2003 was the year with Gentoo written all over it in the Linux universe. Last year was Ubuntu’s & MEPIS’. I believe that Arch Linux‘s year is the current one. Read more for a comparison of Arch to existing distributions, and why we think it rocks and where we think it still requires some work.Intro
Arch is an i686-optimized Linux distributions based upon the ideas of CRUX and Slackware. It incorporates their stability, speed and most of all, their keep-it-simple philosophy. When Judd Vinet started Arch towards the end of 2001 he did it because he needed n operating system that resembled CRUX or Slackware but with a package manager that had the ability to track dependencies. So he sat down, used LFS to put together his distro and wrote ‘pacman’ from scratch, his minimalistic and yet very usable, package manager. Here is a quick look on how pacman works:
pacman -Suy (update the whole system by syncing)
pacman -S firefox (install Firefox from -Current)
pacman -R firefox (remove Firefox from your system)
pacman -A package-name.tar.gz (install a local package)
The distribution’s installation procedure is curses-based but it’s not too difficult to figure out (except the part that GRUB won’t get installed if another GRUB is already installed at the same place and it will instead spit an error message — that part always elluded me).
Arch Linux does not have many distro-specific tools and it definetely has no GUI configuration tools. Some of the configuration (daemons, modules, ethernet etc) can be done by editing /etc/rc.conf which is implemented in a clean and graceful way. For more configuration, you will have to use /etc/rc.local or the utilities’ own configuration files, e.g. /etc/conf.d/pcmcia.conf, or udev’s configuration files, or /etc/conf.d/wireless etc. There is definetely a learning curve in there, but Arch is using default file settings and so you won’t have to learn distro-specific tricks (as it is very common for the Debian subsystem or the main RPM systems).
Comparison
So far Arch does not look very glamorous from my description above, but looking under the hood and at the details, there are strong reasons why it has some advantages over the big Linux players and why it has personally won me over the last few months: (disclaimer: the following comparison is based on my own personal experience with these systems over the course of 7 years of using Linux)
Fedora, Mandrake, SuSE: they require at least 192 MB RAM, they are much slower & much bigger, RPM package management is too modularized and easy to end up with broken or incompatible packages all of a sudden. Some of their scripts or settings are too distro-specific with a long legacy behind them and so sometimes they even break the defaults of some applications or create hard-to-reproduce bugs. On the upside, these distros have lots of GUI tools and mind-share, enough to make commercial binary packages to only test with them to ensure compatibility.
Debian, Ubuntu: Much slower to boot, slower performance overall. apt-get & dpkg and all these related tools are not as brain-dead simple to use as pacman is (and Synaptic is not really as wonderful either). Some distro-specific patches can create problems sometimes. On the upside Debian has a gazillion packages to install and its -stable branch is far more stable than any Linux out there.
Gentoo: Gentoo feels like it’s in beta all the time. It is an ever-changing system that started out simple but has become pretty complex with time. Portage is very strong, but the big problem of Gentoo is that it needs hours to get it installed or get it configured or update the system. With Arch you can be up and running in the 1/50 of that time. Speed-wise they are comparable, with Gentoo having an edge if Gentoo-specific modifications are used. Gentoo supports eBuilds (similar to Arch’s makepkg/ABS philosophy) however usually the most common option available is compilation from source.
Slackware: I have made a much more detailed comparison a few months ago. Since then, the only negative thing that has happened is the apparent slowdown in Slackware’s development due to the health of its sole maintainer. Slackware and Arch Linux have more things in common than not and this is the main reason why many Slackware users have moved to Arch recently.
Now, make it even better
Despite what you might think though, Arch is not perfect and no matter what Archers might advocate to you in the forums or IRC, Arch is not for newbies. Semi-experienced users will be able to successfully fully configure their setup with a bit of pain, but less experienced ones will probably be presented with something that resembles a chaos in their minds. This is not to say that Arch is not a great distro, cause it is. But it does target a more experienced part of the overall userbase.
