Arch Linux review...help?

I'm working on putting together a review of AL .4 for possible web publication on any site that'll take it. But, as you may have noticed, I'm a bit of a newbie.
I'm planning on touching on the following things:
Arch's goals
Arch's install
ABS, package optimisations and pacman (maintaining an Arch system)
Running X in Arch
Then strengths, weaknesses
And a sort of verdict (ie, what Arch is best suited for, overall quality)
Now, my question for those here at the bbs: what have I left out or what do I need to touch on that I may overlook? Feel free to mention subjects that may be containted within the above headings, because I may not be grasping all the aspects of Arch's awesomeness.
The going may be a bit slow on my review, but I hope to draw a bit more attention Arch's way!

beniro wrote:I think it's gonna go up on Distrowatch, because they seem to be booming right now. I'm not totally decided on that site yet.
What I am noticing with Distrowatch, its only holding the first paragraph with a link to the full article (review) wherever you put it up. I suggest you contact Distrowatch once you decide.
Lets hope your review will help Arch Linux to rise higher on Distrowatch list. Maybe not competing Yoper, which became # 1 within two months, but to same level (or above) as CRUX Linux .
http://www.distrowatch.com/

Similar Messages

My Arch Linux review

Hi,
If someone is interested in reading a review of Arch Linux, you can find one written by me here: http://nirski.pl/2010/02/arch-linux-keeps-it-simple/ . Please feel free to comment, criticism is welcome as it is my first review of an operating system. I am currently testing a free hosting so tell me if it works for you.
tarantoga

It's a nice article, but I want to comment on one quote you made, so there is no discouragement among new users.
tarantoga wrote:A small flaw – the repositories could be richer, package quantity is not as impressive as (for example) in Debian.
This is not a flaw. It's actually an advantage to the way Arch works. Probably 1/3 or more of packages you see in Debian are split packages such as the "*-devel" packages, which can be among the same variety of packages you would already have installed without them. In Arch, everything comes inside the package to simplify the installation/removal of packages with a more clear overhead on what's in the system. Rarely there is a need to split any, but they would all come as a dependency if needed. Every package you would ever want is in the repositories. If there is a package you cannot find, you are not limited as you already know. 99.8% of the time, they can be found in the AUR already setup with pre-made pkgbuilds and install scripts maintained by users, that can be downloaded and installed with an AUR helper (such as yaourt, packer, bauerbill, slurpy, etc.) or done manually with makepkg. If an upsupported package gains enough popular votes, it can move to the community repo maitained by a TU to make sure you get update the latest package updates possible without having to intervene with the AUR or the pkgbuilds. At the same time this would allow the Arch developers to focus more on the main repos, making sure you get the bleeding edge. When it comes to Arch, quality is always better than quantity.
Last edited by Acecero (2010-02-10 05:55:35)

New Arch Linux review

Arch Linux: The Simple, Flexible (and Fast!) Distro http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7469/1.html.
Good review.

Reading it right now
Arch seems to get a lot of attention lately!
I still find linux-mag.com's articles more often then not boring... It seems like a 15 yo blog, not the high quality publication of before. But then, now its free
Edit: After 2 paragraph, they can't even link to the website: http://www.archlnux.org/ instead of http://www.archlinux.org/ ...
Edit: Still a nice article that talks about Arch general terms. It should give Arch more visibility!
Last edited by big_gie (2009-08-13 13:37:34)

[SOLVED] New to Arch Linux, Need help in Installation.

Hi,
I am Ubuntu user for sometime, but I want to migrate to Arch Linux. I need some help. Please note that I am not Linux Expert but I have been using Ubuntu and OpenSUSE for quite sometime now. The reason for deciding to migrate to Arch Linux is with I need speed.
My laptop configuration is
Dell Vostro 1015 - Intel Dual Core 1.8 GHz with 2 GB RAM.
I was using Ubuntu 64 bit version.
Here in Arch Linux, I find there are 3 options to download i686 CPU, x86-64 CPU, Dual Architecture
Now which one should I download among x86-64 and Dual Architecture?
Thanks.
Last edited by sanjaydelhi (2011-11-16 15:11:14)

