My Quick Thoughts on Arch

[Chess]

I have used Linux since 2002 and for the past year and a half or so have been a dedicated Slackware user. I have tried just about every distro under the sun, and the only other one that I tend to use fairly regularly is Debian. I usually tend to prefer distros that require me to work under the hood and use the CLI -- I am a tinkerer, I guess.

Anyway, Arch is interesting. I first tried it some time in mid 2004 and it was just too flakey for me. Various packages were broken and it felt pretty unstable. I remember there was a lot of talk about how wireless did not work well in Arch at all and how the GNOME desktop builds were severely borked.

I have now tried it again and it's much, much better than before. It still seems that there are occasional package problems, such as recent problems with initrd, but, overall it's a very, very nice distro -- one of the two or three that I tend to keep on my spare boxes longer than a few days. In fact, I am now running Arch full-time on my secondary workstation (Slack is still on my primary) and if the stability is there then maybe I'll find myself using it more and more. I prefer the pkgtool package manager in Slackware, but pacman's dependency checking is a real advantage for many users. I know I found it great when setting up basic post-install stuff, like flash, java, artwiz fonts, codecs, etc.

One thing that I have not figured out yet is whether Arch has a true "stable" branch with security updates etc. like Slackware does. It seems like the answer is no, since their brances are listed as "current, extra, unstable, and testing." Those words sound like everything but stable. I like the fact that PV is *still* releasing security updates for the 8.x series of Slackware, which were released over 4 years ago. There is a very long history of consistency and reliability with Slackware that I like.

It seems that most Arch users are happy using the distro, although I have come across some rising dissention in the ranks with regards to package problems, the Arch philosophy, etc., such as this recent thread:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=16833

but every distro has unhappy people, I guess.

So, I doubt I would run my servers on Arch, but IMHO it seems to fit very nicely in between Slackware and Gentoo as a desktop distro. I can see that maybe someday I would switch my day-to-day desktop to Arch and keep Slackware or Debian on my other boxes.

Just my $0.02.

[Judland]

I may be wrong in thinking this but, because Arch's packages are really built from source (Pacman being a simple flat-file database keeping track of dependencies) wouldn't it's security be even better than the more main-stream distros (like RPM, DEB, etc.)?

I mean, for something like Debian or RPMs, you have to wait for the package maintainers to create a binary for you, while with Arch, you could just get the source tarballs and keep your system up-to-date yourself... if you didn't want to wait.

And, although chances of this happening are remote, but what if repositories like Debian suddenly ceased? Where would the distro. users go for their next update? I get the idea that you could make your own Arch repository independently if you wanted to, therefore not dependant on any one group (or groups) of people for package maintenance.

Again, I may be completely mis-understanding the way Arch and Pacman works.

[Chess]

I mean, for something like Debian or RPMs, you have to wait for the package maintainers to create a binary for you, while with Arch, you could just get the source tarballs and keep your system up-to-date yourself... if you didn't want to wait.

Good point, but isn't the same true with Slackware? I am not a packager, but the way I understand it, PV includes the Slackbuild scripts of all the packages so you could do the same thing with his scripts -- it's just that right now he does the security update packaging for you and I think most people trust his packaging. If he were to disappear, I would imagine someone could do the same thing as you suggest.

I guess the way I see it -- and maybe this is too shortsighted -- is that I am concerned about updates today given the situation today. Slackware users know that if there is a php vulnerability out there that affects a 3 year old Slackware box running 8.1, PV will post a security advisory in the changelog and issue an update.

http://www.slackware.com/security/

I'm not saying this is a requirement for every situation, but for some folks, knowing there is a dedicated effort to provide security updates and patches that are backported to old versions is important.

[Judland]

I don't know if Slackware is the same (for building your own packages), as I'm not a Slackware user.

However, I think I understand what you're trying to say... not that security update wouldn't be available, but rather the community being informed that an update is required. Is that it?

From what I can see, the Arch forum has a Security Advisory message board. Nothing like the Debian Security newsletters I used to get, from what I can tell.

Perhaps this is due to the limited resources of the community at the moment. With further growth in popularity and support from the community, who knows. I'm sure it all boils down to available man-power.

However, using security announcements from resources like the Slackware and Debian community may be a good "heads up" for distros like Arch, that may lack similar infrastructures. At least until the distro is developed enough to provide their own.

[mowestusa]

This last week on the Tech show has me thinking. I just got a new desktop from my friendly neighborhood Walmart, and haven't settled on a distro to use to dual boot with WinXP.

I've used SimplyMepis (Liked it but ran a little slow on my old hardware), Kanotix (Really liked it but apt-get broke a few things every once in a while), Minislack (fast, fun to learn manual setting up things, but had a slack expert help with the install.), and Xubuntu (Not really happy with Ubuntu. Default sources.list was broken, never updated properly. Xorg.conf was also wrong, and thankfully because of Minislack I knew how to fix it manually with vim xorg.conf. So much missing to do even basic multimedia, and I'm not talking trying to edit movies or anything. DSL is more feature rich in some ways.) Knoppix and other live distros like Puppy and DSL.

