Linuxlookup newest staff member Rich Hughes takes a look at Arch Linux version 0.6 (Widget). “I am a recovering distribution junkie. I would obsessively spend my time at Distrowatch, looking for something new. There were plenty of exciting releases. After a while, the excitement would wear off, and the sexy distribution I installed would have some annoyance, so I would dump it and look for something new.“
Arch Linux version 0.6 (Widget) Review
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
The author says that this seems to run faster than Slackware with a smiliar kernel, but does anyone here know how it compares to the uber-optimization of Gentoo? I know a lot of people have converted from Gentoo to Arch, and I was wondering what the draw to it was. I’m actually downloading the base.iso right now to try it out, but I wanted to see what other opinions there are on it.
Must resist. Must resist…
…I’ve only heard good things about Arch so far, so I will go all out and install it on my laptop. Currently I would say I’m an intermediate Joe Sixpack, so let’s see what I am as soon as I come out of it. Maybe I should write my experience down somewhere and then submit it to OSNews. ;O
Then the installer froze. It froze 13 times, apparently due to problems with the Nvidia Nforce2 motherboard. For the first time, I could not get a distribution installed.
I have been having this problem for quite a while myself. I learned that in addition to “noapic”, you also can (and apparently have to) specify “nolapic” and “noioapic” during the installation.
In the case of Mandrake, hit “F1” when the install splash screen comes up and then you can type “expert acpi=off noapic nolapic noioapic” at the LILO prompt to ensure a problem free install.
I never used a Linux distro before ArchLinux,
before I used FreeBSD for few weeks.
I’m really happy about ArchLinux,
also their forums helped me a lot when I had to install the drivers for my pcmcia nic.
What I like about Arch is how simple is to upgrade the sytems/packages ( I’m using the 2.6.4 kernel right now ).
I don’t have to compile from sources.
Maybe what they “lack” is more documentation,
but I have to the say that the installation guide is well written and it covers all the details you need to know.
Congrats to the ArchLinux guys 🙂
I see absolutely no advantages over gentoo. Am I missing something? I know gentoo has many more packages available in portage then ‘pacman’ provides. Nice to see a review of something other then lindows on this site. Keep ’em coming guys.
Looks like there’s a live cd too, which can be copied to the hard drive. Wonder how well that works?
http://amlug.net/new-projects/live-cd/al-amlug-live-cd.html
> I see absolutely no advantages over gentoo.
> Am I missing something?
One advantage, for a newbie as me, it was the installation.
ArchLinux seemed more easy to install, for me at least…
From what I see, it is more focused on binary packages as norm, not source packages.
Besides: “I see no advantages of Gentoo over Sourcemage. Care to fill in?”
Do you see the problem with that question? :>
I’m looking for a distro for an AMD K6-2 and would love to try Arch but Arch is for i686 only and the K6-2 AMD doesn’t measure up. Is there any version for an i386, i486 or i586?
“I see absolutely no advantages over gentoo. Am I missing something?”
I haven’t looked at Gentoo in ages, and I’ve never installed it. It used to be mainly ports, which need compiling, does Gentoo also have a lot of packages? (GRP didn’t even exist last time I looked at Gentoo docs.) Arch is all precompiled, i686 optimized packages. And new stuff / new versions are added a lot. This is what’s good about FreeBSD too, there are a lot of packages in addition to ports.
I should add that I stopped using Arch in favor of Slackware and FreeBSD. Arch can’t run on my older machines, so Slack is more of a homogenous setup. Arch is also harder to set up, a newbie might want to add Slackware’s hotplug to autodetect USB devices. At Arch 0.5 there was a problem with the installer and adding extra packages. I had to manually install KDE libs to get KPPP to go online and update the system (although PPPD would have worked too). There was an ugly Xfree update, which I did while in X amazingly enough. I suppose 0.6 has solved most of these issues. Arch’s package management is one of my favorites, and of course the packages are decently optimized to begin with.
Does anybody have any experiences with using Asian (specifically Japanese) language stuff like Canna and Kinput2 on Arch Linux?
I am a FreeBSD user who recently installed gentoo out of neccessity (a 855GM problem which can only be resolved by installing a commercial X server, which in turn installs a kernel module…), but am really interested in Arch (I have no problems with Gentoo for what I do ie. Emacs and basic programing, but Pacman sounds like a very good system and the small foot print of Arch is kind of attractive).
