PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

sarah31 · 2003-11-19 20:23:03

bwb wrote:

[-] Some packages not built well...
*duck*
But seriously, I do find some packages not properly researched. Shadow Suite, for example, didn't include vigr and had some other problems. Yes, I did point that out like a good little user... That is probably my biggest complaint with Arch (Getting better by the day of course).

shadow suite?

edit: ok i did some reading and if you happen to go to the developers site for shadow you will find less than you want to build vigr into shadow. i had to do a fair amount of digging just to find out how to get it and a few other features enabled.

so touring the web is what we need tio dio to enable hidden features of applications?

bugs will happen ...they hapen EVRYWHERE. i find it exceedingly cocky of users to say "oh yeah some of the packages are poorly this or that" perhaps there is a reason we do not add certain features. maybe we don't have time to look on little joe bacons site hosted out of a back alley in zurich which is only up for 37 seconds an hour. sheesh

use the bug tracker rather than bitch eh? we readily admit we do not know everything so be kind and inform us of our errors.

try not to imply that ONLY arch has these problems. i can find alot of examples of problems in other distros that arch does not have.

geez why do some people have to be so arrogant?

jlvsimoes · 2003-11-20 01:35:44

dam .. ..

Guest · 2003-11-20 11:25:33

sarah31 wrote:

use the bug tracker rather than bitch eh? we readily admit we do not know everything so be kind and inform us of our errors.

As I mentioned, I did notify Judd.

sarah31 wrote:

try not to imply that ONLY arch has these problems. i can find alot of examples of problems in other distros that arch does not have.

I'm not saying there isn't, but that vigr link is mentioned about everywhere else I've seen (linuxfromscratch, gentoo ebuilds, etc).

I wasn't "bitching", I just stated that was my only complaint, which for a distro that is pretty good.

Guest · 2003-11-20 11:28:57

Also, it has already been fixed; I notified him a while ago. It was just an example of an observation...

Forgot to put bwb under Username in last post.

sarah31 · 2003-11-20 15:13:17

well i didn't realize we had to be like other distros..

when the pld site does not even mention vigr how do you expect a developer to know about it. i mean look in the source the only indiction of anything related to vigr is the man page. i also noticed that from one of the builds from linuxfromscratch that vigr is created not from a standard ./configure&&make&&make install (mind you in ten minutes of looking around google i only found one good example).

your comments are acinine. pretty good and getting better are terms which imply the for the most part the distro is bad or other.

you also imply with other comments that other distros are better... remember gentoo's "seemless" intro duction of gcc3 and glibc....i thought not.

because there are one or two porrly build or built with some erros people just place the assumption that the rest of the package are that way and that the archdevelopers are inept. that is the problem that i have with your comments. not that there are broken packages (happens even the "best" distros) but that you insinuate the the distro is only half assed. (along with that you imply you know what is better. better for who you or the whole community?)

there is nothing worse than someone who doesn't take the time to be polite.

hApy · 2003-11-20 19:51:40

sarah31 wrote:

there is nothing worse than someone who doesn't take the time to be polite.

oh the irony.

sorry, I couldn't resist. But calling somebody's input asinine doesn't really strike me as polite.

Hapy.

Guest · 2003-11-20 23:00:11

sarah31 wrote:

your comments are acinine. pretty good and getting better are terms which imply the for the most part the distro is bad or other.

The thread subject was for pros/cons. I was just listing a con I think of when I use arch. I don't believe it was offtopic, because most pros/cons are opinionated. I was not implying that a part of arch is "bad", just a sideeffect of being young.

sarah31 wrote:

well i didn't realize we had to be like other distros..

No, but learning from distros is not always bad either.

sarah31 · 2003-11-20 23:25:17

hapy,

when in rome......

really i do tire of the absolutely poor attitudes found in the *nix world. in the three or so years of being in a nix community i think that they are the most ill mannered lot in the entire computing world. there are snobs (bsd and darwin users) and there are gloaters (MS crowd) but the linux community in general is filled with 80% social outcasts or insecure people and 20% (most imported) normal.

the *nix community can also be one of the hardest groups for a female to feel comfortable. i am not an idiot but i get treated as one. when i make a comment on something good or otherwise it can get picked apart while a male can say exactly the same thing without so much as a second glance.