Thank you all for welcoming me at Arch Linux!
I was bit worried at the beginning because I tried Fedora before but it has one bug because of which it does not get installed on my laptop.
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=255943
I was bit disappointed being not able to use Fedora (both 14 and 15 ) because of this bug.
The reason I got worried because I am new to Arch, as I mentioned I am not Linux expert and Arch is not for beginners( though I consider myself intermediate in Linux but certainly not expert). So I thought if I do not get community support probably I will not be able to use Arch Linux. The reason I got interest in Arch Linux is http://lifehacker.com/5680453/build-a-k … he-process this article. I am not thinking of upgrading my laptop for speed anytime sooner. So I thought of trying Arch Linux.
The reason to post the topic was in most of Linux distros we see two options (x86, AMD_64). I found 3 options at Arch. I just wanted to make sure I am downloading right download.
So I hope I clarified it.
ANOKNUSA wrote:However, just for future reference: When engaging in any discussion with anyone anywhere on the internet at any time, it's often best to just leave experience and credentials out of the discussion. I don't mean any offense myself, but claiming to be "in software development" while appearing unfamiliar with hardware architecture comes of as a bit odd.
You are right. I should not have have brought experience and credentials in discussion. I used to follow hardware architectures but now I have so many other things to follow, so I can not keep up with hardware architectures. I still do not know exact architecture of i3,i5 or i7 processor or any of AMD processors. Thats how it is.
I thank you all for support.
Looking forward to trying Arch Linux.
Thanks

Arch Linux Reviewed in Argentinian Magazine

Im happy to announce that after some work and evangelization, Arch Linux was reviewed in a local and quite popular Linux magazine here in Argentina. The magazine is called USERS Linux and its in Spanish. The review was followed by some questions they made me as admin of ww.archlinux.com.ar, if there is enough interest i will translate the article.
I collaborated on the article, so i cant say its "objective", its quite centred in the distribution and community, touching point by point the pluses and differences with others, we mention Arch64 and Archie as they had some good reasons to be on the article, the first being for those with 64bit procesors and want the best out of them, and the second for those who didnt want to risk to install Arch without trying it out first.
Congrats to Judd and all the developers, and i hope this gets us some more Spanish Talking users!
You can find a scan of each page here:
http://www.archlinux.com.ar/blog/2006/0 … ers-linux/
edit:
Changed the URL as the site changed hosting and I moved the whole system.

Hi,
im going to start translating the articles, but i will go slow unless there is a bit more interest, either way, sooner or later it will be translated.
brain0:
Yes, your are right, i missed that. I will write them so they can print an "errata" on the next issue, there is also a typo, they printed CRUZ instead of CRUX.
On the other hand, although it has been talked to death, no-one actually tried Arch on a K6-2, so we dont know for sure if it works or not. According to several posts here and some sites found via google, AMDs K6-2 are missing a couple of functions necesary to be fully i686 compliant. They are pretty common in this latitudes, so maybe someone gives it a shot and we will know for sure once and for all!

Arch Linux has helped me learn and I am grateful.

I am going to tell you what sparked this thread first: I was reading your wiki on installing a 32bit bundled system into a 64bit system. And NO, I did not know what the heck was going on as usual. The thing is I am always curious. That is why I end up learning. Here is what sparked me... I got to the 'sed' command and did NOT understand what was going on and I dove in! What a wonderful and amazingly, useful tool. Instead of just copying commands such as:
# sed -e 's/\$arch/i686/g' /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist > /opt/arch32/mirrorlist
# sed -e 's@/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist@/opt/arch32/mirrorlist@g' -e '/Architecture/ s,auto,i686,' /etc/pacman.conf > /opt/arch32/pacman.conf
I took the command apart, tried it in various ways, made test files and learned what it all meant. This type of thing is happening over and over again while using Arch. Arch was extremely overwhelming at first but, I really like it that way, I tend to learn really fast this way. In the beginning it is REALLY hard though.
i have read about said and I know about substitute and global (s///g) but what through me off was -e '/Architecture/ s,auto,i686,' So I made a test file with Architecture in it.
echo "Architecture = auto" > test
then ran
cat test | sed -e '/Architecture/ s,auto,i686,'
Wow! Guys, I was so excited when I finally figured out what was going on. Through trial and error, I just learned some really cool things about said and also got better at seeing that you can use any character as the separator - like @ instead of /. See this makes me happy, when I figure something out like this. It is SO rewarding. Im like a kid at Christmas
So what is happening is I am getting this phenominal understanding of Linux by diving deep into Arch Linux. I have now swithced over my only computer to Arch Linux. I only really cared about a few windows programs and with wine I have one of them running!!
I just want to thank you all for such a great experience. I didn't know how much I love this stuff until I started with Arch Linux. Thanks again!
Last edited by AcousticBruce (2015-05-21 16:21:18)

