Review: Arch Linux 0.8 Voodoo x86_64
April 25th, 2007 by jamesApologies once again for the delay in reviews and new content to the site. Things are still quite busy for me lately, but I’m doing my best to get new reviews up. I have added a good friend as a contributor to this site, Steve Thate. I have known him for many years and he, like myself, enjoys testing out new Linux distributions and seeing what they are about. Expect to start seeing some postings by him in the very near future once he gets acquainted with things.
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Like srlinuxx over at tuxmachines, I was contacted by a guy who was wondering why I hadn’t done a review of Arch Linux 0.8 yet. Well, the simple reason is because I hadn’t gotten around to it! Finally, I have. Here’s my review of the 64-bit version of Arch Linux 0.8.
What is Arch Linux?
Arch aims to be a simple distribution for the experienced Linux user. It brings another package management solution to the fray, “pacman”. It uses a rolling release system so major periodic releases are not necessary as the system can easily be brought fully up-to-date.
Arch Linux doesn’t aim to showcase all the latest and greatest desktop technologies in Linux at the outset. It aims to be a distribution that is easy to setup and maintain but lets you handle most of the business.
It sort of reminds me of another distribution that I have some very fond memories of: Slackware. Slackware was the first Linux distribution I used, way back in 1995. It was easy to install and maintain, but you had to do most of the heavy lifting.
Downloading and Installing
I went to the Arch Linux website and followed the download links to get the 64-bit full install CD. I burned the CD and booted it up on my AMD Athlon 64 X2 desktop.
Booting up Arch Linux install CD (under VMware for screen shots purposes)
It boots to a console shell where you are given some information about what to do next. I ran the installer, /arch/setup. A console text mode installer comes up very reminiscent of Slackware and FreeBSD. Because Arch doesn’t try to do anything fancy, I had no problems booting it on my hardware and I didn’t have to worry about the Xorg “nv” driver loading and killing my GeForce 7800GT on boot up.
The installation CD booted
The installer presents a pretty easy interface to get you up and running. I selected the CD-ROM installation source, and set about installing Arch. There are detailed instructions to get you going on the Arch Linux website so I won’t go through the details here. Besides, the tuxmachines review has a pretty thorough rundown of the install process. Unless you’re a seasoned Linux user, you’ll probably want to read their installation guide prior to going about setting up Arch. In fact any new user to Arch would do well to have the Official Arch Linux Install Guide handy, as I did.
Arch Linux installer
The installation process requires the hand editing of the system configuration files, including: /etc/rc.conf, /etc/hosts, /etc/fstab, /etc/modprobe.conf, etc. The installation guide and the comments in the text files guide you along in this process. Still, unless you have some Linux experience or just like to get down to the nitty gritty, this can be a bit daunting. Since I have dozens of Linux servers that I manage for a living, editing a these configuration files was a simple task and didn’t take long. Still I am definitely fond of installers that do a lot more of the work for you. I guess I have gotten lazy. 
The installer does make you do more work by hand than the Slackware and FreeBSD installers. A few extra screens that ask you for the information and put it into the config files for you would have been nice, however. In any case, the editing of configuration files was really a snap and 99% of it was confined to setting up my timezone and network in /etc/rc.conf. In any case, I partitioned my hard disk, installed the packages, configured the system, installed the kernel and boot loader, using all the defaults. Afterwards I rebooted and had a functional Arch Linux 0.8 system up and running.
Using Arch Linux and pacman.
Your freshly installed Arch system brings you to a console login. My network was all setup and working properly and I was ready to go. I figured the first thing I ought to do is try out pacman and get my system fully updated to the latest and greatest. To do so I entered the following command:
# pacman -Syu
And that’s all there was to it. Very simple and very clean. The updates downloaded and installed flawlessly and in minutes I was up to speed. I rebooted since it also installed a new kernel.
I decided that next I would install Xfce and so I entered:
# pacmac -S xfce4
This pulled in all the dependencies (which took awhile since I was only getting around 100Kb/s from their mirrors) and successfully installed them.
In any case, everything was now installed, but I had to manually configure Xorg. I ran xorgconfig and entered in all the required information and was able to get X up and running without much fuss. I added Xfce to my xinitrc file so that it would load when I started X. Once X was loaded, I installed The GIMP so I could grab a screen shot:
Xfce installed on Arch Linux
Very few applications come pre-installed, so I installed Firefox and Thunderbird, my preferred choices for web and email. I also decided to install Amarok and K3b, all using the pacman package manager. After figuring out what the respective package names were (for instance, Amarok is amarok-base) a simple pacman command later and they were all downloaded and installed:
# pacman -S firefox thunderbird amarok-base k3b
One thing I wasn’t expecting was that these programs are all installed under /opt. For example, Firefox and Thunderbird arrived in /opt/mozilla/bin and Amarok and K3b landed in /opt/kde/bin. Keeping applications segregated this way does have its benefits, and I could easily do a symlink from /usr/local/bin to the appropriate binaries. It would’ve been nice if it did that for me, but no matter. Note: A simple logout/login is all that is required for the new paths to be added to your login shell. Thanks for the comments regarding this oversight by me.
