Arch Linux Talk

[regomodo]

sod it. Without internet access/cd repo working properly this is pure hell going package by package due to dependencies

[fwojciec]

ah, i've just returned to Arch and i've spotted the typo in the "Official Arch Linux Install Guide". Wherever it says /etc/mkinitrd.conf it should actually say /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

Correct me if i'm wrong

Could you give me a link? if this is true, then the wiki needs to be updated - I'll be happy to have a look.
Nevermind: found it...

Edit: Note that the official install guide is for 0.7.2 (gimmick) version, which is pretty old... I agree that it should be updated, but it seems like a bigger project, so it might take a while before it gets done. Meanwhile I'd suggest using the Beginners Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide#Configure_The_System) instead - it is less comprehensive as far as installation instructions are concerned (but sufficient for most situations, IMO) but it does seem more up to date.

[regomodo]

hmmph. Another wiki error.

When it explains how to edit /etc/pacman.conf to add the cd repo it states

add the lines

[cd] Server = file:///mnt/cd/arch/pkg

well. It should be

[current]
Server = file:///mnt/cdrom/arch/pkg


The cd/cdrom difference is due to my fstab though

lol. It has no idea what the lspci command means

[regomodo]

Could you give me a link? if this is true, then the wiki needs to be updated - I'll be happy to have a look.
Nevermind: found it...

Edit: Note that the official install guide is for 7.2 (gimmick) version, which is pretty old... I agree that it should be updated, but it seems like a bigger project, so it might take a while before it gets done. Meanwhile I'd suggest using the Beginners Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide#Configure_The_System) instead - it is less comprehensive as far as installation instructions are concerned (but sufficient for most situations, IMO) but it does seem more up to date.

hi ,cheers for the reply. I am currently going between the 2 guides. I was looking at the "Official Arch.." as the beginners guide just glazed over the use of Pacman

[fwojciec]

hi ,cheers for the reply. I am currently going between the 2 guides. I was looking at the "Official Arch.." as the beginners guide just glazed over the use of Pacman

Well, it looks like you're managing OK in spite of the wiki inaccuracies. Good luck with the remainder of the installation!

[pelle.k]

regomodo;

I have, in fact, already told you this in this very thread, answering one of your complaints about arch linux. Let me quote myself;

I will agree that this would probably not work though. I guess the changes in pacman V3 probably rendered that advice useless. You're supposed to name the [repository] after the database file in the directory your pointing to. In this case it's named current.db.tar.gz on the install cd, and since that is also true of the original repo, you can just as well put
Code:

Server = file:///mnt/cd/arch/pkg

just below the existing [current] in /etc/pacman.conf (temporarily, since pacman will replace the real repo for the cd until you remove this modification)
This entry will be primary even if you have an "Include = " below it.


I have now updated this section of the guide to be in sync with reality. :)
Oh, and since this is a _WIKI_, you may also go ahead and register yourself, and correct these sorts of errors, just as i did.

[regomodo]

regomodo;

I have, in fact, already told you this in this very thread, answering one of your complaints about arch linux. Let me quote myself;



I have now updated this section of the guide to be in sync with reality. :)
Oh, and since this is a _WIKI_, you may also go ahead and register yourself, and correct these sorts of errors, just as i did.

sorry pelle. I have a tendency to skim read or do things when i should be asleep (brain turns to a sponge). About the wiki editing, you have to be a registered member at the arch forums, which i recently became. I found another few typos in the RT61 arch wiki which i found rather hopeless for me and have created my own scripts to setup my wireless with wpa.

Anyways, Archlinux is awesome, especially with KDE-Mod. My 440MHz Thinkpad flies. Just need to sort out my sound issues and then i'm finished. It's a little memory consuming but it's what i expect with KDE

[fwojciec]

sorry pelle. I have a tendency to skim read or do things when i should be asleep (brain turns to a sponge). About the wiki editing, you have to be a registered member at the arch forums, which i recently became. I found another few typos in the RT61 arch wiki which i found rather hopeless for me and have created my own scripts to setup my wireless with wpa.

Anyways, Archlinux is awesome, especially with KDE-Mod. My 440MHz Thinkpad flies. Just need to sort out my sound issues and then i'm finished. It's a little memory consuming but it's what i expect with KDE

I think the wiki account is separate from the forums one, but anyone can register, of course...

When the memory issue starts bugging you try Openbox or something like that ;) When my laptop boots it uses something something like 65MB or ram, I'm under/around 100MBs with Firefox running - and it's not even a particularly optimized or ascetic setup (all visual bells and whistles, desktop search enabled, all necessary daemons in place, etc.).

Enjoy Arch!

[afonic]

I am at 130MB with Gnome, Exaile, Firefox and Apache/PHP/MySQL running.

[pelle.k]

It's a little memory consuming but it's what i expect with KDE
I've noticed that "system monitor" in gnome show you the real value of free memory, but the equivalent in kde show it with cached memory, and thus you might do an unfair comparison.
Use "free" instead, and note the line;
-/+ buffers/cache: which should give you an approximation of the "real" values.

[regomodo]

it's not really the issue of KDE (fresh boot) being memory hogging, it's just some of the apps that KDE uses as default (i think). I'm not too bothered as i have 320MB to play with, just as long as they aren't slow to startup/use.

At a fresh boot and logged in memory usage is ~55MB. I use htop and don't care much for the inbuilt system monitors on DE's

I found out why i had no sound. I had forgotten to add my username to the audio group. Duh.

[K.Mandla]

Did everybody switch to the core repository?

[epimer]

Yep!

</useful post>

[Rumor]

Yep, switched on three computers with no problems. I don't know if it was necessary, but I commented out all the repositories in /etc/pacman.d/core file that I won't be using. Probably it does not make any difference.

[afonic]

Yep, switched on three computers with no problems. I don't know if it was necessary, but I commented out all the repositories in /etc/pacman.d/core file that I won't be using. Probably it does not make any difference.

It goes make pacman run faster I think.

[Ramses de Norre]

It goes make pacman run faster I think.

You mean if you drop most of the "Server" lines? There's a little term-confusing here... Core is the repository and in /etc/pacman.d/core you define the servers to download the packages from that repo from. It wont make a difference whether the file is big or not because pacman will just use the first server and only if that one doesn't work it'll use the second and so on. Deleting those servers wont make pacman faster, it'll just give you less certainty a file will get downloaded even if it's corrupted on your first-choice mirror.

[afonic]

I made quite a weird sentence there. :)

Yes you should use the rankmirror script to select the fastest server and keep just that enabled afaik.

[fwojciec]

For those who can't wait for xorg-server 1.4, it has just appeared in the testing repo. I will need to make that upgrade at some stage in either case so I decided to try it to see how it works. It is potentially a quirky upgrade so it's best to read a bit before upgrading, by the way.

For me it all works great with the latest nvidia drivers. I had a minor problem with the symantic touchpad on my laptop, but that simply required changes to some entries in the xorg.conf file, and there is a solution posted on Arch forums in case anybody encounters this problem.

I don't use Compiz at the moment, so I don't know if much is improved in terms of performance, but it has been completely stable since I have installed it yesterday.

I'm not getting rid of my xorg.conf file yet, by the way ;)

[regomodo]

Well, i've played with Archlinux for about a week now and i'm noticing hardly any benefits. KDEMOD works quickly and so does openbox however, a Debian Etch Gnome/Openbox setup works at equally the same amount of RAM and responsiveness with less setup issues.

I think my main issue is with Udev Uevents. From a bare install it takes forever (~20seconds) to get through it. Bootchart reports that it takes ~85secs to boot up to KDM (which is frankly **** and i haven't added much). I can't knock the shutdown time, if running from the terminal. About 8secs to shutdown if i use the terminal. However, if i use the Shutdown/Restart option in KDEMOD it waits ~15secs before it does what i ask it to.

One last thing (and i don't know if it's Archlinux's fault) is that whole load of modules are loaded which are totally unrelated to my Laptop (even though i blacklist them in rc.conf). It could be a kernel thing but i have yet to create a successful custom kernel out of 5 attempts for Debian/Ubuntu/Arch.

FWIW I think I may go back to Debian or buy the LFS book (i feel Puppy/DSL is a bit of a con).

I do like pacman though. I much prefer it to apt/aptitude. Makes a whole lot more sense.

[K.Mandla]

If you turn off module autoloading you can tell it which modules to insert. That's what I do and it generally gives a speed improvement at boot time.

85 seconds to KDM is whacked. I'm getting 27 seconds from grub to desktop in Openbox, with no login manager, and that's a 1Ghz machine.

udev uevents is horrid, for me. I get the same 20-25 second lag while it does its thing. There used to be a flag you could tack onto the /etc/start_udev script that trimmed the default timeout way down. Look for the line that calls udevsettle, and set the timeout flag.

/sbin/udevsettle --timeout=5
It can shave down the boot time, but maybe one time out of four, the partitions won't mount before the timeout and so the system is unbootable, and you have to cycle the power. Not the best solution, but it can help.

I don't know of many other ways to avoid udev uevents. It's a shame it doesn't move a little faster.

[K.Mandla]

For those who can't wait for xorg-server 1.4, it has just appeared in the testing repo. ...
I haven't been following this; what's the benefit to 1.4 over the old version?

[miggols99]

I've heard that it improves Compiz Fusion/Beryl's perfomance greatly. It also means some of your xorg.conf is not needed and will be detected automatically. I'm still waiting for the open source ATI driver with AIGLX...

[regomodo]

If you turn off module autoloading you can tell it which modules to insert. That's what I do and it generally gives a speed improvement at boot time.
.

I have tried that. turning off the module autoloading and specifying the necessary modules seemed to make any difference. Udev uevents still popped up and hung about for a bit. I know it was switched off as i lost the use of my trackpoint.

I'm curious how Puppy linux is quick to boot.

[fwojciec]

I haven't been following this; what's the benefit to 1.4 over the old version?

My sense is that xorg is trying to become much better as far as detecting hot-pluggable devices (mice, monitors end such) is concerned. With this release the xorg.conf file becomes "partially obsolete," though you still can and in many cases have to define particular settings there. There are other significant changes such as new API for drivers, which brakes backwards compatibility in some cases, but also things such as a new "intel" driver which replaces "i810" among other things. Like I said, a potentially quirky upgrade, though it went very smoothly here.

I don't know about particular benefits, I tend to think of the upgrade as inevitable at some stage, probably soon, so I thought I'd get my system ready for it that's all. As far as performance is concerned - it performs good, just like the previous version :) With Openbox I wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyways - it's always very fast here.

[K.Mandla]

Cool. Thanks everybody.

[stlouis1]

well, i can't sit here and honestly say that i read through all 28 pages, i did read through the first 3 pages though.

anyway, figured id post that i've been using arch for almost 2 months now. i started using linux again about 4 months ago on my laptop. when i stumbled upon arch on the amarok site i did some reading on it. i checked out the repos to find that all the programs i've found over previous linux experience as windows alternatives for everything i use my computers for were available for arch, most were much newer than what was available for ubuntu that id been using for 2 months already.

previously i mostly used fedora and found with ubuntu that everything i needed was working nicely which is probly what kept me motivated to using linux, so not a bad thing. im a microsoft guy, quite literally, i work for microsoft. but i guess i needed something different at home.

anyway, i ended up downloading arch that night i was reading about it (at work) and installed it on my test system. i had been planning on moving my main desktop to linux. honestly i found arch a little intimidating, but i had my mind set on what i needed, what programs i needed, so once i got around adjusting to a few differences it wasn't bad. the setup itself worried me being all text based and all, i was crossing my fingers for most of it. then when it brough me to a text login screen i thought i forgot something (didn't read enough in the wiki). but once i got passed that and figured out how to build packages from the unsupported repo, i was banging my head on the desk it was so easy.

currently my desktop was finally switched over roughty a month ago to arch 64 bit and loving it, few little things that still need tuning and some things that are a little different from the 32bit version. i'm liking it so much that i even ditched my ubuntu install on my laptop and put arch on there. up and running in about 90 minutes, fully set up, but i knew what i was doing at that point.

one thing i like about arch is definitely the speed. but i like the customized kde, kdemod. in kubuntu i was deleting k-menu shortcuts to hide all the components i didn't want but couldnt remove. i like arch, i'm not exactly new to linux, i've used it a fair bit over the last 2 years, but im new to linux, and that hasnt stopped me from loving arch even though i've found some challenges. i've had people on other forums tell me i make linux look easy, i found that amusing. if i make linux look easy, anyone can i tihnk

it beats having windows all the time, windows is just windows to me. no matter how many new versions of windows MS brings out, its still the same old windows, few things moved around, so updated and so called new features, its all the same troubleshooting at work. nothings ever really new

anyway, thats my 2c

[manmower]

stlouis1, I think yours is a familiar story among Arch users. Intimidated at first, but armed with the excellent guides from the wiki and the will to really learn how things work, you take the plunge and stop looking for anything else once you've discovered the speed and ease of Arch.

I'm so glad I tried Arch about a year ago, I was almost ready to give up on GNU/Linux altogether due to every single distribution having some sort of issue that really irked me. The most daunting bit when first installing Arch was configuring wireless internet (which is the only way my desktop connects to the net) entirely from CLI. But one evening I just went ahead with it and to my surprise, got it done quite rapidly and for the first time I actually had the feeling of truly knowing what I was doing as opposed to copying commands from a how-to. It's a feeling I've since experienced a lot while using Arch and I'm happier for it. Thanks to what I've learned from Arch, I think I could now pretty much use any distro to my satisfaction, but none offer the same combination of great features.

Especially now that Judd is leaving (http://archlinux.org/news/350/), this seems like a good time to recall what a fantastic collection of software Arch really is.

[ynnhoj]

wow, thanks for pointing out that bit of news manmower. i probably would have missed it.

[Rumor]

I'm so glad I tried Arch about a year ago, I was almost ready to give up on GNU/Linux altogether due to every single distribution having some sort of issue that really irked me. The most daunting bit when first installing Arch was configuring wireless internet (which is the only way my desktop connects to the net) entirely from CLI. But one evening I just went ahead with it and to my surprise, got it done quite rapidly and for the first time I actually had the feeling of truly knowing what I was doing as opposed to copying commands from a how-to. It's a feeling I've since experienced a lot while using Arch and I'm happier for it. Thanks to what I've learned from Arch, I think I could now pretty much use any distro to my satisfaction, but none offer the same combination of great features.

I can echo almost everything you've said here. I switched from Windows only to Linux only with Ubuntu 5.10 almost two year ago. When 6.06 was released, I upgraded (very apprehensively). I repeated that process with 6.10. The monolithic upgrades frustrated me. The periodic upgrades also caused me a lot of frustration. Every time I saw that the restricted sources were being upgraded, I knew my X was going to break because I was using the most recent nVidia drivers. I don't know how many times I reinstalled Ubuntu (probably needlessly at times, I now realize).

