Arch Linux

I've been using the most up-to-date version of Ubuntu for quite some time now and I am curious about other Linux Distros. I really want to try Arch Linux or Linux From Scratch. I was wondering if any ATS members have experiences with either of these two, and I want to know what the general opinion of them are.

I haven't tried them yet but I heard they can be difficult to set up if you don't know what you are doing. I would try installing and setting them up in VirtualBox www.virtualbox.org... that way it's in a contained environment and if you flub it up it'd be easy to reinstall and try again. Once you got the hang of it then you could install it to your hard drive with confidence.

Arch also has a beginners guide here wiki.archlinux.org...

I use Arch on my desktop and laptop as the main operating system.

It can be a little bit confusing for the first time to install, but the Arch Wiki is excellent and provides a lot of help. The wiki has probably the best documentation I've seen on any Linux distribution.

It's not for everyone, but I really like it. You can fine tune your system to your likings, avoid bloat and keep the system up to date very effortlessly at the same time. On the flipside, it does require some effort to get started, you have to know what you want and sometimes an update breaks something and you need to fix it, but in total I think it's great.

Linux From Scratch is not a "distro".
It's a set of instructions.
You build it, from inside another *nix OS.
It can be a masochistic exercise in pure un-adulterated maddening frustration.
The rewards are great.
If you want to really, really, really learn Linux, building the LFS way is a sure fire way to do so.
The LiveCD is, in a sense an OS, but it's purpose is to provide a "playground" to build an OS in as opposed to being a user daily-run environment.
Is great fun. In a Love/Hate kind of way.

This may or may not be helpful, but there is one called: DVL which may be useful to use as a learning tool, especially if one is looking at building a linux system from scratch.

reply to post by LadySkadi


That is disturbingly appealing
Thanks

reply to post by TinFoilHatMan55


Thanks for the reply

Yeah, I found the installation process for Arch to be completely foreign to anything else I've done. I have a junk desktop that I use to try out different distros, so I just played around with it on there. Using virtualbox is an excellent idea though.

They should use Arch Linux or Linux From Scratch in programming classes, it would definitely help with education.

reply to post by dalan.


So, how do you like? I tried ArchBang awhile back, but only from the liveCD, never actually installed it. It was cool, but a bit foreign as I'm used to Mint/ubuntu derivatives and not ready to change. Want to try CrunchBang too, but anticipate only using the liveCD, also not actually installing it. Seems that there is so much to learn and switching to something fundamentally different is like starting from scratch. Who has the time?

Originally posted by LadySkadi
reply to post by dalan.

 

So, how do you like? I tried ArchBang awhile back, but only from the liveCD, never actually installed it. It was cool, but a bit foreign as I'm used to Mint/ubuntu derivatives and not ready to change. Want to try CrunchBang too, but anticipate only using the liveCD, also not actually installing it. Seems that there is so much to learn and switching to something fundamentally different is like starting from scratch. Who has the time?

I loved Arch for its simplicity and the amount of control that it offers the user. Arch was very different from Ubuntu, the installation was done manually and a large part of it was done through a text-editor. Even after the installation you are devoid of any form of a GUI and greeted by the command-line. Although I am pretty sure that you can install a complete desktop at a later date if you chose to.

If you are using Ubuntu and you wanted to try Arch Linux or a variation of it I would recommend learning as much as possible about using Bash. Or any of the other terminals offered through Linux. Especially learning how to write shell scripts would make a huge difference in your level of comfort during the installation.

That said it is an excellent distro that puts you in absolute control over your system and the packages that you choose to put on it.

Originally posted by LadySkadi
This may or may not be helpful, but there is one called: DVL which may be useful to use as a learning tool, especially if one is looking at building a linux system from scratch.

edit on 29-1-2011 by LadySkadi because: (no reason given)

What an excellent idea for a distro, I'll definitely have to try that one out. I found one similar to it, but more in an opposite manner:

BackTrack Linux

The only TRUE linux is redhat
P.S if your going open source use a real operating system like solaris or BSD