A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

bornagainpenguin · 2009-12-19 15:51:29

I downloaded Kahel and installed it the other night and in less than a half hour was logged into a functional Gnome desktop with working networking. Which was exactly what I was hoping for, something to give me a boost up so I could get past the hurdle of installing Archlinux and on to configuring the system from within a GUI environment. I had no idea there was any controversy between them and here at the time of my install, just that they'd been mentioned on Distrowatch and were based on Archlinux.

So my question is this: Can anyone please tell me how to change repositories and what packages to add or remove to turn this working install back into vanilla Archlinux?

I was up half the night trying to install Archlinux the "proper" way from the disc included with my copy of LinuxFormat magazine and still don't have networking or most of my hardware detected properly! If I can "cheat" and use Kahel to get to Archlinux with most of the heavy lifting done for me I'd throughly like to do so. It's not that I am unable to sit down and hack away but I'd prefer to get a working system up and running and do my hacking from within that system so I can refer directly from the manuals and HOWTOs when I do so.

Any help is sincerely appreciated!

--bornagainpenguin

kgas · 2009-12-19 16:11:06

This thread is about kahel. You can check their web site for more details. If you read the Beginners' guide of Arch, you won't find any difficulty to install Arch. imo it is better to take an inventory of your hardware and search the forum to get an idea about any problem/work around and solutions. Mostly you may have initial hiccups with wireless especially for broad com chips. Feel free to ask when you have doubt.

pyther · 2009-12-19 16:12:40

I haven't played with Kahel, nor will I. With that said there might be changes in Kahel that would make switching the repos more troublesome than you think, as they might have major modifications and what not.

I would suggest installing arch form the official installer. The beginners guide is a very good tool and it should help you setup a working desktop (including networking, sound, etc...). http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide

You should learn how to use arch from the beginner as it will make your life easier in the long run.

bornagainpenguin · 2009-12-19 16:22:14

kgas wrote:

This thread is about kahel. You can check their web site for more details.

I saw that last night when I was trying to get updates and wondering why there weren't any. I was also hoping to see a thread about reverting Kahel back to Archlinux, but only found that thread and the one about copyrights. Nothing I could use.

pyther wrote:

I haven't played with Kahel, nor will I. With that said there might be changes in Kahel that would make switching the repos more troublesome than you think, as they might have major modifications and what not.

There might be. I don't know enough about the structure of Archlinux to know if they did or not.

pyther wrote:

I would suggest installing arch form the official installer. The beginners guide is a very good tool and it should help you setup a working desktop (including networking, sound, etc...). http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide
You should learn how to use arch from the beginner as it will make your life easier in the long run.

I don't know about that--I just spent five hours last night--from 11:00 PM to 4:52 AM installing Archlinux and as I said, most of my hardware STILL isn't detected. As it is I'm close to giving up and crawling back to my much duct-taped and chewing gum repaired Acronis image of Ubuntu 8.04.3 and calling it a day. I'm not exactly a newbie, I started out with SuSE 4.x and Fedora 1-4 with a brief stop over in Slackware before settling with Ubuntu. I just don't feel like doing hours and hours of configuring what could mostly be abstracted away for me so I can get to installing my applications and customizing my eeepc for use.

--bornagainpenguin

PS: Thank you both for taking the time to reply, even if it wasn't what I hoped to hear.

hokasch · 2009-12-19 16:56:23

Again not what you wish to hear, here is my opinion anyway:

I do not now Kahel, but for Arch: if you do not dig yourself through the installation process, you will probably not have much succes running this distro anyway.

Follow the Beginners Guide. It is a big piece of text, but it is just really extensive and you can skip the passages that do not apply to your situation. The first install is a bit steep and time consuming, but you learn a lot of basics that you will definitely need to know if you want to keep using arch. A lot of people seem to run arch on an eee, so this should be not too difficult to fix.
Here are some ressources that may help with concrete problems (hardware etc):
Arch Wiki eee
Forum Search

If you do not find a solution for your problems, just open a new thread. Good luck!

Last edited by hokasch (2009-12-19 16:56:36)

Xyne · 2009-12-19 17:01:42

If you really follow the Beginners Guide step-by-step then you shouldn't have any problems unless you're really unlucky with hardware. As mentioned above though, if you know which hardware is causing a problem (after having followed the guide), you can most likely find a solution with a forum search. If that doesn't help, post the particular problem with as many details as you can and someone will be able to help you. If you're able to get your hardware working with Kahel then you should be able to get it working with vanilla Arch.

That said, if you really don't want to deal with anything outside of GUI configuration then Arch is almost certainly not right for you. Some updates will force you to tweak files whether you like it or not. In truth most of the time this is very quick and easy but with bad luck you may have to dig much deeper on occasion. Going beyond that, the very attitude of wanting to have configuration abstracted away is very much in opposition to Arch's philosophy. There's nothing wrong with wanting that but wanting to do that on Arch is like walking into a Weight Watchers' meeting and asking where the doughnuts are. Most people are going to look at you and think you're in the wrong place.

Gen2ly · 2009-12-19 20:01:36

Kahel OS seems to be doing it pretty good now, so props to them (I hope ). With that said, I second Xyne's suggestion.

ngoonee · 2009-12-20 23:20:15

+1 for Xyne. You may want to consider whether you really want Arch.

filoktetes · 2009-12-20 23:44:48

I never even heard of Kahel, so I can't help you there either.
I have an eee901, and I feel with you when it comes to the wireless card. If you don't have access to cabled network, then installing Arch is very difficult. It seems to be almost impossible to get a connection by manually using iwconfig. I just manage to do it randomly once in a while.
On the bright side, Networkmanager is capable of getting a connection without any problems; open, wep wpa. I have no idea what magic it does, but it works.
When it comes to all other eee hardware, it works flawlessly with a recent kernel. I don't know how old your cd image is, and weather it's so old that the wired network card doesn't work. That's your biggest obstacle, to get a connection so you can update the system and install networkmanager, so the hardware will work.
I have quite a few Arch Linux boxes, so I always have a quite up to date copy of the core, extra and community repos on my disk, and can install everything without network access, and with a full, up to date system, everything just works.
Whatever your problem with installing Arch on an eee is, I can probably help you, so just ask here if you still want to do it. Arch is probably the very best OS for netbooks like the eee. (I must confess I haven't really tried anything else since 2004). I recomend that you make the effort.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-19 15:51:29

A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#2 2009-12-19 16:11:06

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#3 2009-12-19 16:12:40

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#4 2009-12-19 16:22:14

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#5 2009-12-19 16:56:23

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#6 2009-12-19 17:01:42

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#7 2009-12-19 20:01:36

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#8 2009-12-20 23:20:15

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

#9 2009-12-20 23:44:48

Re: A question about Kahel (please don't kill me!)

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