Arch vs. Ubuntu

take2hikes · 2010-05-11 23:36:40

I am a Linux newbie. I've only used Mandriva, Ubuntu, and Fedora, and not for any longer than 6 months at a time.

I'm wanting to get back into the swing of things. While I don't mind a learning curve, I'm more interested in compatibility and hardware support.

I'm currently planning on putting Arch/Ubuntu on my Dell Dimension 8400. It has the 3.4GHz P4, ATI Radeon X300, Broadcom NetXtreme 57xx Gigabit Controller, and 2GB of RAM.

When my laptop gets back from HP (repairs) I will be installing linux on it as well. It is an HP Envy 15 with the i7 720 processor, 8GB of RAM, 1GB ATI 5830 Mobile GPU, and dual 160GB SSD HD's.

Can anyone see any problems right off of the bat? Does anyone have any recommendations to which install or any other helpful tips?

Thanks in advance, guys.

Last edited by take2hikes (2010-05-11 23:37:54)

kazuo · 2010-05-11 23:52:54

In principle anything that Ubuntu support Arch support and vice-versa. But sometimes you need to do the needed research and port the needed patch.

Arch is "targeted at competent users" (from the beginner's guide (on wiki)). Its ok if you dont know all, but is not ok to dont do you research and learn (without becoming a help vampire).

Google can give the info on supported hardware. Search the wiki too.

take2hikes · 2010-05-11 23:57:41

Thank you for the quick reply. I've been researching Google and the Arch wiki. The only thing that looks to be a possible issue is the X300 graphics card.

kazuo · 2010-05-12 00:13:22

I had a ati some time ago, (a xpress 200m). And yes they work really bad at that time. X300 is somewhat related to xpress 200, no? (They are both r300). Ati dropped support for older cards, i looked at the ati site and x300 is supported only by catalyst 9.3 (i.e. very old)

So I think you gonna need to use the opensource driver (radeon? the opensource nvidia and ati have so much names and version that I'm always lost.). If you only need 2d I think this is ok.

schen · 2010-05-12 01:20:18

The driver name is xf86-video-ati.

pinchyfingers · 2010-05-12 03:21:14

That's a nice laptop.

My experience with ATI has not been great. I think the 64 bit package is in better shape, but I'm still on 32 bit, so I'm not sure. I'd check out the notes for the ATI package you'll need.

sand_man · 2010-05-12 05:41:54

What has the topic got to do with the first post? I thought this was going to be a TGN candidate for sure

oldmerovingian · 2010-05-12 12:34:18

I am using an ATI card in my laptop and the only problem I have had is reduced battery life. I think the issue right now is the lack of power saving on the open source driver. Otherwise it works fine.

After I made the switch from K/Ubuntu to Arch, I never went back. Every once in a while I will play with a live disc just to see what they have done but I have not had the desire to return. Arch gives you complete control over your system and the best part is the learning! I have learned more about Linux in one month on Arch than in the 6 months I used Ubuntu.

As the other poster said, if you can do it in Ubuntu, you can do it in Arch. Sometimes it just takes some reading and understanding to do it though.

Last edited by oldmerovingian (2010-05-12 12:36:30)

bwat47 · 2010-05-12 15:00:52

take2hikes wrote:

Thank you for the quick reply. I've been researching Google and the Arch wiki. The only thing that looks to be a possible issue is the X300 graphics card.

X300 is actually very well supported by the oss ati driver, no problems there. The biggest issue would probably be the broadcomm chip which are notoriously bad under linux historically.

I have a mobility hd2600 and use the oss driver, compiz works great and video playback works great, I dont play games or anything on this laptop though, only issue is heat and power management. The x300 is older and much better supported under the oss driver than my card though and probably doesnt run nearly as hot as my card.

Last edited by bwat47 (2010-05-12 15:02:13)

android · 2010-05-12 16:47:43

take2hikes wrote:

...dual 160GB SSD HD's.
Thanks in advance, guys.

Since you have the physically seperate SSDs, it might seem tempting to install one system on each "disk".

However, you might consider dividing one of these drives into 2 partitions, 80G each.

Install arch in one partition and whatever (ubuntu) in the other.

Then create one partition filling the entire second drive. Format this partition with the filesystem of your choice: ext4 probably. This partition can now be mounted onto your /home directory of either bootable system.

With this you have all of your user data available no matter which system you boot into.

