Arch Linux thoughts?

[cadkins]

Was going to test out Arch linux. Was wondering what anyones thoughts were on it that have used it.

Seems like it has some nice features.

[bryansmith]

The simple answer: the best.

Long answer: If you know what you are doing, you can customize it to be whatever kind of distro you want it to be. I like it because it is fast, simple and pacman is the best package manager available. It is really up to date (I am running a 2.6.15.2 kernel with KDE 3.5.0...waiting for 3.5.1 to get out of testing). If you are competent with Linux, give it a shot. You will not be disappointed. If you are not all that competent with Linux, you can still give it a try. Their wiki and docs are pretty good and their are a few Archers here.

Bryan

[techieMoe]

Was going to test out Arch linux. Was wondering what anyones thoughts were on it that have used it.

Seems like it has some nice features.

Was going to make some reference to the "which distro?" thread, but decided not to. My personal opinion, Arch is worthless. Does that mean you won't like it? Certainly not. Think of Linux distributions as flavors of ice cream. Ten of us can tell you tutti fruitti is the best, but until you actually taste it yourself, you'll never really know.

My advice? If it looks interesting, try it. You might like it. You also might not. There's 999 more out there to try.

[budman7]

IMO, Arch is a good distro.
I tried installing a few times without success.
Never could get past the base install and get to a X environment.
Then I read somewhere that you had to put a "-S" after pacman if you wanted to install anything.
Now I have Arch up and running and loving it.
I am not sure if Arch will be able to replace Gentoo or not, but that is for another discussion.

[oosterhouse]

Arch is the best distro that I've tried. (Ubuntu, Knoppix, PcLinuxOS, Mepis, and a few others.) I can't tell whether it's the right one for you, but like Bryansmith said, if you're good with linux, give it a try. If I got it installed, you certainly can, just read the docs and read around in the wiki and forums and you'll get it. Good luck.

Oh, and I just thought of something else, the fact that three trusted penguins on this very forum use Arch pretty much sums up what kind of distro arch is..a good one.

[cadkins]

Thanks. I've tried and use a lot of different distros so I am pretty sure I can get it installed (famous last words). I'm running a couple of Slackware boxes, and a Madriva box (which is getting ready to go away).

I love Slackware and have had good luck with it but I like the idea of pacman so I'd like to give it a shot. So...I guess that is what I will be doing tonight

I know that there are different tastes for different people. I don't like Mandriva very well. Just seems a little...dunno. Just something I don't like. Was going to give Umbuntu a go but I saw Arch and thought it was worth a shot.

Thanks for the info!

[oosterhouse]

No problem, and good luck installing and configuring arch.

[oz]

Was going to test out Arch linux. Was wondering what anyones thoughts were on it that have used it.

Seems like it has some nice features.

Arch is NOT for everyone, but over the past 7 years I've tried about 45 to 50 different distros, and multiple versions of many of those. The only distro that's been able to keep me using it for more than a few months at at time has been Arch. While I do still experiment with different distros, Arch is my default distro and it has remained that for more than a year, now.

Like the others said above, try it for yourself to see what you think. The download is free, so all you have to lose is some of your time and the blank CD. That's no more than you'd be losing trying some other distro.

Above all, take your time and have fun experimenting with it!

ozar

[spencerf]

I tried out arch about a month or so ago and really liked it. My main distro is gentoo and arch is like the binary version of gentoo (somewhat, although this may be a controversial statement). It installs fairly easily, getting packages is so easy and fast. pacman -S foo. And the config files in rc.d are pretty intuitive and easy to use. It also allows you to choose desktop env/wm and have only the packages you want.

that being said I wish the install had a compile your own kernel like gentoo because the kernel, from what I've seen, is a completely modularized kernel and I personally like some things embedded and some modules and I like to only have stuff I need not the other stuff. But you can compile your own kernel if you so choose after the install.

Like bryansmith said the wiki's are very good, not as good as gentoo-wiki, but way better than most. I personally haven't used their forums but if I had to venture a guess the average arch user is quite competent and judging from those that use it here extremely nice and willing to help.

So go for it and let us know how you like it.

[netdaemon862]

I'v been hearing nothing but good about this distro, I think I'll have to give it a try meself =).