During that period of time, I heard about Arch Linux in a podcast and I began trying to find information about it. I read this interview: http://www.osnews.com/story.php/10142/The-Big-Arch-Linux-Interview/page1/ and was intrigued. I was absolutely riveted by what one of the developers said on the first page:
Damir Perisa: I run ArchLinux since 0.4 and since then i never had to reinstall the OS on this laptop. Besides no need to reinstall it, i have always the latest versions of software i need.
Never had to reinstall...

I installed Arch 0.72 Gimmick and for a long time I dual booted Ubuntu and Arch. When Ubuntu 7.04 was released, I backed up my files, redid all my hard drive partitions and installed Arch only. I've not looked back, nor have I had to reinstall my OS.

Well, that's not true, I had to reinstall it when I built my new system a couple months ago, but I do not foresee doing so again for a long time to come.

[stlouis1]

stlouis1, I think yours is a familiar story among Arch users. Intimidated at first, but armed with the excellent guides from the wiki and the will to really learn how things work, you take the plunge and stop looking for anything else once you've discovered the speed and ease of Arch.

I'm so glad I tried Arch about a year ago, I was almost ready to give up on GNU/Linux altogether due to every single distribution having some sort of issue that really irked me. The most daunting bit when first installing Arch was configuring wireless internet (which is the only way my desktop connects to the net) entirely from CLI. But one evening I just went ahead with it and to my surprise, got it done quite rapidly and for the first time I actually had the feeling of truly knowing what I was doing as opposed to copying commands from a how-to. It's a feeling I've since experienced a lot while using Arch and I'm happier for it. Thanks to what I've learned from Arch, I think I could now pretty much use any distro to my satisfaction, but none offer the same combination of great features.

Especially now that Judd is leaving (http://archlinux.org/news/350/), this seems like a good time to recall what a fantastic collection of software Arch really is.

i definitely think arch is the distro i learned the most from for sure since it forced me to do a little more configuring on the back end rather than using front end tools for everything. with other distros, i found just like you i was copying commands from guides and really have no idea whats happening. since i switched to arch, i know what im doing when i copy an "ln something something" command and know where my configuration files for my network settings are and know what someones talking about when they tell me to add a line to /etc/rc.conf or something.

so im continuing to use arch, fedora and (k)ubuntu definitely helped me get my feet in the water....but i think arch is the distro i learned the most from and will continue to learn from.

even one of my supers at work was saying he wanted to start toying with linux, i gave him some iso's of knoppix, dsl, arch, kubuntu, fedora and suse. he's using kubuntu right now to get a feel, but i think he'll be going to arch soon enough since i keep praising it so much

one thing though that i personally disagree with, is everyones comments about the arch wiki being so great. i find theres alot of info there, but i have found some of it to be a little vague at least maybe to less experience users. i could be wrong. but it is handled by the community and not everybody is great when it comes to writting documentation, but some info is always better than no info. and the wiki was definitely helpful, but some of it i still had to post on the arch forum to clarify some of it. that might just be me though. if i was any more knowledgable i'd try to contribute to the wiki myself, and i could go back through and submit content to maybe clarify some of the stuff that i found a little vague for the next person

like i said, i do work for microsoft, and some of the internal articles we use there are pretty vague and alot of articles are missing steps. i just finished training for tier 2 though, im hoping to get on the bug team where i could work with fixing of adding knowledge base content

[K.Mandla]

Big +1 to all these posts.

And thanks for the news about Judd leaving. I hadn't seen that, since I'm offline for the next week or so (it's my own fault :( ).

Phrakture is a good choice for a new overlord. Kneel before Zod!

[drum]

I too have been running arch on my main box and 2 laptops, A Thinkpad T61 and a Lenovo 3000/100 for the last 6 months and I think it has moved me up from a noob to a little below an intermediate user. :cool:
I got nvidia working and wireless and everything is so stable.
I can't give enough praises for arch. It's just so much fun to keep it up to date and learn all the little tweaks which you can find on their forums etc.
regards
:)

[regomodo]

I've switched to Arch for my desktop. I've seen the light and realised what Ubuntu is. I'm still going to keep using Debian Etch though on my lappy. Arch didn't want to play ball with it unfortunately.

[Dimitriid]

You guys sold me im installing as we speak. I used my ubuntu live cd and gparted to create a nice ext3 40gb partition for it. Now a question: I made a second primary partition, no need to format just need to point arch to mount / and /home there. But after I am done with that, do I need to install grub? Or should I just modify grub in ubuntu to add a line for Arch? Im guessing the second one but i'd like to confirm.

[5-HT]

Im guessing the second one but i'd like to confirm.
Including a boot option for Arch in your Ubuntu menu.lst will do the trick. Arch by default also includes a fallback initrd image (allowing you to customize your default one), and it might be a good idea to include that as well.
I'm away from my Arch box now, but I can post a sample for you in a few hours when I get to it.

If you decide to just keep your existing grub setup, it would be best to avoid installing the bootloader in Arch (it's a separate option in the installer) or else you'll need to 1)just add ubuntu's options to your arch menu.lst, or 2) setup grub to point to your Ubuntu root again.

cheers,

[fwojciec]

The second option should work fine. The Arch grub entry for the default kernel should look something like this:

# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb5 ro vga=775
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
savedefault

# (2) Arch Linux Fallback
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb5 ro vga=775
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

Obviously root device and vga= parameter need to be adjusted appropriately. I also use the "savedefault" option, but it can be skipped if you don't need it.

Once you're done installing Beginners Guide (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide) and Arch Wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page) more generally are going to be your best friends so make sure you use them - even if you're not a beginner ;)

Welcome to Arch!

[Dimitriid]

Ok i got a bunch of errors, not sure if I selected the wrong partition or what but I get:


Attempting to create root device '/dev/sdb5'
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sdb5'
unknown
ERROR: Root fs cannot be detected. Try using the rootfstype= Kernel parameter.
Waiting for devices to settle...done.

Root device '/dev/sda5' doesn't exist, attempting to create it
ERROR: Failed to parse block device name for '/dev/sdb5'
ERROR: Unable to create/detect root device '/dev/sdb5'
Dropping to a recovery shell... type 'exit' to reboot
NOTE: klibc contains no 'ls' binary, use 'echo *' instead


Any clue what am i doing wrong?

[fwojciec]

What device (/dev/???) did you install Arch on? And could you post what your customized Arch grub entry looks like?

[Dimitriid]

Its on /dev/sda3, primary and only IDE hdd so I believe it should be hd0,2 ?

Here's the entry I added for grub
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb5 ro vga=0x317
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
savedefault

# (2) Arch Linux Fallback
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb5 ro vga=775
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

One note though, I did mount this partition on ubuntu for a second a few boots ago and asked me for password, now it is not asking and just mounting....Is ubuntu taking over it perhaps? If so what to do short of starting the install over?

]

[fwojciec]

# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
savedefault

# (2) Arch Linux Fallback
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img

Try this. Changes are in bold. BTW, I've also changed the vga parameter, it should give you 1024x768 in 256 colors (you don't need more colors for framebuffer anyways).

[Dimitriid]

Ah yes of course! I changed one partition to point out to mine but now the other, I feel kinda dumb no ](*,)

Now im in root, time to make my account, get xorg and a WM. Debating between kdemod or just fluxbox atm.

[fwojciec]

Ah yes of course! I changed one partition to point out to mine but now the other, I feel kinda dumb no ](*,)

Now im in root, time to make my account, get xorg and a WM. Debating between kdemod or just fluxbox atm.

Yay! :)

So now the adventure begins! Take your time setting things up, read the wiki, and watch your appreciation of the genius of Linux grow :)

You might want to set up an account on Arch forums as well, as you likely to run into problems every once in a while - things are moving a bit slower there than here usually, but it should be easier to find help there if you need it.

Have fun!

[5-HT]

Now im in root, time to make my account, get xorg and a WM. Debating between kdemod or just fluxbox atm.

Glad you got it. As for your user account, you may want to take a look at the 'groups' wiki page to see which groups your user should be a part of (optical, network, etc...) When I first installed suspend wasn't working and it ended up that I forgot to add myself to the power group.
cheers,

[Pancetilla]

Now im in root, time to make my account, get xorg and a WM. Debating between kdemod or just fluxbox atm.

Kdemod is great. It's a good way to install kde without all those kapplications you won't ever use, you'll only install what you need (being a gnome guy giving kde a try, this is a bless). It's faster and better, IMHO, than vanilla KDE...and maybe prettier too. Fluxbox is nice too, but Kdemod impressed me :guitar:

[Dimitriid]

I went for kdemod complete. Seems like a heavy download, but im sure it wont be on my system. Now with this one do I need to manually install some daemons like HAL and such? Also this autoconfigures kdm to start up or should I do that manually?

I briefly tried fluxbox and while it looks nice but its a bit on the time consuming side, so though of trying kdemod for a while.

[fwojciec]

You need to set up the daemons manually - most things need to be configured manually in Arch, the distro philosophy is to install everything with default configuration (as the developers intended it to be) and let the user decide what he/she wants to do with it.

As far as KDEMod is concerned someone else will need to chime in.

[Rumor]

KDEMod Info here:: http://kdemod.ath.cx/index.html I've only run it very briefly. I much prefer Gnome or Openbox.

As for your daemons, you'll need to set them up. You can start them manually with
/etc/rc.d/daemon_name start|stop|restart
or you can put them into your /etc/rc.conf file such as
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond acpi sensors cups hal fam alsa ntp gdm)

In your case, you'd list kdm last if you want a graphical login.

[pelle.k]

Now with this one do I need to manually install some daemons like HAL and such? Also this autoconfigures kdm to start up or should I do that manually?.

Nothing is done automatically. You need "hal" if you wan't kde to mount stuff for you, etc (dbus is started as a depenency to hal automatically, so you won't have to start "dbus", unless you wan't it to run by itself, i.e without "hal")
And yes, you need the "kdm" daemon unless you coose another method to start it with...

You read the beginners guide, right? It will explain the basics to you.

[Dimitriid]

Alright thanks for the tips, got KDEmod and KDM ( and hal and fam ) set up and everything now. I used to swear by gnome and xfce but Arch + KDEmod feels so fast. You ever played a FPS game and saw an obvious speed hacker? Thats how it feels :guitar:

Im loving Arch, its so powerful and you have control of every single thing, even if you're just learning it feels like you are building your custom system just the way you like it.

[K.Mandla]

KDEMod Info here:: http://kdemod.ath.cx/index.html I've only run it very briefly. I much prefer Gnome or Openbox.
I tried it too, and I really liked it. If I wasn't completely infatuated with Openbox, KDEMod would definitely be my significant other.

[finferflu]

Not so Arch related, but using Arch I got into tiling WMs, so I really suggest you to try out Ratpoison, it's one of the most genial WM I've ever tried, and it's ultra lightweight too. Another one I suggest you is Xmonad. You'll not have a system tray icon, but when everything is tiled, what's the need of it? :)

[leg]

Gentoo is not difficult at all to learn to use. No worries you'll be fine and the Gentoo Forums are very responsive and helpful(a lot like the Ubuntu forums here). Have fun.

I am sure you will be pleased.
Seconded. I also use Gentoo and I love it. It did take me a while to get the hang of but once you understand how to do things you won't look back.

[kellemes]

And thanks for the news about Judd leaving. I hadn't seen that, since I'm offline for the next week or so (it's my own fault :( ).

Phrakture is a good choice for a new overlord. Kneel before Zod!

Same here.. Just learned this news today..
I'm not worried, Arch has a small but very enthousiastic crew of developers and users, including myself.



I went for kdemod complete. Seems like a heavy download, but im sure it wont be on my system. Now with this one do I need to manually install some daemons like HAL and such? Also this autoconfigures kdm to start up or should I do that manually?

If you need a login manager there are a couple of methods.. I'm currently on another system but as far as I remember I have it set in my ~/.xinitrc
(you can get a sample-file from /etc/skel/.xinitrc among other places)

If you need HAL you need to "pacman -S dbus hal" and add hal to daemonslist in /etc/rc.conf.

Edit: Sorry Dimitriid, I didn't read your post about having setup KDM and KDEmod already..](*,)

[Rumor]

I tried it too, and I really liked it. If I wasn't completely infatuated with Openbox, KDEMod would definitely be my significant other.

I've only recently gotten into OpenBox, setting it up on an older PC (pII/450 or so) with pypanel. I wanted to try ttm / tint but when I went to download it yesterday, all I could find was a.deb file on the website. The last time I downloaded it, there was a link to the various bits of code.

I like the minimal lightweight feel of it. I downloaded the liberation font set and started using them and it really helped to make things much more attractive.

I think OpenBox and the various lightweight programs (abiword, kazehakase, sylpheed, etc.) makes for a really nice way to make older hardware realistically usable.

[fwojciec]

I don't think Openbox is only good for old hardware - I use it on both my laptop and my desktop (AMD X2 4400+ with good Nvidia card and so on) - it's not so much about speed or anything, Openbox it simply is my preferred way of organizing my desktop experience.

Things that Openbox does extremely well:
+ impeccable twinveiw support (all windows/dialogue windows open where they should) - that's the big one for me
+ keyboard shortcuts for everything !!!
+ right click menu is a must once you get used to it
+ ability to define how particular windows are opened/displayed
+ everything controlled by a couple of easy to edit xml files
+ I would lie if I said that the fact that all window operations are pretty much immediate didn't matter to me :)

I imagine that it would be possible to realize what I have set up in Openbox by different means as well, but I also like how neatly it is all designed and how smoothly it all works... I guess you could say that I've grown fond of Openbox ;)

[fwojciec]

I wanted to try ttm / tint but when I went to download it yesterday, all I could find was a.deb file on the website. The last time I downloaded it, there was a link to the various bits of code.

There is a PKGBUILD for tint in AUR, btw - I think it's called tint-svn or something like that. I prefer pypanel though.

[Rumor]

I don't think Openbox is only good for old hardware - I use it on both my laptop and my desktop (AMD X2 4400+ with good Nvidia card and so on) - it's not so much about speed or anything, Openbox it simply is my preferred way of organizing my desktop experience.

No, not solely for old hardware. Your list of fine points is applicable across all levels of hardware. You could add to it that it is part of the overall Arch Linux "experience" in that a base install and execution of OpenBox gives you a blank canvas, much like a base install of an Arch snapshot ISO. From there you go on to add what you want, where you want it, when you want it the way you want it.

There is a PKGBUILD for tint in AUR, btw - I think it's called tint-svn or something like that. I prefer pypanel though.

Cool, thanks for telling me this. I had not thought to check the AUR . . . kind of odd since I was installing a couple other packages from it.

I like to use pypanel as a desktop switcher / application launcher / clock across the top and has tint display at the bottom.