I actually installed Arch once, but did not have time to read up on Arch docs and how to create a build script for Japanese stuff, or really look into how the locales are handled in Arch. Went on to Gentoo which has Japanese stuff under /usr/portage.
Not much on the forum archives or Arch site. I know there is a link to Scott Robins’s site from Arch, but if there is something more maintained, it might fill niche needs like mine.
There are no binary packages for Canna or Kinput but people have got these working –
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=228
I dispute the claim that Arch is a ‘hard’ distro – once you get past setting up the basics (fstab, modules, etc), which you can do easily given the forum and the documentation, it’s a breeze. Seriously, pacman makes life so easy, and packages are constantly updated. It’s really worth it, for the learning experience, and the speed.
Running kernel 2.6 is frightening.
“Is there any version for an i386, i486 or i586?”
Not really. But AFAIK there have been some plans to make an i586 version too. This is what the Arch Linux documentation has to say about it currently:
“NOTE: We do have an i586 build of the core package set, but it is not actively maintained at this time. Volunteers?”
There’s more information about that project at least on the Arch Linux user forum: http://bbs.archlinux.org/ . Simply search i586.
From Mandrake to Suse to RedHat to Slackware(-Current)[Current] to Arch/Gentoo?
^ Somewhere Knopix and FreeBSD comes along ^
Switching from N00by-friendly to more advanced and complicated without eyecandy and graphical installers…
Just a few weeks ago i found out that i can live completely without X, all i need is MC, Lynx, fbxine 4 watching movies, mpg123, and BitchX =], All i need X for- is browsing the web, Lynx is text based =[
Gona try Arch or Gentoo, just need a victim or maybe a new partition =]
> I see absolutely no advantages over gentoo.
There is absolutely no reason to compare Arch to Gentoo. Arch is not a source distro! Yes, it has abs. But the purpose of abs is to serve as a convenient supplement to pacman, to easily make modifications to packages on as-required basis, not as main means of installing or updating the system. To my mind it makes most sense to compare Arch to Slackware.
But if you really must know, on the desktop at least Arch feels just as fast as Gentoo. Installation and updating feel definitely faster (since it takes minutes rather than hours)
> I see absolutely no advantages over gentoo. Am I missing something?
Well, as a person who moved from Gentoo to Arch, I think there are a few advantages (as well as disadvantages).
Advantages:
– Pre-compiled packages: even some regular Gentoo users complain about this. For me, personally, I didn’t mind compiling (I just left my computer running over night). The problem comes in when I want other people who are not great the computers to use Linux. It was very hard to tell my roommate that he would have to wait a few hours for KDE to install (he wanted the latest version, not the GRP? version)
– Small Footprint: after awhile, Gentoo really got bloated. It just took up a lot more space than it should, and that is even after removing the downloaded distfiles. Arch, on the other hand, remains relatively tidy. Just from experience, no real scientific proof.
– Quick Install: this kind of goes back to promoting Linux to other users. For me, installing Gentoo was fine (trust me, I’ve done it multiple times). However, I couldn’t really recommend it to my friends. For most people, especially newbies, they want to get up and running quickly.
– Easy to Get Involved: I just felt overwhelmed in trying to get involved with Gentoo. Getting in involved with Arch was easy: I made packages, and even wrote documentation.
Disadvantages:
– Smaller Amount of Software: for instance, when I was on Gentoo, I regularly used Octave, but Arch doesn’t have a package for it yet (there is an unofficial one); Portage is simply huge compared to pacman. However, Arch does have ABS, which I have used regularly to make my own packages. Still having portage was nice.
– Poorer Documentation and Smaller Community: Gentoo is much more mature in the documenation department and their message board is a great resource. Arch has a good community too, but it’s a lot smaller.
– Strange/Different file structure: Arch uses /opt a lot, which to me, at least, seems it bit odd, though understandable
As an ending note, the main reasons for my switching from Gentoo to Arch were that Arch had pre-compiled packages, was relatively bare-bones, and easy to install. Also, Gentoo was experiencing too many growing pains with the new genkernel and the gcc upgrade. Upgrading my kernel just became to troublesome. Both are very good distros and have taught me a lot, so use whatever you like.
Is it realy better than good’ol’slack?
Well, now i realy gona try it out =]
mmm… it’ll be realy sad if IT[Arch] is better than slack…
i’m so used to slack =]
does Gentoo also have a lot of packages?
Just a quick check turns up 6457, but I haven’t sync’ed in a week or so. Still, that’s about 6.5K different packages, not including various versions.
