anarchy

[saturnian]

Couple of weeks ago, I did an Arch installation using the Anarchy Linux installer. Interesting, and fairly painless. I went with the "Anarchy-xfce4" option. Ended up with a usable Xfce desktop out-of-the-box, but I've changed everything around, and I removed or replaced some of the things that Anarchy installed.

 

Seems to have worked out ok. Generally, I'd prefer to do a "real" Arch installation, but Anarchy doesn't seem like such a bad way to go. I've installed some Arch derivatives in the past (most recently, Antergos, which has been discontinued), but later I always nuked 'em in favor of an Arch installation. This one feels closer to the real thing; there were some Anarchy wallpapers and icons, but nothing else from outside of the Arch repos.

 

Anarchy might be an easy way for someone to take a look at an Arch system for the first time, but one still needs to refer to the official Arch documentation. I think that Anarchy is actually best for those who have already been through an Arch installation. I had some problems with one of my computers and I was gonna have to do a new Arch installation, so I decided to give Anarchy a shot to see what would happen. Looks good, although I think many Arch users would scoff at the idea of installing with Anarchy.

[securitybreach]

Anarchy also uses their own repos as well as the normal arch ones. Check /etc/pacman.conf

[securitybreach]

Also, it has AUR support out of the box which will never be available on archlinux without using an aur helped due to unofficial packages.

[saturnian]

True about the AUR support out of the box (I have only inxi from AUR, which I used yay to install), but I see nothing but official Arch repos in pacman.conf.

[securitybreach]

Just now, saturnian said:

True about the AUR support out of the box (I have only inxi from AUR, which I used yay to install), but I see nothing but official Arch repos in pacman.conf.

 

 

Then they are doing something goofy to give you aur support. You sure it's not at the bottom of /etc/pacman.conf?

[saturnian]

I don't know, I guess I'm missing something?

 

#
# REPOSITORIES
#   - can be defined here or included from another file
#   - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here
#   - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files
#   - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages
#     have identical names, regardless of version number
#   - URLs will have $repo replaced by the name of the current repo
#   - URLs will have $arch replaced by the name of the architecture
#
# Repository entries are of the format:
#       [repo-name]
#       Server = ServerName
#       Include = IncludePath
#
# The header [repo-name] is crucial - it must be present and
# uncommented to enable the repo.
#

# The testing repositories are disabled by default. To enable, uncomment the
# repo name header and Include lines. You can add preferred servers immediately
# after the header, and they will be used before the default mirrors.

#[testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[community-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# If you want to run 32 bit applications on your x86_64 system,
# enable the multilib repositories as required here.

#[multilib-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[multilib]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# An example of a custom package repository.  See the pacman manpage for
# tips on creating your own repositories.
#[custom]
#SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
#Server = file:///home/custompkgs

 

[saturnian]

49 minutes ago, saturnian said:

(I have only inxi from AUR, which I used yay to install)

 

My mistake, here's what I have from AUR:

 

$ pacman -Qm
inxi 3.0.36-1
numix-circle-icon-theme-git 0.r52.96ff84a-1
numix-icon-theme-git 0.r1987.cfef86f11-1
yay-bin 9.4.2-2

 

[securitybreach]

Can you post your /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist?

[saturnian]

Generated by reflector, as you can see:

$ cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
################################################################################
################# Arch Linux mirrorlist generated by Reflector #################
################################################################################

# With:       reflector --verbose -l 10 --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
# When:       2019-11-01 16:09:57 UTC
# From:       https://www.archlinux.org/mirrors/status/json/
# Retrieved:  2019-11-01 16:09:48 UTC
# Last Check: 2019-11-01 15:48:05 UTC

Server = https://mirrors.n-ix.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.uni-plovdiv.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://mirrors.uni-plovdiv.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://ger.mirror.pkgbuild.com/$repo/os/$arch
Server = http://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = rsync://ger.mirror.pkgbuild.com/packages/$repo/os/$arch
Server = rsync://archlinux.uk.mirror.allworldit.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = rsync://mirrors.uni-plovdiv.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

 

[securitybreach]

You had to remove them previously as it comes with some (look at the bottom):

 

Quote

#
# REPOSITORIES
# - can be defined here or included from another file
# - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here
# - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files
# - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages
# have identical names, regardless of version number
# - URLs will have $repo replaced by the name of the current repo
# - URLs will have $arch replaced by the name of the architecture
#
# Repository entries are of the format:
# [repo-name]
# Server = ServerName
# Include = IncludePath
#
# The header [repo-name] is crucial - it must be present and
# uncommented to enable the repo.
#

# The testing repositories are disabled by default. To enable, uncomment the
# repo name header and Include lines. You can add preferred servers immediately

#[testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[community-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# If you want to run 32 bit applications on your x86_64 system,
# enable the multilib repositories as required here.

