Arch truly does rock...

sinisterguy · 2006-08-14 19:23:44

Hey guys,

with all the buz around novell and suse these days I decided to try out suse 10.1. I was impressed overall with the installation and such. But like many have said before, yum is really really slow. And the worst part was the networking. I have an rt2500 wifi card. It works perfectly with the rt2500 drivers for arch, but on Suse it was a huge pain in the rear to get going. Trying another distro reminded me why I haven't changed distros in a couple years. Arch is a lot easier to set up and maintain if you ask me. And after being with arch for a while, I find gui config tools like yast clumsy. Well, enough of my ramblings. I just wanted to once again give my props to the arch project.

-Lukas

lumiwa · 2006-08-14 19:29:51

sinisterguy wrote:

Hey guys,
with all the buz around novell and suse these days I decided to try out suse 10.1. I was impressed overall with the installation and such. But like many have said before, yum is really really slow. And the worst part was the networking. I have an rt2500 wifi card. It works perfectly with the rt2500 drivers for arch, but on Suse it was a huge pain in the rear to get going. Trying another distro reminded me why I haven't changed distros in a couple years. Arch is a lot easier to set up and maintain if you ask me. And after being with arch for a while, I find gui config tools like yast clumsy. Well, enough of my ramblings. I just wanted to once again give my props to the arch project.
-Lukas

I tried SuSE 10.2 Alpha 3 and IMO is very good (I was SuSE user loooong time and SuSE is "near" me ) ).
Big difference from earlier versions. And BTW I have ATI Radeon 9000 and I use mesa drivers which are in Xorg 7.1 which SuSE has much better (on my computer).

benplaut · 2006-08-15 01:18:04

Coming from Suse, Ubuntu, Debian, and Gentoo background...

Arch truly does rock

ralvez · 2006-08-15 02:24:30

I think I have used every major distro and a very large number of the "smaller" Linux variants in the industry, since I started in the Linux path. In my expereince the only two that "touched my heart" are Slackware and Arch. 8)

That is not to say that all the other distros do not have merit but when it comes to stability and speed there is nothing that bits them.
As a software developer I spend about 12 hours a day behind my computer and Arch just works !! I love that!!

And since I am at it a big "Thank you" to all the Arch developers and the community ... you are the best! :!:

scarney · 2006-08-15 02:33:39

totally agreed!.. i personally feel Arch is the best distro in existance. i have used all distros mentioned in this thread, and then some. and really, none compare. simple, totally customizable, blazing fast. i said it before, and ill say it again. Arch is a work of art, my hat is off to the artists!

fxsti01 · 2006-08-23 01:03:19

Been distro surfin for some time now, really enjoy Arch, blazing fast, easy to maintain, update, and install packages, etc.

Keep up the great work!

pressh · 2006-08-23 07:43:28

lumiwa wrote:

I tried SuSE 10.2 Alpha 3 and IMO is very good (I was SuSE user loooong time and SuSE is "near" me ) ).
Big difference from earlier versions. And BTW I have ATI Radeon 9000 and I use mesa drivers which are in Xorg 7.1 which SuSE has much better (on my computer).

Are they porting yast to gtk for the next version ?
(as they are more and more a gnome based distro, it's quite a lot of bloat to have qt configuration tools. They even install kdebase if you go with gnome as desktop )

benplaut · 2006-08-23 07:51:25

pressh wrote:

Are they porting yast to gtk for the next version ?

i sure hope so!! it's really one of the few reasons i don't recommend suse to newbies...

lumiwa · 2006-08-23 12:46:02

pressh wrote:

lumiwa wrote:
I tried SuSE 10.2 Alpha 3 and IMO is very good (I was SuSE user loooong time and SuSE is "near" me ) ).
Big difference from earlier versions. And BTW I have ATI Radeon 9000 and I use mesa drivers which are in Xorg 7.1 which SuSE has much better (on my computer).
Are they porting yast to gtk for the next version ?
(as they are more and more a gnome based distro, it's quite a lot of bloat to have qt configuration tools. They even install kdebase if you go with gnome as desktop )

More and more companies around the world, I don't know for Canada and USA, use Linux and one of "top" distributions is SuSE which is good for Linux World. If "rocks" or not I don't know because I am just a computer user.
BTW does Frugalware rocks?

