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I ran into "updates wouldn't install" during the period that I used Arch.

It wasn't hard to resolve. Shaman (the KDE GUI for Pacman) told me exactly what would have to be removed in order to avoid conflicts. I had to manually remove the indicated library, which in turn meant removing an number of applications that depended on those libraries.

However, trusting that it would work out, I did perform the manual removal, and I was then able to install the application I wanted, and then re-install the removed applications (at later versions themselves). All that it required was that manual first step to be approved, and the situation was then "unlocked" as it were.

A smarter package manager, such as aptitude, is able to work out this type of solution for you, and automatically perform all of the necessary removals of orphaned packages and installations of updated or new dependencies.

However, if you don't mind getting a bit "hands on" in the technical details of the OS, Arch is very good. One just has to accept that every now and then it will be a bit more "mandraulic" than some other distributions are.

I would not say a "smarter" package manager, more like a auto configuration one. That's the thing about Arch, you configure the system, not the other way around. =)

Well, the toughest that can happen to you is that some services stop working because the configs you had are not compatible any more. Warnings about this are normally printed during the update and can also be found in the pacman (package manager) log file.

Back in the early days, there was a lot going on with udev as a replacement of devfs etc. which could even make your system fail to boot. Here, crucial changes had to be made, like editing grub config. All the changes needed to stay compatible in general have to be done manually.

So every time you do an update: Watch out the messages printed and perhaps gather additional information on the website/forums.

Situation has improved a lot in the last years:
1. big changes like the transition to udev which led to "breakage" of the whole system are over
2. pacman and packaging policies have been improved to make life easier for the user (compatibility warnings were not common back then, you had to read them on the website)
3. for really tricky cases, even Arch starts using transition scripts (lately: change from vt* to tty -- nothing to be done by the user to keep the system booting/running)

I have tried a lot of Linux distributions, so I thought I'd give Arch 2009.08 a try. Here are the "mandraulic" things I had to do, that I haven't had to do on other distributions.

1. On first install of the core, I had a command prompt, and had to log in as root. I used another machine, side-by-side, to view the "beginners setup" wiki page, and I followed the instructions I found there. A lot of people would stumble right here, before they have even begun.

2. The wiki page instructions allowed me to install xorg and test it. Good. I had to guess a bit with editing rc.conf, but it wasn't too bad ... but I had to just know to add myself as a user. I used adduser, and followed all the defaults, which was a mistake as it later turned out.

3. I went to the chakra-project wiki, and found out how to add the kdemod repositories. Another manual edit, as it turns out, this time for pacman.conf. But OK, fair enough, after a very large download I had KDE 4.3 installed.

4. I booted, and most everything worked but not sound. Bummer. I looked at the logs ... seemed OK. I looked at the sound diagnostic commands given on the wiki ... yes, drivers were loaded, but I had no mixer. alsamixer wasn't installed, so I found it and installed it ... it wouldn't run. I scratched my head for a long while before the penny dropped ... and I added myself to the audio group and all was well (this was my mistake in following the defaults in the initial adduser). Oh well, live and learn.

5. Shaman doesn't work currently ... it always reports corrupt packages downloaded. I've had to use pacman from the command line.

6. I added firefox. Incredibly ugly look (the default Raleigh GTK theme ... shudder). I happen to know the answer to this one though, so I installed gnome-themes and gtk-chtheme, I ran gtk-chtheme and selected the glossy theme. Much better ... now firefox fits in reasonably well with the rest of KDE 4.3.

All in all ... a nice enough distro, it runs very fast (especially with KDE 4.3) but it is very mandraulic and it doesn't score well IMO for "out of the box polish".

... but having said that, once you sort the issues and get it set up nicely ... it really does fly.

Edited 2009-08-13 13:06 UTC