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#1 2012-10-19 22:42:11

icmp.request
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Greetings! smile

After having some time issues due to college that prevented me from this, I wish to have again a rolling-release distro in my computer.

I was in the past a big fan of Gentoo, but now it seems too much work to compile everything from scratch. Also they seemed to have some issues with the developers - the original developer if I understood correctly has quit the project, others were forced to quit due to misbehavior, etc. - and maybe due to some other facts their popularity on distrowatch dropped drastically.

Then this year I've tried Debian Testing... My goodness, that was messy. Tons and tons of bugs on XFCE, like thunar hanging on load and displaying error messages, gedit not removing the ~lock files properly on close, so I had the myfile and ~myfile, and many others. Really, I gave up.

I wish to give Arch Linux I try then. Of course that would be quite stupid to ask if arch linux is the best choice in an arch linux forum, but there are some key points that if you could answer would help me a lot to give it a try:

1. 32x64
"Should I use 32-bit or 64-bit?" is NOT the intended question. Many still prefer 32-bit-pae on a 64-bit capable machine, others prefer 64-bit. I wish to use 64-bit. Made my mind. But I would like to know if the support of 64-bit on Arch Linux is as good as 32-bit and if it comes by default with cross-libs which makes me able to run 32-bit applications natively right out of the box,

2. Developers
About how many and what's their relation with the users? When I've googled for Arch Linux, I've had found a review video on youtube where some guy said in the comments that developer's mind changed a lot in the past 2 years and they introduced many buggy packages that required manual workaround. At the end of his comments, he said "Sympathy? Apologies for the ****? Nope. blame the user for trusting 'pacman -Syu'" Surely I don't know which are these options because I haven't read about pacman yet (just know it's the default package manager) but you get the idea.

Another key question: Is Arch Linux hiring new developers over the time? Replacing the ones that leaves for the many reasons?

3. Window Managers Support
With Gnome3's overall rejection (including mine), we have only two options: Switch to KDE or try other Window Managers. I still wish to have faith on gtk, so the first option is still not considered by me. I don't wish to know "which one is the best", because that's another large discussion just as the 32-bit x 64-bit. Just how good is Arch's support (updated constantly? bug-fixes?) on:

- XFCE
- MATE
- Cinnamon

(Of course there are others like LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. but I've decided to narrow down to XFCE even having quite bad experiences on Debian Testing.)

4. Package Manager
Last, being a rolling-release dist, can I add an option for a specific package to install a specific older version and/or not upgrade when you tell the dist. to upgrade everything? I remember that back on Gentoo I could edit a text file and just type the version of the package I wished to keep and the "update everything" option wouldn't touch the package (worked also to try new versions that were still not stable enough).


Any replies will be very appreciated. Sorry for the long post.

Best regards.

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#2 2012-10-19 22:50:56

karol
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Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Hi there :-)

2. Meet the devs: http://www.archlinux.org/developers/ They do what they think is right which is bound to make some users unhappy - a recent example is systemd.

3. Look in the official repos. If you see e.g. xfce, then it's the latest stable upstream version. If you don't see e.g. MATE, then you're on your own. Read https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MATE for more info and generally look around the wiki or archlinux.org in general.

4. Partial upgrades are unsupported but you can downgrade some packages or stop them from being upgraded - read the wiki and 'man pacman' & 'man pacman.conf'.

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#3 2012-10-19 23:04:37

Trilby
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

I'll start at the end with #4.  Of course on the arch forums you will get people who are biased towards liking arch - but I think if you ask in other communities you will regularly hear that arch's package management system is its greatest strength.  Pacman is the primary tool for this, but we also have makepkg for things in the Arch User Repository (AUR), and the Arch Build System (ABS) to recompile anything from the main repos with additional/alternate compilation options.

But for your direct question, there is an option to only upgrade to a particular version of a given package.  There is an option in pacman's configuration file for just this purpose.  However depending on what the package is, this could lead to problems.  Users are discouraged from updating most of their system while keeping some older packages - This can lead to issues with shared dependencies.  Of course if you build the package from source (AUR or ABS) yourself, such issues would be easy to resolve.  Is there a certain package you know you'd want to keep at an older version?  If you tell us what it is, we can give more specific information on how easy/hard it would be to accomplish.

