The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

fsckd · 2012-02-22 18:30:47

mod action: Merged in skualito's thread, originally titled "Returning arch user".

senkk · 2012-02-22 19:52:10

Back in the day I was big XP fan, but with the release of Vista I realized that the Microsoft way won't be my way any longer. The natural choice for me was Linux and as so many people I started a distro hoping adventure in order to find the one distro that suits me. At the end I settled with Ubuntu even thou I was not entirely happy with it - it was slow, bloated and occasionally the design of the system prevented me from doing some things. For instance I will decide to declutter my system, but apt will tell me that if I want a particular app removed I will have to remove Gnome, because this nonessential app is needed for something etc. Things like that drove me crazy.

Ubuntu was my main os for a while, but then I went back to distro hopping and even did Windows again for a couple of months. Then I saw the Arch review which Bryan and Chris from JB did. I gave Arch a try and the results stunned me. The performance increase was great, the os was incredibly well thought out, but most of all, most of all it obeyed me. I was its master and Arch did what I wanted. No more irremovable packets(Pacman is great, but you all know that already ), no more 'smart' devs, who disable the root account, no more registries, no more hidden services, which run without permission. The user has the absolute power and let me tell you - I like it when I have the absolute power

I realized how good Arch is when I was forced to leave it. I had to spent the last summer with Linux Mint. Mint is good no doubt. It is sleek, responsive and very easy to use. Hell if you put the right skins on Mint some people won't be able to distinguish it from XP. But with Mint you simply don't have full control. I purged Mint from my system, because due to a bug with in the Nvidia drivers my X began to restart every 15 minutes or so and all my efforts to fix it were unsuccessful. Now I'm using Arch again. The driver troubles are over, everything just works. Plus I'm learning something new every day. Some weeks ago for example my home router died. I knew Arch as almost every other OS can do connection sharing, but I had no idea how it is done. Five minutes and a quick glance at the wiki were all I needed. That's why I like Arch. It is simple and just works

dmeyer · 2012-02-29 02:14:20

Over the last little while I've hoped distro's like crazy, Kubuntu 11.04 > Kubuntu 11.10 > Mint 12 > LMDE > Debian > Sabayon 8.0 > Arch.

Now my biggest pain is upgrading and extremely painful especially since big upgrades rather than systematic smaller ones tend to just break everything (Also I'm a freak for the latest software.) Now I have to be honest, Mint 12 is easy but it's nothing compared to Sabayon. Sabayon is single handedly the most beautiful and polished distro ever. I mean it just works, its fast as hell and is a rolling release. If you've never used it before I recommend you give it a go because from Grub to Desktop its smooth no flicker and just so polished. Seriously, no black no nothing just a perfectly smooth and very fast boot. However; all that said it's bloated in my opinion. Not bloated like Ubuntu - everything is well thought out with things most people will actually use frequently. Still I hate bloat and configuration is limited never-mind the fact that updates takes sort of long even after sorting mirrors. The biggest downside is the small number of packages.

Then when I had sort of settled on Sabayon I realized I'd forgotten about Arch. Why? Because everybody told me to be scared of it. What a joke! Installed and functional in 30 min including the time basically spent on on reading documentation and doing the net install. Getting a nice functional Gnome 3.2 was another 15 min. Configuration is a breeze, install was so easy and I never ran into a single problem. For the first time my hybrid graphics truly work, I don't have a constantly blowing fan and neither do I have any serious issues. Not a single device was undetected in my install! All the packages I lacked in Sabayon were in the repo's and then came the AUR! Wow, just wow. Never have I seen a better community or documentation. Hybrid graphics on all the distro's I've tried so far has been a bit of a shamble but on Arch, Bumblebeed 3.0 worked fantastically.

I really just have to highlight pacman, forums, AUR, documentation and configurability as the key reason for Arch being the mightiest distro ever! Things have never been this easy before. Thanks for a truly great distro. I just wish I could recommend it to my brother and other linux converts, but I'm hoping with a tiny bit of instruction that I can get them to switch. They need to learn some command line confidence.

Thanks a ton guys! Never has Linux been more pleasurable, easy or configurable!

So without further to do:

> sudo pacman -Syu

felixhummel · 2012-03-03 03:10:34

Hi!

I just want to thank everyone in the community for contributing to this great distribution.

