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#1 2010-08-28 07:41:33

enedene
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From: Zagreb
Registered: 2010-07-13
Posts: 25
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More distros based on Arch

I'm curious why aren't there more distributions based on Arch Linux?
There are a few things that are important when choosing a distribution to be based on, probably the most important:
- large repositories of software
- active developer community

Arch satisfies both of these conditions. The big advantage of Arch Linux is that it's a rolling release, I see that as a future of Linux desktop. Also, it comes in minimalistic form so you can easily add things without having to remove any. Superb documentation. Anyway it seems to me like a perfect distribution to base your distribution on.

Since I'm not an expert on topic I could be way off so your opinions are welcome.

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#2 2010-08-28 07:47:28

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: More distros based on Arch

It is hard to improve upon perfection...


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

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#3 2010-08-28 08:17:15

Labello
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From: Germany
Registered: 2010-01-21
Posts: 317
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Re: More distros based on Arch

i think it is based upon arches do-it-yourself-approach.

most of the users of arch are able to achieve their goal when it comes to installation, configuration and tweaking.

and making a distribution with arch would only cut some aspects that make arch stand out. like the minimal and very personalized style in managing the system.

scripts like the one that the author of "afterglow" make are not really a distribution i think. it is just a specialy customized archlinux :-) which is cool since you still have a completely native arch-installation. just some config and package-presets. :-)


"They say just hold onto your hope but you know if you swallow your pride you will choke"
Alexisonfire - Midnight Regulations

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#4 2010-08-28 08:30:26

enedene
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From: Zagreb
Registered: 2010-07-13
Posts: 25
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Re: More distros based on Arch

When I was thinking about distributions based on Arch, I was not thinking about "improving" the Arch, I was more thinking about distribution that would have a different philosophy, let's say something like Mint Linux. It seems to me that Arch in that respect is a great distribution to be based on. Or am I wrong?

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#5 2010-08-28 09:28:29

karol
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Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: More distros based on Arch

enedene wrote:

When I was thinking about distributions based on Arch, I was not thinking about "improving" the Arch, I was more thinking about distribution that would have a different philosophy, let's say something like Mint Linux. It seems to me that Arch in that respect is a great distribution to be based on. Or am I wrong?

But it also is easy to simply customize Arch, as it has few defaults and quite rich repos. Look at the possibilities: clyde or bauerbill, full mplayer or a minimal build, firefox or jumanji etc.
To many people it's enough.

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#6 2010-08-28 09:52:23

tomk
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From: Ireland
Registered: 2004-07-21
Posts: 9,839

Re: More distros based on Arch

I'm pretty sure the OP is not trying to convince anyone here to use an Arch-based distro instead of 'vanilla' Arch - that would be pretty futile. smile

enedene - I agree that Arch is a good base on which to create a distro, but asking why there aren't more such derivatives is a bit pointless IMO. For real answers, contact the developers of distros based on Ubuntu etc and ask them if they considered using Arch, or if they would consider migrating to Arch in a future release.

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#7 2010-08-28 09:55:19

wonder
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From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2006-07-05
Posts: 5,941
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Re: More distros based on Arch

is kinda hard to maintain an arch-based distribution. i remember how many problems had chakra users because we pushed packages way to quickly for chakra devs to manage and in most cases we broke kdemod.


Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

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#8 2010-08-28 10:08:08

Inxsible
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From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: More distros based on Arch

IMO, for your standard distros - which have a full fledged DE etc, there are more packages that you have to check against for breakage because you not only release the latest kernel and core utils but also upgrades to your DE -- which can be huge if your standard DE is Gnome or KDE. Since Arch is a rolling release, this frequency would be pretty high. I guess that could be one of the reasons.

vanilla Arch, is just a linux kernel with some core utils/apps made available for an extremely basic working linux. If any upgrade breaks one particular DE, it then falls on the users themselves to report and possibly solve things. The less number of apps/packages, the easier it is to keep upgrading quickly.


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#9 2010-08-28 11:34:20

fukawi2
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From: .vic.au
Registered: 2007-09-28
Posts: 6,217
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Re: More distros based on Arch

Every install of Arch is a new distribution.... It's just for 1 person though tongue

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#10 2010-08-28 22:41:31

faelar
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From: Amiens (FR)
Registered: 2007-12-18
Posts: 232
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Re: More distros based on Arch

I'm curious why aren't there more distributions based on Arch Linux?

* Rolling releases. You can't rely directly on Arch packages for stability, or you'll need to backport patches and all. No confusion here, Arch is stable but you need to know when config changes are needed, be ready to read technical documentation... It is not suitable for a distro aimed at newcomers for example.

* No package signing. Prevent Arch from being used in some area where security is required. Only fools would work on a server version of Arch wink

* There are far less developers on sides architectures. Arch would fit nicely on embedded systems I suppose but there are less packagers on ArchMobile than on i686 / x86_64.

So what's left then ? Custom versions with pre-configured DE and softwares ? There are some of them, check the forums. A version with a totally different kernel then ? Nothing unheard of.

It is hard to improve upon perfection...

Arch is indeed perfect in its category.

All that remains is the religious derivatives, but even here Arch has the tacos...

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#11 2010-08-29 00:23:44

72linus
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From: gordonsville,va
Registered: 2009-03-14
Posts: 144
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Re: More distros based on Arch

mine are based on ARCH testing
http://multidistro.com/
livecd kits available too

and made a rc1 afterglow edition for kmason
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=101780&p=1
http://multidistro.com/distros/arch/aft … lowiso.zip

also theres the gaming iso
http://live.linux-gamers.net/?s=home

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#12 2010-08-29 18:17:01

drcouzelis
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From: Connecticut, USA
Registered: 2009-11-09
Posts: 4,092
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Re: More distros based on Arch

Labello wrote:

scripts like the one that the author of "afterglow" make are not really a distribution i think. it is just a specialy customized archlinux, which is cool since you still have a completely native arch-installation. just some config and package-presets.

