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#326 2013-05-31 14:13:05

aexoxea
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2012-11-17
Posts: 70
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Why I use ArchLinux is tied to why I use a Linux distribution in the first place.

Starting in 2001/2002, I would try a Linux distribution of one kind or another once every 18 months or so. For a long time the story was the same: I could (probably) get it installed OK, but would quickly retreat back to my comfort zone (Mac OS, and later Mac OS X) in the face of difficulties with hardware, packaging issues, and what I perceived to be a lack of elegant and fully-functional GUI applications (nothing against straight CLI and curses-based tools, but I don't really want to use them for everything) with decent environmental integration.

As I got used to Mac OS X, my interest in Linux distributions waned, especially during what I recall as the 'golden era' of 10.4 through 10.6. But since that time, although Mac OS X remains quite nice, the increasing integration of iOS technologies and concepts renewed my Linux distribution interest; regardless of form factor, I want the focus to be on my computers as 'my tools' rather than on me as 'their user', a focus on the latter producing an increasingly uncomfortable 'constricted' feeling.

So, with the aid of VM software this time, I delved back in... and tried out Gentoo. Needless to say, with a lack of experience that didn't go very well, but I did learn a considerable amount from my short time using it. I then found my way to KUbuntu, and believe it or not, learned a considerable amount from that too. I used it on-and-off for awhile, until the 'constricted' feeling began to return.

Poking around on Distrowatch, I discovered Arch... and have had a home here ever since ('ever since' being the past ~ 2 years). For me, it was (and is) in the sweet spot between Gentoo's flexibility (minus all the compiling!), Mac OS X's elegance (as an environment), and KUbuntu's simplicity. Mac OS X remained my workhorse until very recently, but with v4.9, KDE finally reached a point where I could use it on a regular basis for most of my tasks.

I picked up my first-ever non-Mac computer at the end of last year for the express purpose of running Arch. I had a lot of difficulty getting Arch installed and running on real hardware, but perseverance won out, and it has been increasingly serving as my workhorse since. With Kernel 3.9, KDE 4.10 and learnings over the past six months, I now have a smooth and (nearly) issue-free system (applying the standard of what would historically be considered 'issue-free' outside of the Linux distribution universe), a decent selection of fully-functional GUI applications with increasing levels of elegance, good package management (thankyou Pacman team and package maintainers!), and decent integration due to a judicious selection of mostly KDE/Qt applications and the efforts of FreeDesktop/XDG (thank you too!).

It's not perfect by any means, and there are a number of things I think KDE and Linux distributions generally could learn from Mac OS X... but I don't feel 'constricted' using it, and for now, that makes all the difference.

Last edited by aexoxea (2013-05-31 17:00:54)

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#327 2013-05-31 14:24:42

Pacopag
Member
Registered: 2011-05-29
Posts: 287

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I like your story aexoxea.  Arch really is that perfect middle ground between Gentoo and *buntu-like distros.  First non-Mac computer?  I'll bet you enjoyed getting the specs you wanted for half the price (hehe).  I'm sometimes forced to use Mac at work, and I often want to pitch it out the window.  Luckily I don't have a window in my office.  I'm sure my frustration is due to my lack of experience with Mac OSX.  A friend/apple employee tries telling me that my aversion is misplaced because once you fire up a terminal in OSX, you're basically using linux.  Wrong!  I find that half the useful commands are missing, and it's usually a day's work if you want to add them.  Again, due to my lack of experience...I don't mean to harp on Macs.

I'm curious to know some of the things you think linux could learn from Mac OSX.  I know lots of people that love their Mac more than their kids, and I've always wondered why.  I think that maybe you are someone who can express the reasons in a language that makes sense.

