The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

amoradi · 2010-01-30 07:17:24

Of course I'm here to say Arch is the best, but what really makes it the best is the absolutely stunning documentation/wiki! I've been through all major distros hopping around for years to seek a "keeper," and here I am, happy for the first time...with Arch!

jason32835 · 2010-02-02 20:22:40

I recently switched from Windows to Linux. Even more recently I switched from Ubuntu to Arch, I will never look back. Just reading the Wiki and installing Arch is an enlightening experience.

I'll say it like this:

Windows is like watch a beautiful beach on a 12" TV with a pair of rabbit ears.

Ubuntu is like putting on every article of cloths in your closet and going to a beautiful beach.

Archlinux is like standing on a beautiful beach wearing nothing but a Speedo.

The choice is simple..

doublerebel · 2010-02-04 18:14:06

Arch's documentation is really what makes it rock!

My 1999 motherboard finally died so I had to port my Arch installation to a completely new setup, and even moved the filesystem to a larger harddrive. Everything went amazingly well, and for every question that came up I found an answer in the Wiki or the forum. It's been an awesome choice for a home server because it's straightforward, and doesn't get any more complex than I need it to be -- and it's super-stable.

Thanks to all y'all who have made Arch what it is today!

Last edited by doublerebel (2010-02-04 18:14:22)

xfrabbit · 2010-02-07 02:13:15

I just did my first Arch install today and wanted to say hello and thank you.

I left the Mac OS for Linux completely over four years ago after almost 20 years of using Macs. I'm just a regular desktop user who likes to tinker, and I've distro-hopped like crazy. Maybe I'll stop with Arch, maybe not. But I'm really enjoying the learning experience its given me so far.

What attracted me to Arch was not just the philosophy but the amazingly comprehensive and well written documentation. I found the website while looking for some Xfce configuration tips and I was hooked. I've learned more about Linux in the past two weeks of browsing your guides and wiki and forum than I ever have before.

The distro I had been been using for the past year is an old and respected one, but their website was a mess, the documentation was frequently outdated (and worse, often undated), and the forums downright mean--not to me personally, but I got sick of looking for information and instead finding arrogant bullies.

Thank you to all involved for providing solid, helpful information in a serious but friendly way. What a great thing you've accomplished with Arch.

Last edited by xfrabbit (2010-02-07 02:14:07)

pirgoi · 2010-02-11 00:08:16

Wow...
As an (apparently) Gentoo veteran, I tried yesterday Arch. It is amazing. Like Gentoo on steroids. Almost the same flexibility, without the tedious compilation screens from "The Matrix". Documentation is superb. Packages are updated and the system seems stable. I am very happy with my powerful desktop. tomorrow I'll try Arch on my weak Atom based MSI Wind.
Thanks for all the creators and contributors!

djthread · 2010-02-15 19:17:07

I've been a pretty faithful Gentoo user since pretty much when it was invented. Yeah, I was in the IRC channel, helping Daniel Robbins with various things. (Wow, I just remembered about the php/mysql todo tracker that I built for them...)

But I switched to Arch last Friday/Saturday, and I am very pleased! Everything is so simple and minimal... The documentation is great... Pacman is laughably fast when compared to portage. (And I'm discounting the fact that portage is compiling everything -- portage always wants to update caches and things when pacman seems able to install 10 packages in 3 seconds flat, after downloading.)

It hasn't been too long yet, but given my experiences so far, you can call me a convert!

arinlares · 2010-02-19 07:53:53

Two days, and I'm hooked. I use Arch on my netbook, dual-booting with Mint 8, and am of the mind that if the worst should happen to my operating system(s), I'd install Arch all over again. Setting up the system, troubles and all, has been great fun, the only speedbump was not quite being used to the Arch Way of things, as opposed to whining in a forum, and ultimately re-installing the OS (as quickfished said, much easier in Ubuntu, as well as Fedora). Spending five hours configuring an OS makes you think hard about reinstalling and starting over.

