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Operating Systems Software Linux

Arch Linux: the Distro of the Year? 58

Posted by Hemos from the use-the-best-tool-for-the-situation dept.
Provataki writes "OSNews posted an enthusiastic review of Arch Linux, a distro that is fast gaining popularity lately. The article compares Arch to the existing big-name Linux distros and takes a shot on describing where Arch offers a better solution. It also lists some of Arch's own problems and suggests solutions."
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Arch Linux: the Distro of the Year? More

Arch Linux: the Distro of the Year?

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  • Arch Linux rocks (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I run Arch since last year, and it's a rock solid, fast and modern system. I recommend it too, as long as you already have a clue about Linux configuration.
  • It's not my intention to troll or flame, but: Why doesn't people just stick with Slackware?.
    They were here first. It's the more mature distro we have right now. It's simple, i just read sometimes the kind of troubles people have with some distros and i just can't beleive it. A distribution shouldn't get in the middle, just install and go away. You should just forget about what distro you installed the moment you are done installing it. That is only true about Slackware GNU/Linux and the BSDs.
    • Please don't mention distro and BSD in same paragraph. People might think that BSDs are Linux-distros when they are not (thank gods).
      • Yep, People is easily misleaded. For example, you are saying "Linux distros", When you should say "GNU/Linux distributions". You are afraid that people confuses the BSDs with the GNU Operating system. I Understand your worries, i think i was as clear as i could be, but i will try to differenciate more the *BSDs from the GNU Operating System. Please correct your mistake of calling the system "Linux", Linux is just a component (a kernel), that works together with the GNU OS, but the name of the Operating syst

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Please explain me something ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @09:44AM (#11998063)
      People like distros that do stuff automatically for you. For example, I plug in an iPod or usb flash drive and an icon instantly appears on the desktop. No need to mess with the fstab, it just works automatically. Those features are in the popular distros and are very beneficial to people who just want their shit to work.

      And you mentioned slackware because you like it. I could have easily posted why not use gentoo because compiling all your own software might get that 0.5% performance increase so everyone should do it. Who cares?

      There are so many linux distros out there that people should never act as if one is always and will always be better. There are distros for the bored people out there (gentoo) that people can spend hours tweaking. Then there are distros that people can throw on in 20 minutes and get a complete system up and running. People should play around with several distros and choose the one that suits their needs best.
    • Why doesn't people just stick with Slackware?.

      Because Slackware, as any other distro, tries to fill some niche. I was a Slackware user a long time ago, 'till I could see that everything I wanted to do with GNOME worked perfectly on Ubuntu.

      If I got a server, I would install Slackware. As my desktop, I'll keep Ubuntu.

      BTW: As it is an Arch article, problaby they have their niche too.
    • How does Slack handle software updates? I much prefer running 'emerge -u world' or checking CNR to subscribing to 100 different announcement mailing lists and tracking down dependencies myself.

      I suppose one system isn't 'better' than another (if Slack makes you find and install your own updates), it's just different. I find automated updates easier to deal with, although maybe a tad slower than doing it myself.
      • Personally I don't like automatic updates, I like to know what's going on and I don't feel the need to always have the latest but if that's your bag then slackware provides slackpkg in /extra in the current tree of the slack packages that does the same job as swaret.

        A lot of people tend to use swaret or slapt-get

        Seeing as I don't use them I couldn't comment on how good any of them are but from what I gather slackpkg is pretty good but lacking a bit in full automation but swaret allows everything to be d
        • Well, using emerge -u world is going to automatically update any new packages on your computer. Especially on gentoo where new versions get into portage and are marked stable relatively quickly, if you go a month or two at a time you're going to have a lot of software to compile.

          However, back to what you were talking about.. emerge -uDav world will list the updates, download size, but not actually do anything. So this is how you'd get around automatic updates by having the choice of what to update and wh
          • "swaret --upgrade"

            This list all updates including the packages sizes. I'm sure slapt-get does just about the same. Then you go through and say yes/no/all/quit to download and install packages as required.