Firefox and Thunderbird installed on Arch Linux
To give a good idea of just how bare-bones an Arch Linux install is, it doesn’t come with SSH by default. I installed OpenSSH because that is a necessary component of using Linux for me.
Amarok and k3b installed and running on Arch Linux
Final Thoughts
Arch Linux is a really nice distribution for those who like to have a Linux system with only the stuff they want in it and none of the extra things that many “newbie-friendly” distributions like to throw in. Even so, its simple to use package manager and quick installation make it so that you do not have to jump through hoops to get your system up and running with the software that you want.
The Arch Linux wiki is very detailed and helpful and will help you get your system installed and help walk you through a lot of the more technical aspects of Arch Linux. The forums are also pretty active and many people are there to help answer your questions. Many questions have been answered so it is a good place to look for the solutions to your problems.
I liked Arch Linux and I felt right at home using it. Like Slackware and Debian it gives you a solid foundation and you can add whatever you like to the system.
Some of the next steps I plan to take with my Arch Linux system is to get the Nvidia drivers up and get all the rest of the software I want up and configured on it. Updating the entire system is only a simple pacman command away. Pacman is very easy to use and straight forward. It reminds me a little bit of swaret, a Slackware package manager. I would be curious to see how pacman handles customized configuration files during upgrades. I didn’t use it long enough to try that out.
If you’re not afraid to get familiar with a few configuration files and like complete control over your OS, Arch Linux is a great choice for your next Linux distribution.
April 26th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Have you used the AUR at all? It’s pretty sweet. (:
April 26th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Thanks for the review.
I really just can’t imagine why anyone would mess around so much to get a working OS.
“Newbie friendly” should not be derisive but is a compliment, really. With Ubuntu “Feisty…”, PCLinuxOS, Sabayon, Sidux/debian, etc… I don’t know what is to be gained from messing around with Arch and the like. Those big, newbie friendly OS’s work thoroughly, don’t crash and run quickly on my average computer. Maybe Arch would be a little quicker, but who cares?
April 26th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Mitch:
Not yet. I understand that it is basically user contributed packages. I didn’t dive in deep enough to check those out. I will definitely get to trying them. It’s a very welcome feature, however.
Todd:
I don’t think “newbie friendly” is a negative thing at all. I do feel that the choice Linux provides allows for a wide variety of distributions that fit a number of different user’s needs or wants. Some people prefer to have complete control over their system and not have to operate by a particular distribution’s method of doing things.
With Arch, and similar distributions, you get a base OS that you can build what you want off of. The distribution becomes yours.
In any case, I do like Ubuntu, Sabayon, etc more so than Arch. But that is because I don’t feel like messing around with all the details anymore.
But my favorite thing about Linux is the freedom to have your OS your way. Be it PCLinuxOS or Arch, or one of the BSDs.
April 26th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
OK well this is probably the best review of Voodoo so far, I’m glad you finally got to it. I am currently using Arch after being a distro-hopper/distro-slut for over a year, and yes I’ve tried my fair share of all mentioned and reviewed, including FreeBSD and its 2 desktop derivatives. I for one love every aspect of Arch, and enjoy it much more than any, I’m a tinkerer, so after toying with the newbie friendly and the poweruser (gentoo and Lunar), Arch definately fit the bill. No need to compile unless its an AUR deal, which I dont mind, I have about 50 custom comiled packages and submit a couple to the AUR myself, and I also like the full system control through my rc.conf, and the cutting edge packages/software. For my chioce of desktop linux, yes DESKTOP, is Arch hands down, and I’m an Archer till the end, no need to keep downloading iso’s with such a beautiful seamless rolling release cycle…Like clockwork. Pacman has me hooked, and also its philosophy, for anyone wanting to LEARN linux, and not just how to use it with your head cut off, Arch is for you, come join our very friendly and active userbase if you like, we’ll help you, but dont expect everything given to you on a silver platter automagically;)
Long live the powerful Arch
April 27th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
There is an easier way to setup Xorg. It’s called hwd.
Have a look over here:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xorg7
April 27th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
You missed the live CD/DVD provided by Larch (Live Arch) by gradgrind. A very neat set of scripts to provide a Live arch system, even in RAM yet.
April 30th, 2007 at 4:35 am
First of all: Sorry for my bad english .
Well iam really new to Linux,but i had the strong will to use Linux as my only OS, so downloaded tons of isos fromm diffrent distributions, they should run ,azureus,k9copy,smb4k,triplea,beryl,and a few more,also it should be no problem to keep the system up to date, not to say bleeding edge .
After months of testing , i decided to use Archlinux .. Those are my reasons … 1:The installation wasnt difficult,as often mentioned (after reading the wiki,and iam a real linux noob ) much more easyer than in slack, cos i could use nano than vi or emacs which i cant really handle .And the installation gives me the feeling of really having a system like i want and not the distribution maintainers.
