Question about Arch

EmbraceThePenguin · 2004-08-09 19:04:26

Hey all,

As you can see, this is my first post. I am currently a Gentoo user and have been looking at Arch linux. I really like Gentoo, however, compiling everything is a pain. Especially when I bounce the install and reinstall the OS.

So, after using Gentoo for so long and being used to portage and the optimizations, can someone that uses Gentoo tell me how Arch runs in comparison. Is Arch just as fast as Gentoo?

I also have an Athlon-MP system (Dual 2800+ XP mods) and the one thing I like about Gentoo over package built distros is the fact that I can take advantage of some speed optimizations for the hardware. Are these used in Arch, or does it make a difference (I came from Red Hat and Mandrake to Gentoo and saw a HUGE improvement in speed when moving to Gentoo)?

Anyway, any PR sales pitch will be welcome

Thanks!!!

Joe

dp · 2004-08-09 21:50:43

i dont know athlon at all - i have a p4 2ghz and use arch, and am happy with it

if you have some harddisk space to spare, give it a try and compare yourself - after the 10min of installation (or 30min - depends on what you want), you will be surprised

if i were you, i would wait for 0.7 iso to come out, because using 0.6-iso is pain

EmbraceThePenguin · 2004-08-09 22:03:34

Yeah, I'm finding that out.. Started my first trouble thread here:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=6096

Thanks...

Still want to work through this, and get it installed, however. The only alternative is waiting 28 hours for Gentoo to install, or back to WinXP (Yuck :-D)

Thanks!!!

Joe

dp · 2004-08-09 22:18:11

EmbraceThePenguin wrote:

Yeah, I'm finding that out.. Started my first trouble thread here:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=6096
Thanks...
Still want to work through this, and get it installed, however. The only alternative is waiting 28 hours for Gentoo to install, or back to WinXP (Yuck :-D)
Thanks!!!
Joe

if you want it NOW :-) i advise you to use AmLug lifeCD instead and install to harddrive and then run pacman -Suy to update

http://amlug.net/new-projects/live-cd/a … ve-cd.html
http://amlug.net/new-projects/live-cd/installers.html

good luck

i3839 · 2004-08-09 22:46:08

Simply put, even if you'd notice those 1% or 2% speedup, you undo that by all those extra compiling, emerging and whatever else you waste time and cpu cycles with when using Gentoo. Besided, I don't think you'll notice even a 20% speed difference with your hardware, but that's beside the point of course.

I think that your filesystem and kernel have much more influence on your system speed (or feel: responsiveness, etc) than extreme micro optimizations with some exotic compile options. Not to mention which KDE version you use, if you use KDE (probably the same for all those big and bloated apps).

EmbraceThePenguin · 2004-08-10 20:32:23

Well, I got it all installed and it took quite abit less time than Gentoo.

So far I like it, however there are some small issues to deal with, but thats no biggie.

I got rid of the stock 2.6 Arch kernel as it was too slow and got me a stock kernel from kernel.org and patched it with the CK patches and all I have to say is WOW... The desktop is alot more responsive than Gentoo's was. Maybe I has some crazy USE and CFLAGS settings or something, but I like it so far.

Thanks!!!

Joe

kakabaratruskia · 2004-08-10 23:07:32

The arch kernel is the stock kernel.org kernel.

EmbraceThePenguin · 2004-08-10 23:56:28

Yeah, I figured that. I applied the CK patches to it and created my own config for it.

CK patches really rock. You can check them out here:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/

It patches right up to the stock kernel and really makes a difference...

Enjoy!!!

Joe

IceRAM · 2004-08-11 07:19:41

EmbraceThePenguin wrote:

Yeah, I figured that. I applied the CK patches to it and created my own config for it.
[...]
CK patches really rock.

Have you tried "pacman -Sy kernel26mm" (topic here)
From what I've heard, mm also includes the ck patches.
What do you think about it, in terms of speed?

* I think Gentoo users (which were (are) used to compilinig) have more experience with the different flavours of kernel26. People around here could learn something from that. Lots of thanks for the feedback.

i3839 · 2004-08-11 14:57:06

Only one version of -mm had the ck patchset, it's dropped in the newer versions to try others out.

The difference between the Arch kernel and a custom made one is that the Arch kernel must be able to support all hardware and every configuration while your own version can be fine tuned to only have support for what you need. In practice there shouldn't be a too big difference because Arch uses modules, but at least bootup and hotplug should be faster with a custom kernel.

sweiss · 2004-08-11 16:40:50

I also noticed improvements with the CK patches, but I had to go back to the vanilla. Unfortunately it seems XMMS+Samba didn't like that kernel: Whenever I played something over the network and continued working, whenever my cpu usage reached 100% my XMMS would annoyingly skipped - and I tried that with various other playback software.

If only that glitch wasn't there..

i3839 · 2004-08-11 18:11:36

Make sure you're not running esd when using ck (it's obsoleted by Alsa anyway).

sweiss · 2004-08-11 20:03:28

I'm using only ALSA.

_PickledOnion_ · 2004-08-12 08:15:52

Hehe,

I am an Arch newb and moved my main system from Gentoo a couple of weeks ago.

Just a couple of things that I found out that may be of interest to you:

1. It is noticably slower in everything (bootup, prog loading, prog using, etc). However, it is certainly not unusable and it is still a lot faster than fedora, Suse, etc.

2. The speed decrease is offset by the speed of the install and installing/upgrading programmes.

3. pacman is good install prog, worth a few minutes learning the different options, i.e. how to search for a prog, update a prog, etc.

4. One downside of precompiled binaries is that they don't include aspects tailor made for your computer. I don't mean speed wise but take one example of many I have found: xchat - works the same and is just as good, except that as it is a binary, when you right click on a link in a chatroom, the options of opening it your browser (firefox, konqueror, opera, etc) or in a new tab in your browser are not there, just the copy link location option. Now this may seem a little thing but can be annoying.

So overall, it is a very good distro, but things will be (obviously) different. Things will be slower, and the progs won't have all the options available to your set-up enabled.

But, and this is a big but, it doesn't need the maintainance that Gentoo does. I'd stick with it (I have) and wish you the best of luck with it

Dusty · 2004-08-12 16:25:41

_PickledOnion_ wrote:

4. One downside of precompiled binaries is that they don't include aspects tailor made for your computer.

This is offset by the ease with which you can create custom built packages using the Arch Build System and makepkg.

Dusty

_PickledOnion_ · 2004-08-12 16:35:31

Dusty wrote:

_PickledOnion_ wrote:
4. One downside of precompiled binaries is that they don't include aspects tailor made for your computer.
This is offset by the ease with which you can create custom built packages using the Arch Build System and makepkg.
Dusty

I totally agree (I didn't mention many of the great aspects of Arch) - hence my last comment:

I'd stick with it (I have) and wish you the best of luck with it

Arch Linux

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Question about Arch

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