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#1 2008-07-03 19:13:41

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

New to Arch and really liking it so far

I think its great. The latest versions for all software. There are a couple of things that I liked about Arch

1) pacman -Q  -- amazing stuff !! good to check what you have installed. apt-get doesn't have something like it, although you can install something and it will tell you that you have the latest version. Also the fact that you can install any tar.gz locally using it and pacman can track it !

2) you don't have to jump thru hoops to get the "proprietary" software. installing opera was a breeze. No more adding repos to sources.list etc. I know this can get iffy, because of FOSS rules about integrating free software with proprietary software in the same repos...but really, I need to work on my system and not worry about all that unless there is copyright issues and piracy.

I am not bashing Debian here, just that the above two (three?) points really clicked for me.

I still triple boot with Xfce + fluxbox over debian and Arch + Openbox.


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#2 2008-07-03 20:04:57

buttons
Member
From: NJ, USA
Registered: 2007-08-04
Posts: 620

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Welcome.


Cthulhu For President!

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#3 2008-07-03 20:17:45

Cerebral
Forum Fellow
From: Waterloo, ON, CA
Registered: 2005-04-08
Posts: 3,108
Website

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Welcome to the distro.  You'll never leave.  Mwahaha

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#4 2008-07-03 20:20:08

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Cerebral wrote:

Welcome to the distro.  You'll never leave.  Mwahaha

I don't intend to smile

Good Stuff !!


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#5 2008-07-04 04:23:43

vsk
Member
Registered: 2008-05-27
Posts: 70

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Arch is perfect in every way if you think about it.
It's 100% what you want it to be, as opposed to the (bad gtk theme + crappy default software collection) the world has come to know and love as 'Ubuntu'.

jk. Not hating on Ubuntu, what they're doing is good for the Linux community and all (I just wish people would stop referring to and acting like Ubuntu is the only Linux, or more commonly 'Ubuntu is Linux'. Doesn't make sense...)

But, really, the distro is terrible.

Once you try Arch - you're hooked for sure...

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#6 2008-07-04 05:02:28

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

vsk wrote:

Arch is perfect in every way if you think about it.
It's 100% what you want it to be, as opposed to the (bad gtk theme + crappy default software collection) the world has come to know and love as 'Ubuntu'.

jk. Not hating on Ubuntu, what they're doing is good for the Linux community and all (I just wish people would stop referring to and acting like Ubuntu is the only Linux, or more commonly 'Ubuntu is Linux'. Doesn't make sense...)

But, really, the distro is terrible.

Once you try Arch - you're hooked for sure...

Quite honestly, Ubuntu was my first distro too. I used 5.10 - which I think was Breezy Badger, they have come a long way from Badger to Heron, that I must say.

I was fascinated by how you could get a brand new OS every 6 months. But after a couple of times that wore down on me and then I moved to Debian which I found was much faster than Ubuntu.

Arch and Debian are my choices for a great Linux experience. Someday though, I would want to try out Slackware as well. Its the oldest distro along with Debian (both came about circa 1993). Besides the name sounds cool too wink


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#7 2008-07-04 05:17:55

meandean
Member
Registered: 2008-06-24
Posts: 67

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

vsk wrote:

Arch is perfect in every way if you think about it.
It's 100% what you want it to be, as opposed to the (bad gtk theme + crappy default software collection)

what if you want a bad gtk theme and crappy default software collection.... big_smile


Even a chicken can install Debian, when you put enough grain on the enter key.

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#8 2008-07-14 17:52:34

vsk
Member
Registered: 2008-05-27
Posts: 70

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

good point wink

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#9 2008-07-14 18:10:42

kclive18
Member
From: Columbus, Ohio, USA
Registered: 2008-05-08
Posts: 219

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I started using Arch about 2 months ago on this laptop and I am really enjoying it!  It's so customizable yet so straightforward, unlike other distros I've tried (*buntu, Fedora, SUSE, etc.).  I also have tried FreeBSD in VirtualBox, and Arch seems a lot like the BSDs, which are extremely straightforward and stable as well.