Pacman has a few performance problems as of late. The number of packages got bigger but pacman does not seem to scale equally well. Currently there is a forum discussion about possible solutions to the problem.
Another weak point is the creation of home-made packages. Archers will advocate that makepkg is dead easy, but it’s not as dead easy as Checkinstall (but still much easier than creating RPMs, of course). Makepkg still requires a bit of extra knowledge and some extra time. With Checkinstall you “./configure” and you “make” but at the end, instead of typing “make install”, you type “checkinstall”. Checkinstall will strip the binary, will create the package for you and will install it, all automatically. Makepkg is definetely not as convenient, at least for ex-Slackware users.
Having to deal with configuration files all over the place for many different applications can be an exercise to one’s patience, no matter the level of his/her experience. It would be great if Arch could create more global configuration files similar to /etc/rc.conf for other things too, e.g. wi-fi profiles, printer, scanners, bluetooth etc. Sure, GUI tools are not the focus of this distribution, but having some easy-to-use global settings files can make everyone’s life easier nevertheless.
Lastly, I would love to see all its very useful wiki articles re-published under the Gentoo colored format: the step-by-step nature of Gentoo’s docs do bring out a higher level a confidence in one’s real abilities. And its happy colors prompt the user to think “hey, it is easy, try it!” (yes, part of it is about psychology and the “feel good” placebo effect).
Conclusion
Arch is a great choice for more-than-newbies+ computer users. It’s still in 0.7 version, but it steps on a solid ground, it has great people behind it and an extra-helpful community. Arch’s big point is “simplicity”. But unlike other ‘simple’ distros it goes one step further: it dares. It dares to be innovative where it counts without fearing that it might break some of its simplicity over usefuleness. I find Arch to be the best of all worlds, given you are a bit proficient with computers. Highly recommended for either a workstation or a server.
Installation: 7.5/10
Hardware Support: 9/10
Ease of use: 6.5/10
Features: 7.5/10
Credibility: 9/10 (stability, bugs, security)
Speed: 9/10 (UI responsiveness, latency, throughput)
Overall: 8/10
That’s right.
Arch is for geeks and Mandrake is for the other 95% of people. I never say to “normal” people that they should use Arch, that’s what MDK and almost all other distros are for.
Arch is a very nice system and pacman truly is a marvel. On the other hand, I think it is a much nicer server environment than desktop. Like Slackware, it was originally designed as a server environment (ie. minimal, clean) and as such it requires too much setup and configuration (even for a server environment it is time consuming and nit-picking). Further, it is too bare bones, relying on individual packages to integrate seemlessly with each other instead of providing additional patches to make sure that everything fits together well.
This matters little on server boxes but on desktops, people want to be up and running as fast as possible and the more the desktop seems integrated and works together (and alike) the better the experience is. Like Slackware, Arch is plain vanilla. Some people like that but most people who fall into that camp tend to pick pristine as opposed to ergonomic.
Even if Arch is marginally faster than Ubuntu, it is not nearly as user friendly, easy to install, stable or generally “ready”. Besides, Ubuntu is plenty fast. Furthermore, while Arch packages cover a great deal of popular software, it can’t begin to touch distros like Slackware let alone Debian (and hence Ubuntu).
I love Arch nearly as much as I love Slackware, which is a whole lot. I haven’t been running Arch for awhile though–I’m waiting for it to mature. It only recently hit version 0.7 and the fact that it hasn’t even hit a 1.0 release yet is very telling of its current state. It is fast and since moving on from road bumps that occured during the 2.4->2.6 upgrades as well as pacman upgrades (which enabled source compilation builds akin to Gentoo), it is starting to stabilize. There are still caveats but its momentum is increasing and I suspect that within 3-5 years it will be an established distribution.
If you are an enthusiast or want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of linux then it is a great distro. If you are running a few servers which you want to keep tight control over, it could be helpful but not any more so than Slackware. If you have more than a few servers, it lacks the management tools you will likely require to maintain them. If you are a developer who likes to stay clean vanilla, it is great. If you are a desktop user there are better choices right now.
