[ale] Opinions of Arch Linux?

[James Sumners]

On 8/4/06, KingBahamut <gwosbahamut at gmail.com> wrote:
> That is the nature of some (though not all) of the debian die hards. Having
> been at the forefront of many many many Ubuntu vs Debian arguments where we
> as Ubuntu users are so flagrantly accused of not "giving back to debian" I
> understand the rationale around and behind "I dont like it because its not
> debian". But I feel not liking something because of this fact is a shallow
> representation to the actual functionality of the Distro -- in this case
> Ubuntu, for and in which current release has out performed any of its
> previous releases, and im sure more than one person here will aggree with me
> , if not I guess Im an island, but oh well -- or its ability to be useful.

I didn't say I don't like it because it isn't Debian or that the
developers "don't give back." I just said I don't like it. I don't
like it for several reasons. It tries to be user friendly, but if you
want to do anything it isn't setup to do for you then you are in for a
headache and the system will probably break. The forums and wiki are
filled with people who half a half-baked knowledge of what they are
trying to talk about, so getting information about your problem is
haphazard at best. And trying to work with the system like one would
work with a standard Debian system does not work. Example: I decided
to install the xfce-desktop package for Breezy. For some reason this
made xdm/gdm stop working and I had to manually rebuild the initrd
image to get a splash screen again (nevermind that I couldn't ever get
the damn thing to not display the XFCE splash screen). Doing a typical
`dpkg --purge` of the gdm package and reinstalling it did absolutely
nothing. For the last few weeks I was using Ubuntu I had to login and
type `startx` to, well, start X. For a desktop system that is less
than optimal.

There are various other problems I had with it, but I don't feel like
getting into them (if I can even remember them now). Suffice it to
say, I don't like Ubuntu.

> That be said, the original question what , what do you think of ArchLinux. I
> think Arch, much like any other sub level distro is more functional that
> some of its counterparts (This includes Zenwalk , only because im an old
> Slackware fan, and I have a special place in my heart for Slackware, even
> though Ubuntu is my primary distro over the umpteen number of machines I
> have in my house). Id put BLAG, Puppy, Kanotix, Frugalware, Nexenta (which
> is a really killer build of OpenSolaris, and I actually like it too), and
> Arklinux. Arch has many pluses to it, an independent Package manager (aptly
> named Pacman , where is Midway to scoop up rights on that name or something
> , I swear) and its fresh look and feel. So open up a Xen, Qemu, VMware,
> OpenVZ window and install it and tell us what you think Mr. Sumners. Id be
> anxious to hear your experiences.

I installed it in Guest PC yesterday, but the boot script can't figure
out what IDE driver to load so it won't boot after installation. That
is because of Guest PC's IDE controller. I can't run VMWare on this
PowerBook so I am about to see how well QEMU will run on this machine.
I've looked for VMWare Player images of Arch but haven't been able to
find any. I would install VMWare Player on a Windows machine sitting
next to me if I could find them. I can't use Xen or OpenVZ because I
don't currently have a Linux machine to use. That machine doesn't have
a hard drive at the moment (at least not a primary one).

-- 
James Sumners
http://james.roomfullofmirrors.com/

"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts
pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it
is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become
drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."

Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto)
CH:D 59