Getting Started

Flame_Phoenix · 2008-10-15 18:24:36

Hi guys, I am a newbie and I just finished installing Arch Linux .... truth is I think it is as bad ad the first MS-DOS, and MS-DOS is 40 (or more) years older !? A command line !?

Anyway, I would like to install some sort of interface, I searched in this forum people have images and a Desktop, and I wonder, how can I do that ?
How can I install programs ?!

How can I do anything decent with a command line !?

I would appreciate some nice turorials and directions plz ...

lilsirecho · 2008-10-15 18:30:23

Go to the wiki and read the beginners guide....this is a complete description of how to start out with archlinux!

mentallaxative · 2008-10-15 18:31:03

Have you tried reading the Beginner's Guide in the wiki? It pretty much tells you what to do to get your system up and ready.

I used to also think cli = obsolete, but experience with Arch has taught me this is not strictly true.

yumyum · 2008-10-15 22:26:47

Read the stickies ppl ;3

peets · 2008-10-15 22:44:41

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide

phrakture · 2008-10-15 22:56:04

Flame_Phoenix wrote:

Hi guys, I am a newbie and I just finished installing Arch Linux .... truth is I think it is as bad ad the first MS-DOS, and MS-DOS is 40 (or more) years older !? A command line !?

I would guess that you didn't know anything about Arch before you tried it. This is not a derogatory comment, I'm just observing. A large chunk of Arch users are command line fans. In fact, a lot of Linux users in general are command line fans. Linux shells are far superior to Window's CMD prompts.

So, what's my point? Just that you may come to love it if you give it a chance. BUT, the other point would be that perhaps Arch isn't the best for you. Perhaps you should start with another distro that is more about the user experience (Ubuntu comes to mind)

haxit · 2008-10-15 22:58:21

phrakture wrote:

Flame_Phoenix wrote:
Hi guys, I am a newbie and I just finished installing Arch Linux .... truth is I think it is as bad ad the first MS-DOS, and MS-DOS is 40 (or more) years older !? A command line !?
I would guess that you didn't know anything about Arch before you tried it. This is not a derogatory comment, I'm just observing. A large chunk of Arch users are command line fans. In fact, a lot of Linux users in general are command line fans. Linux shells are far superior to Window's CMD prompts.
So, what's my point? Just that you may come to love it if you give it a chance. BUT, the other point would be that perhaps Arch isn't the best for you. Perhaps you should start with another distro that is more about the user experience (Ubuntu comes to mind)

I think 99.9% of linux users are command line lovers. I use GUI 80% of time, but without command line, I would probably stop using linux. COMMAND LINE IS WHERE THE POWER IS AT! (Sorry for the caps)

filou.linux · 2008-10-16 09:25:54

I don't think it's 99.9% (Generation Ubuntu??). It needs effort to master it, but once you can use its capabilities... CLI ftw! Love it or hate it. <3 <3 <3

dav7 · 2008-10-16 11:55:08

Flame_Phoenix: Hi there. I see you have not experienced the power of the UNIX shell.

I've used DOS - many versions of it, in fact, for a small number of years. I'm one of the rare few people who actually liked the DOS prompt for a while, but after a while, it can - and does - become pretty boring. Nonetheless, in the time I had DOS and only DOS (MS-DOS 6.20 specifically) on a 400MB disk compressed with DoubleSpace on a 66MHz 486 with 8MB of RAM, I proved you could do more than look at a boring prompt. I knew QuickBASIC back then, and boy did I use it for a lot, as well as a few other things I'd managed to get into the HDD (the floppy disk controller was broken after a PSU explosion (my fault >.>) so the only way to get data into it was to take the HDD out).

I managed to get a colored prompt. A loading graphic. I played a sound at startup. I listened to music in the background, at the loss of some RAM. And I loved it. I was happy with QB, and made quite a few programs with it. But DOS being DOS, could only go so far without requiring you to continue installing software or start learning serious programming in a language like C, neither of which I was too sure how to do.

Along the way, I've used DOS, Win3.1, Win98, and WinXP. All have had their place; none of my computers have been powerful machines, so I don't see one version as better than the other from an entertainment (video watching etc) or gaming perspective.

Then I moved to Linux. Along the way I'd learned a lot about it but had never really tried it. After finally having enough money to get a 250GB HDD, a friend helped me set Arch up on the 250GB one and I put that in my old server, backed up my desktop's 80GB disk onto the 250GB one, and reformatted. I wiped it all. And I didn't reinstall winfailure too; I decided to do a complete switch, and fish data out of the partition if/as I'd need it. A full setup later, I configured X, got everything working (after some serious graphics card issues - the ATI X1550 simply doesn't work with Linux, end of story, sadly), and... it's been a journey of education and learning ever since.

