Arch or ?

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Hey all,

Been umming and aahing about switching from Windows to a Linux OS as my primary desktop and finally decided to make the change and then install a smallish windows partition for a few games that refuse to work well with Wine/PlayOnLinux.

I've been debating between Arch Linux and the minimal Ubuntu installation to avoid getting any pre-packed applications that I don't want or need. Main reason for asking is my issues with Arch and the installation of certain programs that are only avaliable as .deb or .rpm files.

Ubuntu uses debian packages which seem to be the most common Linux install file however arch does not support this and I'm not too comfortable using the PKGBUILD system to get the files installed. The problem with Ubuntu being that I have little experience with apt and not 100% sure how it works with repositories etc.

So I suppose my question is would I be better off learning to write PKGBUILD files and using Arch or learning to use Apt and going with Ubuntu? Or is there another system like Arch that supports .deb or .rpm packages?

Cheers
 
I'm not too comfortable using the PKGBUILD system to get the files installed.
Can you not just use a aur package manager (eg: yaourt) to build and install PKGBUILDs or am I missing something? :confused:

I have been using archlinux as my main desktop since 2008 (have had linux as desktop os since 1997)
I do sometimes write PKGBUILDs but mostly only need to install stuff from aur using yaourt.
 
I've got yaourt installed, what I mean is that according to the Arch forums the best/only way to install .deb packages on Arch is by writing a custom PKGBUILD for the files that I want to install. Hence possibly needing to learn how to write my own.
 
I've got yaourt installed, what I mean is that according to the Arch forums the best/only way to install .deb packages on Arch is by writing a custom PKGBUILD for the files that I want to install. Hence possibly needing to learn how to write my own.
I don't think I've ever had to install any deb packages on archlinux with custom PKGBUILD

Most software is normally already in the repo's or in aur.
It's very rare I've ever had to create a PKGBUILD for anything.
 
I was hoping to be able to install games from the Humble Indie Bundles and the majority of those are only downloadable as either .deb, .rpm or .tar.gz which none of which are easily installable on Arch unless I'm missing something?
 
I was hoping to be able to install games from the Humble Indie Bundles and the majority of those are only downloadable as either .deb, .rpm or .tar.gz which none of which are easily installable on Arch unless I'm missing something?
There are 49 humblebundle packages on aur at the moment.

All you need to do is move the deb or tar.gz from humblebundle to the folder when the build specifies and it installs it all for you.

You could also install games under a users home directory (like the linux steam client does) if you don't have loads of users.
I don't really play many games on linux anymore (used to play quake3 linux only).
I normally install games in the users home directory & maybe symlink or script something in ~/bin to run it.
 
Just had a look through the list and all looks pretty solid.

Found a few arcticles on the subject of .deb files on Arch and found that there's a dpkg package on the AUR. After using
Code:
dpkg --force-depends -i packagename.deb
I managed to get a few apps to install. Are there any dangers of forcing .deb installs on Arch this way?
 
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