Two hours ago I installed Arch in a Virtualbox and felt so... welcome...
The installer asked the right questions,
the configuration files showed everything in a well documented manner
and the Beginner's Guide explained to me (in plain English) the design decisions behind all of the steps I took, and led me even further.

I am looking forward to using Arch once more and even more intensively than I have done in the past.

Thank you very much, guys!

Kind regards,
Felix

Inxsible · 2012-03-03 20:53:42

Welcome to Arch felix.

Merging with the Arch is best thread.

samwhiteUK · 2012-03-08 21:44:18

To the whole of the Arch Linux community, esp. those who are responsible for the Arch Wiki. It is perhaps the most helpful resource I have ever used, so yeah, thanks for that.

Strange post I know, but just felt like it needed to be out there.

Inxsible · 2012-03-08 22:45:55

welcome to Arch. Merged with the 'Arch is Best' thread.

robin007bond · 2012-04-07 17:35:48

Arch is the best linux distribution for me. Bleeding edge, good package managing, PKG' s and a great community.

When I first tried Arch Linux, I was simply amazed by the good documentation (wiki, forums). Never saw such a good community!

SuddenGun007 · 2012-04-10 07:58:52

Started using Ubuntu a week ago, after a few days looked for something different and found an article on ArchLinux. The 'build what you want and only what you want' came as feature I desperately wanted. I used Windows my whole life, not that I was under their banner, just it happened to be installed on the computer I am using.

The thing about Windows is, as most people know it is a resource hog, so wanting a clean install of something fresh, with very little things on it. I put Arch on a CD, wiped my hard drive, and went through the process of installing it. But the best thing about Arch though, isn't it's minimlistic design (it's awesome though). I just see Arch Linux as a learning tool. And that feature is why Arch is best. This is coming from someone with no Linux experience until a week ago. Then again, maybe since I haven't tried anything else my opinion can't mean much.

khosrow · 2012-04-10 13:59:17

after reading all those compliments and admirations about the glory of Arch from fans with hundreds (even thousands) posts, I feel a bit intimidated to criticize it, but since this is a discussion forum, I just write my opinion:
I've been using Debian for nearly 10 years now, not because it is the "Ultimate OS" or anything like that, but mostly because things like installation, available packages, documentation, package management, stability, support, etc are reasonably good for a general user like me. for example, when I run

 apt-get distupgrade

I am almost confident that I don't need to be worry about the consequences and later blame myself for upgrading my computer.

during these years I tried other distros as well, out of curiosity, or to find something more favorable for me. I've installed and used Slackware, Ubuntu, Fedora, and finally Arch. this last one for about a year on my old laptop and now out of Arch and back to the good old Debian. the main reason was that every time I decided to to an upgrade (using pacman) I knew I must be prepared to deal with file conflicts, find out which package owns which file, discover which package is missing or needs to be installed first, etc. after my last upgrade, resuming after suspend and video switching (which were working just fine before) stopped working. my common sense says that a reasonably good OS should be just a little bit more reliable. after searching the wiki, turned out that other people also had similar problems, but no specific fix found. my own post on this issue is still unanswered after 3 days (did someone mention 5 minutes?).
I should admit, however, that the installation was straightforward and sensible, and the documentation and support are extensive and well organized. but, the support from Debian or Ubuntu communities are as good as (if not better than) Arch and there are fans there as well. all these being said, since these are free software by volunteers, I cannot complain too much.

So, is there any "Ultimate OS" out there? My impression is that, if such question is legitimate at all, we are far away form the answer right now.

My point is that, if this or that Linux distro were such great or the "Ultimate OS", why people just don't use them as much as they use windows or mac? one answer you may want to think of, is that these are corporative softwares with money, politics, advertisement, etc behind them, to which I fully agree. but, there must be more than that. things like ease of use and consistency are most of the time overlooked, I believe.

As I said, I am a Linux user myself, but I am aware that if I want to modify a relatively complex word document without screwing things up, the safest way is to do it in MS word. that's why I shamelessly, keep a copy of windows installed in my KVM virtual machine, in case I need it. so, I would never go too far and wish one day I could go and delete the windows files one by one to see how it would fall apart!

thanks for reading this and sorry for my mistakes. I am not a native English speaker.

