CVS users, don’t let the next-generation version control system scare you. The basic functionality in Arch can be just as simple as CVS. LinuxJournal covers the basic commands you need to get started.
Arch for CVS Users
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I’m torn between Arch and Subversion, since they both claim to be next-generation version control systems. Can anyone shed some light here?
I’m not an expert, but the basic is:
svn ~= cvs done better, non fundamental changes
arch is a distributed vcs, allowing for multiple branches to be run at once and patches from one going to the others at any time.
maybe useful:
http://sourcefrog.net/weblog/software/vc/ghudson-arch-vs-svn.html
Thanks for the link above, fuser. It is exactly what I needed. What I would like to see is Subversion with distributed repository support and something better than BerkelyDB as the backend.
Um: …let the next-generation…
Arch is not *the* next-generation version control system. It is a next-generation version control system. Anything else is opinion.
Comming from using subversion for about half a year before it went 1.0 I was fairly impressed with it. It seemed to fix cvs, but offer nothing new, which is in itself ok. But then I discovered arch and it has blown me away. No need to setup a berkeley db, or an apache webserver. Creating a new archive is extremely simple, it litteraly takes seconds.
Distributed does’t just mean that you can branch other peoples archives more or less directly. You can also use it to work offline and then sync when you get to a net-connection. I use that a lot on my laptop.
Arch still has rough edges but that is small compared to the huge potential it has.
Compare RealOne under Windows and under OSX. Under windows it’s one of the most feared crapware products. Under OSX it’s.. it’s.. just another player. Strange isn’t it?
After reading over the docs, I am very impressed with Arch’s capabilities, but will probably be moving to Subversion. I like that Subversion seems commited to Windows development as well as UN*X, and that there is good community support for things like integrating with Visual Studio. Really, I would not mind running the server on BSD/Linux, but even so, Subversion still seems to beat Arch for cross-platform on the client end. I wish more open-source proects followed their model.
” What I would like to see is Subversion with distributed repository support ”
http://svk.elixus.org/
” What I would like to see is Subversion with distributed repository support and something better than BerkelyDB as the backend.
”
the development branch already has these features
A few notes about Subversion. An apache webserver is not needed. You have the option of using their custom daemon (svnserve) or even tunnelling over ssh. For local access, you can just use a file:// url directly, without any servers running. Also, the next version will include an option to have a filesystem backend (instead of Berkeley DB). I don’t really see the problem with a database backend, though. You don’t have to do anything special, and subversion handles all of the work for you.
One more note. Here is a great site to dispell subversion FUD. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.red-bean.com/sussman/svn-anti-fud.html
I tried both since January. It didn’t take long to get used to Arch’s new conventions, but I completely lost one repository.
My repositories MUST be stable.
Subversion also crashed, but never lost any data; recovered everything.