The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

Awebb · 2016-07-25 11:05:40

zbiko wrote:

Alad wrote:
If you can read a man page, and google the error message, you're ready for Arch.
And if you can use a German-English dictionary, you're ready to translate Sein und Zeit.

I think you overestimate Heidegger's linguistic complexity, as much as you overestimate Archlinux' complexity. in 1996, most mainstream distributions were more complex and less comfortable than Arch is today. Well, maybe you're right and English is to German, what Lua is to C++.

zbiko · 2016-07-25 19:51:16

Alad wrote:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … o_trolling

Hi Alad, I apologize if my response came off as flippant. I appreciate that you are here to help noobs (and others), and for that I thank you. Thanks!

My question was, and still is, whether to recommend Arch for a first-time Linux user. I appreciate your suggestion that the answer may be "yes", especially since you are "walking the walk" by helping exactly these noobs with their probs. So, thanks again.

zbiko · 2016-07-25 19:55:57

Awebb wrote:

maybe you're right and English is to German, what Lua is to C++.

Yes, if by that you mean - they're just different languages with different conventions. I don't think that German is more complex than English, or that Arch is more complex than system "X".

Like you, I find Arch beautifully simple, and a pleasure to work with - just as Heidegger's terminology is no more complex than what's needed.

I distinguish between "simplicity" and "easiness" in that simplicity is a property of the system, whereas easiness has to do with what the user is used to.

I really enjoyed Rich Hickey's talk "Simplicity Matters" (aka "Simple Made Easy") if you're interested in this type of system design philosophy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI8tNMsozo0#t=65

PS Arch is best!

Alad · 2016-07-25 20:00:56

My question was, and still is, whether to recommend Arch for a first-time Linux user. I appreciate your suggestion that the answer may be "yes", especially since you are "walking the walk" by helping exactly these noobs with their probs. So, thanks again.

Is the user a tvtropes reader, who reads 300 tabs through the middle of the night? If so, I don't see the issue.

If not, there's no Linux distribution I'd recommend in particular, though you could lend a helping hand with Arch (e.g., over an SSH connection).

Last edited by Alad (2016-07-25 20:01:56)

stevendupuis · 2016-08-24 17:01:09

I would like to extend a very big thank you to the pacman devs and maintainers.

Your upgrades have been super - all the hooks for updating the man pages, mime types etc
are a great addition to this nifty piece of software.

I really like using Arch for so many reasons, but pacman is at the top of the list.

Keep up the great work.

Steve Dupuis
Ottawa Canada

jasonwryan · 2016-08-24 18:22:05

Merging with the Official Arch is the Best thread...

stevendupuis · 2016-08-24 19:17:28

Thank you Jason - didn't really know where to put my post, so I took a stab at it.

... Steve

Launfal · 2016-08-29 23:18:44

I just installed Arch for the first time yesterday. I've been a Debian guy for years, and I've tried some Slackware and Fedora, but I've always wanted to try Arch. They have all those installer projects around the net, but I wanted to do it the Arch way.

It took me two tries, but I got it installed. I haven't installed Xorg yet because I haven't needed to. Email, video, music, browsing, writing on my book, everything works in the TTY. I even got fbterm, fbv, and tmux working almost perfectly, and that almost never happens, regardless of distro.

So a big thank you to the devs for a great distro. Eventually I'll probably install the graphics system, but for now, everything just works.

stevendupuis · 2016-08-29 23:53:35

Good to see another new Archer. I'm definitely a convert. Installing via the Arch Way means I got to control my complete machine and software configuration without having to second-guess the folks that build the other distros. Most of them add so much burf that slows down the machine, and for me is not useful stuff. I can't use eye-candy stuff that comes with compositors - they drive me nuts! I need my terminals and apps to stay put. I don't need anything to spin or do any fancy open-close stuff. I found it easy to avoid all this by installing Arch. Haven't looked back ...

kgtuning · 2016-09-04 01:10:37

I ran Arch for almost 9 months then went back to Windows. I used an installer. but just recently I reinstalled Arch... however I did it the Arch way. It is by far an extremely satisfying accomplishment. At least for me. I've tried Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora and Arch. Arch is the only distro for me.

nowhereman531 · 2016-09-16 09:37:16

I finally made the switch and this is without a doubt the best distro for my needs. ive tried them all (as most of us did). I think i should/could have made the switch sooner but that text based install was brutal the first... uh 15 times i tried to install... once i found # wifi-menu i was set. Thanks for the GREAT distro.