Last edited by khosrow (2012-04-10 14:17:29)

tim_linux · 2012-04-10 15:42:37

I started with Fedora Core back in the day, there was not a particular reason for this other than it was the most popular at the time. I enjoyed what seemed to be 50% of a operating system i.e. everything was broken and everything needed a loving touch to work properly.

My next adventure was with web hosting, I lived in England at the time and a dedicated IP was just pennies extra over a standard Internet package. Again based off reading I jumped to Debian, this was an enjoyable experience because the machine ran flawlessly for 2 years, until the day I moved and the machine was accidentally dropped within the process. The machine was retired a little early –

For a period of time after, I remained faithful to Fedora Core until Ubuntu began to really pick up in popularity, even though I would disagree with my previous self today – back then this was a fantastic distro. My network card + graphics card worked out of the box, which was something Fedora Core was unable to do at the time.

Something was missing …

At this time in my life I was deploying Red Hat Servers for small businesses and in the interest of learning more about Linux, specially within the RedHat family...

I tried Centos .. too boring for a desktop, really not the ultimate distro for this enviroment.

I returned to Fedora core, my colleagues where impressed but I have been there – done that.

I changed jobs to run a much larger company's IT department, people again seemed hooked on the usuals .. Fedora Core, OpenSuse, Debian and Ubuntu. Although all these distros had their own pluses and negatives, I wanted more.

The work place as a gift provided me with a second machine Mac Book Pro on top of the laptop I had currently running. This was fantastic for a short while, something new, something polished that worked out of the box and worked with the terminal using native keyboard short cuts. This inspired me to upgrade my laptop to FreeBSD. I learned a lot from FreeBSD and I enjoyed the principals and ideals of FreeBSD, The project is controlled by a board of decision makers, which seemed to me a logical and safe method of progression. Soon I realized what seemed like an upgrade to a rock solid distro, later was actually a rock solid down grade.

ARCH (yes I have a point to make ha ha) I came across this little distro. I asked people in the office whether or not they have used Arch before. Everyone at the time could not offer me any experiences with the distro. I began reading Distrowatch to see what aspects of Arch I agree with in terms of philosophy and I read nothing but good words. 1 specific note drew my attention – Origin: Canada, my current place of residence.

I quickly downloaded Arch and too my amazement everything worked right in the beginning. The installation was simple, clean and logical. The fact I can reach the command prompt with wpa_supplicant straight off has saved me a lot of trouble in at-least 2 occasions where an Ethernet port was not easily accessible. The install was so easy in-fact I felt that I was not really learning anything at all. I decided I needed something that required my attention a little more than Arch.

Gentoo, I enjoyed Gentoo, I did not find the installation challenging as it consisted of tools and steps I was highly familiar with. Portage was great and I highly enjoyed deploying the Gentoo distro using this package manager. The layout of the operating system and the ease of finding configuration files made Gentoo one of my favorite distro's of all times, however, over-time with the interest of constantly 'fiddling' with my system, I became less and less enthused with the process of compiling everything. The way I was using Gentoo – provided very little gain over the fast deployment time of Arch.

Today I have the odd machine running Gentoo but my main O/S for 2010 on-wards has been Arch.

Where does this leave me, I have been told I should still invest the time to learn Slackware but based off YouTube videos showing the installation process, I cannot see how Slackware is either more beneficial to the learning process or end-result. Not saying Slackware is negative in any way but I am not sure my personal opinions can be swayed when I am achieving roughly the same results I have with Arch.

I have an interest in SourceMage to just understand the differences between SourceMage / Gentoo.

In Short: I am glad Arch exists and have enjoyed using the Arch distro – I highly recommend the distro to anyone looking for a clean and simple distro.

hadrons123 · 2012-04-10 16:01:43

There is already a thread with similar interest...

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=12926&p=1

Gcool · 2012-04-10 16:25:52

Welcome to the forums. Good to hear you're enjoying Arch

Perhaps a moderator could merge this thread with the one hadrons123 mentioned?

ewaller · 2012-04-10 17:32:25

Gcool wrote:

Welcome to the forums. Good to hear you're enjoying Arch
Perhaps a moderator could merge this thread with the one hadrons123 mentioned?

Done

GSnake · 2012-04-30 19:51:16

I registered just to say that Arch Linux is a great opportunity to "do a big jump" in understanding what you're really doing. I've been "playing" with computers since I was 3 but I never tried to go "deeper". Now with Arch... everything's different! :-) Arch isn't neither simple nor complicated... it's intermediate! You just have to know what you're going to do and WHY.