The best thing, I think, is the ground-up configuration. I installed Ubuntu on my netbook because I didn't want Windows XP on it, because I would need to install AV software, which would hog more resources. The only real differences between Ubuntu and Windows were the colors, package manager, and kernel. Otherwise, it was a system not meant to mess with. I tried Arch, expecting to leave frustrated with a broken system, but, with the guidance of some kind fellow on YouTube, managed to get everything working, aside from some minor hiccups. I found what I wanted, and that was a system that was essentially mine. I put it together with packages I wanted, instead of those somebody lumped in because they are popular for people who aren't me. Thanks, Arch, and anybody involved in any way with Arch, for finally stopping this distro-hopper's crazed decline into insanity.

evol · 2010-02-20 12:08:27

I installed Debian on my desktop recently, just to get a bit of familiarity with other distros (I've been so long with Arch now - I've forgotten them)

All I can say is... distros, which try and make things simpler for the user - tend to wind up making things more complicated, obfuscated and borderline illogical.

I also installed Ubuntu on my parents netbook.. and came across the same kind of issues (for obvious reasons) that are found with Debian.

I wanted to set it up so they could use their mobiles for net access. I intended to use wvdial from the outset - but when I plugged in the phone, a so called "Wizard" popped up from NetworkManager. So I give it a try - after all this may be easier for my folks to use. It's a Wizard, right?

Not the case. The default settings are wrong. Instead of getting any kind of telling error messages, it just plain and simple doesn't work. Quite unwizardlike.

So I set up wvdial. It takes a minute. I connect, it works, success!

Ok - so I load up Firefox. But.. for some reason Firefox tells me I'm offline.

I'm not. Turns out, in an effort to make things simple - Firefox checks with NetworkManager and bases it's startup on the status NetworkManager reports.

Buh!?

So I go to about:config and remove that daft setting.

Now things work as they should.

My dad is just turning 60 and has never used the terminal in his life - I spent five minutes going over the basics with him and printed out the steps to follow. He had no problem using it and connecting to the net on his own.

So, in conclusion:

I really enjoy using Arch because it does what I tell it to do. No more, no less.

Such a setup makes finding errors simple and it makes configuration simple.

I'm not dissing other distros attempts to make Linux more user-friendly: it's a really really noble effort.

But I think sometimes, they go too far and make too many assumptions which can have the effect of making the users experience far more confusing than it should be.

Thank you for Arch Linux - it's Linux the way it should be.

munkyeetr · 2010-02-20 17:12:31

I've been using Linux exclusively for probably about 3 (maybe 4) years now, using Arch for almost 2 of those (prior was openSuSE, Ubuntu, Debian) ...

Recently I decided I needed a change, so I reinstalled (and started a day and half of distro hopping) Debian stable, then Debian Testing, then Fedora 12...and it just felt like *everything* was so painful to accomplish in those distro's now. The little things like how much gunk is installed in a base installation, and (in Fedora anyway) how I wanted to uninstall gedit from Gnome and replace it with geany, but it wouldn't let me uninstall gedit without uninstalling gnome-desktop.

Anyway, back in Arch with a fresh Gnome Desktop using half the HD space needed by other distros, (geany, not gedit...as well as a bunch of other Gnome crud removed without a single complaint from pacman)...They say once you try Arch you never go back...and to me that sounds like the gospel. Amen.

Pacman Rules!

trusktr · 2010-02-21 04:03:10

Hell yeah!

vescha · 2010-02-21 09:50:22

Last edited by vescha (2010-02-21 09:50:40)

scar · 2010-02-21 12:50:12

I've worked with windows servers as a system administrator for more than a year, and tasted linux with ubuntu and fedora three years ago

a've tried lots of distros, but a year ago I've discovered arch - and since i cannot live without it

It is simple, elegant and nearly flawless - something you cannot tell about Microsoft products and mammoth distros like ubuntu, fedora or debian

I spend much less time to maintain my servers or even my desktop box, as with the others

so thank you, archlinux

pickboy87 · 2010-02-21 13:27:19

I've been distro hopping for the last few years. I started with openSUSE 7 I believe. Couldn't get wireless to work, so I ended up dropping it and going back to Windows XP. I always felt like I wanted to use Linux, but not having Internet was a MAJOR downside to it. Eventually I stumbled across Ubuntu and decided to give that a try. For once, my wireless worked. I basically forced myself into using it whenever I could, instead of using Windows XP.