#3: Arch is a DIY distro.  You choose whatever window manager / DE you want.  I can vouche for XFCE working wonderfully in arch.  There are also numerous archers who use mate and cinnamon.  I have heard of some problems, but (AFAIK) these have nothing to do with compatibility with arch, rather these are due to upstream issues.  In other words, cinnamon, mate, xfce, or any other WM should work just as well on arch as on any other distro.  I'd bet our wiki for installing and configuring those WMs are better than those of the distros that bundle the WM with the core install.  (In addition to package management, you will find the arch wiki is second to none).

#2: I can't answer with any specifics - other than to say they continue to do an excellent job.  I am not surprised by the youtube video - not because I'd agree with it, quite the opposite.  But as arch is a DIY distro it puts some responsibility on the user to maintain their own system.  If one is not prepared for nor willing to do this, they often become frustrated and end up blaming someone else.  Often this is the developers, sometimes it is the forum moderators, other times it is the whole arch community.  In every case these accusations are absurd.  Your questions on replacement of developers is a good question though - there is a history page on the wiki which might give some insight on this, but I suspect others will have better input on this.

#1: I use i686 (32bit) on two of my computers and it works perfectly.  It sounds, however, that a majority of the community uses 64bit (which I just updated to on one of my computers).  My 64bit system works perfectly as well, but I don't have any 32bit-only apps.  Occasionally there are forum threads about some issue or another with "multilib" applications which are 32bit programs run in a 64bit system.  Generally these threads seem to be resolved without much hassle.  You can search for some of them yourself: Skype seems to be a common topic of such issues.

All in all, I'd reiterate arch's strengths in it's package management and wiki/documentation.  Potential weaknesses could be found by users who are unwilling or unable to take responsibility for their own system.  I word this is a bit biased manner - there are many people who have no interest in being responsible for maintaining their own system, a majority of all computer users would fall into this category; most of them would be quite unhappy with arch linux.  If you were happy with gentoo in the past and only want to avoid constant recompiling then you probably would be one who could be very happy with arch.

Or an even shorter summary: try it out.  If you don't like it, switch.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#4 2012-10-19 23:38:16

karol
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Registered: 2009-05-06
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

2. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/FA … developers
(guessing here) If the current devs think you're good enough, like your attitude and you want to help developing Arch, then you may join their ranks one day.
You can also become Trusted User, wiki maintainer etc.


I'm using a rather light setup so I may not be using the broken packages that youtube video talked about, but I don't recall much breakage in the past 3.5 years. I've been running [testing] for quite some time and I'm still fine :-)

Some relatively recent issues you might have run into if you were using Arch:
kmod-3 w/o a news item / explanation
http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 22330.html

The [community] repo looks screwed...   investigating.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=133393

vmlinux is truncated
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=133474

System crash and freeze. Kernel issue?
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=140635

I'd say they were just light bumps, were resolved quickly and are not signs of any systemic failure.


4. [testing] repos are all-or-nothing, but you can upgrade the whole system to them, test new versions and dowgrade to packages in non-testing repos ([core] etc.) if the testing ones have bugs. Obviously, you should report these bugs either upstream or to our bugtracker if these bugs are a result of .e.g faulty packaging.

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#5 2012-10-19 23:39:38

icmp.request
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From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

karol: Thanks so much for the reply! From the wiki link on developers, I can see they are many, which is a good thing! smile

Trilby: I can't thank you enough for the time and patience you took for replying my post.

4. No, there's currently not a certain package. But I remember that back on Gentoo eventually there was. Being a rolling-release distribution, while the strengths seem to overcome a lot of the weaknesses, it could lead to some just-updated package issue. That would be normal and expected. Sometimes this could be a better temporary workaround than manually solving. Again, temporary. I understand completely what you said about shared libs and it should be indeed discouraged for a permanent solution.

3 and 2. This is something related to the replies of the both questions and also your final considerations. I understand that Arch, like Slackware, Gentoo, Debian Testing, etc. is a DIY distribution and, while it takes a little more of work, compensates by fine-tuning a system specific for your needs. I've already have a very good "working right out of the box" distribution but I also want a DIY one. Linux Mint was my choice for "working right out of the box" and I can say it seems to be the best for this, but I cannot compare Mint to Arch because they follow different principles. I just wish to find my best DIY distribution just as I found my best "working right out of the box". Linux Mint has the LMDE edition which is a debian-testing based rolling-release, but I don't think it's as good as other rolling-release DIY distributions. So that's where Arch, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. should fill the gap.