One last note: it is unfortuante that Arch is essentially a private label distro. Unlike Gentoo, Debian or Ubuntu it lacks a community charter. Like Slackware, it is essentially one man’s pet project (though that understates the involvement of others in the Arch community, I realize). Again, if you are a hobbyist, it behooves you to try out Arch. Otherwise, you might want to look elsewhere for now.
Man, why you lying? Arch is not suited for “normal” people? That is so untrue.. because everything just works in Arch you want to label it “for geeks only”?.. That’s nonsense. If you ask me Arch is much more easier to maintain and configure (one simple rc script which handles EVERYTHING) than all those bloated to maximum RPM based distros. Not to mention all those problems with dependencies there… in Arch it just works, a little naive you may say but actually it’s true…
Because companies like Novell pump big money into their distributions doesn’t mean they have the best product out there..
and most people don’t know that actually they will run into less problems in the long run with distros like Arch than with Suse.
Here is a screenshot of my amd64 running a custom compiled arch on the amd64 (this is a 64bit version of arch). http://genesis.blogdns.net/packages/screenshot3.png
xfce 4.2.1.1 with metacity, glxgears, firefox, and xchat… I also have compiled gnome 2.10 for amd64 arch port and i am currently working on kde 3.4. I hope to be able to release an iso for install soon!
Eugenia, thank you for your comparisons with other popular distributions. It gives me a sense of what this has to offer in comparison to what I’m using and what I’ve used, so I can put it in the proper context. I can look at what advantages it has over distributions I like, and think “gee, are the advantages worth the switch for me?” In this case I’d say firmly they aren’t worth it for me, so this review gave me the sense that Arch is really good for certain groups of users, but isn’t exactly what I’m looking for. I learned and saved time… something to keep doing in future reviews, well done.
I’ve used Arch linux for a few months at the end of last year. I like pacman. However, the quality of the packages was a let down at that time. I’d find myself doing a pacman -Syu and praying that nothing breaks. I was told that experienced Arch users would look at the forums for reported issues with packages before upgrading. This is pretty much unacceptable to me. Pakages must be tested properly *before* being made available. Things may have improved since. I sincerely hope so, because I liked Arch a lot. I will probably try it again sometime in the future.
I must say that Arch is a great distro. It runs really snappy on my old Thinkpad X20 with just 192 megs. I also tried Ubuntu 5.04, but had the problem, that my network card was’nt found by the installer. Of course Arch needs a lot of things that had to by done by hand, but with the great forum it’s possible to get all up und running (as in my case).
Of course we should be realistic in that point that Arch isn’t a distro for beginner! But it’s vary funny to make it running. Great distro and an awsome forum with an huge ammount of informations
http://bbs.archlinux.org/
My opinion of why Ubuntu is popular (positives listed only):
(1) Tons of packages available (& pretty well programmed)
(2) Easy, simple to install & configure (with no config file editing).
(3) Synaptic (GUI) package manager (installs & uninstalls).
(4) A GUI software updater (for currently installed apps/packages).
(5) Lots of computer hardware is supported.
(6) Many developers working on packages, updates, improvements, etc. (makes it a *big* distro)
You forgot the 6 months release cycle
Sounds like you are decribing Mandrake, or SUSE, or FC3.
The problem for me with Ubuntu is it is a fad, and 50% of the people migrating to it do so because it is cool and for no other reason. It’s what everybody is doing. Same for Gentoo before it.
Let’s face it, there are several distros that provide this, so again I say, to each his own. If you like it, use it, if you don’t move on.
By what was written in the article, it could have easily been titled “Arch Linux, why it sucks”. Seriously, what Eugenia was describing as assets, could just as easily been described as liabilities, depending on the user. I mean, having to spend all that time editing config files, and downloading software, can be a major pain in the rear to many people.
And I don’t see Arch being much faster, if at all, than other highly optimized distros like Vector, Yoper, and Ubuntu, all of which are much easier.