[Dimitriid]

After trying a few days i dont know why but i am experiencing some issues with KDEmod. First of all, a few moments ago some apps randomly decided not to open ( KWrite one of em ). Then the archiver thing crashed 4 times in a row when trying to open my directories.

Then I tried to open konqueror and it would not open. I decided to restart the machine ( not just X ) and everything seemed to work, except firefox took like 1 minute to start after the restart and like 2 minutes before my system stopped accessing my hdd.

Not sure if they are isolated cases but it doesnt feels right to me right now, I think I might just go with Arch + Gnome or Arch + XFCE. KDE is just acting up to much when it supposed to be stable and im barely using any applications and still decides to randomly act out.

[r76]

After trying a few days i dont know why but i am experiencing some issues with KDEmod. First of all, a few moments ago some apps randomly decided not to open ( KWrite one of em ). Then the archiver thing crashed 4 times in a row when trying to open my directories.

Then I tried to open konqueror and it would not open. I decided to restart the machine ( not just X ) and everything seemed to work

I had the exact same issues last night - kwrite and kate wouldn't open and my machine was scalding hot to touch as well - normally it's as cool as a cucumber - cooler than it ran in XP. I did a restart too for that reason. I don't know what it was but I've run kdemod base install for nearly a month with absolutely no trouble.

[regomodo]

for just over the past week i've been desperately wanting archlinux to work for me but so much has miffed me off . Just stupid stuff

Seg fault of firefox - crashes on load
abiword refuses to start
no fusesmb - aur installs but for some reason doesn't work as it should (no docs for it either)
xfce startup issue with no internet - same with gnome
despite being a bleeding edge distro (rolling release) it does have up to date apps. Blender being 1 behind - debian lenny at current release
wicd requiring root password despite madwifi drivers - not needed on any other distro tried
jacman issues - not implemented into menus and no tasklist entry
gnome horrendously slow

I'm guess this is due to K.I.S.S but sod that when i'm struggling to find doc's

I'm surprised at the small package base and needing to use aur a lot but i guess that's being used to debian.

Oh well, i really wanted it to work. Off to Debian Lenny for my PC then

[finferflu]

Usually all sorts of errors appear if you didn't set up your hostname properly.. not sure it's your problem, but it may well be...

[fwojciec]

@regomodo: abiword and firefox work fine here. gnome and xfce issue sound like bad info in /etc/hosts file. I'm not using fusesmb/wicd/jacman so dunno about that. my arch systems (3 of them) are as fast as ever and completely stable. sounds like something is seriously misconfigured on your system though... oh well, debian is a good distro as well :)

[regomodo]

Usually all sorts of errors appear if you didn't set up your hostname properly.. not sure it's your problem, but it may well be...

yeah. It did complain about that so i did what the error told me to do. Still the same.

So far i'm really enjoying Debian Lenny. I always liked etch but found it a touch out of date. So far no issues with using a testing release

[finferflu]

Just out of curiosity, what was the error?
Usually in order to set up your hostname you have to specify it in /etc/rc.conf and in /etc/hosts.
Curiously, I eventually got to try Arch by getting away from Debian, since things didn't seem to work properly (both on Etch and Lenny) :D

[regomodo]

Just out of curiosity, what was the error?
Usually in order to set up your hostname you have to specify it in /etc/rc.conf and in /etc/hosts.
Curiously, I eventually got to try Arch by getting away from Debian, since things didn't seem to work properly (both on Etch and Lenny) :D

basically something about how it couldn't connect and complained about me not adding my host name to /etc/hosts which i did (the same as in rc.conf). It asked me to continue anyway or try again

I would be specific but i can't remember and recreate it.

[fwojciec]

regomodo - computers don't lie, if it says that there is a problem with /etc/hosts there is a problem with /etc/hosts. I know exactly the problem you're describing...

for future reference... this is an example of working /etc/hosts file (where the hostname is "ground_control32" and the domain is "space":

#
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#

#<ip-address> <hostname.domain.org> <hostname>
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost ground_control32 ground_control32.space

# End of file

ground_control32.space at the end of the line is probably unnecessary, btw - but everything works as it should now so I'm not changing it...

[regomodo]

regomodo - computers don't lie, if it says that there is a problem with /etc/hosts there is a problem with /etc/hosts. I know exactly the problem you're describing...

for future reference... this is an example of working /etc/hosts file (where the hostname is "ground_control32" and the domain is "space":



ground_control32.space at the end of the line is probably unnecessary, btw - but everything works as it should now so I'm not changing it...

i just realised what i did wrong. I double-checked the wiki and for some reason i put my hostname in a new line for some reason. Back i go to Arch also because nvidia is hell in Lenny. Thank god i don't have any assignments atm

[fwojciec]

i just realised what i did wrong. I double-checked the wiki and for some reason i put my hostname in a new line for some reason. Back i go to Arch also because nvidia is hell in Lenny. Thank god i don't have any assignments atm

lol, I bet you're becoming an expert at installing arch at this stage :P

[Dimitriid]

I reinstalled Arch and after wrestling with gnome a bit I finally have it customized to my liking, which looks minimalistic but does takes some time to set:

Normal:

http://ubuntuforums.org/g/images/323051/large/1_Screenshot1.png

Busy:

http://ubuntuforums.org/g/images/323051/large/1_Screenshotbusy.png

It so far has worked very nice. Its really fast, almost feel like Xubuntu really. Im pretty happy with the results although Im still debating between Openoffice or just Abiword + Gnumeric. Open Office might be overkill but its a good way to work across platforms with people.

[regomodo]

lol, I bet you're becoming an expert at installing arch at this stage :P

haha, yeah. I'm starting remember what xserver packages i need

(wtf wont they put it in a metapackage like they used to?)

[kellemes]

I reinstalled Arch and after wrestling with gnome a bit I finally have it customized to my liking, which looks minimalistic but does takes some time to set:

Looks pretty fine..

[fwojciec]

I reinstalled Arch and after wrestling with gnome a bit I finally have it customized to my liking, which looks minimalistic but does takes some time to set:

[pics removed]

It so far has worked very nice. Its really fast, almost feel like Xubuntu really. Im pretty happy with the results although Im still debating between Openoffice or just Abiword + Gnumeric. Open Office might be overkill but its a good way to work across platforms with people.

On my computer I don't really see a whole lot of difference between Gnome and Xfce on Arch - it's true that Xfce uses less memory, but not by much, and in terms of speed they are very similar.

As for office apps - I would suggest Openoffice if you do any serious writing. I remember having some problems with footnotes in Abiword, for example, that I could not resolve for the life of me, also with long documents Abiword seems actually slower than Openoffice to me... The new version of OO (2.3) is very nice, and it seems to work much faster (or at least has better start up times) than 2.2.

[Dimitriid]

On my computer I don't really see a whole lot of difference between Gnome and Xfce on Arch - it's true that Xfce uses less memory, but not by much, and in terms of speed they are very similar.

As for office apps - I would suggest Openoffice if you do any serious writing. I remember having some problems with footnotes in Abiword, for example, that I could not resolve for the life of me, also with long documents Abiword seems actually slower than Openoffice to me... The new version of OO (2.3) is very nice, and it seems to work much faster (or at least has better start up times) than 2.2.

Yea I always though xfce was a lot faster but I guess Xubuntu as a distro does more to trim Ubuntu than xfce does.

And thanks for the advice, OO it is ( though I might also install scribus for some flyers and newspaper work ) Is that version already on the repos or through AUR?

[Rumor]

OO.org 2.3.0-2 is in extra
OO.org 2.3.0-3 is in testing
Scribus 1.3.4-1 is in extra

[finferflu]

Since you're going minimalist, you might as well learn LaTeX, so you can use simple text editors (I always recommend Vim, which is not really simple, but it's genial indeed) to write very well formatted documents, and you can focus on the contents, rather than the formatting, while typing.

[ynnhoj]

hey finferflu, i've been meaning to start learning latex -- any tutorials in particular you might suggest?

[K.Mandla]

Random note. ...

I've been offline with two Arch systems for the past two weeks, and to be honest, it has gone a lot better than I thought it would. Back in July I was offline with an Ubuntu installation and things were okay. When I lost my connection at the end of last month, I thought for sure something would fall apart with my systems and I'd end up rebuilding a full Ubuntu system offline, on one or both.

But everything has been stable and solid, and no glitches anywhere. True, I only use Openbox and a few select GTK2 programs, but aside from the recurring nervous twitch from lack of 'net access, I think my Arch systems have proven just as dependable as the Ubuntu ones.

That's all. See, I told you it was random. ... ;)

[kelvin spratt]

I Installed Arch a few weeks ago and was amazed at the speed using KDE, the whole polish and quality of the distro is amazing. Its the only KDE desktop i like so i won't change to Gnome, or my favorite E17 on this one.

[regomodo]

Been going well so far except 2 points. Network share browsing in XFCE and playing dvds.

I'm left feeling a little uncomfortable in the Archlinux forums. Definitely a lot quieter and with a subtle hint of elitism.

If Archlinux forums were as good as ubuntu's i would be wetting my pants with glee, perhaps.

[distroman]

I have been running arch in vmware for quit some time and have found myself spending hours in that installation, so I made a couple of partitions and installed it some ago with xfce.

First of the wiki is really great, it took a long time before I felt the need to search it just feels very friendly and accessible.

I am really happy with the installer, for instance, auto prepare will suggest, /boot, /, /home partitions, IMO this make a lot of sense, of cause with multi boot it's very flexible as well.
Then there's the config files, I found them somewhat confusing but they are very well covered in the wiki and if you miss some it seems easy to adjust later.
All in all I found the installer to really follow the principles of KISS, cool and fairly obvious.

I do think that you should create a user account during the install, I am not crazy about having to do it afterwards and then make sure you're in all the groups you're suppose to be in.
So fare I have only had to add a few demons, mostly DM specific and adjust some locals, there's differently a learning curve here but when you got pacman <woohoo> you got time to spare.

I did have some real trouble with my sound, it was starting to be a bugger but luckily it turned out to be a easy fix.

It is some time ago I have been so excited about a distro and anyone that find themselves wanting to have a poke around should give arch a try.

[Rumor]

If Archlinux forums were as good as ubuntu's i would be wetting my pants with glee, perhaps.

I took a shot at your DVD question. You're right that the forums there are quieter than those here. I've usually been able to get help in them.

If your thread there does not yield results, you might want to ask in #archlinux on Freenode IRC. The channel is *very* active and there are some very knowledgeable users there.

Good luck!

[regomodo]

I took a shot at your DVD question. You're right that the forums there are quieter than those here. I've usually been able to get help in them.

If your thread there does not yield results, you might want to ask in #archlinux on Freenode IRC. The channel is *very* active and there are some very knowledgeable users there.

Good luck!

cheers for the help. Didn't work but thanks anyway. I've never like irc but looks like i'll have to go on it

[Dimitriid]

Im getting some updates on -Syu. By default I have gnome 2.18 installed and today I see Replace control-center with extra/gnome-control-center?".

And one more update but the gnome control center goes to 2.20 and resolving all dependencies pushes it to 217mb...this means gnome 2.20 is released now? Im a little confused since I dont see it anywhere on the main site.

[fwojciec]

I don't have all of Gnome installed, but a bunch of Gnome packages I use were updated to 2.20 versions so I think that Gnome 2.20 has been moved to the main repo.

I did have a small issue with the update today - a problem with gcc and gcc-objc which I needed to install separately with force overwrite option enabled (pacman -Syf gcc gcc-objc) because pacman was complaining about files already existing in the system, but other than that the entire update (250MB of packages) went very smoothly.

[finferflu]

hey finferflu, i've been meaning to start learning latex -- any tutorials in particular you might suggest?
Yes, the LaTeX wiki book (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX) is the best so far for me. It's quite simple and straight forward, with useful practical examples ;)
I think I'll never use a word processor again, finally! I detest word processors.

@ Dimitriid
Woah! I got 386 MB of updates :D We'll have to consider I have installed Gnome, Xfce, Openbox, dwm, wmii, Xmonad, ratpoison and Ion3. I love testing suff :D

[ynnhoj]

Yes, the LaTeX wiki book (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX) is the best so far for me. It's quite simple and straight forward, with useful practical examples ;)
I think I'll never use a word processor again, finally! I detest word processors.
thanks for the quick response! this is much better than the faqs i found through google.

[mintcoffee]

This is incredible. I was a long time Ubuntu user since warty, but switched to Arch a couple weeks ago.

I always liked arch's philosophy, but couldnt get past the installation, and never knew exactly what to do. Now, with a couple years of experience, I'm loving arch. :)

[kellemes]

This is incredible. I was a long time Ubuntu user since warty, but switched to Arch a couple weeks ago.

I always liked arch's philosophy, but couldnt get past the installation, and never knew exactly what to do. Now, with a couple years of experience, I'm loving arch. :)

Welcome to Arch.
I'm surprised Arch isn't more popular since it gives an incredible amount of control over the environment. And this without to much hassle.

[Enverex]

There is no splash in Arch because it aims to be simple, cutting-edge, and fast.

...

because Arch compiles everything from source, optimizing it for your system. It was great having something so fast.

...

Now, I am getting ready to try Gentoo.

Trying not to laugh here. This is so obviously the prologue to someone who is going to be using "CFLAGS="--fomg-sofast --fruitloops"". Compiling things for your specific processor rarely gives a speed increase and when it does it is only small and on certain applications. The rest just sounds plain silly.

The only reason it seems faster is because you're used to Ubuntu which comes pre-loaded with everything for everything.

There's one critical issue with Arch that stops me from using it, it doesn't support Multilib or Multiarch which makes some apps unusable/uncompilable.

[afonic]

Actually Arch is optimized for i686 processors, that certainly gives even a small speed increase. Nowadays many people pay hunders of dollars to get hardware that will get them a 10% increase, if I can get 2% by running Arch instead of Ubuntu I'm happy. :P

[5-HT]

...this means gnome 2.20 is released now? Im a little confused since I dont see it anywhere on the main site.
Yup :). No notice on the 'latest news' feed, but it's reflected in the package archive.

cheers,

[kellemes]

Trying not to laugh here. This is so obviously the prologue to someone who is going to be using "CFLAGS="--fomg-sofast --fruitloops"". Compiling things for your specific processor rarely gives a speed increase and when it does it is only small and on certain applications. The rest just sounds plain silly.

The only reason it seems faster is because you're used to Ubuntu which comes pre-loaded with everything for everything.


+1
People often think Gentoo is all about performance.. not really he case.. the most important + of Gentoo is the control you have on features, each individual package can be compiled with a specific featureset using USE-flags; this *may* result in a better performing system but it all depends on the user's choices..
Binary-based systems mostly compile "one-size-fits-all", but obviously leaving a lot of people in the cold..