Eventually, I found myself using that almost exclusively when I wasn't playing games. I enjoyed learning the basics of Linux on Ubuntu, but found that with each new release, I would constantly run into problems and sometimes not be able to even run the OS for a month until they fixed a major bug. I went distro hopping for a few months when Ubuntu had nothing but problems with installing and software.

I tried Arch in the process, but ended up with a rather broken install. I was into using a lightweight desktop environment and didn't have any clue when using XFCE or openbox. Settled on #! for a while, Saw that the new Ubuntu was coming out and went to go try that. Could not get 9.10 to install no matter what I did. I decided to go ahead and give Arch a try.

Loaded in the 64 bit disc, made absolutely sure to read the beginners wiki carefully and went ahead with KDE and haven't looked back since. I'm _this_ close to deleting my Windows 7 partition (I may actually do it today).

The things that I love about Arch:
1. Rolling release. Technically I should never have to reformat my hard drive.
2. Extremely configurable.
3. The Wiki is awesome. Without that beginners wiki, I wouldn't be where I am today.
4. Lightweight (and yes, I know I'm using KDE)
5. The learning process to get this working is fantastic. I've learned so much more that I would have on Ubuntu.
6. Pacman...'nuff said.

Leonid.I · 2010-02-21 20:32:28

Don't get me wrong, since I do admire the great work done by devs, but usually singing dithyrambs clearly marks the beginning of an end...

I have already seen this 'the best' attitude at freebsd.org. While we can learn a lot from BSD people, there is no need to take the bad. Not to mention that the whole discussion is pointless, in my opinion of course.

Last edited by Leonid.I (2010-02-21 20:56:38)

pickboy87 · 2010-02-21 21:52:58

Leonid.I wrote:

Don't get me wrong, since I do admire the great work done by devs, but usually singing dithyrambs clearly marks the beginning of an end...
I have already seen this 'the best' attitude at freebsd.org. While we can learn a lot from BSD people, there is no need to take the bad. Not to mention that the whole discussion is pointless, in my opinion of course.

This thread is meant to be more fun than anything. This is simply a thread about why people come back to Arch or why the continue to use Arch with the countless amount of other Linux distros out there. And on top of that, if this discussion is so pointless, why bother posting in it?

I've enjoyed reading the reasons why people continue to use Arch so I don't think this thread is pointless.

ninjaprawn · 2010-02-22 09:33:44

@pickboy87
DITTO!!

oso96_2000 · 2010-03-01 10:23:14

I tried Arch about three years ago, being windows user since always (with some experience with debian and ubuntu), and you know what? I love it! Then for external causes i have to go back to windows, until a few months ago i got this new laptop (hp dv4-2045dx) with windows 7. I like it, and used it for about one month.

Then one night i was bored and i think: "well, let's switch to linux now" and well, since that day i'm a happy Arch user. i love all the things i learn while installing and configured everything, and i love the "Keep It Simple"

Arch4thewin!

mikazo · 2010-03-02 21:08:31

After a couple tries, I got Arch installed, and I'm up and running. I highly enjoy the fact that Arch is what you make it, and only comes installed with what you tell it to come installed with. I got sick of distros like Ubuntu that come with everything under the sun.

Not only is Arch not bloated, it was a great learning experience with regard to how a Linux distribution is installed, and each step of configuration that needs to take place.

Have yet to do any serious software development on Arch, but I can see using Arch for quite a while to come.