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#328 2013-05-31 16:27:42

hobarrera
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From: The Netherlands
Registered: 2011-04-12
Posts: 355
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Pacopag wrote:

I like your story aexoxea.  Arch really is that perfect middle ground between Gentoo and *buntu-like distros.  First non-Mac computer?  I'll bet you enjoyed getting the specs you wanted for half the price (hehe).  I'm sometimes forced to use Mac at work, and I often want to pitch it out the window.  Luckily I don't have a window in my office.  I'm sure my frustration is due to my lack of experience with Mac OSX.  A friend/apple employee tries telling me that my aversion is misplaced because once you fire up a terminal in OSX, you're basically using linux.  Wrong!  I find that half the useful commands are missing, and it's usually a day's work if you want to add them.  Again, due to my lack of experience...I don't mean to harp on Macs.

Whenever someone reminds me that mac has bash as well, I remind them that linux has Xorg.
The problem about OSX is really on the desktop side, not the cli side. For example, a great deal of hotkeys are non-configurable (minimize, maximize), font size can't be globally changed either, mouse acceleration can't be changed, and a lot of buttons/menus are way too small for people with bad sight/mobility (and can't be adjusted at all).
On top of that, the desktop is way too mouse-oriented, and the hotkeys are totally impredictable if you're use to linux/xorg.

Pacopag wrote:

I'm curious to know some of the things you think linux could learn from Mac OSX.  I know lots of people that love their Mac more than their kids, and I've always wondered why.  I think that maybe you are someone who can express the reasons in a language that makes sense.

I'd like to hear those thing too. aexoxea sound like a reasonable person who can illustrate what we can learn and give us a hand improving those things. smile

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#329 2013-06-01 18:09:10

aexoxea
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2012-11-17
Posts: 70
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Pacopag wrote:

I like your story aexoxea.

[1280527]

Thank you smile. I wasn't sure if posting something long here would be appreciated or not (most of the other replies are very short).

Pacopag wrote:

First non-Mac computer?  I'll bet you enjoyed getting the specs you wanted for half the price (hehe).

[1280527]

Sort of. There are some things that I miss (for example, the Mac OS X unit has a backlit keyboard that is based on ambient light sensing, whereas this unit operates on a time-out only; the Mac OS X unit also has a much nicer display); if I were to get a truly equivalent unit in terms of 'seasonally-adjusted' hardware capabilities with all of the niceties, it wouldn't at retail end up costing me much less (and could even cost more). As it was I got a unit that wasn't as high-end, since I wasn't sure if I would necessarily stick with it (and so didn't want to sink too much in initially), but given the Mac OS X unit isn't new, they're actually about equivalent in 'hardware generation' and specs terms.

That said, it was nice to have a broader range of hardware choices, especially since Apple no longer offers the 17" MBP and is moving away from built-in optical drives. Getting a lot more 'bang for my buck' in terms of memory didn't hurt either wink.

Pacopag wrote:

I'm sometimes forced to use Mac at work, and I often want to pitch it out the window.  Luckily I don't have a window in my office.  I'm sure my frustration is due to my lack of experience with Mac OS X.

[1280527]

It might, in part, be a matter of background; for me, I've spent more time working with Mac OS and Mac OS X than with any other OS (thusfar), and so the Mac 'view' of the world is, in some ways, my 'default'. Interestingly, that view, even from a Mac OS background, mixed well with a UNIX-like 'view' of the world, but not with the 'view' from Windows; as a result, I always had a basic level of 'comfort' in UNIX-like systems (even if I ultimately couldn't make use of them, per the original story), but haven't really been 'comfortable' in Windows (though I use it regularly too), and have wanted to give Windows-bearing boxes the heave on occasion too wink.

Pacopag wrote:

A friend/apple employee tries telling me that my aversion is misplaced because once you fire up a terminal in OS X, you're basically using linux.  Wrong!  I find that half the useful commands are missing, and it's usually a day's work if you want to add them.

