Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

kforum · 2008-09-27 03:15:05

ok, ive used gentoo for a while now.
i love its customization, the enourmous wealth of packages, etc...
but i cant stand a few things that are going on, and it seems will continue to go on...

anyways, my questions are:

is xorg 1.5 available on Arch for x64, is kde 4.1 also?
are test version packages usually available in Arch?(like, not necessarily yet released ones -i like testing ^^)
is there a decent wealth of packages in teh distro(this opinion will vary i know).
and perhaps mos importantly, how easy is it to install something that is not on the database, as if it was on the DB, or... to add new 'builds' to the DB(im calling them 'builds' out of not knowing teh local term.

thanks for any hint of heads up.

cheers.

Allan · 2008-09-27 03:27:34

kforum wrote:

is xorg 1.5 available on Arch for x64, is kde 4.1 also?

Yes and yes (xorg is in the [testing] repo)

kforum wrote:

are test version packages usually available in Arch?(like, not necessarily yet released ones -i like testing ^^)

It varies, but in general the latest stable version is in the repos. But someone usually provides cvs/svn/git/etc PKGBUILDs (somewhat like a simplified ebuild - http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PKGBUILD) for interesting packages.

kforum wrote:

is there a decent wealth of packages in teh distro(this opinion will vary i know).

Yes, and everything that you need that is not in an official repo can likely be found in the AUR (Arch User-community Repository - http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR)

kforum wrote:

and perhaps mos importantly, how easy is it to install something that is not on the database, as if it was on the DB, or... to add new 'builds' to the DB(im calling them 'builds' out of not knowing teh local term.

Yes, very easy. The above links about AUR and PKGBUILDs should provide you with the info you need.

kforum · 2008-09-27 03:48:37

thanks for such a quick and efficient answer.
consider me a new Arch user .
arch really has everything i want/need and more T.T.

Stythys · 2008-09-27 03:51:29

kforum wrote:

arch really has everything i want/need and more T.T.

it always does

kforum · 2008-09-27 04:35:47

btw, another thing. i was using something called openRC in gentoo, its a new standard/format for configs and the likes.
does Arch use it/does anyone even know what im talking about?

Allan · 2008-09-27 05:35:05

Arch does not use that. For info our init config script see http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rc.conf

kforum · 2008-09-27 10:12:31

is there plans on implementing, or is the current system faster/more efficient?

anyhow, another thing:
i was checking the install guides and noticed that the only way to compile from source is to 'make' a special folder yourself, dl teh stuff there, then run the appropriate command... if thats so, then its quite a hassle >.<(not worth doing for all progs), but i wasnt certain form my reading if it allowed multiple config options right of the bat(like USE flags in gentoo). do you know? and, is there any easier way of doing this?(i thought archs philosophy was, simple, yet technically superior. ^^)

thanks in advance.

obsrv · 2008-09-27 10:31:27

I have switched from Gentoo, and I am happy with ArchLinux

Allan · 2008-09-27 10:42:23

kforum wrote:

is there plans on implementing, or is the current system faster/more efficient?

I haven't heard it mentioned before and the current system works so I am doubting that it will happen anytime soon.

kforum wrote:

anyhow, another thing:
i was checking the install guides and noticed that the only way to compile from source is to 'make' a special folder yourself, dl teh stuff there, then run the appropriate command... if thats so, then its quite a hassle >.<(not worth doing for all progs), but i wasnt certain form my reading if it allowed multiple config options right of the bat(like USE flags in gentoo). do you know? and, is there any easier way of doing this?(i thought archs philosophy was, simple, yet technically superior. ^^)

Arch is primarily binary distributed so you have to put up with the developers choices of what is built in (or request and provide good justification why they should be changed). So there is no real equivalent of USE flags. There are community provided tools that provide wrappers that allow you automatically customize packages (e.g. customizepkg - http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=10314) and build and install PKGBUILDs from the AUR (e.g. yaourt - http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=5863).

dhave · 2008-09-27 14:09:04

obsrv wrote:

I have switched from Gentoo, and I am happy with ArchLinux

I came over from Gentoo, too -- Slack before that -- and have felt right at home.

dsr · 2008-09-28 01:55:03

kforum wrote:

i was checking the install guides and noticed that the only way to compile from source is to 'make' a special folder yourself, dl teh stuff there, then run the appropriate command... if thats so, then its quite a hassle >.<(not worth doing for all progs), but i wasnt certain form my reading if it allowed multiple config options right of the bat(like USE flags in gentoo). do you know? and, is there any easier way of doing this?(i thought archs philosophy was, simple, yet technically superior. ^^)
thanks in advance.

