Arch Linux

corsakh

Member

Registered: 2009-11-08

Posts: 104

Re: Suggestions to improve Beginners Guide

Did pacman print out an error message?

Nothing. I don't even know if it was pacman, unless it was a frontend for it.

Again, some basic background knowledge is expected. Udev and base are packages and package groups, respectively. This section refers to kernel modules that your system requires during boot time, before the kernel is loaded.

Ye, I can see now I must have put stuff into a wrong section.

Corsakh, truely I don't have any attitude, and I wasn't trying to be "mean"... If I was trying to be mean there wouldn't be any doubt about it wink
For over a decade I have been helping hundreds if not thousands of users convert to Linux. I have started multiple forums, usalug.org, opensuse.us, bashscripts.org, and with the distinct intent of helping those new to Linux.  I've always went above and beyond to help newbies. However, when you jump into Linux and start with one of the most bleeding edge distro's that even states it is for compent Linux users, and then start complaining, what do you expect to be told ???? Perhaps I was to blunt, and if you or anyone thinks so, then I apologize, it was late when I posted wink

Nothing of what I posted was a complaint. I have not paid or contributed anything to have a right to complain. I ran into some minor annoyances that I worked through during the installation and thought I'd share them. So that people who install Arch after me gonna have a more pleasant experience. These are merely ideas.

And about all this "competent user" stuff. A user is as competent as he chooses to be, but there are certain ways to make his life easier. And there must be some reason why Beginner's Guide is the most worked on document on Arch Wiki. It must also be the most visited, although I can not see stats for that for some reason. And why newbie corner is the biggest forum. So it appears community must be catering for newbies to an extent despite what is being said.

During installation you have to edit the mirrors list:

Nah, you don't have this option at the start. I am talking about the very initial mirror connection when you use Net iso.

Last edited by corsakh (2009-11-14 20:35:33)

Misfit138

Misfit Emeritus

From: USA

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 4,189

Re: Suggestions to improve Beginners Guide

Sup,

I am a total newb so I guess I'd share some difficulties that I encountered during installation that could be easily avoided.

1) Put the Beginners Guide on the ISO. I don't have a second computer. So I had to print out a 63 page manuscript + GNOME instructions that I am likely to ever use once. Thats a total waste of paper and time.

The Beginners' Guide was on the iso in the past, but has since been removed in favor of the official guide. This was a decision made by the devs for various reasons; the main being that it is not considered an 'official' guide, and that it mentions installing aur software such as yaourt.

2) The first mirror that I selected was down. I waited, and waited, and waited. I did not know what to do, so I rebooted. Please tell us what to do in this situation.

This is where one of the many lines must be drawn when creating a guide. We cannot include an if...then.. scenario for unexpected errors, or else the guide would be many times larger. Also, general *nix competency would have told one to ctrl-c out and rerun the installer script, I suppose.

3) I accidentally pressed ctrl-z while typing in vi. I don't know how to get it back so I had to reboot Now, thats not exactly Arch problem but since its a Beginners Guide, many people using it are coming from Windows where ctrl-z is very widely used in text editing, but it has a completely undesired effect on Linux systems. I'm positive I am not the only one who did this.

Actually, I believe you are the first one on the forums to mention this issue. Certainly, since I have been here I have never seen it until now. Again, the Arch Linux Beginners' Guide is 'aimed at new Arch users', and for 'competent *nix users '.  The scope of the guide must be narrowed based upon the target audience. It would just be too impractical to include extra information based upon the possibility of a Windows or Mac user's possible idiosyncratic errors.

4) Its not entirely clear what should be put into the mkinitcpio.conf file. I tried adding base and udev modules to the MODULE string, but ended up with errors on image creation.

The guide does mention that it is unnecessary to modify the file, unless you need LVM or RAID.. (?)

5) Again, since its a Beginners Guide and many people are coming from Windows, I think its important to provide basic instructions for dual boot. I am basically now stuck changing disk order in BIOS until I figure out how to edit the Grub configuration correctly.

Again, as it was indicated earlier, very few users are coming from Windows, but you are certainly welcome to the Arch community, and I'm glad you made it through the installation process. Also, as was mentioned, there is a link to the dual boot wiki article from the guide.

On a bright side, after all this I can now install Arch in about  10 minutes

Practice makes perfect.
Welcome to Arch.

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tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Suggestions to improve Beginners Guide

So it appears community must be catering for newbies to an extent despite what is being said.

Don't confuse the distro with the community. Arch is designed for use by competent users, and it has attracted a very active community who are often willing to help those who are not yet competent enough. The actions of the community do not alter Arch's core principles.