GNU / Linux It is a world full of possibilities, we have so many distributions that in the end you never know which one to choose, there is Debian, Arch, Fedora and a long list of "pure" distributions and then their variants, such as Ubuntu.
Most of them give you everything ready to go, others require more configuration and then there are those that force you to learn, like Arch.
Arch, is not an easy distribution, nor oriented to beginners, it is aimed at anyone who wants to know more about Linux, those who are curious, who do not mind reading documentation (either in the language of Cervantes or Shakespeare) and who want to know how an OS works.
When Arch is installed, don't expect to see an installer that is next, next, and accept. You have to mount it yourself, make the partitions by hand, mount the SWAP, install the base, the graphical environment (if you want, Linux can do everything by console, even watch HD videos), prepare it as a web server, file server, printers, media center or recreational machine.
She only gives the base, you put the rest.
If after this, you are still thinking about installing Arch, I recommend that you read before this great article from elav and that you add to your favorites the official page of ArchLinux, that you try on a virtual machine, or if you are going to venture to install it on a computer, have another one nearby, to go consulting the errors and bugs that you are going to find (because you will surely find them).
I leave you a screenshot of my current configuration of my Arch linux:
I hope you liked the first of my many Articles!
The first thing I would recommend to most users is that they learn to use Linux Mint so that they get used to the GNU / Linux interface. Then if they want something a little more robust, they would go through Debian. For those who want to get into the console, I would recommend Slackware; But if you suffer from versionitis, you have no choice but to Arch Linux.
And if you want to optimize Gentoo to the maximum
Yes. Arch is like Gentoo for Dummies.
Maybe I haven't played with Gentoo for a long time, given at the time when they officially released Arch for 64bit, the difference in performance didn't justify the compilation time it takes.
It depends on how you compile and on what hardware .. if you take a look around here http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Optimize-Options.html and you activate the most experimental as loop optimizations, the precompiled distros have nothing to do against that, that is, generally the system goes to waste due to random errors xD
Hahaha «challenge accepted»
Versionitis = Archlinux ????
I think that Archlinux is not at all to be used by people with versionitis, for my part I always return to Arch, after trying a new distro or when the bug bites me to want to try other distros, Arch according to my opinion is a very good distribution, with great support and better WIKI, apart from that you have that huge package base called AUR, in which you find even the tables of the ten commandments hidden somewhere, so I would be surprised if one suffers from versionitis, you occupy Arch since you I assure you that once you see it, you don't let it go, and if you do it is only to come back with the tail between the legs. Now if you enter the linux world I agree with you that Linuxmint is a very good option, but I also think that Fedora is also a very good choice since it teaches you a lot and with a very good community.
Finally, without demerging to other distributions, I believe that Arch is far superior to many and that does not mean that one has to suffer from versionitis to use it! greetings Ariki
In my case, Arch, with how rolling it is, gives me vertigo because if I stop using my PC for 3 months, the updates arrive with a size of 1 GB or more.
Arch is much more minimalist. In fact, I have tried it on my own and it is not so necessary to depend on AUR because the truth is that its main repo is quite complete for the most important thing. And the most curious thing is that it is easier to install Arch on a real PC than a virtual machine.
I understand rolling and that you must be connected to inet at least once a week, but is that the point of this distribution or not? Now I give the case of AUR because I give you an example I use a printer that does not have its drivers in the official repos, so I necessarily need to install aur, apart from many programs have more recent versions in AUR through Git, now It is completely true what you say is much easier to install Arch directly on the pc than in a virtual machine lol, I only have Arch on my laptop and I am not going to change the distribution for a long time since it is working incredibly well with proprietary amd drivers included !! Cheers
It depends a lot on what you have installed, I did not use it a week and I had 500Mb of update or_O among them the KDE update
The KDE thing, as long as you don't choose heavy dependencies.
Well, I don't know why you leave and come back from arch if you don't suffer from versionitis…. although I support what you say about versionitis .. rolling release distros are precisely to eliminate that element of versions of most distros ... the last file that was installed in my machine was more than 3 years without even being installed again.
For my taste Linux mint is the "windows" of linux. Easy to install, easy to use but without windows effect. Actually any distribution is 100% optimizable and customizable, the point is that some give it to you and others force you to do it.
I started in ubuntu then mint and tried debian, I could not live in retro: S, then I met arch and I met heaven of those of us who have versionitis XD hehej 🙂 greetings.
As they say, there is something for everyone, and I am sure that many like Arch because of that little worm of wanting to learn and many will not like it since they only have to want an operating system ready to work without so much fuss and for that are the out in the box distros like mint, korora, manjaro and more .
in the end is it out or in? "Out of the box feature" is called the ready-to-use software
I have always wondered if it could be for me, I will see that it may be that I am encouraged to install it, able to stay installed forever on my notebook, I just hope I don't have to think about it too much, how about installing it? using virtualbox ??
