factorQ.net

I was going to review sidux next, but Arch has really been tempting me.  In the last week or so I had tried to install Arch a couple of times in a Virtualbox instance on my desktop (running Ubuntu) –however this did not yield positive results.

Or more descriptively,  the live cd would boot, and the install process would proceed normally and then stall once completed.  After a little searching, I realized this was due to an incompatibility between the 2.6.30 kernel and Virtualbox.  So naturally, I decided the only way to proceed was an actual install.

Firstly, I most definitely recommend making good use of the extraordinary ArchWiki, especially the Beginners Guide, Beginners Guide Appendix, and the Official Install Guide.  There is a ton of information in the wiki, and also in the forums.  following the beginners guide (and occasionally referencing other wikis…ie xorg, and the arch wireless guide), I was able to successfully set up the Arch system that I am using right now.

If I can do it, almost anyone can.  I have used Linux on/off since about 2001, and the last 2 or 3 years have used it exclusively.  At the same time,  I have not been very involved or too in-depth until the last year or so as most of that time I have used Ubuntu (and I’m talking relative to gentoo or some other more  “difficult” distro), not that there is anything wrong with Ubuntu.

When I first booted with the Arch livecd version 2009.02 (which is really just a snapshot of Arch since it uses a rolling release cycle), the main menu came up, which gave me some options to boot hard disk, some tools, and install Arch.  I chose install.
This brought up a command prompt where you can either login as arch (user) or root, neither of which have a password.  You can also switch between the virtual consoles by pressing Alt+F1 through Alt+F7. This would allow you to open the text official install guide from the cd using a “less” command which is supplied in the prompt (“# less /arch/arch-linux-official-guide.txt”).  I had my laptop beside my desktop, so I had the wikis open there so I could view them easily.

Another option I also used was the links browser, opening the wikis with it after I had my internet connected.

Onward! I logged in as root on virtual console 1 (the default), and ran cfdisk to partition my hard drive.  This laptop has 1 sata drive ~60Gb, and at the time had Sabayon 4.2 dual-booting with sidux.  cfdisk came up with an error with my extended partition, and said I needed to fsck.  Did that , still had error…so to make the story short I decided to wipe my drive entirely clean.  To do this I used parted magic boot disc and used gparted to just delete all of the partitions.

So now booting the Arch disc again, logged in as root, and ran “/arch/setup” to start the install process.  I selected FTP/HTTP as source (instead of the core cd I was using, as on one of the previous installs I had ran into problems upgrading to the latest kernel and libraries…easier to use FTP than figure out what was causing the problem).
The next step is prepare hard drive…where I had ran into trouble earlier. Although now I had a clean disk so  I was able to proceed normally– using auto prepare which splits the drive into 3 sections:  /boot, /, and /home.  I changed the default values to use 150mb, 15gb, and whatever was left went t o /home.
After assigning mount points,  package group and package selection.  base and base-devel are the two groups–I only selected base.  base-devel also is recommended for beginners.  The Next step was package selection within the groups, I left all of base selected, and grabbed a handful out of the base-devel group (and if I recall correctly there may have been a few from “other”…but I may be wrong).  All of the packages were installed next.
Then came the configuration.  This is where it gets even more important to follow the beginners (or the official install) guide…or both.  It is imperitive that you open to at least look at all of the files listed, to ensure that they are created.

/etc/rc.conf — this is the main centralized configuration file for Arch.  You will need to know all about this file, and if you’re like me you will learn to love it.
Most of the other files I only opened to ensure the variables were all correct, maybe changing a thing or two but nothing of note.
In the configuration you also set the root password, and then it is done!  The Arch base system is installed.  I was very glad to finally have a successful Arch install after the reboot.

Now…there is a command prompt, and only a command prompt.
And right  about now it is a good idea to do

pacman -Syy
and then
pacman -Syu

This will sync the pacman db and then upgrade the entire system.

After this there is a lot of detail I will leave out, but it was rather time-consuming.  Some things I installed and added to my DAEMONS list in rc.conf include (but are not limited to) : HAL, netcfg, laptop-mode, ALSA.

Probably one of my favorite things about Arch:
At this point, the system is pretty much open to be whatever you want it to be, and you can configure it however you wish to your preferences.  That means you can pick your favorite desktop environment, favorite software, and there’s no need to install anything if it is not something you want or use!  It’s the Arch way!

After taking up a good chunk of my time  installing/configuring Xorg, I was ELATED that I finally got it to work correctly.

I then chose to install my desktop environment of choice– Gnome, along with Gnome-extras.  But I excluded all of the software I don’t use, like Evolution, Orca, and a number of other stuff.  I DID install GDM, but after having problems exiting out of the X environment, I just chose to do without it. That just means my laptop boots up to a command prompt, and I have to login and then type “startx” to begin my gnome desktop session.

I now just installed some of my other favorite applications using pacman.  And I really want to comment on how great of an experience using pacman is.  I seriously think it rivals Debian’s APT.  The Arch repositories are rather well stocked, and I haven’t really ran into anything that I use regularly that is not included–and everything seems to be rather up to date.  For example, Firefox (called Shiretoko in Arch) is version 3.5.2.  Also my kernel is version 2.6.30-ARCH (included in the core cd using non-ftp/http source is 2.6.28-ARCH).
Pacman also has some really neat wrappers, such as yaourt and powerpill, that add some functionality and speed.  I’ve been using powerpill quite a bit.

========================
I should probably edit in here something about the AUR and the ABS, I totally forgot and left them out in the original post.

The AUR is the Arch User Repository, and it is “a community-driven repository of PKGBUILDS (no binaries) for Arch users. The AUR was initially conceived to organize the sharing of PKGBUILDs amongst the wider community and to expedite the inclusion of popular user-contributed packages into the community repo.“  Basically if something is not found by pacman in the usual repositories, chances are it can be found on the AUR website.  From there it is just a few simple steps to download, extract, build, and then install the package with pacman.

“ABS is the Arch Build System. It is a ‘ports-like’ system for building and packaging software from source code. While pacman is the specialized Arch tool for binary package management, (including packages built with ABS), ABS is the specialized Arch tool for compiling source into an installable .pkg.tar.gz package.“    ABS is handy to download and install applications from source, which can definitely come in handy if you want a program but want it compiled with different options than the binary.   … as of the time of this writing I have not actually used the ABS.
========================

All in all, it probably took me about a whole day (on and off…as the wife and kids would allow) for me to install and get everything set up.  It would probably have went a lot faster if I had done it as a straight shot.  I have now been using Arch alone on my laptop for a few days, and have had absolutely no problems.  It does seem to run, boot,  and be very fast in general.

I love it a lot so far, looking forward to grow and learn more about linux, which I already feel a sense of accomplishment in that I got it all working.  For so long I was worried I would not have the time nor ability to install Arch, even though it sounded like the linux answer to my tinkering soul.  And now  I know that it really wasn’t all that difficult, but thank goodness for the Arch Wiki and other documentation!  (please don’t use this as an install guide, definitely use the Wiki!)

Overall , ease of install I would say is pretty low, 2.5/5.  Newness of system/software is definitely up top, 5/5.  Ease of use is about a 3.5/5.

I do NOT recommend Arch to beginners to Linux unless they appreciate a sharp learning curve, but it is definitely feasible as long as you can read the documentation. A basic understanding of how Linux works would be a great benefit.

So now, next up will most likely be sidux. 

Screenshots (sorry there are so few…and not very good ones):

Arch Gnome Desktop

discuss this topic in the forums