Suggestions

mencargo · 2009-05-05 02:36:30

As a new Archlinux user, comming from Ubuntu and familiar with Debian, OpenBSD and Gentoo, I would like to contribute with my install experience, so I'm writing this as I deploy it at my Dell Mini 12!!

1) Suggestions Forum Category. There should be a category dedicated to feedback.

2) FTP install should be called NET install / WEB install, this "FTP" confused me, I thought it was for people that could install a FTP server and deploy several Archlinux in a network, so I had to read about it to figure it out.
Anyway, you can choose HTTP mirrors, so that's another reason to change the name, it's more straight forward.

3) Keyboard Layout... The km command it's cool, but I don't know the standard keymap code for my keyboard, it's just "spanish international" for me, so there should be a more friendly list, at least at the wiki.

4) With a growing netbook users community (that have VERY slow hard drives), it would be nice to have a wiki section dedicated to learn how to mount local folders or partitions to ram so that we can have a more responsive system.
I like Puppy linux for this, but a normal installation with key files mounted at ram could have the best of both worlds.
I'm currently looking into this, because I just tried Ubuntu Remix and was way too slow.

Downloading now...

So far so good.

5) Configuration... Ok, I agree with "The Arch Way", but for beginners and lazy people like me, it would be nice to create the files automatically with everything commented so we can edit/write our desired configuration with some guideline or base if you will.
This way we will avoid some typos and save some time.
I mean, what's the point of setting the clock with a cool wizzard if it's not declared at rc.conf?
And I don't even have a terminal to check stuff?
What's my wireless interface name? I would have to Google this of configure it later, so what's the point of the "easy" configuration?
I have 10 empty configuration files and no console access, this is not easy/friendly.
The worst part is, my keyboard is not properly configured because I don't know it's map code, so ="-!. I mean, this is NOT simple.

Last edited by mencargo (2009-05-05 02:57:09)

Dusty · 2009-05-05 02:58:31

mencargo wrote:

1) Suggestions Forum Category. There should be a category dedicated to feedback.

We have this at:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/ (preferably with patches)

2) FTP install should be called NET install / WEB install, this "FTP" confused me, I thought it was for people that could install a FTP server and deploy several Archlinux in a network, so I had to read about it to figure it out.
Anyway, you can choose HTTP mirrors, so that's another reason to change the name, it's more straight forward.

That makes sense to me, file a bug at the aforementioned. I think the FTP is actually from a legacy procedure that is totally different these days.

3) Keyboard Layout... The km command it's cool, but I don't know the standard keymap code for my keyboard, it's just "spanish international" for me, so there should be a more friendly list, at least at the wiki.

Its a wiki, feel free to start the page, although I'm sure there's plenty of lists like this on the web.

4) With a growing netbook users community (that have VERY slow hard drives), it would be nice to have a wiki section dedicated to learn how to mount local folders or partitions to ram so that we can have a more responsive system.

Its a wiki, add it. Others will improve it if you don't know all the details.

5) Configuration... Ok, I agree with "The Arch Way", but for beginners and lazy people like me, it would be nice to create the files automatically with everything commented so we can edit/write our desired configuration with some guideline or base if you will.
This way we will avoid some typos and save some time.
I mean, what's the point of setting the clock with a cool wizzard if it's not declared at rc.conf?
And I don't even have a terminal to check stuff?
What's my wireless interface name? I would have to Google this of configure it later, so what's the point of the "easy" configuration?
I have 10 empty configuration files and no console access, this is not easy/friendly.

Are you sure you agree with the arch philosophy?

Dusty

mencargo · 2009-05-05 03:14:09

Dusty wrote:

mencargo wrote:
1) Suggestions Forum Category. There should be a category dedicated to feedback.
We have this at:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/ (preferably with patches)

That's good, but it's not the same and I have to register again.

Dusty wrote:

5) Configuration... Ok, I agree with "The Arch Way", but for beginners and lazy people like me, it would be nice to create the files automatically with everything commented so we can edit/write our desired configuration with some guideline or base if you will.
This way we will avoid some typos and save some time.
I mean, what's the point of setting the clock with a cool wizzard if it's not declared at rc.conf?
And I don't even have a terminal to check stuff?
What's my wireless interface name? I would have to Google this of configure it later, so what's the point of the "easy" configuration?
I have 10 empty configuration files and no console access, this is not easy/friendly.
Are you sure you agree with the arch philosophy?
Dusty

Ok, this is another bug, the configurations files were empty and I couldn't write in them, because the Installation was not concluded, but it didn't told me!!
Now I realized it didn't find the usbtools package, just download the other ones and all looked fine, so I returned to main menu and try next step.
So I tried again without it and it installed fine, and I have normal configuration files with the exact thing I was asking for. So it wasn't supposed to be what I saw, another bug.
It should tell me that the Installation is not completed when I try to enter at Configuration.

And another bug, at the config files generated by archlinux, my eth0 wasn't set to dchp, and at the network config part, I told it so.

(I just posted them at bugs btw)

Last edited by mencargo (2009-05-05 03:37:45)

crouse · 2009-05-05 13:06:06

mencargo wrote:

5) Configuration... Ok, I agree with "The Arch Way", but for beginners and lazy people like me

I would suggest that:

A. Arch isn't for beginners, or at least doesn't claim to be.
B. Arch isn't for lazy people, you are expected to configure your own system. It's not ubuntu.