[1280527]

Totally agree. In an earlier era I tried to make use of Fink several times; the CLI-based packages worked well enough, but the GUI packages -- which I was mainly interested in -- were never really very happy, even with XQuartz. I concluded that running them in an environment they were designed for was the way to go; one of the reasons I went for VMs when my interest in Linux was rekindled.

Getting things like development packages for interpreted languages is piecemeal; most of them are available packaged for installation using Installer.app and will install as a SystemFramework, and they work well enough (both from CLI and from the provided GUI, if any), but that then presents all the same system management and upgrade issues that full system package management solves on Linux distributions. Mac OS X does of course now have the App Store, but that has a somewhat different focus, and in any case not every kind of application is permitted on there.

The alternative is projects like Fink and MacPorts; my recollection is that they lacked the kind of selection the Arch repos have and the calibre of tools such as pacman, though I must confess that I have not tried them in some time, so my knowledge of these things could be outdated (and certainly, I have nothing but gratitude and support for those working on those projects).

Pacopag wrote:

I'm curious to know some of the things you think linux could learn from Mac OS X.  I know lots of people that love their Mac more than their kids, and I've always wondered why.  I think that maybe you are someone who can express the reasons in a language that makes sense.

[1280527]

I'll do my best wink.

The 'love' aspect for Macintoshes is somewhat subjective, as there are multiple reasons. For me, it was the ecosystem I 'grew up' with, and in many ways I view computing generally through that 'prism'. For others, it's the fact that it's not running Windows, or that it's different to whatever else they use and have, or a sine qua non not found elsewhere before or since. Some do the same trick as with Windows-bearing computers; buy it for the hardware and then install another OS onto it, so it's not a full-on Macintosh per se.

In short, there are many 'computer enthusiast' reasons, and they're not significantly different from the reasons for any other platform (just ask any BeOS or Amiga devotee). Realistically, anyone putting computer love ahead of familial love probably falls into the 'computer enthusiast' category in some fashion wink.

As for non-enthusiasts, well...

I've seen several reports/analyses over the years (even in pre-iOS smart-iDevice times) that describe Apple's market strategy as more akin to that of an electronics company. The modern PC is built on the premise of extensibility; hardware can be expanded, firmware can be upgraded, software can be added, removed and replaced. However, many electronics are the opposite; all of the components -- hardware, firmware and software -- come together to make a discrete unit, you use it like an 'appliance', and when it breaks or ceases to be useful years into the future, you just replace the entire thing. (Obviously, there are moves afoot to change that in some areas, but let's stick with the comparison for a moment...)

In that interpretation, the way a Macintosh is marketed makes more sense: a given device can be marketed for years in the same exact configuration as the first day it shipped, and some Macintosh models (hardware-wise) have lasted that long without being updated. Apple touts the benefits of vertical integration (of which, to be fair, there are a number), and as you will note, most of their lines don't have much by way of internal hardware expandability now. The move to iOS-based devices is a natural fit from this viewpoint, and the inherent extensibility of the platform still allows Apple and third parties to value-add through firmware and software updates (for which they now also control the main channel, courtesy of their App Stores).

An appliance sits in its designated spot until you want to use it; turn it on, set the washing program/cooking time/driving mode, wash/cook/drive somewhere, turn it off. The appliance itself is predictable, almost boringly so; knowing what detergent to use, or how long to cook a particular dish at what temperature, or where something is by road (and the nearest refuelling stations) are more relevant and pressing concerns. I see Apple's mission, in effect, as offering something which -- as much as possible -- offers that boring predictability, while still giving you most of the range of possibilities that a 'real' PC can provide (and doing so in a stylish, aesthetically-pleasing way).

Yes, those goals are incompatible in a number of ways... unless you sacrifice flexibility; in many respects, Apple doesn't actually do this, they just seem to (although actually using the 'hidden' flexibility can have mixed results). The upshot is a fair degree of consistency in their parts of the environment (and a strong expectation that third parties will follow suit for non-specialist applications), even when this doesn't necessarily make sense. But that consistency makes the appliance.

