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Arch Linux: the Distro of the Year?
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."
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
Slackware is difficult to configure for those new to linux. Same situation with the installer.
While some of us prefer it that way, I'm thinking the vast majority either don't have time, or simply have no interest in tweaking away at a hundred config files just to get things going.
Slackware is pretty good yes, but there are lots of things that are different - some better, some worse. (It's all subjective)
People like distros that do stuff automatically for you. For example, I plug in an iPod or usb flash drive and an icon instantly appears on the desktop. No need to mess with the fstab, it just works automatically. Those features are in the popular distros and are very beneficial to people who just want their shit to work.
And you mentioned slackware because you like it. I could have easily posted why not use gentoo because compiling all your own software might get that 0.5% performance increase so everyone should do it. Who cares?
There are so many linux distros out there that people should never act as if one is always and will always be better. There are distros for the bored people out there (gentoo) that people can spend hours tweaking. Then there are distros that people can throw on in 20 minutes and get a complete system up and running. People should play around with several distros and choose the one that suits their needs best.
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
I'm a Debian developer, and I'll agree that it's not simple in all the ways it could be, but I don't get this:
"apt-get & dpkg and all these related tools are not as brain-dead simple to use as pacman is"
How is "apt-get install whatever" any more difficult than "pacman -S firefox"?
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
If it's too hard to use, then the solution is not to invent a whole new format, but to write tools to make it easy. Automating dependency management and package installation is hard. Writing a new user interface is easy.
Personally, I would like to see Debian packaging and packages become the base for all "mainstream" (i.e. binary distributed) linux distros. Obviously, distros like gentoo are something of a special case, but distros like Xandros, Ubuntu, and Mepis have demonstrated that it is a good base upon which to build a robust distro, and compared to different RPM-based distros, Debian based distros are amazingly interoperable. Why reinvent the wheel?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
"Wow, I wish I had Eugenia's job"
Well, sort of. I mean, I like feeling actually challenged to write cogently, use a spell checker, and actually be made to have the discipline to review the actual material. I mean most of the review went:
Foonux: Well it was sorta like slow, and pretty tough and stuff and I didn't really like it.
Yaddanix: Lots of RAM, and it was slow and the package tool was tough but it has all kinds of stuff that Arch doesn't have but it's still kinda lame and all.
Oh yeah, but the review was about Arch, right? Ok, um, well here's a laundry list of things that suck about it. But it really rocks because it's Slack and it's all 0ldsk00l and stuff lol!
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
The title of this news article is a silly one- "Distro of the Year?" I am surprised it didn't incite a slap fight among the nerds that wish to advocate their Linux flavor of choice.
Arch Linux is a fun distro. It was great when I was dual booting between linux and windows and needed something exciting. I even used it for several months from .5 - .6.
The biggest problem I used it were the stability of packages, and the dependency checks. It is no where near even Debian Unstable in stability, and the dependency checking leaves much to be desired.
There is nothing wrong with Arch Linux. It's a fun, cutting-edge, enthuisiest distro. However, now that I use linux full time, I would guess that Ubuntu will be the distro of 2005 :)
I love how Eugenia claims linux isn't ready for the desktop and then uses a distro like Arch. That being said, I still greatly respect Eugenia, except for her strange comments on Arch Linux (Pacman -S simpler to use than apt-get install?)
As far as usability, I use it for my main machine at the office and it's been rock solid. It took only about 45 minutes to set up, including tweaks, and fairly minimal interaction with help boards. Now will it automagically burn CD's and work with my digial camera? Doubt it, but then again I don't need those things in my office environment either. I guess it's all about using the right tool for the job..