Is Arch Linux for you?

[COMECON]

Hi!
I just finally installed Arch Linux... After a year of decisions, I finally did it! After installing it on VM, where all looks gorgeous, a few times, I decided it! I removed Fedora, which I installed this week-end (poor Fedora), and I took 4 hours installing, configuring, doing other stuff and doing homework with it.
It's very nice to see that you can install a system without a graphical interface, and install a DE later (such as XFCE, as I did). But... according to the KISS definition, Arch has nothing. I thought it wasn't a problem, as you can just do pacman -S packagename and install something, like pacman -S firefox. But... Not only happened with applications, of course. I stayed... 2 hours of those 4 to configure the WiFi network and doing odd scripts for systemd, and discovering that neither NetworkManager nor Wicd worked, I saw another problem... The sound, how the hell I configure the sound. And the printer. And the multimedia keys. And all!
It's not a problem if you have a lot of time, and it's very... educational, I probably learnt more this afternoon that in the last month. But I don't have a lot of time, and I can't just... doing configure things all the time, I have work to do!
So, for me, I think it's not for me! I like its KISS philosophy, and specially the rolling release, but I preffer more things out-of-the-box. I like it, and I'll keep it on my sda8 partition (thanks to god I divided a 30GB partition where Fedora was into 2 15GB partitions) and I'll install some other thing in the other. And, of course, I'll keep Ubuntu 12.04 as my main system
What about you? Have you tried Arch? Did you like it?

[Tibuda]

I have been an Arch users for years, and yes I feel your pain.

A bare minimal system is not an "advantage" of Arch, as you can do the same thing with ubuntu minimal disk. Their real advantage is the rolling release packages. They are not even too lightweight, as pacman packages are very bloated.

I'd like Arch to have some pre-installed DE's or WM's isos, but they are going the opposite way and dropped AIF! There are some nice projects for a preinstalled Arch like Chakra, ArchBang and Manjaro.

[LinuxMan92]

I've never been that impressed with it. It lets you set up everything from scratch but finding drivers can be a pain. To me the trade off between speed/time it takes to set everything up isn't worth it.

[cecilpierce]

I like Chakra but it has its own repos and is only KDE.
Manjaro is the best arch ive tried so far...

[snowpine]

I've tried Arch a few times but haven't been impressed by the "rolling release" style of updates.

[smellyman]

I have run Arch on all my systems for years. After installing core and KDE, 99% of it is up and running.

everytime I try another distro and find their packages already way behind Arch I have to stay with Arch.

What drivers are a pain to find? because if it isn't in the Arch repos or AUR it probably doesn't exist.

[LiamOS]

I never liked Arch, but I can understand why people might.
I only tried installing it briefly, when a friend suggested it. At that point, I'd used Gentoo briefly, and the entire installation and initial configuration made me

Arch seems to make half of your decisions for you, and leave the rest phenomenally open, which just seems a bit baffling. It gives you a preconfigured kernel, no choice of init system(But we all wanted systemd anyway ), no method of controlling optional parts of programs... And then things break when you -Syu. I suppose that this is ideal to some; you get a lot of system control without having to delve into anything low level.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by Gentoo.

[Moose]

It took you a year to decide whether or not to install Arch on VM Ware? It sounds like your new to Linux.

[Chdslv]

I have been an Arch users for years, and yes I feel your pain.

A bare minimal system is not an "advantage" of Arch, as you can do the same thing with ubuntu minimal disk. Their real advantage is the rolling release packages. They are not even too lightweight, as pacman packages are very bloated.

I'd like Arch to have some pre-installed DE's or WM's isos, but they are going the opposite way and dropped AIF! There are some nice projects for a preinstalled Arch like Chakra, ArchBang and Manjaro.

No, Arch is not for me, when there is a mini.iso from Ubuntu. Arch doesn't even have maintainers for their applications, and the majority of them are not supported community ones. Ubuntu also has ppas, but the Luanchpad is owned and maintained by Cannonical, and very rarely a ppa broke.

Archbang's original developer had also left the project. If you need a working distro derived from Archbang, even though that distro's developer won't say it, try Bridge Linux.

Arch is an operating system, not a distribution. It becomes a distribution, when you install the base and work your day and nerves with it.

I have built it from scratch, just to find out how it works, and whether it is that super. it works, but it breaks too. For the last 5 months, the Arch devs had released it five times. There is something definitely wrong with their top guys and repos.

When you can do anything with the Ubuntu mini.iso, why bother with unsure future OSs...

Even, if you take any Oneiric, Precise based Ubuntu-clone, or even further down Natty-based, you can bring it all the way to Raring and have a rolling distro!

Check my other posts.

Good day!

[MadmanRB]

Well if I ever become a computer super coder it might be.
Seriously I think arch is needlessly complex to install, you have to read so much, print so much and learn so much just to install a base system, man if I wanted this kind of complexity I would try linux from scratch.
And at least linux for scratch has an excuse, its purpose is right in the title for petes sake, its a hard coders distribution.
And for those who may say "well you are just too stupid"
No, I am just lazy, I have better things to do then hardcode in hexidecimal just to install just a basic windowed interface.
Heck I did install debian pure more then once, the only reason why I dont use it on a constant basis is again all down to personal laziness.