[regomodo]

looks like it's back to ubuntu for me. Getting nowhere with my dvd issue and now i find i can't run arduino in arch either.

Going to download gutsy.

[finferflu]

looks like it's back to ubuntu for me. Getting nowhere with my dvd issue and now i find i can't run arduino in arch either.

Going to download gutsy.
Don't worry, we know you'll be back :D
Joking.... perhaps :P

[regomodo]

Don't worry, we know you'll be back :D
Joking.... perhaps :P

I think you may be right. Just installed Gutsy today and its a bit odd despite only being away from Ubuntu ~2weeks. It feels sluggish and i can't figure out how to configure things with text files. It appears my DVD issue has followed me to Ubuntu as well, at least not as bad.

I'm going to try my dvd drive with another distro and if dvd playback is still duff i'm going to buy a new one and slap archlinux back on. I just don't feel comfortable here despite the vast amount of info(forums) and supported packages.

I may even get the LFS book and build my own system.

[finferflu]

I think you may be right. Just installed Gutsy today and its a bit odd despite only being away from Ubuntu ~2weeks. It feels sluggish and i can't figure out how to configure things with text files. It appears my DVD issue has followed me to Ubuntu as well, at least not as bad.

I'm going to try my dvd drive with another distro and if dvd playback is still duff i'm going to buy a new one and slap archlinux back on. I just don't feel comfortable here despite the vast amount of info(forums) and supported packages.

I may even get the LFS book and build my own system.
That's exactly what I meant. When you get away from Arch you miss the feel of it..

Anyway, I can't reach the Archlinux website, it just times out, whereas I can reach it with services like anonymouse (http://anonymouse.org) or the cloak (http://the-cloak.com)... do you have any idea of what the problem could be? This is horrible, since with those services I can't even log in. :(

[Vansinnesvisan]

That's exactly what I meant. When you get away from Arch you miss the feel of it..

Anyway, I can't reach the Archlinux website, it just times out, whereas I can reach it with services like anonymouse (http://anonymouse.org) or the cloak (http://the-cloak.com)... do you have any idea of what the problem could be? This is horrible, since with those services I can't even log in. :(

I have no issue getting to the site.

Would you happen to be trying to access the site through a school's or workplaces' network? Perhaps they are blocking sites.

[regomodo]

i'm reinstalling arch again. Can't get through to the website which is an **** as i can't remember all the xserver packages required. It looks like a UK thing

Virgin Media perhaps?

[Vansinnesvisan]

I think it is: xorg-server xf86-input-mouse xf86-input-keyboard xf86-video-<yourcard> xorg-xinit

Perhaps you could access the site via google cache? (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:bXlSCjjM8YAJ:wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg+http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a)

[distroman]

You could try google cache if your desperate. ;-)
cache:http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

edit
amazing too late :lol:

[finferflu]

I have no issue getting to the site.

Would you happen to be trying to access the site through a school's or workplaces' network? Perhaps they are blocking sites.

Nope, I'm browsing from home...

i'm reinstalling arch again. Can't get through to the website which is an **** as i can't remember all the xserver packages required. It looks like a UK thing

Virgin Media perhaps?

My ISP is NTL, anyway you can access the website through anonymouse or the cloak, the only thing is that you can't log in on the forums when using those services...

Good luck with your installation ;)

[regomodo]

Nope, I'm browsing from home...



My ISP is NTL, anyway you can access the website through anonymouse or the cloak, the only thing is that you can't log in on the forums when using those services...

Good luck with your installation ;)

anonymouse didn't work for me. Couldn't find wiki/aur/bbs

[finferflu]

This one is working for me: http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Main_Page

[pelle.k]

You're both from the UK. Maybe it's something local?
www.archlinux.org works just fine for me.

[regomodo]

You're both from the UK. Maybe it's something local?
www.archlinux.org works just fine for me.

That's what i thought but it's fine now.

[finferflu]

Yep, it's working here now, too :)

[crimesaucer]

I've been on Archlinux for about 2 weeks, and I love the way it feels. I used to use xubuntu, and my Archlinux using Gnome 2.20 feels even faster... I'm loving pacman, plus using AUR to build packages with PKGBUILD and makepkg -s is so easy.


I loved doing the install with nano and tty, I love the fact that I'm on the newest Gnome 2.20, 2.6.23.1-3 kernel, the newest xorg-server, and the new xf86-video-intel for my 910GML... and my system feels very fast and solid.


It was a little difficult getting my bcm43xx to work, but ndiswrapper did the trick, and I have my eth0 using OpenDNS through my Wicd wireless/wired app.


during install, Xorg --configure left a few parts of my xorg.conf empty so I had to add modes and a few other things... and I had to redo the synaptics touchpad to make it work, but besides that everything has been nice.


Well, almost everything... I can't get AIGLX and Compiz to work, and I don't feel like trying to do it with Xgl, so I'm just using metacity right now, it's a little weird getting used to Gnome after only using xfce4 and Compiz/Beryl for my only year on Linux.

[happy-and-lost]

I'm moving back to Arch today. Gutsy's just too slow and buggy on my system.

Is there a good, definitive guide to setting Arch up on laptops out there?

[regomodo]

I'm moving back to Arch today. Gutsy's just too slow and buggy on my system.

Is there a good, definitive guide to setting Arch up on laptops out there?

Exactly the same reason for me. I've put Arch back on my Laptop and PC (i would use debian Lenny but it's easier if i use arch on both so i don't have to download packages twice for 2 distros).

I haven't had the time to sort everything out on my laptop but this may help

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Laptop

[Dimitriid]

I've been on Archlinux for about 2 weeks, and I love the way it feels. I used to use xubuntu, and my Archlinux using Gnome 2.20 feels even faster... I'm loving pacman, plus using AUR to build packages with PKGBUILD and makepkg -s is so easy.


I loved doing the install with nano and tty, I love the fact that I'm on the newest Gnome 2.20, 2.6.23.1-3 kernel, the newest xorg-server, and the new xf86-video-intel for my 910GML... and my system feels very fast and solid.


It was a little difficult getting my bcm43xx to work, but ndiswrapper did the trick, and I have my eth0 using OpenDNS through my Wicd wireless/wired app.


during install, Xorg --configure left a few parts of my xorg.conf empty so I had to add modes and a few other things... and I had to redo the synaptics touchpad to make it work, but besides that everything has been nice.


Well, almost everything... I can't get AIGLX and Compiz to work, and I don't feel like trying to do it with Xgl, so I'm just using metacity right now, it's a little weird getting used to Gnome after only using xfce4 and Compiz/Beryl for my only year on Linux.

I also have a bcm43xx on my system and I got it to work now: I used the wiki from arch for the card: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup#BCM43XX
I did not had to install the drivers, during the install my card was detected and the module was already loaded on my rc.conf After googling for the correct firmware file ( the "link to ubuntu" forums was not very helpful and looking through this forums I found only old broken links to it, googling it was like the second or third hit )

After that I installed gnome-network-manager which is fairly simple: you install the package, and then open /etc/rc.conf to ! ( disable ) the network devices network manager will control, ! on the network daemon too and add the two daemons needed for gnome-network-manager.

Restarted and it worked. Its basically the exact same process you do on Ubuntu....only the arch way.

[crimesaucer]

I also have a bcm43xx on my system and I got it to work now: I used the wiki from arch for the card: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless_Setup#BCM43XX
I did not had to install the drivers, during the install my card was detected and the module was already loaded on my rc.conf After googling for the correct firmware file ( the "link to ubuntu" forums was not very helpful and looking through this forums I found only old broken links to it, googling it was like the second or third hit )

After that I installed gnome-network-manager which is fairly simple: you install the package, and then open /etc/rc.conf to ! ( disable ) the network devices network manager will control, ! on the network daemon too and add the two daemons needed for gnome-network-manager.

Restarted and it worked. Its basically the exact same process you do on Ubuntu....only the arch way.

I had used the BCM43XX way as well (just like in xubuntu), and my wireless could detect my neighbor's wifi streams on both the Wicd wireless app, and the gnome-network-manager, since I tried them both... (I'm sure wifi-radar would have been the same)


... but, I couldn't actually connect to any of the streams, I tried it at a coffee shop, and random unsecured networks in my neighborhood, and the streams that I could detect at 60%-70%... would never connect. I previously had the same problems when trying to use wifi-radar and Wicd in xubuntu, and had only gotten it to connect twice at two different wifi hotspots... but the stream would get dropped and be difficult to connect back to.


So, I removed my wl_apst.o firmware and driver, and installed ndiswrapper with the proper driver from this list: http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,list_b/

...using these guides:


http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless#ndiswrapper
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,installation/
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/index.php?/component/option,com_openwiki/Itemid,33/id,troubleshooting/

...and this network profile: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wireless#Using_the_Archlinux_Roaming_Network_Profi les


...and now the same neighbor's streams that I had detected at 60% - 70% (3 green bars), were now at a more realistic 7% - 30% (1 yellow bar), which made sence because they were only 1 bar weak streams when using Windows Wireless Connection on Xp.


...but this time, my Wicd app could connect to the stream, as long as my firewall was set to allow "Internet connection sharing" for wlan0.


And, for the first time, I had a properly working wireless Linux that could connect quickly and stay connected.


One last thing, my card is actually:

Card: Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 AirForce One 54g 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

which was #46 on that ndiswrapper driver list.


...where as, every other BCM43XX on that list with the same pciid was named:

Card: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 AirForce One 54g 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)

[Dimitriid]

Well I think it might also depend on the specific hardware configuration not just the chipset. Users who also have my integrated device on a laptop ( Acer 5100-5674 ) report similar success with it. It could be that Acer just ships the hardware with a better antenna and what not, or that the card itself, even if using the same exact chipset, ( although honestly I have to go check later ) its just working better.

I see this happen with broadcom cards on a daily basis at work: even with exact same models, some models work fairly good and others struggle constantly until we either replace the card or replace the wireless card AND the motherboard. In our case, we honestly just sheep a ton of "lemons" when it comes to broadcom wireless devices.

[crimesaucer]

Yeah, I will choose better next time I purchase a computer... I'll do my research to make sure I get the best working computer for Linux.


I'm on a HP Pavilion dv4230us 910GML celeron m, which was one of the least expensive HP notebooks available at the time I got it... which is before I knew anything about Linux or computers, so I hope to only be on this computer for another year or so.

[Dimitriid]

Yeah, I will choose better next time I purchase a computer... I'll do my research to make sure I get the best working computer for Linux.


I'm on a HP Pavilion dv4230us 910GML celeron m, which was one of the least expensive HP notebooks available at the time I got it... which is before I knew anything about Linux or computers, so I hope to only be on this computer for another year or so.

Normally Id be inclined to say that your hardware is fine and that a buying decision shouldn't be centered on an easily replaceable card that is less than 10% of the value of the system.

But now that you mention your brand, I am encouraged to say otherwise about it and agree with you but I am not able. You see even if I was to say that this is exactly the case and the exact type of card issues I was describing from my job, company policy forbids me from disclosing said information so I never said that :popcorn:

[crimesaucer]

Normally Id be inclined to say that your hardware is fine and that a buying decision shouldn't be centered on an easily replaceable card that is less than 10% of the value of the system.

But now that you mention your brand, I am encouraged to say otherwise about it and agree with you but I am not able. You see even if I was to say that this is exactly the case and the exact type of card issues I was describing from my job, company policy forbids me from disclosing said information so I never said that :popcorn:

Yeah, this is my first computer ever... I had ignored computers most my life as I lived out in the mountains of Lake Tahoe, where my life focused mainly on snowboarding and working as a chef (line cook).


If I ever got on one of my friends computers for a few moments, I would just surf the internet like a regular person. After Tahoe I moved to San Francisco, the only thing I ever did on a computer was look at craigslist for work, and surf websites (when I wasn't actually at the beach surfing).


But, I had so many friends that were working tech jobs in San Jose, or designing websites in the city, that I became interested in it.


Finally in Oct. 2005, I stopped going to the Library to use the internet, and got a HP pavilion notebook.


I spent 1 year on Windows Xp, learned to write html/xhtml/css web pages, learned about open source programs and freeware... and read a lot about Linux.


So in Oct 2006, I did my first installs of xubuntu. Then I upgraded from 6.06 to 6.10 to 7.04 and learned a lot about CLI and config files... to the point of being able to successfully install Archlinux and configure OpenDNS, synaptics touchpad, ndiswrapper, and my xorg.conf, using all of the testing packages for everything.


In my short time on Linux, I also noticed a lot about my computer specs. I learned that my BCM43XX was difficult, and that my intel 910GML with the integrated graphics card wasn't the best for things like Beryl/Compiz, and that I needed to use AiGLX... and still couldn't use certain things like the water drops effect... not that any of that really matters... and 512MB ram isn't a lot... and neither is a 60GB hard drive.


I've been looking at the Lenovo Thinkpad series lately, but I still wouldn't know what the best notebook for Linux is... I'll have to do more research for that. I like how the options for different wifi or EVDO is available on the Lenovo series with the wifi antenna, and I like how it is designed to drain a spill because I had a few sips of root beer spill into my closed notebook, and it ruined the feel of my keypad.

[distroman]

ABS is wicked, wonder if it always this easy or if I am just getting lucky.
Also rolling release sure makes for bleeding edge, sure it has all been said before I am just repeating because I am really happy with it.

[raul_]

It's nice to hear you are now a fellow Arch'er crimesaucer :)

I have yet to find a flaw in Arch

[Dimitriid]

Sadly arch was just unstable on my laptop. Not sure why, maybe its my hardware but things would just randomly fail without reason and work again after a restart...when the boot process didn't like to fail or take too long without reason.

Mostly things wouldn't open, hardware would hang for a very long time on the boot process, daemons and other things were very slow to load at times, very fast other times. Not sure why.

[crimesaucer]

It's nice to hear you are now a fellow Arch'er crimesaucer :)

I have yet to find a flaw in Arch

I'm loving Arch, I got my Compiz Fusion working now and am very much loving my Archlinux.


The only thing I miss is the program "Stellarium". The one in the Arch repos doesn't work, and the AUR one doesn't work either. I looked all through the forums and couldn't find a solution to fix it. I'll wait until someone makes a nice new working "Stellarium" package, but I do miss that app because I was learning a lot about the constellations.


I also couldn't build the app called "thewidgetfactory" and wish I knew of a gtk widget showcase that I could install in Arch, since "thewidgetfactory" said it couldn't be built for i686. I write a lot of gtk-2.0 themes and an app like "thewidgetfactory" really helps with making sure everything looks correct.

[pelle.k]

well, did you update the PKGBUILD to include
arch=('i686')
then?

[crimesaucer]

well, did you update the PKGBUILD to include
arch=('i686')
then?