Using a dedicated partition for /home, a common folder for my documents (like /home/documents), different usernames and /home folders (so the configurations don't conflict) but with the same uid/gid makes it perfectly possible to use both. But my main point is if Arch Linux often release new packages without testing them, and how often Arch Linux uses patches of it's own to temporarily fix a problem in a package. So let's say the next version of gedit has a known bug for everyone that downloads their .tar.gz and compiles it for themselves . Can I trust that in most of the cases Arch would make a specific patch to fix it just like on other distros?

1. I see, what about cross-compiling 32-bit applications for any specific reason? Is the package manager able to do that?


Thanks again for the quick and most complete reply! smile

Last edited by icmp.request (2012-10-19 23:42:47)

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#6 2012-10-19 23:49:22

drcouzelis
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From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

icmp.request wrote:

what about cross-compiling 32-bit applications for any specific reason? Is the package manager able to do that?

Yes. All of the packages in the [multilib] repository (32-bit applications for 64-bit Arch Linux installations) are built using the ABS and installed using pacman.

Did you know MATE was started by Arch Linux developers? big_smile (EDIT: I mean Arch Linux users)

Last edited by drcouzelis (2012-10-19 23:51:50)

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#7 2012-10-19 23:50:09

icmp.request
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From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

karol: Actually it's one of the main reasons behind my question about the Developers. Besides loving computer science since I was first introduced in my 486 MS-DOS 6.2 System, it's my choice for a career. If I narrow my Linux experience to only 2 distributions (eventually test some others in a virtual machine but that's it) and I really like the System, the Community, the Developers, I WILL wish to participate and contribute. If not becoming a developer myself by beta-testing packages that are currently not on the stable tree, contributing with the docs even English not being my native language or releasing patches/bug-fixes. I may consider myself an "experienced Linux user" but which of course would still lack the skill to become part of the Developer Team. I'm also new to programming. But with a good rolling-release and DIY distribution, my Linux experience would improve a lot and also the contribution that I could give to a particular distribution.

Edit: One question that I forgot, is the 32-bit edition of Arch mainly i686 or is it i486?

Last edited by icmp.request (2012-10-20 00:13:40)

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#8 2012-10-19 23:51:33

icmp.request
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

drcouzelis wrote:
icmp.request wrote:

what about cross-compiling 32-bit applications for any specific reason? Is the package manager able to do that?

Yes. All of the packages in the [multilib] repository (32-bit applications for 64-bit Arch Linux installations) are built using the ABS and installed using pacman.

Did you know MATE was started by Arch Linux developers? big_smile

No, that's very interesting to know! smile

I always thought they were maintained mainly by Mint. Are there still Arch Linux Developers on the MATE team?

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#9 2012-10-19 23:52:23

Allan
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From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

2.  The developers suck.

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#10 2012-10-19 23:57:37

drcouzelis
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From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

icmp.request wrote:

I always thought they were maintained mainly by Mint. Are there still Arch Linux Developers on the MATE team?

I think they're mostly Arch Linux users. It seems the Mint people announced that they would release a version of their distribution with MATE and now many people think it's a Mint project. tongue

Allan wrote:

The developers suck.

Yeah. I would get offended if anyone ever thought I was an Arch Linux developer.

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#11 2012-10-19 23:59:06

karol
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Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

icmp.request wrote:

Edit: One question that I forgot, is the 32-bit edition of Arch mainly i686 or is it i486?

i686.

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#12 2012-10-20 00:00:08

icmp.request
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From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Allan wrote:

2.  The developers suck.

I almost believed in you until I saw "Developer" above your name... tongue

But, seriously, my concern is that let's take Gentoo for example. It was a really good and stable rolling-release and DIY distribution. One of the best ones if you had time to wait for it to compile everything. And doing some search from current and ex-Gentoo users, what is "killing" it seems to be the Developers problems. Again, I'm not making these MY words. They were just a result of some extensive search. I have not the time or patience anymore to compile EVERYTHING from the source, but if I haven't seen TONS of data regarding Developer issues on Gentoo (of course developers cannot please all the users, but that seems to be becoming a big problem there, the percentage of users discontent with the developers higher than in other dists), I may have wished to give it a try again instead of jumping directly to Debian Testing and now considering Arch.

Last edited by icmp.request (2012-10-20 00:12:21)

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#13 2012-10-20 00:04:04

icmp.request
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

drcouzelis wrote:
icmp.request wrote:

I always thought they were maintained mainly by Mint. Are there still Arch Linux Developers on the MATE team?

I think they're mostly Arch Linux users. It seems the Mint people announced that they would release a version of their distribution with MATE and now many people think it's a Mint project. tongue

Allan wrote:

The developers suck.

