Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

rbrownclown · 2006-12-30 21:45:01

I'm from the Ubuntu camp. I've been using Linux for close to three years now and getting bored. I desperately need something more complicated.

My question is - what's the difference between Arch and Slackware? I've used Slackware in the past. I also tried out Zenwalk recently.

arooaroo · 2006-12-30 22:10:54

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_vs_Others is a good starting point.

To be fair, you may also like the Frugalware distro because that is derived from Slack but uses pacman for package management.

From what I hear though (as someone who's never used slack), Arch's sys config setup is much simpler and straight-forward to configure.

stmok · 2006-12-30 22:45:16

Slackware requires more effort from the user. But you learn quiet a bit as the reward. It takes a different approach for package management. (varies on the package management tools you use). Slackware is less bleeding edge than Arch, as it focuses on a slower release schedule. (to stablise, I guess...But I do note that it pays off, as I hear stories of people upgrading from ver 9 to ver 11 without too much trouble).

Arch strikes a balance between sufficiently difficult enough to learn from, but not too tedious or time consuming to maintain. Its straightforward. The key seems to be pacman and ABS. Personally, it feels like Debian, but faster and more bleeding edge. (With no politics and internal squabbles which affect the date of major releases).

What drove me from Ubuntu/OpenSUSE to Arch, was that both those distros reminded me of Windows. *shivers*

As in, they assumed you want "this and that" enabled and installed by default. So a default install of Ubuntu had alot of stuff I never asked for. (If I wanted HP drivers and Bittorent stuff, I'll install it myself!)

There's also the fact (after trying Debian "Etch"), Ubuntu is really nothing more than Debian with changes to make things easier for the Linux beginner. Some joke this distro as "Ubuntu is an African word meaning: Can't install Debian". (In that respect, they are right)

For me, I enjoy distros like Slackware, Debian, Arch, etc...Because they don't assume I want a bunch of apps I didn't ask for. As well, they don't challenge me but they don't make it really time consuming.

Nothing beats a fresh clean base install, and building a system the way you want!

I mainly stick to Arch because I like the way the project is going.

Crooksey · 2006-12-30 23:17:29

The main diffrence is package management.

In slackware when you want a package you download it and comile it, within arch, you run "pacman -Ss <package>" to download/install it for you.

Slackware is simillar to arch in the way it is "vanilla" meaning nothing is put on your system without you asking.

Misfit138 · 2007-01-02 13:35:19

My (somewhat limited) observations:

Slack's package management is 'manual', in that dependencies are not figured out for you.
Slack is less bleeding edge; the default kernel is 2.4 IIRC.
If built from base packages, (the best way, IMHO) the Arch installation is both more educational and intuitive than the Slack 11.0 ncurses install.
I agree that Slack seems to be quite a good distro, but I reject the concept of comparing it to Arch so closely because I believe Arch is much more like "a binary Gentoo" than "Slack with a better package manager".
Arch is my favorite, and the best I have tried, by a considerable margin.

thibdb13 · 2007-01-02 15:08:49

From my pêrsonnal experience

Arch = the best of Slack (configuration) + the best of Debian (package management)
Pacman is faster than apt-get
Arch is a lot faster than Debian and Slack
Arch is more up to date
Debian and Slack (via Linux packages) may have more packages but the risk is big that you install things you don't really need
Arch is nearly bug free
The Arch community is less arrogant (than especially the slack one) for newbies

Basu · 2007-01-02 16:31:59

As far as I see it, everything about Arch can be more or less reduced to one simple line: Arch doesn't force you. It doesn't force you to install stuff you'll never use, nor does it force you to sit for hours compiling stuff that works just fine from binaries. You can slap on a plain KDe and make it as windozy as you like or you can try terminal 1337ness, if that's your game. No one's forcing you to choose one or the other. That's something that not many distros can boast of. (I remember how Ubuntu almost choked with indignation when I tried to install KDE)

Moo-Crumpus · 2007-01-02 22:16:30

Crooksey wrote:

... within arch, you run "pacman -Ss <package>" to download/install it for you.

It is pacman -Ss <package> to search for a package in the databases, and pacman -S <package> to install it.

Acid7711 · 2007-01-03 06:43:52

Misfit138 wrote:

I believe Arch is much more like "a binary Gentoo" than "Slack with a better package manager".
Arch is my favorite, and the best I have tried, by a considerable margin.

I tend to agree here and I've used both heavily. I also agree that it's the best I've tried and I've tried a LOT!

clarence · 2007-01-03 09:15:09

rbrownclown wrote:

I desperately need something more complicated.

Check out AUR and discover the joy+challenge+frustration=reward of package management.

arooaroo · 2007-01-03 10:55:24

Basu wrote:

As far as I see it, everything about Arch can be more or less reduced to one simple line: Arch doesn't force you. It doesn't force you to install stuff you'll never use, nor does it force you to sit for hours compiling stuff that works just fine from binaries...

But I didn't think Slack did either.

Basu · 2007-01-03 11:38:29

arooaroo wrote:

But I didn't think Slack did either.

Wouldn't know. Never used Slack and now that I have arch don't think I ever will.

arooaroo · 2007-01-03 13:27:54

Basu wrote:

arooaroo wrote:
But I didn't think Slack did either.
Wouldn't know. Never used Slack and now that I have arch don't think I ever will.