As you tire of ubuntu being way to much like windoze ( 8-) ) There is a very usefull feature that the second partition can be used for. When there is a major upgrade in arch testing, you can install and test these upgrades in your second partition, all the while the stable install of the first partition continues to work (i find that i keep it simple by having the computer continue to function).

Once the new testing packages have the kinks worked out, i.e. you've confirmed they work on your hw etc, you can switch to full time use of this new system, confident that you won't experince down time. At that point the first partition can be used for the next testing round.

This ping-pong approach can really smooth out some of the bumps in the rolling release system.

You may or may not need a swap partition. With 8G of ram, some people choose to eliminate it. (Your going to need 64bit installs to support all that ram of course) If you decide to use a swap partition, make a 8-16G partition at the beginning of the second drive that can be used as swap.

I've got ubuntu running on one machine here at the moment (I'm supporting a client who's running it). It really seems pretty bloated and slow. I atribute most of this bloat to gnome itself more than the ubuntu distribution.

One of the great features of arch is that you're not tied to any particular desktop environment. You are free to choose the one you like, or install several and switch between them at will.

I prefer to boot to a text prompt and then login and start X with the startx command. I've been running fluxbox for some years and find it super easy to add programs to the menu, which isn't crowded with every single package installed on the system.

Enjoy liberating your laptop!

android

litemotiv · 2010-05-12 17:57:30

android wrote:

take2hikes wrote:
...dual 160GB SSD HD's.
Since you have the physically seperate SSDs, it might seem tempting to install one system on each "disk".
However, you might consider dividing one of these drives into 2 partitions, 80G each.
Install arch in one partition and whatever (ubuntu) in the other.

what a waste, i would raid-0 it right away for sure

and dual-linux-boot is just silly, both ubuntu and arch will probably work fine so just pick one and go with it

moljac024 · 2010-05-12 18:02:24

Triple linux boot with Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch, dual windows boot with Windows XP and Windows 7 and a Mac OS X.
That's the way to go.

android · 2010-05-12 18:09:28

litemotiv wrote:

...and dual-linux-boot is just silly, both ubuntu and arch will probably work fine so just pick one and go with it

Undoubetly either would work fine, but getting exposure to different environments is a very good way to understand what is different about them.

All of this really depends on what is being accomplished: If a person just needs to send email and surf the web, any computer OS is probably equally capable. If a person wants to learn how different OSes differ, then running quite a few of them will be a good education.

Having a seperate home partition makes lots of upgrading and system switching possible without losing user data.

Personally, I wouldn't run ubuntu day to day. But I only know this because I've run ubuntu.

Having the ability to install two seperate systems on disk without disrupting user data can allow a great deal of flexibity in upgrading, trying new systems, new installs, many options.

People should be free to experiment and try many different things. This is how we learn...

android

pseudonomous · 2010-05-12 19:15:04

take2hikes wrote:

1GB ATI 5830 Mobile GPU

I'm not sure why nobody has pointed this out yet but the ATI 5xxx series cards are not supported very well by the the open source drivers, I think they can modeset, and they might even have some 2d acceleration support but I'm pretty sure they've got no 3d acceleration support, so you'll probably want to use the Catalyst driver.

Now lot's of people complain a whole lot about the Catalyst driver but I don't personally think it's that bad, what's hugely annoying is that AMD doesn't bother to include support for the latest Xserver release until after that Xserver gets included in an Ubuntu release. In the last year or so, IIRC there have been two periods about 2 months in length where the Catalyst driver actually worked with the Xorg server in the Arch repositories. This is one of those moments and it's going to end as soon as the 1.8 server leaves testing and enters extra.

This doesn't mean that it isn't possible to use Arch and use the Catalyst driver, but it does mean that it is more work than it is to use Catalyst on Ubuntu, to get a feel for what being a Catalyst user on Arch is like, you might want to check out this thread:

The AMD/ATI Bar & Grill

Read toward the end, it's a massive thread.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-11 23:36:40

Arch vs. Ubuntu

#2 2010-05-11 23:52:54

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#3 2010-05-11 23:57:41

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#4 2010-05-12 00:13:22

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#5 2010-05-12 01:20:18

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#6 2010-05-12 03:21:14

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#7 2010-05-12 05:41:54

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#8 2010-05-12 12:34:18

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#9 2010-05-12 15:00:52

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#10 2010-05-12 16:47:43

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#11 2010-05-12 17:57:30

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#12 2010-05-12 18:02:24

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#13 2010-05-12 18:09:28

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

#14 2010-05-12 19:15:04

Re: Arch vs. Ubuntu

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