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

Similar Messages

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)

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!

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)

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/

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 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 Handbook 2.0

Hey all,
I'd like to announce the freshly minted Arch Linux Handbook 2.0, available from the estore here:
https://www.createspace.com/3482247
It should be showing up in Amazon stores within a few weeks, and you'll be able to order it from your favourite brick and mortar store after a month or two.
Nearly 400 copies of the first handbook were sold. This one is more up to date with a fancy cover, more pages, and prettier interior. The Arch Linux Handbook is simply a print edition of the Beginners' Guide, which has seen a few hundred revisions since the first edition went to print. So it was time for an update, and here it is!
I would like to extend a huge thank you to both Jules Pitsker (Misfit) and Branko Vukelic (foxbunny). Jules is the motivating force and primary maintainer behind the online Beginners' Guide. His tireless and thankless contributions have turned it into the exceptionally well-written and comprehensive document that it is. Branko is the best designer I know, both for print and web based materials. He did a terrific job on this handbook cover.

Thank you Dusty. I appreciate your handbook, it played a role in converting me to ArchLinux.
It was important to me to see that there is printed documentation for any linux distro I use.
ArchLinux passed the test because of you.
I bought a copy of your first edition and reviewed it on Amazon. As soon as the second edition
shows up on Amazon I'll buy a copy and give it another review. I'm sure that I'll be able to say
that it is greatly enhanced and everyone should certainly own a copy.
Every Archer **should** own a copy
In fact I have my copy [rummages through closet] right HERE and I did get it out recently when I
repartitioned my SSD and did a re-install with Arch-only. It's __handy__

