Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Arch Linux: the Distro of the Year?

Posted by Hemos on from the use-the-best-tool-for-the-situation dept.

Provataki writes "OSNews posted an enthusiastic review of Arch Linux, a distro that is fast gaining popularity lately. The article compares Arch to the existing big-name Linux distros and takes a shot on describing where Arch offers a better solution. It also lists some of Arch's own problems and suggests solutions."

4 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Please explain me something ... by GNUALMAFUERTE · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's not my intention to troll or flame, but: Why doesn't people just stick with Slackware?.
    They were here first. It's the more mature distro we have right now. It's simple, i just read sometimes the kind of troubles people have with some distros and i just can't beleive it. A distribution shouldn't get in the middle, just install and go away. You should just forget about what distro you installed the moment you are done installing it. That is only true about Slackware GNU/Linux and the BSDs.

    --
    WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
    1. Re:Please explain me something ... by joeljkp · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How does Slack handle software updates? I much prefer running 'emerge -u world' or checking CNR to subscribing to 100 different announcement mailing lists and tracking down dependencies myself.

      I suppose one system isn't 'better' than another (if Slack makes you find and install your own updates), it's just different. I find automated updates easier to deal with, although maybe a tad slower than doing it myself.

      --
      WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
  2. Been there, done that by Stachel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Arch is not perfect and no matter what Archers might advocate to you in the forums or IRC, Arch is not for newbies

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

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

    --
    Stachel
  3. Re:Why!? by doodleboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    Apt for rpm is about the best advertisement for debian-like systems there is. I'm getting off redhat after 7 or 8 years, and I like apt so much that I'm switching to Ubuntu.