New user coming from Debian

s5s · 2013-03-07 00:48:50

First of all hello to everyone . I'm really happy to be joining the archlinux community. I've always wanted to run arch - just didn't have the time to switch. I still don't have the time but I sort of need it.

[Background story - you can skip it]
Anyway, I've run only Debian based distributions in the past. Debian was great. Then I became a bit busy to keep up to date with how to configure 1 of the 1000 things that needs extra manual attention (such as VGA drivers) so I switched to Ubuntu. I hit a period of Ubuntu's life during which it was extremely buggy and so I quickly switched back to Debian...until I really hit a point at which I had no time and really no desire to read countless posts of how to get something like the video driver working when all odds are against me. At that point I looked at Ubuntu again but didn't even download it because of Unity desktop evironment. However, I noticed Linux Mint which was perfect.

All was well with Mint. However, I'm getting busier and busier and I really don't enjoy (re)installing linux. Once it's set up I like to keep it that way with updates (Debian is great in that respect). I have several personal PCs/Laptops. So even though Linux Mint is great after a couple of years the distro you have installed is not yet supported. Repositories stop working and updates are not available. Of course even before that if you needed a newer-ish version of a program you'll have to download + compile yourself.

So I thought I'd give Arch linux a try. As I mentioned I've always wanted to run it because of the great documentation and the simplicity rule.

[Now is the main question]
Do you guys have any tips on what I should expect/not expect coming from a Debian background. I'm mainly concerned with keeping the system up to date and running (i.e. not being broken). I'm accustomed to Debian's aptitude (or apt-get) but I'm fairly unfamiliar with pacman. I will be reading the manual of course but with my current queue of documents to read by the time I finish it I might have done something stupid.

Inxsible · 2013-03-07 00:52:45

s5s wrote:

.....system up to date and running (i.e. not being broken)

Can't compute ! Those two statements are opposites in a way.

if you want not being broken, you are running the wrong distro. Arch users should expect breakage from time to time. Devs do a commendable job of us not having to do it very often, but it does happen from time to time.

s5s wrote:

I might have done something stupid.

That's the story of most everyone here. But you keep doing the stupid things over and over, and you will have learnt much more about Arch Linux and its inner workings.

Trilby · 2013-03-07 01:08:27

s5s wrote:

I will be reading the manual of course ...

Good. But then what are you looking for here? You will do something stupid - but don't worry, you wont realize that you have until you finish your reading. Then you can look back and think "boy, I was stupid last week."

The only advice I have is that every problem has a solution, and (nearly) every stupid thing can be fixed, as long as you want to keep learning. Occasionally users here decide that wiping their drive and reinstalling from scratch would be the only viable solution. A vast majority of the time this is because they are idiots. Worse yet, though, is that they will remain idiots as they've decided before hand that they are either unable or unwilling to learn anything new.

So by all means, do something stupid - just learn from it.

cfr · 2013-03-07 01:11:03

If you do not have time to read the wiki and manual, you will experience a great deal more breakage - and waste a lot more time - than you need to.

That said, if you did not have time to keep Debian up to date, why on Jupiter did you choose Arch?

I do not mean to be unwelcoming. Of course, you are most welcome, if you really want to use Arch. But do you? It does not strike me as a good fit given your description at all. Debian or Fedora or some other distro will need much less frequent updating, much less manual intervention and involve much less breakage. If you do not have time to maintain your system, it will break more frequently and more seriously. Minimal (not non-existent) breakage is achieved by frequent updating, attention to details, reading the news, following instructions in pacman's output, merging configuration changes, and consulting the wiki, reading the manual and searching the forums and web. If that sounds like too much work for the time you have, Arch is simply not a good choice and anybody who tells you otherwise is either lying or gravely mistaken.

Last edited by cfr (2013-03-07 01:11:58)

s5s · 2013-03-07 01:45:24

So what you're telling me is don't update? Are there certain points at which updating is safe and certain known points at which updating isn't? Mailing lists? Feeds for these?

Inxsible · 2013-03-07 01:58:55

Main page and mailing list, yes. Absolute must before you update. Unless you want breakage of course.

Nonetheless, as I said before, you should expect breakage.

bgc1954 · 2013-03-07 02:03:07

If you are so concerned about breakage, then like others, I might suggest that Arch may not be for you. If you liked Debian and Mint then have you tried Mint Debian Edition--I quite like Mint Debian myself. I've run many Debian versions over the years and I must say that they are quite stable and you don't have to keep burning new iso's to update, unlike Ubuntu versions. Having said that, if you do want to expend a certain amount of effort and regularly update, Arch could be for you. It's not like it's going to cost you anything. Try it for awhile and if it's too much effort for you, then move on.

frank604 · 2013-03-07 02:32:58

Welcome to Archlinux. If you are coming from debian/ubuntu/linuxmint, then expect a bunch of reading to setup Arch. Once you have all the basic needs setup (booting with DE/WM of your choice and all necessary peripherals working) then it is a matter of customization for ease of use and esthetics. Getting to this basic stage is quite easy if you follow the wiki.