Thanks, that worked perfectly:

Large View: http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/crimesaucer/Screenshot-26-4.png
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/crimesaucer/Screenshot-26-13.png

[finferflu]

Thanks, that worked perfectly:

Large View: http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/crimesaucer/Screenshot-26-4.png
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/crimesaucer/Screenshot-26-13.png
Ah! You left Xfce for Gnome now :D

Anyway, I think you should look into ABS, it's not difficult at all, even I was able to create a couple of packages. It's very cool when you miss an application and you can provide it by yourself. Arch is the perfect DIY distro, it gives you a lot of independence.

[gabrielmenini]

Thanks for the reassurance. The live cd was very nice so I have decided to install it.

Give :arrow:Sabayon Linux (http://www.sabayonlinux.org/) a try if you are interested in eye-candy KDE-based desktop :KS:KS:KS

[crimesaucer]

Ah! You left Xfce for Gnome now :D

Anyway, I think you should look into ABS, it's not difficult at all, even I was able to create a couple of packages. It's very cool when you miss an application and you can provide it by yourself. Arch is the perfect DIY distro, it gives you a lot of independence.

Yeah, for the time being. I used xfce4 for my first year on Linux, and when I installed Archlinux, I gave Gnome 2.20 a try, and so far I like it except for a few things (the animation of the minimized windows).


I also have xfce4 installed and Compiz Fusion, so I'm comparing the three of them (4 if you count xfce4 with compositing differently than regular xfce4). I have compared my used RAM and CPU usage and it's not really that much... of course xfce4 with no composting wins hands down at everything, but once I turn the composting on... it is more than regular metacity, and barely less than Compiz Fusion on either metacity or xfce4. So I'm liking the combo of Compiz Fusion/metacity for looks, and then metacity for a faster desktop with a nice look, and then regualr xfce4 if I really want to conserve on resources and have the fastest desktop I can get.



As for ABS, I have read the wikis about ABS, AUR, and Makepkg, and I've installed csup and wget, and will try to use ABS one of these days. I have been using the AUR a bunch because it's so easy with makepkg -s.


Basically, I really like my Archlinux, and I finally got the new AUR Stellarium-latest 0.9.0-1 package built correctly with qt4 and it works perfectly, even better than the one that was in the xubuntu 7.10 tribe5 and beta... (I don't know how the stable 7.10 is since I haven't tried it yet...)

[pelle.k]

Hey, what font is that in your gnome screenshot?

[crimesaucer]

Hey, what font is that in your gnome screenshot?

I use "URW Gothic L Book size 8", and then for my Window title font I use a font called "Ranger" size 9.


I looked for a link to the Ranger font, but it seems that the font has changed it's appearance.

[finferflu]

Yeah, for the time being. I used xfce4 for my first year on Linux, and when I installed Archlinux, I gave Gnome 2.20 a try, and so far I like it except for a few things (the animation of the minimized windows).


I also have xfce4 installed and Compiz Fusion, so I'm comparing the three of them (4 if you count xfce4 with compositing differently than regular xfce4). I have compared my used RAM and CPU usage and it's not really that much... of course xfce4 with no composting wins hands down at everything, but once I turn the composting on... it is more than regular metacity, and barely less than Compiz Fusion on either metacity or xfce4. So I'm liking the combo of Compiz Fusion/metacity for looks, and then metacity for a faster desktop with a nice look, and then regualr xfce4 if I really want to conserve on resources and have the fastest desktop I can get.


Back in time when I used to have Desktop Environments, I chose Xfce over Gnome because of usability and stability in the first place, especially on Archlinux, where speed was not a noticeable variable anymore, since at some point you don't notice the difference anymore. I find Xfce better for productivity and also, even when an app freezes, it doesn't lock up or slow down the whole DE, as it used to happen in Gnome...

But well, for the time being I'm sticking with Ratpoison, it looks like the most clever solution to me.

[raul_]

Back in time when I used to have Desktop Environments, I chose Xfce over Gnome because of usability and stability in the first place, especially on Archlinux, where speed was not a noticeable variable anymore, since at some point you don't notice the difference anymore. I find Xfce better for productivity and also, even when an app freezes, it doesn't lock up or slow down the whole DE, as it used to happen in Gnome...

But well, for the time being I'm sticking with Ratpoison, it looks like the most clever solution to me.

could you post a screenie of ratpoison?

[ynnhoj]

there's not really anything special to see in a screenshot of ratpoison.. :P

[raul_]

there's not really anything special to see in a screenshot of ratpoison.. :P

I was wondering if there is anything to see at all

[ynnhoj]

what you're going to see is pretty much just the application(s) that the user has running. there isn't really anything like a panel/statusbar, or whatever else. it's very plain jane (not that that's a bad thing).

[K.Mandla]

what you're going to see is pretty much just the application(s) that the user has running. there isn't really anything like a panel/statusbar, or whatever else. it's very plain jane (not that that's a bad thing).
Exactly correct.

http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0008ky5.jpg

With the exception of that task switcher popup in the upper right hand corner, there's not much to see. You can windowpane certain areas and partition them off, but it's like tiling without any handles or titlebars.

Some people dig it. As for myself, I can't imagine why. ... :-k

[finferflu]

Exactly correct.

http://img230.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img0008ky5.jpg

With the exception of that task switcher popup in the upper right hand corner, there's not much to see. You can windowpane certain areas and partition them off, but it's like tiling without any handles or titlebars.

Some people dig it. As for myself, I can't imagine why. ... :-k
Sorry, I wasn't following the thread those 2 last days. Anyway, if you're familiar with GNU Screen, you'll get the feel of Ratpoison.

I'll tell you why I dig it. First of all: tiling. Tiling is the best invention ever in the Window Managers world. You don't have to worry about positioning windows, and most of all, you don't have *annoying* overlapping windows. I really don't see the point of having floating windows overlapping each other, I don't think there's any benefit for the user in that. So with Ratpoison you can split the screen in as many regions as you wish, and have the windows share the full screen space, all in a matter of a couple of keystrokes on the keyboard. Also, managing the whole environment is very intuitive for me, you have an escape key that triggers the special Ratpoison functions. I have set it to the Win key, so if I want to split the screen horizontally, I just press Win key, then "s". Obviously the main advantage is that you'll never need a mouse. I love using the keyboard, and I love smart window management, and I found Ratpoison the most flexible solution. It just does the job, and lets you enjoy your work fully, without messing about with positioning, moving, iconizing, and such...

/marketing

[K.Mandla]

... And there's the answer for me. Thanks. It sounds like something I would enjoy, if I ever took the time to learn it. Like so many things in life. ... :roll: :mrgreen:

[Dimitriid]

The feature sounds nice but you're almost running plain X there, if you like the keyboard a lot it might be fun to just use CLI too.

[finferflu]

Oh yes! that's why I'm digging GNU Screen as well :D
I use X only because I need X applications, such as Firefox, Pidgin (Finch does not work properly for me), The Gimp, Inkscape, and so on. As for the rest, I use CLI whenever I can. For example I'm writing this post in Vim in Screen (thanks to the Mozex add on). I ditched OpenOffice for LaTeX, my music player is ncmpc (a ncurses MPD client), I play games such as Nethack and ADOM, and so on :D
Anyway, what's wrong with plain X? Isn't X supposed to run X applications? That's what it's doing on my machine :D
Lastly, Ratpoison is not difficult to learn, compared to wmii and Ion3 this is easy and fully functional. Also Escape key + ? brings on a dialog with all the keys and functions, so you can consult it anytime.

[ahaslam]

I tried Gutsy64 last week & was stunned with encoding speed being more than twice that of Arch64, here's the findings: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=584925 .

Any idea how this could be so much quicker? Arch is the fastest distro I've come across, but Ubuntu really kicks its 455 here. I've made custom builds of mplayer, lame & xvidcore for Arch, resulting in little/no improvement...

:popcorn:

[ynnhoj]

Sorry, I wasn't following the thread those 2 last days. Anyway, if you're familiar with GNU Screen, you'll get the feel of Ratpoison.

I'll tell you why I dig it. First of all: tiling. Tiling is the best invention ever in the Window Managers world. You don't have to worry about positioning windows, and most of all, you don't have *annoying* overlapping windows. I really don't see the point of having floating windows overlapping each other, I don't think there's any benefit for the user in that. So with Ratpoison you can split the screen in as many regions as you wish, and have the windows share the full screen space, all in a matter of a couple of keystrokes on the keyboard. Also, managing the whole environment is very intuitive for me, you have an escape key that triggers the special Ratpoison functions. I have set it to the Win key, so if I want to split the screen horizontally, I just press Win key, then "s". Obviously the main advantage is that you'll never need a mouse. I love using the keyboard, and I love smart window management, and I found Ratpoison the most flexible solution. It just does the job, and lets you enjoy your work fully, without messing about with positioning, moving, iconizing, and such...

/marketing
i agree 100% with all of this. the only difference is that i use dwm, rather than ratpoison :)

[finferflu]

i agree 100% with all of this. the only difference is that i use dwm, rather than ratpoison :)
Yeah, I used dwm extensively, but the only thing that brought me away, apart from the inability to resize frames the way I wanted, was the lack of the possibility to have multiple layouts on multiple "desktops". Xmonad provides that, but then you miss the dwm "panel", which is fundamental for that type of WM. I've also tried wmii, but you can't resize frames using the keyboard, and I really don't see the point: you got a WM which tries to be mouse-independent, but the only way to resize frames is using a mouse :/
Finally, I have tried Ion3, but I don't see any benefit in the tabbed frames, it's just a lot of confusion for me. So I ended up with Ratpoison, which is not as automated as dwm, but at least I can manipulate windows the way I want :)

[ynnhoj]

Yeah, I used dwm extensively, but the only thing that brought me away, apart from the inability to resize frames the way I wanted, was the lack of the possibility to have multiple layouts on multiple "desktops"
i think the explanation for this is: there really are not multiple desktops in dwm -- there are multiple tags. you only have one "desktop" and you filter which applications are shown using tags. tags and workspaces aren't quite the same thing (though the lines are kind of blurry :)). since you're able to display the contents of a combination of tags at one time, it would become complicated and probably a bit confusing if each tag had its own layout.

[brjoon1021]

Look into FaunOS. It is a more user friendly version of Arch.

[ahaslam]

I found the cause behind the slow xvid encoding. With a simple amendment to the 'makedepends', xvid now performs as it should - better than when under Xubuntu.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39296 ;)

[fwojciec]

I found the cause behind the slow xvid encoding. With a simple amendment to the 'makedepends', xvid now performs as it should - better than when under Xubuntu.
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39296 ;)

I like the way you have handled this: from the discovery of the problem to all the way to finding the solution and filing the bugreport on the flyspray. That's exactly how the system is supposed to work :) Sorry I couldn't help out with it, but I've zero experience with video encoding... Anyways, I hope the devs take care of that issue soon.

[ahaslam]

Thanks, squashing pesky little bugs can be quite satisfying ;)

[Antman]

Look into FaunOS. It is a more user friendly version of Arch.

Hey, thanks for the find... I never heard of that one.

[finferflu]

Ah well, after all my testing and trying, I'm moving back to some "big" DE, it looks like there's no place for the humble Window Managers as all the apps seem to be designed with specific DEs in mind. So I'll go either for Gnome or KDE, or both. I'm on Gnome right now, and I'm installing KDEmod. It's a pity not to find decent applications (meaning, working decently outside a specific DE) for very cool WM such as Ratpoison and dwm :(

[Rumor]

Ah well, after all my testing and trying, I'm moving back to some "big" DE, it looks like there's no place for the humble Window Managers as all the apps seem to be designed with specific DEs in mind. So I'll go either for Gnome or KDE, or both. I'm on Gnome right now, and I'm installing KDEmod. It's a pity not to find decent applications (meaning, working decently outside a specific DE) for very cool WM such as Ratpoison and dwm :(

Did you give fvwm a try? It takes a bit of work to tweak out the way you want it, but the apps I've run on it (firefox, pan, abiword and a few games here and there) all worked properly.

Granted, I used fvwm-crystal and edited the conf files. Call me lazy O:)

[finferflu]

As far as I remember, fvwm is not a tiling WM, so if I have to use a traditional WM, I can stick with Gnome. I'm not so much concerned about speed as much as I am with functionality. So far I'm configuring keyboard shortcuts and I'm being able to use keyboard only even on Gnome :D
What I like is that it keeps the position of the apps even if you reboot, so I can create a layout and use it all the times. Not a so bad compromise.

[K.Mandla]

I'm installing KDEmod.
I tried that out a few months ago and surprisingly liked it. I'm no fan of big DEs, but if I had to pick one I'd probably go with that -- specifically.

[Dimitriid]

Ah well, after all my testing and trying, I'm moving back to some "big" DE, it looks like there's no place for the humble Window Managers as all the apps seem to be designed with specific DEs in mind. So I'll go either for Gnome or KDE, or both. I'm on Gnome right now, and I'm installing KDEmod. It's a pity not to find decent applications (meaning, working decently outside a specific DE) for very cool WM such as Ratpoison and dwm :(

Well its not the early 90s anymore, most people want a full DE :popcorn: But nevertheless I sympathize with you, there are many apps I know I will never find and will have to program myself.

[ynnhoj]

Ah well, after all my testing and trying, I'm moving back to some "big" DE, it looks like there's no place for the humble Window Managers as all the apps seem to be designed with specific DEs in mind. So I'll go either for Gnome or KDE, or both. I'm on Gnome right now, and I'm installing KDEmod. It's a pity not to find decent applications (meaning, working decently outside a specific DE) for very cool WM such as Ratpoison and dwm :(
you could try to find console applications to use as alternatives to the applications that misbehave in tiling environments.. it's not always easy, though :|

[finferflu]

What I have done to start with, was trying to find CLI applications to replace the GUI ones. Apart from the fact that there are not satisfactory ones, for most things today you need a GUI, first over all, for browsing. Images are too important for certain things. The sad thing is that at times even a terminal emulator misbehaves in a tiling environment. I don't know why, but most of the apps seem to completely hate tiling. Perhaps I know why, they were created with floating in mind.
At this point I can only hope they will be able to integrate some intelligent tiling (not like Kwin or Compiz) in the big DEs. What's the point of having all windows tiled (same width) if when you go to resize one it overlaps the other(s)? I don't really get it :P
Who knows, perhaps the guys at KDE will come up with something interesting for the next release, even though my hopes are very feeble.

[bonzodog]

Finerflu;
Have you tried Openbox?
Openbox handles gtk theming,yet has a surprisingly simple layout. All it needs to complete it IMO is someone to write a tiling modification to it, so you can switch between floating or tiling.

I have used a lot of WM's in my day, and openbox even beats XFCE in my opinion.

[RedSquirrel]

I don't use a tiling window manager, but I do like to avoid using the mouse as much as I can.

