Arch Linux Review
So, lately I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how awesome Arch Linux is, and figured I’d try it out. The iso was downloaded, and a virtual machine created.
Step 1- Download. The iso is about 158MB, which is rather small, which is typically a good thing if you’re looking to be up and running quickly.
Step 2- Boot and install. Using VirtualBox I mounted the iso and booted from it. Install is menu driven and pretty straightforward. I was expecting more packages selectable during the install, but looking back I probably should have tried a net-install for that. Still, I miss the package selection in FreeBSD’s installer. OpenSuSE ain’t bad on this score, though I’m not fond of Novell, which keeps me at arms length on it.
EDIT- I forgot to mention that one sticking point, for anyone that isn’t familiar with linux at a fundamental level, is that the installer refuses to use any sort of script interface to write changes to the core config files, and instead gives you a list of them, which you can then select items from the edit in either nano or vim. Now, it’s a nice list, and you really shouldn’t have to change much beyond the network configuration, but it’s an unnecessary pain in the butt.
Step 3- Packages. The vbox rebooted and brought up a functional CLI system. Arch uses pacman for installing and managing software. The arguments for pacman, as compared to yum or even slapt, are a little odd to me. For instance, pacman -S <package name> installs a package, while pacman -Ss <search string> searches the repository for that string. Thankfully the Arch Linux website has excellent documentation.
Sooo… what do I think about it? Well, it’s rather nice for a traditional distro. Low BS all the way around and decent package management with a horde of fresh packages. If you were looking to setup a bunch of identical, more or less single role workstations, you could easily build up one system just so and image it, with no clutter. Or, if you were looking to build up a server and had a specific vision for the packages it would run, also a good option.
Think Slackware with up to date packages, and a package manager built in. Plus honest to gHod documentation, instead of 4 year old crib notes on how OSS is the one true sound or somesuch.
If you’re just an old-school loonix nut, then you’re probably already using it and hating Ubuntu.