[SOLVED] Arch Linux won't boot

Hi,
I was bad and didn't update my packages often enough, and now my arch installation on a desktop won't boot.
I've booted off of a usb arch install, mounted all of the appropriate harddrive partitions, and used arch-chroot to switch to the offending hard drive.
The /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg is such:
# Config file for Syslinux -
# /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
# Comboot modules:
# * menu.c32 - provides a text menu
# * vesamenu.c32 - provides a graphical menu
# * chain.c32 - chainload MBRs, partition boot sectors, Windows bootloa
ders
# * hdt.c32 - hardware detection tool
# * reboot.c32 - reboots the system
# * poweroff.com - shutdown the system
# To Use: Copy the respective files from /usr/lib/syslinux to /boot/sysli
nux.
# If /usr and /boot are on the same file system, symlink the files instea
d
# of copying them.
# If you do not use a menu, a 'boot:' prompt will be shown and the system
# will boot automatically after 5 seconds.
# Please review the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Syslinux
# The wiki provides further configuration examples
DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0 # Set to 1 if you always want to display the boot: prompt
TIMEOUT 50
# You can create syslinux keymaps with the keytab-lilo tool
#KBDMAP de.ktl
# Menu Configuration
# Either menu.c32 or vesamenu32.c32 must be copied to /boot/syslinux
UI menu.c32
#UI vesamenu.c32
# Refer to http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu
MENU TITLE Arch Linux
#MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
MENU COLOR border 30;44 #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title 1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel 7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel 37;44 #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help 37;40 #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg 37;40 #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout 1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg 31;40 #30ffffff #00000000 std
# boot sections follow
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel l
ine.
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/md0 ro
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
LABEL archfallback
MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/md0 ro
INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img
#LABEL windows
# MENU LABEL Windows
# COM32 chain.c32
# APPEND hd0 1
LABEL hdt
MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
COM32 hdt.c32
LABEL reboot
MENU LABEL Reboot
COM32 reboot.c32
LABEL off
MENU LABEL Power Off
COMBOOT poweroff.com
and /etc/mdadm.conf is:
ARRAY /dev/md0 UUID=3830049a:44459d91:3ad800a8:e77f102f
ARRAY /dev/md1 UUID=a69afb27:1266d0c2:0c8966db:14500cdb
ARRAY /dev/md2 UUID=20b0675c:2fcca1a5:0882d652:06324bf6
ARRAY /dev/md3 UUID=3f0343cb:ff7342c9:fe8e73d4:ba6d61b3
ARRAY /dev/md4 UUID=287c6b6d:8cbd733c:c6e9d285:a2b14814
ARRAY /dev/md5 UUID=ccd0d21c:8103251b:2c9a32d1:bc6dcc78
and it looks to me like this agrees with blkid:
sh-4.3# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="3830049a-4445-9d91-3ad8-00a8e77f102f" UUID_SUB="932acc3b-f7ba-d443-cf76-9d59b663c651" LABEL="archiso:0" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="9574bd41-8133-4c6a-b5b4-981002a41867"
/dev/sda2: UUID="a69afb27-1266-d0c2-0c89-66db14500cdb" UUID_SUB="e3de7e2c-8153-0c53-ac5d-ffc678deb269" LABEL="archiso:1" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="fc78d66d-53a4-4c99-a29c-b881d19c1e8d"
/dev/sda3: UUID="20b0675c-2fcc-a1a5-0882-d65206324bf6" UUID_SUB="36f53577-cd9b-0c4e-4223-58123a6b2426" LABEL="archiso:2" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="b7187772-bf01-4517-99a1-d2aa209aa35b"
/dev/sda4: UUID="3f0343cb-ff73-42c9-fe8e-73d4ba6d61b3" UUID_SUB="e583cdb9-f523-b4ea-01bb-609779ca3efe" LABEL="archiso:3" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="df9fddd2-762b-4eb3-860c-ef79f545fa77"
/dev/sda5: UUID="287c6b6d-8cbd-733c-c6e9-d285a2b14814" UUID_SUB="ec1c493a-97f0-48e2-1659-068c25b7aa55" LABEL="archiso:4" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="ba388b64-8f6b-4053-a695-14560832735e"
/dev/sda6: UUID="ccd0d21c-8103-251b-2c9a-32d1bc6dcc78" UUID_SUB="9b53306f-941d-8048-5780-533ada837e11" LABEL="archiso:5" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Microsoft basic data" PARTUUID="6325add3-aa39-4fa2-995c-aacf7165097c"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="3830049a-4445-9d91-3ad8-00a8e77f102f" UUID_SUB="ec3420f6-d21a-5e69-94f8-d81f277079ec" LABEL="archiso:0" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="9574bd41-8133-4c6a-b5b4-981002a41867"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="a69afb27-1266-d0c2-0c89-66db14500cdb" UUID_SUB="4b1e7230-ffec-0985-1ac7-a69aec27eec2" LABEL="archiso:1" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="fc78d66d-53a4-4c99-a29c-b881d19c1e8d"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="20b0675c-2fcc-a1a5-0882-d65206324bf6" UUID_SUB="4d1721b6-d87f-00b6-4bd9-45712592b033" LABEL="archiso:2" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="b7187772-bf01-4517-99a1-d2aa209aa35b"
/dev/sdb4: UUID="3f0343cb-ff73-42c9-fe8e-73d4ba6d61b3" UUID_SUB="085a16ce-1a7c-d79e-eb92-fed6b1b70365" LABEL="archiso:3" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="df9fddd2-762b-4eb3-860c-ef79f545fa77"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="287c6b6d-8cbd-733c-c6e9-d285a2b14814" UUID_SUB="10857018-548a-9311-178e-7d2b06e25942" LABEL="archiso:4" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Linux RAID" PARTUUID="ba388b64-8f6b-4053-a695-14560832735e"
/dev/sdb6: UUID="ccd0d21c-8103-251b-2c9a-32d1bc6dcc78" UUID_SUB="d577ff9e-a687-f335-7062-f2f629886a58" LABEL="archiso:5" TYPE="linux_raid_member" PARTLABEL="Microsoft basic data" PARTUUID="6325add3-aa39-4fa2-995c-aacf7165097c"
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="/dev/sdc1" UUID="de2a5dc6-4b22-466f-819a-86dda839c7e6" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="c3072e18-01"
/dev/sdc2: LABEL="/dev/sdc2" UUID="2909b560-e9b9-48cf-a194-7b7c9c38d312" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="c3072e18-02"
/dev/md127: UUID="3f9ddf01-4f7c-4633-844d-82a1781170a5" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/md126: UUID="7105ac32-610b-4d4b-935b-675edc71ff32" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/md125: UUID="90cc6dbe-2d0f-422b-8653-965f103b8e8d" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/md124: UUID="5fd8960f-6017-49c8-bc7e-c972aa0e2f31" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/md123: UUID="7B9075B74838729A" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/md122: UUID="96468ceb-857b-467e-b9c7-2a37e13fde6f" TYPE="ext4"
and lsblk is:
sh-4.3# lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
|-sda1 8:1 0 1G 0 part
| `-md126 9:126 0 1024M 0 raid1 /boot
|-sda2 8:2 0 24G 0 part
| `-md122 9:122 0 24G 0 raid1 /
|-sda3 8:3 0 15G 0 part
| `-md127 9:127 0 15G 0 raid1 /var
|-sda4 8:4 0 100G 0 part
| `-md125 9:125 0 100G 0 raid1 /home/j3doucet
|-sda5 8:5 0 100G 0 part
| `-md124 9:124 0 100G 0 raid1 /home/c2hollow
`-sda6 8:6 0 691.5G 0 part
`-md123 9:123 0 691.4G 0 raid1 /media
sdb 8:16 0 931.5G 0 disk
|-sdb1 8:17 0 1G 0 part
| `-md126 9:126 0 1024M 0 raid1 /boot
|-sdb2 8:18 0 24G 0 part
| `-md122 9:122 0 24G 0 raid1 /
|-sdb3 8:19 0 15G 0 part
| `-md127 9:127 0 15G 0 raid1 /var
|-sdb4 8:20 0 100G 0 part
| `-md125 9:125 0 100G 0 raid1 /home/j3doucet
|-sdb5 8:21 0 100G 0 part
| `-md124 9:124 0 100G 0 raid1 /home/c2hollow
`-sdb6 8:22 0 691.5G 0 part
`-md123 9:123 0 691.4G 0 raid1 /media
sdc 8:32 1 58.9G 0 disk
|-sdc1 8:33 1 19.5G 0 part /etc/resolv.conf
`-sdc2 8:34 1 39.4G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
Everything looks fine to me, /dev/sda1 is /boot, which has the same UUID as what mdadm has for /dev/md0, which is what syslinux.cfg has been told to boot off of. I'm not sure what to do from here.
Last edited by c2hollow (2015-01-02 00:43:56)