            The creation of packages for use by others seems to be something of a black art however. I've looked at the howtos a couple of times now (as I often find I can't get the very latest update of the obscure software I use a couple of days after release) but my eyes glaze over. I very rarely struggle to creat

            • What I'd like is a slackware package builder that does it all for me so I can then install the package and distribute it for others. Oh, and a money tree wouldn't go a miss, along with a frictionless enviro-friendly engine ... thanks!!

              Try checkinstall [asic-linux.com.mx]. You run it as the final step instead of "make install", and it will automagically generate and install a package for you. It runs perfectly for me under slackware 10/10.1. I think a tgz is available in the slackware extras/ directory, even.

              However, I

    • Because Slackware wasn't moving forward in crucial areas, including installation, upgrades and overall integration. I gave up on Slackware after 4 versions, because every version required a new install. RedHat and others had already figured out that upgrades (of overall OS or individual packages) were useful, so I switched.

  • Been there, done that (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stachel ( 718095 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @09:29AM (#11997965)
    Arch is not perfect and no matter what Archers might advocate to you in the forums or IRC, Arch is not for newbies

    This would have been interesting news for geeks six, seven years ago. At that time I was writing my PPP scripts and XF86config etc. from scratch. I have come to value my time more, and let the established distro developers do the 'dirty' work.
    For doing that successfully I buy their product once in a while, and enjoy the great configuration management tools available now.

    As far a package managers are concerned: the only time I ever messed up one was when I did an 'rpm -e rpm' :-/

  • Easier than Debian? (Score:5, Informative)

    by DavidNWelton ( 142216 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @09:49AM (#11998091) Homepage
    I'm a Debian developer, and I'll agree that it's not simple in all the ways it could be, but I don't get this:

    "apt-get & dpkg and all these related tools are not as brain-dead simple to use as pacman is"

    How is "apt-get install whatever" any more difficult than "pacman -S firefox"?
    • I argee. Plus apt-get isn't distro specific. apt works for debs and rpms. It probably works with most all linux installations, as at works with some of the biggestest players: Debian(namely Ubuntu) and Redhat (Fedora through freshrpms and apt-rpm).

      Apt is solid stable, easy to use by commandline. Synaptic is better than most GUI package tools. I don't see how a "minimalistic" and young distro specific pacage manager could even compete. Though the name is cute it doesn't install confidence in me.

      No,
    • Having used both distros, it took me a long time to figure out all the apt tools, mostly because I didn't know most of them were there. On the other hand, pacman is pretty much the only package-related software most Arch users will touch: it replaces apt-get, dpkg, apt's search tool, etc...

  • Lost SysV /etc/rc.d from Slackware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by redelm ( 54142 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @09:51AM (#11998104) Homepage
    My main reason for sticking with Slackware is I cannot abide SysV-style /etc/rc.d with it's mess'o'symlinks. I vastly prefer BSD style /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, and AFAIK, Slackware is the only Linux distro this way. Arch does not appear to be.

    • Actually, Arch Linux has a very simple init system, as shown here: http://www.archlinux.org/docs/en/guide/install/arc h-install-guide.html#bootrc [archlinux.org]. It's just like Gentoo, for that matter. I understand what you're saying about Slackware, though. All the inits for a runlevel are in a single file (from what I remember). However, I prefer the Arch/Gentoo approach since you can start and stop services using the same scripts as those used during the init process.
    • My main reason for sticking with Slackware is I cannot abide SysV-style /etc/rc.d with it's mess'o'symlinks. I vastly prefer BSD style /etc/rc.d/rc.whatever, and AFAIK, Slackware is the only Linux distro this way. Arch does not appear to be.

      Indeed, even most of the BSD's support separate init scripts, and only uses rc to set configuration.

      "mess o' symlinks" is /etc/alternatives. If you can't handle the concept of a SINGLE symbolic link from /etc/rcX.d to /etc/init.d, you have no business having the roo
      • RedHat: `ls -lR /etc/rc.d | wc` return 473 lines, mostly symlinks under runlevels. init.d itself is fine, it's that tangle of K666driver symlinks in rcN.d or wherever.