If you are licensed and trained, you can get into any car and drive it with minimal adaptation required, and trade-up to new cars with confidence; the flexibility is limited, but did that matter more to you? Sure, it'd be great to have KITT... but do you have the technician and company backing that came with it in the television series, and if not, the time, patience, aptitude, funds and enthusiasm to do it all yourself? You did for your computer (since you're here smile), as did I, but maybe you didn't for your car (I certainly didn't); you decided to take what you saw as the best option on the market, and trust that the people who made it got it right. Others took that approach to their computing, decided Apple made/make the best decisions, and now swear by it.

(Whether or not they continue to swear by it may be as much about what Microsoft, Google and others do, who are hot on Apple's trail, especially in the smartphone and tablet spaces. But Apple managed to set themselves apart, and have benefited greatly from it.)

In terms of what Linux distributions can learn, well... if it's running KDE 4.9 or later as its DE, only little things wink. But seriously, the fact of what KDE offers made my transition possible. Spotlight is a good example; I wouldn't want to be without that kind of facility again, and I'm not, thanks to Akonadi/Nepomuk (which have been much-maligned in the past, and to be fair have come along a rocky path). KDE actually improves on Mac OS X by also featuring a more traditional find option in the GUI, which can still work even if Akonadi/Nepomuk isn't present; from my understanding, the only way to do that on recent Mac OS X is using 'find' under a Terminal, which has been irritating on a few occasions. No doubt there are other solutions similar to Akonadi/Nepomuk, but they also integrate well with KDE, which is a plus.

The irony here is that, while I noted originally I didn't want to use the CLI for everything, the Linux CLI environment seems to me to be quite robust; clean, efficient, effective, sane defaults in recent times, well-integrated if you choose the right tools, and even 'polished' at times. It offers a fair degree of consistency without sacrificing flexibility, the approach I decided I wanted to follow (along with the strong community aspects in some areas). In essence, I'd like to see the same in the Linux GUI environment; it still has some ways to go (for my money), but it's moving in the right direction (or at least, I feel KDE is).

Meanwhile, as an example of the 'little things': Under Mac OS X, most windows that display a document can be [Command]-clicked on the name of the document in the title bar to reveal a pop-up menu, showing the location of the corresponding file (if saved) on a mounted mass storage volume. If you select one of the entries from the menu, it opens that location in Finder.app, with the next level down selected. Also, those same windows have the icon of the file appearing next to the name in the title bar, and in addition to reflecting how the file appears in an icon view, can also be used for some limited drag-and-drop operations (not as extensive as in RiscOS, but it certainly has shades of that). Little things that can save a lot of time.

Last edited by aexoxea (2013-06-02 02:12:48)

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#330 2013-06-03 09:22:31

nofatigue
Member
Registered: 2013-05-08
Posts: 3

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Better documentation.

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#331 2013-06-03 13:44:30

r0b0t
Member
From: /tmp
Registered: 2009-05-24
Posts: 505

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Minimalistic,
simple,
not time consuming (once you get what you want),
pacman + packages,
wiki+community,
THE WAY IT FORCE YOU TO GET A CUSTOM SYSTEM,
because it's a mix between a *REAL* Linux box and also a "be reasonable for the common folk" system

Last edited by r0b0t (2013-06-03 13:46:25)

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#332 2013-06-05 06:37:44

b1tH1de0
Member
Registered: 2013-06-05
Posts: 17

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Simplicity, complexity, configurability, lightweight, fun.. but most of all because I don't have time to configure and maintain a Gentoo system (as harsh as it may sound..I don't think I'm alone in this;P)

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#333 2013-06-05 07:08:20

zezhyrule3
Member
Registered: 2013-03-08
Posts: 65

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Its simplicity, its wiki, and its package manager.


