Not to flame, but having used both extensively, I'd say that pacman is actually better than dpkg (with apt-get just being a front end to dpkg). I've had many situations when an apt-get dist-upgrade would screw something up but never had a problem with pacman.

For instance, on my current debian machine I have a problem with lighttpd not behaving. There's unfortunately no way to force uninstall it.. in effect I've been frozen and no updates can be further installed because it keeps crapping out on lighttpd.

Also, you can recursively remove with pacman which is great. That means you can truly keep your system clean.. no more do you install an app which brings 5 dependencies and then remove it only to have the other 4 programs stay on your disk.

Again, not meaning to flame so please don't get upset. Arch and Debian/Ubuntu are great distros and I use them both. If Arch had the same deep repository as Debian it might be even more popular.

We all have our personal choices.. I love pacman and didn't really like apt-get.. but i'm glad you like arch!

Unfortunately I haven't spent long with Arch to use pacman to it's full capabilities.

I use deborphan with dpkg to remove surplus packages. Whether this is actually a good idea or not I don't know. But I haven't broken the OS yet.

Greetings, just found and joined your forum. Looks to be a very educational site for a part-time Linux user.

I began experimenting with different versions of Linux after taking a Unix course in college back in 1994. Since that time I have had dozens of computers and it seems at one time or another I have had one version of linux or another on most of the boxes, but I have never stayed with one long enough to count myself as a true Linux User.

That said, I now have a bunch of old machines that came to me from friends and relatives who have upgraded and tossed their old stuff my way since they know I have nothing but time on my hands since an accident left me disabled. I have decided to set up a couple of old machines (1 gig or less) with different versions of Linux just to play with. They will become a part of my home network currently serving three or four Windows XP systems and a couple of old workstations (Win CE based) that are set in different rooms throughout our happy home.

Looking over some of the conversations on the site, I have decided my first attempt will be with Arch linux and I am currently downloading the Arch ISO from their home site as I type. It is slow going since our ADSL is only running at 512 KPS (just received a note from ISP that we will be going from 1 to 5 MPS some time this month as they upgrade equipment there) so it will take a bit.

Now most distributions that I have used in the past consist of one to three disks, I have had experience with the old Red Hat, and Debin a few years ago and currently use Puppy Linux Live CD to boot my laptop (3 ghz Compaq 512 meg DDR Ram) and love that little system but having tried to install it as default OS on some of my older machines have always led to Kernel Panic and stop.

I am hoping Arch will work on some of those old systems and should I like the results it may take it's place on my main work computer (I am an amateur writer with only a few published works) in the back room where I hide out on most days.

At any rate question - on Arch can I get by with the main CD or do I need to download the other two that are on the site?

Thanks - This is my first post since joining today.

Hi jerrag. I'm glad you're trying out Arch Linux.

What CD are you downloading? You only need one CD. Which one depends on what you want to install. The arch-0.7.2-base.iso contains just the base system; it is recommended that you install just the base system and install other stuff from the internet using its package manager, pacman.

The ArchLinux Wiki is very good with tutorials on how to get certain software such as Xorg, Gnome, KDE, Alsa and others installed and configured.

The forum is there for you as well.

Arch is good for slightly older hardware as it's a nice lightweight distro; but it is only for i686 and up so anything lower than that you may have trouble installing it.

Enjoy Arch. :)

Go to rc.conf

for me:

edit the daemons section or either modules. Can't remember if alsa is a module or daemon. I think daemon.

Add @alsa in the parenthesis section. I don't think there is a certain order. I think this is the same problem I was having. Now I think it is a module. anyone can help with this? I am not running arch right now so I cannot check.

alsa is a daemon (it runs in the background..), the sound-driver that you need is a module. You don't need the @ sign either, that just causes the daemon to load in the background.

To throw in my 2 cents...

I've used Arch before. I had a bit trouble installing it at first, because my printer catridge was almost empty and couldn't print out all of the install guide (I've discovered only later that the entire thing was included on the install disc). Install is not dumbed down as with Ubuntu or similar "easy" distros, but it's well documented and it was only due to my lazyness and lack of expertise that I failed to install Arch in one smooth session. :p I expected the install to be different, but not all that different. I guess I was wrong, and grew to love Arch's way of doing things much better than what I was used to.

After the install, everything was so great about Arch. I loved how it worked, the simplicity and speed (yes, it *felt* significantly faster than most of the distros I've used before it). Maybe Slackware came close in terms of boot time, but overall responsiveness (main factor in subjective impression of speed) was great with Arch. For example, Firefox loaded almost instantaneously on Arch while it took something like 20 seconds on Kubuntu.

As for feeling dirty... I installed Kubuntu recently in order to have a pain-free instalation of some of the apps that weren't in Arch repos. Now *that* really felt dirty. Arch installs were easy, but Kubuntu seemed to have larger repos. Boy, did I regret the decision. I went back to Arch in about six days. :) This time, I will try to learn how to make packages on Arch and compile the missing bits. I'm still not completely clear as to the package making process, but then I learned of another great thing about Arch. The on-line documentation is every bit as impressive as Arch itself. And the community... All the help you need is available a few clicks away.

Pacman? There's no simpler way to install stuff for me. I love it. It can be a bit slow when the off-line database grows large, but that may be only me. However, on Debian and Ubuntu, I had lots of troubles when a faulty package in the repo broke my entire system (yeah, it does happen to some people :p ). I don't think it's apt-get or dpkg, but I believe it has to do with the repos themselves. Pacman and the Arch repos have been good to me so far, and I love them back with same intensity. :)

And a *very small* thumbs down to Arch. I just don't like that fact that most (all?) of the packages on Arch have been stripped of docs. If I understood the philosophy behind this correctly, it makes the packages considerably smaller, and besides the docs are available on-line all the time, right? I just wish the docs were there when I pressed F1. :) But that won't stop me from claiming that Arch is THE best distro I've ever used, ever!

EDIT:
A small note to new users. Arch, unlike other distros out there, has no version number. The version number of the ISO files refer to the installer and package snapshots included on the disc, not the distro itself. The distro is constantly kept up-to-date via 'pacman -Syu' and things are updated fairly often. The distro on the hard drive is almost alive, always on the bleeding edge. Packages are insanely fresh and if you prefer the latest and the greatest, Arch is your distro. However, you don't have a version number to refer to. Rather, you may refer to version numbers of individual components when asking for guidance.