raymac46 Posted May 9, 2017 Share Posted May 9, 2017 I'm really happy with my Arch install on the Toshiba netbook. It is lightweight and really fast considering I'm running an Atom processor. I've stayed away from stuff like Libre Office and just put in Abiword and Gnumeric. Today I had to get a network printer operating. I use the wifi equipped printer next to my main desktop. To do this in Arch: I had to install, configure and enable avahi to discover the printer on the LAN. I had to install and enable cups to handle the printer communication. I had to install HPLIP to provide the printer driver. I also installed system-config-printer to give me a GUI for adding the printer. Everything was nicely outlined in the Arch Wiki and at the end I got the printer working and a test page printed. I learned a lot about systemd and some obscure packages I didn't know before. So that's enough learning for one day. Back to running steam locomotives. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 9, 2017 Share Posted May 9, 2017 Yes. I'm all "learned out" today, too. I'm off to shoot some zombies and collect some artifacts in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Call of Chernobyl. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 9, 2017 Share Posted May 9, 2017 I'm really happy with my Arch install on the Toshiba netbook. It is lightweight and really fast considering I'm running an Atom processor. I've stayed away from stuff like Libre Office and just put in Abiword and Gnumeric. Today I had to get a network printer operating. I use the wifi equipped printer next to my main desktop. To do this in Arch: I had to install, configure and enable avahi to discover the printer on the LAN. I had to install and enable cups to handle the printer communication. I had to install HPLIP to provide the printer driver. I also installed system-config-printer to give me a GUI for adding the printer. Everything was nicely outlined in the Arch Wiki and at the end I got the printer working and a test page printed. I learned a lot about systemd and some obscure packages I didn't know before. So that's enough learning for one day. Back to running steam locomotives. Awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 raymac46, I don't remember if I've asked you if you've tried Antergos. In a lot of ways, I do prefer my Arch installation over my Antergos one, but Antergos is kinda nice if you're familiar with Arch and have installed Arch a few times already. Here, I've moved the antergos repo to the end of the list in pacman.conf -- we'll see what happens, but it seems to be working out fine so far -- and I pretty much run Antergos just the same as I run Arch. I think that Antergos is the best Arch derivative I've used, overall. ArchBang was good, too, though. In any case, with Arch or Arch derivatives I prefer to use Openbox or Xfce or something. I don't really care for using DEs like KDE or GNOME with rolling-release distros, too much stuff to download when I bring in updates. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 18, 2017 Author Share Posted May 18, 2017 I can't remember if I tried Antergos or Apricity. I think it was the latter. My major Arch derivative has been Manjaro which I feel does a nice job with Xfce. I have gotten away from installing anything but Arch because in my view getting there is half the fun with an Arch installation. And with a low memory and slow netbook you'd be an idiot to try running anything like Plasma or GNOME Shell. Even with an SSD I still keep things light. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 When you get to the point where you can't remember which distros you've tried or not tried, you need to start keeping notes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 When you get to the point where you can't remember which distros you've tried or not tried, you need to start keeping notes. Or stop changing distros... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 When you get to the point where you can't remember which distros you've tried or not tried, you need to start keeping notes. Or stop changing distros... That would be no fun. Distro farmers gotta' farm. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhbell Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 (edited) When you get to the point where you can't remember which distros you've tried or not tried, you need to start keeping notes. Or stop changing distros... That would be no fun. Distro farmers gotta' farm. If that is the case then I must be a Distro Farmer big time over 40 distro's in the past 6 weeks ever sense RayMac convinced me to use a VM Been running one on my Mint 18.1 cinnamon and after I learned how to set it up for each Distro I've been downloading 1 or 2 distro's a day to try out. I just finished downloading Antergos, and installing in My VMMel Edited May 18, 2017 by mhbell 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 18, 2017 Author Share Posted May 18, 2017 Well Apricity has been discontinued so if I didn't test it I can't now. I'll install Antergos and give it a whirl in VBox. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 You are officially addicted, Mel. