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#1 2013-12-27 15:41:32

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

Me (Louis Winter) and a friend (Chris Barker) are making an Arch Linux installation guide. Its goals are to replace distributions like Manjaro and Antegros by being more concise and giving simpler, brief explanations for each command. It goes into detail on setting up GNOME and KDE and will give the reader a more complete working environment than if they followed the beginners guide.

The beginners guide can be quite daunting to new users. Our tutorial does not aim to replace it, but rather supplement it in a way that is more accessible to new users.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ace … Wzfuc/edit
Please put in the google docs comments any problems or ideas.

*edit* I may have got carried away with the whole replace thing. It is simply a teaching guide for the reader, but also a little bit for the writers. I appreciate constructive criticism but please do not argue the existance of the document.

Last edited by roniz (2014-01-06 19:51:44)

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#2 2013-12-27 15:52:44

falconindy
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From: New York, USA
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 4,111
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

This sort of fragmentation is bizzare, unfortunate, and will only cause trouble to new users. What problems do you see with the Beginner's Guide that make it "quite daunting"?

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#3 2013-12-27 16:00:21

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

falconindy wrote:

This sort of fragmentation is bizzare, unfortunate, and will only cause trouble to new users. What problems do you see with the Beginner's Guide that make it "quite daunting"?


Its size. For example, the begginers guide goes into detail with setting up and testing Xorg, these steps are not needed. Our guide does not only make it easier for beginners but also experienced users who just need something to refer to for the syntax.

Last edited by roniz (2013-12-27 16:00:55)

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#4 2013-12-27 16:01:44

falconindy
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From: New York, USA
Registered: 2009-10-22
Posts: 4,111
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

If you want something shorter, there's the official installation guide:

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

I don't understand your gripe about setting up Xorg -- your guide does exactly this.

Last edited by falconindy (2013-12-27 16:03:49)

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#5 2013-12-27 16:03:20

Jellicent
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From: Berlin
Registered: 2013-09-13
Posts: 189

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

roniz wrote:
falconindy wrote:

This sort of fragmentation is bizzare, unfortunate, and will only cause trouble to new users. What problems do you see with the Beginner's Guide that make it "quite daunting"?


Its size. For example, the begginers guide goes into detail with setting up and testing Xorg, these steps are not needed. Our guide does not only make it easier for beginners but also experienced users who just need something to refer to for the syntax.

They might not be needed, but couldn't it be a contribution to their knowledge?

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#6 2013-12-27 16:06:40

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

Jellicent wrote:
roniz wrote:
falconindy wrote:

This sort of fragmentation is bizzare, unfortunate, and will only cause trouble to new users. What problems do you see with the Beginner's Guide that make it "quite daunting"?


Its size. For example, the begginers guide goes into detail with setting up and testing Xorg, these steps are not needed. Our guide does not only make it easier for beginners but also experienced users who just need something to refer to for the syntax.

They might not be needed, but couldn't it be a contribution to their knowledge?

Many people want to learn arch and expand their knowledge, this guide does not stop them visiting the arch wiki if they want to learn more.

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#7 2013-12-27 16:10:48

Scimmia
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Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,443

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

Until we get people in here who mess up their installation because they followed some random guide. Happens all the time.

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#8 2013-12-27 16:38:40

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

falconindy wrote:

I don't understand your gripe about setting up Xorg -- your guide does exactly this.

The "Configure X" and "Testing X" section is not required, I am using this as an example.

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#9 2013-12-27 16:42:55

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,422
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

roniz wrote:

... goals are to replace distributions like Manjaro and Antegros ...

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png


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

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#10 2013-12-27 17:18:57

graysky
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From: :wq
Registered: 2008-12-01
Posts: 10,592
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

Maybe the wiki needs a link on the Beginner's Guide -->
1) Abbreviated version
2) Full version


CPU-optimized Linux-ck packages @ Repo-ck  • AUR packagesZsh and other configs

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#11 2013-12-27 18:15:37

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

If you are really passionate about Arch (and you appear to be) why would you not channel that energy, enthusiasm and effort in to actually contributing to Arch? The wiki could certainly use some attention and any contributions you make there would likely have a much larger net beneficial impact for the community than your guide.


