[ozar]

I've been running Arch for over three years now, and it's the only distro that was ever able to stop my distro-hopping habit. It's not the distro for everyone, but it's perfect for me, or at least the closest I've found to perfect.

Edit:

Oh, and you'll really love it once you've come to realize the power behind abs, makepkg, and pkgbuilds under Arch.

[Freston]

I've tried Arch a couple of times, but always it seemed to have trouble with my hardware. Which is to bad (for me anyway) because Arch looks in all respects as a distro that I'd like.


Maybe one day....

[Manchunian]

Originally Posted by Dapper Dan

If I have been sitting on the fence with installing Arch, I think this thread has pushed me on over. Thanks Manchunian!

Yes, Dapper Dan you absolutely, positively have to give Arch a whirl, at least to satisfy your curiosity! In my opinion, it's a logical step for someone who uses Crux.

Originally Posted by Thrillhouse

If you don't mind me asking, Manchunian, what made you decide to try Arch? On the Arch forums recently, I've noticed a huge influx of new users who came from either Ubuntu or Debian and I haven't really been able to understand why.

Well, there are loads of reasons. First, I too had noticed that a lot of people were making a lot of noise over this distro, and I guess the curiosity simply got the better of me. Also, I think I was reaching an impasse with Debian: I simply wasn't learning anything new with it. The trouble with Debian is that reliability is a bit of an obsession. I certainly do appreciate that it has never, ever malfunctioned in any way while I've been using it, but you can't configure it as easily as some distros; besides, sometimes you simply want to try a new application, install the latest hot version of x or y, and unless you run Debian unstable, this is more difficult (check out the process of installing Openoffice 2.4, for example!). Another reason was that I was starting to itch for the thrill of a new install, to feel that glowing sensation of booting up something for the first time one Friday midnight! Finally, I'd heard all sorts of claims about Arch performance and I wanted to check it out for myself.

Originally Posted by techieMoe

Just for that, you might be getting a rant on this.

Thanks, looking forward to it!

Originally Posted by lucho

Arch has the nasty habit of not playing nice with static IPs. You're right about the speed but honestly it's only marginally faster than Debian Sid or Slackware, if that much. I spent more time with the site's documentation trying to get my connection off the ground than with any other distro, even Windows

This doesn't correspond at all with my experiences. OK, so I had to install cups, for example, by hand, but anyone who has a bit of experience with Linux should be able to handle such a problem. Besides, the wiki is excellent. As for speed, well I've just timed the start up of Open Office Writer in Arch, and it is faster than Debian, and noticeably so: only 9 seconds from cold in Kde, and 4 seconds in Fluxbox! I'll time it in Debian later and tell you the time it takes in an edit.

Edit: Ok, I know this isn't scientific, and I accept that, but neverthless the difference is there: it took 15 seconds for Open Office Writer to start in Debian using Kde, and 6 seconds with Fluxbox. However, I qualify the first result as, to be fair, it isn't the same Kde: Kdemod is much lighter than Kde Vanilla. But the Fluxbox result remains, and 2 seconds is a big difference under Fluxbox!

[Dapper Dan]

Originally Posted by Manchunian

Yes, Dapper Dan you absolutely, positively have to give Arch a whirl, at least to satisfy your curiosity! In my opinion, it's a logical step for someone who uses Crux.

I'm sure it's a nice distro, but it will be hard pressed to replace CRUX as my favourite. You should also give CRUX a try. You just may come away with the conclusion that it is the next logical distro choice after using Arch!

[gruven]

Until they get a stable 64 bit system (and a decently easy to install multilib option) I will stick with my 64 bit Gentoo.

Just about every other distro has a 64 bit port that works and allows 32 bit multilib to be installed easily, so why can't they? I would seriously give them a try if they did this.

That being said, I would probably switch completely to FreeBSD if nvidia had a 64 bit driver for it.

I don't know if I would want to give up USE flags though.