- dots -

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#334 2013-06-05 19:53:02

Labello
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2010-01-21
Posts: 317
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

zezhyrule3 wrote:

Its simplicity, its wiki, and its package manager.

Damn right! Same for me. I would just like to add the installation routine.


"They say just hold onto your hope but you know if you swallow your pride you will choke"
Alexisonfire - Midnight Regulations

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#335 2013-06-05 20:34:36

arch_gala
Member
Registered: 2011-03-23
Posts: 25

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

This why I've chose Arch:

1) Install once, upgrade forever - other distributions make you install the whole system from scratch every few years;

2) smallest footprint and highly customizable - I run a server so I don't need bloatware like gnome or X.

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#336 2013-06-06 09:41:37

klothius
Member
From: Beograd, Serbia
Registered: 2013-06-05
Posts: 18

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Started off with suse linux 9.3...it was a pain to install with 8 cds, but nevertheless I liked it. I hanged on to it for 2, maybe 3 months dual booting with windows until I was sick of constantly booting back and forth.

After that, I always had a desire to switch over to linux, but every time there was some either compatibility issue or a missing program/feature that I needed. Every year I tried different distributions just for fun with constantly downloading latest ubuntu to try out.

3 years ago I started meddling with android roms and well, windows didn't really cut it for me so I installed ubuntu and, again, dual booted with windows. Then the first distro update hit...it broke down my system, but I didn't really mind as I thought it was probably something I did as it was my first distro upgrade. So I installed it again....after 6 months - hello distro upgrade - it broke down again. I was pretty pissed off. I wanted to change the distribution to something else and I remembered that I liked what I saw in suse linux - namely KDE. As I was used to *buntu way of things I thought that maybe Kubuntu would be different in regards of stability. I was right. It survived a full year.

As I am somewhat of an audiophile, I was trying to find ways to improve the sound quality and everywhere I looked people said oss is the sound system to have. I tried to install oss on kubuntu, but it failed drastically in so many ways for so many times.

Almost every time I searched about something related to oss or anything linux related for that matter, I found out google was pointing me to something called archwiki and arch forums. I hesitated at first as I read that you had to install the whole system from scratch and pure terminal and no matter how much I learned in those 2 years with linux, I did not feel I had the knowledge to do it. But as I'm shitty with staying with something that doesn't please me, I reformatted the partitions, slapped on an archlinux install and I can honestly say, I never looked back. I satisfied my 'need newest updates' desire, fell in love with pacman, AUR, archwiki and most importantly - ossv4 big_smile I'm still dualbooting with windows, but that's only for when a program I need doesn't work well in virtualbox.

Last edited by klothius (2013-06-06 09:49:06)

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#337 2013-06-06 17:20:33

geno.nullfree
Member
From: en_US
Registered: 2013-05-29
Posts: 18

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Pacman and customizability for me.
I do really appreciate how much I have learned about linux in general since I made the switch to Arch a few years ago. Also, yes as mentioned earlier, the documentation is fantastic. Kudos to everyone who helps with that!

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#338 2013-06-26 23:16:42

LowEndGeek
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From: Redlands, CA
Registered: 2013-06-23
Posts: 9
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I chose arch for two main reasons (in no particular order)

1. I love the almost infinate options it offers, having exactly what I want and not what I don't want.

2. Using a distro such as arch forces me to learn more about the operating system.  If something breaks I learn how to fix it.  If I manage to fix something I have knowledge to share.  So that over time the need to look up fixes, post in forums and whatnot are reduced to a bare minimum.  I learned more in the first two weeks of using arch for the first time (about two years ago) then I did in almost four years using ubuntu.