Hopefully the forums are as good as the OS so far!

oldherl · 2010-03-07 11:49:34

Today I tried to install Fedora 12 on my friend's computer.
I thought that Arch's good, but not easy to install. Fedora is rather newbie-oriented.
But I was totally wrong!! Arch is the BEST distro!
During my installation, I was completely confused by the complicated Fedora repo/mirrors. The relation between rpm, yum and all others is rather unclear.
After 6 hours, it ended up with a broken X and broken package dependency, sometimes even freezes.
I'm afraid that I have to remove that from the disk and install Arch on it.

Barrucadu · 2010-03-11 07:54:57

The other day I built myself a new computer, and stuck my laptop HDD in it.

Despite having a complete hardware change, Arch continued to function perfectly; the only thing to fail utterly was Xorg, which was my fault for having a xorg.conf file rather than letting it do its own thing.

I was impressed.

Last edited by Barrucadu (2010-03-11 07:55:34)

splittercode · 2010-03-16 22:11:32

I just installed Arch for the first time 3 days ago, and I'm simply floored at how streamlined, efficient, and FAST this distro is. It's almost like a work of art! Previously I used Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, and sidux. Obviously none of them really compare, besides sidux perhaps, but it was tough to set up everything the way i wanted with sidux due to its idiosyncrasies.

With Arch, I've finally got a system tuned exactly the way I want. All the rumors about Arch being hard to install don't seem to make any sense to me now. It took me about 3 hours to get from the first install screen to my new Arch gnome/openbox desktop, and probably +50% of that was time spent downloading the packages. In fact, I actually found the install quite simple in a way. The lack of preconfiguration meant that the only things that could go wrong would be of my own doing... and I didn't do anything wrong! :]

I could go on, but you've probably heard it all before.

For me, Arch is Best. I'm certain I'll be using it for a long time.

VCoolio · 2010-03-21 11:47:13

This seems like a sort of 'great experience' thread; so my contribution: I've used ubuntu since 7.10, which for a linux noob like me was the right choice. But it's a pain to configure once you know what you want. I have never been able to properly switch login managers for example. Also it has tons of useless daemons by default, for bluetooth and laptops, both of which I don't have. Configuring ubuntu for a great deal means disabling stuff instead of enabling what you want.
So, last week I installed arch. Some bumps, but I got it working in one evening. It's awesome. And combined with e17 it's even more awesome. Everything seems much snappier and installing stuff is much faster than with apt, which needs to load the whole database taking a lot of time on my modest hardware.
To make it short: I'll be sticking around. I've used Windows 95/98/XP and Ubuntu gutsy-karmic; but Arch is best.

billbar · 2010-03-31 16:05:16

I have been using Arch, off and on, for better than 7 years. Mostly off because the printer is broke again!
Somehow I fail to understand how almost every other distribution detects and sets up printers "out of the box". Yes, 10 years ago everybody had printer troubles, but now Arch seems to be the last that stumbles around with this problem. Maybe it is a priority problem. Wireless is another such problem. I'm pretty sure that most other users will rank such basic functions a lot more important than eye candy and other fancy tricks.
Even the Chakra Project can find a printer and install it.
Arch taught me long that I better keep my data in separate 'users' and 'home' partitions so that I am not crippled by an update.
My current OS is Mandriva 10x. Its updating and access to recent versions of programs is hardly adequate, but at least it runs printers and wireless without a hitch.

rodbzro · 2010-04-01 20:55:18

I use computers for about 20 years now, started with DOS and must admit that my UNIX (*like) experience has come late.

Started using Slackware in 2004, few weeks later installed FreeBSD and almost in the other day installed OpenBSD, which is the one OS I do *love*. But, due to the poor desktop performance (mostly video drivers), I went back to Linux and took a long walk through Debian, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, and some other minor distros. Can't say those were happy times: there was always some outdated package, unwanted service running, bad scripted inits, and the list goes on.

