[yet another] Arch review

benplaut · 2006-06-18 06:55:24

Note: I wrote this for ubuntuforums, so it's a bit de-geekified to suit the general userbase. Thought i might as well post it here, too.
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Intro
A few weeks ago, dapper was released. Being on the beta cycle since flight 2, it was a bit of a suprise to not be getting 200 updates per day. In fact, some of dapper's software is already a sub-version or two out of date. Summer break was finally here, and I wanted something more. Something more fun.

Background
Arch Linux was created, as far as I understand, by Judd Vinet as a personal distro specifically for the author's needs. Taking many ideas from Crux, it aimed to be fast, efficient, and for goodness sake -- KISS!! Simple does not always mean GUI everything. This simple refers to well annotated and logical config files, a simple BSD-style init, and a nice simple package management system. There are two ways to look at Arch from the perspective of a seasoned distro-junkie; it's either a bleeding-edge slackware with a great package manager, or gentoo... from binary.

Install
Arch's installer is simple and efficient. Coming from a bcakground involving gentoo, I took the time to print out the 30 page install manual -- not as impressive as gentoo's 90 page opus, but at least I didn't have to buy a $30 printer catridge afterwards. When the boot the install CD, it goes into a minimal Busybox system. To start the install, merely execute the ncurses script. The installer itself is very powerful, quite similar to Debian's. First, you partition your drive using cfdisk/fdisk and create your fstab through an Ncurses menu; i had already partitioned using the gparted livecd, but the fstab setup worked perfectly. Next, you select your install source, either network or CD. The next step, of course, is selecting and installing your packages. It was hard to tell if they were on network or CD, but it seemed that the CD included a very minimal X, and alot of command line userspace tools. Yes, VIM is included by default ...emacs is not. The next step, somewhat optional, is to configure the system's rc.conf, recheck your fstab, and several other configuration files. You usually don't need to change anything, but it's worth checking. The configs are very well annotated, and documented even better in the manual. The final step was to install a bootloader. I was planning to add it to my dedicated /boot partition (great for distro hopping, btw), but noticed in he manual that it let you edit your menu.lst, if you use grub, before installing. I decided to go that far in, then copied down the entry, to be sure that it would work when adding to my own menu.lst. With all my tasks done, I rebooted to begin post-install. As a quick note to anyone, it's very useful to either write down everything you do during an install in a notebook, or log it in a spare computer.

Post Install
When I rebooted, I went into ubuntu since I had not installed a bootloader. Copying the installer-configured entry went perfectly (Side note: I went ahead and added vga=792 to the boot line, since the default res is very hard to do anything serious with), and I then rebooted into my new arch. As the install guide suggested, I logged into the root account, with no password, and made a new user account after setting the su password. I was hooked up to an ethernet line, so I decided to learn a it about the package manager (more on that later) while getting my WiFi up. Another important tip to distro-hoppers: The first thing you should install on minimalist distros is a command line IRC client, such as irssi, weechat, and bitchx. Information is invaluable, and being able to share your issues with others via IRC is a wonderful thing. The second thing you should install, and learn to use very well, is screen. Think of screen as a window manager for the CLI. It lets you have many programs open in the same terminal, via tabs or a split screen, and lets you scroll of in a command line. It is an invaluable tool for any CLI work. Configuring WiFi was my next task. Drivers for my card, an Atheros using MadWiFi drivers, was available in the unstable repository, and worked pretty well after ading ath0 to rc.conf; actually, they didn't work at first, but it was user error. Once i did it the correct way, everything was fine. Installing X was a relatively simple task, as I copied over my xorg.conf from Dapper.

Package Management
Arch's package manager is a blessing apon distro-kind. It is simple, efficient, fast, and handles source packages with ease, and the distro has a wonderful thing called AUR. The arch user repository consists of hundreds (if not thousands) of user contributed PKGBUILDS; simple config files that give the Arch Build System's makepkg instructions for pulling down the source, ./configuring, and making a pkg.tar.gz out of it. Given that AUR pkgbuilds are not tested much, they don't all work. I've had prety good luck with most packages, so far. Scripts and python programs have been made to automatically pull down PKGBUILDs from the AUR, but it's generally easy enough to do it by hand. Pacman handles the packages themselves. It's a wonderful tool -- pacman -Ss to search for a package, pacman -S to install it, pacman -A to install a local package, pacman -Sy to pull down the latest repository cache, and pacman -Suy to update the cache, then do a complete update to the latest.

Userspace/Post post install
Installing my usual work environment was a very simple task, all the software I use was either in the repositories, or in AUR. I reused most of my configuration from ubuntu, as well. Part of my reason to use Arch was to slim down, so I decided to get rid of many of the gnome programs I had been using. Gedit was replaced by the wonderful medit, which can do everything as Gedit, plus much more. As an extra, it's faster and more configurable. My usual terminal in ubuntu was yakuake, but having all those additional kde and qt libs for a mere terminal seemed a bit extreme, so I made a little shell script to have a pop-down terminal, using screen and urxvt. Nautilus was replaced by Thunar, which I really prefer to the former. One extra dependency over my other apps, and it's less than a meg. Wonderful.