Waiting for some critic :-P

^_^

wallenpb · 2012-05-02 16:08:47

I have been using Linux since back in mid '90s. I really do love it. Needless to say, I have used many distros over the years, each having its own strengths and weaknesses. I can safely say that Arch is my favorite. It is the one that satisfies both my computing needs and "geek" needs. I am one of those users who does like to tinker with his system and is not afraid to crash it and is able to rebuild without asistance (usually!). Archlinux gives me the control over a Linux system that I want without have to get into mass code compliation all the time. Pacman is a great package manager! Archlinux is Linux and the way I want it, not how someone else thinks I should have it. Thanks to the many people that have obviously worked very hard to provide a wonderful distro.

realitykid · 2012-05-03 13:37:47

Well, I just started using Arch on my old Pentium 4 Dell. It used to run its slowest in XP, and then I installed Windows 7 onto it (for fun as this isn't my only machine). To my surprise, Windows 7 Home Premium ran faster than XP did on this antiqueted machine. However, I proceeded to install Linux Mint Debian Edition, which didn't work out for me since I don't like waiting months for updates. So I install Linux Mint 12 onto it shortly after switching from Debian Edition on my laptop to 12.

Mint 12 ran pretty well, for the most part. But the old Dell still had some problems handling it. Remember, this computer is from around 2003 (8 years old) at the youngest. So, Mint 12, using MATE, was still too heavy. So I installed XFCE4, and that barely made things any better.

After that, I decided that I might have better luck with Arch, since Arch only installs what I need, and then what I tell it to.

I tried installing from a USB, using the "core" iso. That was a no go since it wouldn't install packages, claiming that one of them was corrupted. I did get it to work, obviously, but I had to go back to sources and treat it like a netinstall.

After the initial install, I installed the drivers and stuff needed to run XFCE4. The whole computer felt noticabley faster. After some time, though, I decided to milk it for all it has got.

I wound up installing the Awesome tiling window manager to use in place of XFCE. Although, I still have XFCE, I always boot into Awesome. I don't even use a DM. I just login straight from the command prompt, and have it set to ask me if I want to "start x" after I am logged in,

I also have it set to launch four xterm sessions when I log in, one of which runs top automattically and another cmus (for my music). For a webbrowser, I use Midori. With all of this running, and music playing, this Dell is much more responsive. It even boots and logs me in faster than my two year old, Core i3 laptop running Mint 12.

It's amazing how Arch turned an 8 year Dell from sputtering, and crawling on it's last leg, when doing nothing but browsing the web on the wireless (usb dongle) and playing music in the background (music would even cut in and out), to doing all those things, and still be more responsive than my newer machine. (Sorry for the runon settence).

I love the software, it is bar-none. But, when I first tried asking for help on the forums in 2010, I got some flack. No offense, but that is no way to treat a new user (telling them to rtfm) when all they're asking for is some help since the wiki couldn't be understood well. Even now, I still can't understand the wiki perfectly. And that is the biggest thing keeping me from ever installing it on my laptop (which is my main machine).

ElderSnake · 2012-05-17 09:07:21

The longest Arch has ever remained uninstalled from my main computer is well, probably one or two days. For example perhaps every now and then I get annoyed by some little glitch or all the updates or maybe even the lack of maintenence on a heap of AUR scripts and so I try some other distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mageia etc but it just never lasts...

Only a short matter of time and I come crawling back to old Archey, begging for forgiveness!

Arch is like the wife you've had for ages, sure she expects a lot of you, sometimes annoys the heck out of you and you feel tempted to go looking for someone else new and exciting but you realise you love the old girl more than anyone else and she's the best.

...and I cannot believe I just did that.

Last edited by ElderSnake (2012-05-17 09:08:36)

ntaloventi · 2012-05-18 18:47:30

Greet to Everyone...

I had no experience with Arch Linux, only ever try how to use Ubuntu.. (year 2000)
on the begining of march 2012 my friend lend me Arch Linux Distro
1st week of march, I'm start installing on Arch Linux for the first time
2 days later start confusing to using the arch..
2nd week of march, try to reinstalling arch and burried my old OS partition (Micro****)
3rd week of march, more n more confuse....
4th week of march, it realy hard to connect my CDMA USB Modem with my Dell Vostro
begining of april all comes clear...
April 7th, I'm finally registered as arch linux member forum
April 26th, other member Gcool help me to setting my ALSA
and now start to configuration others file (conky, openbox, etc...)