Yeah. I would get offended if anyone ever thought I was an Arch Linux developer.

It's good to know. I've jumped to Cinnamon (this one seems to be a Mint project?) because some people said that MATE would not include gtk3 support and would quickly become obsolete but recently I've googled a little more and found some other people saying that it's not true.

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#14 2012-10-20 00:06:29

karol
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

I think it's best to see for yourself. Hang around for some time, see if you like it, if you think the pros outweight the cons.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever be listening to non-official sources of info about any distribution, but I don't see why a random YT video or some thread on e.g. reddit should matter much.

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#15 2012-10-20 00:40:50

Trilby
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

I'm not familiar with the Gentoo history or issues among/with developers there.  But some arch users are occasionally unhappy with development decisions.  Lately, the adoption of systemd has been the source of most of this sort of unhappiness.

This exists.  As Karol pointed out above, the devs do what they think is right.  They have no obligation to satisfy any "user base".  If Allan finally convinced us all about how much our devs sucked, we (the "users") might all quit using arch.  I'm sure the devs would just as happily go on continuing to do what they thought was right, and just as happily continue using the product of their labor as their distro of choice.

This sounds a bit harsh, but two facts should make it less harsh for arch than for many other distros:

First, this is true of ALL free OSs/distros.  Period.  If you are not purchasing or subscribing to the software, you are "at the mercy" of where the developers wish to take it.  Arch may just be honest about that fact.  This is, of course, not to say that the devs don't listen to user concerns and make available their reasoning (check out the various mailing lists, or see Allan's regular "sucky" comments on the forums, or several other devs that regularly participate in forum discussion - falconindy, tomegun, wonder, and pierre come to mind but I'm undoubtedly overlooking others).  But at the end of the day the devs will do what they think is best.

Second, given the DIY style of arch, and the powerful well documented tools that help you DIY, if you don't like a decision of the development team, you can still "roll your own" version of whatever it is you didn't like.  Sometimes this is easier said than done, but given the tools (and docs for the tools) like makepkg and the ABS I suspect most things are easier to modify in arch than in most other distros (gentoo and perhaps LFS would have the same ease).  Using the sytemd example, systemd has become the default on the new installation isos, but the initscripts package is still in the repos and still actively maintained.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#16 2012-10-20 00:56:24

fsckd
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Registered: 2009-06-15
Posts: 4,173

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Allow me to emphasize DIY. The onus will be on you to maintain your system. The devs do what the devs want to do but it is your job to manage your system how you want it. Tools are provided to help you. Bear in mind, if your wishes clash with devs' intents, you may end up recompiling things and as a source based distro, Arch sucks.


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#17 2012-10-20 01:00:42

icmp.request
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From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Trilby wrote:

I'm not familiar with the Gentoo history or issues among/with developers there.  But some arch users are occasionally unhappy with development decisions.  Lately, the adoption of systemd has been the source of most of this sort of unhappiness.

This exists.  As Karol pointed out above, the devs do what they think is right.  They have no obligation to satisfy any "user base".  If Allan finally convinced us all about how much our devs sucked, we (the "users") might all quit using arch.  I'm sure the devs would just as happily go on continuing to do what they thought was right, and just as happily continue using the product of their labor as their distro of choice.

This sounds a bit harsh, but two facts should make it less harsh for arch than for many other distros:

First, this is true of ALL free OSs/distros.  Period.  If you are not purchasing or subscribing to the software, you are "at the mercy" of where the developers wish to take it.  Arch may just be honest about that fact.  This is, of course, not to say that the devs don't listen to user concerns and make available their reasoning (check out the various mailing lists, or see Allan's regular "sucky" comments on the forums, or several other devs that regularly participate in forum discussion - falconindy, tomegun, wonder, and pierre come to mind but I'm undoubtedly overlooking others).  But at the end of the day the devs will do what they think is best.

Second, given the DIY style of arch, and the powerful well documented tools that help you DIY, if you don't like a decision of the development team, you can still "roll your own" version of whatever it is you didn't like.  Sometimes this is easier said than done, but given the tools (and docs for the tools) like makepkg and the ABS I suspect most things are easier to modify in arch than in most other distros (gentoo and perhaps LFS would have the same ease).  Using the sytemd example, systemd has become the default on the new installation isos, but the initscripts package is still in the repos and still actively maintained.