        • One level of symlinks. Again, I fail to see how any competent unix admin can't handle it or grok the organizational scheme. /etc/profile.d also uses a bunch of separate scripts as well.

          Sure, runlevels 3-5 should be wiped out -- if you need them, you know how to create them. But files don't scare me, neither do symbolic links. This is unix after all, files are what it's about.

          Forget it though, it's like trying to explain nonmodal editing to people who think vi is the pinnacle of user interfaces (and no,
          • How a mess of start up scripts in one directory (/etc/rc.d/) controled by a single flat text file (/etc/rc.conf) is inferior to several numbered directories that represent runlevels, filled with oddly-named start up scripts in random orders?

            One seems like a simple, elegant solution while the other seems needlessly complex.
    • BSD style is alright for a single admin, on a single box.

      SYSV is worlds better when you're:
      dealing with many boxes
      or for installing init scripts from packages
      or for disabling 1 thing for the next boot either by hand, or by script and ssh
      or restarting one service without remembering it's start flags (sendmail, now is it '-q1h -d'? or '-q -r1h -d' or what? Named... now it's -t user, or is it -t user -c /var/named... oh wait, on this box, the chroot is in /home... or...).

      I could keep naming things where SY
  • "Roll Your Own".

    If there is one thing the diaspora of distro's should prove, it is that truly anyone can roll their own..

  • Why!? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) * <amphigory@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday March 21, 2005 @10:34AM (#11998481)
    I continue to be frustrated by the proliferation of package formats. So far as I can tell, there is no significant debate the dpkg is the best, most robust package format out there. I've never had the sort of dependency hell I had with RPM, and upgrading my Debian and Debian based boxes is trivially easy.

    If it's too hard to use, then the solution is not to invent a whole new format, but to write tools to make it easy. Automating dependency management and package installation is hard. Writing a new user interface is easy.

    Personally, I would like to see Debian packaging and packages become the base for all "mainstream" (i.e. binary distributed) linux distros. Obviously, distros like gentoo are something of a special case, but distros like Xandros, Ubuntu, and Mepis have demonstrated that it is a good base upon which to build a robust distro, and compared to different RPM-based distros, Debian based distros are amazingly interoperable. Why reinvent the wheel?

    • Actually, this would make an excellent side discussion - I have used all the above methods and haven't personally had the problems with rpm dependancies that I have seen discussed.

      What are the strengths of rpm that it continues to be used if other package management systems are so "obviously" better and is there a package system that incorporates all the strengths desired?

    • Re:Why!? (Score:3, Informative)

      by eviltypeguy ( 521224 )
      Most of the "dependency hell" you run into has nothing to do with the package format, and everything to do with the front-end program such as apt-get that you use that is a layer on top of DPKG or RPM.

      Assuming that every package in the debian repository was also present in a apt4rpm repository, a user's experience would very likely be about the same if they were using apt4rpm.

      If your Debian system only had DPKG, and didn't have apt-get, you would be just as frustrated and you would still have "dependency
      • Ah, not so! Even before apt came around, we used dselect to pick our packages and manage dependancies, and then used the http or ftp backends to fetch the packages; then dselect would unpack, configure, and do removals, and everything was hunky-dory.

        Apt just makes it even easier than it was to do what Debian was able to do beforehand.
        • Details, details :)

          The point is, dpkg isn't responsible for the magic, another program such as apt, dselect, etc. is still doing the heavy lifting.

          Yes, I've used Debian's dselect.

    • Re:Why!? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by doodleboy ( 263186 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @11:34AM (#11999199)
      It's apt that matters, not whether the package format is .deb or .rpm. I've been using apt-rpm on redhat 9 for a couple of years now using four repositories, fedoralegacy for OS updates, and freshrpms, Dag, and atrpms for various goodies. I apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade just like on debian with no dependency problems whatsoever. If I need extra packages for something I'm installing, apt tells me about them and offers to download them for me. Works great.

