What you like, what you miss.....

detto · 2006-10-21 22:16:34

Hey there,

this thread is supposed to include a pros/cons list for ArchLinux, better said: what you like about it and what not, or what you are missing. Ordered from very-good to just-good and very-bad to just-bad if possible
I'll start straight off:

PROS
- small & lean
- YOU have the control
- rolling release
- AUR

CONS
- some packages are outdated
- AUR implementation is too pooooor

chrismortimore · 2006-10-21 22:20:16

Pros:
Fast
No bells and whistles
Easy to maintain
Up to date
PKGBUILDs are easy to write

Cons:
Some packages I need arn't in the repos
There isn't a nice way to get an unsupported package without going through aur.archlinux.org, I'd like a nice little tool to do it. I know there are some out there, but an Arch official one would be good. Perhaps even put in the package voting functionality...

test1000 · 2006-10-21 23:04:45

the voting stuff is done already. in aurbuild atleast. and i think in yaourt too(which i use) and qpkg.

Kermit · 2006-10-22 06:43:10

PROS:
- Fast
- i686
- small & clean
- pacman & PKGBUILDs
- easy configuration

CONS:
- outdated packages
- packages which I need aren't in official repo
- sometimes after upgrade I must repair system but it isn't very important for me

Kermit

benplaut · 2006-10-22 10:19:45

.

Last edited by benplaut (2021-06-25 12:37:08)

rayjgu3 · 2006-10-22 10:41:48

pros as mentioned already
Fast, i686, small & clean, pacman & PKGBUILDs, easy configuration, No bells and whistles, Easy to maintain, Up to date, PKGBUILDs are easy to write , YOU have the control, rolling release, AUR
+KISS <Keep It Simple Silly<<
+Forum <generally quick & friendly help
+Wiki <mostly upto date
+Dev team does an awesome job <thankyou
+Moderators of the forum are pretty quick to lock down threads when things start to get heated <sometimes>
+if it is something special i need, i have to do the work <boo hoo ... small price to pay<not really a con as it is a hurdle, life is full of them,get over it

deficite · 2006-10-23 03:12:10

Pros: It's the only distro that makes sense and cuts out the crud
Cons: People complain about out-dated packages while not looking at the situation elsewhere nor using ABS

Anonymo · 2006-10-23 04:59:07

Pros: Clean, minimalistic, logical, pacman, PKGBUILD, Aur, multiple kernels, beyond kernel, community, Slackware+Crux-like with a similarity to Gentoo, no guis, up to date, multiple repos, developers, forums are great, everything is where it should be, great wiki entries, programs are unmodified, fast, i686, mplayer works, bugs get sorted out

Cons: VLC is flaky(I think it needs a recompile), Me (I need more know-how), pacsave files, I don't like them.

This is pretty much the best Linux OS. It has what I liked about Crux, Slackware and Gentoo, without the compiling and with a great package manager.

chrismortimore · 2006-10-23 07:06:19

Anonymo wrote:

Cons: VLC is flaky(I think it needs a recompile)

The Linux version always has been.

Kenetixx · 2006-10-23 07:16:03

Pros:
Small initial Install and installs fast
Pacman works pretty well
Nice selection of packages for what i need, if its not there its no big deal to compile from source.
Rolling release
User forum and IRC are very helpful for a n00b like me

Cons:
Sometimes things break after upgrades
Aur doesnt always work

Snarkout · 2006-10-23 13:42:55

Pros: awesome package management, large (enough) and active community, awesome package selection, ABS and AUR rock, light fast simple etc.

I seriously never understand the constant bitching about "out of date packages."

a) where else do you have more up to date packages and an equally stable system?

b) BUILD THEM YOURSELF! Hell, ABS is so damn easy to use for simple updates, the mind boggles. If some folks put half the effort into learning ABS and contributing to the AUR they did in bitching about packages that are a month old, we'd have repos that rival debian's.

