Some questions in developing an Arch distro

molom · 2008-08-22 05:05:09

Hi everyone,
I am one of the main members at the Maryan Linux team. We are developing a Debian based distro, but now we are also developing an Arch based distro. These two distros will have E17 as the main desktop environment and one of our aims is to make it complete and user friendly. Just some questions:
- Whats the friendliest arch installer around?
- Are there any equivalents to tuxsoftware.com for arch?

If there is anything else you think I should know, I will appreciate it if you tell me

The forum for Maryan Linux is en.maryanlinux.com/forum

Cheers,
molom

Inxsible · 2008-08-22 05:51:54

There is only one Arch installer with a choice of either going for the Core or FTP. Following the Beginners Guide and/or The Official Installation Guide over at the Wiki is the best thing to do.

Once you get Arch installed, you will have the CLI...and then you can go on and build your GUI on top of that.

With respect to tuxsoftware - I dont think there is anything similar for Arch.

But most of the apps are in the "official" repos. Those which are not can often be found in the user repos called AUR. Here users can upload PKGBUILDS of the softwares and then people can download those and install the software using pacman (Arch's package manager)

You might wanna list the rc.conf file -- actually there are a few files that need modification during installation. Most often the rc.conf file. This is a change from Debian based OSes. You also need to specify the daemons that you want to run in the DAEMONS array. Since you are building a distro - you will have to make the decision as to what daemons you want to add and/or start by default and allow for some mechanism to change it in your distro, depending on user need.

Last edited by Inxsible (2008-08-22 05:59:32)

molom · 2008-08-22 07:08:44

Thanks Inxsible!
So are you telling me, chakra (http://www.chakra-project.org/), Archie and FaunOS all use the Arch installer that is provided with the Arch Iso?

Cheers,
molom

Inxsible · 2008-08-22 14:13:06

molom wrote:

Thanks Inxsible!
So are you telling me, chakra (http://www.chakra-project.org/), Archie and FaunOS all use the Arch installer that is provided with the Arch Iso?
Cheers,
molom

I have heard about the Chakra project, but I am not very familiar with it so I will not be able to tell you definitively about its installation procedure.

Your best bet would be to ask the Archie developers themselves about the installation methods that they use
Archie or the Chakra devs

But I would assume its the same, given the fact that the Arch installation is pretty easy to do. It does look intimidating to a novice user to manually change a couple of files - especially since you are at the CLI and the only editors available to you are nano and vi. But even a novice can get the hang of it, if he/she does it a couple of times.

Are you trying to implement a GUI installation for your distro ?

Last edited by Inxsible (2008-08-22 14:18:55)

Allan · 2008-08-22 14:16:49

If you look at the Chakra screenshots it is quite clear that it does not use the ascii-graphical Arch installer.

My real question here is why are you developing two distributions simultaneously what appear the same goals? Are you switching to an Arch base from the Debian base?

Inxsible · 2008-08-22 14:24:13

Allan wrote:

If you look at the Chakra screenshots it is quite clear that it does not use the ascii-graphical Arch installer.
My real question here is why are you developing two distributions simultaneously what appear the same goals? Are you switching to an Arch base from the Debian base?

So Allan, the first screenie looks a lot like the regular Arch installation screenie -- I could be wrong though.

So does Chakra have a wrapper around the existing installation method - or is it a totally re-designed/re-engineered procedure?

Inxsible · 2008-08-22 14:26:25

@ molom,

I am curious, are you switching base from Ubuntu to Debian? because it would seem that having a distro based on Ubuntu and Debian would be pointless - maybe its just me.

If you are switching, what are your reasons?

Allan · 2008-08-22 14:42:23

Inxsible wrote:

So Allan, the first screenie looks a lot like the regular Arch installation screenie -- I could be wrong though.

That is just the boot-up screen. See from the second row for the start of installation which is very graphical

Inxsible wrote:

So does Chakra have a wrapper around the existing installation method - or is it a totally re-designed/re-engineered procedure?

No idea

molom · 2008-08-22 21:36:24

We are switching from Ubuntu to Debian.
We are doing so because of these reasons - http://en.maryanlinux.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19
Ok, we are making an Arch edition because two members suggested it to do it as a side project. Its like asking why would someone want Mepis instead of Parsix, they are different DE's, they all do the same task. So we are going to have a Debian edition and an Arch edition. The Debian edition is the official one because there is more friendly aspects. You never know until we find the Arch edition better and scrap the Debian one, its just a thought as well.
Yes, we do need a friendly install GUI, we are looking for one to use and improve.

I would use the arch version believe it or not, but some the Debian. I prefer simplicity than friendliness, but not at total sacrifice (Like using ratpoison over KDE). But ATM I am not smart enough to install Arch, hope I have time to learn later.

Last edited by molom (2009-04-03 23:13:53)

lilsirecho · 2008-08-22 22:02:26

IMHO Faunos is the friendliest and easiest to provide a "live" archlinux-based system which can be modified to e17 and installed to HDD. It has the advantage of a GUI for pacman called pactrac.

Good hunting!

smartboyathome · 2008-08-22 23:50:12

There is Larchin for Larch, which is a graphical installer. I think this is the one Archie uses. Anyway, the one for the Chakra project is Qt, fine if you want to go that way.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-22 05:05:09

Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#2 2008-08-22 05:51:54

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#3 2008-08-22 07:08:44

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#4 2008-08-22 14:13:06

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#5 2008-08-22 14:16:49

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#6 2008-08-22 14:24:13

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#7 2008-08-22 14:26:25

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#8 2008-08-22 14:42:23

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#9 2008-08-22 21:36:24

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#10 2008-08-22 22:02:26

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

#11 2008-08-22 23:50:12

Re: Some questions in developing an Arch distro

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