Basically any distro will meet in greater or lesser proportion with the objective that a user pursues (which is basically to use their machine).
Often times when you think of a distro as arch your users are looking for something a little more specific.
In my case, arch offered me versatility but also limited performance and configuration, so recently I returned to gentoo, consequently solving my slightly more specific requirements.
By this I mean it depends on the user and their requirements at a given time.
So far, I prefer to use OpenBSD over Gentoo (you don't have to do anything in the kernel or its configurations for it to work well and robust).
Well, I don't know what it has to do with it .. !! In openbsd you can also make additional configurations and many times necessary (I tell you first hand) so that the system adapts to your needs .. that your requirements are so general and that you additionally suffer from layer 8 is something very different
Oh sure, but you don't spend your time editing the processor information to make it work for you.
He is a frikazo, do not pay attention to him.
@ pandev92: Most of the Hispanic Linux users here (including myself) are geeks. Now that we try to open up to other people is something else.
WTF ???
Archlinux is not difficult at all, anyone who already knows the basics of GNU / linux who wants to start with Arch I encourage you to try it, although as the article says, it is not an easy distribution either, it is not how Ubuntu or similar can be, It is a distro in which you build everything, therefore it can be a bit cumbersome to install, but it is not difficult at all and even less by following its wonderful wiki (this I think is one of its strengths).
For me personally, the things I like the most about Arch are:
1.- The KISS concept (I don't know how I was able to live before knowing that XD concept).
2.- AUR, okay, that AUR is not extremely secure is true, but the fact of having a repository so that anyone can upload and maintain packages gives you the feeling of being in a very open community, also, if so much you are concerned about security, you can always read the pkgbuild before installing something.
3.- Pacman, for my taste, the best package manager I have tried.
4.- Your Wiki, the best I've seen so far.
And the things I don't like about Arch:
1.- The stability of the packages, okay, it is very nice to have the latest of the latest, but sometimes it is important to have a PC that you know 100% sure that there will be no bugs or instabilities, (In this respect I like Debian better for that).
2.- There are only versions for x86 and AMD64, that is, they do not support ARM, PPC… while Debian supports a lot of architectures.
3.- The kernel, in Debian, I can choose the kernel that I use, Linux, BSD, Hurd (although the latter is not stable),…. While not in Arch, arch is just a GNU / linux distro with support for x86 and amd64, while Debian tries to be a universal OS, both in kernels and architectures.
For me a perfect OS would be a mix of Arch and Debian, a KISS system with something similar to AUR, stable like Debian (since installing from AUR is only your responsibility), with support for a lot of architectures and kernels like Debian.
A greeting.
There is an attempt to make a stable Arch: KaOS.
And Manjaro?
Maybe, but KaOS is close to the kind of release that Slackawre and Debian have.
Chakra was going the same way. Just look at the VLC versions that are released with each ISO are several versions older than the current one. The same with the ISO's of the system
KaOS has nothing to do with it, it still uses pacman, but it is not based on Arch, it does not use its repos, it does not have the same applications in theirs, in fact neither the wiki info (obviously there will be something that if, as in all distros) is supported.
At least, with Arch, I had no major problems for any problem that could be fixed with the Wiki.
Compiling for me is that ... If you have to make big updates you can waste your life compiling and if something fails above ... pufff, you can resume a compilation but I don't know ... Arch really cool ... It goes like a shot and the packages are set up like an airplane.
I don't know if your answer was for me 🙂
But I agree with you, from my very particular point of view, with current equipment it seems like a waste of compilation time necessary for so little gain in performance that distros like gentoo offer.
There is a question that always arises in my head ... There are people who ask for more stability compared to having the latest versions, but ... doesn't this make the system more insecure?
For security patches that could be delayed and so on.
The latest version is not always the most stable, imagine a software with versions 2.7 and 3.0alpha1, in 2.7 everything is ok but in the alpha there are new functionalities that the other did not have but are not yet 100% stable.
Aha, if that I already understand, and the truth is not that I mind waiting for the final versions (what annoys me is having to wait to be able to try an already updated final version, not alpha or beta). What worries me are the security issues that could be encountered with outdated versions of certain programs.
For example, I remember that the Mageia repos installed Firefox 18.0 because it was the stable version, instead of the 22-23 version of that era, which it made me do, I don't know if with many reasons, terribly insecure.
In general, distributions are in charge of correcting, applying and in some cases backporting the security patches published by the upstream. If you look at distros like debian they have the following format in the package name xxxx-yyy-z- $ arch.deb where z is the version of the package (not the software) in the repository. That is why debian stable, redhat and others continue to have security updates despite having packages from the Jurassic period.