I think Arch Linux Afterglow Edition is a fabulous idea. I'm very surprised there are more Arch Linux editions, or a community setup for them.

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#13 2010-08-29 23:30:28

Ari'osika
Member
From: Your computer, okay?
Registered: 2010-06-22
Posts: 175

Re: More distros based on Arch

People are lazy.. or at least thats what happened to me;

I once tried to "create" an Arch-based distro (out of boredom) but instead wound up just writing a monster of a perl script that automated a complete Arch install into the supposed "distro" of mine.

(I now use that script every 2 to 3 months and the concept behind mine is eerily similar to ALAE (Arch Linux Afterglow Edition)).


If you're reading this; you're awesome.

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#14 2010-08-30 00:13:40

cesura
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Tallinn, Estonia
Registered: 2010-01-23
Posts: 1,867

Re: More distros based on Arch

faelar wrote:

* No package signing. Prevent Arch from being used in some area where security is required. Only fools would work on a server version of Arch wink

No, only a fool would assume that their packages are safe. I can't see why using Arch on a server is a bad thing, given the user is competent enough to do so.

But this really isn't the place to discuss package signing. There are plenty of threads out there. wink

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#15 2010-08-30 06:42:18

sand_man
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: More distros based on Arch

itsbrad212 wrote:
faelar wrote:

* No package signing. Prevent Arch from being used in some area where security is required. Only fools would work on a server version of Arch wink

No, only a fool would assume that their packages are safe. I can't see why using Arch on a server is a bad thing, given the user is competent enough to do so.

But this really isn't the place to discuss package signing. There are plenty of threads out there. wink

People would also be stupid to use an OS which renowned as being vulnerable to viruses on a server but it happens... (not naming names).


neutral

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#16 2010-08-30 07:37:12

~Fir3fly
Member
Registered: 2010-06-16
Posts: 15

Re: More distros based on Arch

the linux "group" is too cluttered as is, why would someone install a pre-configured Arch+gnome distro  and such over ubuntu? (othat than ubuntu being a pile of crap, but thats not the point tongue)
theres too many distros as it is, i think their should be more support / larger communities in fewer distros.


AMD athlon 3500+, dual Nvidia 7300GTs, 1Gb Ram

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#17 2010-08-30 07:41:46

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: More distros based on Arch

~Fir3fly please don't drag this thread down by making disparaging remarks about other distros:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/For … ng_Systems


Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

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#18 2010-08-30 07:47:47

soderstrom
Member
Registered: 2010-08-30
Posts: 10

Re: More distros based on Arch

Hi, new here smile

I was wondering if there is a script, or a remix of Arch that offers a fully preconfigured Xmonad desktop environment? I've been using Xmonad for a few days, but find it time consuming to configure it to my likings and I don't really have time at the moment to go through the progress of reading guides and how to configure everything.

Like Archbang, it would be nice to have a "ArchXmon" remix as well tongue

Some people here will probably point out that Xmonad is easy to configure and so on, but it is not what I have in mind and I've seen most peoples configurations and for a normal, hard working guy like me who doesnt spend hours by the computer, I can not make that configuration in a few days. I wanna use Linux, not spend days configuring it. After all, I have a wife to show some attention to as well and not just my computer wink

Hope my question isn't offending in a way, just wanted to point out that Arch seems a great distro and Xmonad is brilliant, if one can get a good configuration to work.

Thanks for listening

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#19 2010-08-31 02:06:46

sand_man
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-06-10
Posts: 2,164

Re: More distros based on Arch

I don't know of an Arch+xmonad based distro (there aren't many).

soderstrom wrote:

I wanna use Linux, not spend days configuring it.

Unfortunately for you this is what Arch is all about. Most of the time apps have sane defaults but with xmonad, this is the nature of the beast. If you don't want to configure it then you may need to find another WM that is easier to use/configure.
Or you could copy + paste other people's configs. There might be one out there for you. I think there is an xmonad hacking thread here somewhere...


neutral

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#20 2011-12-05 18:47:08

Digit
Member
Registered: 2008-04-28
Posts: 71

Re: More distros based on Arch

(sorry if this counts as thread-necro, but seems to me to still be a relevant topic.)

arch + xmonad:

TidOS. 

though i'm not sure a working version was ever released.

a search of this forum should find more on it.



arch + other tiling

witch.

the alpha5 version of witch was a virtualbox proof-of-concept distro.  using arch, and scrotwm (and, what in the fledgelying witch community, is called the, "rowan" desktop environment).

of course, now there's also the wiki page listing arch based distros... probably makes this thread redundant from here on you might think ....cept there's no mention of either tidos or witch there... so one wonders what other wonders are out there.  wink


fave quote of the mo': "Man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for." - Robert Browning

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#21 2011-12-06 06:49:50

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: More distros based on Arch

You should simply add new distros to the wiki page - with some links to their homepage etc.

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#22 2011-12-06 07:18:52

/dev/zero
Member
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2011-10-20
Posts: 1,247

Re: More distros based on Arch

Digit wrote:

(sorry if this counts as thread-necro, but seems to me to still be a relevant topic.)

No, I'd say it's pretty much a necro.

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#23 2011-12-06 07:30:25

Inxsible
Forum Fellow
From: Chicago
Registered: 2008-06-09
Posts: 9,183

Re: More distros based on Arch

Threads tend to get lost. Since we have a wiki page, please post newer Arch based distros directly on the wiki page.


Closing....


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