ArchLinux presentation

s1gma · 2010-01-27 15:28:10

For some reason, I have to make a presentation about Archlinux at work (but I guess the "ubuntu-suxx" ranting is the main cause).
How would you treat such a subject ? What would you emphasize, detail, ... ?
Obiously, the wiki and my own experience are going to be my main source of information, but I wanted to know if you archers have any experience on this matter. Can you think of some points that may not be obvious about our beloved distro and that will interest a computer-oriented audience ? I may add that the people attending the speech will be security minded, and some of them are strongly experience unix/linux users (debian, slack, *bsd, solaris, ...).

antonikus · 2010-01-27 15:38:48

You covered it pretty good.

Dont forget pacman, is what makes all the difference. And kdemod. Then splain lightweight. For example, I begin from netinstall all the time, and only take in what I need.
I still have my / on only 10GB partition (of which 9.4G are available due to reiserfs) and still have 1.5GB free. With all the necessary stuff I need for java ee development.

wonder · 2010-01-27 15:49:24

focus on community and what are the areas where they can contribute, aur, wiki the overall roll of the community.

3]) · 2010-01-27 15:58:11

s1gma wrote:

For some reason, I have to make a presentation about Archlinux at work (but I guess the "ubuntu-suxx" ranting is the main cause).
How would you treat such a subject ? What would you emphasize, detail, ... ?
Obiously, the wiki and my own experience are going to be my main source of information, but I wanted to know if you archers have any experience on this matter. Can you think of some points that may not be obvious about our beloved distro and that will interest a computer-oriented audience ? I may add that the people attending the speech will be security minded, and some of them are strongly experience unix/linux users (debian, slack, *bsd, solaris, ...).

Are you presenting this to the LUG(Linux User Group) community?
Hint a bit on customizability, and the "fresh" out of the box experience where YOU choose what you WISH to install.
Not the pre-made cabbage in a box type of thing.

Choice is important.

Talk about the AUR as well, as it allows almost any software to be added.

You can't really contend with the BSD crowd about security though...

barzam · 2010-01-27 16:23:39

I agree about what 3]) said, choice is the very core of Archlinux' greatness.

Apart from that I'd say the knowledgeable and friendly community.

pogeymanz · 2010-01-27 16:23:48

I'm sorry, but this will be an uphill battle for you.

It has no real security measures by default, it takes work to set up the first time, and it's rolling release which means that stuff will break. On the up side, if you have a bunch of computers that are basically the same, you could easily transplant all the configs, so that setting it up for the second/third/fourth time will be very fast.

The BSD guys will be especially unimpressed unless you can convince them that Arch is very similar to BSD, which it is.

Your argument could be that it's like BSD, but instead of using a Linux compatibility layer, you just have a Linux kernel!

The professional world wont give a crap about community. They're going to want to hear you prove that Arch is strong at what it does and secure.

DrunkenMaster · 2010-01-27 16:35:24

If they are security minded, then I think that, as everyone said, the control the user (and admin) has on an Arch box is very likely to please them. The less you have running, the less vulnerable you are. Since Arch makes absolutely no assumption about what you are going to do with your system, you don't get stuff like CUPS, samba, etc.

Apart from that, I don't know if security-related patches get included quickly in Arch (I'm still completely new to this distro). If they do benefit from the distro being constantly updated, then I think that yes, it's worth mentionning.

Of course, as has been said before, if you have BSD guys (and especially OpenBSD fans) in the audience, then it's going to be tough on security topics.

toad · 2010-01-27 16:43:34

If the audience knows what they are doing then the very idea of a base system that comes with _nothing_ should appeal. Same goes for security - processes, demons, modules are only there if you tell them to.

my 2cs

EDIT: drunkenmaster must have been sober 'cos he was so quick!