Think of the freedom, agility, and flexibility you currently find in GUIs. Now run your mind over this: you can get MORE freedom, agility and flexibility by using the UNIX shell. Yes, it has a higher learning curve, but it's completely worth it.

I explain all of the following from the context of the shell.
- In DOS, you can easily run over a file wildcard and perform a single operation on all of them, sure. In Linux you can specify a detailed specification and run a series of operations on them.
- DOS can only perform one command per line. UNIX can perform a series of commands per line.
- DOS can only do one task at a time. UNIX can do as many tasks as your memory will fit and your CPU will handle at a time.
- I might be able to play music in the background in DOS, but it wasn't MP3, it was an obscure format. UNIX can play any type of music in the background.
- With a lot of work, DOS can be made to play blocky video using ASCII characters. UNIX can be made to do the same, but with a framebuffer you can play full-motion videos in the background, on their own or behind your shell, as you work.
- With a proprietary, insecure application called TINY, you can connect to a DOS machine with a proprietary client written in Java, but only if you use the PCTCP or Novell networking stacks, which will only work on cards which provide one of two types of interface methods. Virtually all networked UNIX installations that aren't mission critical or need to be highly secure have an ssh server configured, so you can connect to them using a standardized client, regardless of the network card you use (provided Linux has a driver for it, which is also in a standardized format, following a standardized model).

I won't go into the details of X. Compositing, Compiz Fusion and the like are topics for another story, and way beyond the scope of this post. I just wanted to let you know that you are absolutely correct to think that you can't do anything decent in DOS, not without some kind of menu or GUI system running on top of it, and without some kind of goal or aim to complete. UNIX is different. With UNIX, you can get an idea randomly, open a shell, and hack and whittle away at an idea until it works. You can, like DOS, change your prompt color, but you can also shove the time or date into the prompt, which you can configure to automatically update via time server. Like DOS, you could play a sound when your system started up, but unlike DOS, you could also display a splashscreen and progress bar while your system booted up if you wanted it to.

You see, Linux is about choice. DOS and winfailure are about simplicity, like my signature says. You can't have one and the other - if you want choice, you have to accept the heightened amount of complexity and responsibility that comes with it. Because choice doesn't just apply to basic moral/controversial/show-stopping choices, for example, like whether you might want to use one piece of software over another, or whether you want to use this distribution or that distribution. It applies to everything, from the top down, right down to those kinds of choices that affect your data - the system doesn't try to help you, it assumes you're in control and you know what you're doing, whether you think/know you are or not. So let me leave you with a little warning. Never, unless you know exactly what you're doing, run the following command as root. Ever. Even if someone tells you to do it to fix a probem. It'll delete all your data.

rm -rf /

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-10-16 11:59:02)

filou.linux · 2008-10-16 12:39:43

I guess he hasn't any data on his computer to loose at the moment. So I'd say that's not the problem. But can we really take him serious? If he really wanted to get along with it, why didn't he have a look at [wiki, forumsearch, stickies, google, irc]? Is it the arch-way to wait until someone tells me whats the next step instead of researching it myself?

In this moment I ask myself: Why are we discussing here? There are thousands of other threads with serious problems, people that really need "our" help. Just a thought.

dav7 · 2008-10-16 12:43:20

True, but this is more of a philosophical and psychological kind of thread, and I like those, and also none of the other open threads have anything I can help with right now

And also, this person probably doesn't even know the Arch Way.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-10-16 12:43:36)

filou.linux · 2008-10-16 13:41:23

Hahaha, I can't get my hands off that thread either You're right, this one's much more fun

I just hope he'll follow our advices and that one day he'll be the person that gives advices to newbies.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-10-15 18:24:36

Getting Started

#2 2008-10-15 18:30:23

Re: Getting Started

#3 2008-10-15 18:31:03

Re: Getting Started

#4 2008-10-15 22:26:47

Re: Getting Started

#5 2008-10-15 22:44:41

Re: Getting Started

#6 2008-10-15 22:56:04

Re: Getting Started

#7 2008-10-15 22:58:21

Re: Getting Started

#8 2008-10-16 09:25:54

Re: Getting Started

#9 2008-10-16 11:55:08

Re: Getting Started

#10 2008-10-16 12:39:43

Re: Getting Started

#11 2008-10-16 12:43:20

Re: Getting Started

#12 2008-10-16 13:41:23

Re: Getting Started

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