failing like never before

A Simple Arch Review

I once thought that Debian, with its rock solid stability and simple package management, was the answer to my distro-hopping madness, and that no other distro could fit my needs as well. But Arch Linux has managed to surprise me, satisfying my needs in ways Debian never could. (Did that sound weird and strangely sexual or what?)

The Arch Way, the five governing principles behind the development of Arch Linux, dictates that Arch should be: simple, have code-correctness over convenience, open, user-centric, and free. Elaborating on the principles would be too time intensive for this review, but the general gist of The Arch Way is the age-old engineering adage, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid). And Arch is simple. Most Linux distributions that claim to be simple, like Ubuntu or Mandriva, are merely simple to use for new Linux users, but Arch is a minimal, streamlined, and elegantly simple distro. Like Slackware, Arch's base installation is quite Spartan, including only the kernel and the bare minimum packages needed to create a stable OS, requiring the user to do all the rest of the configuring and installation of non-essential packages.

Happily enough, unlike Slackware, Arch uses binary packages compiled for i686 so that users don't have to compile their programs from source (not a very difficult process usually, but quite time consuming). Because Arch's packages are optimized and compiled for newer i686 CPUs, users can expect a noticeable performance increase over distributions, like Debian, that use i386 packages. However, this also means that Arch will require a slightly newer CPU, a Pentium 3 or newer, whereas Debian can run on any 32-bit Intel-based processor. Arch also offers a 64-bit version, in addition to the 32-bit i686 version, if you want to be able to add more then 4 gigs of RAM to your system.

Arch's package manager, called "pacman," is reminiscent of Debian's "apt-get" and just as easy to use. Pacman can handle the installation, removal, and upgrading of programs, and also resolves dependencies with a single simple command. If I want to install Banshee music player, all I have to do is open a terminal, become root, and type "pacman -S banshee." Pacman also allows for Arch's rolling release system, a system based upon on incremental upgrades. Unlike so many other Linux distributions that make a big fuss about new releases, Arch's release version is essentially meaningless; a release ISO in Arch is simply a snapshot of the core repository with a fairly simple installation script. In order to upgrade my system to the newest kernel and software packages, I merely have to type "pacman -Syu" to fetch the newer packages from the repositories, so that even if I had used the three year old Wombat release, after an update my system would still be as up-to-date as if I had used the new Overlord release.

Arch is not a distribution for Linux noobs or people that don't want to have spend a lot of time configuring the system. Whereas popular distros like Ubuntu or PCLinux have flashy GUI installation menus, Arch's installation is all text based, and requires user's to configure and set just about everything, including /etc/rc.conf, /etc/modprobe.conf, networking, and hard drive partitioning and mounting. If you already have some moderate Linux experience and want to learn more about Linux, then Arch can certainly facilitate in your learning process.

The initial boot of a new Arch system will present the user with only a shell, where the user can then add and configure new programs with the help of pacman. Because Arch is built from the ground up by the user, it is optimized for the user's needs; the user can select whatever programs they want and load only the modules they need. The end result, in addition to being tailored specifically to the user's requirements, is a system that is slim and much faster then Ubuntu or PCLinux. (My biggest problem with Ubuntu was how would it always install things I didn't need, like bluetooth support, CUPS, and wireless drivers, and then proceed to load a dozen different daemons and modules that were entirely unnecessary, thus slowing the system down.)

During my installation I did have a slight problem with cfdisk, the command line program used by Arch for partitioning the hard drive. Cfdisk threw an error initially, something about my NTFS partition being funky (sorry, I can't remember exactly what it was), so I booted an Ubuntu Live CD to use gparted to partition my driver instead. However, when I installed Arch on my old Thinkpad T31 cfdisk worked without a problem.

While I did find the installation process a little daunting, the extensive documentation that Arch's online wiki offers was extremely helpful. Arch's wiki was nothing sort of astonishing, containing in-depth information on just about everything new and experienced Archers could possibly need. New users to Arch, will most definitely want to check out Arch's beginner's guide as it describes the installation process step-by-step, and even goes in-depth into what exactly each step actually does. With the Arch wiki open on my other machine, installing Arch on my laptop was surprisingly easy.

I like Arch because its lightweight, streamlined, fast, and easy to use, whereas Debian always tended to feel a little bit bloaty. In the end, I found I was perfectly happy to sacrifice a little of Debian's legendary stability for Arch's speed. But like all Linux distributions, Arch isn't the right choice for everyone. I won't tell you if you should be using Arch, but if you like what you've heard and don't mind going a little deeper into Linux and seeing how it works, then perhaps Arch is the one for you.

(It doesn't have much to do with my review, but here is a screenshot of my Arch desktop, running Enlightenment 17 with the "pengiuns" module enabled.)