[CLUE-Tech] Arch Linux: Thumbs Up!

[Matt Gushee]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 11:26:19AM -0600, Collins Richey wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:08:13 -0600, Matt Gushee <mgushee at havenrock.com> wrote:
> 
> > I didn't mean for this to turn into an anti-Debian rant. I don't hate
> > Debian; it has served me well for 3 years. But, you know, I'm an
> > experienced Linux user, and don't need much hand-holding. I want a
> > simple system that *works the way I want it to.* That's why I started
> > using Linux in the first place.
> > 
> 
> Here we are in <OT> land, but the reason I gave up on Debian was
> similar to your experiences: it required too much effort to navigate.
> 
> Back on topic, I decided to download Arch, and here I am 20 hours
> later at 85% <groan> This is slower than Knoppix!

Wow. You mean the CD image, right? It only took 4 or 5 hours for me. And
I've found so far that updating individual packages over the Net is
quite fast. Maybe you should try a different server.

> How does Arch handle source package updates? Is there a standard way
> to get packages that didn't originate as an Arch package recorded in
> the package database.

This might answer your question:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Packages%20%26%20Makepkg

> Does Arch use the /usr hierarchy primarily, or does it load a lot of
> crap in /usr/local (sorry for you solaris types who consider that
> normal)?

Well, I only have a couple day's experience, but so far it hasn't put
anything in /usr/local. But it does use /opt for some big packages (e.g.
GNOME, Mozilla, Qt), so you want to make sure you have plenty of space
there.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee at havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)