#[multilib-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# An example of a custom package repository. See the pacman manpage for
# tips on creating your own repositories.
#[custom]
#SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
#Server = file:///home/custompkgs
[anarchy-local]
Server = file:///usr/share/anarchy/pkg
SigLevel = Never

 

https://github.com/AnarchyLinux/installer/blob/master/etc/pacman.conf

[saturnian]

No, I didn't remove any repos, sorry. I think it depends on the choices made during the installation. My pacman.conf file has not been edited. I did remove some packages:

 

$ history | grep "pacman -R"
    1  sudo pacman -Rns vlc libreoffice-fresh chromium
    4  sudo pacman -Rns packagekit
    5  sudo pacman -Rns gnome-packagekit
  173  sudo pacman -Rns pantheon-music
  211  history | grep "pacman -R"

 

[saturnian]

I really tried to keep things simple during the installation. From my notes:

 

Select your desired install option: Anarchy-Desktop - Quick desktop install.
Select your desired environment: Anarchy-xfce4.
Gave user sudo rights and changed the shell from default zsh to bash.

Would you like to install some common software? Yes.

(Installed audacious, firefox, geany.)

[securitybreach]

Ah, you must of said no to the anarchy repo as I think that it asks you if you want to include it

 

[saturnian]

Not sure. I didn't put anything about that in my notes. I'm normally quite meticulous about my installation notes.

 

Anyway, not trying to sell Anarchy or to convince anybody else to use it. Saved me a lot of time, and I'm happy with the end result -- so far, at least.

[securitybreach]

45 minutes ago, saturnian said:

Anyway, not trying to sell Anarchy or to convince anybody else to use it. Saved me a lot of time, and I'm happy with the end result -- so far, at least.

 

I didn't take it that way anyway.

[saturnian]

Cool, security. I really don't feel so comfortable with Arch derivatives, or with installing Arch any other way besides by the book. Not that I've really had any bad experiences with any of the Arch derivatives I've tried (except a couple of recent installation attempts with ArchLabs -- couldn't get it installed for some reason). Anarchy seems ok, though. I would have tried to use it to get Arch with only Openbox, but I was kinda pressed for time and I wasn't exactly sure how to do it, even though I've done an Arch installation with only Openbox (no DE) in the past. So I went with Xfce instead.

[securitybreach]

[saturnian]

securitybreach, now I think I see what's up with that Anarchy repo. 2nd screenshot in the "Select Your Software" section here: https://www.maketecheasier.com/anarchy-linux-review/

 

So the repo wasn't added during the installation that I did because I didn't choose anything from there, looks like. I certainly would have avoided doing so if I even noticed that -- the reason I tried Anarchy was to see if I could do an installation without any outside repos.

[securitybreach]

2 hours ago, saturnian said:

securitybreach, now I think I see what's up with that Anarchy repo. 2nd screenshot in the "Select Your Software" section here: https://www.maketecheasier.com/anarchy-linux-review/

 

So the repo wasn't added during the installation that I did because I didn't choose anything from there, looks like. I certainly would have avoided doing so if I even noticed that -- the reason I tried Anarchy was to see if I could do an installation without any outside repos.

 

Cool

 

[saturnian]

I don't think Anarchy Installer had a DistroWatch page back when this thread was started: https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=anarchy

 

And I think they were calling it Anarchy Linux back then.

 

Anyway, still using the same system. If I needed to do another Arch installation, I might use Anarchy again. But I'd probably install Arch by the book as long as I wasn't pressed for time. Not sure; Anarchy is a good project, it's a time-saver, and the end result is a "cleaner" Arch system than I've seen from any other Arch derivative I've tried. At the DW page linked above, there are a few reviews supplied by readers, although I'd like to see more.