: )
If there is Arch for ARM, in fact there is for Raspberry pi
http://archlinuxarm.org/
There are programs to correct your spelling, in the clear case that you don't have enough vocabulary to avoid making these mistakes ... the word "echo" in the context you use it does not exist. in fact there is for Raspberry pi it would be "in fact there is for Rasperry pi"
thank you for the correction!
I'm always wondering why Pacman is the Best Package System (tm). What functionality does it have that puts it on such a high pedestal? Delta updates? Ability to handle numerous repositories? Easy configurability? Plugins?
Gentoo and Linux from scratch to learn the Linux structure thoroughly
Arch to get started
But Debian to stay work and grow
Ubuntu is for checking your mail and not much else.
It is installed as it was done from the beginning (or am I wrong?) Because I remember that when I wanted to install the mandraque 7 cd in an amd586 with 8mb in RAM and that I never could. The installation interface asked me to create partitions that I didn't even know, and it also asked me what desktop environment I wanted to install and what packages.
What happens is that Arch is a distro that does not have QA, so each one manages to solve the problems that appear in the updates.
I also suffered from versionitis, but some recurring problems in these rolling distros made me reconsider.
So my priorities changed and I now use Debian Wheezy.
I am more in favor of stability rather than the actuality of packages. I even abandoned Fedora which seems to me to be the most current and stable distro at the same time. What I need is total stability, so I only recommend two linux distributions .. Debian and CentOS in their stable branches.
These are the best distros and the way to productivity, performance and durability 😀
+ 1!
And don't forget Slackware too!
I like this distribution, for its great customization, apart from that it only brings or rather, you will have the installed packages that you need, which in my case, I have several test services for my learning and I have found it the best, so far.
I tried Debian and didn't like it, for the reason stated above.
Ok, the update can be a double-edged sword, but for that, as a friend said, I give a week to update, apart from that I look at the official page to find out about any matter.
I think that a novice or an experienced one, no matter the recommendation, the learning will be much greater.
It all depends on the desire and perseverance you have to learn.
It is a very good distro, I have tried to test it although of the 2 times it has made me somewhat difficult, first with the gateway and DNS configuration, even editing the Arch files that it was another and then with Xorg, not for that I am going to make ground I have managed to test it on another PC, and that is why I know it is good, now that it switched to systemd I think I will try to install it again, to see if it does not give me the same errors (I do not accuse the distro, I could I contribute, but neither BSD, gento, should have done something like that to me)
And for versionitis, as they say "buntu", which I have checked and some unstable packages use, for newbies I only recommend mint, I don't like it, because not mint, suse, mageia, and I say it because they are easy to install and have a panel of windows-style control because newbies regularly come from that environment.
But like another post on the blog, the one that is good means that it is the distro for everyone, another endless fight in gnu / linux is the packages, that apt-get, pacman, rpm, and others each one his favorite and saying of the others «they are slow, inefficient search engine, it takes a long time to install and a long one, etc», here I share my point of view, all the managers work just as well, they end up installing the repository package, so it would be wrong to use One or another.
Hello to me, personally, mint seems to me the best thing that I tried, if it weren't because it has a bit old software I would use it. It seems to me the most appropriate option (at least comparing it with OpenSUSE, Mageia, etc), especially for newbies. I recommend it to anyone starting on Gnu / Linux. After that the only thing I recommend are Fedora and Arch or Manjaro, which, in fact, are the ones I liked the most so far
Well I see arch with good eyes, its pro packages are updated tremendously and I personally like pacman more than apt-get, it seems to me that if it is the packages they like more than the debs. Good for color tastes I think you see the philosophy of the distro and that's why you select 🙂
Carlos could you share a step-by-step guide on how you achieved the style that you show here
It is a good idea! I have another item on fire and when I finish it, possibly I will
Well, I read almost all the comments and I agree with most. ArchLinux is not difficult at all if you feel like reading and learning. I think it is an excellent distribution and contrary to what many people think, it is a very stable distro. At least I have not had serious problems.
I am almost sure that the times I have re-installed I have done it because I like to have the system and / home very clean. In addition, as sometimes I have a lot of time "to fart" I start to re-install, after having tried some other distros.
Today, my ArchLinux is not changing for anything.
Ivan!
Right now I took advantage of the fact that I finished classes to prepare my machine and install Arch + Cinnamon, it took me 20 tries (yes, as you hear o_O) until I finally managed to get the network up (wireless especially because it is laptop), install the Display Manager ( I stick with Lightdm but not Ubuntu, MDM does not work for me at the moment), the desktop environment (Cinnamon without GNOME: D) and my audio, video and other packages
What many say is true, the arch beginners guide is a great help, although it is to learn to grasp what corresponds because sometimes you have to go to another article or things like install in UEFI or static IP appear that (in my personal case, although it does not hurt just in case it helps others) it does not work for everyone, but otherwise I already have it running without problems and with everything working, as well as installing little by little what I really need at the time
I only take 2, but the truth is that I am very happy with it.