Gullible Jones · 2006-08-23 17:10:42

Not really. It's very well maintained and has some nice features, but it gets rid of a lot of Arch's good features, and basically feels like a glorified Slackware clone. I suppose I could get by with the rather obfuscated package groupings, but the use of filthy bloated SystemV initscripts clinches it for me.

pressh · 2006-08-23 18:29:46

welcome, good to have you here !

generic_ · 2008-12-25 07:38:16

Arch really is that good though. It's like gentoo without the compiling thing and a better install. Faster to get up and I don't think the human eye can tell a difference between the two. Arch is best distro, easy, quick, smart, and is f**king fast!!

dsr · 2008-12-25 16:47:00

generic_, you revived quite an old thread. But you're right that there's no discernable difference in speed between Arch and Gentoo. Even omp, a Gentoo dev who can often be found lurking around at #archlinux on freenode, said that the only advantage of Gentoo over Arch (other than supporting more architectures) is the ability to control what gets compiled through USE flags.

string · 2008-12-25 17:26:47

Funny how people seem to think 0.5second speed gains are more noteworthy than USE flags.

Misfit138 · 2008-12-25 18:53:44

string wrote:

Funny how people seem to think 0.5second speed gains are more noteworthy than USE flags.

For me, USE flags are useless; I literally have zero reason to compile with anything but default options. I can sort of appreciate the extra feature of a system-wide USE system, though I think such a simple system implementation is rather over-played by fans of it.
If and when the time comes to compile something with my own custom options on a single package, I'd be satisfied by editing the corresponding PKGBUILD, but as I stated, a system wide solution is becoming more widely unnecessary everyday. (On machines built within the last 6 years, i686 optimized is plenty good enough.)
When Gentoo first came out, the USE system was more relevant. Nowadays, I can't help but compartmentalize it into a system kept alive largely by people with entirely too much time on their hands.

It is a psychological perspective which attaches people to embracing the source-based methodology. Seeing their terminal full of scrolling compilation jargon provides a visual connection for them and reinforces the positive mental experience and perspective that 'the computer is working for me'. The reductionism aspect further provides them with a feeling of empowerment, and the knowledge that 'only what is absolutely necessary is being used, and I personally built it that way'. This ritual also provides a strong attachment to the 'power' that they feel. As unnecessary and impractical as it actually seems to the observer, the ritual is vehemently defended by the source-based user, who will often cite the level of power and control as justification.

string · 2008-12-25 19:15:01

I see. For me, USE flags were (are) not useless. I literally have zero reason to to have printing capabilities on my machines when I don't own a printer (printing = example, too lazy to talk about all the things I have no use for). For what it's worth, back when I was using Gentoo, the "USE" variable defined in /etc/make.conf came in Quite handy.

I moved away from Gentoo (and Slackware, for that matter) - I'm currently too lazy to build my own packages. Alas, Gentoo is dying/dead/netcraft confirms it -- can't say I actually *care*.

I suppose another psychological perspective is that of using an i686 optimized linux distribution which attaches people to embrace Arch Linux. Seeing their computer boot to a login prompt after two months of using Ubuntu provides a visual connection for them and reinforces the positive mental experience and perspective that 'I'm elite now'. The reductionism aspect further provides them with a feeling of empowerment, and the knowledge that 'I'm putting only the things I need on this computer'. This ritual also provides a strong attachment to the 'power' that they feel. As unnecessary and impractical as it actually seems to the observer, the ritual is vehemently defended by the arch linux user, who will often cite the level of power, lightweight-ness, i686-optimization-ness, speedness and control as justification.

--

Arch Linux is the only distribution I currently like, so don't get me wrong. My previous post in this thread was triggered by the fact that some users seem to be of the opinion that: "comparable speeds" are enough to mean archlinux == gentoo -- and that pacman/portage, init scripts, etc. :: minor details which should be overlooked when comparing the two distributions. -- perhaps I misunderstood and they were *only* comparing them from a speed point of view -- in which case, we should throw (at least) debian and slackware into the mix.

Last edited by string (2008-12-25 19:19:38)

Misfit138 · 2008-12-25 20:31:01

string wrote:

I see. For me, USE flags were (are) not useless. I literally have zero reason to to have printing capabilities on my machines when I don't own a printer (printing = example, too lazy to talk about all the things I have no use for). For what it's worth, back when I was using Gentoo, the "USE" variable defined in /etc/make.conf came in Quite handy.
I moved away from Gentoo (and Slackware, for that matter) - I'm currently too lazy to build my own packages. Alas, Gentoo is dying/dead/netcraft confirms it -- can't say I actually *care*.
I suppose another psychological perspective is that of using an i686 optimized linux distribution which attaches people to embrace Arch Linux. Seeing their computer boot to a login prompt after two months of using Ubuntu provides a visual connection for them and reinforces the positive mental experience and perspective that 'I'm elite now'. The reductionism aspect further provides them with a feeling of empowerment, and the knowledge that 'I'm putting only the things I need on this computer'. This ritual also provides a strong attachment to the 'power' that they feel. As unnecessary and impractical as it actually seems to the observer, the ritual is vehemently defended by the arch linux user, who will often cite the level of power, lightweight-ness, i686-optimization-ness, speedness and control as justification.
--
Arch Linux is the only distribution I currently like, so don't get me wrong. My previous post in this thread was triggered by the fact that some users seem to be of the opinion that: "comparable speeds" are enough to mean archlinux == gentoo -- and that pacman/portage, init scripts, etc. :: minor details which should be overlooked when comparing the two distributions. -- perhaps I misunderstood and they were *only* comparing them from a speed point of view -- in which case, we should throw (at least) debian and slackware into the mix.