> Is it realy better than good’ol’slack?
OK, I will stick my neck out and say that yes, Arch is actually better. Because it is just as simple and open (in the sense of not hiding anything behind configuration tools), yet its package management in form of Pacman is superior to Slack. Pacman strikes just the right balance: it takes care of dependencies, but does not introduce too much complexity…
Oh yes, and Arch is compiled for i686. That’s a bonus in my book.
I’m a gentoo user who set up an arch linux box a while ago. I dare to say that arch linux is the best binary-based distribution I ever came across. pacman is nice. Anyway, I never got nvidia kernel running on it for some odd reason and I also dislike the idea of pre-compiled/configured kernels.
Please do yourself a favor and don’t compare arch with gentoo or vice versa. Don’t compare binary-based distris with source-based. It’s just not right.
I just wish Arch had similar variety of games as Gentoo has.
Finally, a distro to fiddle with, something to get me busy. I like this time of the year, with many new releases.
Hi
As being a debian unstable user, I’m very satisfied with my newly installed arch and are working on my full conversion to it
It’s beauty is it’s simplicism. Everything here is simple. Your system is simple, as it’s totally unbloated. Your configuration is simple, as it’s only few, common files and the specific ones of software you install on your own. Software installation is simple, as pacman “just works” and you don’t have to bother about getting the latest version – on debian I often compiled myself for that reason. Choice is easy because you get the best performance out of your system :-))
Getting help is very simple too: connect to irc.freenode.net and join #archlinux. People there are higly motivated in helping you out. You don’t have to wait long for answers or even expect them to never come.
It’s a real joy to be part of that community.
In my experience Pacman has a LOT more packages available than the equivalents available for Slackware – a statement I make not so much because slackware didn’t have something that I wanted that Arch did (there were things I couldn’t find via swaret or pacman, albeit different things), but rather when I tried to install several programs w/ swaret I had to go hunting for dependancies much more often than with pacman. I was surprised when Swaret had all my dependancies down, and I was surprised when pacman didn’t. That’s just how it was for me. Mind you, this was about 6 months ago. Otherwise, I rate slack and arch about the same – though, personally, I found slack easier to manage and configure, but that’s just me ^^. Ran both for the longest time side by side;)
As for source based vs. binary based systems, imho, the difference is responsibility and control. When you compile your programs from source, for the most part you are responsible for the finished product. You control the flags sent to GCC, you are responsible for configuring the program, you’re responsible for every aspect of your system – be it too big or too slow or for broken dependancies or whatever. For the most part, all the distro is responsible for is the core components and making sources compilable on their distro (there’s a lot more to it of course. All I’m saying is that you – the user – are making the most critical decisions for the outcome of your system.)
In a binary based distrobution you still handle configuration, but all the packages are compiled for you by the people maintaining the distrobution. Things like stability, speed, footprint on the hard disk and in memory, interoperability, and capability are all for the most part in the control of the people who make the distro, and they are responsible, for the most part, for how it runs.
I’m leaving the coders who write programs completely out of this however – but then we all should know what we’re putting into our systems and how it runs with our configuration;) So that’s really for the user’s discression.
My point is that it’s really easy to put together a crummy gentoo setup and blame it all on gentoo, for example. It’s not hard to throw in some loopy use flags or use flags that are inappropriate for the program you’re compiling. It’s also not hard to tweak makefiles and whatnot. It CAN BE hard to squeeze every drop out of your system and make it perform to the fullest – but it can be done. With a binary distro… that’s just impossible – but installing new packages is reletively easy because the distro maintainer is responsible for all that stuff.
Basically, with source based – it’s just about YOUR distro. With binary, well you’re using THEIR distro.
No harm either way – it’s just control and responsibility:)
I found that the review captured Arch quite well. I’m an Arch fan myself, and I’ve found that my favorite aspect of the distro is the fact that it’s tailored towards the more “control freak”-ish members of the Linux-using community, i. e. those who don’t feel that their system should be much more than a shell to build their ideal distro on top of. Arch’s simple, not in-your-face binary package management goes with this, as does its minimalistic init script and configuration system. It’s truly a distro for those who are knowledgeable with Linux and know how they want _their_ installation to behave.