Oh well, to each his/her own.
OSNew’s readers once again show that 98% of them cannot comment intelligently.
“Arch’s packages are broken” I’ve never had anything broken because of Arch. KDE 3.4 didn’t work after upgrading from KDE 3.3, but that was because the packages changed.
“Arch has an immature package selection” If you’re a Gentoo user saying this, I don’t know what you are complaining about. This is why ABS and MakePKG exist… For people that want to compile their own software. You COULD have a totally source based Arch installation if you wanted.
“Ubuntu isn’t a fad, and it’s going to be $outragous_claim” No, I’m sorry, you’re wrong. I installed Ubuntu the other day because the old “distro searching bug” hit me. The installation was nice, but it took too long. The configuration was easy, but not that easy. The desktop looked ok, but XOrg didn’t work without a lot of tweaking. The packages worked good, but were about 1-4 months out of date. Boot times gave me time to have ANOTHER cigarette, which isn’t good. I still have Ubuntu installed, but I’m very thankful I still have Arch installed. Ubuntu will disappear in a couple of days, another distro added to the list of “almost good enough to use every day.”
The only thing Ubuntu seems to have going for it is that it’s a slightly faster, newer, more up to date version of Debian. I think all those users that Ubuntu says they’ve gotten are just people that were sick of using packages that were a year old, so they opted for having packages that were 2 months old. Guess what? Those packages are STILL out of date.
“$favdistro is the best, $yourdistro sucks.” Have you tried Arch? I’ve tried your distro and wasn’t happy until I tried Arch.
Now look, I’m no better than anyone else that posted above me, but seriously folks, the distro wars are only continuing because of people like you and me. I wish people would back up their claims though.
Yoper might be more optimized, but have you ever used Gnome on it. Oh wait, you can’t, my bad.
Ubuntu more optimized? How do you get more optimized than KISS?
Vector… yeah, maybe. But it’s not i686 optimized is it? It’s just a more stripped down version of Slackware.
Once again, someone posting without doing any research.
Yoper is only easy until you break it, which means installing anything that isn’t related to Qt/KDE. Ubuntu IS easier, until you want to modify something on a low level, or install a custom made package. Vector is Slackware, so it’s about (+/-) as easy as Arch.
You guys can argue all you want… Arch is another fad distro, just like Gentoo.
There are far too many people wasting time and effort duplicating other peoples’ efforts in the open source world these days. Why start a new distro, when you can improve another?
Arch brings nothing new to the Linux distro landscape. Gentoo brought nothing new to the Linux distros either. Everything’s still based on the Linux kernel, still based around the same tools and ideas from years past, etc. Same shit, different package.
No, I’m not a Windows or Mac advocate. Yes, I use Linux based operating systems every day, and I’d like nothing more than see Linux/GNU/free software get better for everyone.
We’re getting nowhere, because of the infighting between developers and maintainers of software.
Let’s see the numbers.. and installed on the same hardware on the same place on the hard drive.
I like Ubuntu better because it just works. I install it, open up synaptic, and install my extra packages (inkscape, etc.) and I have my system. I tyed Arch, and it took all evening to configure.
Eugenia,
So, just out of curiousity, what’s your primary distro now? Any of these make you give up Slack?
(Sorry if this was answered earlier in the thread — I skipped to the end.)
Arch is my primary distro these days, since last November actually.
I used Arch when it was in the 0.5 – 0.6 stage, it worked well for me, took a bit to configure. But then as someone mentioned earlier I started worrying about upgrades breaking something. Now that was over a year or so ago, so they may have fixed that up now.
After that, trying to find a new distro, I did the whole distro install marathon, install a distro, try it for a week or so, install the next, and so on. I am now on Ubuntu, not because its “cool”, but because it just worked, and that ended the marathon. I am now running it on my AMD64 and it works great.
just my 2 cents.