It's long that Arch uses rw argument on kernel command line.
You should correct your syslinux.cfg as follow.
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=LABEL="archiso:1" rw ## <<< Here's the diff
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
This isn't for the fallback menu entry, you just analyze the differences and do same there.
I'm not familiar with syslinux, I just suppose you may try to test these options on-the-fly, before write them permanently. So when the syslinux menu will appear at boot time, please find the way to enter in edit mode and apply the correction. That will stay for the time you boot once. But it will ensure if it'll be good enough and do the writing later once you've booted.

The Big Arch Linux Interview

The Big Arch Linux Interview
http://www.osnews.com/story/10142/The_B … _Interview
from 2005 ........ I had to dig this one out. It has a nice pic of Judd
Actually stumbled upon it searching for something else..... was an interesting read, thought I'd share it with those that hadn't read it yet.

kensai wrote:Yeah, this was back when Eugenia liked Arch Linux and Linux in general, now she don't. OSnews used to be a fair web site, but now, news about operating system hardly make it to the front page.
Now it primarily exists for Eugenia to get free hardware for "reviews" or for use as a digital video soapbox. That's when it's not reposting slashdot a day later

The grumpy editor's Arch Linux experience

Jonathan Corbet from lwn.net did a review on Arch Linux.
It is now available for free <https://lwn.net/Articles/638069/>.

