Why Arch hides somethingg

Question

i installed Gentoo where on needs to learn about Filesystem creation, partioning and mount/unmount things in advance. one does not need to know about these if installing Arch e.g. all mounting and filesystem creation is hidden behind the installer. Arch wiki says Arch is for learning GNU OS (a.k.a Linux):
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
but i don't see one is learning about *NIX much. Do you folks still say Arch makes one learn GNU OS. ? any views/ideas/critiques ?

Answer 1

geek.arnuld wrote:
kth5 wrote:Professionally working with an operating system should most of the time not mean to install it. There's much more to it than just that.
so you want to prove that reality is not what i am thinking ... hmmm....
please, can you put a some, 2 or 4, sentences about some parts of *NIX which are connected to learning *NIX.
Well, usually when working with *NIX or any other operating system installing it should take time once and - even if though that is quite impossible - never again. My system at home has been set up back in 2005 and only updated ever since then. What I've done most is messing with my configurations, cleaning the system properly when changing my workflow over the years and such. Whenever you touch a configfile you necessarily get to know new parts of the system or become more profficient at configuring something.
*NIX itself can only be considered to be the underlying concept of your desktop which everything else depends on, in my opinion.
In essence, I think the true knowledge must come from using the system, rescueing it from hazardous breakage without reinstalling it and maybe adding software that is not available as a package by hand, in a organized manner. Reinstalling is seldomly a efficient choice when you really want to learn how to fix your system so that it does what you want.
geek.arnuld wrote:
kth5 wrote:The Arch installer helps you out a lot because it tries to get us around spending too much time installing the system. We want a running system and instead add our stuff to it, rather than just having to go through an hour long process of installing it. Yet again, you can still do that. Look at what quickinst does. It's also being used by the installer.
if i don't use USE flags and emerge BASH scripts i will not be missing learning *NIX ?
I don't think so, see the above. Package management may be a critical element of dealing with your system but unless you update, are a package maintainer or some kind or want to install software that's unavailable on your distro's repositories, it is always not so important.
Even though Arch and most of the other distros out there don't come with USE-flags or similar things, that doesn't mean you can't accomplish the same tasks.
Last edited by kth5 (2007-05-19 17:39:37)