The Arch way to recompile official packages is to update the ABS tree, copy the package's directory to ~/abs or /var/abs/local, edit the PKGBUILD if desired, and run makepkg. For example:

# abs
$ cp /var/abs/extra/gimp ~/abs
$ cd ~/abs
$ makepkg -sic

Building AUR packages from [unsupported] is basically the same. If you want the process to be automated, you can use yaourt as Allan said. It's a wrapper for pacman that lets you install official Arch binaries, compile them from source instead, and build [unsupported] packages.

Last edited by dsr (2008-09-28 01:56:21)

kforum · 2008-09-28 10:02:39

guys some really strange stuff is at work.
first and foremost, the beginners guide is outdated, it says that a lot of things will happen in the 'select packages' section that really doesnt.
what DOES happen is, it asks if you want to keep things in the cache, ok... then it shows you the BASE stuff, with nothing selected, though if you press space on it it will select the general ones, ok...
then when i try to install it(also its strange that, i guess you're forced to 'partition you HD, even if its already partitioned, just to setup the appropriate /root mountpoint) its just bugs out on me, it seems that it wants to download something, and since the net is not active, it fails...

i thought core cds meant no need for net connection at all...

anyways, on another topic.

i did not manage to get my iwl4965 wifi card to work.
i load the module, ifconfig up, iwconfig wlan0 essid key, etc... all set.
then, since i have a static ip, reserved for me:
ifconfig wlan0 'myip'...
route add default gw 'router's ip'

and inspite of my testing... nothing gets going. im i missing some command here.

and whats wrong with the coreCD installer, i cant install nothing atm....

please assist.

EDIT: just to make myself clear on one of the issues with teh docs...

Select Packages

Now we shall select packages to install in our system.

    * Core ISO: Choose CD as source and select the appropriate CD drive if you have more than one.
    * FTP ISO: Select an FTP/HTTP mirror. Note that archlinux.org is throttled to 50KB/s. 

Package selection is split into two stages. First, you will select package categories, then you will be presented will the full lists of packages in the selected categories, allowing you to fine-tune your selections. The space bar selects and unselects the categories.

    * BASE: Contains the minimal package set; just enough for a barebones system.
    * SUPPORT: Additional packages for networking and filesystems, etc, such as gpm, fuse, dnsutils, wireless drivers, ndiswrapper, ntfs-3g, and so forth.
    * DEVEL: Software compiling tools such as GCC, autoconf, automake and make.
    * LIB: Various libraries such as gmp, libelf, libevent, etc. 

Choose OK to continue and then choose 'yes' for 'Select all packages by default', for now.

The next screen will present you with the selected packages within your selected categories.

Once you're done selecting the packages you need, leave the selection screen and continue to the next step, Install Packages.

so not true, it shows all of them under BASE, thats it. if i was a complete newbie....:mad: headshot! R.I.P.

Last edited by kforum (2008-09-28 10:06:20)

Mr.Elendig · 2008-09-28 11:00:19

1. You are _not_ forced to repartion, just skip that step and go right to "set filesystem mounpoints"
2. You do not need a network connection to install base from the cd.
3. You probably selected ftp as the source instead of the cd right in the start of the installer.
4. The installer will change again for the next release. You can still install though. The whole base is istalled by default, and you can select the extra packages you want from base-devel.