[Manchunian]

Interesting this last post! I was divided between giving Gentoo a go (I've been itching to try this for ages) and testing Arch. I decided on the latter because I was worried about my electricity bill with all that compiliing! Seriously, though, the idea of compiling Kde, Open Office... and then compiling the updates makes me think that Gentoo is too much work. But I'm still really motivated try: perhaps I'll write a thread in a couple of months telling people they should try Gentoo (or maybe I'll just decide that Arch is just as fast, with less work)

Originally Posted by Dapper Dan

I'm sure it's a nice distro, but it will be hard pressed to replace CRUX as my favourite. You should also give CRUX a try. You just may come away with the conclusion that it is the next logical distro choice after using Arch!

I was wondering about this actually. Guess I'm going to be trying a lot of things in the months to come!

[techieMoe]

I'm about halfway into the Beginner's Guide getting a system set up in a VM. This much I can tell you up front: Arch will NEVER be my production distribution of choice. Too much work so far, not enough benefit.

If I wanted a build-it-yourself system (which I emphatically do not), I'd still be hard pressed to choose Arch over something like Gentoo, Debian, or Slackware. That said, I'm glad you found one you really like, Manchunian. This one's definitely not for me though.

I'll continue on getting a system set up for educational purposes, but I don't see myself using this one seriously.

[Manchunian]

One of the reasons why I decided not to go for Gentoo for now was that I don't want to spend hours and hours in front of my computer doing things that in Debian can be achieved with a simple command. Granted, the installation of Arch is a bit arduous, indeed it's much longer and more complicated than Slackware, but this work pays off once the system is running and, as far as I can see right now, stops there. Keeping the system up to date and installing new packages is a breeze with pacman. Honestly, it even surpasses apt for speed and ease of use. I can't say right now for sure that I'm going to make this my production OS, maybe I'll fall out of love with it, but my initial impressions are very positive. Perhaps this is the sign that newbie-land is far behind me now? Perhaps this is the sign that I'm gonna have to roll my sleeves up and try Gentoo soon? I dunno, but I feel that this Arch installation has shaken a lot of my perceptions of Linux and given me the desire to explore waters that I have never dared to go near before.

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by Manchunian

One of the reasons why I decided not to go for Gentoo for now was that I don't want to spend hours and hours in front of my computer doing things that in Debian can be achieved with a simple command. Granted, the installation of Arch is a bit arduous, indeed it's much longer and more complicated than Slackware, but this work pays off once the system is running and, as far as I can see right now, stops there.

Yes, if I were to rate the time it takes to install things between those distros you mentioned, Gentoo is the longest by far, followed by vanilla Debian, Arch, then Slackware. Although *technically* Slackware takes more time up front, it gives me a mostly functional, graphical system which gives it a tip up over Arch.

Perhaps this is the sign that newbie-land is far behind me now?

No, I wouldn't say that. You can be a perfectly well-seasoned Linux user and still not want to roll your own distribution. All this means is that you've got the time and willingness to build a system package by package.

I take issue with the common idea that only "newbies" like things to be automated and auto-configured. I consider myself a practical person, but I don't think by any stretch of the imagination could I be called a newbie (not that folks at OSNews and Slackware forums haven't tried once or twice). There's a difference between someone who likes automation because they don't know any better and someone who chooses automation because they value their time.

Perhaps this is the sign that I'm gonna have to roll my sleeves up and try Gentoo soon? I dunno, but I feel that this Arch installation has shaken a lot of my perceptions of Linux and given me the desire to explore waters that I have never dared to go near before.

Well, I give them credit for that. If it gets you more excited with Linux that's a good thing. Keep exploring and enjoy it.

[zba78]

Arch is a great distro. I only stopped using it because I got rid of my PC and bought a laptop a few years back and couldn't get Arch going on it.

Perhaps one day, when I get some time I'll take a look again.

Have they developed any decent front-end to pacman yet?