Possible new user asks for info.

akejo · 2007-03-21 13:54:22

Hi all.

I've tested Arch in vmware as well as on a smaller 'real' partition and am very impressed. I am thinking about moving to arch after been through most dists, latest being Zenwalk(Its nice but lacks 'something').

I've skimmed through the forums and wiki and have a few questions I would love to have answered before I do the leap.

1. I understand I can use pacman to upgrade, install and maintain my system, as well as make pacman packages from odd sources I find on the net(via ABS?). Does pacman have version control, ie can I rollback to an earlier version of an installed package if new one don't work? Does adding/removing packages keep track on dependencies?

2. I installed kdemod in my testversion. Even though the installation went fine, during the download/install text flashed by that I should add this or that in rc files(think I saw some about sound daemon), or set some options. The problem was that those texts scrolled past so fast I couldn't read them. Are there logs from the installs via pacman so I can review what changes are suggested?

3. The 'big' packages... I am considering use Arch & Gnome together. How 'slimmed' is gnome if I use pacman to install it, can I review what programs are installed(I'd hate to get a multitude of duplicate apps as show in Ubuntu for example). Anyone have opinion on the stability/resource usage from arch/gnome and its 'bloatness' or lack of it. Can I install just the base to get X/metacity/gnome running and add apps as I need/find them? That way I don't have those huge menus with extra apps I never use.

4. How 'standard' is Archlinux? Many Linux dists are based on some major release like Slackware/Debian and so on and keep their conf files/structure very alike the original while others add a bunch of own specialized scripts that might conflict with standards and make that dist -very- different from those which they derivate from.

Thats about it for now. I appreciate an thank in advance for any answer/response.

lloeki · 2007-03-21 14:01:50

How 'slimmed' is gnome if I use pacman to install it

new user I am, can't comment much, but lately, I installed gnome that way:

pacman -S gdm gnome

and I was pleasantly surprised! you end up with a minimal (or even barebone!) gnome desktop, where even gnome-terminal and gedit are missing. so then, you're up to install exactly what you want.

4. How 'standard' is Archlinux?

it seems it uses a custom init system, which strays a bit, but for the good of it: main config is in /etc/rc.conf,,others are in /etc/conf.d, and init scripts are in /etc/rc.d.

akejo · 2007-03-21 14:43:19

lloeki wrote:

How 'slimmed' is gnome if I use pacman to install it
new user I am, can't comment much, but lately, I installed gnome that way:
pacman -S gdm gnome
and I was pleasantly surprised! you end up with a minimal (or even barebone!) gnome desktop, where even gnome-terminal and gedit are missing. so then, you're up to install exactly what you want.

Thanks. Iloeki.

Did you also install gnome-extra as the wiki suggested? I tried to search the repositories for 'gnome-extra' but it didnt reveal much.

My main concern is, beside getting it to look good, not to have lots of conflicting applications, or two of same type. Often when I, at least in some dists, choose to install another app, and like to remove the 'old' one, hoards of dependency warnings come up as the app I like to remove is packaged in a 'meta package'.

lloeki wrote:

4. How 'standard' is Archlinux?
it seems it uses a custom init system, which strays a bit, but for the good of it: main config is in /etc/rc.conf,,others are in /etc/conf.d, and init scripts are in /etc/rc.d.

Looks all right for me

Last edited by akejo (2007-03-21 14:44:18)

magnum_opus · 2007-03-21 14:47:15

1. I understand I can use pacman to upgrade, install and maintain my system, as well as make pacman packages from odd sources I find on the net(via ABS?). Does pacman have version control, ie can I rollback to an earlier version of an installed package if new one don't work? Does adding/removing packages keep track on dependencies?

no real version control per se, but it's generally not to hard to grab the pkgbuild and manually change the version back, build and install it. PKGBUILD syntax is easy and obvious.
and yeah adding/removing packages is keep track of things, pacman -Rs removes a package and anything that was automatically installed to get it. pacman -S naturally does dependencies

4. How 'standard' is Archlinux? Many Linux dists are based on some major release like Slackware/Debian and so on and keep their conf files/structure very alike the original while others add a bunch of own specialized scripts that might conflict with standards and make that dist -very- different from those which they derivate from.

Arch is it's own distro, not based off anything so to say we add a bunch of scripts is a little disengenuos. our use of /opt and our init system is a bit different than a lot of distro's but as far as "standard" goes the devs try to modify sources as little as possible, and other than pacman there isn't really anything custom running around. basically if source code will build, it will build on arch.

detto · 2007-03-21 15:02:46

magnum_opus wrote:

Arch is it's own distro, not based off anything so to say we add a bunch of scripts is a little disengenuos. our use of /opt and our init system is a bit different than a lot of distro's but as far as "standard" goes the devs try to modify sources as little as possible, and other than pacman there isn't really anything custom running around.