Does it matter, which distro is faster? Does it really matter, how hard it is to configure? I bet you guys found your favourite distros/OSes already and there’s no use in writing one review after another. Believe me, some people, including me, find Arch’s philosophy really appealing. But that doesn’t mean that everyone has to like it. One’s man meat is another man’s poison, as they say. Every distro has its cons and pros, moreover, it isn’t said that gui configuration, hardware autodetection etc. must be a pro. I’m not gonna force anybody to use Arch, just because I think it’s the best distro for me. And please don’t post about things, which you don’t anything about. To name few:
a) does 0.7 must necessarily mean beta? It’s just a versioning scheme, it could be 39839483.5 without any problem,
b) who said it’s a one man’s distro? I admire Judd and all his work, but, honestly, it’s the community, together with Judd and other devs, who create this piece of software – and they’re doing it well enough to suit *their* needs – it’s not about pleasing just everyone out there, there are enough distros providing user with something else. I agree there are too many distros out there doing just the same thing, but believe me, Arch finds its own place in all of this – and you guys want it to be just like other distros. What for, I ask?
I, and I believe a vast group of Arch regulars as well, don’t think Arch needs any more publicity. You see what it causes – infamous flame wars. Let everyone use what they like, that’s what free software is about, isn’t it? Just leave Arch to people, who know how to get their way around it and enjoy it in everyday use.
As for article’s author – I really feel like stabbing you sometimes, Eugenia 🙂 But that’s probably because I’m plain evil 😉 Nevertheless, I’d nicely ask you to sssshhh (not to mistake for ssh) about Arch. I don’t think this review made anyone any good, except from allowing people, like myself, to write some useless comments.
Cheers to all those great people out there, who serve us all of this great free software, including those bundling Arch together.
“I tyed Arch, and it took all evening to configure.”
If you edit ONE simple rc file the whole evening then maybe instead of playing with computers you should do something else. If anyone claims that Arch is ONLY for experienced Linux users he/she is just spreading lies. I don’t know more easier distro than Arch.. I think that most of y’all saying that it’s only for “geeks” never tried it and just tell what you read on the internet somewhere.. Try it and then speak about it..
If you edit a configuration file you’re a geek. Most people don’t even know what a partition is, or bootloader or vim or….
Arch is for geeks, end of discussion.
Arch Linux is great, and it definitely is NOT! a “geek distro”. I am next to noob, and I need some 30 minutes to have it running, an xdesktop included.
Having toyed a lot with Debian spinoffs, like Ubuntu, I have found out that Arch is WAY more easy to manage (and about equally easy to install). It’s only con is the lack of the vast Debian/Ubuntu repo, but for anyone that is not a total noob on Linus, the ABS build system is so darn fucking easy, that yu shouldn’t notice- until tha Arch package repo is enrichened.
I’ve legitimately tried ubuntu, gentoo, sorcerer, lunar-linux, and arch. With arch the only geeky thing i needed to know was how to type ‘dhcpcd’ to start my network. Then ‘pacman -syu’. I have been using it for 3 months now and dual booting with any other distro that looks nice, and overall it is at least subjectively faster, which is the only kind of faster that counts on a desktop. In addition nothing has ever been broken for me, even when using other people’s pacman packages on the Trusted User Repositories list. I have been able to easily try out different window managers / desktops for x. If i wan’t to see what the big deal about enlightenment is ‘pacman -S enlightenment’ , change .xinitrc to point to enlightenment, and startx. Like it? keep it. Don’t? ‘pacman -R enlightenment’. Same thing – i tried out 4 window managers in two hours (i wanted some usuability testing, not just themes) and so far im settled with xfce until I get my fvwm config done.
I digress though – arch is simple to maintain, fast, and up-to-date. The hardest thing I have encountered is that to get to a desktop you have to know what xorg is and the desktop environment you want. Which can be a big deal if you are a total linux newbie and think that KDE *is* linux. But besides that the distro is everything I have ever wanted, and in the end it isn’t a debate of the merits of design etc (gobo anyone?), it’s ‘does the user want this?’. Arch excels in that area.