firekage wrote:
I wanted to learn too...so i have question.
Could somebody explain this? Also, what this is exacly
'/Architecture/ s,auto,i686,'
Let me show you by example...
echo "hello world" | sed 's/world/universe/'
echo "hello world" | sed 's,world,universe,'
echo "hello world" | sed 's@world@universe@'
Notice all of these are the same result. This is because you can use any character you like in place of the separator.
So when you look at this '/Architecture/ ***s.auto,i686,*** that is replacing the word 'auto' with 'i686'
The /Architecture/ is like using grep.
so if you have a file that looks like this
color1 = red
color2 = red
Easy way to make this in one command. Make sure and use $ and ' ' instead of " "
echo $'color1 = red\ncolor2 = red' > test
and run this
cat test | sed -e '/color1/ s,red,blue,'
same thing...
cat test | sed -e '/color1/ s@red@blue@'
also to prove its like grep
cat test | grep color2 | sed -e 's/red/black/'
sed is very powerful and awesome. There is WAY more than this.
Last edited by AcousticBruce (2015-05-21 18:39:28)

Arch Linux Review

Here's another review for anyone that might be interested:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/64/ … Review.pdf

tomk wrote:Yeah - the author (jondkent) posted here before and after publication. There are a couple of threads about it already.
Oops... you are right tomk, it has been posted before. I thought it was a new review since the mazine is showing as March 2006 but it appears to be the same review as posted before.
Can a mod please lock this thread?
Thanks!
oz

Please suggest non-English articles for Arch Linux Press Review

Good day,
If you know of any non-English language articles or reviews about Arch Linux, please contribute them to the Arch Linux Press Review wikipage. The page is found here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arc … ess_Review
Feel free to edit the page directly, or post article suggestions in the thread of this topic.
Please feel free to make any corrections needed to the non-English article section of the webpage.
Translating and posting this message to other language based forums is appreciated.
Thank you,
Luke Seubert

Don't double post....
Replies go here: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php? … 09#p556409

Looking for addition articles for the Arch Linux Press Review wikipage

Good day all,
I recently updated the Arch Linux Press Review wikipage, found here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arc … ess_Review
If you know of any additional reviews or articles about Arch Linux, please edit the wiki page or post the info as a reply.
Any contributions for non-English language articles, or corrections in that area, would be especially appreciated.
Thank you,
Luke Seubert

tlaloc wrote:
We have a collection of German reports over here:
http://wiki.archlinux.de/title/Arch_in_den_Medien
Thanks tlaloc! I transferred that list of articles over to the Arch Press Review wikipage under the German Language section, and included a link back to the German original. I also fixed a tiny spelling error in the German page. I also doublechecked all the links to make sure they are live. As the French would day, "J'encule les moustiques"
tlaloc wrote:
No damage done - just go on.
We are all behind you (eight miles behind you, so if you get in trouble ....)
But that's fine by me, just go on.
So nice to know you have my back tlaloc
Last edited by lseubert (2009-05-22 14:35:31)

Arch Linux help - boot up, black screen

OK, i will try to explain to the best of my ability what happened when i was done installing arch and rebooted.
Well i booted into arch core-iso and set my time [UTC] and date.
and then i made for partitions as follows,
sda 1 - 20 gb - /root, boot, type 83
sda2 - 12 gb - /var type 83
sda 3 - 8.3 gb - type 82 - /swap
sda 4 - rest of memory - type 83 - /home
then wrote it
Then went onto install the Base, base-devel + sudo, wirelesstools, ndsiwrappers, wpa - supplicant, ssh, and net - cfg,
then installed it, then went on the config the system with nano
- click - /etc/rc.conf
edited the following
hostname = "baxxan"
eth0 = "dhcp"
gateway= "dhcp"
ctrl - x, y, enter
- clicked /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
then uncommented the [#] next to the url
"http://mirrorit.edu/archlinux/$repolos/1000"
and the ftp to
then set the root password
Then went onto install bootloader [ the hdd was empty so not much work there]
installed it on /dev/sda
then rebooted
upon reboot i preformed system update
[pacman -Syu] as the root user
then through pacman installed xorg, gnome, gnome-extra, and alsa-utils
then configed the /etc/rc.conf files [ nano /etc/rc.conf]
and added "hal" and "gdm" to the daemons
then typed "adduser"
and completed on the required asked for information for adding that user
then went onto /etc/sudoers [nano /etc/sudoers]
and under,
root ALL= (ALL) + ALL
wrote,
username ALL = (ALL) + ALL
THEN saved and rebooted. and was happy i was done with my arch linux install!
BUT WHEN I REBOOTED, and went into arch linux through the new bootloader, NOTHING but a BLACK SCREEN, comes up with two little white lines near the top! i even tried booting into the fallback option and its the same black screen with 2 little lines near the top!
WTF IS GOING ON!
Please help
Thank you,
P.S -
dont send me the dam link to the beginners cause i READ It, believe me.
Thanks!

litemotiv wrote:
please don't put text like URGENT or HELP! in your topic titles, it will only distract people from the actual problem
about your issue, it could be a problem with [wiki]KMS[/wiki]. first thing to try is to disable it (see the wiki page and search the forums for topics concerning your specific brand/type of card and bootup problems)
k r u sure this is the problem, also the KMS link you sent me, is that the wiki?