case in point here on this forum months back i got raked over the coals for making a semi joke about not powering down because of a lilo issue. well needless to say after a couple of highprofile males tore me another one, i did what neither of them even bothered to do ---- checked the lilo source url and see if there was a patch and applyit and test it. lilo was fixed. a week or so later when the same two decided to "solve" a users stock kernel issues with nothing better than "that's why i don't use stock kernels". not very helpful and i told them so and a flamewar ensued and the end result was one person leaving and the problem was not resolved (was it faulty hardware or was it the stock kernel).

so why was it okay for them to attack me over a half assed lilo joke whilke they had full right to make comments on their how a stock kernel is so below them. they did have some good point but for those of use who prefer to use stock kernel (or in my case i feel it is absolutely necessary for me to use a stock kernel) but the problem was neither approached or solved.

now on to bwb comments. as you and he know every distro has its buggy packages and packages that should be rebuilt "properly". i won't deny that but bwb phrased it in such a way that makes arch and its developers a half assed lot. reading his comment one would think that most of arch's packages are in dire need of repair or that the distro itself is just functional. well that is just a huge pile of crap. sure we do miss the odd thing here and there some even may be glaring. the fact is when you have large number of packages to deal with and a public that wants them yesterday you may not do anything more than read the suppied documentation or documantation on the developers page.

in all honesty unless there is a bug that is not yet documented and commented on everything should be available on the developers site on how to build various setups or with the most user needed components. we should not have to go to a gentoo ebuild to find out how to add components to a build (such a vigr). similarily i would not expect people would think that a developer would know everything there is to know. we are far from perfect but we are also not idiots. so comments such as 'are not well researched" get really old very fast. the fact is i do do the research but sometimes it needs to be after the fact because i may not even know certain feature exist.

with that being said i can understand that a user may get upset if not all i's are dotted and t's crossed on packages they use regularily. that does not give them a right though to comment, with broad strokes, about the product and those that put there time into developing it. we really do try our utmost to make sure packages work and are built in a way that the majority of users will get the most out of it. so comments like bwb's hurt. it feels like all the time and effort we put in is only half worth it.

this week i have little patience for meanness so frankly i don't feel like walking a tightrope to avoid irony. i was not trying to be ironic the comment still holds it was just wrapped in the attitude that brought it on.

anyway, i am done with this thread. bwb is right there are packages that need fixing. but he is wrong implying that arch is only half assed but getting better. i have used its whole ass for over a year and it only gets stronger imho. even when i first started i quickly realized that arch was a much better distro than i had used previously (i had used mandrake, debian, libranet, and gentoo).

i have had nary an interest in any other linux since.

jlvsimoes · 2003-11-20 23:43:06

i just got tree things to say
1º female ? male ? i just see nicknames and persons that use them
2º i truly bealive that developer must take things easy you guys are not runnig a race here and there are no guns pointed to your heads and if a user gets upset abut something its is problem .not yours . hey .. you dont receave money for suport do you ? " " help im or not its a choise .
3º stuff like ai have read here are the main reason for me to think the online world sucks big time words are miss understood . and sometimes simple innocent remarks end up creating big problems so IMHO keep calm relax be happy and use linux
ps . social outcasts ? come on ...

dp · 2003-11-21 00:47:51

jlvsimoes wrote:

i just got tree things to say
1º female ? male ? i just see nicknames and persons that use them
2º i truly bealive that developer must take things easy you guys are not runnig a race here and there are no guns pointed to your heads and if a user gets upset abut something its is problem .not yours . hey .. you dont receave money for suport do you ? " " help im or not its a choise .
3º stuff like ai have read here are the main reason for me to think the online world sucks big time words are miss understood . and sometimes simple innocent remarks end up creating big problems so IMHO keep calm relax be happy and use linux
ps . social outcasts ? come on ...

well spoken ... but in some point of view i agree with "social outcasts" ... but only if you look at this term in a positive way --- being like everyone means being "gloaters" or "snobs", if you are not; you must be a social outcast

by the way: this first post was about pros and contras of arch, thanx for extending the features of this topic :-)

here some nice quotes to give you a better view on the matter:

"If the Creator had said, "Let there be light" in Ankh-Morpork, he'd have
gotten no further because of all the people saying "What colour?""
(Men at Arms)

-> "Creator"={Maintainers, Developers} "People"={Users} ... think about it ...

