Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
- what it needs from a PC (laptop?) it runs on?
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A i686 processor (pentium II or above). To install you also need a CD-rom or floppy-drive+ethernet.
Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
- how do you get apps in it (package manager/compile/magic)?
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Binary packages are handled by the package manager
pacman. Pacman can handle package installs, dependencies, uninstalls (normal and recursive), and upgrades (a single command updates the system).
Customised packages - or applications that aren't available in the Arch respitiories - can quite easily be built from source using ABS (Arch Build System). These packages can then be installed/uninstalled with pacman.
Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
- installation: easy, hard or impossible (the last choise doesn't exist, really hehe)?
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The installation is ncurses based. You need to understand partitioning and how to edit a few files:
/etc/fstab
/boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf
rc.conf (this is a global arch config file, it's used to select timezone and keymap, setup network, select wich modules to load and which daemons to start at boot)
If you want X you must create a XF86Config somehow as well (next relase of Xfree86 should have auto-configuration, but thats still in the future).
I recommend reading the
installation HOW-TO to get a better picture.
Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
- usage: how difficult is it to learn to use it?
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Well, it's linux plain and simple. For a complete noob there will - as always - be some learning to do. Point-and-click system administration apps are few and far between. However there is little actual system management to do once everything is configured, running
pacman -Syu once in a while to update the system will be quite enough..
Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
- support: are there any things it doesn't support/can't use etc. that others do (some devices, for example)?
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Apps that are specifically written to work with RedHat or another linux distro might not work, fortunatly those are pretty few. As for devices Arch support == support in kernel. Almost everything is available as modules in the stock kernel. If you miss something you can roll your own during install or later... If you need commercial drivers you will have to get them from the vendors.
Quote:
Originally posted by b0uncer
You can tell plain facts, which I hope to hear, because I'm only looking this for a friend of mine...myself I've been satisfied with Gentoo (but what keeps me from being interested in Arch?) but I got a call to search for a nice distro for a almost-beginner's somehow old (400Mhz) laptop.
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I like Arch and I was an near newbie when I first tried it and got hooked. It wont hurt to try
A few links:
Arch homepage
Review at OSnews.com
Distrowatch interview with the creator of Arch