I like a fast running, easy to use package management system, with nice selection of apps. A debian system seems like a nice choice. However, KDE problems have been common on the forums with the Debian offshoots.
Is Arch worth trying?
I'm not a super expert Linux user, still learning. However, it sounds like Arch might be a good distro to really learn about Linux, yet have a good running package system. Also once I do the install, I would like a simple upgrade path, Gentoo seems to have this, but don't want to do compiling.
Is there a wide selection of packages for Arch?
Does pacman work better than apt-get?
How easy would it be to set up a dual boot with Arch on the same harddrive as WinXP?
Is the community friendly towards new users?
Are there clear directions for installing?
Also it seems like the current release is on the old side for a Linux distro, over 1 year old. Should that be a concern?

Steve
mowestusa

[Judland]

My opinions...

Is Arch worth trying?

If you're not afraid of the command prompt and you don't mind doing a bit of reading to understand what all is going on.... Yes.

I'm not a super expert Linux user, still learning. However, it sounds like Arch might be a good distro to really learn about Linux, yet have a good running package system. Also once I do the install, I would like a simple upgrade path, Gentoo seems to have this, but don't want to do compiling.

I knew very little about manually configuring hardware components for Linux, but Arch made it an easy enough process for me to learn.

Is there a wide selection of packages for Arch?

Define wide. Not as much as what's available for the more established distros, but the basics are covered. A nice thing about Arch is that it's easy for the average user to contribute his/her own favorite packages to the user repositories for others to use and benefit from.

Does pacman work better than apt-get?

Yes!

How easy would it be to set up a dual boot with Arch on the same harddrive as WinXP?

Can't comment as I have not experienced this myself. I don't need or desire Windows products. However, Arch does support Grub and Lilo.

Is the community friendly towards new users?

As long as you make an effort to learn and not expect "handouts", then Yes.

Are there clear directions for installing?

Clear as in the steps are there to follow. But understanding the jargon took me some time to absorb. But I was able to grasp and successfully install the process in an evening.

Also it seems like the current release is on the old side for a Linux distro, over 1 year old. Should that be a concern?

If you install via FTP, you'll get a bleeding edge Linux OS. However, a simple update via Pacman after a CD install and you'll get the same bleeding edge system. The old release only seems to be dated by the installer itself... not the applications as Arch is a pretty bare boned install to begin with.

Hope this helps.

I've learned so much about Linux and what makes it tick since adopting Arch. I like it a lot.

If you'd like to take advantage of Arch, yet may like to avoid having to do too much work to install it, I suggest you take a look at Underground Desktop ( http://www.ludos.org/portal/ ) It's Arch, but uses an automated installer to handle the complicated stuff.

[snarkout]

Is Arch worth trying?

Yes, absolutely.

I'm not a super expert Linux user, still learning. However, it sounds like Arch might be a good distro to really learn about Linux, yet have a good running package system. Also once I do the install, I would like a simple upgrade path, Gentoo seems to have this, but don't want to do compiling.

Arch is very easy to keep up to date. It is also a distro that will force you to learn some stuff. Many people see it as a happy medium between slack and gentoo.

Is there a wide selection of packages for Arch?

No, not really. Certainly not Debian or Gentoo wide. Most of the stuff that counts is there though.

Does pacman work better than apt-get?

Not IMO. It's very good in some respects, but I still think apt-get is superior.

How easy would it be to set up a dual boot with Arch on the same harddrive as WinXP?

I would imagine this could be quite difficult. It's frankly fairly difficult to install period, let alone to dual boot.

Is the community friendly towards new users?

I would say yes. If it's obvious you haven't done any homework at all you may get a "Google for this keyword" type response, but I've never seen anyone flamed or belittled on their forums. They have a section of the forums for newbie questions, too.

Are there clear directions for installing?

Not really. They do have an install document that is very helpful, but I wouldn't call it clear. Judland's how-to is pretty clear though -- you might take a peak at it. Most of the "documentation" is in the wiki, which is useful, but very scattered IMO, and often takes for granted that you know more than you may. For instance, it took me the better part of an hour to figure out how to get an AUR package installed - it isn't hard at all, but it is also (IMO) very poorly documented.

Also it seems like the current release is on the old side for a Linux distro, over 1 year old. Should that be a concern?

Absolutely not. Arch is first and foremost a bleeding edge distro. In general, a simple "pacman -Suy" will update your system to the latest and greatest. AFAICT this usually works very well - however when there have been major changes to how things work, you may need to do some additional work, of varying difficulty, to keep from incurring breakage.

In general, I think arch is great. Personally, I'm not quite ready to put it on my main workstation, but I'm not planning on taking it off my testing box anytime soon either. It *is not* ubuntu easy to install, and probably never will be. I'd recommend poking around on their forum some.

[Judland]

I'd recommend poking around on their forum some.

Yes, definitely spend some time reading the Wiki before installing.