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#1 2005-05-18 04:57:44

jery_wang2002
Member
Registered: 2005-05-18
Posts: 31

My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

Yesterday, I installed Arch via ftp (kernel + base) and subsequently after reboot, I installed xorg, gnome, gnome-extra, and kde.

I notice that when I issue:

pacman -S xorg gnome gnome-extra kde

it complains that there is conflicting package. I am very sorry I forgot to jot down the package name.

But it was easily solved. Just by intuition, I install them separately:

pacman -S xorg

and configure it
Xorg -configure
edit xorg.conf.new
Xorg -config xorg.conf.new

if all is ok:
cp xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf

and then
pacman -S gnome gnome-extra kde

(~340MB)

and few hours later (I have 2Mbps ~= 230Kbytes/s broadband, but the ftp server only give me 20 - 30 Kbytes/s) I have everything installed. Wonderful.

---------------------------------------
Just to share my experience with other distro.

In gentoo, just to get the base install (stage 2) requires me (newbie) my whole saturday and early sunday. I almost didn't sleep. Why that long? Reinstall - waiting, reinstall - waiting and reinstall - waiting, ....... I wanted the latest (Gnome 2.10), hence I must enable ~. When I first try of installing xorg, the installation stopped due to error (svgalib) and because of that the machine stopped for hours doing nothing. And after digging/googling for hours I get from gentoo wiki to upgrade gcc to 3.4. I followed it and still another error. Am I supposed to look at the scrolling text to wait for error so that I can response to it? That was insane. Btw, I followed the handbook word by word including the dots if any.

In FreeBSD to get the CURRENT kde, I install it through port and  it took 14 hours! FreeBSD was no better, even though there was no error but it kept popping up dialog box from nowhere asking me to enter yes/no selection. Many hours was lost because the installation was waiting for my response. May be if I stick my eyes on the screen for that long hours waiting for dialog box to popup and response imeediately, I could speed up the process.

But then, thanks to arch, if only arch ftp is fast I could have done the arch installation for one or two hours maybe (only the downloading part).

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#2 2005-05-18 06:46:27

Cam
Member
From: Brisbane, Aus
Registered: 2004-12-21
Posts: 658
Website

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

Which mirror  were you using? I'm on 1.5MB ADSL and I get a constant 160KB/s off pacman.

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#3 2005-05-18 07:07:24

jery_wang2002
Member
Registered: 2005-05-18
Posts: 31

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

Cam wrote:

Which mirror  were you using? I'm on 1.5MB ADSL and I get a constant 160KB/s off pacman.

Strange?

I have tried all mirrors listed in www.archlinux.org and average is always around 30Kbytes/s.


I don't think it is my broadband provider's problem. I download some packages from the same ftp server using flashget in windows with 4 concurrent channel, it downloads at full speed (2000Mbps ~= 230 Kbytes/s)


I am using DHCP through SMC baricade router (but my windows notebook also uses the same router).

what is your pacman.conf?

Thanks

Jerry

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#4 2005-05-18 09:01:11

iphitus
Forum Fellow
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: 2004-10-09
Posts: 4,927

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

You really should go through the list and find a mirror near you. I have a mirror near me which I download from at 500-700kbps which is totally awesome.

fyi, im in melbourne australia, and the mirror is pacific internet, which is somewhere on the eastern seaboard of australia, so damn close big_smile

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#5 2005-05-18 10:56:25

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

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

iphitus wrote:

You really should go through the list and find a mirror near you.

On the other hand .... I use the default pacman.conf and pacman.d/* and I get 200kB/s on 2Mb DSL. Maybe you should try a different XferCommand in pacman.conf - as the man page says,

This option is useful for users who experience problems with pacman's built-in http/ftp support, or need the more advanced proxy  support that comes with utilities like wget.

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#6 2005-05-18 13:15:55

CyberTron
Member
From: Gotland ,Sweden
Registered: 2005-03-17
Posts: 645
Website

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

you could try the archlinux.de mirror, that one gives me around 900-1500kb/s  (24mbit)

big_smile


http://www.linuxportalen.com  -> Linux Help portal for Linux and ArchLinux (in swedish)

Dell Inspiron 8500
Kernel 2.6.14-archck1  (selfcompiled)
Enlightenment 17

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#7 2005-05-18 13:18:13

IceRAM
Member
From: Bucharest, Romania
Registered: 2004-03-04
Posts: 772
Website

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

Another hint:
* use "sortmirrors.pl" to get the mirrors sorted by ping response (I think). Read the comments at the begining to see how to use it.

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#8 2005-05-18 15:07:23

fetreney2000
Member
From: Malaysia
Registered: 2005-02-01
Posts: 81

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

See this thread to get a nice shell script for sortmirrors.pl. You need to install netselect (pacman -S netselect) to use it.

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#9 2005-05-18 16:05:58

Kern
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2005-02-09
Posts: 464

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

For me 30 - 220kB/s on 2Mb ADSL - in UK using default pacman server list. 
Variable depending on time of day.   I make use of the wget mod like in the wiki too.
Dont forget also that the speed quoted on any downloads maybe be grossly inaccurate for smallish files.

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#10 2005-05-19 01:23:36

jery_wang2002
Member
Registered: 2005-05-18
Posts: 31

Re: My own install experience (and compared to other distros)

Thanks all

I find the people in this newsgroup is helpful and nice.

I'm in Singapore and there is none from Singapore. Closest is pacnet in Australia. I think this should be the best bet since Pacnet hq is here. But I do understand they buy bandwidth from many-many telcoms. And the bandwidth allocation may not necessarily follow geographical.  I know this because last time I had a chance to discuss this with their sales.

My conclusion was that we have big pipe to US, much bigger than any other country. For example, though Malaysia is just next door, but I cannot expect to have big pipe for Malaysian site access.

From my experience downloading ISO, US sites is always the best for me (in Singapore).

I suspect the internal ftp may not like something in my environment.

I am using SMC router that allows only PASV mode. I don't open any IP forwarding to my archlinux PC.

I will try enabling wget like one of the poster suggest.

Thanks.
Jerry

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