Welcome to the Arch Linux Forum

This forum is to discuss Arch Linux.

--jeremy

Thank you Jeremy, all of us Archers appreciate it.

Now we can begin to corrupt the unsuspecting.

We're coming MasterC.

Not to be offensive but aren't there enough Linux distros out there? I mean if you don't like whatever distro you have now, why not just tweak an existing distro to your liking. It could certainly save some hassles of trying to learn some 20+ different distros. I can understand however if Arch provided something completely awesome like an insanely secure yet use-able default configuration, or a distro made for gaming, etc.


Feel free to yell at me cause I'm used to it.


--tarballedtux

Arch is fast.

Arch is stable.

Arch is secure.

Arch is free.

Arch has the best package management out there.


None of those things are revolutionary, but when put together, it makes one hell of a distro.

I like Arch because it just works. I haven't had any problems with my Arch machine since I installed it.

I like Arch's (Judd's) philosophy of keeping things simple. Everything is pretty straight forward and there are no surprises.

i actually enver heard of it, but im nobody

I've been using *nix for about 5 years now or so, and I've never heard of it, either that or I did and forgot about it.

Originally posted by tarballedtux I mean if you don't like whatever distro you have now, why not just tweak an existing distro to your liking. It could certainly save some hassles of trying to learn some 20+ different distros.

This what I did, trying to "tweak an existing disto to my liking" since 1997. Starting with SuSE. From SuSE to Caldera and few other RPM distros which are not easy to "tweak"/modify... ridget... and doesn't satisfy your liking in long term nor give much scope for creativity without having a "hight tech" developer skill. Moreover waiting for months for upgrades. No doubt, lot of improvement have been done since then.

Leaving RPM distros out from my liking, Debian came close showing the trend what a good distro suppose be. Unfortunately runs with "old" packages.... XFree86, KDE, etc. I am glad Knoppix is giving a new "life" to Debian.... its hardware detect is currently the best among all distros. Gentoo Linux, I would have loved if didn't face problem with the compiler upgrade from gcc-2.95. Also I noticed it doesn't have a strong base to handle major changes. After Gentoo, I came to a "dead end"... and went through DistroWatch and found Arch Linux.

First thing what amazed me was the smallness... simplicity. Took only 700Mb HD space when same packages (KDE, Mozilla, etc.) running Gentoo and other distros, takes 1.8Gb of HD space.... what to say about RedHat or SuSE (2.5Gb).

Without getting confused with "unnecessary" stuff and thereby having a simple and good base system, which "just does the work", it was easy to start "tweak" to your liking with Arch Linux.

In short, Arch Linux is a base from where you can build your own or use as its distrbuted, which continuously is upgraded with an excellent package manager system "Pacman".

PS.
I see Arch Linux a new trend in Linux Community where less skilled Linux users are no longer dependent what distros provide but also can interact with the distro. Not only setup a system of their own linking but also contribute their likings and ideas. This idea is not new. Debian, Slackware and few other non-RMP distros were in this line since beginning but required a high skill level and be part of the "group" (though Knoppix does well in this line where developers are guiding the users who are interested, to build their own live CDs). But users need simplicity. And this is what Arch Linux provides.

Originally posted by contrasutra Thank you Jeremy, all of us Archers appreciate it. Now we can begin to corrupt the unsuspecting. We're coming MasterC.

Nice to see this!

Cool

Originally posted by tarballedtux Not to be offensive but aren't there enough Linux distros out there? I mean if you don't like whatever distro you have now, why not just tweak an existing distro to your liking. It could certainly save some hassles of trying to learn some 20+ different distros. I can understand however if Arch provided something completely awesome like an insanely secure yet use-able default configuration, or a distro made for gaming, etc. Feel free to yell at me cause I'm used to it. --tarballedtux

yes there are. but your point is weakened when you are running three distros yourself. for me it is arch only except for my router box and that is only because arch does not have an i586 version yet.

arch offers a far more stable sytem and far faster system than gentoo.

it offers a package management system that is simple and effective and cannot break itself, unlike portage.

it offers two different isos for install neither of which require a week to get a fully operational system.

it offers new packages

it is designed to be for a user. as in if a user want s to contribute physically they can. the developers listen to the users a will fairly quickly implient changes. motivated users can use the very easy and useful build sytem to either build their own packages, customize their packages (such as refining optimizations) or contribute packages for consideration/uploading to the arch linux repos.

now tell me what do your distros offer the linux community?

Originally posted by tarballedtux Not to be offensive but aren't there enough Linux distros out there? I mean if you don't like whatever distro you have now, why not just tweak an existing distro to your liking. It could certainly save some hassles of trying to learn some 20+ different distros. I can understand however if Arch provided something completely awesome like an insanely secure yet use-able default configuration, or a distro made for gaming, etc. Feel free to yell at me cause I'm used to it. --tarballedtux

I don't think anyone is gonna yell at you

Let me try to answer this as best I can:

Why are there 50 different car companies? Why are there new computers built everyday when the ones that are out right now are plenty fast and can handle quite a bit?

Because things can be improved. With each new distro out there are more and more challenges. Competition breeds improvement. Arch is something that combines ease of use with speed and friendliness.



Arch really is a great distro, it deserves quite a bit more recognition than it has gotten so far. I hope having this forum will give it this opportunity.

Cool

Wow, I think we are all coming off as zealots.


We are putting Gentoo users to shame.


If Arch doesnt interest you, dont use it. We wont lynch you. (unless of course we find out where you live)

I started using Arch only about two weeks ago - shortly after 0.5 (Nova) appeared. I installed it in place of Slackware... not that I'm a power user, far from it! Still, I managed to get it going, and so far my impressions are overwhelmingly positive. It has the solid foundation and streamlined simplicity similar to Slackware, but its pacman is a superior package management tool. And there is a system similar to Gentoo's ports, as well... At first their desktop was a little behind Slackware + Dropline combo I had going before, but now their Mozilla has xft support, and they added vera fonts and ms fonts to pacman repositories, so it is really easy to have a good looking desktop. I'm very happy with Arch so far... My only objection is that somehow I ended up with ext3 system, when my preference would've been reiserfs. I don't think I ever had that option during the install.

and how does arch compare to gentoo. is it just an easier install or what? is everything compiled from source?

I just had a look at Arch Linux - I'm a passionned gentoo user, I think this needs to be said.
I didn't try Arch Linux, I just read quite some info about it, the package managment system etc.
How does it compare to gentoo?
-Gentoo requires more HD-space - since You download every source, and (One thing I don't like), there is no automated way to remove them. So eventually, you end up having kde3.0 source packages on your system, even if you're never ever going to need them again - which uses a lot of diskspace.
-ArchLinux is i686 optimized, which is nice, but Gentoo is Architecture optimized, so if you compare a binary one by one, Gentoo would turn out to be faster (though I doubt you would note it)
-Arch Linux installs faster - since it uses binary packages (Tell me whether I'm wrong). There is no need to compile everything.
-Gentoo Linux has far more packages available. Look through portage and tell me what you CANNOT find
-Gentoo has IMHO the Best support forum I could find. I never read the word rtfm etc. People are very nice over there. I would say, it's the best Linux Forum - after LQ of course
-Gentoo seems to be a bit more Geeky
I think this doesn't turn out which distro is better, it turns out what you like more. I'm more the Gentoo kind of guy