Not an Installation issue, moving to Arch Discussion.


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#12 2013-12-27 18:38:17

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

jasonwryan wrote:

If you are really passionate about Arch (and you appear to be) why would you not channel that energy, enthusiasm and effort in to actually contributing to Arch? The wiki could certainly use some attention and any contributions you make there would likely have a much larger net beneficial impact for the community than your guide.

Because our ideas conflict with what the arch wiki ideas are. The wiki is a god send for all arch users but just getting your foot in the door can be the hardest part.

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#13 2013-12-27 19:05:50

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

roniz wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:

If you are really passionate about Arch (and you appear to be) why would you not channel that energy, enthusiasm and effort in to actually contributing to Arch? The wiki could certainly use some attention and any contributions you make there would likely have a much larger net beneficial impact for the community than your guide.

Because our ideas conflict with what the arch wiki ideas are. The wiki is a god send for all arch users but just getting your foot in the door can be the hardest part.

How do they conflict? The only difference I see between your tutorial and the Beginners' Guide is that yours is advocating a specific setup where the BG is, by necessity, inclusive.

Also, the only "difficulty" with installing Arch is reading and digesting all of the information. If someone struggles with that, then actually running Arch is not miraculously going to get any easier.

It just leads to, as Scimmia points out, more people showing up here and on IRC who aren't prepared to put in the time to understand how Arch works, but want--for god knows what reason--to be able to say they run Arch, and expect to have the community give them cut and paste answers every time the encounter an obstacle which, given their lack of understanding of how their system actually works, is quite frequently.

"Getting people in the door" is not one of Arch's aims. Encouraging more active contributors to the distro is. Ask yourselves which side of that equation your effort is being applied to.*


*And, no, the former does not entail the latter.


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#14 2013-12-27 19:48:12

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

jasonwryan wrote:
roniz wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:

If you are really passionate about Arch (and you appear to be) why would you not channel that energy, enthusiasm and effort in to actually contributing to Arch? The wiki could certainly use some attention and any contributions you make there would likely have a much larger net beneficial impact for the community than your guide.

Because our ideas conflict with what the arch wiki ideas are. The wiki is a god send for all arch users but just getting your foot in the door can be the hardest part.

How do they conflict? The only difference I see between your tutorial and the Beginners' Guide is that yours is advocating a specific setup where the BG is, by necessity, inclusive.

Also, the only "difficulty" with installing Arch is reading and digesting all of the information. If someone struggles with that, then actually running Arch is not miraculously going to get any easier.

It just leads to, as Scimmia points out, more people showing up here and on IRC who aren't prepared to put in the time to understand how Arch works, but want--for god knows what reason--to be able to say they run Arch, and expect to have the community give them cut and paste answers every time the encounter an obstacle which, given their lack of understanding of how their system actually works, is quite frequently.

"Getting people in the door" is not one of Arch's aims. Encouraging more active contributors to the distro is. Ask yourselves which side of that equation your effort is being applied to.*


*And, no, the former does not entail the latter.

I can understand your frustration with these people. But I know many who want to learn arch and are very capable but just fail at some steps. I think the arch community needs to be less elitist. Copy and pasting commands is not helpful in the long term I agree, but their is nothing wrong with being helpful even if it means repeating a few things.

I am not going to justify our project any more, if you don't want to use the document that is fine, don't recommend it for other people. Its not designed for experienced users.

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#15 2013-12-27 20:10:25

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

You did open a thread here asking for feedback.

Finally, this has nothing to do with elitism; accusing the Arch community of elitism is a lazy slur and grossly misguided. Arch is open to anyone; the only hurdle to installing and using Arch is competence. There is nothing elitist about that.

As for the community; a tremendous amount of effort has been invested by this community over many years to develop what is generally acknowledged as some of the finest GNU/Linux documentation available. A modest expectation that people will invest some of their own time in reading that before asking for help is both reasonable and a survival startegy for the long term health of the community.

