[Novalug] any archlinux users?

Brandon Saxe brandon20va@yahoo.com
Sat Oct 25 12:24:06 EDT 2008


> For me?  I'm happy that I don't have to
> periodically stop everything in 
> the world for a full-on distro or OS upgrade - and
> haven't in years.

That is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. I'm so far behind with my few systems on updates for exactly that reason. I hate having to plan and plan just to do an upgrade. When I read about the rolling release cycle, it sounded great. Now I have some feedback from this list and I think I'm going to try it out.

Thanks!


--- On Sat, 10/25/08, Paul Bohme <novalug@bohme.org> wrote:

> From: Paul Bohme <novalug@bohme.org>
> Subject: Re: [Novalug] any archlinux users?
> To: brandon20va@yahoo.com
> Cc: "novalug mailing list" <novalug@calypso.tux.org>
> Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 7:33 AM
> Brandon Saxe wrote:
> > I've read about archlinux lately and it seems
> really interesting with 
> > it's rolling release methodology.
> >
> > Does anybody on the list use arch and have any
> comments?
> >   
> 
> Very positive overall.  I run Arch on home/work destops,
> MythTV box, 
> laptops, SliceHost instance and an EeePC (with all GUIs
> being XFCE), and 
> have for a couple of years at least.  The community is
> excellent; the 
> Arch Way is one of unintrusive simplicity.  A baseline Arch
> install is a 
> very minimal running system, giving you ultimate
> flexibility in choices 
> of GUIs and such.
> 
> Package updates tend to happen almost shockingly fast in
> Arch - IIRC the 
> 2.6.27 kernel took  just under 2 weeks to go from release
> on kernel.org 
> to its appearance in Arch's core.  The package manager
> (pacman - 
> humorously enough) tends toward the slightly austere but is
> everything 
> I've ever needed it to be.
> 
> The only caveat is that the rolling release cycle can be a
> double-edged 
> sword - you must be ready to either keep reasonably current
> or only do 
> your package updates in large batches periodically. 
> It's not uncommon 
> for a package installation to pull in a base library that
> suddenly 
> breaks random other things until you update all dependent
> packages.  
> Thus I tend to be careful about timing updates to work
> machine and 
> SliceHost instance - places where spending a bit of time
> tweaking 
> configs and such need to be planned.
> 
> Basically, if you're comfortable with some lightweight
> config file 
> tweaking and are OK with spending at least a little time
> getting your 
> noggin around how various pieces fit together, I'd
> heartily recommend Arch.
> 
> For me?  I'm happy that I don't have to
> periodically stop everything in 
> the world for a full-on distro or OS upgrade - and
> haven't in years.
> 
>  -P
> 
> -- 
> When you posture DRM as a 'direct consumer benefit'
> you may as well 
> just be saying 'It's double plus good' as you
> strap the rat cage to 
> my face.  - "parf" on Windows Vista's
> "content protection"



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