Arch for people with lack of time?

Greenstuff · 2009-07-27 07:40:50

Hello,
I'd like your opinions about a problem I'm having. I recently finished (most) of my setting up of arch and so far I'm satisfied. Fast boot up, I can actually see what's going on, stable etc. However, I know Arch isn't for those with a lack of time. Problem is that I'm going off to the army soon (I'm a 19 year old Israeli. Hi everyone) and will probably be home only for only a bit and even then I'll be tired. Since I will have to run Pacman -Syu every week, and I'll need to tweak according to what Pacman specifies, do you think I should switch a distro, or are there people with similar conditions (like people who work) manage to hold an Arch system?

Ashren · 2009-07-27 07:52:15

You don't need to update Arch every week - If it works don't update it and then wait until you're well rested to update.

Usually Arch handles big updates quite fine, just remember to check the news before issueing pacman -Syu

So IMO you should stick with Arch.

kaaposc · 2009-07-27 08:12:46

Really, if it ain't broken, don't fix it My Arch server currently has 142 uptime days, last reboot was because of kernel update. It does it's job fine without pacman update.

kensai · 2009-07-27 12:27:21

I have close to no time, and I use Arch Linux. It might seem like it requires a lot of time to maintain, but it does not.

alienman · 2009-07-27 16:27:47

I agree with you guys, I usually update very frequently but that's because that's the way I like, but of course if it were a server I wouldn't update it in months or years. I would just update it if extreamly necessary.

I could tell you from my experience that many of the updates that I do very week are rarely noticed by me. Unless you are waiting for a special package to be updated (maybe kernel for a chipset support) or any other software you like (for me gnome-do and banshee). Everything else could wait 6 moths or more to be upgraded.

So don't be afraid you will be fine if you already have your system running Arch, just make sure you read the news if a package needs a different configuration as for deprecated configuration files.

Good luck in the army.

eldragon · 2009-07-27 16:38:00

*** RANT ****
<snip> - not acceptable - Allan
*** EO RANT ***

good luck in the army.

Last edited by Allan (2009-07-27 23:09:30)

daf666 · 2009-07-27 17:47:58

I wouldnt worry about updating every week, I still have maintainable Arch boxes with kernel 2.6.26., its doable.
Those are from many many months ago, so a weekly update is more than enough.
*** RANT ***
Edit: That is not worth responding to - Allan
*** EO RANT ***

Last edited by Allan (2009-07-27 23:10:15)

eldragon · 2009-07-27 18:23:09

**** RANT ****
<snip> - not acceptable - Allan
*** EO RANT ****
now back on thread. during my trips i leave arch running with whatever was most current, and when i get back (monthes worth of updates waitingi), i usually do the -Syu routine (after skimming through the news, the archdev-list and the support forums for any breakage that might concern me..) and ive had no mayor problems. heck, ubuntu gave more breakage that arch

in my experience, you will find more easy to maintain arch than to reinstall every 6 monthes when a new release from the other distros comes by.

and there is always ssh to do the maintaining...

Last edited by Allan (2009-07-27 23:08:56)

Mr.Elendig · 2009-07-27 20:32:08

In my experience running -Syu often leads to less time spent maintaining the system in the long run. But that's just me and my twisted world.

Anyway, there have been >9000 atempts/suggestions to create an arch-stable, but all of them have been dropped when they found out how much work it really is to pull it off.

On the other side, I've been in a somewhat similar situation. I spent a year in uniform, and updating the system whenever I had the time wasn't really a problem. I would probably have wasted way more time to install another distro and learning it's quircs, than just sticking with arch.

Edit:
<don'twantosoundasawannabemodbut>
@eldragon Please stay on topic and drop the wannaberasims, before you get this thread closed, which won't benefit anyone.
</don'twantosoundasawannabemodbut>

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2009-07-27 20:35:59)

jwcxz · 2009-07-27 20:59:04

Not to beat a dead, horse, but in my experience, I've found Arch to be one of the easiest distros to maintain after you've installed it. Sure, after the initial installation, it may take some time to configure your system just how you like it, but afterwards, there are usually very few glitches that result from trying to keep your system up to date. I typically -Syu once a day on my main computers, quickly check to see if there are any major package updates (and if there are, I check the news feed to ensure that there are no special instructions), and hit enter to install everything.

But, Greenstuff, it definitely sounds like you'll be away from your computer (and presumably away from a terminal where you can use SSH). As people have mentioned here, it is perfectly possible to leave an Arch system alone for a long time and update it much later. I've done it before on my testing servers without any issues. However, as long as you check the Arch news for any special upgrade instructions, you should be okay.

Good luck with your service. A good friend of mine, who studied here in the US, has recently gone back to Israel to fulfill his service time as well.

eldragon · 2009-07-27 22:09:19

one last point of advice for a time saver: setup a cron job for root to do "pacman -Syuw --no-confirm" which would download updates only. so when you get back, you got all the packages stored localy.

Allan · 2009-07-27 23:05:19

eldragon wrote:

i promise this will be the end of the discussion

I believe it will be...

esh · 2009-07-29 16:47:32

2057MB of updates listed for me right now. I haven't actually done an -Syu since I installed the system (October) but I have upgraded a few choice packages. I need python2.5 etc and everything works for me as it is so I haven't touched it.