Sorry to sound that harsh, but that's a lie. Arch got it's ideas and scripts (rc.conf, init system) from CRUX. Use of /opt is a difference to most systems, but also a matter of taste.

akejo · 2007-03-21 15:03:15

magnum_opus wrote:

1. I understand I can use pacman to upgrade, install and maintain my system, as well as make pacman packages from odd sources I find on the net(via ABS?). Does pacman have version control, ie can I rollback to an earlier version of an installed package if new one don't work? Does adding/removing packages keep track on dependencies?
no real version control per se, but it's generally not to hard to grab the pkgbuild and manually change the version back, build and install it. PKGBUILD syntax is easy and obvious.
and yeah adding/removing packages is keep track of things, pacman -Rs removes a package and anything that was automatically installed to get it. pacman -S naturally does dependencies

4. How 'standard' is Archlinux? Many Linux dists are based on some major release like Slackware/Debian and so on and keep their conf files/structure very alike the original while others add a bunch of own specialized scripts that might conflict with standards and make that dist -very- different from those which they derivate from.
Arch is it's own distro, not based off anything so to say we add a bunch of scripts is a little disengenuos. our use of /opt and our init system is a bit different than a lot of distro's but as far as "standard" goes the devs try to modify sources as little as possible, and other than pacman there isn't really anything custom running around. basically if source code will build, it will build on arch.

Thanks. I haven't looked longer then to the forums and skimmed the wiki yet to have the first test install done.(more to read I am sure).

One plus to Arch then, as I am positive to a distribution that do its own thing and not build on/over some older distribution, using various ways to add functions, which may very well conflict with whats in it from start.

noriko · 2007-03-21 15:43:16

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arc … ch_vs_Crux
Arch and Crux as far as i can see are not the same ... yes, Crux was a major influence, but not a base of the Arch we have now.

akejo · 2007-03-21 17:11:45

I feel pretty certain arch will be nice for me, actualy ive allready started an installation.

I installed 0.8 and after reading about some mirror sync problems on the forums so I continued to upgrade the system ith 'pcman -Syu' using the main(I think) repository. Unfortunately its very slow, probably because of load and I intend to use a mirror closer to me(Sweden).

But before I do that I wonder how 'synced' I will be...

If I, after this initial system upgrade, switch to a swedish mirror by editing the files in /etc/pacman.d/ and then do 'pacman -Scc' to clean cache followed by 'pacman -Syu' I hope to be displayed with 'all is upraded' message, so I can coninue to get xorg from the local mirror.

Am I right to asume that the above will work and have my system up to date without having more packages downloaded once again from the local mirror. Is there a way to verify that the local mirrors indeed have updated themselves, especially after the problems ive read about after an update of packages(think it was http://www.archlinux.org/news/299/)

I'm sorry if I seem daft, I just trying to be sure, and last time I used *nix'es it was all, or mostly, source based installs(yea, i lived during the stone age ...) so I don't have much information, and am pretty uncertain about these new package managers.

Susu · 2007-03-21 19:00:24

Hi akejo!

There's no need to "pacman -Scc" when syncing with another mirror. It can happen (very seldom though), that an upgraded paket will be broken, but if you've still got the older pkg.tar.gz in pacman cache, you can easily return to that version by installing it by hand. You can do a "pacman -Sc" when you find out all updated packages are working. It's for removing outdated pkg.tar.gz in pacmans cache.

I'd like to recommend a very nice tool: yaourt. It's a wrapper to pacman, ABS, aurbuild and srcpac, with useful features. Have a look at it at least, maybe you'll like it.

Last, but not least: Wellcome to a new Arch user! I guess you'll like the wonderful simplicity of system administration of an up-to-date but yet stable system. Have a lot of fun...

Susu

akejo · 2007-03-21 19:13:49

Susu wrote:

Hi akejo!
There's no need to "pacman -Scc" when syncing with another mirror. It can happen (very seldom though), that an upgraded paket will be broken, but if you've still got the older pkg.tar.gz in pacman cache, you can easily return to that version by installing it by hand. You can do a "pacman -Sc" when you find out all updated packages are working. It's for removing outdated pkg.tar.gz in pacmans cache.
I'd like to recommend a very nice tool: yaourt. It's a wrapper to pacman, ABS, aurbuild and srcpac, with useful features. Have a look at it at least, maybe you'll like it.
Last, but not least: Wellcome to a new Arch user! I guess you'll like the wonderful simplicity of system administration of an up-to-date but yet stable system. Have a lot of fun...
Susu

Thanks. When I changed to a more local mirror the updates went lots faster I'll check that tool to.

Ive now installed the system, including gnome(took a while before I realized that I also needed to add the local mirrors in [extra] to...

Just to clean up some I guess, ahavi seems to be needed according to install messages, and I get a bunch of locale errors when starting gnome, but those will be dealt with I hope

The system in gnome is as fast as I had hoped for, just need to check so everything works with dvd, movies browsing, addons, mp3, burning and so on.

Only little thing I think is 'fun' is the messages when I installed the whole gnome package, if i hadnt checked wiki and been siting in front of pc I would have missed the 'add this in DAEMONS' part as new packages made that text scroll past.

In all i am very pleased with archlinux his far and thank you for the welcome.

