Arch Linux

scav

Member

Registered: 2006-06-29

Posts: 10

Before I migrate to this distro

Hello folks! Im just recently got rather fed up with Gentoo and all the neverending compiling of every single file. Comming from Debian before I started using Gentoo I took more liking on the fact you did not have to compile yourself but the lack of packages and updates.

Now that I am more experienced then what I was back in my Debian days, and know what packages I would like to you, I have found all those to be available in the archlinux packagetree.  Also here the precompiled packages seems to be more "bleeding edge" than the ones from Debian.

So over to my quick questions:

Will it be possible to update to a new release say from 6.0 - 7.0 without the need of a fresh install from a new image? Or do I have to constantly keep downloading new images everytime a new release is out?

I did not find any info on the pacman utility, are there only man pages and in that case, are they online or do I have to install the distro to read about it?

Are there any IRC chat up for this distro like there are both #debian and #gentoo?

How are the forum respons here compared to the ones for Gentoo wich was one of the best communities I have ever encountered.

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I hope I can get answers here, and I hope that I have finally found the distro I can use "for the rest of my life".

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

Will it be possible to update to a new release say from 6.0 - 7.0 without the need of a fresh install from a new image?

Arch runs on a rolling release system, so you only need to install once - after that, just do a system update regularly, and you'll always have the latest release.

I did not find any info on the pacman utility, are there only man pages and in that case, are they online or do I have to install the distro to read about it?

man pacman

Are there any IRC chat up for this distro like there are both #debian and #gentoo?

#archlinux on freenode.

How are the forum respons here compared to the ones for Gentoo wich was one of the best communities I have ever encountered.

Well, I'm hardly objective, but I think the forum is excellent, as long as you take note of the Arch philosophy and principles - you'll find them in the wiki.

Borosai

Member

From: Sandy Appendix, U.S.A.

Registered: 2006-06-15

Posts: 227

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

Everything has been covered by tomk, but I just want to point out that all you have to run is

pacman -Syu

and everything will be updated. And if you happen to wait a month or two between updates, don't worry...you won't be waiting a few hours for it to finish compiling

scav

Member

Registered: 2006-06-29

Posts: 10

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

Thanks alot guys. It is allready running on my laptop, so I guess when I have the time for it I will start the process of backing up my /home dir wich is so mindless included on my / when I sat gentoo up on this box.

Oh and yes, one more thing. I tried a random search like pacman -S alsa, and it gave me nothing. Is there some other syntax I need to use for a "wildcard" like query I missed in the man page of pacman?

Ryujin

Forum Fellow

From: Centerville, Utah

Registered: 2005-05-12

Posts: 246

Website

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

-Q is query, although I just use the Archlinux website, it is a little more comprehensive

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http://red45.wordpress.com
http://saltstack.org
https://github.com/thatch45

Snowman

Developer/Forum Fellow

From: Montreal, Canada

Registered: 2004-08-20

Posts: 5,212

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

To search:
pacman -Ss alsa

twiistedkaos

Member

Registered: 2006-05-20

Posts: 666

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

To search:
pacman -Ss alsa

As snowman said, The pacman commandline options are case sensitivy. The command '-S' is sync with the pacman servers. the '-s' is the search option.

Borosai

Member

From: Sandy Appendix, U.S.A.

Registered: 2006-06-15

Posts: 227

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

pacman -Qi <name>

is  very helpful as well. Among other things, it tells you the dependencies of the program, as well as what other programs depend on it. Give it a try.

codemac

Member

From: Cliche Tech Place

Registered: 2005-05-13

Posts: 794

Website

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

pacman -Ss takes regex arguments.

So `pacman -Ss "^bob"` would match any package that started with "bob", but not "ebob".

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http://codemac.net

scav

Member

Registered: 2006-06-29

Posts: 10

Re: Before I migrate to this distro

Im running Arch now, and I love it

Thanks for the help on pacman, apreciate it