Why GNU/Linux Rocks

[shikitohno]

Sgreger, I think you're forgetting that you'll need some way to power all this stuff.

For me, the main benefit of Arch is as devilock said, it starts with a real minimalist install. I don't use Gnome, KDE, Pulseaudio, Rhythmbox and so on. i3, mpd+ncmpcpp, and alsa work well enough for me. I can just go through the installer once, and have everything I use and its dependencies, and not have to dig around getting rid of crap I neither want nor need. A heavy install of Arch for me is still a good 7GB less than an install of Fedora or Mint, before I tear out all the crap I have no use for.

Also, everything is where it should be in Arch, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's a rare case where I need to go digging through my file system to find a global config file because some asshole didn't put it in /etc like it should be.

That said, got my replacement hard drive in the mail last night (current one was dying, needed to back it up and send the old one back), set up Arch on it, and set rsync to backing up all my music from the old drive. This represents saving me from reripping some 600+ CDs, a good 150-200 LPs and a handful of cassettes. The CDs aren't such a big deal, but records and cassettes represent several days (probably close to a week at least), of doing the entire rip at 1x speed, editing the tracks, and tagging them all by hand.

So I hit enter, rsync starts up, and my laptop's power supply dies. In the process, it manages to irrecoverably corrupt the partition with all that music on it. So now I'm left with no functioning full laptop, 28 days to try and save what I can off that hard drive, and ship it back before WD charges me $108. I think I'll head off tonight and go get drunk. Hopefully tomorrow I can either stumble across a comparable and fully functional laptop left by the curb, or come up with some brilliant solution to MacGyver my way out of this, but the odds are looking grim. So, it's not always sunshine and kittens when you start getting down to the nuts and bolts of tinkering with your computer.

[devilock76]

aptitude is the standard for debian, apt-get for ubuntu. you can still use aptitude in ubuntu which I do for dependencies and the like but apt-get is simpler and easier to use.



Check this out
http://www.zoneminder.com/

you could make a kick ass CCTV system with that little raspberry box.

When I used debian and ubuntu apt-get was all I used and on a rare occasion synaptic. The last time I used ubuntu was my first netbook and at the time ubuntu was really the best and one of the few netbook remixed distros.

Ken

[Los ßnus]

In arch that statement would be pacman -Syu. Look, less keystrokes. Not sure what the problem was with arch when you installed it. I am yet to encounter a machine that would not take a basic install of arch. The fun starts when you setup wifi and X.

Technically apt-get is not the "accepted" modern way to do that in ubuntu, at least I remember hearing that. Truly every linux has some version of that. Slackware clones have slapt-get. Your rpm based distros use yellow dog so it should be yum update.

Technically speaking it should be the combination of...

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Been a while since I used a deb based distro. On my BSD boxes I run ./sysupdate.pl but that is a custom script I wrote as dealing with it by hand became annoying.

Ken

aptitude is the standard for debian, apt-get for ubuntu. you can still use aptitude in ubuntu which I do for dependencies and the like but apt-get is simpler and easier to use.

Another cool thing to do with the Raspberry Pi that I just thought of is get a USB splitter and like 3-5 cameras that are all on a stick or something mounted to a backpack. Then have it set up like a security system, whereby they are attached to the raspberry pi (also in the bag) and they take a picture and store it once every 5 seconds. Then you could go to a protest or some other event (or just walk around anywhere) and get a 360 degree picture of everything going on the entire time you are there. Batch stitch them together when you get home. Could be like the van from google streetview, if you could get the cameras up high enough which shouldn't be hard.


Edit: Or you could get some webcams for like $10 and have them all stream to live ustream through a USB wifi dongle (assuming you are near a public wifi connection)

Check this out
http://www.zoneminder.com/

you could make a kick ass CCTV system with that little raspberry box.

[devilock76]

Another cool thing to do with the Raspberry Pi that I just thought of is get a USB splitter and like 3-5 cameras that are all on a stick or something mounted to a backpack. Then have it set up like a security system, whereby they are attached to the raspberry pi (also in the bag) and they take a picture and store it once every 5 seconds. Then you could go to a protest or some other event (or just walk around anywhere) and get a 360 degree picture of everything going on the entire time you are there. Batch stitch them together when you get home. Could be like the van from google streetview, if you could get the cameras up high enough which shouldn't be hard.

I have this other idea of setting up as an on board computer on my fatboy, yes I have a fairing on my fatboy.

