[Novalug] any archlinux users?

[Paul Bohme]

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"