpenOffice, but as I said in that other thread, KDE seems to run just as good. I've also installed xfce, and much as I sympathise with it, there have been some problems, such as a particular windows game (Cosmo bots), which runs fine under KDE but not under xfce.

KDE menu: in Kubuntu, the KDE menu was immediately updated with newly installed apps. In Arch, they frequently don't show up until the next time I log in. I thought this was a problem with my own setup, but now it doesn't seem so. Can it be fixed?

Wireless: I finally got the wireless card to work (prism54, Netgear G511 v2.9, with firmware from prism54.org as explained in the wiki), but it took me some effort, partly because we have a WPA-protected network. What is the preferred way to handle wireless networks, including roaming access? I've used (K)networkmanager before, but with my own iwlwifi card, that works badly. At the moment I have a profile for our home network , but that's that, so I don't know what's going to happen if she attempts to connect somewhere else... Wicd also seems good, but it has given me problems with dhcpcdb and /etc/resolve before. So if anyone has a perfect setup which Just Works (i.e. for roaming, encrypted, and wired connections, with autoconnect and no fuss, no manual intervention, other than selecting the right network and typing in passwords if necessary), I'd like to hear about it.

Security: I'm not certain about the Kwallet or its equivalents. For the sysadmin tasks, which I will perform, i mostly use sudo in any case, and there are things (such as connecting to a wireless network) which should be done once and for all. What do people think of this? We don't want the Vista experience now, do we..?

Automation: I believe that KDE handles all that nicely. Just wondering: would I be better off with autofs? I've set up autofs for our network shares, and that seems to work seamlessly (I chose autofs instead of a fstab entry since it's a laptop; I assume that that would create problems if she takes the machine out). What is the most transparent solution?

Multimedia and Firefox interaction: What are the best solutions here, in people's opinion? media players: Smplayer? Image management: Picasa? F-spot? Digikam? What are the best plugins for Firefox? I know I've had problems with the mplayer-plugin, but that may be a thing of the past (can't remember). I also know I've had problems getting Firefox to open mailto links with Thunderbird. Is there a fool-proof setup for Firefox in this respect?

Are there other enhancements/gadgets that you find essential or just useful for the effortless interaction with the computer? Panel applets, good wine configurations, etc.?

Reploid · 2008-08-14 17:01:39

It is a little hard to figure out exactly what you are asking about, as you are talking about a lot of issues, and there are sure to be threads about the best browser, the best mail client etc.

I think one of the things that is the most bewildering when you use a new operating system, is figuring out which programs are responsible for what, and where to configure the different stuff, especially for a non-informatics expert like myself. If you plan on laying the table for the non-techie, so that he/she doesn't have to, or want to mess around with configuration of networks, etc, the best thing IMHO is to make the menu slimmer. There are simply too many options to get lost in, with GNOME. I typically use:
music program - exaile
browser - opera and firefox, not satisfied with neither of them.
video program - vlc
file browser - pcmanfm
picture viewer -
picture editing, GIMP
calculator
tomboy
spreadsheet application
writer (occationally)
linuxdcpp
transmission-gtk
plugins need to be installed for watching youtube videos, and proper configuration is needed to be able to log out without having to open a terminal and type anything.
gtk-pacman might also be interesting for those who don't want to learn the simple pacman commands.
In addition, you would need an easy program for changing themes and wallpapers. I haven't quite figured this out yet, I am using lxappearance, and to change the theme, I need to extract it in my /usr/share/themes directory. It doesn't appear in lxappearance otherwise, for some funny reason.
All that juggling with sudo, learning how to navigate manually using unix commands, and so on, is off limits for a non-techie. It is too much work to learn, following click-menus are more intuitive.

If memory is no issue, you could always just take GNOME and edit the menu entries.

Daenyth · 2008-08-14 17:07:08

On the subject of window managers: My girlfriend found fluxbox simple and easy, after I configured the menu for her. She was happy to look through the themes and find one that she liked. A full-blown DE made the laptop way too slow.

As for wireless, you can use wicd or netcfg. Give her NOPASSWD: sudo rights to the relevent rc.d scripts, and put some shell scripts on the desktop (or home dir, depending on setup) that she can run from the file manager. For a fluxbox menu entry you could have.

[exec] (Restart wireless) { xterm -e 'sudo /etc/rc.d/net-profiles restart; read -p "Press a key to continue" KEY; exit' }

I also recommend setting up sshd so that you can help her remotely. For automatic mounting, I use thunar-volman

eyolf · 2008-08-14 18:22:09

Reploid wrote:

make the menu slimmer.

That's good advice. Especially with a standard installation of KDE, one gets loads of different applications with the same functions. Thank god for KDEmod...

browser - opera and firefox, not satisfied with neither of them.

On a different note: Firefox with vimperator is the best thing that has happened since... well -- vim.

Daenyth wrote:

On the subject of window managers: My girlfriend found fluxbox simple and easy, after I configured the menu for her. She was happy to look through the themes and find one that she liked. A full-blown DE made the laptop way too slow.
As for wireless, you can use wicd or netcfg. Give her NOPASSWD: sudo rights to the relevent rc.d scripts, and put some shell scripts on the desktop (or home dir, depending on setup) that she can run from the file manager. For a fluxbox menu entry you could have.
[exec] (Restart wireless) { xterm -e 'sudo /etc/rc.d/net-profiles restart; read -p "Press a key to continue" KEY; exit' }
I also recommend setting up sshd so that you can help her remotely. For automatic mounting, I use thunar-volman

That's good advice too. I like fluxbox, and one killer feature which is bound to amaze someone coming from Windows, is the ultra-quick menu... In the beginning, I could sit for hours (slight exaggeration) and just go up and down with the mouse and see the submenus flash by. Small things, but it is a mystery how an OS which claims to be user-friendlly can have a menu system like that. After a while, one learns to move very carefully past the "Programs" or "Send to..." menus, but it's painful all the same. Fluxbox, on the other hand...

The "Arch-buntu" thing was mostly a joke, but it would be interesting to see if one could package a number of such scripts... I assume that the NOPASSWD thing would have to be done manually (or is it possible for a package to change an existing file on the system?), but other than that: desktop shell scripts for the most important tasks. On the other hand: which other necessary tasks are there? And with wicd, that's mostly taken care of, isn't it?

Anyway, keep 'em coming.

Last edited by eyolf (2008-08-14 18:27:10)

Megamixman · 2008-08-14 22:34:24

One thing Ubuntu does really well is the GUIs they provide for Administration. While Gnome-system-tools does a pretty good job, Ubuntu just provides a lot more.

The other thing is you may want to look at KDE4. Not right now, but once it becomes more stable and the architectures they are developing mature, it will be a very good DE for new users and it should mostly be distribution-agnostic.

eyolf · 2008-08-14 22:46:07

Oh, I did have a look at it alrite, then I quickly installed kdemod3
instead. It's not for me, not yet anyway. It might be something for my
wife, but it's probably way too demanding on system resources for her old
256ram box.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-14 15:21:34

Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

#2 2008-08-14 17:01:39

Re: Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

#3 2008-08-14 17:07:08

Re: Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

#4 2008-08-14 18:22:09

Re: Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

#5 2008-08-14 22:34:24

Re: Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

#6 2008-08-14 22:46:07

Re: Arch-buntu: how to set up Arch for a non-techie

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