I can sort of appreciate the feature of a system-wide USE implementation, though I find it largely over-rated.
As for users coming from Ubuntu and embracing Arch, feeling 1337, empowered, or otherwise elated, I cannot comment.

dsr · 2008-12-25 21:48:27

I'm with Misfit on this. I don't see what tangible benefit a Gentoo user gets from being able to compile all his or her programs without printer support, to use the example above. In fact the only non-psychological "benefit" I see would be that USE flags let you save a few KB of hard drive space here and there, but I'll bet that the Portage tree takes up more space than the amount you save by using USE flags.

I could definitely see myself running Gentoo on a platform that Arch won't run on, but I don't see any advantage in using Gentoo over Arch on i686 or x86_64.

Last edited by dsr (2008-12-25 21:50:33)

Misfit138 · 2008-12-25 22:16:20

Well, I don't mean to turn this into a Gentoo vs Arch thing.
I can see how some people would find Gentoo appealing.

dsr · 2008-12-25 22:35:09

Haha, that's kinda why I added that last sentence, although rereading it, the second clause doesn't help.

But yeah, I too can see that the extra level of control that Gentoo's USE flags provides would appeal to some.

string · 2008-12-26 08:54:55

dsr wrote:

I don't see what tangible benefit a Gentoo user gets from being able to compile all his or her programs without printer support

We're talking: dependencies brought in by said support. My desktop's got 160 GB free and it sports a rather minimalistic OpenBox environment. I *could* have KDE and GNOME installed (and never use them) -- and still have a lot of free space. I'm a very *very* tidy person, I like to keep my system as clean as the package manager allows me. With Gentoo, it was fairly simple: I could disable support for various multimedia formats, choose to enable or disable GTK/X/whatever support in various applications -- easily. (And when you're running a pure CLI system -- as I did in various circumstances -- it can come in quite handy)

In any case, I don't want to turn it into a Gentoo vs Arch thing either -- especially since I currently: 1. <3 Arch Linux (and only Arch Linux) 2. </3 Gentoo. When I used to use Gentoo, it did its job very well, and AFAIC speed was never one of the reasons for which I used it. (just like "i686-optimised" is not one of the reasons for which I use and love Arch Linux)

Hey, it's the holidays, so let's all enjoy our internets! Happy holidays

Last edited by string (2008-12-26 08:55:49)

nuttygamergeek · 2008-12-26 13:17:19

The thing about USE flags or compiling things yourself isn't so much about saving a few kB but more about reducing dependancies. Alsaplayer is a good example: I compiled it myself so it had GTK2 support instead of GTK1, didn't pull in Jack, ESD etc etc. If you pull in ESD you end up with a lot of gnome stuff you simply don't need.

More dependancies means more stuff to maintain and go wrong. On the other hand I can see you can overdo this and it's not really needed system wide.

Arch gives you more choices than other distros. You start with a base installation and then you can choose to install using binary packages or to compile them yourself. You can be selective about which packages to compile yourself.

robmaloy · 2008-12-27 02:36:54

the main rockage of arch lies in AUR and pacman(makepkg)

there are a TON of packages in extra, those that are not are very likely to be found in AUR. and even if they are NOT in AUR, its so damn easy to write your own PKGBUILD

additional rockage is supplied by:
+ pacman is nice to use and almost never breaks stuff (it did never for me)
+ init scripts are very nice & easy (putting some characters to a bash array is much better than symlinking stuff to /etc/rc2.d or whatever, ! to disable and @ to background starting of deamons FTW)
+ good community (thats you, guys)!
+ netcfg (BIG thx to mr rayner)
+ rolling release
+ ......

lol i dont even know why i wrote this, everyone here should know it. too much tequila

whe should start a new thread to see if somebody finds anything that sucks about arch!

string · 2008-12-27 08:35:42

Personally I don't like nor ever EVAR! use AUR.

Misfit138 · 2008-12-27 13:11:23

string wrote:

Personally I don't like nor ever EVAR! use AUR.

Really? Why not, I wonder?

Arch Linux

#1 2006-08-14 19:23:44

Arch truly does rock...

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#3 2006-08-15 01:18:04

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