Although Arch users won't hold your hands, I have found the vast knowledge in the archwiki and forums to be more than adequate to resolve issues. If you do require assistance, please post all logs/error msgs/confs related to your issue, what you tried, what you are expecting to happen, etc. Also, get familiar with searching on the forums, in other forums, on google, etc. Often times, problems that you may face are already answered and require no further help from others.

Once you get your feet wet a bit, look around. There is an amazing amount of community contributions for tools, hacks, configurations, etc to take Arch one step further. Also take a look at AUR and get familiar with either installing manually or with a frontend.

Do not do blind updates or forced updates. If anything conflicts, do a little research before you replace packages. If you are attentive to the Archlinux ecosystem, it will be very fruitful. If you don't have time to fix breakages, do not upgrade until you do have some time. It won't kill you to wait a few days.

Above all, do not get frustrated. Have patience and you will find why so many of us like using Arch.

Tip: During my first few months of getting Arch going, I'd follow the wiki and get a vanilla kde/gnome/openbox/whatever going. I'd write a list of things I want/need to get done to make it 'home'. I'd tackle one of these on the weekend and most times I fail. I end up breaking stuff but while doing so I learned more about how it all works or more specifically how it doesn't work, lol. But after a few attempts, I get it working and cross it off the list and keep going.

As others have mentioned, give it a shot. If it ain't your flavor, move along in hopes of something that suits you better. Just come to Arch when you have the willingness to learn, patience, and reading comprehension with some google-fu on the side.

drcouzelis · 2013-03-07 02:38:43

Inxsible wrote:

s5s wrote:
.....system up to date and running (i.e. not being broken)
if you want not being broken, you are running the wrong distro.

Holy moley I can't believe the negativity in this thread!

@s5s
In my opinion, Arch Linux is one of the most, if not the most, stable Linux distributions available. Every day I receive a few minor updated packages, which don't cause any problems. About once every, say, six months, the Arch Linux developers will introduce a major change. It's discussed on the mailing lists, it's announced on the main page, and it's talked about on the forums. I then need to spend, at most, maybe an hour on it, and I'm done. You know what else happens every six months? There's a new release of Ubuntu. I consider updating / fixing Arch Linux to be easier and take less time than upgrading / reinstalling a new Ubuntu release. Sure, I don't have to upgrade Ubuntu (in my example), but then my software packages are quickly out of date.

Every operating system, including Windows and Mac OS X, breaks some times. Arch Linux provides me the knowledge and the resources to easily take care of it myself.

frank604 · 2013-03-07 03:04:14

drcouzelis wrote:

Holy moley I can't believe the negativity in this thread!

I hope my response wasn't negative. Arch has proven to be very stable for me and for others.

@OP, spend some time on the forums, especially the Newbie Corner. You will learn what you must seek out to triage an issue. What logs are required for X type of problem. What the common problems are for other people (you may end up having the same). You will start to get some brainstorming ideas for certain problems.

s5s · 2013-03-07 03:05:25

Thanks for the advice frank604, drcouzelis. So do you recommend updating every day? Or once a week? Do you look at anything (mailing list, forum page) before updating?

Apart from getting my video card drivers working I had no trouble installing really. The only annoyance was that the cool shell from the liveCD was not available on the new system. I copied the .zsh* configs and the .autorun script but behaviour is still plain so I'll have to spend time to get this workign *argh*.

ngoonee · 2013-03-07 03:09:55

I'd advise not using Arch if Debian breaks too much for you.

If you still want to use Arch, update daily, weekly at worst. Subscribe to arch-dev-public for heads-up on interesting breakage coming down (its recommended for [testing] users, but what's in [testing] eventually hits [core] and [extra] anyway, so you'll get fore-warnings.

Even doing all that, I'd say you have a good chance of breaking something every couple of months. Plan for that. I haven't broken my system in years running [testing], but there's a lot of effort required (reading and thinking) to do that.

frank604 · 2013-03-07 03:15:28

I update daily on all three of my arch. What I do though is look at what packages are being updated. If they are minor stuff (stuff that isn't needed to boot and X) then I fire away. But if it is anything that might prevent me from booting, then I wait a day while I monitor the forum/front page etc. Most times, I just spend 1 minute to scroll through the forums about update breakages and most of the time it doesn't concern me. I haven't had an update break my system so far *crosses finger*. Even if it breaks, you can try downgrading the package after the update, wait for a fix, or if someone posts a fix method.