The point is with Arch Linux you learn to use and explore..... or..... explore to use n learn
you'll sick for first time and you came addicted and more fanatics...
Message for all member, please help other people that never been have a chance to use Arch Linux to get it ....... and give them a try...

Bravo to everyone
-Iqbal Rizky a.k.a ntaloventi-

Last edited by ntaloventi (2012-05-18 18:49:33)

Xeitgeist · 2012-05-19 13:03:54

ElderSnake wrote:

The longest Arch has ever remained uninstalled from my main computer is well, probably one or two days. For example perhaps every now and then I get annoyed by some little glitch or all the updates or maybe even the lack of maintenence on a heap of AUR scripts and so I try some other distro like Ubuntu, Fedora, Mageia etc but it just never lasts...
Only a short matter of time and I come crawling back to old Archey, begging for forgiveness!
Arch is like the wife you've had for ages, sure she expects a lot of you, sometimes annoys the heck out of you and you feel tempted to go looking for someone else new and exciting but you realise you love the old girl more than anyone else and she's the best.

...and I cannot believe I just did that.

I can totally relate with that. I did my first install of Arch a couple of months ago, and even after that, I kept trying out various distros every now and then. Eventually, I got tired and realized that Arch was the best fit for me; no matter how "user-friendly" a distro claims to be, it can never be as transparent AND simple to maintain as Arch.

Long live Arch!

ggarron · 2012-05-21 20:57:50

Hi guys,

I love Arch Linux and it is my main OS both for my Desktop and Server for years.

I've just written this review, I would like to know what do you think. Also please if you find any spelling or grammar mistake, do let me know. English is not my native tongue.

KISS Simplicity: Arch Linux

thanks for your time.

regards,

Guillermo.

jasonwryan · 2012-05-21 21:09:56

Merging with the Unofficial Arch is Best thread...

ggarron · 2012-05-21 21:16:46

jasonwryan wrote:

Merging with the Unofficial Arch is Best thread...

Thank you.

eldarion · 2012-05-26 18:08:37

I was thinking at opening a new thread to thank Arch Linux devs and community but then i found this one.

So, i'm a Linux user for some years now (8 years or so). I started with a RedHat version that was included on a magazine that one of my friends bought. I started to love Linux for the ability to know how things work, without any hidden stuff or binary blobs to make me stop learning. That and the ability to build my own OS, with the apps i really needed. At that time it somehow reminded me of my MS-DOS experience when i was younger (creating batch scripts, learning QBasic and Pascal, and so on). Long story short, my quest into Linux lead me at some point to Arch Linux.

So what i really want to say is to thank Arch Linux developers, packagers and community for creating this great Linux distribution. After some years of Arch Linux i can't help but think that sometimes i could be more active in the community (although i maintain some packages in AUR). Sometimes i feel bad using Arch and not giving more back. But i want to make clear that i really appreciate the effort of maintaining such a great and big project like this. I'm forever grateful and proud to be part of what makes Arch what it is.

peets · 2012-05-29 14:05:44

Arch just keeps on being sane & beautiful. Thank you to everyone involved.

Arch Linux

#626 2012-02-22 18:30:47

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#627 2012-02-22 19:52:10

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#628 2012-02-29 02:14:20

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#629 2012-03-03 03:10:34

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#630 2012-03-03 20:53:42

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#631 2012-03-08 21:44:18

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#632 2012-03-08 22:45:55

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#633 2012-04-07 17:35:48

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#634 2012-04-10 07:58:52

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#635 2012-04-10 13:59:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#636 2012-04-10 15:42:37

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#637 2012-04-10 16:01:43

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#638 2012-04-10 16:25:52

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#639 2012-04-10 17:32:25

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#640 2012-04-30 19:51:16

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#641 2012-05-02 16:08:47

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#642 2012-05-03 13:37:47

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#643 2012-05-17 09:07:21

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#644 2012-05-18 18:47:30

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#645 2012-05-19 13:03:54

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#646 2012-05-21 20:57:50

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#647 2012-05-21 21:09:56

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#648 2012-05-21 21:16:46

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#649 2012-05-26 18:08:37

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#650 2012-05-29 14:05:44

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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