2: Kdemod . Ok kdemod is nothing official, but its a modularized, very nice to look at (icon packs,suse kicker menu style)
kde desktop
3: Speed : I never tried gentoo (but sourcemage) and Arch boots faster and the applications react faster than in every other distribution i have tried ,even zenwalk .
Stuff like “prelink” is also available.
4:AUR: Its something like the bsd ports system (i guess;-) well it increases the number of available packages and everybody can maintain packgages ,its just optional to the official repos and its very easy to use
5:pacman : easy to use ,quite fast , and upgrading even kernel updates are working perfectly fine .and because of the “rollinh release cycle ” i hope that i never have toburn distro isos again
In the reviews i read about Arch , i always think they are talking about another distribution .But of course its helpfull to read the wiki about installing xorg and kde . In my opinion its very easy to install and to customize to fill your needs.
Grüße
April 30th, 2007 at 8:59 am
You don’t actually have to symlink executables in /usr/local/bin. Just log in and out, and arch will set up your path to use the new /opt directories.
April 30th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Having used Ubuntu Drapper (horribly outdated), and Gentoo (horribly hard to set up), I have finally settled on Arch Linux. I plan to try Slackware sometime soon, but for now Arch is the ideal distro for me.
One thing to note though: the rolling release of packages from Arch devs sometimes tend to brick my system. Of cos that is expected, and bugs are fixed quickly, but that still kinda mars my ‘os experience’ in arch.
Overall, great review, and I agree with you too!
May 1st, 2007 at 1:35 pm
The part about putting the stuff into /opt…
With a simple log out log in, all of those paths are automatically added to your $PATH using /etc/profile.d/
You shouldn’t have needed to symlink anything. Once an application is installed in Arch, it should work/run by default with no need for hackery.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Yes, thanks. I figured that out. I didn’t actually symlink anything, but mentioned that would be a way to deal with it. I appreciate the comments.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
pacman > all.
I came to Arch for the advertised speed, without all the compile-hassle of Gentoo. I stayed because pacman has proven to be the end-all-be-all of package management. Writing PKGBUILDs is a simple enough task that just about anybody can manage it, and with ABS making minor changes to packages already in the distro is as easy as pie.
June 9th, 2007 at 9:31 am
hurayyyyyy
July 10th, 2007 at 8:08 am
In reply to Todd:
Some people, like me, like “hard” distros like Gentoo because it teaches many things about how the operating system works… It kinda forces to learn new tricks, which are transferable to other distros anyway…
Of course, I would’nt like to do tinkering all the time… Good to have something that works out of the box like Ubuntu
July 30th, 2007 at 2:21 am
I started using Linux in mid-2006 with XP dual-boot option. Very recently I switched to full time Linux user(Jan’2007) with Ubuntu. But when I found two distros Arch and Zenwalk, I just couldn’t resist to remove Ubuntu from my machine.
Arch is one of the greatest Linux I’ve used(keeping, debian and ubuntu in mind) and I’m really satisfied with it.
And kdemod is what exactly I wanted and it’s really awesome. Thanks to Arch guys.
August 28th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
I started to use linux around slackare 7/8. As you can quess, my first distro was slackware. I really liked it, but after a while I found constraints in it: rather small package base, hard to manage configure/make/make install cenarios (yes, there was checkinstall, but hey…) Then came gentoo on x86_64. Well, pionering 64bit software and missing out some good-old soft (yes, you can use linux32 chroot and stuff) it was no-go after all. Then came (k)ubuntu 5.04. Been there until now. I have tried arch befre, but lack on utf8 fonts (far-east languages mostly) was a showstopper for me. Now a few days ago I tried Don’t Panic (2007.08) and it was all good. Now I have it installed on my main machine and just finished installing on notebook. Still - for notebook it does not detect my 945GM video resolution correctly.
Well, about Arch - I like that I can roll my own packages with my own patches and let pacman worry the rest. One can make debian/*buntu packages, but for me it is complete mystery. I have tried it but failed. As I understand it it requierd a whole (deb)/(ch)rooted environ. With Arch I just fill in some basic info about package and that’s about it. Imho the package management seems to be the measurement to see if distro can survive or not. At least for me. And pacman is the tool for the job. Everything else about Arch - it is like gentoo with binary package management. ’nuff said.
The speed - imho that is pure subjective matter. I think *buntu is quick, I think fedora, mandriva and whatnot is quick - and Arch is quick. Heck, even Redmond software is quick, if you know how to measure
September 23rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
> I would be curious to see how pacman handles customized configuration files
> during upgrades. I didn’t use it long enough to try that out.
From http://www.archlinux.org/pacman/pacman.8.html
HANDLING CONFIG FILES
pacman uses the same logic as rpm to determine action against files
that are designated to be backed up. During an upgrade, 3 md5 hashes
original=X, current=Y, new=X
Both package versions contain the exact same file, but the one
on the filesystem has been modified. Leave the current file in
place.
original=X, current=Y, new=Y
The new file is identical to the current file. Install the new
file.
original=X, current=Y, new=Z
All three files are different, so install the new file with a
.pacnew extension and warn the user. The user must then manually
merge any necessary changes into the original file.
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