Well from the looks of this arch thread looks like very few people, which supports that its a not so great distro. Cause for me i cant mount my root filesystem, i setup my partitions using cfdisk. Then i go to mount my root on disc1 (why cant they just use hda hdb rather then disc) and i cant mount root cause it decides to error. Also the one time when i got lucky and got it to work well turns out pacman sorta sucks. I guess using pacman --help then deciding the options you want to use from there is wrong. Cause i always get Syntax on line 37 crap, and this is when im trying to get some sort of DM setup.
Anybody else get this or is this another linux hates me and is out to drive me insane kinda thing

you should try the official archlinux forum

not sure if i follow what it is you are trying to do. i use arch exclusively and have never had a problem creating file systems and partitions or mounting them, and believe me i have done it enough on a lot of different hardware to have run into problems but i havent. are you creating the file system on the new partition before you mount it?

arch is a great distro, it has stopped my distro hunting for good, pacman works like a champ. the error you get in pacman is probably referring to the pacman.conf file in /etc. i would check that file for errors on that line. if you are not behind a firewall/proxy, just run pacman -Syu to do a complete system update, then to install kde for example, run pacman -S kde

if you have used gentoo, slack and debian, then you should get the hang of arch rather quickly. everything is laid out nice and orderly and the one thing i like best about arch is that it forced me to learn and read the man pages. something i really didnt do even with slack and debian

hi there,
yep. i run arch for pretty much everything: from my notebook to my web server. nothing to say.
everything working flawless. if you have some previous experience with slackware/gentoo you will feel quite comfortable with arch.
like the previous poster, i installed arch in a lot of hardware and never got an issue with partition. maybe you could explain your question better.
did you install arch in this root partition that you are trying to mount? how did you install it? you partitioned with cfdisk but which option during the install you select to define vour fstab scheme?
and, just for the record,
if the number of users mean how "great" an OS is, there is no Linux as "great" as Windows yet...
We all know that this is not true...
regards,
slackie1000

I think the user doesn't know how to partition. If you need help with your issues, you need to post the specific errors.

just saying but i do cfdisk partitions all the time what with Debian slackware gentoo, arch is the first distro that i have come across that doesnt just partition. Like i know what i want and what i need, what i need is one root partition 40000mb, cause i have a home already setup that i will mount after all is said and done. This setup has worked on every distro i have come across, so im not sure what could be the problem. Could be that im not sure what partitions its talking about since it lables the partitions as disc1 disc2 kinda thing. So maybe arch is the one distro i cant setup i dont know, but whatever i will continue on with slack and debian they are much better.

well if you already have partitions setup then just do the mount filesystems part. the disc1 disc2 thing is just like hda1 hda2, there is no difference, especially if you have only one drive. when you mount filesystems it will ask you if you want to mount any other partitions and where to mount them. i guess the thing you need to figure out is what partition your /home space is already in

hope that helps. arch really is a great distro, i put it right up there with slack, debian and gentoo (but not neccessarily in that order )

the disc1, disc2, etc is not complicated! if you use cfdisk all the time then you should not be having issues with it. So your issues are you don't know what partition you /home is. Regardless of the naming, the numeric values do not change!! read the docs

Also, once you actually install the partitions are symlinked and you can continue using /dev/hdaX, /dev/hdbX, etc just like you do in your current distro.

Know but the fact that Gdm wont work and that pacman is all messed up, cause even if you enter the correct bit the syntax is still wrong or is pacman gdm wrong thing to enter. Whatever i just dont like arch, i will stick with the more popular and well used distros and stop bothering you with my questions.

ok, i would definately stick with whatever distros you are more comfortable with. It seems rather strange that since you claim this is a arch issue, it is only affecting you

hmmm, i find it odd that someone who lists slackware, gentoo, AND debian in thier lists of distros, cant take the time to figure pacman out and fix the problems they may be having with it. oh well, to each his own

Arch is a great distro. As simple as slack but with better packages - and faster than slack.

The pacman error should be an easy one to solve .. as the other guys said, go to /etc/pacman.conf and review line 37. You have the syntax WRONG!! Follow an example from another repo that should be also in the file.