Susu · 2007-03-21 19:37:52

The Wiki is a useful place to find (almost) all you need to know about Arch. I'm still amazed about Arch, and I like the KISS principle. I came over from Source Mage (a pretty unknown but nice source distro - all easy to use) and found a perfect match in Arch, which I'd tested out pre 0.6 a long time ago. It's still one of the most easiest distros I know - and I know a lot. I'm kind of a linux junkie, and I'm still curious to find something "better" - but for almost 2 years of searching I found nothing that fits me better then Arch. Maybe it's a niche distro, but I don't care about that. It works - that's all I want. ;-)

pelle.k · 2007-03-21 20:06:09

ahavi seems to be needed according to install messages, and I get a bunch of locale errors when starting gnome, but those will be dealt with I hope

I never used ahavi, but my gnome is just fine.
I have no locale errors. I use LOCALE="en_US.utf8" in rc.conf, and i've got both ISO and UTF-8 of sv_SE and en_US in /etc/locale.gen

Other than that, totem-xine will pull codecs and xine package. That will take care of most of your multimedia needs. You might need to install libdvdcss separately though...
If you need a pure mp3 player, the new (updated) audacious package is _great_. on screen display, docklet and whatnot!
totem-plugin is a mozilla/firefox plugin for totem. add flashplugin to that and you're flyin' high!

Lastly, you've read the beginners guide at the wiki right? So you know what daemons you need to automount, what groups to be a member of and whatnot?

akejo · 2007-03-21 20:28:02

pelle.k wrote:

ahavi seems to be needed according to install messages, and I get a bunch of locale errors when starting gnome, but those will be dealt with I hope
I never used ahavi, but my gnome is just fine.
I have no locale errors. I use LOCALE="en_US.utf8" in rc.conf, and i've got both ISO and UTF-8 of sv_SE and en_US in /etc/locale.gen
Other than that, totem-xine will pull codecs and xine package. That will take care of most of your multimedia needs. You might need to install libdvdcss separately though...
If you need a pure mp3 player, the new (updated) audacious package is _great_. on screen display, docklet and whatnot!
totem-plugin is a mozilla/firefox plugin for totem. add flashplugin to that and you're flyin' high!
Lastly, you've read the beginners guide at the wiki right? So you know what daemons you need to automount, what groups to be a member of and whatnot?

Hi, and thanks for the tips.

I have installed Ahavi, I'll check later if its needed or not, if so then I just remove it. I also will poke around with the locate stuff to get it right.

I installed Rythmbox and mplayer for mp3/movies. mplayer seems competent, and Rythmbox I don't know lots about, just testing atm. Will audacious dissapear from the window list when minimize to tray just like Rythmbox do?

By the way, it seems the volume control in gnome doesn't control the volume.. it works in rythmbox but using gnomes on little speaker icon does nothing yet. Any pointers on where to look to fix that?

This far I got gnome running, sound, playing mp3's and looking at a small movie. I also fixed fonts, most I think that is. Next step is to fix resolution. I've set 96 dpi in xorg.conf and the fonts are 96dpi in gnome. Still, when I checked resolution I got 1280x1024 at 50Hz according to gnome. I got a LCD(Samsung 193T) and the fonts seems a wee stretched, as if they are a little taller then they should be. I have set

Option "UseEdidDpi" "false"
Option "DPI" "96 x 96"

in xorg.conf. I'll have to play around little more with it to get it just right for my eyes.

I havent come to the automount part yet, like to make it slow to make sure I got one step right before I continue, but I go through the wiki as I continue.

I will also probably post whatever problem I get in the appropriate sections in the forums, but this far thanks for the help.

Last edited by akejo (2007-03-21 20:31:05)

pelle.k · 2007-03-22 06:39:21

Yes, audacious will disappear from task list when minimized to tray.
Double click volume icon in gnome, select alsa as mixer device, and also set what channel the "volume icon" should control.
It's been a while since i had to set dpi in xorg. Are you sure you shouldn't just adjust font sizes in gnome?

akejo · 2007-03-22 13:22:16

pelle.k wrote:

Yes, audacious will disappear from task list when minimized to tray.
Double click volume icon in gnome, select alsa as mixer device, and also set what channel the "volume icon" should control.
It's been a while since i had to set dpi in xorg. Are you sure you shouldn't just adjust font sizes in gnome?

I removed the two lines about dpi in xorg.conf, installed extra fonts and selected to use LCD pixeling in 'Fonts'. Now it looks nice

Sound control works now, thanks for the tip. I'll check out audacious.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-03-21 13:54:22

Possible new user asks for info.

#2 2007-03-21 14:01:50

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#3 2007-03-21 14:43:19

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#4 2007-03-21 14:47:15

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#5 2007-03-21 15:02:46

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#6 2007-03-21 15:03:15

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#7 2007-03-21 15:43:16

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#8 2007-03-21 17:11:45

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#9 2007-03-21 19:00:24

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#10 2007-03-21 19:13:49

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#11 2007-03-21 19:37:52

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#12 2007-03-21 20:06:09

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#13 2007-03-21 20:28:02

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#14 2007-03-22 06:39:21

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

#15 2007-03-22 13:22:16

Re: Possible new user asks for info.

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