Arch Linux

corsakh

Member

Registered: 2009-11-08

Posts: 104

Some basic questions about Arch.

Hey guys, I am a newbie so bear with me please

1) I have fairly well supported hardware and don't use any fancy software. I keep hearing that rolling release causes dramas. Realistically, how often should I expect difficulties to happen?

2) How do you compare the variety of Arch repositories to that of Debian systems? What are the differences between pacman and aptitude today?

3) How does the speed and efficiency of a basic Arch system compare to Ubuntu on minimal install (I am not talking about the bloated out of the box version, I am talking about build from the ground up minimal CD).

4) Last but not least.. I never used KDE. How do you guys survive without Gnome Do? Is there some good alternative?

Thank you.

rebugger

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-10-28

Posts: 229

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

1) depends. most problems come after xserver-update (but not at every xserver-update)

3) there isn't a big speed difference from distribution to distribution - you should install arch if you:
a) want a minimal system or good control over dependencies
b) like to play with config files

4) there was something called "katapult" (not sure if it's still in kde4), worked great with kde3 and is somelike like the "father" of gnome-do
i use xfce and i do not need stuff like gnome-do, etc

Aprz

Member

From: Newark

Registered: 2008-05-28

Posts: 277

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

For question 1, I think you should be prepared for it anytime you update (pacman -Syu). Some of us follow some good guide lines to keep ourselves safe such as not installing things immediately and keeping backups in /var (don't do pacman -Scc) to do a local rollback. I rarely experience any issue personally.

Last edited by Aprz (2009-11-08 10:32:24)

mikesd

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-02-01

Posts: 788

Website

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

Good advice from Aprz. Keep an Arch Linux cd handy and don't clear your pacman cache and you will be fine.

I update daily (I don't run testing on my main workstation) and can only recall twice where I had to roll back a package. Once with cups and once with texlive. In addition I have also held off updating when I was busy with study due to issues raised in the forums or on the news page regarding xorg and nVidia drivers. When I did finally upgrade it turned out I was being over cautious as I had no issues.

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Kooothor

Member

From: Paname

Registered: 2008-08-02

Posts: 228

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

Hey guys, I am a newbie so bear with me please

Hi, we're all newbies !

2) How do you compare the variety of Arch repositories to that of Debian systems? What are the differences between pacman and aptitude today?

Variety is well sufficient because :

I [...] don't use any fancy software.

3) How does the speed and efficiency of a basic Arch system compare to Ubuntu on minimal install (I am not talking about the bloated out of the box version, I am talking about build from the ground up minimal CD).

I'd say it's better, because Arch is the best !

4) Last but not least.. I never used KDE. How do you guys survive without Gnome Do? Is there some good alternative?

I hate KDE, Arch isn't tied up to KDE, in fact it isn't tied up to anything expect maybe Pacman. If you like Gnome, well, install gnome !
Personnally I enjoy Awesome as WM and I don't have a Desktop Environnement.

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lucke

Member

From: Poland

Registered: 2004-11-30

Posts: 4,019

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

KRunner (the default Alt-F2 KDE4 app launcher) is similar to Katapult/Gnome Do/Quicksilver.

Last edited by lucke (2009-11-08 11:21:26)

Surgat_

Member

Registered: 2007-08-08

Posts: 317

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

2) How do you compare the variety of Arch repositories to that of Debian systems? What are the differences between pacman and aptitude today?

Debian has larger repositories than any distro I know, but Arch has a lot of software packaged too. Most of the packages you may need are in the repos for sure, and if you can't find something, you'll probably find it in the AUR (i. e. there is no binary in the repos but you can download a tarball and run a command to build it).

Rumor

Member

From: Albany, NY

Registered: 2006-07-07

Posts: 638

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

Hey guys, I am a newbie so bear with me please

4) Last but not least.. I never used KDE. How do you guys survive without Gnome Do? Is there some good alternative?

Thank you.

Welcome to Arch.

Pacman -Ss gnome-do
community/gnome-do 0.8.2-1
    A launcher application for gnome (like Launchy or Katapult)
community/gnome-do-docklets 0.8.2-1
    GNOME Do Docky docklets
community/gnome-do-plugins 0.8.2-1
    Plugins for gnome-do

We don't survive without it. We have Gnome-do. There is no "default" desktop environment or window manager in Arch. Arch is what you make it.

Regarding your third question, I tried an experiment a couple years ago to see how Arch and Ubuntu handled memory. I set up a dual boot machine and ran the same programs (as best I was able) on both installs, and Arch had quite a bit more free memory than the more or less equivalent Ubuntu set up.

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ziarkaen

Member

Registered: 2009-06-21

Posts: 20

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

1) I came from Debian/Ubuntu to Arch and have never looked back - I maybe have 2 major problems a year when upgrading.  The trick is to leave updates a few days and check forum/site news page before updating the big ones (kernel/xorg/video-drivers).  For everything broken there are 10 things fixed which is a good deal for me.

2) I think that for basic package management for the "average" user both pacman and aptitude do the same job in the same way.  Of course Debian (and therefore Ubuntu) is very popular and many developers will release .deb packages or provide install instructions for them distros, however the AUR has never failed me when looking for obscure software.

3) Lacking actual benchmarks, the basic ubuntu-server install vs. the Arch install are not going to be wildly different in speed.  While people make a big deal about distro's, they _are_ essentially 95% identical.  The real difference that matters is the organisation/configuration of system files - I find that Ubuntu generally has a negative view of the end user's opinion, whilst Arch generally has a positive view.  Then again, they have different end users.

The best way to experience Arch is to try it.  Start now and within an hour you could be logged into a fresh Arch system.  You would quickly realise if you hated it.

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ziarkaen

corsakh

Member

Registered: 2009-11-08

Posts: 104

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

Thanks guys, I am gonna give it a try after I print out the Beginner's Guide. Another thing I heard was that you have to create scripts for common tasks like update notifying and unused package purging. I smell bs here, there should certainly be something of this nature in the wiki or repositories, but  just to confirm - I won't have to manually code a script to tell me there are updates available?

&#32 Greg

Member

Registered: 2009-02-08

Posts: 80

Re: Some basic questions about Arch.

There are pacman commands to, for instance, purge orphans, that sometimes get a bit long (they're in the wiki) which you might be better off aliasing if you're going to use it often, but for updates that's just a simple pacman -Syu.

Short answer: No, you don't need to script.