Need help with arch linux install!

Hello, let me start off by telling you about the predicament I'm in at the moment. I've been trying to install arch linux on with a cd-drive that has been failing for a little over a year now, so you can already see where my problem starts! The cd-drive, however will work with such cd's as Windows, Ubuntu, and Slackware, which I'm happy with. Yet, archlinux doesn't work so much.
And now maybe my solution. I've got a usb cd drive, that I've had laying around that works well, just not well enough for my bios to be able to boot from; which is horrible I know. I've searched the bios for loading a usb cd drive and everything else, including google so I don't think I'm going to get anywhere with that one. Anyways what I'm thinking of doing is that when archlinux is in the terminal right before you type the "/arch/setup" command, I would like to know if there is any command that allows you to change the cd it boots the cd from to go right into the installation. I'm still working on easying my out of the newbie stage of linux at the moment, but I've never run into a command like that, that would help me out. Hopefully there is one though, because I would very much like to archlinux to work, so please respond! Right now I'm running elinks through the terminal right before you type "/arch/setup". Thanks!

loosec wrote:
So you get through the boot process just fine then on your old CD drive. The only thing you should have to do after that is to throw your CD into the USB CD drive and proceed with the installation. The installer should then ask you what CD drive you would like to use when you choose install from CD.
Another way to do it would be to switch cd like above and then manually mount your /dev/[your_usb_cd_here] on /src. The installer then has to be pointed to this place as the source of your installation. To find out what your usb cd drive is called you should unplug it, then replug it and run: dmesg
The mount command might also need to be shown that this is a cd so:
mount -t iso9660 /dev/[usb_cd_device_name] /src
should do the trick.
If you really want to learn more of what the installer does (and fail installing a few times) you should also check out the command
/arch/quickinstall
If your Internet connection is up for it, it seems like you could just choose an FTP install instead.
Goodluck!
Once the CD is removed from the drive that it was booted from. the installation will not continue, as the arch install always goes back to the boot drive to continue read the neccessary information for the install. I do not think there is a way to fool the computer into booting from one cd drive and then continueing on with another. To do this you would have to tell the computer that you are switching drives.
If you can boot up the CD kernel and get to where you type in /arch/setup then the next thing I would od is FTP install. That would limit your CD rom drie usage.
There is also a way to install arch from within another distro, EVEN ANOTHER LIVECD! <-- this may be your best bet. Check the wiki, there is tons of information there.
Last edited by rooloo (2008-08-16 12:32:00)

Terminal --help (Arch Linux) equivalent?

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but as it's an operating system feature I'll give it a shot.
I am a big fan of Arch Linux especially using the unix commands within the terminal. One feature I love is being able to simple type '--help' after a command to get a full list of options. Such as 'ls --help' will bring up the options available for displaying the contents of the directory, like informing me '-a' shows hidden files.
What I would like to know is there a mac equivalent? So I can easily see options in terminal.
Thanks,
Steve.

There's really no consistancy. It depends on the command. Some actually do accept --help (e.g., gcc, grep -- probably all the gnu derived commands). Some may look for -? and/or -h. And some give you their general syntax if you make a syntax error on the command. But to get a full description (well, hopefully a more full description), as Reed said above use the man command.

[Solved] Please help setting up xbmc on Arch Linux

Trying to setup Arch Linux on my Asus Chromebox to run XBMC at startup. I have installed the following packages as per a guide on another site, xorg-server xorg-xinit xf86-video-intel xbmc. Whan I try to manually start xbmc, it gives me
Error: unable to open display
XBMC needs hardware accelerated OpenGL rendering.
Install an appropriate graphics driver.
Please consult XBMC Wiki for supported hardware
[url=http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Supported_hardware]http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=Supported_hardware"[/url]
When I try startx, I get the following
X.Org X Server 1.16.2
Release Date: 2014-11-10
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 3.17.2-1-ARCH x86_64
Current Operating System: Linux bunga 3.17.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Nov 21 21:14:42 CET 2014 x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=c20ca43d-7d5a-4335-bca3-a0224f2280c3 rw quiet
Build Date: 10 November 2014 07:52:13PM
Current version of pixman: 0.32.6
Before reporting problems, check [url]http://wiki.x.org[/url]
to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Mon Dec 8 23:23:00 2014
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 51: twm: command not found
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 53: xterm: command not found
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 54: xterm: command not found
/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc: line 55: exec: xterm: not found
xinit: connection to X server lost
waiting for X server to shut down (EE) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.
That's as far as I've been able to get, what else do I need to do?
Thanks for any help!
Last edited by regder (2014-12-13 03:49:29)