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#339 2013-06-27 03:16:50

lspci
Member
From: Virginia, USA
Registered: 2012-06-09
Posts: 242

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

LowEndGeek wrote:

I chose arch for two main reasons (in no particular order)

1. I love the almost infinate options it offers, having exactly what I want and not what I don't want.

2. Using a distro such as arch forces me to learn more about the operating system.  If something breaks I learn how to fix it.  If I manage to fix something I have knowledge to share.  So that over time the need to look up fixes, post in forums and whatnot are reduced to a bare minimum.  I learned more in the first two weeks of using arch for the first time (about two years ago) then I did in almost four years using ubuntu.

Couldn't have said it better myself.  cool


Please don't be a help vampire. | Bitbucket

Give a little more for a little less today.  smile

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#340 2013-06-28 12:30:17

fledermann
Member
From: Bielefeld, Germany
Registered: 2013-06-24
Posts: 49

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I've been using Linux, in this case Ubuntu, since 2005. But somewhere between 2010 and 2011 I started to dislike Ubuntu and it's shiny-but-impractical approach on user interface design.
That's when I started using debian, in some ways the father of Ubuntu. But debian is kind of bloated, slow and outdated. I was doing "minimal" installations by then because I didn't want or need gnome2, so I installed X and fluxbox.
When Unity and gnome3 were introduced, I decided to leave those distributions. In my opinion, Unity and gnome3 are ridicoulus, slow and generally painful.
Last month, when buying grocieries, I noticed arch on the cover of a linux magazine. That's when I decided to give arch a chance, and so far it worked out perfectly.
Small, well documented, modular, huge software repositories and up-to-date but still mantainable. Looks like this is going to work out (well, at least until Arch comes pre-packaged with gnome4).

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#341 2013-06-28 15:57:37

x33a
Forum Fellow
Registered: 2009-08-15
Posts: 4,587

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

fledermann wrote:

Last month, when buying grocieries, I noticed arch on the cover of a linux magazine. That's when I decided to give arch a chance, and so far it worked out perfectly.

That's the best reason to choose arch that I have read!

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#342 2013-06-28 16:38:26

hobarrera
Member
From: The Netherlands
Registered: 2011-04-12
Posts: 355
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

x33a wrote:
fledermann wrote:

Last month, when buying grocieries, I noticed arch on the cover of a linux magazine. That's when I decided to give arch a chance, and so far it worked out perfectly.

That's the best reason to choose arch that I have read!

This should go in a "what our users are saying about us" section on the splash page!!

To be honest, I've seen lots of silly reasons why users switch distros. But they reasons we stay have been consistently the same!

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#343 2013-06-28 21:35:19

nourathar
Member
From: Bxl
Registered: 2013-04-26
Posts: 109

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Interesting to read aexoxea's post, since it seems our trajectories are somewhat similar:

after having been a mac user for many many years (mostly due to working in a context in which people like me use computers to do artsy things), I switched to Linux about two years ago. For my work I started doing 'real' programming more and more (in Python) and the breaking point was when I tried for a few days to install OpenCV with the right Python bindings under Mac OS X and had to give up. OK, I didn't know much about such things at the time, others more knowledgeable or clever than me could probly do it in a few minutes, but at that time when I tried Ubuntu it took me only two hours to figure it out and it actually worked. After Ubuntu/Gnome I switched to Kubuntu and now Arch, recently using a mix of KDE and i3.

What I really like about Arch is that things are not made user-friendly: if you have a problem there is good documentation to help you solve it and after you solved it you understand a lot more about how such systems work for real: you didn't just learn some stupid workaround around the userfriendliness shield constructed by company X that adds extra layers of complexity and that is useless outside of the bubble created by company X. And so far I had only some small things break in Arch, mostly out of my own ignorance, much better than Ubuntu, and problems can be solved because things are simple, which is way better than any system I ever used before.
I chose Arch because of the wiki, the AUR and the philosophy.