You don't like the documentation; fine. But please don't cast aspersions about the alleged elitism of a community that has built the distro, maintained it for over a decade, created the Arch wiki, and kept the forums and the largest channel on Freenode runnning to support people using that distro solely on a volunteer basis. Everyone is welcome here; provided they are prepared to invest some of their time and effort back into the community; that's how communities work, both online and in the real world.


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#16 2013-12-27 20:14:25

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

jasonwryan wrote:
roniz wrote:

Because our ideas conflict with what the arch wiki ideas are.

How do they conflict?

...

"Getting people in the door" is not one of Arch's aims.

I think you answered your own question there.  While one could certainly question the goals of the idea presented in this thread, these goals do indeed seem different from those of many active members of this community.

I guess yet again were too elitist (where's the sarcasm emoticon).  I also think physicist Lawrence Krauss with all his ideas of educating the public is rather elitist in stating "the purpose of education is not to validate ignorance but to overcome it" (again looking for that emoticon).


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

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#17 2013-12-27 20:15:17

Ashren
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From: Denmark
Registered: 2007-06-13
Posts: 1,229
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

I share jasonwryan's sentiment.

If new users are incapable of reading and following the available documentation on the wiki they shouldn't be using Arch in the first place.

If they follow it and find it lacking in depth or detail they are welcome to update said wiki.

Last edited by Ashren (2013-12-27 20:18:00)

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#18 2013-12-27 20:22:44

roniz
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From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
Website

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

jasonwryan wrote:

Finally, this has nothing to do with elitism; accusing the Arch community of elitism is a lazy slur and grossly misguided. Arch is open to anyone; the only hurdle to installing and using Arch is competence. There is nothing elitist about that.

That very statement is elitist. :3

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#19 2013-12-27 20:29:37

Scimmia
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Registered: 2012-09-01
Posts: 11,443

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

roniz wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:

Finally, this has nothing to do with elitism; accusing the Arch community of elitism is a lazy slur and grossly misguided. Arch is open to anyone; the only hurdle to installing and using Arch is competence. There is nothing elitist about that.

That very statement is elitist. :3

Arch requires actively managing your system, if you can't do this, Arch is going to be a very bad experience. It's not elitist, it's simply a byproduct of giving the user control over their own system.

Is setting people up for failure any better?

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#20 2013-12-27 20:41:58

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

roniz wrote:
jasonwryan wrote:

Finally, this has nothing to do with elitism; accusing the Arch community of elitism is a lazy slur and grossly misguided. Arch is open to anyone; the only hurdle to installing and using Arch is competence. There is nothing elitist about that.

That very statement is elitist. :3

Trolling is both expressly forbidden here and is also clearly indicative of a comprehensive failure to substantiate your accusation of eltitism.


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#21 2013-12-28 00:00:59

Steef435
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Registered: 2013-08-29
Posts: 577
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Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

I've somewhat read through it. I'm not good at all the niceties with criticism(I like to keep it short too)  but it's meant to be and come across as constructive.

I don't see how a guide would replace a distro.

A beginner's guide aiming to be more simple than the official beginner's guide that states that the reader should be familiar with a UNIX environment makes me wonder what group are you exactly targeting with this guide.

I think that, while your guide is short, it's lacking content too. Especially the explanation of what exactly is happening. For example, in your dd command you are "using sdb in this example," but you don't explain what sdb is or should stand for("of" means nothing to someone reading your guide), neither do you explain how to find out what should be put there.

In your network section you assume that the drivers for a wired network card are magically always available and working, and you say that the reader should simply install the driver later if the wireless network card driver isn't available. "How should I?" You don't explain how to set up a wired network connection either, except that dhcpcd should have initiated your network automagically, which I can't remember experiencing. What about the static IP addresses?

"Use the command ln -s to set a timezone, changing zone and subzone to your timezone." I can already smell the scent of misconceptions(ln is for managing timezones). The examples and syntax given makes me feel like you didn't get it either, since they won't be doing anything. (If they do work I'll eat my keyboard and I'll shut my mouth for the rest of the year)

I feel like there's next to no explanation on rather essential parts of the installation. Perhaps some references to the wiki will work wonders.