I find Debian and Gentoo to be quality distributions as well, but when you’re installing one of those you basically have to subscribe to the Debian or Gentoo way. Arch stays out of your way and lets you run Linux how you wish
Arch is a great distro and its concept of linux is simple and fantastic, but for me have a problem with its package system. When you install arch, you install a lot of think that you don’t need. For example devel packages, if I install samba package I don’t need in the same package all devel files. Package system should split in devel and not devel. With the same example… I want smb support in konqueror but I don’t want install all samba suite, I only need necesary libs, others distros offer this libs as packages…
Packages (not package system) and support for other languages are things to be improved.
Anyway it is a brilliant distribution.
Much easier to deal with, less cruft with the installation and it has taught me a lot about Linux itself.
I like it and coupled with Xfce it is a really nice responsive Linux Desktop. The community is very helpful too if you can’t find an answer in their forums then people are quick to respond and very civilised.
Just loaded up UT2004 Demo on it last night and it runs better too, my only issue was getting Nvidia drivers to install but I was able to after some reading.
According to their website[1], there’s 6531 packages at the moment. Not as much as Debian but still a good bunch. I have yet to find a package that I need and isn’t in portage.
Arch looks promising. I might try it once they have more packages available. I have a question though: do they have a strict policy on file placement? I like Gentoo but developers seem to lump everything in /etc, something I don’t necessarily like. Some binary packages are in /usr while others are in /opt, etc.
[1] http://packages.gentoo.org/categories/
The precompilation makes it better than Gentoo, and the package management makes it better than Slackware. The primary weakness is that it only runs on i686+ chips – no i586, no PPC, and no AMD64 support. You can install it in 10 minutes, and it wont kill your laptop like Gentoo will. Its very lean, and very clean. The user community is as friendly as Gentoo’s though smaller, which makes it about ten billion times more friendly than Slackware’s infamous community. Gentoo is branching out in so many directions they’re becoming Debianesque, and Slackware’s getting as bloated as a habitual beer drinker. I’m serious, you will like it!
Arch Linux is by far my favorite distro. It’s simple, it’s fast and I love pacman. It’s an easy and fast version of Slackware with an APT-like package manager. For me it’s a divine combination.
Hi!
A few thoughts.
1, Why arch is so popular? It’s a very nice combination of many other distro’s strenght point. What experienced users want? Free (bye redhat), STABLE (bye gentoo…c later), easy to keep up to date in long term (bye slack), fresh packages (bye debian), fast install/management (if u install it for eg a company w/ 10 workstations), freindly community. For me arch is the first which haven’t failed at any of these criteries, and i think for many of us.
2, gentoo vs. arch (not meant to be flame, just my personal experience): i like source based distros, really. I tried the latest gentoo stable iso. It had kde 3.1.3 on it. Then (around january) the current was 3.1.5. So i wanted to do a full upgrade. It started to cry about kdelibs 3.1.4 will conflict my qt, and it couldn’t solve it (“block” in gentoo terminology as i remember). It was stupid, as i nether had nor wanted to install 3.1.4. I asked some local gentoo experts, they just could guess what’s wrong (remember it was a fresh system from the stable iso…). In short, i guess gentoo is great, but far from my needs of stability w/ these issues.
3, live cd: somebody asked about it: it’s simply great. It’s WORKING (unlike knoppix’s knx-hdinstall forever-beta), it configures the kernel and X properly, copying all the needed config files to the hdd too, it’s a very convienent way to install arch. Actually it’s the first live cd which could install itself to the hdd w/o problems for me…(i’ve treid knoppix, gnoppix, suse live, etc)
so i really can suggest this distro!
bye, hirisov
I think the author had missed one detail when writing this paragraph:
Updating your system is as easy as typing “pacman -Syu” One important thing I learned is that if you are running kernel 2.6 and do not want pacman to update the kernel for you, you have to edit /etc/pacman.conf and add “kernel26” to the “Ignorepkg” line. Pacman kept wanting to update my kernel even though “kernel” was listed in my “Ignorepkg” line. It is just syntax, and making the above change kept my kernel safe.
He seems to think there is some weird out syntax going on here, which is not the case. The explanation is that the package named “kernel” holds the 2.4 kernel, while 2.6 is in the package named “kernel26”. It was done this way to make it easy to have both kernels on the system at the same time (so you can boot any of them).
For an inexperienced user the paragraph *is* actually very helpful, though. I just wanted to clear up the misunderstanding.
Anyways, Arch is a truly beautiful distro that has come a long way already. Don’t forget that it is still young and won’t hit 1.0 for some time to come.
We all hope to see more new users on #archlinux after this review
-bogomipz