>> If i wan’t to see what the big deal about enlightenment is ‘pacman -S enlightenment’ , change .xinitrc to point to enlightenment
That seems to me very like FreeBSD.
And what if you are using GDM or KDM?
What if you want to switch among Gnome/KDE on the fly?
And when you switch among ion, Windowmaker, xfce, icewm, metacity, kwin…, do you still got the menu for all the installed applications?
And regarding to self made binary package from source, I don’t believe it’s all that magic. I had beein with FreeBSD for several years, and I know the limit of the ‘make configure’ thing. I personally fear to build from source for package like xine or mplayer. Ethier I would have a bloated development system (and longer and longer update time) or I got a non full functional media player. I’m no expert for everything in every field of computing, and I would rather trust dedicated package maintainer to build packages for me, like the Debian way.
The other concer is the single rc file. This also reminds me of FreeBSD. How do you manage to start/stop single service manually? Is it necessary to kill ‘rpc.lockd’, ‘rpc.statd’, ‘mountd’ and ‘nfsd’ process to stop NFS? How do you restart network interface?
It’s the same with gdm/kdm. You just start it via inittab or as a daemon and choose the appropriate DE in its menu.
Here’s an excerpt from mine rc.conf:
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
# (prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it)
# (prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background)
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng !hotplug network alsamixer gensplash !netfs @crond @portmap @fam !dbus !hal @archstatsrc)
As you see, nothing complicated. And if you want to start or stop some daemon manually, you just execute ‘/etc/rc.d/network start’ or ‘/etc/rc.d/nfs stop’. Mere KISS for people, who like it easy 🙂
About packages: people mostly use binary packages, but if you feel like rebuilding some package with different configure options, add some patches or whatever, or if you want to build a package which isn’t in the repos yet (there are plenty of packages there already), ABS is there for you. That makes Arch utterly flexible, I’d say.
Please don’t comment how this corresponds with other distros and stuff like that (I know you want :-P), I was merely answering Monte Lin’s question, not comparing anything.
That was a nice review, I’ve been using Arch now for over a year.
One thing I disagree with you though: I do not think Arch should start creating more custom text files for printers and the like. I’m afraid it will become text-bloated in time and will lose its simplicity factor, which was the reason I started using it myself.
rc.conf is really great – and it refers to the core components of an operating system – timezones, modules, daemons etc., and not to optional components.
Another thing, using checkinstall is indeed easier than makepkg, however it can not (as far as I know) track dependencies and other things which pacman needs (and uses). There is however the prototype PKGBUILD which fits the common ./configure && make && make install process.
Shahar.
I have been on Arch for almost two years, started with 0.5 and have advanced along the way to 0.7wombat.
If it is a “geek” OS that makes me a grandfather-greatgrandfather geek at 80 years old.
I enjoy Knoppix, PCLinux, Puppy, UnionFS,klik,kde, slackware,KnoppixDVD,Helix and “archie LiveCD”.
I am a noobie by any stretch and a noobie can be an “expert” trying a new program for the first time!
I even discovered an animalistic device while googling..it is called COWLOOPfs..copy-on-write!!!!!
Huh? Are you serious?? Arch is the fastest distro to set up I’ve ever used (which is the main reason I use it). A clean install can be done in about 5 minutes… Configuration/installing packages after that can take a little longer, maybe 10-20 minutes depending on your knowledge and Internet connection, but 6 hours??? I don’t know how it can take you that long…
I install 0.7 yesterday !!! And i was surprised of the speed of this distribution !!!
In my case it was not SUBJECTIVE boost !!! but very Objective !!! I never use a so fast distro !!!
No more “$APPS is launching…”,applications are up very fast
I admit that put all woking as i wanted to was something!
“a la gentoo !” But i worth it !
Now, everything is configurated… everything work ! This is my “perfect distro” (in date of 23-03-2005!)
NOTE : i was happy with Ubuntu last week…but Now, i am very happy of switching to arch !!! It is the best move i have done this year !