Some minor room for improvement:
Configure pacman mirrors and repositories
If doing things as root was safe it wasn't restricted
You need a driver for (interaction with) the graphics card, not for graphics. ("drivers = graphics")
Proprietary drivers don't have less performance by definition.
Installing lib32 packages without [multilib]
NetworkManager doesn't have a monopoly on roaming
No explanation of configuring NetworkManager too

Good luck with your project. I hope it'll be a nice benefit to the community.

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#22 2013-12-28 01:10:24

roniz
Member
From: Great Britain
Registered: 2013-12-22
Posts: 12
Website

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

Steef435 wrote:

I've somewhat read through it. I'm not good at all the niceties with criticism(I like to keep it short too)  but it's meant to be and come across as constructive.

I don't see how a guide would replace a distro.

A beginner's guide aiming to be more simple than the official beginner's guide that states that the reader should be familiar with a UNIX environment makes me wonder what group are you exactly targeting with this guide.

I think that, while your guide is short, it's lacking content too. Especially the explanation of what exactly is happening. For example, in your dd command you are "using sdb in this example," but you don't explain what sdb is or should stand for("of" means nothing to someone reading your guide), neither do you explain how to find out what should be put there.

In your network section you assume that the drivers for a wired network card are magically always available and working, and you say that the reader should simply install the driver later if the wireless network card driver isn't available. "How should I?" You don't explain how to set up a wired network connection either, except that dhcpcd should have initiated your network automagically, which I can't remember experiencing. What about the static IP addresses?

"Use the command ln -s to set a timezone, changing zone and subzone to your timezone." I can already smell the scent of misconceptions(ln is for managing timezones). The examples and syntax given makes me feel like you didn't get it either, since they won't be doing anything. (If they do work I'll eat my keyboard and I'll shut my mouth for the rest of the year)

I feel like there's next to no explanation on rather essential parts of the installation. Perhaps some references to the wiki will work wonders.

Some minor room for improvement:
Configure pacman mirrors and repositories
If doing things as root was safe it wasn't restricted
You need a driver for (interaction with) the graphics card, not for graphics. ("drivers = graphics")
Proprietary drivers don't have less performance by definition.
Installing lib32 packages without [multilib]
NetworkManager doesn't have a monopoly on roaming
No explanation of configuring NetworkManager too

Good luck with your project. I hope it'll be a nice benefit to the community.

Thank you for your help, these kind of helpful criticisms is much more appreciated than what the forum has given so far.

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#23 2014-01-04 18:39:55

thiagowfx
Member
Registered: 2013-07-09
Posts: 586

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

I would like to make a suggestion: what about including the images of this guide to the Beginner's guide ArchWiki page? I mean, I do not know if OP allow this, it is ethical to ask for OP's permission first. But, anyway, I think we really could (*should*) include images. Until today, I don't remember any ArchWiki page with only a single image. Is this a phylosophy I didn't catch?

Last edited by thiagowfx (2014-01-04 19:04:19)

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#24 2014-01-04 18:59:35

2ManyDogs
Forum Moderator
Registered: 2012-01-15
Posts: 4,642

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

thiagowfx wrote:

Until today, I don't remember any ArchWiki page with only a single image. Is this a phylosophy I didn't caught?

Yes, this is a philosophy you didn't catch. Images are not allowed in the wiki, for several reasons.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/He … nt_content


How to post. A sincere effort to use modest and proper language and grammar is a sign of respect toward the community.

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#25 2014-01-04 20:06:18

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,422
Website

Re: Yet Another Arch Installation (WIP)

In general I'd be against images in the wiki.  But for installation - pardon me for being blunt - it's just absurd.  There is nothing to take an image of.  It is a text based process.  An image is only worth a thousand words if it is not simply an image of words.

For irony's sake I almost typed this post in a text editor, took a photograph of it on my screen, then posted that resulting image instead of my post.  But sanity prevailed.  This time.

Last edited by Trilby (2014-01-04 20:06:38)


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

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