That being said, sometimes I do wish I had a tool like checkinstall available. There have been a number of community projects I've tried, but to my knowledge, most of them have been abandoned.

What's the point of this thread, btw?

detto · 2006-10-23 14:36:06

Snarkout wrote:

I seriously never understand the constant bitching about "out of date packages."
a) where else do you have more up to date packages and an equally stable system?
b) BUILD THEM YOURSELF! Hell, ABS is so damn easy to use for simple updates, the mind boggles. If some folks put half the effort into learning ABS and contributing to the AUR they did in bitching about packages that are a month old, we'd have repos that rival debian's.

All points acknowledged, but archlinux itself claims to be on the bleeding edge site. "latest stable versions" you know some are stable and latest but yet no update to it.

Snarkout wrote:

What's the point of this thread, btw?

To get some cons and pros from archlinux that some may overlook. Therfore have a even greater experience with it of knowing the pros, or better helpful thinking by knowing cons.

cheers,
deTTo

soloport · 2006-10-23 15:44:36

Pros: All of the above-stated pros and it's just fast
Cons: None of the above-stated cons ("out-of-date" pkg's is just b/s, lazy whining)

OK, only one con, but more of a nice-to-have:
When large shift takes place there seems (to me) to be little communication, e.g. suspend2 just suddenly didn't work (thought it was just a passing bug). Turns out it was a full-blown change at kernel-package-level (WTF?!). Where was it announced? The Wiki has excellent documentation. Thanks! But where was it stated, "New change to susped2. Please see Wiki."? Looking at Forum-->Announcements... , every day, and there's no word. Even better: Announce changes ahead of packages perceptively "breaking".

/end whining

cdhotfire · 2006-10-23 16:53:53

detto wrote:

Snarkout wrote:
I seriously never understand the constant bitching about "out of date packages."
a) where else do you have more up to date packages and an equally stable system?
b) BUILD THEM YOURSELF! Hell, ABS is so damn easy to use for simple updates, the mind boggles. If some folks put half the effort into learning ABS and contributing to the AUR they did in bitching about packages that are a month old, we'd have repos that rival debian's.
All points acknowledged, but archlinux itself claims to be on the bleeding edge site. "latest stable versions" you know some are stable and latest but yet no update to it.
...

I'm sure he is aware of that, but it gets annoying when 5 people say "CONS: OUTDATE-PACKAGES!!!!!!!!!!!!" in a row. I think when one Con is given, please don't mention it 5 more times.

Pros: Great community ( IRC is ze zhit).
Cons: not alot of people use KDE.

soloport · 2006-10-23 17:32:55

cdhotfire wrote:

Cons: not alot of people use KDE.

That you know of...

Me wonders if there is a silent majority, perhaps. It just feels like one is outnumbered, here. Therefore, the tendency is to keep quiet about all-things KDE. Some call it "the most popular DE". If there's any truth to that, then I have to wonder... <<-- sheepish grin

1c3d0g · 2006-10-23 18:00:22

Why is it a con that not a lot of people use KDE? Openbox can do the job just as well without guzzling RAM in the process...

Lone_Wolf · 2006-10-23 18:07:00

Well, archstats has packaged listed for 659 systems.
82 of those systems = 12.4 % use the latest kdebase 3.5.4-6 (my desktop is one of them).

Con : it can be hard to find out what changes are made in newer package versions, cvsview is not very useful for checking more than a few packages.