I use Fluxbox. It can remember size and position of windows, among other attributes.

Fluxbox makes it very easy to setup keyboard shortcuts.

I use these to move windows around when I don't feel like reaching for a mouse:

Control Mod1 KP_4 :MoveLeft 10
Control Mod1 KP_6 :MoveRight 10
Control Mod1 KP_8 :MoveUp 10
Control Mod1 KP_2 :MoveDown 10
I also use (for example)

Control Mod1 KP_3 :SendToWorkspace 3to send the current window to Workspace 3.

Anyway, with highly configurable window managers such as Fluxbox or Openbox, you might be able to setup a comfortable working environment. :)

[K.Mandla]

Finerflu;
Have you tried Openbox?
Openbox handles gtk theming,yet has a surprisingly simple layout. All it needs to complete it IMO is someone to write a tiling modification to it, so you can switch between floating or tiling.

I have used a lot of WM's in my day, and openbox even beats XFCE in my opinion.
+1. \\:D/

By the way, I don't know if this is what you mean by a tiling modification, but would this be of any help?

http://ftp.unixdev.net/pub/debian-udev/pool/main/t/tile/

Should be compilable; debs work perfectly with Ubuntu Openbox.

[finferflu]

As I said (did I say that already? can't remember :P), the Gimp doesn't work for me on OpenBox, it sucks up all my RAM, don't know why.
Anyway, it's not a tiling WM, and I really hope they're gonna do something about tiling, since I like it. But if I have to use traditional windows, I prefer wobbly ones :P

K.Mandla, I have already tried that, if you remember I had also commented on your blog about it... That app tiles windows using equal portions of screen, if you try to resize one window, it ovelaps the others, that's not real tiling to me.

I'm happy, though, that tiling is not my only concern.

[K.Mandla]

K.Mandla, I have already tried that, if you remember I had also commented on your blog about it...
I'm happy, though, that tiling is not my only concern.
Oops, sorry. You're right. I completely forgot about that. ... :oops: :)

[Vansinnesvisan]

I'm getting a bit annoyed with the lack of quality control with Arch. The Don't Panic release had a kernel panic; and it wasn't addressed for awhile - didn't even bother to take down the bad ISOs in the mean time. Recent updates broke most people's xorg and java. DHCPCD doesn't work. And an array of other applications that just don't work right.

There was a post on the official forums where someone politely and respectively opened a debate about the lack of quality control only to be berated by Phrakture.

It is disappointing someone would take things so personally than reevaluate and address some serious issues with Arch. I think I'll go back to Ubuntu. :(

[fwojciec]

I'm getting a bit annoyed with the lack of quality control with Arch. The Don't Panic release had a kernel panic; and it wasn't addressed for awhile - didn't even bother to take down the bad ISOs in the mean time. Recent updates broke most people's xorg and java. DHCPCD doesn't work. And an array of other applications that just don't work right.

There was a post on the official forums where someone politely and respectively opened a debate about the lack of quality control only to be berated by Phrakture.

It is disappointing someone would take things so personally than reevaluate and address some serious issues with Arch. I think I'll go back to Ubuntu. :(

I didn't have any problems - I only had to change some settings in xorg.conf to get the touchpad working, but that was already well documented on the forums, so it only took me a couple of minutes to do it - this wasn't a bug, by the way, just an upstream change. When a bunch of people start posting about the problems they have on a low-traffic forum it is easy to create an impression that "most people" experience problems...

Arch has been extremely stable and reliable for me, but it does require that I am a little hands on about everything, especially major upgrades (it's still more convenient for me than upgrading the whole system every 6 months). In a bleeding edge rolling release system the developers, generally, can only soften the shock of major upgrades - they can't prevent all problems from happening. In the case of recent problems the majority of things that were mentioned on the forums were simply configuration issues (like my problem with synaptic touchpad) or upstream bugs (problems related to specific drivers and so on). I think the only actual bug was the Java issue, and that got taken care of in a matter of hours from it was reported.

I don't agree with your estimation of Arch Linux "quality control", I think what you say is a completely unfair and unwarranted generalization, but everyone has their own experience and is entitled to their own opinion. I would only say that if you want to leave the responsibility for having a working system completely to the developers and if you demand that everything "just works" without messing around with configurations then there are certainly better choices than Arch Linux - that's for sure.

[pelle.k]

At some point, packages just have to be moved to current / extra. They can't stay in testing forever. Besides that, you need people to actually test stuff out first, so the lack of "testers" might be the *real* issue. Xorg 7.3 has been in testing for quite some time now.
Kernel upgrades is always tricky, but there's really nothing one can do about it. Sure, you can patch some stuff, but that's not really how things are done in arch. Kernel upgrades have to be done, and they often break stuff for a lot of people.

You "get the whole package" when you run arch, and that often mean upstream bugs too. If one is looking for long term stability then clearly ubuntu/debian is the better choice.

[david_2001]

I'm getting a bit annoyed with the lack of quality control with Arch. The Don't Panic release had a kernel panic; and it wasn't addressed for awhile - didn't even bother to take down the bad ISOs in the mean time. Recent updates broke most people's xorg and java. DHCPCD doesn't work. And an array of other applications that just don't work right.
Do you have any examples of those applications that just don't work right?
There was a post on the official forums where someone politely and respectively opened a debate about the lack of quality control only to be berated by Phrakture.

It is disappointing someone would take things so personally than reevaluate and address some serious issues with Arch. I think I'll go back to Ubuntu. :(
Do you have a link to that thread? I cannot find it and would like to have a read just out of curiosity.

In the meantime, if you wanted to learn about truly poor QC you should have been using Mandrake 3 or 4 years ago and if you want to know what it's like to experience multiple broken updates just install and run Debian Sid for a few months.

[Rumor]

Do you have a link to that thread? I cannot find it and would like to have a read just out of curiosity.

I may be mistaken, but I believe it is a reference to this thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39551

I'm getting a bit annoyed with the lack of quality control with Arch. The Don't Panic release had a kernel panic; and it wasn't addressed for awhile - didn't even bother to take down the bad ISOs in the mean time. Recent updates broke most people's xorg and java. DHCPCD doesn't work. And an array of other applications that just don't work right.

I have not had any issue with Arch, and I have found the process by which a package gets moved from testing to extra or wherever to be usually quite sound.

I don't know if recent updates broke most user's xorg or not. Mine were not effected. I am running Arch on three systems and none of them have so much as hiccuped.

dhcpcd works fine for me. I have to execute it here at work or I cannot otherwise get on the network. Granted, I may be an exception.

One of the things I appreciate about Arch is that the devs are very active in the community and I have found them to be helpfully responsive to the needs of users.

[crimesaucer]

What I like best about Arch is that it took a bit of effort to make it perfect, and I learned more about my OS, than if I had just installed it without having to edit the config files.


On my first attempt to install Arch, the CD would not boot up... there were many people that couldn't get the 2007.08, and 2007.08-1 install CD's to boot properly... I almost gave up on Arch until I decided to try an older version that people in the forums had recommended since it definitely worked.


I installed Arch Duke using it's base packages, and then upgraded everything to 2007.08-1.


I eventually upgraded to the testing packages to use the new Gnome and Xorg (when they were still in testing), as well as the new xf86-video-intel and the dependencies needed for Compiz Fusion.


I also ran into that Synaptics touchpad issue with the new Xorg, but it was easy to solve when I found the correct thread already discussing it.


After a successful install of almost everything I needed, I screwed my system up and had to do a reinstall (totally my fault).


That was at the time that 2007.08-2 was released, so I burnt that ISO and it installed perfectly... not a single problem. They had fixed the problem of the install CD not being able to boot past a point. They had also changed the way pacman and it's repositories were... so to me, it felt as if they were very concerned with making quality upgrades.


There had been work-arounds and other install methods for 2007.08 and 2007.08-1 even before 2007.08-2, and when they fixed the problem with 2007.08-2 they had also upgraded pacman...


Plus, I'm still seeing things getting fixed with the new Xorg and xf86-video-intel, for example, the last upgrade fixed my "caps lock" light which had not been working.

[Vansinnesvisan]

Do you have a link to that thread? I cannot find it and would like to have a read just out of curiosity.


It looks like the thread was deleted. It was titled Open Letter To The Archlinux Community. I got the first post (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:5j20PjkPiRAJ:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297122+arch+an+open+note+to+ the+community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a) and page 2 (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:5j20PjkPiRAJ:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297122+arch+an+open+note+to+ the+community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a) from google cache. Some developers chimed in with good ideas. I believe there was one about having another repo for older core files. I think that would be better than using /var/cache/pacman as sometimes it needs to get cleaned out from the size it gets - at least for me as I try out a lot of software.

[Vansinnesvisan]

I don't agree with your estimation of Arch Linux "quality control", I think what you say is a completely unfair and unwarranted generalization, but everyone has their own experience and is entitled to their own opinion. I would only say that if you want to leave the responsibility for having a working system completely to the developers and if you demand that everything "just works" without messing around with configurations then there are certainly better choices than Arch Linux - that's for sure.

There is a difference between having to configure .conf files and software leaving unstable and testing repositories early. I have no issue with configuring Arch myself and that level of control is why I choose Arch. I believe you misunderstood my post.

I do not think offering a critique of Arch Linux should be attacked, silence, or shunned. That's no way to run a distribution; or anything for that matter. It seems a lot of people are taking these things personally; rather than taking a look at the current issues and amending them. I suppose that is understandable, but very unfortunate. It bodes poorly for Arch.

[david_2001]

It looks like the thread was deleted. It was titled Open Letter To The Archlinux Community. I got the first post (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:5j20PjkPiRAJ:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297122+arch+an+open+note+to+ the+community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a) and page 2 (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:5j20PjkPiRAJ:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297122+arch+an+open+note+to+ the+community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a) from google cache. Some developers chimed in with good ideas. I believe there was one about having another repo for older core files. I think that would be better than using /var/cache/pacman as sometimes it needs to get cleaned out from the size it gets - at least for me as I try out a lot of software.

For the record, I found three pages in the Google cache, including the original post: Page 1 (http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:roG5aMX41x4J:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fid%3D39551+open+letter+archlinux+c ommunity&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk), Page 2 (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:5j20PjkPiRAJ:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297122+site:bbs.archlinux.or g+Open+Letter+To+The+Archlinux+Community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=uk), Page 3 (http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:N8I_ul84_R8J:bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php%3Fpid%3D297555+Open+Letter+To+The+Ar chlinux+Community&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk).

Now that I know what the fuss is about, I can only say that I went smoothly through that xorg change and hadn't realised that there was a problem. The original post certainly prompted some wise words from iphitus on page 2 but didn't serve any other useful purpose. My experience is also that numbers of forum posts is not a very good metric for the severity of a problem or the merit of a piece of software - if everybody did use posts as an absolute indicator then no Ubuntu user would ever install Envy or Automatix!

[Dimitriid]

Arch is by no means perfect. But this is to be expected cause

1) It expects you to be an "advanced" user or to at least know what you are doing.

2) It stays so up to date you will eventually run into bugs.

Now for many people the update to the new xorg went smoothly. But I bet everybody will eventually have to troubleshoot an issue with arch. In fact my particular issues I did not troubleshoot out of frustration but there were a lot more serious than a xorg issue ( complete and total system instability on my laptop, it would randomly freeze, randomly get stuck on the boot process at any point, different parts of gnome would decide to stop working randomnly. in short everything worked for a while and nothing worked in the long run ) but in my desktop ( which honestly has more Linux friendly hardware ) I haven't given up even after wrestling a bit with Kdemod.

[K.Mandla]

I've had no problems with Don't Panic or anything after (except that the apostrophe in the file name confused my ISO burner application :roll: :mrgreen: ). I hadn't heard much about any issues either, but I think that's because I tend to solve my Arch problems with this thread. I know, it's not exactly sociable, but I have a commitment to the community here. ... :)

[crimesaucer]

I've had no problems with Don't Panic or anything after (except that the apostrophe in the file name confused my ISO burner application :roll: :mrgreen: ). I hadn't heard much about any issues either, but I think that's because I tend to solve my Arch problems with this thread. I know, it's not exactly sociable, but I have a commitment to the community here. ... :)

I spend more time in the Ubuntu Community Forums than I do in any forum.

And when I need to solve an issue with Arch, I use the Arch wiki and I search the Arch forums for other people's threads to solve my problems, usually there is an answer there somewhere.

I even search the Ubuntu forums to reference any Arch question I have since there seems to be so much good Linux info in this forum.

Plus... I have 1000 beans (as of this post!!!!!)... and I want to keep my number up.

[raul_]

I spend more time in the Ubuntu Community Forums than I do in any forum.

And when I need to solve an issue with Arch, I use the Arch wiki and I search the Arch forums for other people's threads to solve my problems, usually there is an answer there somewhere.

I even search the Ubuntu forums to reference any Arch question I have since there seems to be so much good Linux info in this forum.

Plus... I have 1000 beans (as of this post!!!!!)... and I want to keep my number up.

You should try the gentoo forums and wiki :) very helpful

[RedSquirrel]

I installed Arch with the ftp installer and there were no problems. I've since pulled down a number of other packages and I've been keeping up to date. Everything seems to be working very well. (I even have nice-looking fonts, which is something I never got into seriously in Ubuntu.)

The only small issue for me occurred with the upgraded Xorg: it didn't use my DisplaySize setting in xorg.conf. That wasn't hard to fix. ;)

Oh, and my boot time is a little longer than I'd like, but I'll get around to that.

[crimesaucer]

You should try the gentoo forums and wiki :) very helpful

I haven't tried Gentoo yet... but I might check it some day. At the moment I feel that I'm going to be using Arch for a while.


I just went back to using the xfce4 desktop after trying Gnome 2.20 for a month, and my Archlinux and xfce4 is just really fast. Gnome seemed a bit resource heavy with Compiz Fusion running, xfce4 is a bit lighter, and Thunar is quicker than Nautilus (all though uglier).


I miss the nice looks of the new Gnome and it's beautiful panel, but I think I would rather have a really fast computer that still looks good, than a really good looking computer that isn't as fast.

[K.Mandla]

You should try the gentoo forums and wiki :) very helpful
Their wiki is awesome. That's the first place I look for anything Linux-related, if it's not distro-specific. ;)

[crimesaucer]

Their wiki is awesome. That's the first place I look for anything Linux-related, if it's not distro-specific. ;)

Cool, I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.

[mivo]

Well, this thread convinced me to try out Arch on my old desktop. ;) Just for learning more about Linux in general and brushing up my Linux skills a little. Ubuntu works really well for me, so there are relatively few learning opportunities (I'm grateful for the stability, mind you!). I meant to put Hardy on my spare machine, but that doesn't make much sense before the Debian import freeze in December, so I think Arch might be something to tinker and learn with in the meantime.

