Thought I'd give Arch Linux a spin

Huw · 16 Aug 2011 at 23:32

Yesterday I ditched Debian and threw Arch on ye olde box. I tried doing it in Virtualbox first but, as is so often the case for me, it didn't work well in Virtualbox at all. So I just thought sod it, backed up my data, and went for broke.

The install went a lot better than I expected. Just installing the base system isn't really any more involved than Debian's installer. Either they've streamlined it since I last tried five or so years ago, or I've learned a lot since then (not that I've been trying!).

In fact, the only hiccup was installing Grub (why is it still using legacy Grub as opposed to Grub2?). Two of my three drives look more or less identical to partition editors and over the years I've changed which one I boot from, so I had all sorts of fun getting the system to actually boot. However, once I managed to boot it, installing X and KDE was completely pain-free.

I'm really enjoying it so far. After Debian, it's nice to be using the latest versions of software. Firefox 5 (just upgraded to 6 actually) is blisteringly fast compared to the 3.x I was using in Debian!

tntcoder · 17 Aug 2011 at 12:38

Welcome to the Arch club

I actually much prefer grub1, grub2 just seems ridiculously over the top for something that is so simple and that you probably never see for more than a couple of seconds. They will probably switch fairly soon though I imagine.

The Arch forums and IRC channel on Freenode are awesome help resources as well.

Jamie23 · 17 Aug 2011 at 16:34

Nice one

. Agreed that the installer seemed a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, I ran into major problems with wireless cards though, did these occur with you? Eventually I gave up as trying to sort it was just taking too much time and went with fedora instead.

May return if I have some more time to spare.

Huw · 17 Aug 2011 at 17:39

This is is my main desktop so it's a wired connection which was thankfully set up automatically.

After a few days' use it hasn't been completely smooth sailing; I have a few niggling issues that I'm going to have to try and resolve myself or post about on the Arch forum. But my overall impression is still very positive; it's just fantastic to be using bleeding edge software that, for the most part, works really well. And it's reassuring that virtually every time I check for updates, there are some there.

Bes · 18 Aug 2011 at 22:20

Tried Arch, liked it, but got tired of the constant updates breaking something. It was lovely and fast though, so I'd love to give it another go... I am just not sure I can stomach the fiddling every time an update breaks something though.

Enjoy though, I did (sorta!!)

Huw · 18 Aug 2011 at 23:43

Well I used Debian for a while and that was full of bugs too! So I thought if I have to put up with bugs anyway, I may as well have the latest software for my troubles!

I don't think I've seen an update break anything, not so far, anyway! See, that was why I stopped using Sabayon. I first tried Sabayon a few months ago and although it definitely had its positives - and the most stunningly-presented implementation of KDE I've ever seen, including OpenSUSE - it was just riddled with bugs. And just as I was finally getting a handle on it all, a bunch of updates came down and introduced another raft of bugs. One of them was in Networkmanager so I couldn't even get a net connection half the time. Screw that!

evoxaco · 7 Sep 2011 at 13:28

grub1

rarryawn · 7 Sep 2011 at 13:58

Jamie23 said:
I ran into major problems with wireless cards though, did these occur with you? Eventually I gave up as trying to sort it was just taking too much time and went with fedora instead.

Problems with the wireless driver were one of the main reasons I ditched it too! Many hours were spent trying to get it to work but in the end I though eh sod it, just put windows on

eXor · 7 Sep 2011 at 14:46

Huw said:
Firefox 5 (just upgraded to 6 actually) is blisteringly fast compared to the 3.x I was using in Debian!

I'm currently on Firefox 6.0.2 on Debian Stable. Ditto for Thunderbird. Very trivial to upgrade and easily automated. None of this Iceweasel nonsense!

But yes, a bleeding edge distro can be fun at times.

Huw · 7 Sep 2011 at 15:18

Heh, I couldn't give a fig what they wanted to call the browser, as long as it was Firefox. Firefox roolz!

But how come you're using 6.0.2 on stable? Did you grab a deb from the Firefox website or something?

eXor · 8 Sep 2011 at 07:51

Huw said:
Heh, I couldn't give a fig what they wanted to call the browser, as long as it was Firefox?

Iceweasel is not just a name change. The Debian devs tinker with it and apply their own patches. Occasionally there are issues with these non Mozilla modifications, according to user reports on the internet.

Anyway, I am opposed to all this duplication of effort that is so prevalent in the open source world. I trust the source, Mozilla, to do the best possible job with development of Mozilla products.

But how come you're using 6.0.2 on stable? Did you grab a deb from the Firefox website or something?

32-bit and 64-bit tarballs from http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/latest-6.0/

Huw · 8 Sep 2011 at 15:53

eXor said:
Iceweasel is not just a name change. The Debian devs tinker with it and apply their own patches. Occasionally there are issues with these non Mozilla modifications, according to user reports on the internet.

Ah. I didn't realise that; thanks for the info.

Anyway, I am opposed to all this duplication of effort that is so prevalent in the open source world. I trust the source, Mozilla, to do the best possible job with development of Mozilla products.

Yeah, there's an awful lot of duplication in the FOSS community in general, isn't there? I can't see much of a likely solution to it though.

32-bit and 64-bit tarballs from http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/latest-6.0/

Ah. I don't compile software. Life's too short!

eXor · 9 Sep 2011 at 13:25

Huw said:
Ah. I don't compile software. Life's too short!

It's been done for you. Those files contain compiled binaries

PermaBanned · 12 Sep 2011 at 22:05

Woo, new installation media! That's the excuse i was waiting for

http://www.archlinux.org/news/20110819-installation-media/

Nobody seems to want it seeding though, oh well, 0.0 ratio it is

Huw · 12 Sep 2011 at 23:48

PermaBanned said:
Nobody seems to want it seeding though, oh well, 0.0 ratio it is

That will probably ramp up after it's been in Distrowatch Weekly and hit the other news sources.

Enjoy! I'm still loving it. Got a couple of minor issues which I'll get help for when I have the time, but it's pretty solid and I'm really enjoying using it.

BusError · 13 Sep 2011 at 00:49

Old software in debian ? you were not using sid/experimental ?

Huw · 13 Sep 2011 at 07:27

BusError said:
Old software in debian ? you were not using sid/experimental ?

Nope. In the few months prior to using Debian I tried distros such as OpenSUSE and Sabayon, and got sick of certain bugs. I thought that by using Debian stable I'd have a bug-free experience which, at the time, seemed more valuable.