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Comment by RexRollman | Hacker News Reader

Of all the Linux distributions, Arch is my current favorite. I especially like its init system and Pacman. It also has an incredible wiki.

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Pacman is beautiful IMHO. The ABS (Arch Build System) is also an elegantly simply way to create package build scripts for packages. Package build scripts are in a single file (a "PKGBUILD") that is extremely easy to edit or create for new packages.

Here's an example that demonstrates the beauty of simplicity:

http://www.archlinux.org/pacman/PKGBUILD.5.html#_example

I've found it to be a magnitude simpler than creating DEB packages.

With ABS, it really brings the best features of the from-source based distros to the table without having to compile your ENTIRE system from source and having recompile stuff for every new software install or upgrade.

The power of Arch Linux really lies within its simplicity.

I love using Arch. The rolling release means there's no eventual super-painful process for updating; you just update everything and your system is up to date. It does break sometimes, but in recent years developments in both the installers and pacman have made it a lot easier to get a system that Just Works (for many things). I was pleasantly surprised to learn about KMS, which lets graphics drivers deal with the console/X resolution (so I don't have to remember which vga=0xsomething I need).

I'd like to hear more about the degree to which things do sometimes break and the steps that users generally take to fix them. Thanks.

Extent: every month or so.

Workaround: breaking changes usually show up on the news section of the site, along with the workaround.

I recently tried to set up an HTPC with XBMC on top of Arch. I had never used Arch before, but I was attracted by the idea of being able to install just the very minimum stuff I needed (to keep boot times short), as well as the rolling-release system (to avoid the headache of "upgrading" to a new release).

Unfortunately, I never made it very far because of KMS (which gp mentioned). I'm using intel graphics (Core i3-2100T), and the drivers didn't play nice with KMS: my screen would go blank at a certain point during boot. The system would still boot up: I could log in and execute shutdown commands, all in the blind. It turns out this is a known bug[1], and the only solution is to turn KMS off. Unfortunately, when I turned KMS off (either explicitly in the conf files or by downgrading to an older kernel that doesn't support it), X wouldn't start, citing lack of KMS as the reason! So, I was stuck with a situation where my screen broke if I used KMS, but X wouldn't work if I didn't. After failing to find help on the Arch forums, I ditched Arch for my HTPC and went with xubuntu. At first I was afraid that the same kernel bug would affect me regardless of distro, but apparently ubuntu builds their kernel differently in some key way that lets it work.

All that being said, I enjoyed playing with Arch so much that I'm probably going to install it on my laptop after I finish setting up the HTPC (the laptop has nvidia graphics, so I shouldn't have the same problem). I've been using Linux since the late '90s, starting with slackware and changing distros every few years, but I've become a bit of a GUI-cripple in the last few years. Installing and configuring Arch knocked a lot of rust off. It felt good to once again really understand all of the various settings and the config files that held them.

1: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel#KMS_.28Kernel_Mod... (scroll down to the note just above "See Also")

If you have ever tried to install the latest version of a distro while keeping the config from the previous version, it's basically the same except spread out over time, which I find a lot more comfortable.

When something is broken after an update, either :

- the steps to take are immediately obvious from the error message

- it looks like a config issue, and I'll then have a look at the new config file pacman has created as file.conf.pacnew and try to merge it with my existing file.conf

- I have no idea and google the error message with "site:bbs.archlinux.org", which 99% of the time will yield the answer quickly.

I have a few packages that are excluded from pacman updates, because they're too important for work (SBCL mainly). They will only be updated once in a while. The rest ot the updates are done depending on my work and my mood : I'll do a complete update, particularly on my home server, only when I have time for it and am in the mood to fix things,

Overall, I find it much more comfortable than always postponing installing the new version of a distro because it will be too much work to replicate my setup, and ending up stuck with outdated software.

The slow pace of CD releases can make it difficult to install, although they fortunately got a new one out the door a few weeks ago. It is not fun trying to get your network running without wireless. Others have examples below, these are just some things that make this distro a bad idea for people who don't want to learn Linux.

Even when pacman gets confused the steps required to fix it are very simple - because the developers don't believe in allowing magic anywhere in the system. It's as minimalist and elegant as freebsd and slackware were 15 years ago, but it's as feature complete and very nearly as easy to use as Ubuntu.

+1 on the wiki. It seems that when I'm searching for general Linux problems the Arch wiki comes up as a top hit with greater-than-average frequency.

+1 on Arch for that matter. :-)

One of the best, most useful wikis I've come across.

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