Thanks. I think from a user point of view, no Developer should be at the mercy of the users. But I believe they should be wise enough to balance their decisions with user's opinions. Of course the users can keep quitting and they doing the things the way they want, but I think it's more motivating and gives more reason to stay on the project and work actively on it if you know there's a large user base benefiting from what you do and thankful for you. There are many kinds of retributions, sometimes it's the donations but not all of them are money-related and some of them may just be to see the people happy and satisfied.

It's the balance of being pleased by pleasing users while sometimes still doing what you think it's right that would, IMHO, make a distribution successful. I've brought all these questions because I've been using Linux as my main OS for 5+ years now (windows is being used only for some games or very particular apps that wine or virtualizing would not support, and that's it. All my documents, images, etc. are purely on Linux partitions for 5+ years). So now I'm looking for a "long-term commitment" with a Linux distro that fits the philosophy of Arch/Gentoo/Slackware/Debian Testing/etc. not only just a "one night stand".

Of course as karol pointed out, some things are only found out by trying and installing. But I can't deny how helpful the replies on this thread are already... smile

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#18 2012-10-20 01:12:57

icmp.request
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

fsckd wrote:

Allow me to emphasize DIY. The onus will be on you to maintain your system. The devs do what the devs want to do but it is your job to manage your system how you want it. Tools are provided to help you. Bear in mind, if your wishes clash with devs' intents, you may end up recompiling things and as a source based distro, Arch sucks.

I see your point. But I don't have any particular exotic tastes. Most of the things that I like/dislike, many others also like/dislike. Some examples that really disappointed the overall Linux community are Gnome 3, the newest version of nautilus, etc.

The main issues will be if most of the users think something should be done one way, and developers insist on doing another way without providing alternatives. Or posting buggy packages on the stable tree without posting a patched and updated version sooner later (and as being a rolling-release distribution, Arch seems to be more subject to these kind of things. How fast are bugs detected and corrected?). But if on overall a distribution goes accordingly to your taste, users should also be able to adapt. And not only users but also other developers that don't agree with the changes.

You will never find anything 100% perfect. And it doesn't apply only for Linux Distributions but also everything else on your life. But you can find something "good enough".

Last edited by icmp.request (2012-10-20 01:13:29)

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#19 2012-10-20 01:15:55

fsckd
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Registered: 2009-06-15
Posts: 4,173

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Bugs are fixed fairly quickly. Unless they are hard to fix, in which case you can usually get some idea of how things are progressing (follow bug reports, etc.).


aur S & M :: forum rules :: Community Ethos
Resources for Women, POC, LGBT*, and allies

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#20 2012-10-20 01:44:13

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,441
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Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

While above I said that keeping around an old version of a particular package while updating everything else could cause problems, there is no problem in "rolling back" if an update leads to a problem that you expect to be resolved with future upgrades.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#21 2012-10-20 03:49:55

dolby
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From: 1992
Registered: 2006-08-08
Posts: 1,581

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Trilby wrote:

First, this is true of ALL free OSs/distros.  Period.  If you are not purchasing or subscribing to the software, you are "at the mercy" of where the developers wish to take it.

What makes you think its any different with closed source software?
In fact the situation there is much much worst cause even if you pay you dont get to have a saying on the direction either.
When it comes to software you pay in return for support from its developers.
With OSS on the other hand you can get involved and influence future development.


There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

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#22 2012-10-22 22:41:55

sitquietly
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From: On the Wolf River
Registered: 2010-07-12
Posts: 219

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

icmp.request wrote:
Allan wrote:

2.  The developers suck.

I almost believed in you until I saw "Developer" above your name... tongue

But, seriously, my concern is that let's take Gentoo for example. It was a really good and stable rolling-release and DIY distribution. One of the best ones if you had time to wait for it to compile everything. And doing some search from current and ex-Gentoo users, what is "killing" it seems to be the Developers problems. Again, I'm not making these MY words. They were just a result of some extensive search. I have not the time or patience anymore to compile EVERYTHING from the source, but if I haven't seen TONS of data regarding Developer issues on Gentoo (of course developers cannot please all the users, but that seems to be becoming a big problem there, the percentage of users discontent with the developers higher than in other dists), I may have wished to give it a try again instead of jumping directly to Debian Testing and now considering Arch.

I stopped using Archlinux recently; wiped it off the three systems where I had it installed.  After running Arch alongside Gentoo (Funtoo specifically) for several months, and reading the Arch forum and the Gentoo forum every day I found that the quality level was much higher in Gentoo and the forum was more technically oriented with less whining about stuff not working than had been, and still is, common here on the Arch forum.  I only happened upon this thread by accident doing a google search with, apparently, related keywords.  I just couldn't let your very outdated claim of problems with Gentoo go unchallenged.

e.g. The Gentoo founder did leave the project -- in 2004!!  There was foundering -- in 2005 and 2006 or so.  Developers with oppositional disorder were asked to leave -- years ago! 