In regards to the 'cool shell' I'm guessing the PS1? https://bbs.archlinux.org/search.php?se … =192147800 click on show your PS1. Look at the other links in there, like color scheme. Once you get it setup, everything will look amazing.

Look on the forum, community contribution thread and try this thread and the Artwork and Screenshots thread. Once you find which DE/WM you want to roll with, look for threads on "show your openbox screenshot" and people will show you what their setup looks like and how they made it.

drcouzelis · 2013-03-07 03:58:22

s5s wrote:

So do you recommend updating every day? Or once a week? Do you look at anything (mailing list, forum page) before updating?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pa … g_packages
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/En … _Stability
Some nice people already answered all of your questions.

dag · 2013-03-07 04:22:32

arch can be anything you want it to be if you get it exactly where you want it done no more installing just keep up on security holes yes that intails reading/observing or not, depending on if you care. If you want the latest and best; update regulary and remember your pacman keeps its own bak pkg's. arch at its hart is a base system you are the maintainer of the rest(unlike ubuntu-unity kubuntu-kde) and the community is here to help with things like this forum and the wiki as well as the whole internet or even man pages if you have problems without net access at hand.

swordfish · 2013-03-07 09:50:17

Using Arch is a little bit like using Debian testing (or even Sid). But it's fun, you're learning a lot and - concerning Arch is bleeding edge - the OS is nevertheless pretty stable.

I have ben using Debian for almost ten years (and I still like it today), but Arch gives me that little bit more of a kick that I was missing in Debian (for the last years).

So, my advice would be something like this: Just use Arch, read the wiki (this is very important), break things and learn from it. If you then still don't like it, just switch back to Debian. This is not about swearing an oath to a sect or so

jv2112 · 2013-03-07 10:26:59

I came from Debian-Testing about 1,5 years ago and no regrets. I find ARch to be more logical a set up and quite stable once you get the configuration down except for the ocassional troubleshooting ( which makes it fun )

Awebb · 2013-03-07 10:52:10

You don't have the fancy dpkg-reconfigure space-time kind of features and you don't have set-default-fluxcapacitor, no /usr/bin/x-www-browser types of symlink-based shortcuts to alter default software in Arch. You will notice an occasional confusion with mime-types in non-free {browsers,software}, as you have the coice between xdg, exo and smart scripts like mimeo. That is, if you do not use a major desktop environment.

It should also be mentioned, that Arch now uses systemd, while Debian still uses sysvinit (or at least I think so). Daemons are handled a little differently in systemd (did I say little?). Make sure to absorb the systemd wiki article here on the Arch wiki.

You should, finally, make sure to at least read the news page on the main site once in a while. Abo the RSS feed, maybe. Or abo planet.archlinux.org, if you care for a little competent white noise. If you do not want to check the news regularly, at least check the news every time an update produces unexpected behavior (error messages from pacman, "A replaces B, y/N?"). So, in clear words, make it a habit to check the news, if an update behaves weirdly.

Speaking of updates, while apt+dpkg can be very forgiving when it comes to partial updates, avoid that in Arch. Always make sure you are sync with the remote repos and have your local packages updated, before installing something dependency heavy. Not doing so is not automatically a death sentence, but there are some nasty cases, when a not fully synced update goes bad. This is the small price you have to pay for the rolling release freshness.

And… backups.

stryder · 2013-03-07 15:48:23

Generally I'd say that you come to arch because you want up to date programs. For that you are willing to spend time for the occasions when some adjustments are necessary. I don't think anyone will tell you to use arch to save time on maintaining the system. Philosophically it is aimed at the "hands on" user. Look at the forum. It is full of very up to date problems encountered when the system was updated. Most of these problems are specific to the system that broke while some are more widespread. Generally there are solutions or workarounds but it still means time and effort.

hadrons123 · 2013-03-07 18:27:09

I use arch, Debian, Fedora in my 3 systems. Arch updates arrives the fastest and if it breaks it gets fixed the fastest and as soon as the upstream rolls the package its almost here in Arch repos. Initial kernel release versions have been generally slower to release in arch recently.
On the contrary, Debian breaks the least but it takes a longer time to get it fixed in the official repos, even though a lot of package managers in Debian are the upstream devs for the packages. One good thing about Arch is that there not much arch-centeric package-customizations or settings compared to Debian. Debian does a lot of smoothening and polishing compared to arch. So sometimes you will have to do the smoothening for yourselves in Arch. Is it worth it? yeah sometimes, but sometimes not.

But once you learn to troubleshoot it gets more easier with both the distros.

Sorry to tell you this, I kind of feel fedora has the balance between these two extremes distros.

Last edited by hadrons123 (2013-03-07 18:28:02)

adduu · 2013-03-07 18:57:38

Welcome to Arch Linux.