As commendable as your pro-Arch stance is, given that the topic is about the differences between Arch and Slack, your comment doesn't really fit in and would be more appropriate in a Arch vs Fedora/Suse/Ubuntu thread - that's the point I'm trying to make.

Basu · 2007-01-03 15:52:41

Well thinking about what you said, Slackware does force you in one vital way: package management, in particularly dependency checking. IMO, being forced to manually check dependencies is not something that one should be forced to do (esply. since computers are supposed to be good at repetitive, dull stuff). I know you can get dependency checks (slapt-get etc.) but then again, you're still forced to go and look for a package manager.
Just my 2c.

Crooksey · 2007-01-03 15:54:43

Moo-Crumpus wrote:

Crooksey wrote:
... within arch, you run "pacman -Ss <package>" to download/install it for you.
It is pacman -Ss <package> to search for a package in the databases, and pacman -S <package> to install it.

So thats why my packages were not installing

What i meant to type was "pacman -Sy <package>"

tm8992 · 2007-01-03 20:58:12

If you're from Ubuntu, and you still want gnome, you probably want to go Arch. I recently installed slackware to try it out, and I love gnome, so naturally, I tried to find it in their packages--only to find out that they no longer support gnome!

With slackware, you have to go out and find some 3rd party gnome download, like Dropline Gnome. With arch, it's built right in.

For me Arch also starts up a lot faster. Slack maybe took a minute or two, Arch takes like 30 seconds. Which is really fast!

Cotton · 2007-01-03 23:44:56

rbrownclown wrote:

... I desperately need something more complicated.
... I also tried out Zenwalk recently.

No good for you then - Arch is KISS

Arch currently has many, many more packages built for it than Zenwalk.
Arch is also the one distribution people tend to settle with once they have discovered it.

rbrownclown · 2007-01-06 01:43:39

Thanks for the replies! Apologies for not responding myself.

I have one last question. What is Arch's stance on open source? It's a Linux distro, so most of it probably is - but do they reject (out of the box) closed source software, or is there a little bit of it in the distro? I don't feel as strongly about this as some people do, but strong enough where I want most things to be open.

Misfit138 · 2007-01-06 02:02:49

Again, since Arch is (best) built from a base system on up, you can add non-free if you wish but are never forced to. For example, you can use the free nv drivers instead of the nvidia ones. IIRC the curent official repo is mostly free, whereas extra and community are a combination of free and non-free.

arooaroo · 2007-01-06 11:33:04

In the official repos there isn't too much non-free software in there, but there is some but as Misfit says, it's up to you if you want to install it.

I think it's a good compromise.

rbrownclown · 2007-01-07 19:36:25

Nice! I'm downloading Arch now. Thanks a lot for the help guys. Anything I should know before I start? Anything I have to read up on?

lucke · 2007-01-07 19:50:53

Get familiar with Installation Guide. That should suffice.

rbrownclown · 2007-01-09 03:17:52

I'm installing it in a virtual machine before I do it for real, and I'm glad. I got the base system installed. No problems at all since I'm familiar with the Slackware/ZenWalk installer. One thing bugged me, though. I read through the installation Wiki and can't understand most of the section on the system config files. Meaning, I couldn't check the files to see if there's anything wrong. Can someone provide a link that explains it in detail, but is very newbie friendly? I've been using Linux for close to three years, but I've stuck with the easy distros like SuSE and Ubuntu.

Also, now that the base system is installed, I don't know where to go from here. I want to install KDE, and realize that before I install KDE, I need XORG. Can someone give me further detail on this? How does pacman handle dependencies?

Alphalutra1 · 2007-01-09 03:30:16

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pos … ation_Tips

What a wonderful resource the wiki is

Alphalutra1

rbrownclown · 2007-01-09 18:38:37

Thanks, Alphalutra1. Those are very useful links.

I'm having another problem. This one is so simple, I feel like a total n00b asking it. How do I make a root password? When I use the passwd command, it only lets me change the password of my login. I read somewhere that by default, the root password isn't anything. This is where I'm confused. It won't let me change to root with nothing, or my log-in password.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-30 21:45:01

Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#2 2006-12-30 22:10:54

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#3 2006-12-30 22:45:16

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#4 2006-12-30 23:17:29

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#5 2007-01-02 13:35:19

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#6 2007-01-02 15:08:49

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#7 2007-01-02 16:31:59

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#8 2007-01-02 22:16:30

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#9 2007-01-03 06:43:52

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#10 2007-01-03 09:15:09

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#11 2007-01-03 10:55:24

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#12 2007-01-03 11:38:29

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#13 2007-01-03 13:27:54

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#14 2007-01-03 15:52:41

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#15 2007-01-03 15:54:43

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#16 2007-01-03 20:58:12

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#17 2007-01-03 23:44:56

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#18 2007-01-06 01:43:39

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#19 2007-01-06 02:02:49

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#20 2007-01-06 11:33:04

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#21 2007-01-07 19:36:25

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#22 2007-01-07 19:50:53

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#23 2007-01-09 03:17:52

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#24 2007-01-09 03:30:16

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

#25 2007-01-09 18:38:37

Re: Arch and Slack - What's the difference?

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