Arch setup for Home users

bibek22 · 2015-11-11 01:35:12

I installed Arch on my mom's laptop because Windows 10 felt so much laggy and powerheavy and I felt sorry for her.
What would be the setup be like to make it as intuitive as possible. I'm not looking for a DE suggestion here because I just went ahead and installed Fluxbox but I don't mind having little packages from another DE like thunar for eg.
So, how would I set it up so with graphical interface for all settings like wifi-configuration and power manager(little battery icon that shows charging/discharging/percentage etc)
Conky doesn't work because it need to be clickable. I ran out of ideas. Also, I really don't want to switch to other DE for fluxbox is really snappy to do so.

Thanks.

Perhaps this is bit open-ended. Mods. will find right place for it.

esa · 2015-11-11 04:06:08

Does your mom get along with Fluxbox is more the question.

I understand if Cinnamon, Gnome, KDE or Mint might be a bit too powerhungry...
But still, in favor for your mom, your tasks you want to achieve, and to stay snappy for the computer, if you havent already, please have a look at XFCE or LXDE.
Both support a wide range of tools, to achieve what you want 'out of the box', and lots more and used to work very well on older machines.

With bad luck you end up having QT4, QT5, GTK2, GTK3 to 'name just the ones "from"' gnome and kde, regardless with what WM or DE you start with.

Sorry if this is not what you wanted to read.
Hope this helps

ayekat · 2015-11-11 07:38:00

What esa said + setting up device hotplugging, network and printer settings via GUI, file manager, etc. and make them run well together can be quite a PITA (and eventually you'll end up trying to emulate existing DEs anyway, I think).

Alad · 2015-11-11 08:19:19

ayekat wrote:

What esa said + setting up device hotplugging, network and printer settings via GUI, file manager, etc. and make them run well together can be quite a PITA (and eventually you'll end up trying to emulate existing DEs anyway, I think).

Do "home users" have to tweak 9000 settings anyway, or are they even aware they can change them? IMO a static configuration works just fine. And when the DE breaks completely on the next upgrade, you have to go back and deal with it.

Get some ideas from here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SEc3wnO60o

Last edited by Alad (2015-11-11 08:24:51)

ayekat · 2015-11-11 08:48:17

Alad wrote:

And when the DE breaks completely on the next upgrade, you have to go back and deal with it.

And when the cardhouse of applications stiched together manually breaks completely on the next upgrade, you also have to go back and deal with it.

I agree that having the possibility of changing settings all over the place is not necessary - but you'll save a lot of time setting it up, it's been designed upstream to work together, and it looks neat¹. And upgrades breaking things will always be a problem. But if something is wrong on a homebrew solution, you'll also have to wonder "is this an upstream issue? or did I miss something in my setup?".

____
¹ That's no argument, but we're talking about family members, and not archetypical Linux users.

Alad · 2015-11-11 08:55:30

IDK. If we assume everything breaks eventually, then it's easier to fix your own set of tools that you understand, rather than an opaque mess of "integrated" stuff that upstream may or may not have interest in fixing. Particularly when they add a few dozen layers of abstraction.

Anyway, to emphasize on an obvious but most important point: talk to your users, see what they expect from the computer. Don't assume you know it in their place.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-11-11 01:35:12

Arch setup for Home users

#2 2015-11-11 04:06:08

Re: Arch setup for Home users

#3 2015-11-11 07:38:00

Re: Arch setup for Home users

#4 2015-11-11 08:19:19

Re: Arch setup for Home users

#5 2015-11-11 08:48:17

Re: Arch setup for Home users

#6 2015-11-11 08:55:30

Re: Arch setup for Home users

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