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 18, 2017 Author Share Posted May 18, 2017 Got Antergos installed in VBox on Windows 10. And I have to agree with saturnian that it is very much like Arch in look and feel - in fact most of the decisions I made about Arch were already baked in with Antergos. I'll report more later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 18, 2017 Author Share Posted May 18, 2017 OK this is Antergos with Windows 10 as host, I used the minimal system ISO and net installed the system. It looks like Arch and has the same tools but I still had more fun installing and configuring Arch itself. That said if you want to get the Arch-like experience Antergos might be the way to go. The install process is more Debian than Arch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 18, 2017 Share Posted May 18, 2017 It looks like Arch and has the same tools but I still had more fun installing and configuring Arch itself. That said if you want to get the Arch-like experience Antergos might be the way to go. The install process is more Debian than Arch. Not to be a stickler but what does Archlinux look like and what tools does it use, besides pacman? I think I know what you mean, that it uses pacman and vanilla/unbranded environments but I would not consider anything that is prebuilt as a "Arch-like experience". Based on that, Ubuntu gives you a Debian experience.. Sorry I do not mean to be a pain 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted May 19, 2017 Share Posted May 19, 2017 Based on that, Ubuntu gives you a Debian experience.. Ewww, no. I never got any *buntu or Ubuntu-based system to behave as well as most of the Debian or Debian-based systems. I'm even thinking of changing back to Debian-based AV Linux instead of Ubuntu-based KX Studio for audio production because of (admittedly minor) niggles. Last night I had to do a hard shutdown of KX because the shutdown stalled. Last straw. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted May 19, 2017 Share Posted May 19, 2017 (edited) Not to be a stickler but what does Archlinux look like and what tools does it use, besides pacman? I think I know what you mean, that it uses pacman and vanilla/unbranded environments but I would not consider anything that is prebuilt as a "Arch-like experience". I'd say that aside from the installation process, Antergos provides an Arch-like experience mainly in that the same tools (pacman, repos, etc.) are there. You're mostly getting the same packages that you'd get in Arch. I still refer to the Arch wiki and the announcements at the Arch home page, same as I do for my Arch installation. There's the antergos repo that provides a few other packages, though. As I mentioned earlier, I moved that repo to the end in the /etc/pacman.conf file so that packages from the antergos repo wouldn't conflict with packages from the default Arch repos. Still waiting to see if that breaks anything, but so far so good. The antergos repo does provide some decorations that I don't have in my Arch installation. Also, Antergos has that GUI package manager, Pamac, which is kinda interesting, although I really don't use it. I've used it a few times to search for packages or just to play around with it, but I prefer to use pacman. Other than that, I run Antergos exactly like I run Arch. Updating and system maintenance is really the same, from what I've seen over the past several months. That being said, I certainly wouldn't go to the Arch forums and try to claim that Antergos IS Arch! I'd get myself booted out of the Arch forums in no time flat! And I like Arch better because you set everything up yourself. Antergos is very nice, though, and I'm very happy to have found it. I really did intend to replace it with another "real" Arch installation but Antergos keeps humming along just fine so I think I'll keep it unless I manage to break it or something. I do think being familiar with "The Arch Way", having done "real" Arch installations and so forth, all that is a huge benefit to anyone who wants to run Antergos; for anyone who's interested in Antergos I'd strongly suggest learning to use Arch first. Just one user's opinion. Besides, I've been around long enough to see too many well-loved derivative distros come and go; ya never know how long Antergos will be out there. Edited May 19, 2017 by saturnian 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted May 19, 2017 Share Posted May 19, 2017 BTW, the Antegros repo is mainly just AUR packages that have been prebuilt for Antegros and some other patches apps: http://mirrors.antergos.com/antergos/x86_64/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 19, 2017 Author Share Posted May 19, 2017 I said Arch-like experience - not Arch experience. I still see quite a difference between the two since the installation and configuration process for Arch is far more intricate & customizable. That said, Antergos at the end of the day gives most of the same look and feel I get from Arch - unlike Manjaro which although it's a great looking distro is not anywhere near Arch. But do you install Arch for its look and feel? It would be fair to say that Manjaro is like Ubuntu to Arch's Debian. Not so sure Antergos goes that far down the path in that way. I would still recommend that anyone who wants the real Arch experience would be wise to learn how to install and configure it the Arch way. The other distros are OK but you won't get the sense of accomplishment you will with the real deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 19, 2017 Author Share Posted May 19, 2017 Besides, I've been around long enough to see too many well-loved derivative distros come and go; ya never know how long Antergos will be out there. This is a key point in the whole discussion. Already we've seen Apricity (another fork of Arch) close its doors. I really don't think this will occur with Manjaro at least but stranger things have happened. I certainly understand where Josh is coming from. It doesn't make sense to me to fork a distro just because it might be a little more difficult to install. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 20, 2017 Author Share Posted May 20, 2017 Having run Antergos a couple of days I really like it for Virtual Box ( although I prefer Arch Linux itself on the rails.) Antergos seems to anticipate most of the things I would want to have in a real Arch installation. In that way it is better than Manjaro which adds in a bunch of their own tools I don't want to use. Antergos has that plain vanilla Xfce look I really like in Arch. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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