[+]: the arch-forum is extendible ... start with one subject and you will be at an other in some weeks/months :-)
[+]: flexibility of users ... free expression of feelings // we are human beings --- but exactly because of that we are not animals that cannot control our instincts --- one thing the opensource-comunity depends on is "respect of done work"
-> comments like: "this is bad and this do not work ... " are only welcome/accepted if they are meant to be a feedback with intention to help solving the problem you find ... if they are not, it remembers me on comments in the non-open-source sector, where one company has to make the others company product the bad the possible --- what is not at all productive

sorry if you do not understand all i wrote, maybe i made some mistakes in my english --- ask if you want me to explain

jlvsimoes · 2003-11-21 20:54:29

dp i like you nice example and your ingles is very readable " i can not say the same about mine

dp · 2003-11-21 21:43:53

jlvsimoes wrote:

dp i like you nice example and your ingles is very readable " i can not say the same about mine

thanx for your compliment ... the thing is, that sometimes when i write something in english and afterwards i read it again, i must say that in some way this sounds more like german or swissgerman in thinking than english, and i'm afraid of using some expressions no english-speaker understand

and about your english: it's at least better than mine i think, and it sounds more english in a way --- let me say it this way: we have to train more english to be like the native speakers ... and this is done best in using it over and over (in forums like this ... thats also a motivation to help people with linux: if they understand my answers, i'm actually happy that they understood what i meant )

A Law of Computer Programming:
Make it possible for programmers to write in English
and you will find that programmers cannot write in English.

When the English language gets in my way, I walk over it.
-- Billy Sunday

[+]: the Arch-Forums are great to train your english ... no matter where you are from, you are supposed to use english

hApy · 2003-11-21 23:25:17

sarah:

Honestly I just think you are wasting too much energy on these sorts of things by taking it too personally when people make relatively innocent comments, and reading too much into how it reflects on the developers/distro. You can't make all the people happy all the time, but arch developers have been doing a damn good job of making most people happy most of the time. Jumping down the throat of the occasional user who has an issue, in an effort to let them know how to help their issue get resolved, just doesn't make sense, and it doesn't reflect well. Especially when it turns out the user has already taken the appropriate steps to report the issue to the maintainers.

As far as the occasional package having issues when they are upgraded/added, what about adding an additional repository in between "stable" and "current" like "tested"... and have it automatically generated based on packages that have been in the repository for over a month or two without changes.

Maybe it would have to be a bit more complex than that like if the <pkgrel> of a package included in the "tested" repository changes it is immediately added to the "tested" repository, but if the <pkgver> changes, it waits for a month of inactivity w/ that package before moving to "tested".... that way users who care could be buffered from issues that come up during new package versions, but immediately receive arch-specific fixes on older packages.

If it was generated automatically it wouldn't really require much/any additional effort (other than the script)....

Hapy.

Xentac · 2003-11-22 01:32:37

The idea of a testing repo has been around for a very very long time now. We even have a fairly easy way to handle it. The problem is that currently we don't have a plan to execute it (cause really, we have to change a lot of fundamental stuff). I'll hopefully have an initial draft done over the weekend, so maybe we'll have started the ball rolling.

Guest · 2003-12-11 23:44:23

Hey, well i know that this might not sound very pleasant but "I'm a Gentoo user"

Ok, and as i was very much interested in another optimised distro, i simply culdnt find anything like Arch, i mean next to gentoo (In true terms of customisation,optimization,stability,up-to-date system)

Well, as this is a relatively new distro (atleast thats what i heard), i think that the guys here have done quite a remarkable job, primarily being of focusing the i686 architecture..

Well as far as the learning curve is concerned, i wanted it the MOST, so guess what, after using Windows for 6 Yrs, i switched directly to Gentoo, (ofcource after playing with knoppix in the first 1 week), so i guess Arch shud also provide a good learning curve to newbies, as thats very much required as i believe that the user must atleast know whats he doin afterall

Well, the ONLY glitch that i yet found in Gentoo's portage was reverce dependency check, and lack of installing latest binary (optimised) packages....

So, i guess thats a [+] to arch for having the option to install optimised binary packages, besides that as some one pointed out, that he culdnt compile a package as some patch had to be applied... I must really give you'll a suggestion to keep an option OPEN for source based installations too...