Arisna · 2009-07-29 20:05:48

Be careful about the selective updating thing. You could end up with an unbootable system. I think instructing pacman to ignore python updates would let you keep python25 and let you keep everything else up to date.

Sakurina · 2009-07-29 21:30:49

esh wrote:

I need python2.5 etc and everything works for me as it is so I haven't touched it.

Couldn't you just install python25 from AUR?

arkham · 2009-07-29 21:51:40

Or install debian stable.

esh · 2009-07-31 09:24:44

Yeah, all my other stations currently run Debian stable. But again, since it's all currently working...

On a related note, if one installed python25 from AUR, what does one do about all the modules/packages? That's the real reason I'm still on Python 2.5.

evol · 2009-07-31 10:20:05

I've actually found Arch a breeze since I installed it a few years back, just one or two glitches that were easily fixed in that time; xorg & uvesafb.

What I like is that through using Arch I've learned a lot about how Linux ticks and so fixing things/dorking around with conf files etc. isnt intimidating, unlike when I started out with Ubuntu & that type of thing was sort of obfuscated. So if something broke on Ubuntu, I was horrified... Not so anymore.

Over busy periods, I've neglected reading up on the finer details of updates and ran pacman -Syu blind, but without issue.

So I say don't worry about it and stick with Arch.

Just about everyone on planet earth has an opinion on the situation in your region, but all I'm going to say is what I'm sure every reasonable one of them agrees with: I hope you stay safe on your Army service and get through it ok

Last edited by evol (2009-07-31 10:21:55)

XFire · 2009-07-31 12:55:53

I've been using Arch for over a year now, for the most part there aren't many updates that take a lot of editing of system files.

DaveCode · 2009-08-05 00:09:09

Well, you know wrong. If you've adminned other Linuxes, and dealt with their ridiculous throughput problems, you'd realize Arch saves you crazy amounts of time. I can't tell you the years I've wasted on the rest.

Warning, you must make a decision. If you run Arch at all, do a weekly upgrade. Arch is designed to keep itself upgrading. If you defer upgrades too long, you're asking for trouble.

If you want a 'stagnant server' then use Debian/Ubuntu/RedHat. Any upstream bugfix will take two years to reach you, but you won't be changing anything.

hrobeers · 2009-08-05 18:52:54

Greenstuff wrote:

Hello,
I know Arch isn't for those with a lack of time.

I spend less time to tweak and fix my OS with Arch than I did with Ubuntu! With Ubuntu I reinstalled every 6 months, and spent a lot of time trying to tweak it like I wanted it to be (wich never succeeded). Arch is tweaked now how I like it, Pacman -Syu from time to time (takes a few minutes) and once every 6 months fix something that broke (instead of a whole reinstall).

I installed Arch on my GF's laptop, and it just works! I update that machine only when I'm sure I've a lot of time, let's say once every 4 months. Never had a problem on that machine.

I don't find Arch time consuming at all. I'm not sure but I believe that I even lost more time on windows, several years ago.

Oh yeah, when I need to be sure my machine doesn't breaks, I do not update.

markp1989 · 2009-08-05 19:46:41

Arisna wrote:

Be careful about the selective updating thing. You could end up with an unbootable system. I think instructing pacman to ignore python updates would let you keep python25 and let you keep everything else up to date.

+1 , last time i acidently did a partial update, i installed devede, which for some reason installed the newest version of bash, but didnt update a required library, which cause my system to fail at boot.

I have instaleld arch on my sisters eeepc 2gb, and i havent updated it since installing, due to there not being enough space on the ssd to download the updates.

Last edited by markp1989 (2009-08-05 19:48:14)

panosk · 2009-08-05 22:28:53

kensai wrote:

I have close to no time, and I use Arch Linux. It might seem like it requires a lot of time to maintain, but it does not.

This is very true. I also use Arch as my main OS for professional work with tight deadlines, and never had problems or, to be precise, I had much less problems than any other OS I used in the past, including Windows. Just for fun: I installed Arch almost a year ago (switching from Ubuntu) at the same time my brother did a fresh install of Windows XP. So far, my brother has performed 2 reinstallations due to serious problems (and he is thinking of another one because his system is bloated and crawling) while my Arch still rocks :-). During this year, I have been running pacman -Syu every day or every other day, but there was a period that I was updating every 10 days or so. It really didn't make a difference.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-07-27 07:40:50

Arch for people with lack of time?

#2 2009-07-27 07:52:15

Re: Arch for people with lack of time?

#3 2009-07-27 08:12:46

Re: Arch for people with lack of time?

#4 2009-07-27 12:27:21

Re: Arch for people with lack of time?

#5 2009-07-27 16:27:47

Re: Arch for people with lack of time?

#6 2009-07-27 16:38:00

Re: Arch for people with lack of time?

#7 2009-07-27 17:47:58

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#8 2009-07-27 18:23:09

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#9 2009-07-27 20:32:08

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#10 2009-07-27 20:59:04

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#11 2009-07-27 22:09:19

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#12 2009-07-27 23:05:19

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#13 2009-07-29 16:47:32

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