Comments on: Tried Arch Linux after 2 years: hummmmm

By: Kepa Sakolegi

Kepa Sakolegi — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:08:21 +0000

I honestly think Arch Linux is crap. I have been using it for a year and it has broken exactly three times after an upgrade. Just this week the upgrade to kernel 2.6.28 left me with no sound. Nobody seem to have any idea on how to fix that.

Apart from that, it has many minor issues that I have never seen in other distros. One is localisation. After hours trying to change my locale to EN_GB it still doesn’t work correctly and that makes some applications to detect the wrong encoding of text.

Honestly, I had good expectations on this distro after hearing everybody say how excellent it is. But I just do not see how Arch Linux can get close to distros such as Debian or Ubuntu.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:35:10 +0000

Debian is an OK rolling release if you ignore their ideas (my read: excuses) about “stability” and use sid/unstable branch.

A good basis is grml linux:
http://www.grml.org

Grml is desktop-agnostic Debian sid with a custom kernel; lots of laptop/hardware support. It’s a great “linux from scratch” without the pain. Easy installation scripts. Nice live CD build system. Daily builds. 3 sizes in 2 arches. Just add the desktop you like and you’re done.

Sidux is another choice, but there you have less agnosticism. I don’t think their scripts are quite as nice as grml’s, but they are an ok group.

Ubuntu is also based upon Debian sid (unstable) but are horrible slow making packages.

Desktop-wise, everyone goes sid/unstable except Debian. Debian is stuck in mud over its stable server model.

Ubuntu would be far nicer if they packaged more frequently and thoroughly. I remember years ago waiting forever for misc. hardware upgrades. And minor kernel fixups that all they had to do was ship a +1 bump kernel package to stop hundreds of complaints. But people over there just could not be bothered.

Noticing your “minibuntu” effort you might consider vectoring from Debian sid instead.

By: Fabrizio Balliano

Fabrizio Balliano — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:56:44 +0000

@ikaruga: fine, everyone has different opinions, anyway I’m not a newbie, not on linux neither on arch, just to point it out. bye and thank you!

By: ikaruga

ikaruga — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:18:58 +0000

Yeah, I agree with @eldarion, this was pretty much a worthless article.

You missed the whole point — arch is really not a newbie distro, nor is it meant to be easy to set up. That’s the whole “fun” and why enthusiasts like it :-)

@Shamil – after being weaned on Ubuntu, I made the plunge to Arch and was able to install it on a Dell C600 following the Beginner’s Guide and researching various topics like ACPI…

Note: a C600 is an 8-year old machine and arch is zippy on it! It runs only what I want and what I need — this is the other reason why we love it!

By: Shamil

Shamil — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:01:18 +0000

Downloading faunos. I think that’ll make me more understand and use to arch by messing around with a prebuilt arch system.

By: Fabrizio Balliano

Fabrizio Balliano — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:37:59 +0000

@Jorge: yeah I found FaunOS, I’ll give it a try ASAP :-)

By: Jorge

Jorge — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:33:38 +0000

“Did someone ever created a newbie friendly auto-configuring live-cd based on arch? I think it would rock!”

You may want to look into FaunOS, I’ve never used it, but it is based on Arch and from what I hear is really nice.

Also, I do kinda agree with the first comment a little bit, Arch requires a good bit of time to set up properly. However, this gets offset by the fact that once you set it up, you really do not have to mess with it to keep it up and running. And also, config files can be saved off and reused for additional installs.

By: LAS

LAS — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:34:10 +0000

I run both Arch and Ubuntu and find they both have their strong points. In Arch I feel a little more inclined to the CLI, and in Ubuntu I get the polished desktop feeling. I believe Linux types both are very much needed. Debian testing sounds good also. BTW I hear Ubuntu is providing patches for Debian.

By: Fabrizio Balliano

Fabrizio Balliano — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:06:59 +0000

@eldarion: it is only on some mirrors and it is not linked nor in the home page neither in the download page thus it has to be considered some sort of test.

By: eldarion

eldarion — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:52:43 +0000

I’m sorry but the current ISO is not 2008.04-rc because it’s not linked on the http://archlinux.org/download/ neither on the arch’s home page

2008.04-rc it’s on every Arch mirror out there. Yes, in http://archlinux.org/download/