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Thread: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

  1. #21
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by PsychoDevon View Post
    I am considering switching from Mint/Ubuntu to Arch.

    Today, I tried out openSUSE, and realize for the final time that KDE is NOT for me. I've considered Arch for a couple of days now, and here are the reasons why:

    *When including the AUR, a MASSIVE collection of repository packages that are easy to install.

    *A rolling release system, which in my opinion seems very appealing

    *I only install what I WANT. Not what comes with it.



    But, with all of this in my mind, I would really like to see those who switched to Arch and see what they say.


    So, here is what I want you to say in your reply:


    1) What OS you used before Arch.

    2) What were your initial impressions.

    3) After installation, is using it easy-to-use day-to-day?

    4) Are you happy using it.


    Those questions are of course for Arch users only. If you don't use Arch, feel free to say what you think of Arch.
    Why do you dislike KDE? If you dislike KDE, why not use GNOME? I think both Ubuntu and openSUSE are good GNOME distributions.

  2. #22
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    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Shining Arcanine View Post
    Why do you dislike KDE? If you dislike KDE, why not use GNOME? I think both Ubuntu and openSUSE are good GNOME distributions.

    I do use GNOME by default in most of my distro's, it's just that I've only used KDE in Kubuntu, and quite honestly, Ubuntu wasn't made for KDE in mind as much as openSUSE was. So, I figured I'd give it a shot...and the shot failed. lol.


    Edit:

    But to answer your question, I prefer GNOME by default to KDE by default. KDE definitely has very different features than GNOME in terms of interface and design...but, I prefer how GNOME handles those opposed to KDE.
    Last edited by PsychoDevon; June 8th, 2010 at 06:17 AM.

  3. #23
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by PsychoDevon View Post
    Thanks everyone

    I am going to try it on a virtualbox right now.


    One question I have: I have followed numerous walkthroughs of installing Arch, and I have to ask:

    AT WHAT POINT DO I NAME MY USER ACCOUNT!?!?!?

    I have seen where you set your root password and where you change your hostname....but is your hostname your username?
    http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/...d_setup_groups

  4. #24
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by PsychoDevon View Post
    Thanks everyone

    I am going to try it on a virtualbox right now.


    One question I have: I have followed numerous walkthroughs of installing Arch, and I have to ask:

    AT WHAT POINT DO I NAME MY USER ACCOUNT!?!?!?

    I have seen where you set your root password and where you change your hostname....but is your hostname your username?
    Follow the Beginners' Guide to the letter. It will tell you everything you need to know, unless you are one of the becoming more rare everyday people that have a problem with wireless networking.

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

  5. #25
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    Ubuntu 15.10 Wily Werewolf

    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by handy View Post
    Follow the Beginners' Guide to the letter. It will tell you everything you need to know, unless you are one of the becoming more rare everyday people that have a problem with wireless networking.

    http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide
    Pffft. We don't need to stinkin' Beginners' Guide.

    By the way, your Beginner's Guide neglects to tell the user that before using 'adduser', they ought to review (and modify, if necessary) the defaults used by adduser (found in /etc/login.defs normally), and also edit the (hidden) default user dot-file templates in /etc/skel.
    Last edited by BoneKracker; June 8th, 2010 at 07:30 AM.
    Favorite man page quote: "The backreference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring previously matched by the nth parenthesized subexpression of the regular expression." [excerpt from grep(1)]

  6. #26
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by BoneKracker View Post
    Pffft. We don't need to stinkin' Beginners' Guide.

    By the way, your Beginner's Guide neglects to tell the user that before using 'adduser', they ought to review (and modify, if necessary) the defaults used by adduser (found in /etc/login.defs normally), and also edit the (hidden) default user dot-file templates in /etc/skel.


    The easiest most trouble free first installs happen for those that follow the Beginner's Guide. If you are a distro wiz, then you can just use the Official Installation Guide to gather an understanding about how Arch does its thing.

    When I did my first install I had both of them open in tabs in Firefox on my 2nd machine, not that that was required, I just wanted to understand as much about what I was doing as I could. I also bounced around the Arch wiki whilst installing as well, for the same reason.

    Not necessity, personal choice.

    Because Arch does things differently, the Beginners Guide is a great interpreter for those of us who aren't elite.

    Whatever the guide requires should be in it by now, as the guide is incredibly well maintained. It is the prime tool that gives new Arch users an opportunity to try Arch in the first place. Many if not most of whom come from the Ubuntu realm & are looking for more control of their system.

  7. #27
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by handy View Post
    Because Arch does things differently, the Beginners Guide is a great interpreter for those of us who aren't elite.