Thank you, wasn't sure how to interpret X's output. I'm just trying to start xbmc from the command line, haven't tried yet getting it to autostart. Is there another command I should be using so it invokes X?
jasonwryan wrote:
Well, the error message is pretty clear: X is starting successfully, there is just nothing for it to do.
What method are you using to start xbmc? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xb … r_ondemand

[SOLVED]New Arch Linux ISO Installation Help.

Hi All,
I am trying to install Arch Linux using new ISO. For some reason I am unable to log into Arch Forums on Windows and I am writing this on my tablet. I will add more info (proper quote, etc.) as soon as I am able to log in a laptop browser. That being said I am trying to install Arch using new ISO. Here is what I did.
Partition using cfdisk /, /home , /swap and /boot.
Format all these in ext4.
Create folders in mnt - root, home, swap, boot.
mount partitions in mnt folders.
Pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
Error
ERROR: /mnt is not a mount point!
I install in /mnt/root which probably doesnt touch other partitions like home boot and swap.
I follow other steps on installation wiki and reboot takes me back to windows.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks.
Last edited by donniezazen (2012-07-24 22:49:01)

donniezazen wrote:Partition using cfdisk /, /home , /swap and /boot.
Format all these in ext4.
Create folders in mnt - root, home, swap, boot.
You don't need a root folder. /mnt is the root mount point. Before you mount boot and home:
mount /dev/sdax /mnt
where "x" is the number of your /root partition.
then
mkdir /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sdax /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sdax /mnt/home
(replace "x" in all the /dev/sdax with the correct partitions.)
Error
ERROR: /mnt is not a mount point!
you should have stopped here and posted or tried to figure out what you did wrong.
The edited Beginner's Guide is very clear about this. You should read it.
Last edited by 2ManyDogs (2012-07-24 20:09:24)

(Arch) Linux Myths

I have recently noticed that online forums and Linux user communities in particular are prone to developing what I'd like to call "technology myths".
Most of the problems and solutions given on forums are anecdotal in nature. Problems are rarely sourced to the actual code and suggestions are often casual or incomplete which is of course natural for this kind of communication. However, as certain solutions are being repeated without clear feedback, some notions take deeper roots in the collective consciousness thus becoming myths. Let me illustrate with an example.
How often have you seen people posting glxgears results? How often have you seen people replying "glxgears is not a benchmark"? Could you actually explain why it's not suitable to be one? The explanation is out there.
Another example could be the myth that exporting INTEL_BATCH=1 increases performance on Intel integrated GPUs. I have seen this in circulation for a long time, despite the fact that the actual code that could be triggered by this environment variable has been removed a long time ago.
As Arch Linux is rolling-release and a lot of code is being replaced rather rapidly, old and tried solutions are likely to become obsolete fast. I'd like to ask the Community to share their examples of other widely circulated myths and help keep an updated and sourced list of them (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Myths) so others will not waste their time trying solutions which are sure to fail.

In my experience, outdated wiki pages tend to propagate this stuff, along with blog entries. The trouble with blog entries is that they're often fire-and-forget, which means that solutions that might have been necessary a while ago are now unsuitable or unnecessary.
Wiki pages have no such excuse, being more fluid than blogs posts. This is particularly prevalent on the Arch Wiki, as Arch is a distribution with a small number but a large variety of (mostly) technically-experienced users who will often go to great lengths to increase performance or to accomodate for Rube Goldberg machine-like hardware or network setups. Thus, there are a lot of hacks on obscure pages (not, say, the Beginner's Guide or the major pages).
What we need is a major overhaul and review of many of the shorter and more obscure wiki pages, such as any of the ones under Request:Correction and Request:Expansion. I've "rescued" a few pages from this purgatory, but many pages have sat there for months or years and I do not have the experience or knowledge to improve them. I think that we could gain a great deal from more community awareness about improving the wiki and trying to encourage people to edit more. Rather than the same editors working on more mainstream pages and ignoring or barely touching the more arcane ones, it might be preferable to have people with little editing experience but more technical experience to take a look at some of the pages, capitalizing on the cumulative knowledge of our userbase a bit more.
Just a thought.

Arch Linux review...help?

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