Misfit138 · 2008-09-28 12:18:09

The Version of the Beginners' Guide you are referring to is outdated in that area. However, this was unavoidable as it was put onto the iso before I had a chance to update it.
Since the 2008.06 installer had some changes in package selection, there was no way for me to change the documentation until I actually test drove the new installer.. but by that time, Simo had already incorporated the guide into the iso.
I will contact Simo and Aaron so that this does not happen again.
As a postscript, the installer will supposedly revert to the 'old way' of package selection, so the Guide on the iso may actually end up staying the same.

neowolf · 2008-09-28 22:06:30

I went from Gentoo to Arch, haven't regretted it one bit,

kforum · 2008-09-29 13:27:43

thanks misfit, on a side note the arch cd is one of the finest installer cd ive seen in all of the linux world. maybe the installer module(/arch/setup) needs a few improvements, but overall everything is nicely done and thought out.

anyways, an update:

no i did not select the wrong install sequence(FTP), im a gentoo user...
and the issue on the installer is like this:
is tells me how much its going to dl, what is going to be installed, etc. then it says DL'ing from core, or whatnot.

then it fails, and aside form what seems like dependency hell, that it complains that its installing something before it installs glibc(i think), which doesnt seem to stop it form going through with so, ok great.
the real brake happens when it tries to 'download' some files(i assume from the cd now).

so maybe my cd is corrupt, ill try re-recording and see. maybe at 2x this time, if i can find a prog that goes that low >.<.

ill keep it updated.

kforum · 2008-09-29 23:02:11

alright, it did not work...
the files 'downloaded' but they did not pass the md5 sumcheck, im guessing its an iso issue then( i used the bittorrent download, for the record).
im gonna try re-downloading or whatnot.

also, i notice that wpa_supp was one of the things that was gonna be installed... so does that mean that the liveCD that i boot has it?
if so, that would be great cause i can have wifi access while installing.(and if so, then where is the wpa_supp.conf?)

thanks for any response,

cheers.

edit:anyone know teh md5sum that teh iso should have?

Last edited by kforum (2008-09-29 23:13:06)

Allan · 2008-09-29 23:10:42

You should be able to use wireless during install as all the wireless drivers etc were added to the latest release. The wireless section of the beginners guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beg … process.29) may be of some help in getting it going.

kforum · 2008-09-29 23:14:54

it wasnt... like i said:

"i did not manage to get my iwl4965 wifi card to work.
i load the module, ifconfig up, iwconfig wlan0 essid key, etc... all set.
then, since i have a static ip, reserved for me:
ifconfig wlan0 'myip'...
route add default gw 'router's ip'

and inspite of my testing... nothing gets going. im i missing some command here?
"

i think its because need wpa, i had it on gentoo, and with wpa it worked fine.

dsr · 2008-09-29 23:21:43

If all else fails, you can install Arch from a Gentoo LiveCD. I did so with an Ubuntu CD and it worked perfectly. Instructions are here.

AD28 · 2008-09-29 23:29:14

kforum wrote:

edit:anyone know teh md5sum that teh iso should have?

i686 md5s
amd64 md5s

kforum · 2008-09-29 23:33:43

thanks, took me a little but i found it(i was looking in the begginers guide, nowhere to be found... but then checked back in the good ol'std guide to find a link to the mirror, the rest is history.

anyhow, the md5 checks... so that means its no it.

maybe a broken media...
can anyone confirm that the iso that was uploaded on bittorrent has no 'corrupt' files issues?

kforum · 2008-09-30 10:57:50

i was burning it with SAO, switched to TAO and it worked.

beautiful installer really, specially when i got it. its really nice how i barely moved my fingers and the system was installed. ^^

one thing though, in the fstab section:

Arch set

uuid(my /boot partition /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
uuid(my root) / ext3 defaults 0 1
uuid(my swap) swap swap defaults 0 0

, now that did not boot, i switched the boot fsck to 2 then it did... so why did arch set it up this way?

also in gentoo my options on the swap partition was simply "sw"... can swap really have 'defaults' option?(just for the record, in gentoo i also used dir as 'none' in swap... it worked fine.)

