A Quick Review of Arch Linux

I switched to Ubuntu after hearing a recording of a local Lug meeting. There were 5-6 people there, and during the introductions, they all said they were using Ubuntu. That got me interested, and after trying it, I swithced from Fedora to Ubuntu. That was just before Dapper was released. Even though I experiment with other distributions, I have used Ubuntu almost exclusively since.

My problem is that Ubuntu tries to o too much for the user. For users new to Linux, that is great. But for more advanced users, who want more control, it can be a bit stifling. I first tried Arch Linux http://www.archlinux.org/ several years ago. It was minimal, fast, and ugly. I don't exactly know how to explain it. It just looked bad. I didn't stick with it long.

Recently I have started listening to the Sourcecast podcast http://sourcecast.org/. One of their host is an Arch Linux user. Listening to them convinced me to give Arch another try. The installation is old school and text based, but it does the job. When it is finished, you are left with a very minimal installation. It is the Arch Way http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way.

After the installation, I used the excellent documentation to quickly install only the software I wanted. Pacman ( the Arch package manager) is extremely fast and feature complete. The downsides of pacman are weird switches for upgrading and installing packages and a smallish repository. To make up for where the repository lacks, there is the Arch Linux User-community Repository http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR. Shaman http://shaman.iskrembilen.com/site/ is a GUI for adding packages and has a tray icon to let you know when updates are available.

There are even a few things working in Arch that I couldn't get to work in Hardy. I only install what I want, and since Pulse Audio isn't on my list of good software, I didn't install it. So, I can actually get Audacity to work. Also easy to get working was a ?Creative Vista Webcam VF0330 webcam http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Webcam_Setup#ov51x-jpeg that was hopeless in Ubuntu. I will not hesitate to recommend Ubuntu to a new Linux user, but for anyone with a bit of Linux experience, I highly recommend trying Arch.