      Apt for rpm is about the best advertisement for debian-like systems there is. I'm getting off redhat after 7 or 8 years, and I like apt so much that I'm switching to Ubuntu.
    • So far as I can tell, there is no significant debate the dpkg is the best, most robust package format out there.

      There are some important differences

      1) .rpm has better tools
      2) .rpm is totally non interactive .debs can ask questions
      3) .rpm logs better than .deb

      All told I prefer .deb but #2 is very important.

      • > .rpm is totally non interactive .debs can ask questions

        debconf can be told to take all the defaults or even be preconfigured to give specific answers for some packages. How this is done is not exactly clear ... it really should be. I've had dist-upgrades on a server held up and leaving the system in a broken state because it was waiting on a dialog. There should at least be an inactivity timeout for debconf -- that would be the best of both worlds.
    • > So far as I can tell, there is no significant debate the dpkg is the best, most robust package format out there

      Really? I say that ports is the best, and since I won't listen to any dissenting opinion or bother doing any research, I guess there's no significant debate.

      > I've never had the sort of dependency hell I had with RPM, and upgrading my Debian and Debian based boxes is trivially easy.

      Guess you were never around when they broke perl in stable. I run Debian now, but I prefer truthful accou
  • Yes, I'm sure I've seen ArchLinux's logo [archlinux.org] somewhere else [abisource.com] before...

  • After reading the article all I can say is (Score:3, Insightful)

    by snorklewacker ( 836663 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @12:32PM (#11999993)
    "Wow, I wish I had Eugenia's job"

    Well, sort of. I mean, I like feeling actually challenged to write cogently, use a spell checker, and actually be made to have the discipline to review the actual material. I mean most of the review went:

    Foonux: Well it was sorta like slow, and pretty tough and stuff and I didn't really like it.

    Yaddanix: Lots of RAM, and it was slow and the package tool was tough but it has all kinds of stuff that Arch doesn't have but it's still kinda lame and all.

    Oh yeah, but the review was about Arch, right? Ok, um, well here's a laundry list of things that suck about it. But it really rocks because it's Slack and it's all 0ldsk00l and stuff lol!

  • The title of this news article is a silly one- "Distro of the Year?" I am surprised it didn't incite a slap fight among the nerds that wish to advocate their Linux flavor of choice.
  • Arch Linux is a fun distro. It was great when I was dual booting between linux and windows and needed something exciting. I even used it for several months from .5 - .6. The biggest problem I used it were the stability of packages, and the dependency checks. It is no where near even Debian Unstable in stability, and the dependency checking leaves much to be desired. There is nothing wrong with Arch Linux. It's a fun, cutting-edge, enthuisiest distro. However, now that I use linux full time, I would g

    • Re:I have tried Arch Linx (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Linux is not ready for the desktop. But that doesn't mean that users that do have a clue how to use it won't find their way around.

  • Arch has potential (Score:3, Informative)

    by viniosity ( 592905 ) on Monday March 21, 2005 @08:57PM (#12006615) Homepage Journal
    I've played with my share of distros (suse, fedora, debian, ubuntu, mepis, gentoo, etc. etc) and one of things I really liked about arch was that it didn't install anything you didn't ask for. When I go through the various folders on my hard disk I see files and directories whose purpose I actually know.

    As far as usability, I use it for my main machine at the office and it's been rock solid. It took only about 45 minutes to set up, including tweaks, and fairly minimal interaction with help boards. Now will it automagically burn CD's and work with my digial camera? Doubt it, but then again I don't need those things in my office environment either. I guess it's all about using the right tool for the job..

  • Dammit, quit linking to Eugenia's troll page. I'm not going to read the article, because I don't want to give her any more page impressions, but Arch linux isn't bad in my experience. I'm running it on my laptop until Ubuntu Hoary final is released. As distros go, it's fast and simple, although they did have some trouble with package quality a while back.

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