The Arch Linux Thread

Cromulent · 12 Dec 2014 at 11:20

Just wondering if there are any more Arch Linux users (or at a push Gentoo users

) on these forums.

Maybe we could share some cool tips with each other?

Personally I have Arch Linux running on an i7 3930k with 16GB of RAM and a 2TB HDD (will be switching my Arch install over to my Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD at some point when I can be bothered). I use XFCE and generally spend my time programming in C, C++ and Python although I'm trying to learn as many languages as I can

.

It runs faster than Windows 7 does on an SSD which says something about Windows.

What is your Arch Linux set up?

A.N.Other · 12 Dec 2014 at 16:21

The poll in the sticky is a bit out of date, but there certainly are lots of Arch users around!

I've used OpenSUSE in the past and didn't particularly like it so transitioned to Mint XFCE. I like Mint, but I've recently just got bored of the reinstall-to-update fiasco. I've been using Mint 14 (Nadia), but the repos were archived a few months ago, so updates have ended. I would have had to fiddle with apt to go 14->15->16->17 to get up to the LTS version, and even then wouldn't have ended up with anything that quite resembled 17 properly anyway. What a faff!

So, mainly for the rolling releases, I recently switched my workstation to Arch with XFCE. I also already have Arch on 2 RPi mini-servers at home, but it's hard to properly get your teeth into something on a Pi, so it was quite refreshing putting it on my workstation to see just how easy it was to get going and how quick it is now it's running! The easy setup also shows off systemd, which is the business!

My workstation stretched my budget to the limit when I got it, so it's had nice little yearly upgrades since then. I was thinking about getting some more RAM for it, before the end of the financial year, but I couldn't really justify £1.5-2k to the boss

// EDIT //

Dug out my system specs. This is a bioinformatics workstation, so it's not quite in the class of the majority of home machines ...

64 cores as 4x Opteron 6276 (2.3GHz)
128Gb RAM as 16x 8Gb 1333MHz
1Tb Samsung 850 Pro SSD for apps and scratch
12Tb as 4x 3Tb internal storage and more over the network
GTX-560 1024Gb GFX with 2x 24" monitors

quackers · 14 Dec 2014 at 09:59

I've had a go of using Arch in the past, I enjoyed installing it and learnt a lot of how Linux actually works but I could never really get the desktop how I wanted though, I always seem to have problems. I use Ubuntu/Mint and Crunchbang at the moment, but I really should have another go.

Virtual machine time

mortals · 14 Dec 2014 at 12:47

I have been using Archlinux as my desktop OS since 2008 (moved to it from gentoo)

I use i3wm + i3bar + conky + dmenu + zsh

Main Apps

Web Browser: Google Chrome
File Manager: Thunar
Twitter Client: Tweetdeck Web
Desktop Stats: Conky
Desktop Background: Nitrogen
Text Editor: vim & Sublime Text 3
Image Editor: Gimp
Video Playback: VLC
Launcher: dmenu
Music Playback: DeaDBeeF
Python IDE: PyCharm & vim & Sublime Text 3
Email Client: Thunderbird + Enigmail
Revision Control: git

My configs are on my github.

My hardware setup:

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.8Ghz
RAM: 16GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz)
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3
GPU: NVIDIA GEFORCE 560TI 2048MB
Monitor: 2 x Dell P2414H
SSD: SanDisk ULTRA II
HDD: WD 2TB

I have a SSD for my root partition, HDD for home & Ramdisk for chrome cache.
My monitors are setup using xrandr.

> STARTUP TIME: 2.618s (systemd-analyze)
> 1.298s (kernel) + 1.320s (userspace)

> SSD Speed (hdparm -tT):
> 1518 MB in 3.00 seconds = 505.71 MB/sec

I mainly use linux for work (coding/remote support/testing on vm's/browsing)
The main thing I love about linux is how customizable it is, also working on linux seems so much more productive than windows just from CLI + keybinds.

purplesky · 16 Dec 2014 at 20:27

Yep, love Arch here. If you're going to do Linux, you may as well do it properly. It shouldn't put any noobs off either as it isn't really that hard to install. Yes there's a bit of a learning curve, but it's stuff you will need to know anyway later down the line so you may as well start off learning right at the installation point. And the rolling release is great which is why I couldn't go back to the likes of Ubuntu.

SKILL · 17 Dec 2014 at 07:55

I run Gentoo on my fileserver/htpc box, Arch on my Raspberry Pi but Linux Mint on my work laptop.

Almost all of the BSP's for embedded boards come with systems designed to run on Ubuntu, it's enough of a hassle on an Ubuntu system or something like Mint, let alone 'wasting' time getting them working on Arch/Gentoo.

Tom B · 17 Dec 2014 at 15:33

I've been using Arch exclusively for the last year or so. I upgraded from Mint as I didn't like the release model. Upgrading to the newest versions was a bit of a pain so I switched to Arch for the rolling-release model and love it. The wiki is far superior to anything I ever found for ubuntu/mint.

I installed Mint on my girlfriend's laptop and fixing anything on that is generally more difficult than on Arch... well finding how to fix is more difficult at least.

I'm running Arch on both my laptop (Asus N550LF) and my desktop (specs in sig)

wengole · 4 Jan 2015 at 06:08

Used to use Arch but then I got a bit lazy at keep it up to date and would waste lots of time on it (especially at work when I should've been working!) but I really like the AUR so I've moved to Manjaro.

B1ng · 6 Jan 2015 at 08:11

Another +1 for Arch here.

Other than currently being unable to get Crossfire to play on my desktop machine, it works a treat on my desktop and laptop. Big fan of the rolling release mech, as well as the brilliant Wiki. Coupled with Steam for Linux and Wine it makes for a decent gaming machine, as well as programming, photo editing amongst other things.

I was a relative Linux noob before the switch, having dabbled with the likes of Debian, Mint and Ubuntu. Would recommend it to anyone looking to delve a little deeper into Linux land.

lamboman · 8 Jan 2015 at 18:37

Haven't managed to try Arch properly yet though Pacman appears to be excellent, and of course having a truly barebones install is fantastic. Want to use it on my server running OMV, not the most sensible thing to do but it'll be pretty good to learn with.

Cromulent · 13 Jan 2015 at 13:08

lamboman said:
Haven't managed to try Arch properly yet though Pacman appears to be excellent, and of course having a truly barebones install is fantastic. Want to use it on my server running OMV, not the most sensible thing to do but it'll be pretty good to learn with.

I find Arch and pacman to be excellent and the AUR is unrivalled in what it offers.

I doubt I'd run Arch on a production server though. Too much of a chance that the install will break and result in downtime. For servers I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, FreeBSD or OpenBSD.

TheSkateyBird · 15 Jan 2015 at 09:01

Starting playing with Arch a few years ago and I feel like I've learnt so much about Linux from just installing and configuring it a few times and the Wiki is an amazing resource.

Been fiddling around with Arch and Manjaro in virtualboxes recently to try and see what I prefer. From what I've read when something is released as stable on Arch is put to the testing repo of Manjaro before being released which is a plus as I lost data when they made a modifications to the base system a few years ago.

Really wanting to jump ship to Linux as soon as possible and whenever I read Linux threads I get so tempted to go for it.