Ken

[sgreger1]

Another cool thing to do with the Raspberry Pi that I just thought of is get a USB splitter and like 3-5 cameras that are all on a stick or something mounted to a backpack. Then have it set up like a security system, whereby they are attached to the raspberry pi (also in the bag) and they take a picture and store it once every 5 seconds. Then you could go to a protest or some other event (or just walk around anywhere) and get a 360 degree picture of everything going on the entire time you are there. Batch stitch them together when you get home. Could be like the van from google streetview, if you could get the cameras up high enough which shouldn't be hard.


Edit: Or you could get some webcams for like $10 and have them all stream to live ustream through a USB wifi dongle (assuming you are near a public wifi connection)

[devilock76]

I haven't tried arch in about 2 years but the last time I played with it I couldn't get it to install on and old dell desktop that had gone out of lease. I was building a SD Card replicator for work and I needed a lightweight CLI only interface. Arch seemed to be the best candidate for this at the time but I couldn't get it going no matter how hard I tried.

It was quite a while ago so I don't know what the issue was but for whatever reason, it just didn't like my hardware.

I'm the kind of guy who likes hard mode. I like los because it is more challenging and rewarding than using portions. I really wanted to hate ubuntu because it is linux easy mode.

I just can't bring myself to hate it. It works well for what it does and is very easy to set up.

I'll still give Arch another go just love the fact I can say "apt-get update" and bam all my software is up to date.

In arch that statement would be pacman -Syu. Look, less keystrokes. Not sure what the problem was with arch when you installed it. I am yet to encounter a machine that would not take a basic install of arch. The fun starts when you setup wifi and X.

Technically apt-get is not the "accepted" modern way to do that in ubuntu, at least I remember hearing that. Truly every linux has some version of that. Slackware clones have slapt-get. Your rpm based distros use yellow dog so it should be yum update.

Technically speaking it should be the combination of...

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Been a while since I used a deb based distro. On my BSD boxes I run ./sysupdate.pl but that is a custom script I wrote as dealing with it by hand became annoying.

Ken

[Los ßnus]

Sorry if it sounded harsh. Ubuntu has done a lot for Linux in general but it does a lot more to fit the needs of newer linux users. There is nothing wrong with that, it is really helping spread linux and is a great project. I personally don't like many of the choices they made for my purposes.

That being said I have a hard time believing Arch "didn't suit your needs" when what was more likely the case you did not have time or energy to set it up for your needs. That being said again the rolling release is a real win here as all that setup and config time pays off in really only having to do it once if you are practical with your update policy.

My statement still stands on it being the main reason though, all the other things you listed can be found on many other projects.

Ken

I haven't tried arch in about 2 years but the last time I played with it I couldn't get it to install on and old dell desktop that had gone out of lease. I was building a SD Card replicator for work and I needed a lightweight CLI only interface. Arch seemed to be the best candidate for this at the time but I couldn't get it going no matter how hard I tried.

It was quite a while ago so I don't know what the issue was but for whatever reason, it just didn't like my hardware.

I'm the kind of guy who likes hard mode. I like los because it is more challenging and rewarding than using portions. I really wanted to hate ubuntu because it is linux easy mode.

I just can't bring myself to hate it. It works well for what it does and is very easy to set up.

I'll still give Arch another go just love the fact I can say "apt-get update" and bam all my software is up to date.

[devilock76]

yeah, that and it has the BEST drivers for laptops around (included on the disk). Wirless drivers, check. WLAN drives, check. Restricted video drivers, check. EASY software install, check. Great community support, check.

I know everyone bashes on ubuntu as a "Newb" distro but I like it a lot.

I did try arch but it didn't suit my needs at the time. I needed a dedicated server distro that I could rely on and had good community support if the need arose.

Sorry if it sounded harsh. Ubuntu has done a lot for Linux in general but it does a lot more to fit the needs of newer linux users. There is nothing wrong with that, it is really helping spread linux and is a great project. I personally don't like many of the choices they made for my purposes.

That being said I have a hard time believing Arch "didn't suit your needs" when what was more likely the case you did not have time or energy to set it up for your needs. That being said again the rolling release is a real win here as all that setup and config time pays off in really only having to do it once if you are practical with your update policy.

My statement still stands on it being the main reason though, all the other things you listed can be found on many other projects.

Ken

[Los ßnus]

Just go ahead an bite the Arch linux bullet. You will be happy you did and stop distro hoping. The main reason to stay on Ubuntu is it is like linux training wheels. The main reason to stay with fedora is you have to support RHEL or do Java development.

Ken

yeah, that and it has the BEST drivers for laptops around (included on the disk). Wirless drivers, check. WLAN drives, check. Restricted video drivers, check. EASY software install, check. Great community support, check.

I know everyone bashes on ubuntu as a "Newb" distro but I like it a lot.

I did try arch but it didn't suit my needs at the time. I needed a dedicated server distro that I could rely on and had good community support if the need arose.

