The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

nomorewindows · 2014-03-18 19:06:07

Can't find much reason not to use it.

Tom B · 2014-04-11 16:44:39

For me the biggest reason to pick Arch is the rolling release model. I came from Mint but found the recommended upgrade procedure (reinstall the OS and all your packages) rather archaic. It does let you upgrade using apt but I found this didn't actually work as expected for me so looked for a real rolling release distribution and that's how I ended up with Arch.

There are pros and cons of all distributions but honestly, other than getting it installed I haven't found Arch any more difficult to use than Mint. Beyond installing I don't know why people say arch is for "experienced" users. For almost every task it's just a case of installing the required application using pacman, on Mint it was identical just using apt-get instead. The day to day experience of Arch vs Mint is minimal in my experience.

Last edited by Tom B (2014-04-11 16:48:12)

michael.heuberger · 2014-04-30 03:28:22

Hello guys

My kernel panicked while upgrading Ubuntu 14.04 and now my system is in a kind of limbo between 13.10 and 14.04, grrrr

So I am seriously considering to switch to ArchLinux or Exherbo, but haven't decided yet. Maybe you can help me and tell me your views on these questions?

1. How easy is it to install ArchLinux over an existing Linux system? What steps are needed?
2. Are there good reasons why you prefer ArchLinux over Exherbo (exherbo.org)?
3. All my remote servers run on Ubuntu. Will this pose a problem if my local machine, which serves for development, is on a different system, i.E. ArchLinux?

Looking forward to your responses! Thanks

Cheers
Michael

circleface · 2014-04-30 03:49:59

For point number 1, the Beginner's Guide will show you how to install arch onto your computer.

jasonwryan · 2014-04-30 03:50:57

Merging with the "Should I go Arch" thread...

Lone_Wolf · 2014-04-30 12:06:38

michael.heuberger wrote:

2. Are there good reasons why you prefer ArchLinux over Exherbo (exherbo.org)?

I have no experience with Exherbo, but a quick glimpse suggests it's source-based and derived from gentoo.

Exherbo home page wrote:

No over-centralisation. Only widely used packages are to be in main repositories, and make the tools good enough to deal with lots of small third party repositories for random other apps.

That sounds like the exherbo counterpart of AUR, with the main difference that aur is not a binary repo.
Personally i feel building things from source (AUR) is safer then using 3rd party repos.

------------------------------------------------

michael.heuberger wrote:

3. All my remote servers run on Ubuntu. Will this pose a problem if my local machine, which serves for development, is on a different system, i.E. ArchLinux?

That might lead to arch having newer clients then the server software expects.
Whether that will be a problem depends on upstream of the server software you run.

BenPelcLeeds · 2014-05-03 14:33:58

I highly recommend switching to Arch. I took the plunge for the first time yesterday, the number one thing putting me off attempting it in the months before hand were the tails of woe of the seemingly tens of people who fail to install for every one that manages it. Don't pay too much attention to those people, they're wrong. There are many, many YouTube clips which you can follow for pretty much any type of Arch installation and in conjunction with the superb Arch Beginners Guide if you give it a little concentration you can have a clean working Arch in a good 20 minutes.

Like many others I started off with Ubuntu (perhaps from Ubuntu 7ish onwards) dual booting with on my Windows Machine (specialist software otherwise would migrate full time). Anyhow, Unity was not for me so switched to Debian XFCE which I found incredibly stable and learnt a lot having to manually configure things, however, the price you pay for stability is old software, hence me turning to Arch. Building a system from scratch I have the very latest versions of XFCE, Plank dock, compositing is working fine and Conky and when all is done and loaded the whole thing is only taking 170Mb of memory in the RAM, this is incredible. Absolutely no unwanted software, everything is your choice, no other distro I have tried gives you such power, not even installing a clean Debian (I'm yet to try Gentoo).

Any slight hiccups I have had in these first 24 hours I overcame very quickly by scouring this and other forums as well as constantly delving into the superb Arch Wiki which again puts Debian's extensive documentation to shame. So, if you want a lightning fast system built to your exact needs and don't mind learning a little on the way then you should definitely go Arch. And this is from a man who until yesterday would not ever dream of cheating on Debian.

chaonaut · 2014-05-16 18:43:02

well, my current definition of arch:
arch is an excellent construction kit for building custom(ized) systems, which offers
• a good platform for automation of building process
• reasonable balance of complexity/simplicity
• always having official packages as safe fallbacks.
that's what makes arch unique & the best.

i had a few LFS builds on my boxes from 2003 to 2008, but never managed to handle all those dependencies manually for any long time.
arch build & packaging system filled that lacuna.