I'm intrigued by the rolling release system, and I actually like that the distro seems to be more bleeding edge. I also feel that most "normal" distros install quite a bit of stuff that isn't really needed. Good example here is OpenOffice, which I have no real use for (I work mostly with plain text and Abiword or Kword work just fine when/if I need a word processor), but since it is pre-installed with many distros, it tends to be hard to remove (completely remove, that is).

How does Pacman handle dependencies when packages are uninstalled? Are the packages that are no longer needed by any other package also removed? (i.e. similar to how Aptitude works if packages were installed by it?)

[mivo]

Are the packages that are no longer needed by any other package also removed? (i.e. similar to how Aptitude works if packages were installed by it?)

Responding to myself ... I learned about "pacman -Rs package_name", and yes, it does remove dependencies that are no longer used/needed by any other installed package. Hmm, the more I learn about pacman, the more attractive I find it.

It's installing on my other box as we speak. So far it's been not as intimidating as it seemed at first (thanks to the guides!).

[Rumor]

It's installing on my other box as we speak. So far it's been not as intimidating as it seemed at first (thanks to the guides!).

Welcome to Arch! Let us know how you make out.

What desktop environment / window manager are you thinking of using?

[mivo]

Welcome to Arch! Let us know how you make out. What desktop environment / window manager are you thinking of using?

I thought about it for a while, but I think I'll stick with Gnome since that is what I'm familiar with -- and I actually like it, too. I had used KDE a few months ago, but somehow it felt "too busy". Looked at Sabayon's Live CD (uses KDE) a while back and still got the "too busy" feeling. So, Gnome for now. :)

I'm really not an advanced or experienced Linux user, so I don't know if the distro is for me, but it's definitely a challenge and so far fun, and I seem to remember things I had learned when I used FreeBSD a number of years ago. Arch's wiki is well done and informative, too.

[raul_]

Just remember to have a spare pc with internet so you can read the wiki. it's what works best for me, although printing the installation instructions also does the trick

[K.Mandla]

I thought about it for a while, but I think I'll stick with Gnome since that is what I'm familiar with -- and I actually like it, too. I had used KDE a few months ago, but somehow it felt "too busy".
If you feel like experimenting, the KDEmod desktop is really beautiful, without being too busy (or at least I thought so, and I'm an Openbox freak, so that should say something ;) ).

[K.Mandla]

Just remember to have a spare pc with internet so you can read the wiki. it's what works best for me, although printing the installation instructions also does the trick
Huge +1. I never do a reinstall without one machine online -- Arch or otherwise. Nothing ever goes like I expect, and I need to be able to find answers. :???:

[allix]

Huge +1. I never do a reinstall without one machine online -- Arch or otherwise. Nothing ever goes like I expect, and I need to be able to find answers. :???:

The installation-guide from the wiki is available on the cd too. Its in /arch/archdoc.txt if i remember correctly.

My best tip is to install a text-based webbrowser like lynx. If you screw up a config-file, or an update breaks your system, you can always google the problem from the terminal.

[david_2001]

My best tip is to install a text-based webbrowser like lynx. If you screw up a config-file, or an update breaks your system, you can always google the problem from the terminal.
Seconded. That was exactly what I did when I was installing Arch - I realised that it was a good idea when I was doing practice installs in VirtualBox before moving from Ubuntu.

[Dimitriid]

I go with elinks and bitchx myself :popcorn:

[Opeth115]

Hey everyone i just installed arch like 6 days ago and then went to florida. I posted my problem on the arch forums but got absolutely no response so hgere it is:

Well, i just installed arch and want to install compiz fusion so i went to the wiki and followed the isntructions. But, whenever i try to start compiz i get this error:

fusion-icon
* Detected Session: gnome
* Searching for installed applications...
Backend : gconf
Integration : true
Profile : default
Adding plugin decoration (decoration)
Initializing decoration options...done
* NVIDIA on Xorg detected, exporting: __GL_YIELD=NOTHING
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/fusion-icon", line 57, in <module>
from FusionIcon import interface
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/FusionIcon/interface.py", line 143, in <module>
session_bus = dbus.SessionBus()
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/_dbus.py", line 216, in __new__
mainloop=mainloop)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/_dbus.py", line 105, in __new__
bus = BusConnection.__new__(subclass, bus_type, mainloop=mainloop)
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 121, in __new__
bus = cls._new_for_bus(address_or_type, mainloop=mainloop)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.
also, i have to start fusion-icon from root or it wont give me the correct permissions... any ideas?

[fwojciec]

I don't use compiz so I can't really help with your problem - still, the error message says that there is a problem with dbus - do you have dbus daemon enabled in rc.conf?

[raul_]

dbus-launch fusion-icon

try that

[crimesaucer]

Just remember to have a spare pc with internet so you can read the wiki. it's what works best for me, although printing the installation instructions also does the trick

I wrote my install instructions down with pen and paper because I had no access to any other computer...

... over 22 pages of my chicken scratch writing!


After I installed the first time, (and then ruined it - my fault, not Arch's), and then re-installed again the 2nd time... I totally learned the Arch install process without needing to look at my notes other than for a few things on my "xorg.conf" and "rc.conf".


This was a pretty good guide with screenshots that I used: http://www.raiden.net/?cat=&aid=276

[pelle.k]

I don't use compiz so I can't really help with your problem - still, the error message says that there is a problem with dbus - do you have dbus daemon enabled in rc.conf?
Yeah, that, and how exatly do you run your gnome session? Through gdm?

[RedSquirrel]

Hmm, the more I learn about pacman, the more attractive I find it.

++

One feature I really like is that pacman often provides informative messages after it installs the packages.

For example, with the change to mlocate, it reminds users to run 'updatedb', and for gimp, it reminds users to look into gutenprint for printing. These sorts of messages are very helpful to new users and serve very well as reminders for experienced users. Great stuff.

[crimesaucer]

++

One feature I really like is that pacman often provides informative messages after it installs the packages.

For example, with the change to mlocate, it reminds users to run 'updatedb', and for gimp, it reminds users to look into gutenprint for printing. These sorts of messages are very helpful to new users and serve very well as reminders for experienced users. Great stuff.

Yes, pacman is a very nice package manager.

I find that maiking packages from the AUR is so much easier than any other time that I built packages with ./configure make and make install, or whatever the README and INSTALL files said to do.

With pacman and the AUR, just one simple "makepkg -s" command, and then the install command of "pacman -U package.0.1-i686-.pkg.tar.gz" and everything is all done...

[K.Mandla]

Another vote for pacman. I actually prefer it to aptitude. I love being able to feed it a local package and have it install dependencies across the Internet. For some reason I always end up doing that in two steps with Ubuntu -- dpkg -i and then apt-get install -f. ...

It's a trivial difference, but for some reason it highlights Arch's simplicity and elegance -- for me, at least.

[mivo]

I got Arch installed just fine, and it was actually fun, but I ran into something that I am confused about: After I had Gnome running, I wanted to install Compiz-Fusion, but I could not find it in the repository (I went to the Package Search (http://www.archlinux.org/packages/search/)). In the forum I see plenty of people who use Compiz-Fusion in Arch, so there is probably another way. Any pointers to where I should look? :)

[afonic]

Wiki is your friend!

There are two packged versions of Compiz-Fusion, one in the community repository and one in a third party repo that has the latest git version.

See:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compiz_fusion
and
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compiz_Fusion_Git

I use the Git version on Gnome and it works great.

[mivo]

Thank you. :) I see that the search doesn't consider the community repo (I'll have to figure out how to search this, then).

[Acid7711]

It's really great but a little complex and difficult to use. My rating of Archlinux is 8/10. Now, I am getting ready to try Gentoo.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I honestly don't want to come off as an ***, but if you have trouble with Arch, please do yourself a favor and stay away from Gentoo. I've been a LONG time supporter of Arch, coming from Gentoo from years of use before that. Just speaking from personal experience. :)

I LOVE Arch, it's by far my favorite distro, but there are certain things that need to be worked out, thus my dual booting with Arch/Ubuntu. I'm not here to bash or be an ***, just to help and offer my opinion like everyone else. Arch isn't meant for the lightharded, although after years of Gentoo, I find it extremely easy to use.


Once I found Arch, I basically ditched all other distros..... The only reason I'm even on Ubuntu is because of a newer xorg bug that's driving me crazy, and I'm far too lazy at this point to go compiling a bunch of stuff to fix it with an older version ;) Best of luck with whatever you choose. Either way, Arch is a solid distro, and given time you'll work your way through it and love it. Pacman truly is astounding. I love portage, aside from the compiling (some would call it a plus) it's the #1 tool for me, but Pacman comes in second, even toping portage in areas. I'm a HUGE fan and supporter of rolling-release distros and I love bleeding edge software, it's the perfect distro for me.

[epimer]

Thank you. :) I see that the search doesn't consider the community repo (I'll have to figure out how to search this, then).

pacman -Ss packagename

[afonic]

Thank you. :) I see that the search doesn't consider the community repo (I'll have to figure out how to search this, then).

You should uncomment the entries in /etc/pacman.conf to include community.

Have a look at:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman

[Opeth115]

Hey thanks for teh responses... I tried the dbus-launch fusion-icon and compi actually starts now but no emerald is available and no icon appears in the tray.

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond alsa gdm hal fam dbus)

that's my daemons line in rc.conf and i do start gnome through gdm

[david_2001]

Hey thanks for teh responses... I tried the dbus-launch fusion-icon and compi actually starts now but no emerald is available and no icon appears in the tray.

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond alsa gdm hal fam dbus)

that's my daemons line in rc.conf and i do start gnome through gdm
My suggestion would be to try something like this is rc.conf:
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond alsa hal fam gdm)
I think that the daemons get executed in list order from left to right, so it's probably a good idea to start gdm after the services that it might want to use. Also there's a note somewhere in the wiki about not having both dbus and hal in the list of daemons - hal will start dbus if it's needed. Otherwise, I'm not sure what's causing your problems. I installed compiz fusion from source using the AUR PKGBUILDs - mostly for the practice because I'm new to the way of Arch - and it worked just fine.

[handy]

I installed Arch a month ago & everything went perfectly well until it was time to do the first system update & a worse dependency hell than I ever could have imagined unleashed itself. So I through my hands up in the air & reinstalled Sabayon.

I know, I took the easy way out. :-)

[pelle.k]

I installed Arch a month ago & everything went perfectly well until it was time to do the first system update & a worse dependency hell than I ever could have imagined unleashed itself. So I through my hands up in the air & reinstalled Sabayon.

I know, I took the easy way out. :-)

My answer will make me look like a total jerk, i know. But i really have to say that in my two years using arch, i have *never* encountered a single dependency error. Did you miss the switch from current to core, or did you add a testing/unofficial repo? i.e. human error?

[mivo]

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compiz_fusion
and
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compiz_Fusion_Git

What is the difference between the Git version of Compiz Fusion and the "vanilla" version? I looked at the pages, but the difference wasn't explained. (It's not important for my testing box, but I might at some point put Arch on my regular desktop).

[pelle.k]

Well, git, svn, cvs are just versioning systems and that often mean development versions, i.e. bleeding edge.

[Acid7711]

Hey thanks for teh responses... I tried the dbus-launch fusion-icon and compi actually starts now but no emerald is available and no icon appears in the tray.

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network netfs crond alsa gdm hal fam dbus)

that's my daemons line in rc.conf and i do start gnome through gdm

If you're using the GIT version of it, then it's split into two, fusion-icon (has to be run first), and fusion-icon-tray. If you're using the community version, fusion-icon should be enough. Not sure what one you're using.

[Acid7711]

I installed Arch a month ago & everything went perfectly well until it was time to do the first system update & a worse dependency hell than I ever could have imagined unleashed itself. So I through my hands up in the air & reinstalled Sabayon.

I know, I took the easy way out. :-)

I also in my years of using Arch have never had a single dependency problem, and I've always enabled the testing repo and pulled in as much bleeding edge stuff as I could through ABS.

[ssmithy]

Hi all! I installed Arch bout a month ago and I find myself loving it more every day. I even used K.Mandla's blog howto (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/howto-shut-down-linux-from-the-openbox-right-click-menu/) (thanks, btw!) to set up Openbox to shutdown using the right-click menu.

I'm still mucking through a few things but overall my Linux knowledge has really beefed up over the last few weeks. And the AUR is a great feature. Simple and powerful.

[mivo]

Speaking of Compiz Fusion -- I installed the Git version now, added "compiz fusion" to the autostart programs (the eye as well), and it does start and works (cube), but none of my windows have title bars now. metacity --replace & fixes that, but then Compiz Fusion is no longer running. :)

[fwojciec]

I even used K.Mandla's blog howto (http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/howto-shut-down-linux-from-the-openbox-right-click-menu/) (thanks, btw!) to set up Openbox to shutdown using the right-click menu.

Here is my take on the idea K.Mandla's howto describes... One thing I've found annoying about having the "halt" command called directly from the OB menu was that occasionally, especially when using my laptop which has a touchpad that can work a bit erratically at times, I would accidentally choose it from the menu while trying to select something else - if that happens all windows instantly shut down which, obviously, makes you loose unsaved work and such...

So I wanted to have "Shutdown" in OB menu call a dialog window that would let me confirm if I really wanted to shutdown or not. This can be achieved by calling a little bash script instead of the halt command from the OB menu. Here is a version of the script I use (it requires installing "zenity" package):
#!/bin/bash
if zenity --question --title="Shutdown the Computer" --text="Are you sure you want to shutdown the computer?" ; then
sudo /sbin/halt
fi
This script must be made executable with chmod +x before it will work; also the halt command must be in the sudoers file like K.Mandla's howto describes.
Then it's just the matter of creating a menu item that will call the script, or one could also bind it to a key combination which works great and is safe - because you will be asked for a confirmation before anything drastic happens ;)

I also use similar scripts for suspending, hibernating and rebooting - it should be easy to use the script as a template and revise it to perform whatever function you'd like to confirm before executing.

[ssmithy]

Thanks for posting this. Using a script as you've described sounds like a wonderful idea! I'm going to try this out later tonight.

[crimesaucer]

Speaking of Compiz Fusion -- I installed the Git version now, added "compiz fusion" to the autostart programs (the eye as well), and it does start and works (cube), but none of my windows have title bars now. metacity --replace & fixes that, but then Compiz Fusion is no longer running. :)

For Compiz Fusion's emerald window themes:

emerald --repalce &

also, the real way to do it is to goto your menu's:

Settings-->--Compiz Fusion Icon and then click it.

Then select Emerald as your preferred window borders. That should make Emerald work when you run the "fusion-icon" command from either the Alt+f2 or from the command from the Autostarted Applications.

[finferflu]

For Compiz Fusion's emerald window themes:

emerald --repalce &

also, the real way to do it is to goto your menu's:

Settings-->--Compiz Fusion Icon and then click it.