[devilock76]

You can feel smug and superior, and you get to tell people you use Arch. It's a club like OSX and Opera :^D

No that is what BSD is for... hehehehehe

Ken

[devilock76]

I am still VERY new to Linux, like I can only do a few things on the command line. Is Archlinux really something I could do? Doesn't it require a higher level of proficiency with command line stuff? I am going to look into it, I just hear that it's only for advanced users. What is the real advantage anyways? Fedora seemed to have everything I needed. What does Arch have other than the ability to really customize stuff, which I don't quite need right now?

From wikip:

I'm not sure if I could even get this running yet. Would be a cool learning process. I really would like to know how to use Arch-ARM since I think that will run on the raspberry pi which would be great to know for when it comes out.

Then again, a Raspberry Pi Fedora remix is already about to be launched. Fedora seems like it would be really heavy on the RP though, I am guessing they are stripping it completely down.

I look at Arch as a good midway between FreeBSD and Fedora. It has the more classic init system of the BSD's which is much easier to deal with as far as digging in the guts, while being a much more bleeding edge system, in fact often more bleeding edge than Fedora.

Fedora is a great distro but where Arch kills it is the rolling release, yes there can be issues with that but for a desktop user trying to keep up to date without having to do an entire distro reinstall it has advantages. Basically there is no end of life to your install. Fedora on the other hand is I think 14 months.

The arch documentation is great, it will get you through installing everything. The community can tend to be elitist though, but definitely not as bad as the BSD community. The thing is with arch you will learn the guts. I mean lets face it with all the tools and installers in Ubuntu and Fedora you can keep going never really learning the guts of linux. Not unless you are really delving deep into atypical or advanced usage. There is no need. It is all done for you to increase the wide acceptance of the distro. Plus if you do dig into the guts you really aren't learning pure *nix or even pure Linux (if there was such a thing) but more the distro specific nuances of say Fedora or Ubuntu/debian. Of course saying that this also brings up the Slackware based systems but I am going to skip that chain of thought. Arch you will learn and that knowledge will help you across more *nix systems than other distro specific knowledge, plus the documentation and the community will help get you there faster than other distro's, IMO.

Arch starts off with a very light install, so you can add just what you want, as opposed to having to strip out things you don't. That is very relevant when dealing with minimalist or task specific systems, like say this Rasberry Pi. Pacman is one of the best package management systems I have ever used. Oh and it works a lot faster than compiling from the ports tree in BSD (which I love but is ridiculous to do as a desktop user). Then you add into that everything that is in the Arch AUR and you are pretty much unlimited in what you can do with the system.

The other big plus for me is how up to date the kernel is in Arch, which is scary, but someone pushing that kernel for multitrack audio work it is important. Arch you can tweak the stock kernel settings enough to get low enough latency without having to go for a complete realtime kernel. This may seem special use but no it is not. Being able to do this adds more supportable stability to a music production or any media production station than many other distros could ever dream. Granted a task specific reason but significant enough that I think it crosses into a general reason.

Ken

[lxskllr]

What is the real advantage anyways?

You can feel smug and superior, and you get to tell people you use Arch. It's a club like OSX and Opera :^D

[sgreger1]

Just go ahead an bite the Arch linux bullet. You will be happy you did and stop distro hoping. The main reason to stay on Ubuntu is it is like linux training wheels. The main reason to stay with fedora is you have to support RHEL or do Java development.

Ken

I am still VERY new to Linux, like I can only do a few things on the command line. Is Archlinux really something I could do? Doesn't it require a higher level of proficiency with command line stuff? I am going to look into it, I just hear that it's only for advanced users. What is the real advantage anyways? Fedora seemed to have everything I needed. What does Arch have other than the ability to really customize stuff, which I don't quite need right now?

From wikip:

The default install is minimalist.^[18] Further system customization and expansion (adding a window manager, desktop environment, etc.) must be done manually, installing packages downloaded from online repositories. Arch is therefore generally considered relatively involved to install, in comparison to other operating systems.^[19]

I'm not sure if I could even get this running yet. Would be a cool learning process. I really would like to know how to use Arch-ARM since I think that will run on the raspberry pi which would be great to know for when it comes out.

Then again, a Raspberry Pi Fedora remix is already about to be launched. Fedora seems like it would be really heavy on the RP though, I am guessing they are stripping it completely down.

[sgreger1]

error

[devilock76]

Just go ahead an bite the Arch linux bullet. You will be happy you did and stop distro hoping. The main reason to stay on Ubuntu is it is like linux training wheels. The main reason to stay with fedora is you have to support RHEL or do Java development.

Ken