    Whatever the guide requires should be in it by now, as the guide is incredibly well maintained. It is the prime tool that gives new Arch users an opportunity to try Arch in the first place. Many if not most of whom come from the Ubuntu realm & are looking for more control of their system.
    Yeah, I was only kidding. It looks like a really good document.
    Favorite man page quote: "The backreference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring previously matched by the nth parenthesized subexpression of the regular expression." [excerpt from grep(1)]

  8. #28
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by PsychoDevon View Post

    1) What OS you used before Arch.

    2) What were your initial impressions.

    3) After installation, is using it easy-to-use day-to-day?

    4) Are you happy using it.


    Those questions are of course for Arch users only. If you don't use Arch, feel free to say what you think of Arch.
    1) Mostly Ubuntu and Fedora, but also Opensuse for some time.
    2) I liked the clarity of the system and the documentation. Usually you can fix problems very fast.
    3) Yes it is - once in a while, you change a configuration file, but that's it. Sometimes there are massive updates, when elementary libs (like libpng) are updated. I was thinking about installing it on other PCs as well, but in the end I couldn't be bothered to do the same work several times. Problems arise when a program you hardly use breaks and you notice it too late to get some work done. This is less likely with distros like Ubuntu, although it can happen as well. I especially liked the very fast package management.
    4) I've been happy using it, and consider to return to it at some point, possibly with Gnome 3. I've learned a lot.

    Maybe the biggest drawback is security - no signed packages, no SELinux or Apparmor by default, no automatic security updates. You can install SELinux, but it takes some work, and you depend on the AUR.

  9. #29
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by eagleton View Post
    ...
    Maybe the biggest drawback is security - no signed packages, no SELinux or Apparmor by default, no automatic security updates. You can install SELinux, but it takes some work, and you depend on the AUR.
    Out of interest, how do these security issues effect Arch users?

  10. #30
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    Re: Is Arch REALLY worth installing?

    Quote Originally Posted by handy View Post
    Out of interest, how do these security issues effect Arch users?
    Quote Originally Posted by chessnerd View Post
    A fully set up computer is like a sandwich ready to be eaten. The operating system is the bread, something only necessary to hold the ingredients (applications) in while you enjoy your lunch. Sure, bad bread can ruin a sandwich, and good bread can make a sandwich better, but it really isn't the most important part.

    So ask yourself this:

    Is is REALLY worth it to bake your own bread?

    The bread might taste better, and you can choose the ingredients, but pre-packaged bread is cheap already, and the bread isn't the most essential part of the sandwich anyway...

    It is up to you. I've had home-made bread before (literally, not figuratively) and it was delicious. However, bread from the store isn't terrible. Unless you have a gripe with the available bread, I'd suggested buying it pre-made.
    Nice analogy.

    I don't think it's entirely apt though, in a couple of important ways.

    It's more like a ship and its cargo. The cargo is what's important, but if the ship sucks, the cargo suffers, doesn't get where it needs to be on time, or doesn't get there at all.

    A good way for a ship to suck is trying to be all things at once. A cargo ship that tries to also be a cruise ship, an ocean liner, an oil tanker and a warship is going to do none of these things well. Even if it manages to the combine all those capabilities into a single vessel, it's going to be a bloated, lumbering behemoth of great inefficiency. Nobody who wants a ship wants all of these things and anybody who gets one is going to be dissatisfied.

    Does that mean you should build your own ship? No. You can buy ships "off the shelf" that satisfy a general purpose. However, they are still going to be "generally" and "approximately" matched with your needs. Almost universally, any that happens to come configured with all the features you need will do so at the expense of a general policy of providing everything anyone could possibly want. So instead of a bloated, lumbering behemoth of an all-purpose ship, you've got a somewhat-less-bloated lumbering behemoth of a ship that generally suits your general type of cargo in most situations.

    And some purposes simply cannot be satisfied by an all-purpose ship. It is never going to be an attack submarine, a racing yacht, or a littoral assault vessel. Just not gonna happen.

    Anyone who wants a ship that provides exactly what they want without being too small to carry their cargo, too deep of draft to go where they want to go, or just plain being slower than it needs to be because it's carrying the unnecessary weight of features they don't want and can't rip out withing leaving gaping, irreparable wounds, will either custom-order a ship (e.g. Suse Builder), assemble one to their own specifications from pre-built assemblies (Arch), build one from parts they've machined themselves (Gentoo), or build their own mine and shipyard (LFS).
    Favorite man page quote: "The backreference \n, where n is a single digit, matches the substring previously matched by the nth parenthesized subexpression of the regular expression." [excerpt from grep(1)]

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