Community
As a whole, the Arch community is more knowledgable than ubuntu's. Yes, there are plenty of gurus in ubuntuforums and #ubuntu, but Arch is really a more advanced distro, and thus more of the users are knowledgable. In general, the people seem to be friendly, albeit with a lower tolerance for stupidity than ubuntu. That's a good thing! The one question I asked on the forum did not get answered, but I put in it that there was another possibility I wanted to try -- 12 hours later, I did and it worked. There's another very nice thing about the arch community -- ALOT of people, probably more than half, are using lightweight WMs; finally!

Final Thoughts
I suppose an ubuntu server install or debian sid would give me a similar result, but I really like Arch. The community is great, the package manager is excellent, and it's really fast. I'm staying with Arch for now. It took a bit longer to configure than other distros, but now that that's done, it's very little work to keep it up. Arch is on a rolling release cycle, meaning that you can just continue to pacman -Suy and always have the latest, kinda like gentoo. I'm not leaving the ubuntu community, but I'm not using the distro for a while, at least until Edgy is far into dev.

Recommendation
This is a logical next step for those who have tweaked their debian-base beyond all recognition, especially those who use lightweight environments. Hell, it's worth switching just for AUR.

Have fun!

wow... i guess i was really bored on the car ride back from my LUG today :shock:

manicka · 2006-06-18 10:52:26

well well, fancy meeting you here

like you I intend to stay heavily involved in the Ubu community, but damn, Arch is just so nice.

And yes I agree, it's worth it just for aur

detto · 2006-06-18 15:21:28

Hey, nice review!

I also like Archs philosophy, pacman of course too, and the whole as one, not to forget the really aweseome community 8)

Btw, thats also an very very nice point: Ive never stumbled across apps like pekwm, quodlibet, or as u now mention it: medit. just pacmaned it, and hey! -> ive got a new text editor looking nice bcoz of gtk-rezlooks-engine that is in AUR, so much new apps and things to discover... i really have the feeling that with other distros i forfeit s.th., and that keeps my rockin on arch

best regards,
detto

whargoul · 2006-06-18 15:34:49

"benplaut wrote:

The arch user repository consists of hundreds (if not thousands) of user contributed PKGBUILDS

Hmm it seems like we almos have 2500 PKGBUILD's

Statistics:
Packages in unsupported    2494
Packages in unsupported and flagged as safe 1345
Packages in [community]    764
Packages added or updated in the past 7 days 210
Registered Users    2107
Trusted Users    18

benplaut · 2006-06-19 06:17:59

whargoul wrote:

"benplaut wrote:
The arch user repository consists of hundreds (if not thousands) of user contributed PKGBUILDS
Hmm it seems like we almos have 2500 PKGBUILD's
Statistics:
Packages in unsupported    2494
Packages in unsupported and flagged as safe 1345
Packages in [community]    764
Packages added or updated in the past 7 days 210
Registered Users    2107
Trusted Users    18

wow :shock: so far, i've foudn everything i've looked for, even if it needed some tweaking to get it to work

aloha, manicka

whargoul · 2006-06-19 18:01:30

I might throw a comment with my relationship with Arch.

I have rescantly installed FreeBSD and I found the Ports system very cool, it was easy to install ports and upgrading it was a breeze. But there was something I didn't like, I just couldn't see what it was.
The yesterday I wen for Ubuntu. It was my succesfull attempt with Linux, so I just wanted to give a old pal a visit. But I missed something again, and then I realized what it was.
KISS - also known as "Keep It Simple Stupid". Neither FreeBSD and Ubuntu had simplecity like Arch have. And I just love that.
Forget about AUR, Pacman, ABS whatever there is, KISS is the keything, why I will use Arch forever.

Just my 0.02€

mcmillan · 2006-06-21 01:34:04

I'd agree with whargoul about KISS being the most appealing feature of Arch. I keep a partition for testing other distros. I was thinking about installing an rpm based distro there a while back since I haven't really used any of them. I didn't even get as far as downloading any, the idea of needing at least 3 cds to install a system seemed to go completely against the way my linux system has become since I switched to arch. I've got slackware on there now, which seems to have a similar KISS philosophy, but I haven't used it enough yet to form too much of an opinion.

benplaut · 2006-06-21 04:36:06

KISYEI (keep it simple yet expandable, idiot)

Gentoo doesn't really count since i used a script, but Arch is my first time building a system up, rather than trimming down

Arch Linux

#1 2006-06-18 06:55:24

[yet another] Arch review

#2 2006-06-18 10:52:26

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#3 2006-06-18 15:21:28

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#4 2006-06-18 15:34:49

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#5 2006-06-19 06:17:59

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#6 2006-06-19 18:01:30

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#7 2006-06-21 01:34:04

Re: [yet another] Arch review

#8 2006-06-21 04:36:06

Re: [yet another] Arch review

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