ANOKNUSA wrote:
satanselbow wrote:Not an unreasonable article - somewhat let down by the moronic, flag waving nature of some of the comment{er}s.
I'd rather someone avoid something entirely because it requires actual thought, than have them actively demand someone else do all the thinking for them while trying to reap the reward. People who stay away from Arch because it requires more than a mouse click are dodged bullets.
Its weird how anyone using Linux (even Ubuntu) would be adverse to thought and tinkering. Even with Ubuntu, there will be cases of googleing, reading the Arch Wiki, and copy/pasteing Terminal commands to fix problems. The only difference is that Arch requires more tinkering (and an involved install process), but as a result users become more conforable with tinkering their systems. Also being able to scrutinize what packages are installed.
Unless someone merely uses Ubuntu for web browsing, they should have to tinker once in a while too. So they shouldent hate on other distros for having to do it more .
Last edited by bromanbro (2015-04-10 05:09:15)

Arch Linux 32x64 bits, Developers and Window Managers Support

Greetings!
After having some time issues due to college that prevented me from this, I wish to have again a rolling-release distro in my computer.
I was in the past a big fan of Gentoo, but now it seems too much work to compile everything from scratch. Also they seemed to have some issues with the developers - the original developer if I understood correctly has quit the project, others were forced to quit due to misbehavior, etc. - and maybe due to some other facts their popularity on distrowatch dropped drastically.
Then this year I've tried Debian Testing... My goodness, that was messy. Tons and tons of bugs on XFCE, like thunar hanging on load and displaying error messages, gedit not removing the ~lock files properly on close, so I had the myfile and ~myfile, and many others. Really, I gave up.
I wish to give Arch Linux I try then. Of course that would be quite stupid to ask if arch linux is the best choice in an arch linux forum, but there are some key points that if you could answer would help me a lot to give it a try:
1. 32x64
"Should I use 32-bit or 64-bit?" is NOT the intended question. Many still prefer 32-bit-pae on a 64-bit capable machine, others prefer 64-bit. I wish to use 64-bit. Made my mind. But I would like to know if the support of 64-bit on Arch Linux is as good as 32-bit and if it comes by default with cross-libs which makes me able to run 32-bit applications natively right out of the box,
2. Developers
About how many and what's their relation with the users? When I've googled for Arch Linux, I've had found a review video on youtube where some guy said in the comments that developer's mind changed a lot in the past 2 years and they introduced many buggy packages that required manual workaround. At the end of his comments, he said "Sympathy? Apologies for the ****? Nope. blame the user for trusting 'pacman -Syu'" Surely I don't know which are these options because I haven't read about pacman yet (just know it's the default package manager) but you get the idea.
Another key question: Is Arch Linux hiring new developers over the time? Replacing the ones that leaves for the many reasons?
3. Window Managers Support
With Gnome3's overall rejection (including mine), we have only two options: Switch to KDE or try other Window Managers. I still wish to have faith on gtk, so the first option is still not considered by me. I don't wish to know "which one is the best", because that's another large discussion just as the 32-bit x 64-bit. Just how good is Arch's support (updated constantly? bug-fixes?) on:
- XFCE
- MATE
- Cinnamon
(Of course there are others like LXDE, Enlightenment, etc. but I've decided to narrow down to XFCE even having quite bad experiences on Debian Testing.)
4. Package Manager
Last, being a rolling-release dist, can I add an option for a specific package to install a specific older version and/or not upgrade when you tell the dist. to upgrade everything? I remember that back on Gentoo I could edit a text file and just type the version of the package I wished to keep and the "update everything" option wouldn't touch the package (worked also to try new versions that were still not stable enough).
Any replies will be very appreciated. Sorry for the long post.
Best regards.