Then select Emerald as your preferred window borders. That should make Emerald work when you run the "fusion-icon" command from either the Alt+f2 or from the command from the Autostarted Applications.
ah! finally, I've been running Emerald from a terminal every time, since I had no window borders. Let's see if this does the trick now :D

[RedSquirrel]

Yes, pacman is a very nice package manager.

I find that maiking packages from the AUR is so much easier than any other time that I built packages with ./configure make and make install, or whatever the README and INSTALL files said to do.

With pacman and the AUR, just one simple "makepkg -s" command, and then the install command of "pacman -U package.0.1-i686-.pkg.tar.gz" and everything is all done...

I had a bit of time today so I setup a PKGBUILD file which I use together with versionpkg to pull down the latest Fluxbox SVN code and build a package. Now that everything is in place, simply running 'versionpkg' in my build directory takes care of everything. Remarkably easy. (versionpkg does have a handful of options which may come in handy from time to time.)



Another vote for pacman. I actually prefer it to aptitude. I love being able to feed it a local package and have it install dependencies across the Internet. For some reason I always end up doing that in two steps with Ubuntu -- dpkg -i and then apt-get install -f. ...

It's a trivial difference, but for some reason it highlights Arch's simplicity and elegance -- for me, at least.

I didn't use aptitude all that much on Ubuntu. I used dpkg, apt-get, apt-cache, apt-mark,... so it's a big step up for me in terms of convenience to use one package manager command (pacman) for almost everything (installing, removing, querying, etc.).

Arch is looking better (to me) every day. :)

[mivo]

also, the real way to do it is to goto your menu's: Settings-->--Compiz Fusion Icon and then click it. Then select Emerald as your preferred window borders.

Thanks! That worked wonderfully. Turned out to be easier than I feared. :) Only a bit more involved than clicking "desktop effects" in Ubuntu, but there is also more choice now. (the 3D windows, Atlantis plugin, etc.)

[PurposeOfReason]

Hey, I have a quick question regarding wireless before I go out and get a new laptop. I've used arch before but never with wireless, this laptop comes with an Intel 4965 AGN wireless card. If I read the wiki right, I should just be able to do a 'pacman -S iwlwifi iwlwifi-4965-ucode' and then throw in 'ipw3945d' into the /etc/rc.conf file under the Daemons, preferably at the beginning and I should be all set. Then after that it's just up to me to play with the settings to choose networks and that's all I don't really understand with the wiki; probably because I just browsed it and am too tired. But that should be it, right? If anyone wants to share helpful hints on roaming and getting all that, I'm all ears. :) It'll probably be a lot easier with the computer actually in front of me.

[raul_]

iwl and ipw are different modules. I just load my iwl3945 module and it's good to go

[pelle.k]

iwl and ipw are different modules. I just load my iwl3945 module and it's good to go

I think you might be a bit tired too ;)
The iwl4965 module (+ firmware) is the module he needs (unless i missed something obvious). I had this card in a laptop i had (for two weeks), and the native driver was a bit temperamental. I had to manually bring it up, and trick it to associate with the AP by listing networks and stuff though...
I ended up using the windows driver (not the most recent) with ndiswrapper instead. But, from what i see, the native driver is updated quite often ATM, so maybe you'll have better luck than me.

the ipw3945 is, to my knowing, not something you need with this setup, because that is a whole other card...

[raul_]

That's what I mean. with the iwl module you don't need the ipw daemon running

[mivo]

I didn't mean to do it this soon, but I now installed Arch on my production desktop. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the first distro that didn't choke on the hardware or require special boot options (or throw errors while booting). I'll spend all day tomorrow customizing stuff and tweaking fonts (I hope I can reproduce Ubuntu's excellent font rendering), and it is all your guys' fault! ;) My boot-up time got cut into half ...

[david_2001]

I didn't mean to do it this soon, but I now installed Arch on my production desktop. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the first distro that didn't choke on the hardware or require special boot options (or throw errors while booting). I'll spend all day tomorrow customizing stuff and tweaking fonts (I hope I can reproduce Ubuntu's excellent font rendering), and it is all your guys' fault! ;) My boot-up time got cut into half ...
Font rendering could easily be worse than what I got after no particular effort at all.

[pelle.k]

I'm either very lucky, or maybe i need glasses, because i've never even touched those font rendering settings, ever, in neither arch *or* ubuntu. I never noticed any big difference, but still, i've seen screenshots comparing diffrent distros, and the thing i react to is that people seem to think the "other" screenshot is better than the "first" (using different font rendering settings obviously), but from my perspective it's often the other way around. (the font rendering on the screenshots).
I think it depends largely on what monitor you've got, and not if the rendering is "good" or not. Does it "fit" your particular display setup that is.

[Rumor]

I didn't mean to do it this soon, but I now installed Arch on my production desktop. Surprisingly, it turned out to be the first distro that didn't choke on the hardware or require special boot options (or throw errors while booting). I'll spend all day tomorrow customizing stuff and tweaking fonts (I hope I can reproduce Ubuntu's excellent font rendering), and it is all your guys' fault! ;) My boot-up time got cut into half ...

I always install the liberation fonts package and the ms-ttf package. From there I use the gnome theme panel to choose the default application fonts. The liberation fonts are quite nice, IMO.
pacman -S ttf-liberation ttf-ms-fonts

[crimesaucer]

I'm either very lucky, or maybe i need glasses, because i've never even touched those font rendering settings, ever, in neither arch *or* ubuntu. I never noticed any big difference, but still, i've seen screenshots comparing diffrent distros, and the thing i react to is that people seem to think the "other" screenshot is better than the "first" (using different font rendering settings obviously), but from my perspective it's often the other way around. (the font rendering on the screenshots).
I think it depends largely on what monitor you've got, and not if the rendering is "good" or not. Does it "fit" your particular display setup that is.

Using this "fonts.conf" file in my /home/folder:


<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
<match target="font">
<edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
<bool>true</bool>
</edit>
</match>
</fontconfig>


My fonts look much better in apps like the mousepad and the terminal. The same was true for me with xubuntu.


With Archlinux, my fonts were very nice using the regular font settings in both Gnome and Xfce4. But this added .conf file fixes the written text in my mousepad app.

[regomodo]

Grr. I've run into a major roadblock with Arch recently. Just got a heap of new bits and Arch64 doesn't want to play with it. No matter what i try i get kernel panics. I'll list my new hardware just incase peeps know any issus with them and Arch. There shouldn't be as Kubuntu64 seems to work well with my setup

Intel C2D e6750
nvidia 8800gt
oztech 4GB ddr800 ram
xfx nvidia 680i sli lt motherboard

Ubuntu cd refused to boot up so i thought sod it and tried Kubuntu. So far i'm impressed with the hardware detected including my logitech cordless trackman and it's the first ever OS/distro to get my screen's resolution correct !
So far Kubuntu is nice but i want Arch's goodness.

[mindtrick]

W00t! After playing with Slackware for a week, I am back to Arch to stay. It makes you appreciate Arch more :mrgreen:

[Rumor]

Intel C2D e6750
nvidia 8800gt
oztech 4GB ddr800 ram
xfx nvidia 680i sli lt motherboard


Well, I know the nVidia card isn't the issue as I have one too. I've also got 4 gigs of ram as well. I wouldn't think one brand would be much different than any other. My processor is a quad core and the motherboard is made by Gigabyte.

Have you tried re-installing the kernel from the CD and then updating to current?

[afonic]

Grr. I've run into a major roadblock with Arch recently. Just got a heap of new bits and Arch64 doesn't want to play with it. No matter what i try i get kernel panics. I'll list my new hardware just incase peeps know any issus with them and Arch. There shouldn't be as Kubuntu64 seems to work well with my setup

Intel C2D e6750
nvidia 8800gt
oztech 4GB ddr800 ram
xfx nvidia 680i sli lt motherboard

Ubuntu cd refused to boot up so i thought sod it and tried Kubuntu. So far i'm impressed with the hardware detected including my logitech cordless trackman and it's the first ever OS/distro to get my screen's resolution correct !
So far Kubuntu is nice but i want Arch's goodness.

Can you start with the Fallback kernel?

There was an issue with one of the ISO releases recently which generated kernel panics. The solution is to boot the Fallback kernel (which does work) and run "mkinitcpio -p kernel26" as root.

[mivo]

I'm either very lucky, or maybe i need glasses, because i've never even touched those font rendering settings, ever, in neither arch *or* ubuntu. [...] I think it depends largely on what monitor you've got, and not if the rendering is "good" or not. Does it "fit" your particular display setup that is.

The fonts in Ubuntu, Fedora and Arch look different to me on the same machine, same monitor (22" LCD), same video card and with the same font settings. :-k It's really curious. With different settings I got the fonts to look superb in Arch now, though! Only problem child is Firefox, which renders web page fonts noticeably different than Epiphany, even though both use the Gecko engine. Even if I force both to use the same local fonts (rather than the web page's ones), they still produce different results. I actually use Epiphany now, which runs smoother and looks better. Just had to find out how you can actually configure it, since the preferences dialog offered very little in the way of options. ;)

Compiz-Fusion and AWN are running now as well, and the system is still snappier. Still have some smaller issues like Evolution ignoring aspell and not offering spellchecking (all other apps do), and I have yet to install a 32-bit alternate browser for "real" Java plugins (using arch64 here). But there's something in AUR. AUR, by the way, I am rapidly falling in love with.

[regomodo]

Can you start with the Fallback kernel?

There was an issue with one of the ISO releases recently which generated kernel panics. The solution is to boot the Fallback kernel (which does work) and run "mkinitcpio -p kernel26" as root.

On the 1st install attempt, no. I forgot to check other times as i changed from root being xfs to ext3. It was a vain attempt to figure out what was going on.

I'm going to try it again later with a different cd as i've been stung in the past with a dodgy burn (segfaults), which i never thought was possible until once with Arch

[Frak]

Does anybody else besides me use sudo in arch?
echo 'username ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers

[pelle.k]

I'm going to try it again later with a different cd as i've been stung in the past with a dodgy burn (segfaults), which i never thought was possible until once with Arch
Try the new installation cd. It isn't released yet, but you can still get it;
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=38964

Does anybody else besides me use sudo in arch?
Since i always run makepkg as a regular user (usesudo) to get dependencies installed, i have to install sudo.
Doing stuff like that as root is not a very bright idea...

[crimesaucer]

Try the new installation cd. It isn't released yet, but you can still get it;
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=38964


Since i always run makepkg as a regular user (usesudo) to get dependencies installed, i have to install sudo.
Doing stuff like that as root is not a very bright idea...

Certain scripts like the "install-swiftfox.sh" shell script have the sudo command in it. Plus, I needed to had to add a line to my sudoers file to be able to restart and shutdown from within the xfce4 desktop.

username ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/lib/xfce4/xfsm-shutdown-helper

[Rumor]

Does anybody else besides me use sudo in arch?

Yep, I use it. Usually only for reboot command or updatedb.

[regomodo]

Does anybody else besides me use sudo in arch?
echo 'username ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers

yep. i use it

[Opeth115]

Im using kdemod and it just wont recognize that i have java installed... Is there something i have to do specially? I installed it with pacman -S jre and it didn't recognize it so i went and got the tarbell from the website and isntalled it from that and it still doesn't recognize it...

Im trying to get frostwire to work and am having some trouble with it too it says i don't have the latest java which i do because i jsut installed it from the website...

[Frak]

Im using kdemod and it just wont recognize that i have java installed... Is there something i have to do specially? I installed it with pacman -S jre and it didn't recognize it so i went and got the tarbell from the website and isntalled it from that and it still doesn't recognize it...

Im trying to get frostwire to work and am having some trouble with it too it says i don't have the latest java which i do because i jsut installed it from the website...
You'll probably have to update the script that executes it to lead it to the correct java path in /opt/

[david_2001]

yep. i use it

Does anybody else besides me use sudo in arch?
echo 'username ALL=(ALL) ALL' >> /etc/sudoers
I use it too.

[Opeth115]

You'll probably have to update the script that executes it to lead it to the correct java path in /opt/

how owuld i go about doing that? It doesn't even say i have java installed if i do a:

java -version

[raul_]

I use it too.

I think everybody does

[david_2001]

I think everybody does
There's no reason why not. I've disabled the root account on mine as well.

[afonic]

how owuld i go about doing that? It doesn't even say i have java installed if i do a:

java -version
Thats because it is not installed in /usr/bin.

See:
[afonic@afonic-arch ~]$ /opt/java/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_03-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 1.6.0_03-b05, mixed mode)
[afonic@afonic-arch ~]$

[Opeth115]

Thats because it is not installed in /usr/bin.

See:
ok well i did this

[root@Matt's-Room matt]# /opt/java/jre/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_03-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 1.6.0_03-b05, mixed mode)


but would i get frostwire to use jave there? do i jsut move it to /usr/bin?
also how would i get konqueror to see it as being there?

[Frak]

ok well i did this

[root@Matt's-Room matt]# /opt/java/jre/bin/java -version
java version "1.6.0_03"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_03-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Server VM (build 1.6.0_03-b05, mixed mode)


but would i get frostwire to use jave there? do i jsut move it to /usr/bin?
also how would i get konqueror to see it as being there?
You need to add /opt/ to your $PATH
PATH=$PATH:/opt/

EDIT
Forgot that changes aren't saved, so you'll have to add :/opt/ to your ~/.bashrc file

[Opeth115]

You need to add /opt/ to your $PATH
PATH=$PATH:/opt/

All i do is just put that command in the terminal? I did that and it still does the same thing... Srry for sounding so noobish im still kinda new to this...

[finferflu]

You could also try to symlink it to /usr/bin, it should work:

ln -s /opt/java/jre/bin/java /usr/bin/java

I'm not sure this is the optimal solution, though...

[Opeth115]

thanks for that finforflu it worked! and thank you frak also!

im still looking for a solution to my compiz errors though... The arch forums are really slow compared to here lol.

i get this error when trying to launch fusion-icon in kdemod

dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: Failed to execute dbus-launch to autolaunch D-Bus session

here is my daemons line in my /etc/rc/conf

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal network fam netfs crond alsa)

if i do a dbus-launch fusion-icon compiz starts and i ge tthe effects but no windowborders and no icon in the tray...

any ideas?

[pelle.k]

you *need* to run your session with dbus. This is normally done automatically with kdm/gdm. How do you start kde?

[Frak]

you *need* to run your session with dbus. This is normally done automatically with kdm/gdm. How do you start kde?
Did you add kdm to your daemons list?

[Opeth115]

Did you add kdm to your daemons list?

i start my sessions with startx, is there a way to do it without kdm?

[Frak]

i start my sessions with startx, is there a way to do it without kdm?
Why not just let the daemon do everything for you?