My Rigs:
- Mid-2007 iMac 20", Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2x1GB DDR2-800, 250GB SATA HDD, and...MIGHTY MOUSE!!! tongue, OSX 10.5 Leopard, ATI Radeon 2400XT 128MB
- HP zv6203cl, AMD Athlon 64 3200 S939, 2x512MB DDR400, 80GB 4200rpm HDD, ATI Radeon Xpress 200M 128MB, Arch i686 cool
- 1986 Gibson SG Junior Cherry Red, Ibanez 15W amp, DigiTech RP250 modeling processor

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#10 2008-07-14 19:45:14

gtalum
Member
From: Bradenton, FL
Registered: 2008-07-07
Posts: 9

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I am absolutely THRILLED with Arch on my laptop.  It's the absolutely perfect distro if there is such a thing.  It's lightweight and it has no unwanted bloat, but it's also very straightforward to install and configure.

I'm sorely tempted to put it on my EEE PC now.


Acer Aspire 3003LCi - Arch Linux + Fluxbox
ASUS EEE PC 701 4G - Arch Linux + Fluxbox

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#11 2008-07-15 03:56:55

Zepp
Member
From: Ontario, Canada
Registered: 2006-03-25
Posts: 334
Website

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I still really like gentoo but my two arch boxes have served me well for the most part. Arch has a pretty good community too so I like to hang around these forums and lend a hand here and there wink.

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#12 2008-07-15 04:10:26

nathangrubb
Member
From: Eastern WA State
Registered: 2008-07-14
Posts: 19
Website

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Heh, I just saw you on Ubuntu Forums. I just installed Arch today, it's quite awesome.


Arch + Wmii == big_smile

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#13 2008-07-15 04:21:58

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

nathangrubb wrote:

Heh, I just saw you on Ubuntu Forums. I just installed Arch today, it's quite awesome.

Welcome to Arch !

and as I have been told before....."You can never leave !!!!"

"Arch owns you !!" wink


Forum Rules

There's no such thing as a stupid question, but there sure are a lot of inquisitive idiots !

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#14 2008-07-15 04:35:20

nathangrubb
Member
From: Eastern WA State
Registered: 2008-07-14
Posts: 19
Website

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Yeah, the biggest reason for me switching to arch was speed. However, the straightforward setup was nice. I don't like having to dink around editing stuff that the distro decided to do for you. The only problem so far is my resolution won't go 1440x900, despite being specified in xorg. But for the time being (until tomorrow, don't feel like dealing with it tonight), I can live with 1024x768


Arch + Wmii == big_smile

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#15 2008-07-15 05:11:38

Sp4rkR4t
Member
From: Southampton
Registered: 2008-05-06
Posts: 110

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I recently went on a "distro-hop", the first since I installed Arch 6 months ago and it turned out to be the shortest hop as well. I went;

Arch>Fedora(somehow managed to be slower than ubuntu and the policykit intergration was just annoying)>OpenSuse(simply doesn't work correctly)>VectorLinux(speedy but the software is just too old and lacking some basic things in the repo)>Arch

All in 4 days. I'm never doing that again..... until I get bored again.

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#16 2008-07-15 06:22:10

FilledVoid
Member
Registered: 2008-07-09
Posts: 13

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Hi all,
I'm also another Arch 64 bit user and I've been using it for 2 weeks now. I haven't exactly been using Linux for a long time so I'm quite new to the environment. Other than that I'm having quite alot of fun and my system seems quite more responsive (I earlier used Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon  and Hardy Heron).

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#17 2008-07-16 22:55:47

benton
Member
Registered: 2008-06-20
Posts: 13

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I am not exactly new to Linux, as I''ve been using Linux on servers since 1999. I used Red Hat 7, then Mandrake, for light server stuff. It was only until last year than I tried Linux on my desktop and I started with [...drum roll...] Ubuntu. At first I was in love, then got bored and started noticing how bloated and slow it was. Then I got an old laptop off ebay and Ubuntu was painfully slow on it. I tried Xubuntu, same thing. I then switched to Zenwalk, and while a much better experience on the laptop, I didn't like Xfce (Zenwalk Linux is very nice though.) The I found Arch and liked it so much I purchased a new laptop, installed Arch and Gnome, and now I live a happy life. smile Arch is now my distro of choice and I don't see myself distro-hoping again, ever. smile Thank you all Arch developers and community!