Last edited by toad (2010-01-27 16:48:41)

eldragon · 2010-01-27 16:51:11

my selling points:

* userland packages are more up to date. # there even was a presentation comparing it with different distros
* package management made easy. this includes PKGBUILDS, pacman, yaourt.
* easy to tweak

there are always cons:
* updates are not seamless. they usually require your attention
* packages are not digitally signed (but this is on its way, or so ive read)

pogeymanz · 2010-01-27 20:39:29

eldragon wrote:

* packages are not digitally signed (but this is on its way, or so ive read)

This is a really good point. Not to mention, a community driven distro is much more likely to suddenly dissolve than, say, Red Hat. I will not use anything other than Arch on my home computer, but I have to say that a work machine is a different story. Especially if I have sensitive data. I'd be much more likely to run *BSD or Debian.

Updates don't really matter for that stuff. Firefox 3.0 vs. 3.6 just doesn't matter that much for the real world. And this is coming from a guy who was using 3.6 since alpha at home.

augustob · 2010-01-27 20:52:15

pogeymanz wrote:

... and it's rolling release which means that stuff will break.

I'd argue that this is a false dichotomy. To make Arch non-rolling you can just find a set of package versions that work together and not update anymore. To make Ubuntu rolling on the other hand...

res · 2010-01-27 21:15:39

pogeymanz wrote:

The BSD guys will be especially unimpressed unless you can convince them that Arch is very similar to BSD, which it is.
Your argument could be that it's like BSD, but instead of using a Linux compatibility layer, you just have a Linux kernel!

I wouldn't put too much faith on that being the winning argument.

Where would that leave Crux?

It's more reminiscent to BSD, and not only because its focus on source compilation.

augustob wrote:

To make Arch non-rolling you can just find a set of package versions that work together and not update anymore. To make Ubuntu rolling on the other hand...

Although not entirely untrue, this just doesn't make sense. Old packages don't get maintained in Arch.

Last edited by res (2010-01-27 21:18:50)

pogeymanz · 2010-01-27 21:15:42

augustob wrote:

pogeymanz wrote:
... and it's rolling release which means that stuff will break.
I'd argue that this is a false dichotomy. To make Arch non-rolling you can just find a set of package versions that work together and not update anymore. To make Ubuntu rolling on the other hand...

Very true. But then I'd argue that Debian or Ubuntu LTS would be better distros, because you will get security updates. If you just don't update at all, you miss out on those.

pogeymanz · 2010-01-27 21:17:01

res wrote:

pogeymanz wrote:
The BSD guys will be especially unimpressed unless you can convince them that Arch is very similar to BSD, which it is.
Your argument could be that it's like BSD, but instead of using a Linux compatibility layer, you just have a Linux kernel!
I wouldn't put too much faith on that being the winning argument.
Where would that leave Crux?
It's more reminiscent to BSD, and not only because its focus on source compilation.

I would think that the BSD guys would like Crux even better than Arch.

s1gma · 2010-01-28 09:49:34

Well, I didn't know about Crux. True, it really look likes Arch. Actually, what are the differences ? Crux doesn't seem to have a rolling-release model, but apart from that...
Thanks all for the advices, I'll keep you posted about this presentation. I think I'll also speak about the absence of "GNU/GPL extremism". I really don't care if the drivers I use are proprietary, I just want something that works for me. I won't give any name, but installing a proper video driver on some distro is quite tiresome (much more than typing "sudo pacman -S nvidia")...

Last edited by s1gma (2010-01-28 09:56:12)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-01-27 15:28:10

ArchLinux presentation

#2 2010-01-27 15:38:48

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#3 2010-01-27 15:49:24

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#4 2010-01-27 15:58:11

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#5 2010-01-27 16:23:39

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#6 2010-01-27 16:23:48

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#7 2010-01-27 16:35:24

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#8 2010-01-27 16:43:34

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#9 2010-01-27 16:51:11

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#10 2010-01-27 20:39:29

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#11 2010-01-27 20:52:15

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#12 2010-01-27 21:15:39

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#13 2010-01-27 21:15:42

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#14 2010-01-27 21:17:01

Re: ArchLinux presentation

#15 2010-01-28 09:49:34

Re: ArchLinux presentation

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