Awebb · 2016-09-16 11:49:09

nowhereman531 wrote:

I think i should/could have made the switch sooner but that text based install was brutal the first... uh 15 times i tried to install...

I actually switched to Arch multiple times before I kept it. I even returned from Gentoo, because it was a bit more time consuming than I was comfortable with. Arch is a good compromise between not having to fight arbitrary distro defaults and not being required to do everything manually.

drcouzelis · 2016-09-16 17:03:50

Awebb wrote:

Arch is a good compromise between not having to fight arbitrary distro defaults and not being required to do everything manually.

Arch Linux is pretty unique in having those qualities, isn't it? Maybe one or more of the BSD operating systems is similar?

Awebb · 2016-09-17 16:51:32

drcouzelis wrote:

Awebb wrote:
Arch is a good compromise between not having to fight arbitrary distro defaults and not being required to do everything manually.
Arch Linux is pretty unique in having those qualities, isn't it? Maybe one or more of the BSD operating systems is similar?

I don't know about BSD. I gave up on BSD stuff a few years ago. I will never work in a sysop/admin/devop position again (if I can help it) and I really don't want to play with an OS for the sake of playing with an OS anymore. I really don't have a use for another unixoid OS. Heck, when I feed google with the question"what can bsd do what linux cannot", the second hit is a thread on stackexchange CLOSED by a certain jasonwryan "as primarily opinion-based".

orasis · 2016-09-29 05:59:20

Even though I am not on Arch right now (I am using Slackware) ... I would say yes, yes and yes.

Great community and a really fun distro to learn and mess around with. It's also fast as ....

Oh and the documentation is probably THE BEST of any non commercial distro out.

n0vember · 2016-10-11 09:58:30

Hi all,

No questions here, this one is more of a success story. This is about why I love Archlinux and why you should ALWAYS have an USB key ready with an arch iso on it.

I went through upgrade process this morning, as I do once a week. For no reason, my system froze. This is a real problem and I don't know why it happened, but as it never happened before, I will not investigate it that much.

Real problem was that I was in front of my terminal, frozen during a "yaourt -Syu", last message being "upgrading systemd". I knew this wasn't going to be easy. Trying to reboot and after fsck, I was told that disk was clean, but that /sbin/init was not found on the drive. Ouch.

Here are the steps I went through :
- boot on USB drive with arch
- mount my drive on /mnt and run "arch-chroot /mnt"
- yaourt -S systemd
- reboot and discover that it was still down
- boot from USB drive again
- try a yaourt -Syu and discover that a lot of files could not be upgraded and the cause was a lot of files in /lib had a 0 byte size.
- pkgfile told me what packages those files belonged to.
- yaourt -S libsystemd libx11 tzdata
- reboot and all was clean

I would not have been stuck as long as I have ansible playbook for installing my machine and daily backups of my /home, but I find it reassuring that my system can be recovered easily. I don't know of other distributions with such a powerful install/live/rescue iso available and practical tools such as arch-chroot.

Thanks you Archlinux.

Trilby · 2016-10-11 13:14:21

Mod note: Merged the above post.

n0vember, it sounds like you had the issue with the systemd update that has been very well covered on the forums - but in your case it was an actual problem (in most cases Xorg crashed but was fine after a restart). There is a fair chance your symptoms were worse because yaourt was running behind the scenes during that upgrade. If you really think arch is great, you should use the tool that really makes it great: pacman.

n0vember · 2016-10-11 14:10:51

Trilby wrote:

If you really think arch is great, you should use the tool that really makes it great: pacman.

great debate... I use both pacman and yaourt as long as I use some AUR packages. And yes, I sometimes use yaourt when pacman would have been sufficient.