I honestly don't see anything Arch (or Linux in general) could learn from mac: in my view the fact that things can break is the inevitable side-effect of plurality, of having a choice, of a nice and messy process of people developing different tools with different agendas on hardware that has no fixed standard. There is no master plan and that is exactly why I like it so much. And the famed good looks of os x are not much of a loss too: I find my current system actually looks a lot better, especially after mac started using fake leather for its interfaces...(but I do get grumpy when there is suddenly again a window that manages to ignore all configurations and looks like it came from some ms-dos hell 20 years ago...)

And installing OpenCV on Arch took me literally two minutes, thanks to pacman.

ciao,

J.

Last edited by nourathar (2013-06-28 21:38:27)

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#344 2013-06-28 22:29:20

daemotron
Member
Registered: 2010-08-27
Posts: 8
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Some time ago, Arch Linux became my major desktop OS as a replacement for FreeBSD - compiling all those big ports (Qt, LibreOffice, ...) became just too time-consuming, plus some random system instabilities when running X with the Nvidia blob driver. Back then, Arch was just the most convenient choice for me, since it had more similarities to BSD than any other Linux distribution (which by today is no longer the case, but why moving away when it still works...?)

Today I am still running FreeBSD, but only either on servers (where it still is my favourite OS) or within a VirtualBox for development purposes (if you want to write nice, clean, portable and POSIX compliant C code, you'd better keep away from the glibc...)


“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.” — Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

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#345 2013-07-02 17:29:07

triforce
Member
From: United Kingdom
Registered: 2013-07-02
Posts: 12
Website

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

Bleeding edge - Having constant package updates makes them feel like active projects, and I get the latest features smile

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#346 2013-07-02 20:15:16

Gryaniy
Member
From: USA,UKRAINE,MEXICO
Registered: 2013-02-15
Posts: 46

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

After opening my eyes I realized that Fedora sucks, just the playground for Red hat, and it is just bloated and forget about controlling what you install..... laziness at the cost of stability and performance... even if you tweak it,   Only good  thing is the community behind it.

So, here I am in my early Arch days and I'm loving it...

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#347 2013-08-05 01:34:26

Ahad12
Member
Registered: 2013-01-14
Posts: 41

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

1. No bloat, easy on my Computer on Memory usage,Disk Space Usage, was probably the lowest I've seen.
2. Bleeding Edge, while being stable at the same time.
3. Pacman is by far, the BEST package managers you can get, it reliable,works,many options overall usage experiace is awesome.
4. Boots on almost any computer 2000 onwards, perfact for legacy hardware.
EDIT:
5. Easy to understand, detailed documentation, easy to understand how to install stuff, configuring, or even learning the basics about linux.

Last edited by Ahad12 (2013-08-05 01:36:58)

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#348 2013-08-05 09:25:58

Aldur
Member
Registered: 2013-06-19
Posts: 15

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I use it for the same reason I use Gentoo:
1) I decide what it looks and feels like
2) I don't have to accept all that bloat that comes with some other distributions
3) Arch doesn't tinker with every single upstream packet

And "unique" features of Arch:
4) The wiki is superb
5) AUR provides a fantastic and easy way to install some packages

I'm in no way saying that Arch is THE best distribution because it comes down to what one needs but to me it's the one distribution that has most of what I desire.

Last edited by Aldur (2013-08-05 10:12:54)

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#349 2013-08-08 20:35:58

binaryjay
Member
Registered: 2013-08-08
Posts: 4

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

1) It's the best way to build something up that does only what you want it to do where hardware and storage is limited (latest projects involve a couple of machines that will have only 4gb of boot space and I don't need full blown window managers, IM clients, email, web browsers, cloud this and this etc. etc.

2) pacman is easy to use

3) arch wiki is full of awesome information

4) rolling release makes it easier to stay up to date and roll things back if they break, full distro releases give you a whole bag of problems all at once to diagnose

5) nerd cred?

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#350 2013-08-11 03:56:34

wstewart90
Member
Registered: 2013-07-13
Posts: 17

Re: why you choose ArchLinux?

I chose arch because neither one of us are very user friendly.

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