Daerandin · 2014-05-16 19:35:23

So after having used Arch for about a year now I can safely say that it is without a doubt my number one OS. Once I got into the routine, it is now a simple matter to maintain my own system, make whatever modifications I desire and just have loads of fun playing around with my system.

If I am to nail down exactly what makes Arch so awesome, it would have to be the simplicity. It is exactly what allows me to make my own choices regarding my system. I can so very easily do things my own way without having to work against a pre-configured system.

chaonaut · 2014-05-16 20:01:14

yeah, simplicity rules.
it's very easy to make things more complex, but very difficult then to simplify.

WhereIsTheFloor · 2014-05-18 15:47:58

Arch user for two days here. Arch just... works. It's fast and does what it needs to.

ratcheer · 2014-05-18 21:01:33

I reinstalled Arch a couple of days ago. I have been on Siduction Linux (Debian Sid based) for a long time.

I installed to btrfs RAID-0 two SATA III drive filesystems, one for / and another for /home. I did not do anything about the btrfs hook, but my system is booting and running, perfectly. udev must have handled it.

Arch's systemd implementation is much cleaner than Debian's. Also, Arch is not running those damned 63 console-kit daemons.

I just finished migrating all my data over from my Siduction system. I guess I am ready to install grub on Arch and make it my primary system. I admit that Arch is better, but I still don't feel like an "Arch person". Maybe I will before too long.

Tim

jwm-art · 2014-05-18 21:02:36

Been using Arch on my desktop for a few (can't remember) years now. Had installed Crunchbang on parents aging desktop for a year or two, but... package management is just not pretty, and suffers from the old Debian age gap. Installed Arch on there last week. Didn't have an installation disk so had to install from the existing Crunchbang Linux installation, which was unfortunately the exact (and only) partition where I wanted to install Arch Linux.

But because Arch Linux and the Arch Wiki are so self-censoringly fantastic I found instructions to run the installation inside a chroot from an existing Linux installation and install to a reformatted swap partition and once a bootable install setup, rsync it into its permanent home.

And the instructions in the Arch Wiki made it easy relatively straight forward.

The aging PC is now running bang up to date software, looking better than it ever did.... just so I could get my parents new printer up and running. They had been doubtful about it - I had the feeling they had not been impressed with Linux up until now.

Last edited by jwm-art (2014-05-18 21:10:32)

chaonaut · 2014-05-18 21:25:56

ratcheer wrote:

I just finished migrating all my data over from my Siduction system. I guess I am ready to install grub on Arch and make it my primary system. I admit that Arch is better, but I still don't feel like an "Arch person". Maybe I will before too long.

never mind, it's ok. it took me about 2 years to feel like an „arch person“, for example.

crozet · 2014-05-20 06:02:52

Hi all
I have a laptop with very low performance (amd a4 1200 dual core 1Ghz with radeon 8180 gpu and 4gb ram). Windows 8 works but it is very slow. I installed lubuntu (lxde ubuntu) and performance is a little better but it is still very slow when I open several programs.
Do you think installing arch with lxde or openbox will improve performance ?
Also, my laptop has a multi-touch screen, will it work with arch ?

jasonwryan · 2014-05-20 06:06:56

Merging with the 'Should I go Arch' thread...

drcouzelis · 2014-05-20 12:07:17

crozet wrote:

I have a laptop with very low performance (amd a4 1200 dual core 1Ghz with radeon 8180 gpu and 4gb ram). Windows 8 works but it is very slow. I installed lubuntu (lxde ubuntu) and performance is a little better but it is still very slow when I open several programs.
Do you think installing arch with lxde or openbox will improve performance ?

Yes, I think Arch Linux will make your computer feel faster. It will probably boot a little faster and Openbox will start in an instant. After that, it all depends on what applications you choose to use. Firefox will (pretty much) take the same amount of time to start on both Ubuntu and Arch Linux.

4GB of RAM is WAY more than I ever need.

Also, my laptop has a multi-touch screen, will it work with arch ?