It was not a matter of getting things to work, because when you are a computer guy you find the solution, eventually. But the amount of time taken and the odd of these situations were unreal, unbearable. So, when I was on the verge to definitely go back, no matter what, to OpenBSD (which I continued to use on servers since 2004) I heard about Arch and the "Arch Way". The propaganda itself didn't impress me, as all distros claims to be the best ones, but once inside the installed system, well, that's another story...

Here I am, still using Arch. Actually, using Arch is the only way I can see myself using Linux now. It is so close to the BSD principles that it always feels like home to me.

Thank you, Arch devs and users. Despite not being a GNU, GPL (can I say Stallman?) fan, I recognize the great work you guys do. (for those who believe that GPL is the best license ever, can't say that for myself)

archman-cro · 2010-04-10 20:33:48

I've been using Ubuntu since Dapper Drake (2 or 3 years (too much)) and been upgrading or reinstalling to Feisty Fawn and Gutsy Gibbon, and later on to Jaunty (been on intrepid for a week or two and hated it). I hated all this 6-month release philosophy, they say it's ubuntu with all-stable software etc, but with every release I kept ending up with more and more damaged software (was unable to use gnome-terminal cause of lib-pango, and noone knew how to help...had to use a workaround for alsa to not start up muted, amarok would hang 2secs before switching/toggling playback, the list goes on and on...) and useless bloat. So a month ago, I've searched for a nice, simple, lightweight, and customizable distribution. I've found THE Arch Linux. Been going through the wiki (which is amazing, no.1 wiki all time I take it!) a few times, and was getting hyped up more and more. I simply loved the philosophy. KISS. Period. Bleeding-edge scheme, not letting me end up in a "dependency hell" (a famous term) like with ubuntu, I'm able to install the software like a real breeze passing by with the ultimate manager called "pacman". If something's not there, I just check the AUR reps and "makepkg". That's it.

Later on. Arch made me use the "man" pages more. Made me to think of my system, to actually get to know how my system works, when and why something starts or stops, allowing me for a 100% customization. Unlike with ubuntu, here you can see what's going on with less efforts, cause it's simple, and beautiful. And bloatless, what I like most.

It even makes me want to contribute to the community, and I'll try to do it, at least by doing a new article on wiki about setting up the system on my laptop. I did have contributed to the Hydrogen Drum app before, and I liked it.

The only maybe sketchy thing about Arch is the thing about not being able to boot into a previous kernel when i upgrade a new one (or I got something wrong?). That's a nice thing with ubuntu. You can boot back. I'll test this on Monday, since I can't upgrade sooner. But I don't really care about crashes or something, cause I had those with ubuntu, which is "stable" .

Cheers! And yes, thank you, Arch devs!

edit: Update: Upgrading to 2.6.33 successfull! I'm happy. Been shaking, though...

Last edited by archman-cro (2010-04-10 22:10:56)

Arch Linux

#426 2010-01-30 07:17:24

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#427 2010-02-02 20:22:40

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#428 2010-02-04 18:14:06

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#429 2010-02-07 02:13:15

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#430 2010-02-11 00:08:16

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#431 2010-02-15 19:17:07

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#432 2010-02-19 07:53:53

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#433 2010-02-20 12:08:27

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#434 2010-02-20 17:12:31

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#435 2010-02-21 04:03:10

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#436 2010-02-21 09:50:22

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#437 2010-02-21 12:50:12

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#438 2010-02-21 13:27:19

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#439 2010-02-21 20:32:28

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#440 2010-02-21 21:52:58

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#441 2010-02-22 09:33:44

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#442 2010-03-01 10:23:14

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#443 2010-03-02 21:08:31

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#444 2010-03-07 11:49:34

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#445 2010-03-11 07:54:57

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#446 2010-03-16 22:11:32

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#447 2010-03-21 11:47:13

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#448 2010-03-31 16:05:16

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#449 2010-04-01 20:55:18

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#450 2010-04-10 20:33:48

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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