Arch, for me:
The most stable I have tried, you have to read the news from the wiki
Rolling and almost everything to the last
the wiki and forums
Allan McRae, a machine
Pacman the best package manager that together with packer, you have it all
I have good support for the GMA500
the wiki
....
Archlinux is not difficult to install, it can be a bit scary but, it is not so bad
Arch is great, I prefer it over gentoo because it takes less time to install on my low-resource lap, I have been using it for 5 years, but there is something that I am noticing and it is the low quality currently in the AUR packages.
@ Carlos.Guide… «How is that about wearing gaudy colored leggings»?
After testing many distributions, I definitely stick with Arch. It has a reputation for being complicated, but it is really only difficult to install, afterwards it seems the easiest distro to manage that I have come across. And as for stability, with xfce the truth is that I have hardly had problems, and when I have had them with a package, the next day there was an update fixing it.
By the way, the desk is very cool. What conky theme do you use?
Last night, I installed it on the desktop computer, hahaha I had not decided, therefore, due to lack of space for the hard disk, and lack of time.
Yesterday I finally decided to install and I'm more than happy with it, it goes up very fast, turns off very quickly and packages are well updated 🙂
Now, I need to give some aesthetic touches, the Chromium more especially, which has a little ugly menu.
And better adapt the iptables, to see the information with the systemd
It's what I liked the most about this distro, the systemd 🙂
I have just been using about 3 months ago. Arch + KDE, and I am impressed by how stable it is, I have not had errors and everything runs very smoothly.
Now, regarding the "danger" that occurs in each update, I find that it is advisable to make backups of the OS with clonezilla, so any disaster, restore and go.
Greetings.
I stay with debian that if you want it has the same installation complexity and you can do everything by console or if you want in graphic mode and different installation modes, which I don't see much of arch due to its complexity since with debian and its installation Expert mode by console would be =, and always compiling only a geek would like it and if I want solid as a rock I should be stable if I want the newest I should have sid and that's it and I'll always have repositories with everything I need
I do not see anything extraordinary to ach or complex and more complex distros even that have to be compiled even in case
I clarify, it is not necessary to have another computer nearby, it would be enough if you wanted to print part of the PDF or manual that you have downloaded for installation or if it is not a lot of work to copy by hand perhaps the essential thing.
The truth is that I do not know what fear they may find Archlinux, I personally used it a while ago but it is somewhat tedious when everything and practically everything must be done by hand (in this way you learn because you learn) and well, I used in that then Gnome Shell and in a Pacman -Syu ####! Crassshhh! - My system went to the floor, so I went to Ubuntu because of my previous experience with this distro and because of the issue of the ppa's, now I'm in it and then, using virtualized W8.1 for some programming issues with Visual Studio 2013 and .NET
PS: If you are a "newbie" and want to get into linux with the flavor that Arch would leave you, use Manjaro (XFCE, Openbox, e17, Cinnamon, etc) or if you prefer, use KaOS (similar to Chakra) and, according to what they say about this The latter is more polished.
Regards!
Regards!
I disagree: Arch Linux is an EXTREMELY EASY AND SIMPLE distribution, IDEAL FOR BABIES WHO WANT AN UP-TO-DATE SYSTEM AND FUCKING SOLID AND STABLE.
Clearly it is necessary to have in clear minimum concepts about GNU + Linux, but the ignorance of them in no way indicates that Arch Linux is "difficult".
Gentoo, on the other hand, is a "complex" and "cumbersome" => "difficult" distro. Anyone with minimal knowledge can safely use it, but since its administration is so "swampy" it gets into the idea of "difficult" much easier than Arch.
If there is a comfortable and easy-to-use distro that is Arch, designed from the ground up to be the darling of any sysadmin.
Excellent very specific article regarding the orientation previously I have tried debian base or debian basic without visual environment for servers but it makes me very curious Arch Linux from what I see you have to do everything step by step from the partitions I had a doubt about the repositories in The source.list Arch linux has its own repository server for the generic drivers. Let me explain in case it goes to install without internet or it is like Ubuntu that asks me to have internet to install generic drivers and dependencies.
Well I say goodbye to the entire community.
Arch is simply using Linux for the fun of learning, Gentoo if you like masochism and Linux From Scratch if you are Martians or gurus; and for our dear and useless friends Windowslerdos with Linux Mint will be more than enough and they will feel in the international space station.