I'll start at the end with #4. Of course on the arch forums you will get people who are biased towards liking arch - but I think if you ask in other communities you will regularly hear that arch's package management system is its greatest strength. Pacman is the primary tool for this, but we also have makepkg for things in the Arch User Repository (AUR), and the Arch Build System (ABS) to recompile anything from the main repos with additional/alternate compilation options.
But for your direct question, there is an option to only upgrade to a particular version of a given package. There is an option in pacman's configuration file for just this purpose. However depending on what the package is, this could lead to problems. Users are discouraged from updating most of their system while keeping some older packages - This can lead to issues with shared dependencies. Of course if you build the package from source (AUR or ABS) yourself, such issues would be easy to resolve. Is there a certain package you know you'd want to keep at an older version? If you tell us what it is, we can give more specific information on how easy/hard it would be to accomplish.
#3: Arch is a DIY distro. You choose whatever window manager / DE you want. I can vouche for XFCE working wonderfully in arch. There are also numerous archers who use mate and cinnamon. I have heard of some problems, but (AFAIK) these have nothing to do with compatibility with arch, rather these are due to upstream issues. In other words, cinnamon, mate, xfce, or any other WM should work just as well on arch as on any other distro. I'd bet our wiki for installing and configuring those WMs are better than those of the distros that bundle the WM with the core install. (In addition to package management, you will find the arch wiki is second to none).
#2: I can't answer with any specifics - other than to say they continue to do an excellent job. I am not surprised by the youtube video - not because I'd agree with it, quite the opposite. But as arch is a DIY distro it puts some responsibility on the user to maintain their own system. If one is not prepared for nor willing to do this, they often become frustrated and end up blaming someone else. Often this is the developers, sometimes it is the forum moderators, other times it is the whole arch community. In every case these accusations are absurd. Your questions on replacement of developers is a good question though - there is a history page on the wiki which might give some insight on this, but I suspect others will have better input on this.
#1: I use i686 (32bit) on two of my computers and it works perfectly. It sounds, however, that a majority of the community uses 64bit (which I just updated to on one of my computers). My 64bit system works perfectly as well, but I don't have any 32bit-only apps. Occasionally there are forum threads about some issue or another with "multilib" applications which are 32bit programs run in a 64bit system. Generally these threads seem to be resolved without much hassle. You can search for some of them yourself: Skype seems to be a common topic of such issues.
All in all, I'd reiterate arch's strengths in it's package management and wiki/documentation. Potential weaknesses could be found by users who are unwilling or unable to take responsibility for their own system. I word this is a bit biased manner - there are many people who have no interest in being responsible for maintaining their own system, a majority of all computer users would fall into this category; most of them would be quite unhappy with arch linux. If you were happy with gentoo in the past and only want to avoid constant recompiling then you probably would be one who could be very happy with arch.
Or an even shorter summary: try it out. If you don't like it, switch.

Dual boot Windows 7 (64) and Arch Linux (64) problems

Hello:
I am new to Arch Linux and just finished installing the 64bit on my laptop. It had a prebuilt Windows 7 (64) installed which I kept but split the hdd from 160Gb to 80Gb and 80Gb. I installed Arch there and set 4 partitions, all of them as Logical - a 64 MB ext2 /boot partition; a 512 MB swap partition; a 15 GB root partition; and the rest as my /home partition. My partitions look like this:
Disk Drive: /dev/sda
Size: 160041885696 bytes, 160.0 GB
Heads: 255 Sectors per Track: 63 Cylinders: 19457
Name Flags Part Type FS Type [Label] Size (MB)
sda1 Primary Unknown (27) 12889.02
sda2 Boot Primary NTFS 106.93
sda3 Primary NTFS [] 73915.11*
sda5 Logical Linux ext2 65.81*
sda6 Logical Linux 509.97*
sda7 Logical Linux ext2 15002.92*
sda8 Logical Linux ext2 57549.55*
The install was succesful(this was running from the core install cd) and I installed GRUB to my /boot but when I restarted it loaded Windows 7. I have used Knoppix USB disc to boot and see my Arch Linux install files and edited the /boot/gur/menu.lst file.
In Windows I installed EasyBCD 1.7.2 and tried to get NeoGrub bootloader working as a dual boot. I tried getting rid of the boot flag for Windows with cfdisk and setting it to my (Logical) sda5. That did not work. So far the only way I have booted into my Arch Linux install has been by going to the Live CD, choosing "Boot from Existing Linux Install" and editing the command files there.
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
My goal is to get a dual boot working for Windows 7 and Arch Linux 64 and continue installing the Xorg and KDE to Arch. I just don't know what the problem is here. I don't mind reinstalling Arch if something went wrong, but I would like to keep my Windows running in order and add Arch on.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I ran the LiveCD and chose "Install to MBR hd0". I ended up with this:
setup hd(0,1)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists.....yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5" exists.....yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 (hd0,1)".....failed(this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/iso9660_stage1_5 (hd16)".....failed(this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0,1) /boot/grub/stage2 p (hd0,1) boot/grub/menu.lst".....failed
Error 31: File is not sector aligned
My entry for Windows into the menu.lst looks like this:
# (0) Arch Linux x64
title Arch Linux x64
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3841273c-d91e-41d6-9dbf-716a15d03a01 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux x64
title Arch Linux x64 Fallback
root (hd0,4)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3841273c-d91e-41d6-9dbf-716a15d03a01 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
# (2) Windows 7
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

