I have been meaning to try Arch for a while now, but have been turned off by the rolling release cycle. Now that I look more into it, I really want to try it out. Do you think it would be wise for a die-hard Slacker to try and switch to Arch? What are some of the Pros and Cons of using Arch over Slackware? I thank you for your input.

I just downloaded the iso myself, and I'd be interested in hearing opinions of Arch.

I'm mainly on Suse, with Slackware as an old favorite. I like the fact that Slack is slow in changing things, but I like Suse's bells and whistles, though I have to put up with more frequent updates.

This is just my 2cents but I would recommend it alot!
Personally I only run ARCH testing pool both x86 and x86_64
it's been rock solid and I rate it only behind Slackware in stability but not by far

Slackware's edge to me is it's easier to create packages on Slackware
but, ARCH has more packages avaialable and the AUR, which is like Slackware's SlackBuilds

the ARCH stable software is slightly ahead of Slackware -current
testing pool is kinda like Debian Sid

up to you but you could test drive some ARCH based livecd's like:

ArchBang
kickbutt Openbox distro
http://archbang.org/

ArchIso-Live
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archiso-live

Chakra
http://chakra-project.org/

my own nFluxOS ARCH testing
http://multidistro.com/NFLUXNEW/SQ4/arch4.html

best to run any of those off usb vs cd

being that you come from Slackware, ARCH is easy
also get familiar with ARCH wiki; it's invaluable for any distro!
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

I guess I know what I'm doing tomorrow! The only reason I've been interested in this is the ability to create a Linux Distro nearly from scratch which I hear you're able to do in Arch. Instead of having all of these packages installed by default, I can choose which ones I can have installed. Is there any noticeable difference in speed compared to Slackware? Also, if I create a personal Arch Linux installation and get a new computer, is it possible to transfer all those packages I've installed onto my newer system or do I have to start from scratch? Thank you for your time and input.

I have created many tailored installs of RHEL4/5 using their kickstart method. I choose the packages I needed and added that to the Base install, and the installation happened over the network from our repo. I would bet that Arch has something similar.

Alternatively, once you get the system set up the way you want, you could create an iso image and burn it to a DVD.

Hmmm..Yea I guess you're right on that. Hopefully there's an easier way to do this though. What about the speed? Is there any difference?

seeing as Arch is as slim or bloated AS YOU make it ....
i have found it ( Gnome default with kde installed) to be quite fast
even on a 9 year old computer the boot time is 30 sec.
faster than Fedora or CentOS on the same box

My only problem with Arch was that they seem to push quickly ahead with the updates and occasionally things break. Not something someone dealing with the latest stable version of slackware would have to deal with. That really is the only complaint I have, and really, after several years of using the latest stable version of Slackware I have been using Arch again as my primary desktop for about a month and I am loving it.

I switched back because I had downloaded an iso of the latest ubuntu (something I do on occasion to see what all the fuss is about) and when I did that for the 10.04 release I realized that I actually liked it. What it turned out to be was that most of the things I liked about Ubuntu were actually features of Gnome. I made an attempt to switch to Gnome on Slackware (originally I settled for KDE, but later switched to Fluxbox) but it seemed that some of the software I was trying to install wouldn't work without being modified to some degree. Some things I ended up giving up on as it seemed they wouldn't work anyway. It becomes an issue when there really is no Gnome in Slackware. Yes i know there are people who do their own Gnome projects for Slackware, but they don't seem as well done as, for instance, the one in Arch.

And as for packages breaking occasionally, Arch has a great community and you can bet that if you have a problem someone else has it too, and it has already come up in the forums.

On my main box I have actually switched completely to Arch. Slackware is gone and so is Windows as of several weeks ago.

OK

First; ARCH's default boot is somewhat faster than Slackware's, but not as fast as Ubuntu 10.10, however you can cut down Slackware's boot time some.

Second, There are a few different ways to clone your install to another pc/drive
I personally use the linux-live-6.3.0_x86 as a cloning/backup app
as all four of my nFluxOS builds are the seperate ARCH,Debian,Slackware,Ubuntu systems in folders on my hard drive
I simply chroot into whichever to keep them up to date and change things
and then make them into livecd's

The ARCH/Slackware builds use a modified linux-live-6.3.0_x86 to create a live backup. The one's I am uploading now both use The Slackware 2.6.35.7-smp kernel patched with aufs2 and squashfs-lzma

see I have a AUR pkg for the livecd kernel source
http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=41875
you just download the "Tarball", extract it, cd inside and do
"makepkg" as user or to also install do "makepkg -i"
it's setup to do "make menuconfig", just dont change the aufs/squashfs settings too much and your filesystem (ext3/4/btrfs) must be compiled in, not Module

so, in short, you just compile the kernel above not changing much in the config then you place this folder (LINK> linux-live-6.3.0_x86 Linux-live-6.3.0x86_64 ) in /root, decompress it and run the build script inside
./build
and it will make a perfect backup of your system!

I also have a pre-made i686/x86_64 kernels for ARCH here
http://multidistro.com/Kernels/kerne...686.pkg.tar.xz

http://multidistro.com/Kernels/kerne..._64.pkg.tar.xz

so, install the kernels above with "pacman -U nameofpkg.tar.xz"
then add the linux-live to /root or somewhere Reboot, and run the build script, best to have vmlinuz26-livecd symlinked to vmlinuz like Slackware and the linux-live will look for "vmlinuz"
you can have aufs/squashfs set as M or builtin

if you have grub/grub2 or a usb you can test the builds off hdd or usb

if any questions just ask but it's easier than dd, larch or most other "backup" options I think

Hello together,

I've been using Slackware since 1994, last year I tried Gentoo and about two month ago I tried Arch. Both have some advantages over Slackware. The first is that multilib is default when building/installing 64bit. The second is Gnome. I don't use KDE anymore due to the unstability of KDE4.?. The third point is that both come as a minimal installation which I can adapt to my needs whereas in Slackware a full install is recommended. And both, Gentoo and Arch have far more packages available in their repositories, whereas with Slackware I have to search for packages or slackbuilds on different sites.
Nowadays I prefer Gentoo but this is my personal taste.

Markus

I personally think rolling release distros have a real advantage over distros that stick to a cycle. Why? Because distros like Ubuntu and Fedora that stick to a cycle tend to rush distro releases into the mainstream world without ironing out all the bugs first.

If you want to try a rolling release distro as kind of a middle point between Ubuntu and Arch (in short, a rolling release distro that comes with a GUI on the Live CD), try LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition). You will see just how stable it is compared to Ubuntu, Slackware, or Fedora.

The downside to rolling releases is that you have to install updates nearly every day, but usually the updates are more stable because they aren't rushed into the repositories.

Not sure if that is something that changed, but my 64 bit system was not multilib by default, and I wouldn't want it that way by default. I had to uncomment a multilib repository.

I do like gnome, but I always end up installing a bunch of KDE libraries because there are some KDE programs that I still like better than the Gnome equivalents.

@ soppy

Arch Compared to Other Distributions
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._Distributions

The only why to find out if Arch is for you is to try it yourself.

- Cheers

As always linux rules !!!

A seldom mentioned but important part of any distro is the online support community. Arch has some great WIKI articles but I'm not very comfortable with its forums. That is, of course, a personal view -- others may like the forums very well.

Well, I am happy to report that you are looking at the newest Slackware to Arch convert!!! I'm loving the way that everything is done on Arch. Not a SINGLE package is installed that I don't use. It's very fast, looks great, and I've had no problems with stability. Here's to a long future with me and Arch Linux! Thanks everyone for your input!!