furthermore(and this is something that i never thought about), should i have /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd, as the STD example suggests, or only one of them(i have a dvd-rw)? actually the beginner's guide suggests you comments it out and let hal handle it.
commenting it out is a new thing for me, is it more efficient?

now i will desperately try to get my network to... work .
i must say that every doc ive seen so far on it has been at best => insufficient, for my static ip wifi(using iwl4965 card/driver).
i dont know how to tell arch if im using wireless-tools or WPA_supp, i dont know how to specify specific gateways and routes per ESSID, instead of the system wide one.
and i do believe i should know, with reading just the beginner's guide, so maybe thats a thought there.

maybe the guide works for the obvious ethernet DHCP case, but not me...

im gonna read around on this and ill post a question in the appropriate forum if needed.

one last thing,
i never really built those initramfs images to boot the system, and never bothered to ask:
why should i? do they speed up anything?

thanks for any response, this is probably my last batch of questions, thanks for anyone that replied here, i consider my self, least to say, a content Arch user.
particularly im quite impressed with the installer, any baby can use it. ^^;

cheers.

Misfit138 · 2008-09-30 13:19:37

kforum wrote:

also in gentoo my options on the swap partition was simply "sw"... can swap really have 'defaults' option?(just for the record, in gentoo i also used dir as 'none' in swap... it worked fine.)

fstab (mount) is pretty forgiving as to the syntax you use..there are several 'right' ways that will still work.

furthermore(and this is something that i never thought about), should i have /dev/cdrom and /dev/dvd, as the STD example suggests, or only one of them(i have a dvd-rw)? actually the beginner's guide suggests you comments it out and let hal handle it.
commenting it out is a new thing for me, is it more efficient?

As the guide states, if you want HAL to handle removable media in your optical drives, comment them out, if not, don't.

i dont know how to tell arch if im using wireless-tools or WPA_supp, i dont know how to specify specific gateways and routes per ESSID, instead of the system wide one.
and i do believe i should know, with reading just the beginner's guide, so maybe thats a thought there.

You choose which you want to use. Have you tried to specify gateways with 'route add default gw <ip_addr>' after associating with wireless_tools?

one last thing,
i never really built those initramfs images to boot the system, and never bothered to ask:
why should i? do they speed up anything?

The initramfs (initcpio) gives you some versatility and often allows one to avoid the need to recompile their kernel, by allowing the use of hooks. Look in mkinitcpio.conf

Welcome to Arch!

kforum · 2008-09-30 14:43:56

1. whats the diff between 'my' way and the way the guide proposes, truly?
2. on the hal subject... so which one would you advise? cause as of the moment... i dont see the benefit of letting hal handle it...
3.yes... but, HOW do i associate with wireless-tools or wpa(or more precisely, where?), that was my Q, and also... yes i tried that.
4.isee... how/why exactly would it allow me to avoid recompile? you mean in case i wanted to activate something i did not?

Arch Linux

#1 2008-09-27 03:15:05

Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#2 2008-09-27 03:27:34

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#3 2008-09-27 03:48:37

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#4 2008-09-27 03:51:29

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#5 2008-09-27 04:35:47

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#6 2008-09-27 05:35:05

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#7 2008-09-27 10:12:31

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#8 2008-09-27 10:31:27

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#9 2008-09-27 10:42:23

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#10 2008-09-27 14:09:04

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#11 2008-09-28 01:55:03

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#12 2008-09-28 10:02:39

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#13 2008-09-28 11:00:19

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#14 2008-09-28 12:18:09

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#15 2008-09-28 22:06:30

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#16 2008-09-29 13:27:43

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#17 2008-09-29 23:02:11

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#18 2008-09-29 23:10:42

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#19 2008-09-29 23:14:54

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#20 2008-09-29 23:21:43

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#21 2008-09-29 23:29:14

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#22 2008-09-29 23:33:43

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#23 2008-09-30 10:57:50

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#24 2008-09-30 13:19:37

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

#25 2008-09-30 14:43:56

Re: Gentoo user, questions about arch, -possibly switching to Arch.

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