[GUIDE] How to get MapleStory working in Arch Linux

MapleStory is a free-of-charge, 2D, side-scrolling massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by the South Korean company Wizet. Several versions of the game are available for specific countries or regions, and each is published by various companies such as Wizet and Nexon. Although playing the game is free, character appearances and gameplay enhancements can be purchased from the "Cash Shop" using real money. MapleStory has a combined total of over 50 million subscriber accounts in all of its versions. MapleStory North America (Global), for players mainly in North America and outside of East Asia, Southeast Asia and Europe, has over three million players.
In the game, players travel the "Maple World", defeating monsters and developing their characters' skills and abilities as is typical in role-playing games. Players can interact with others in many ways, such as through chatting, trading, and playing minigames. Groups of players can band together in parties to hunt monsters and share the rewards. Players can also join a guild to interact more easily with each other.
I am an avid mapler myself, however, I am also an avid archer! For some time, I have wanted to get MapleStory working on Arch Linux in some way, but nothing seemed to work. As you might have guessed by now, recently, while playing around with VirtualBox, I discovered a method to get MapleStory working on it! Though in this method you won't actually have MapleStory running on Arch Linux, you'll have it running on a VirtualBox Windows virtual machine, that is still pretty good compared to other people's experiences.
I hope there are at least a few maplers on this forum, and if there aren't, I hope that someone will port this post over to other Linux, or even MapleStory, forums. Anyways, let's begin.
1. Download and install a version of Virtual Box that is version 3.0+. The reason for this is that, only versions 3.0+ support an experimental DirectX Driver with 3D acceleration that is required for MapleStory to run.
2. Create a Windows Virtual Machine, add a hard disk to it, and install and update Windows on it(preferably Windows XP, as it uses less resources than other contemporary Windows installations).
3. Once you have done all you needed and wanted on that Windows installation, restart it, boot it into safe mode by holding F8 at the boot, and wait until the desktop is fully loaded.
4. After you are at the desktop, go to "Devices" at the top of the menu of the Windows virtual machine, and select "Install Guest Additions...". Wait until Guest Additions finishes installing, and when VirtualBox asks you if you want to mount the disk containing the Guest Additions on the virtual machine, say "Yes".
5. Run the main executable on the disk that doesn't have amd64 or x86 following its name. Follow the instructions it gives you, and when it asks you what components to install, make sure both of the boxes it shows you are checked.
6. After the install is completed, the virtual machine will restart. After it restarts, shut it down.
7. Congratulations! You now have DirectX installed on your VirtualBox virtual machine! Now you need to activate the "3D Acceleration", that enables it.
8. In the VirtualBox main window, make sure you have your machine with Windows selected. Then, click on "Machine", and then "Settings...", at the top. A new window should pop up. On the left hand side, click on the display panel, and in the new settings section, tick Enable 3D Acceleration. Click "OK", to save the settings.
9. Start your Windows virtual machine, install MapleStory just as you would on a normal windows computer, and run MapleStory.
Notes: This way of running MapleStory is slower than by running it normally, on a normal windows computer. Also, try to not interact with your Linux desktop while playing MapleStory, because this can cause HackShield to shut down MapleStory, due to the fact that it believes there is a hacking attempt.
If any of you port this guide to any other place on the web, please, credit me, neovaysburd5.
For any further questions or inquiries, this goes to all of you, please contact me at [email protected].
Last edited by neovaysburd5 (2009-08-19 16:51:31)

Alright, I've posted it in the wiki. I don't know if it meets the Arch Linux wiki standards, so if there is absolutely anything wrong with it, please fix it right away. Don't even ask my permission.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/MapleStory

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