Romashka · 2006-10-23 19:01:16

What I miss:more splitted packages (FR #3459)
.CHANGELOG in package (see in Frugalware)
AUR integrated into main site (at least package listing)
packages in tar.bz2
binary deltas (first, do a diff of pkg-1.1/ and pkg-1.2/ directories and binary diff of each different file and then compress result with tarbz2)
better installer
improved package categories

What I like: the best distro, IMHO
superb community
it just works most of time

Snarkout · 2006-10-23 21:33:05

soloport wrote:

OK, only one con, but more of a nice-to-have:
When large shift takes place there seems (to me) to be little communication, e.g. suspend2 just suddenly didn't work (thought it was just a passing bug). Turns out it was a full-blown change at kernel-package-level (WTF?!). Where was it announced? The Wiki has excellent documentation. Thanks! But where was it stated, "New change to susped2. Please see Wiki."? Looking at Forum-->Announcements... , every day, and there's no word. Even better: Announce changes ahead of packages perceptively "breaking".
/end whining

I'd have to agree with this to a point - it sucks when things no longer work by design, but usually there's at least some mention of the issue in the pacman output. On the other hand, there were warnings about initcpio months in advance, and the fora are still full of "WTF???? MY BOXENS SI FUX0R3D!!!!!!!" threads. Right now is a bad time to install arch as a newbie because of this change, and I can't think of a fix for this off the top of my head, but regular users really have no excuse for ignoring warnings.

FWIW I use KDE - it's not 1337, but I dig it. It's one of the few places in my life I'm with the majority (supposedly) so balls-on-chin to anyone who wants to call me a sheeple for using a popular desktop. It feels awesome to be the status quo. Of course, I really like fluxbox and xfce, too...

cactus · 2006-10-23 23:56:25

Pro: cactus is a member of the community
Con: cactus is a member of the community.

o.O

shadowhand · 2006-10-24 00:01:12

cactus wrote:

Pro: cactus is a member of the community
Con: cactus is a member of the community.

Couldn't have said that better if I tried.

Pros:
- Fast, lightweight
- Doesn't hold your hand
- Easy configuration
- "Just works"

Cons:
- Needs more widespread testing
- Default config for some packages is sub par (ssh, apache, vsftp to name a few)
- No fancy usplash/splashy (yet)
- Releases (install CDs) don't happen often enough

Arch was never meant to be a "newbie" distro, so I don't see this as a valid "Con". Pacman almost always has messages during installation about changes, and what you need to do to fix them. Now, the fact that the standard 0.7.2 install CD is broken right now, that's something that's a "Con". Just my $0.02.

hotsauce · 2006-10-24 04:08:00

shadowhand wrote:

Now, the fact that the standard 0.7.2 install CD is broken right now, that's something that's a "Con". Just my $0.02.

I would have to agree with that. Few of my friends were turned off from arch because of broken virgin installs. I understand how things are the way they are, but new isos shouldn't lag too much behind major upgrades. -Syu shouldn't break a new system that often or require loads more reading than the already lenghty install instruction to get an arch system up and ready.

RevertTS · 2006-10-24 04:36:04

Pros:
-Great community (I've even gotten some great programming help on these forums)
-the above mentioned speed/lightweight/etc.
-Pacman (I quite like it)

Cons:
-Not looking forward to the Gimmick -> Voodoo change, seems like a serious downgrade in terms of coolness.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-10-21 22:16:34

What you like, what you miss.....

#2 2006-10-21 22:20:16

Re: What you like, what you miss.....

#3 2006-10-21 23:04:45

Re: What you like, what you miss.....

#4 2006-10-22 06:43:10

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#5 2006-10-22 10:19:45

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#6 2006-10-22 10:41:48

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#7 2006-10-23 03:12:10

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#8 2006-10-23 04:59:07

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#9 2006-10-23 07:06:19

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#10 2006-10-23 07:16:03

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#11 2006-10-23 13:42:55

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#12 2006-10-23 14:36:06

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#13 2006-10-23 15:44:36

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#14 2006-10-23 16:53:53

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#15 2006-10-23 17:32:55

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#19 2006-10-23 21:33:05

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#20 2006-10-23 23:56:25

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#21 2006-10-24 00:01:12

Re: What you like, what you miss.....

#22 2006-10-24 04:08:00

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#23 2006-10-24 04:36:04

Re: What you like, what you miss.....

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