In this precise case, I tried pacman and it failed. Yaourt worked. I use a systemd-networkd to bond ethernet and wifi. I also use systemd-resolved. While mounted on top of live-usb and arch-chroot, I did not start those services. I ran dhcpcd, echoed "nameserver 8.8.8.8" in /etc/resolv.conf and add dns to the /etc/nsswitch.conf (instead of resolve). Network then worked, but for some reason, pacman wasn't able to resolve server names. I tried the same commands with yaourt and it passed. So to be honest with this, I said I used yaourt.

Quicken2k · 2016-10-11 15:16:34

Does anyone here actually use Arch as a day to day OS. Thinking about moving to Arch and just keep Windows for gaming.

GTRONICK · 2016-10-11 15:18:51

Hello, I use ArchLinux every day. Is the only OS I have installed in my PC. I also use it for gaming with excellente results.

jasonwryan · 2016-10-11 15:18:53

Merging with the Should I go Arch thread...

drcouzelis · 2016-10-11 15:58:30

Quicken2k wrote:

Does anyone here actually use Arch as a day to day OS. Thinking about moving to Arch and just keep Windows for gaming.

Yes, there are tons of people who use Arch Linux as their primary or only operating system. Myself included.

I started dual booting Linux and Windows in college in 2001. I deleted my Windows partition and have been using Linux exclusively since 2003.

Is there a feature of Windows (other than Windows specific games) that prevents you from using Linux all the time?

Last edited by drcouzelis (2016-10-11 15:59:15)

ewaller · 2016-10-11 16:10:34

Quicken2k wrote:

Does anyone here actually use Arch as a day to day OS. Thinking about moving to Arch and just keep Windows for gaming.

Yep. I have a Windows partition over in the corner of my drive. It is getting dusty -- have not started it since February. It exists only for one piece of software; a scoring system for officiating gymnastics meets.

mrunion · 2016-10-11 16:50:36

Quicken2k wrote:

Does anyone here actually use Arch as a day to day OS. Thinking about moving to Arch and just keep Windows for gaming.

It's the only OS I use, and my entire family uses Linux as well (just not Arch). For me, keeping windows for games only is just no reason to keep Windows. Buy a PlayStation or X Box one, is my opinion. It's all a matter of priorities, though. No game in the world is worth enough for me to play to put Windows in my house again.

Windows-free for over 10 years and LOVING it!

Daerandin · 2016-10-11 17:14:27

Quicken2k wrote:

Does anyone here actually use Arch as a day to day OS. Thinking about moving to Arch and just keep Windows for gaming.

I see a lot of people have already answered this, but I also feel the need to say that Arch is the only OS on my primary home computer which I use for both work and play (I do play a lot of games). I came to Arch as a newbie, and I did make some early blunders on my first Arch install since I dived into it with no prior knowledge. However, it was a very rewarding learning experience and I have now been running Arch for the last three years without any issues that I can recall.

I can't imagine using another OS, even for gaming. Currently I am able to play all of my favorite games on Linux, either from native Linux versions or with Wine.

Arch Linux

#1051 2016-07-25 11:05:40

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1052 2016-07-25 19:51:16

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1053 2016-07-25 19:55:57

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#1054 2016-07-25 20:00:56

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#1055 2016-08-24 17:01:09

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#1056 2016-08-24 18:22:05

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#1057 2016-08-24 19:17:28

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#1058 2016-08-29 23:18:44

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#1059 2016-08-29 23:53:35

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#1060 2016-09-04 01:10:37

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1061 2016-09-16 09:37:16

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1062 2016-09-16 11:49:09

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#1063 2016-09-16 17:03:50

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#1064 2016-09-17 16:51:32

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#1065 2016-09-29 05:59:20

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#1066 2016-10-11 09:58:30

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#1067 2016-10-11 13:14:21

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#1068 2016-10-11 14:10:51

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#1069 2016-10-11 15:16:34

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#1070 2016-10-11 15:18:51

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#1071 2016-10-11 15:18:53

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#1072 2016-10-11 15:58:30

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#1073 2016-10-11 16:10:34

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#1074 2016-10-11 16:50:36

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#1075 2016-10-11 17:14:27

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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