Last edited by benton (2008-07-16 22:58:13)

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#18 2008-09-25 01:45:27

Rho
Member
Registered: 2008-09-21
Posts: 2

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I think the developers have figured out how to package heroin or something with the OS, because I'm hooked. Big time!  I've used many different distros over the past 10 years.  Starting out with Red Hat 4.2, getting burned and fed up with rpms after a while, jumping off the deep end into the whole Linux/BSD world...   I've always loved the debian apt-get stuff, but never cared for the 'debian way' of doing things.   I usually keep coming back to Slackware and FreeBSD.  Slackware because of the fact it works - they don't feel the need to complicate things by adding their own patches and crap, FreeBSD because it just works too - and ports. Gotta love ports!   I tried Arch a long, long time ago (probably about the time it first came out) and never did get it working right.  Lately, after having issues with FreeBSD (virtualbox, flash [gotta watch hulu.com!] and 64-bit nvidia driver come to mind) I've come back to Linux.  I used Sabayon (Gentoo-based) for a while, but got tired of portage (It feels like a car that was made from the parts of 8 different ones and they didn't even bother to use duct tape).  Then I went to Zenwalk, which I was kinda happy with for a while, but it never really 'hit the spot.'  A week or so ago, I decided to try Arch.  I've been avoiding it, because my previous experience with 'basic add everything you want from scratch' distros wasn't very good.  I also have two young children, so I don't get to spend hours grubbing around config files like I used to - I need things to work, with minimal fuss, and have a nice community available if I need help with something.  And I believe I've found that.  So far, with minimal fuss, I've gotten everything up how I like it - easy as pie.  It works. Usually the first time.  And if it doesn't, it's probably my fault!  And answers are easy to find.  The ABS system is awesome - used it earlier for the first time.  Pacman is just... well, I already used awesome, but you get the point.  I used a little-known distro for a while called KateOS that had a very fast installer - the fastest I've seen.  Pacman blows it away.  The only bad thing I have to say about Arch is that I don't have time to go get something to drink when I start up my computer - by the time I stand up, I'm at the login prompt!

So, way to go Arch!

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#19 2008-09-25 06:15:00

Profjim
Member
From: NYC
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 658

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I completely agree. That whole "can't get a drink because it boots to fast thing" is really getting on my nerves.

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#20 2008-09-25 08:13:52

JeremyTheWicked
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2008-05-23
Posts: 193

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

I manage to get something to drink before my box boots wink


arch(3) adj amused because you think you understand something better than other people ;P

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#21 2008-09-25 13:04:31

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

JeremyTheWicked wrote:

I manage to get something to drink before my box boots wink

Where there's a will, there's a way.

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#22 2008-09-26 00:44:50

ssjlegendx
Member
Registered: 2008-01-01
Posts: 94
Website

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Rho wrote:

The only bad thing I have to say about Arch is that I don't have time to go get something to drink when I start up my computer - by the time I stand up, I'm at the login prompt!

It's not difficult to solve this problem. smile

First, put the following in /etc/rc.d/refreshment (as root or using su[do]):

#!/bin/bash

. /etc/rc.d/functions 

stat_busy "Pausing for refreshment break..."
sleep 3m
stat_done

Then, run the following (again with root privileges):

chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/refreshment

Finally, add refreshment to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf. Be sure not to background (@) it!

Last edited by ssjlegendx (2008-09-26 00:49:58)


#!/vim/rocks

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#23 2008-09-26 00:51:46

Misfit138
Misfit Emeritus
From: USA
Registered: 2006-11-27
Posts: 4,189

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

ssjlegendx wrote:

add refreshment to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf. Be sure not to background (@) it!

Oh, man. I laughed out loud...

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#24 2008-09-26 00:54:02

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

ssjlegendx wrote:
Rho wrote:

The only bad thing I have to say about Arch is that I don't have time to go get something to drink when I start up my computer - by the time I stand up, I'm at the login prompt!

It's not difficult to solve this problem. smile

First, put the following in /etc/rc.d/refreshment (as root or using su[do]):

#!/bin/bash

. /etc/rc.d/functions 

stat_busy "Pausing for refreshment break..."
sleep 3m
stat_done

Then, run the following (again with root privileges):

chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/refreshment

Finally, add refreshment to the DAEMONS array in /etc/rc.conf. Be sure not to background (@) it!

This should be nominated for the "Most innovative daemon of the year". Nice work wink


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#25 2008-09-26 02:12:04

Profjim
Member
From: NYC
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 658

Re: New to Arch and really liking it so far

Brilliant.

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