BTW I don't require patience to compile everything from source big_smile  I just type a single command into a terminal once every day or two and let it update my system while I do other things.  This allows me to avoid the dependency bloat or brokeness that occurs in binary distros (even Arch). 

Even my Intel Atom 330 with 3.2 GB of memory is easier to administer with Funtoo than it was with Arch (which did require a lot of patience when updates broke things).

Calculate Linux is a wonderful option that you didn't mention.  It is the most similar to Arch, a binary distro with excellent support for working from source code.  I use Calculate Linux to bootstrap my systems up (e.g. Calculate to sda1 in 20 minutes, Funtoo or Gentoo onto sda2 over the next day or two).

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#23 2012-10-22 23:36:00

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,441
Website

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

You are correct Dolby, but I guess what I was getting at is if you paid for a product or service and were dissatisfied you might have some grounds on which to complain to the providers of the product/service.  FOSS software generally does make it much easier for a community of users to get involved and have input - but such a user does not have grounds on which to demand anything from the developers.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#24 2012-10-22 23:40:52

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,441
Website

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Sitquietly,  I often find your posts interesting and useful, but I cannot help but find some irony in the following line

sitquietly wrote:

I found that the quality level was much higher in Gentoo and the forum was more technically oriented with less whining

Much of that whining, of late, has been about the switch to systemd.

Your perspective on arch development may be useful for the OP here if you can present the facts behind your dissatisfaction or the specific changes that lead to it rather than simply the dissatisfaction itself.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#25 2012-10-22 23:49:30

icmp.request
Member
From: São Paulo - Brazil
Registered: 2012-10-19
Posts: 10

Re: Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

sitquietly,

I don't know if the Forum Moderators would like us to go off-topic and talk about other distribution on Arch Linux's Forum, so I'll try to be brief and post only once specifically about it. I understand your need to defend the "distribution of your heart" (I still didn't find my rolling-release DIY but when I find I would surely do what you did, either it being Arch or another one). I'm not stating 100% that I'm right, but I believe this topic is from 2011:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-86 … d55b1afbd5

Also, look at the link on the second post.

Apparently, it reveals a lot of frustration from the members by:
- Waiting years and still not being able to be included on the project as Developers;
- Getting lack of attention from the development team for even trying to contribute with patches, etc., without trying to become Developers.

So that's why I asked if on Arch they usually "renew" their Development Team. Apparently these "Developers with oppositional disorder" on Gentoo were not replaced.

Didn't the founder create another project?

"In early 2008, Gentoo founder Daniel Robbins proposed to resolve[3] the Gentoo Foundation problems.[4] But he had left the project in 2004, and his offer was refused.[5] The Funtoo project was born as an initiative to implement his vision, with aims to share innovations."
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funtoo_Linux )

Funtoo seems to be based on Gentoo and share the Gentoo's repos but I've got the idea of "Ubuntu" and "Mint" here. While Mint uses Ubuntu's repos, it's a completely different distribution.

I didn't mention Calculate Linux because unfortunately I have no knowledge about it.

At last, there's no "reliable" source for measuring a distribution's popularity. But on distrowatch - the closest thing we've ever got:
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

You can see how Gentoo's popularity is dropping considerably. Is it really just because of the new distributions and people began to think "compiling from the source s*cks and I don't have the patience anymore" or is there something else wrong, maybe with the development team?

I look foward for a reply from you but unfortunately I will not make a second reply as it is an Arch Linux Forum (so forum moderators: no need to worry about this going off-topic, I just needed this one post). But I would be happy to share contact information with you if you send me a Private Message for further discussion.

I think Gentoo has a great potential for being a source-based distro, but it seems to be well behind Arch on organization, development team, documentation (I'm still not an Arch user but I can already agree that Arch's wiki seems second to none) and user's contribution (users being able to contribute). As for stability that you mentioned, as I still didn't install Arch Linux (but I will surely do and try it out before any other distro), I cannot give my opinion.


Edit: Note that the topic was started by a MODERADOR with more than 2,500 posts. The main complaint from him and other people that posted was not even disagreements with the Developers, but the simple fact that they were not being able to contribute and make more part of the project.

Last edited by icmp.request (2012-10-23 00:12:57)

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