One of the best

BulletxxProof89 · 2007-11-22 09:36:24

Well I consider myself an "Intermediate" Linux user. I appreciate the Open-Source nature of linux and how most of the things are free and donations suffice. I appreciate the fact I don't spend a few hundred dollars to get an OS and Office Suite (I could have abbreviated that as well but we can imagine the confusion). I recently moved from RHL based distros to Arch by a recommendation of an internet acquaintance. He was an avid LFS user for quite sometime and was using Pacman, he realized that he simply built a system mirroring Arch. I was always dabbling in LFS while running Fedora as my main distro (As well as a current Windows dual boot for gaming reasons). So after he made the switch and bragged for a while I decided to burn my ~ to a CD and jump on the Arch bandwagon. Now heres where my story really begins.

I was pleasantly greeted with a down to earth text installer which I found quite easy to use and partition and install the boot loader (Grub by the way). I then got to my command prompt, which sparked a bit of fear for a moment because as a Fedora user I was used to being greeted by a wonderful GDM login screen. So I jumped on my Windows partition and I asked him what to do next, he told me it all had to be installed manually. That sold me, the fact that *I* controlled the packages right then and there from a base system brought a certain joy to me, of not bloating my ever precious system. I then dug around read the man for pacman and I -Ss'd for the xorg and gnome stuff. I installed what I want then I installed my video drivers, configured X and fglrx all in under 30 minutes of download/install/configuration. I'm getting ahead of myself though actually, I should mention I had a wireless card, Microsofts MN-510, which I still use today simply because I cant afford to upgrade. Now unlike other distros it was painfully hard to setup this particular network card. Not arch's fault though, as ndiswrapper was installed and ready to go, but I had a hard time locating the drivers for the card. Well I got it installed and then proceeded to get Gnome up and fully running. Then I was greeted by a less attractive, but very friendly GDM login screen. I then proceeded to click the internet icon, which is Epiphany. Only to find out my network was no longer working, so I tried the lwconfig to find out wireless extensions for wlan0 were not present. So during my install I found a slight flaw of a minor version change in the kernel happened in my gnome installation and the module for ndiswrapper was no longer present. I simply fixed it by moving the modules folder over to the new kernel folder (I cant remember exact paths, sue me). Did a reboot and it all ran fine again, but a slight annoyance none the less. After I moaned and complained about it I remembered that Arch Linux isnt even version 1 yet. So I chalked it up to pre-gold bugs as it was easily fixed. I then proceeded to install all my favorite software via pacman and aur and I have a gorgeous system running using less then 200 megs of my ram.

Small hiccups aside, I'm very pleased with my Arch install. I will be recommending this distro to all the Linux enthusiasts I know, simply because it has a similar principal as Gentoo - you control everything. I appreciate the hard work and dedicated the development team has given to this project and I consider Arch to be a better overall choice to RHL flavors, as well as the Debian flavors (I have always disliked debians package manager). I would rate this distro in its current form to be a C+, your above average, but more work needs to be done. Please Arch developers keep the system unbloated and do not ship it with a window manager - ever. You have won the hearts of Linux enthusiasts everywhere with your approach to packaged linux distros.

Some technical specs of my install and grades on everything.
Hardware Support - B+ (ndiswrapper problem)
Software Available - A (aur and pacman are amazing)
Ease of Install - A (Flawless after I figured out I had to install gnome manually)
Verbose Configs - A (Everything was labeled correctly, and I like your rc.conf)

My System
AMD Athlon X2 5000+ Dual Core
2 Gigs DDR2 5400
250 GB SATA150 HD
DVD+/- R/W Combo Drive
ATI x1300 256mb Video Card
Logitech G15 Gamers Keyboard
Microsoft MN-510 USB Wi-Fi Card
Microsoft InteliPoint Mouse
Native 1440x900 Wide screen monitor

To anyone thinking about using Arch, I recommend it as there is a fuller and richer rewarding experience when your finished.

Misfit138 · 2007-11-22 17:53:33

Interesting post, I enjoyed it.
However, keep in mind, Arch is not Fedora. It is not Red-Hat-esque, not newbie-friendly, nor will it ever aim to be so.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
The way Arch does things is different in that it strives to use the most elegant and simple methodology. Note that simple does not mean "user-friendly", it means just that, simple. System configuration is left entirely up to the user. There are no GUI configuration tools; system resource controls are handled through configuration files and from the command line. This is unlikely to change.
What you may see as unfinished or raw, is actually the way Arch devs and users prefer the system to be, so your assumption that Arch has not reached version 1.0 is not quite accurate in this sense.
"It is what you make it." In other words, you build it, but it won't hold your hand along the way.
Take advantage of the excellent documentation in the wiki (especially the beginner's guide) and the community. When you adopt the Arch way of doing things, I am sure your C+ rating will go up, as you will have gained the knowledge of how truly elegant and powerful Arch can be.
Welcome to Arch!

Arch Linux

#1 2007-11-22 09:36:24

One of the best

#2 2007-11-22 17:53:33

Re: One of the best

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