I don't have any experience with multi-touch screens, but if it worked in Ubuntu then yes, you can configure it to work in Arch Linux too.

crozet · 2014-05-20 16:01:23

ok thank you for the answer, i start the installation and i'll tel you how it feels with arch power

Trilby · 2014-05-20 16:05:55

While I agree with drcouzelis, arch itself won't be any faster than any other distro if you use the same software. Arch just makes it much easier to control what software you are using and what processes will be active at any given time. The major DEs hide much of this - starting up Gnome 3 (or whatever the heck they're calling it now) will start up all sorts of processes that many users have no need for. Starting up openbox as `exec openbox` will *only* start the window manager. But even with this, starting as `exec openbox-session` will start up other processes (depending on your configuration). Startlxde also will start openbox and a few other bits.

So in short, arch will allow you to control what is running, and arch will allow you to optimize your system to run smoother. But it is still up to you to use that control and do that optimizing.

Jean3799 · 2014-05-31 21:17:48

I have a thinkpad t43 whos specs are:
Pentium M 750 (1.86 GHz)
DDR2 533 memory, and PCI Express graphics

Question: Is arch dutiable for those specs?
ArchLinux runs fine but cpu usage goes to 100% a lot.

Should I use arch or switch to puppy linux?

jasonwryan · 2014-05-31 21:22:25

Merging with the Should I Go Arch sticky...

ANOKNUSA · 2014-05-31 21:42:17

Jean3799 wrote:

I have a thinkpad t43 whos specs are:
Pentium M 750 (1.86 GHz)
DDR2 533 memory, and PCI Express graphics
Question: Is arch dutiable for those specs?
ArchLinux runs fine but cpu usage goes to 100% a lot.
Should I use arch or switch to puppy linux?

See the post by Trillby above your own. On a side note, the second sentence makes it sound like you're already using Arch; did I misread that?

Archer61 · 2014-06-13 08:34:01

Took 7 installs to get it right in a dual boot configuration for UEFI systems. Totally worth it.

The first Linux I ever tried was Arch but after 8-9 days I gave up. Then Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Opensuse, Kali, Opensuse again and finally back to Arch. Just can't live without it. LOVE IT. I actually found others to be more complicated which some of my mates consider odd. You have no idea whats going on in other distros but in Arch you learn a lot quickly.

pediocore · 2014-06-13 10:04:38

Arch, for me is the absolute distro. I have tried several distros, Ubuntu, Slackware, Fedora, Puppy and Kali (to name a few) and when i first get my hand on arch last year, I had never hop into other distros again. Since only these few days I've been thinking to emerge into Arch forum and our wide community. Cut it short, I love the 'learning' mechanism of Arch Linux, whenever you do something new, you learn about it. You are learning and gaining always if Arch is your daily computing distro.

Forever, Arch.

chriseggroll · 2014-06-18 03:23:58

I've been using Arch since 2007, definitely my favorite by far. The package management is fantastic and from my experience, far less likely to totally "break" your system on an update (try doing a few "all package" updates on Fedora...). In the last year or so to be sure, there have been a lot of changes, namely systemd, new boot loaders, and new GUIs that have taken some getting used to, but that is more of an overall Linux growing pain issue.

I've used Slackware, Mandriva, Fedora, Mint, PC Linux OS, and several other distros and can't find anything I like better. Even the install is surprisingly simple, well if you have a wired connection and don't go crazy with partitioning! The Arch Wiki is very helpful and on most issues very detailed as well. And, I have to say, the speed is amazing! My boot times/shutdown times with my current setup are around 3 seconds! Granted, I do have an SSD for root and an Ivy Bridge CPU, I am still impressed every time. Cheers to Arch, to me the best implementation of Linux to date!

Arch Linux

#901 2014-03-18 19:06:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#902 2014-04-11 16:44:39

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#903 2014-04-30 03:28:22

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#904 2014-04-30 03:49:59

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#905 2014-04-30 03:50:57

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#906 2014-04-30 12:06:38

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#907 2014-05-03 14:33:58

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#908 2014-05-16 18:43:02

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#909 2014-05-16 19:35:23

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#910 2014-05-16 20:01:14

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#911 2014-05-18 15:47:58

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#912 2014-05-18 21:01:33

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#913 2014-05-18 21:02:36

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#914 2014-05-18 21:25:56

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#915 2014-05-20 06:02:52

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#916 2014-05-20 06:06:56

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#917 2014-05-20 12:07:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#918 2014-05-20 16:01:23

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#919 2014-05-20 16:05:55

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#920 2014-05-31 21:17:48

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#921 2014-05-31 21:22:25

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#922 2014-05-31 21:42:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#923 2014-06-13 08:34:01

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#924 2014-06-13 10:04:38

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#925 2014-06-18 03:23:58

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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