Like i know it wont be possible to integrate as large as gentoo does, but atleast for some packages that do require REAL customisation in terms of patching stuff etc, overhere i consider it wud indeed be a good step to include some kinda compatibility with Gentoo Ebuilds, so that you can directly install certain apps with source applying the patches needed at compile-time....

Well, what else, i havent even tried Arch so i dunno much about it, but i think this should be it ! Waiting eagerly for the 0.6, BTW when do u plan to release it ??

Anyways,
Bye,
Jassi

And wish you a very good future..

LB06 · 2003-12-12 11:23:37

Arch has abs, which is much like Gentoo's portage (or FreeBSD's ports)

Guest · 2003-12-12 21:16:31

Also if you get 0.5 and do a pacman -Syu and keep up to date you will have 0.6 before it is even released

Lol, well yea thats true, its the same like emerge -uD world in gentoo

Hmm... the probs is that the pc that i wish to install arch dosent have a good internet connection, And believe me i've already downloaded OVER 4GB of data for gentoo !! including the 2 iso's .. also as you know having gentoo meanign even having the stuff thats JUST released by the mainainers of the packages... so i cant actually live without Alsa-1.0rc2, Kde 3.2-beta2, kernel-2.6-test11 and many latest packages that i have in gentoo !

BTW, is there any way that i can use the source of the apps that i have downloaded for gentoo to work with ARCH linux, in the ABS system that you mentioned ??

The source in gentoo is directly downloaded from the packages homepage, so it shud be the same for all !

If thats possible that i would save plenty of time not downloading all the packages again, just for a different format

In the mean time, i definately plan to try Arch on my second PC..
Bye,
Jassi

zen_guerrilla · 2003-12-12 21:42:08

Anonymous wrote:

Also if you get 0.5 and do a pacman -Syu and keep up to date you will have 0.6 before it is even released
Lol, well yea thats true, its the same like emerge -uD world in gentoo

Sure, after 10 hrs of compiling .

Anonymous wrote:

thats JUST released by the mainainers of the packages... so i cant actually live without Alsa-1.0rc2, Kde 3.2-beta2, kernel-2.6-test11 and many latest packages that i have in gentoo !

alsa-1.0.0rc2 is already in arch (& works great with my sblive btw ). For kernel 2.6-test search the forum. And after studying the PKGBUILDs of the stable version of kde included in abs, it won't be difficult to make them compile 3.2-beta2.

Anonymous wrote:

BTW, is there any way that i can use the source of the apps that i have downloaded for gentoo to work with ARCH linux, in the ABS system that you mentioned ??

simply copy them in /var/cache/pacman/src, if a source tarball is broken makepkg should complain about it checking its md5 hash.

Anonymous wrote:

In the mean time, i definately plan to try Arch on my second PC..

Great, welcome to Arch .

malakas · 2004-02-14 11:44:52

[-] no cnfiguration during install.The newbie wont understand what to edit at the configuration file at the end of the setup.

[-] gtk or qt install would be atractive

Mr Green · 2004-02-14 15:29:14

You should configure configs during install.....fstab etc...you need a basic knowledge of linux to that but its not that difficult (even for a newbie like me )

[+] Arch is so easy to install

[+] Once installed easy to update

[+] Archers are very friendly (unlike some distros that begin with "G")

There are no negative points you decide what distro,kernel and desktop you want

If you do not like Arch then try another flavour

Mr Green

Arch User & Proud of it 8)

Arch Linux

#26 2003-11-19 20:23:03

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#27 2003-11-20 01:35:44

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#28 2003-11-20 11:25:33

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#29 2003-11-20 11:28:57

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#30 2003-11-20 15:13:17

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#31 2003-11-20 19:51:40

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#32 2003-11-20 23:00:11

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#33 2003-11-20 23:25:17

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#34 2003-11-20 23:43:06

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#35 2003-11-21 00:47:51

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#36 2003-11-21 20:54:29

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#37 2003-11-21 21:43:53

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#38 2003-11-21 23:25:17

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#39 2003-11-22 01:32:37

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#40 2003-12-11 23:44:23

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#41 2003-12-12 11:23:37

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#42 2003-12-12 21:16:31

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#43 2003-12-12 21:42:08

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#44 2004-02-14 11:44:52

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

#45 2004-02-14 15:29:14

Re: PROS and CONS of ArchLinux

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