Customizing ArchLinux: Worth my time (or anybody's)?
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Customizing ArchLinux: Worth my time (or anybody's)?
I'm debating whether it's worth my time to attempt ArchLinux... I want to install on a laptop with wireless. Is there a clearly defined "path" or is it going to be hell from the start to try and get anything to work?
I love customizing my system to the tip of a needle (hell, I was once a gentoo fanboy.. not much of a guru but nonetheless, a fanboy). It got to be a drag though going through different hardware and recompiling all the software through emerge. Doing it once is a different story.. doing it for 4-5-6+ (DIFFERENT) machines.. bleh.
I have Arch linux on my laptop and let me assure you that you don't need to compile anything. I got mine fully setup in about 1 hour. Most problem can be answered by the wiki. Since you probably already know your way with linux from gentoo it should be a breeze installing Arch.
I've been using Arch (on a laptop) for quite awhile now, and I gotta say it's got all the niftiness of Gentoo without the tediousness of compiling. It's almost like a binary Gentoo, but you're still not limited to the binary installations through the package manager. You can do pretty much anything you want to do with it. If you liked Gentoo, you should enjoy Arch... and like mixtr said, you should be able to install it in about an hour.
the beginners guide on the wiki (it's down at the mo but...) is awesome. walks you through setting up an Arch install from scratch, and if you need a little more detail on something then the rest of the wiki is there to back you up
Besides, almost all configs are in plain text. Just make a backup of /etc and the configs in /home if you want to 'port' your system.
In the end, you get a desktop nearly perfectly customized to your taste, and you learn a lot. I tried Gentoo, and liked the source-based package management (Arch has ABS if you like source compilation but no USE flags yet), but the KISS philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid) of Arch won me over. Not ease of use, hard to use, but easy to learn, standard, and fast once you know it.
And the package manager, pacman, is FAST... I like it personally more than apt-get, and that's saying something.
Plus, Arch is very bleeding-edge, and I've still never had any problems because of that
Would anybody liken it to being 'vanilla'-like like Slackware? I'm currently testing slack. I really enjoy my time in fluxbox alot more as opposed to GNOME / KDE.... too bad there's no Compiz for flux yet - I've also been liking XFCE at times.. but sometimes it's too GNOME-ish for my tastes. </offtopic>
Fluxbox is indeed awesome. I prefer PekWM for stacking WMs personally, but they're both very good. Do check out Xorg's composite extension and 'xcompmgr' if you want simple fading, transparency, and shadows, though it's not as fast or cool as CF.
I've since switched to tiling WMs - check them out, too. Xmonad, dwm, wmii, AwesomeWM, and Stumpwm are all notables. Very different fromt he traditional desktop philosophy, but I find it improves my workflow a TON. Really. Check them out, too
Fluxbox is indeed awesome. I prefer PekWM for stacking WMs personally, but they're both very good. Do check out Xorg's composite extension and 'xcompmgr' if you want simple fading, transparency, and shadows, though it's not as fast or cool as CF.
I've since switched to tiling WMs - check them out, too. Xmonad, dwm, wmii, AwesomeWM, and Stumpwm are all notables. Very different fromt he traditional desktop philosophy, but I find it improves my workflow a TON. Really. Check them out, too
I really -have- wanted to try out the tiling WMs. I can't imagine how it would increase my work efficiency. What is the most 'graphical' of the bunch (or rather, what would be the easiest for me to get into using from a graphical environment). I'm still working out my preferences in fluxbox and every now and then I'm tweaking xfce4.
<ramble>I'm working on a list of applications that I would use (staying away from GNOME/KDE entirely). I have used KDE and GNOME extensively. (I'm really not new to Linux at all- having used it for at least 5 years now but it is only recently I've started to appreciate the customizations I can do on it).
KDE & GNOME are absolutely great DM's (desktop managers). BUT they are heading fast towards the very reason why I am moving away from XP. I love subtle graphic enhancements (fadings were great in Win2000, loved Win2000 but software didn't work `right`).</ramble>
Don't mind my rambling.
Last edited by adammichael; 11-06-2008 at 08:38 PM.
Reason: rambling
I am working on learning my way around AwesomeWM - so far, so good.
With *9* desktops, thats plenty of room for windows and tiling. I like it so far, considering how I hate trying to rearrange my windows manually all the time- it's different and I don't really know how I will take to it in the long run.
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