Trust me since I installed Arch in 2011. There has been ONLY one break down. Since then, its been running trouble free. I'd advice you go for it. Its really fun. When I say this I'm not kidding. I'm from Mechanical Engineering field. Still running Arch. I think you'll have a fair idea of what I'm trying to say.

About updating I update it daily, weekly, monthly. Depends on my mood really. When pacman (package manager of archlinux) shows me something unusual I visit homepage look for guidelines. And DONE!

DSpider · 2013-03-07 21:00:03

I have installed Arch Linux (i686) in 2009, on a different computer. Now I'm rocking the exact same install on a 64 bit CPU, different motherboard, different onboard sound/video, etc. I have broken it quite a few times, and every time it was my own fault. One time I had to roll back to a full backup (see this article), because I forced the glibc migration with 'pacman -Syuf', and another time when I was trying to improve the wiki. It left me with an unbootable computer for about a day or so. You can read about it here. Fun times. Arch also cost me money, because I couldn't transfer something to a client's USB device, since all USB ports stopped working after an update (I didn't know you need to reboot after updating the kernel, but I think that this applies to all Linux distributions, not just Arch - unless you use "Ksplice" or whatever it's called).

Even so, I still love Arch. I'm never reinstalling this bitch! This is how my desktop looks, and how my bookmarks bar starts in Firefox:

As you can see, as long as you have a genuine interest in maintaining and keeping your system up to date, you should be fine. But keep a full backup anyway, in case shit ever hits the fan.

DSpider · 2013-03-07 21:07:03

s5s wrote:

I'm accustomed to Debian's aptitude (or apt-get) but I'm fairly unfamiliar with pacman.

This article may help:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Rosetta

elkoraco · 2013-03-07 22:15:42

s5s wrote:

Thanks for the advice frank604, drcouzelis. So do you recommend updating every day? Or once a week? Do you look at anything (mailing list, forum page) before updating?

Update at least once a week. If you see that a bunch of packages will be upgraded, especially if it's the major ones (systemd, libc and stuff), go check on the distro main page. If you get the option to do partial upgrades, don't do them, check the forums and news.

Other than that, there's little to worry about. Arch is packaged with very little patching for one processor instruction set. Debian is packaged for a dozen, so it needs time to patch all the upstream packages accordingly. This leads to internat bugs, which must be squashed, hence the whole lateness thing. Arch isn't bleeding edge as in getting semi-functional beta software. It simply has the latest packages released as stable by their upstream authors. Since not a whole lot of patches are applied, you get stuff faster than in Debian.

The internal system configuration is pretty much the same. You edit your fstab, you use a package manager, you run Gnome, KDE or a smaller WM, and so on. I've also switched from Debian last month, and I can honestly say this is much less hassle than Sid or Testing.

harroxelas · 2013-03-07 23:36:06

s5s,

I left Debian for Arch for around 1.5 years and never looked back. Debian is more "low maintenance" than Arch but Arch is much more fun and makes you responsible for managing your OS, it makes you learn your way around your OS (which is a great thing in MY book). I identify myself with Arch's philosophy, I really think it's the right way to develop an OS. How many times I cursed and still curse MS Windows (I have to use it at work) when it does things I didn't tell it to do, it thinks it's smarter than me, ffs! Arch gives YOU control over your OS.

I have a desktop and a laptop, both running Arch, and I've only had minor breakages, like some specific program displaying a weird behaviour, nothing that I could not fix with a search on google or on the forums.

I read some replies to this thread. It appears some people think you should use it, some think you shouldn't. To me, regardless of how much work you might think maintaining an Arch install takes, it all boils down to one single fact: do you identify yourself with Arch's philosophy? If yes, you should start using Arch, but start small, maybe installing it on another drive of your computer, keeping your Debian installation. If not, than stick to Debian (or anything you identify yourself with).

As for tips, since people already posted a lot of stuff, I'm gonna be brief and just state what I find to be the most important:

0) Don't be afraid to learn new things, Arch does some stuff differently than most other distros, but you'll soon find yourself wondering why the other distros don't do things like Arch does.
1) Pacman is very easy to get used to. Just read the pacman wiki entry and use it a few times.
2) Be diligent and keep your install clean. Someone posted the "How to improve Arch Linux Stability" (or something like that) wiki entry, read that.
3) Update regularly, like once a week or once every two weeks, and before updating check the front page and the forums.
4) You shouldn't EXPECT things to break after an upgrade (like I said, I've only had minor ones) but be PREPARED in case something goes wrong. I'm not contradicting myself here, what I'm trying to say is that Arch breaking is not normal, but it can happen.
5) Consequence of number 4: always update when you have some free time, just in case.

There's one bad thing about using Arch: you may find yourself regretting the time you spent NOT using it!

Cheers mate!

Arch Linux

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New user coming from Debian

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