It is going to take some dedication and work to get things like YOU want them, but thats part of the beauty of the system.
Then, you can be lazy all you want, but probably not so much when starting out. Good luck, I hope you stick with it.

mythus · 2009-05-05 15:17:41

I agree with crouse.

Besides, 'simple' is not defined as being easy. Simple is defined simply as bare bones, not in your way, with a simply laid out init files that you can edit and configure yourself to your liking. If you ever looked into Ubuntu, you'd notice that their layout is far from simple. Instead they provide tools to make it easy to do things in their complicated environment. Here, there are no tools to guide you, no wizards to hold your hand.

If you can look at Arch Linux with the mindset of wanting to understand linux and your computer and ready and willing to get your hands dirty, Arch can be the most enjoyable linux experience you've ever had. You can really make it work in any way you want, won't be hindered by obscure files and forced to use clumsy wizards, and will know what is going on in your computer. Arch does take work, it isn't a lazy, auto-configured distro like many others. It is more akin to slackware or LFS, where you need to know your computer and be ready for it.

There are wonderful guides in the wiki, especially the Beginners Guide. The forums are filled with people who are willing to help you, just gotta be prepared to give them detailed info and search before asking please.

That concludes my thoughts on number 5.

About the others, if you know how to do it, please provide a wiki article for others to use. Everyone can contribute to the wiki, and everyone can contribute to Arch by helping others in the forums. As far as the suggestions go, I am not sure if that is really needed here. I mean, Arch is just a bare bones underlying system. Want something new to add to your arch system? Then check out the repos, the AUR, the ABS, or compile it yourself. There is nothing stopping you here. Want an automated installer? Check out Chakra or write your own. Really, the limitations to what you can do with Arch is your own know-how, and there's lots of help here to overcome that. So excatly what could one suggest for Arch except maybe kernel improvements and file systems? And for those, the link Dusty gave should work great!

BTW: I hope my statements don't come off the wrong way. In no way am I trying to ridicule or intimidate or whatever. I am just hoping that you can understand that Arch is not like any other distro out there, doesn't want to be another ubuntu (thank god), and does take some work. But once you get your hands dirty with arch, then you can do anything with it! You can truly make your computer your own with arch, and that is what I, and so many others, love about it.

So, welcome to Arch Linux. Have fun, learn, and experience the benefits that such a system gives you.

mencargo · 2009-05-05 16:51:30

@crouse & mythus

Guys, I think you don't get what happened.
After I selected the packages at the Install section, it download them and throw me a nice screen with the list of packages, but seems that the usbutils wasn't found (I think it's the version 0.75).
It didn't alert me that the installation didn't take place, so I tried the next step, Configure.
At which I had 10 configuration files EMPTY.
So I thought I have to configure all:

/etc/rc.conf
/etc/fstab
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
/etc/modprobe.conf
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/hosts
/etc/hosts.deny
/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/locale.gen
/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

By hand without a console access, can you see the problem now?

Last edited by mencargo (2009-05-05 16:52:57)

crouse · 2009-05-05 18:02:45

If they were blank, it probably would have been MUCH quicker to just try a reinstall.
In over 2-1/2 years of using and installing Arch Linux, probably over 60 times, that's never happened to me.

Bad iso ?
Bad connection ?

I can see how have all those files completely empty might present a problem.
Of course, I ALWAYS use the core.iso files for installing my base systems.
I haven't did any ftp installs of Arch, used to do them all the time with suse, but that won't happen again

I'd suggest retrying with one of the core iso's. 64/bit or 32/bit, whatever your sytem will use.

mencargo · 2009-05-05 18:11:03

Was FTP install, so it's not a ISO problem.
I don't blame connection either, after I found that a file was missing, I tried to reinstall several times, different mirrors, and stuff like that.
I think that the usbutils package file that it's trying to reach doesn't exist, maybe was replaced with another version or something like that.
After a install without usbutils, I updated database and try install it again, and was a 0.8X version, instead of the 0.75X version that the install was trying.

So the problem it's simple, but the GUI doesn't help, a simple red bold message at top of the final install window saying, "X package couldn't be found" would made my install much easier.

mythus · 2009-05-05 18:52:20

Greetings,

I think I had something like that happen once. After it tried installing those packages, it would show a list of what was installed (which can be skipped, I am gussing you skippied it by saying ok), and what, if any, errors there were. I simply started over and it was fine the second time around.

It is good that you got it fixed for you, however!

schuay · 2009-05-05 19:46:20

During setup you can access the console using Alt-Fx

edit.. sed -i ...

Last edited by schuay (2009-05-06 06:33:27)

fukawi2 · 2009-05-05 22:47:12

schuay wrote:

During setup you can access the console using Ctrl-Alt-Fx

s/Ctrl-//g

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-05 02:36:30

Suggestions

#2 2009-05-05 02:58:31

Re: Suggestions

#3 2009-05-05 03:14:09

Re: Suggestions

#4 2009-05-05 13:06:06

Re: Suggestions

#5 2009-05-05 15:17:41

Re: Suggestions

#6 2009-05-05 16:51:30

Re: Suggestions

#7 2009-05-05 18:02:45

Re: Suggestions

#8 2009-05-05 18:11:03

Re: Suggestions

#9 2009-05-05 18:52:20

Re: Suggestions

#10 2009-05-05 19:46:20

Re: Suggestions

#11 2009-05-05 22:47:12

Re: Suggestions

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