Linux Arch Linux discussion thread

Gaurish

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Apr 7, 2006
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hellknight_mnd said:
Ok.. so I finally decided that I should install Arch now.. 5 years after using Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE n Ubuntu.. Arch should be on the system now..

Welcome to the Club!:hap2:

so which one should I download, the 32-bit one or the 64-bit one..
Install 32bit version if you want compatibility, else go for 64bit

I am using 64bit version which is more faster than in specific tasks like video encoding etc.

also how much time will it take to install the kernel, X11, GNOME etc etc.. I'm on 512 kbps UL plan...
Well, it takes long time.I installed my system in about 3hours just by followingBeginners' Guide. before you install any heavy DE like Gnome,KDE. Install a small de Fluxbox so that you can have some GUI till you finish download KDE/Gnome. as flux is a small download(5-10mb).

vishalrao said:
i like to randomly download and test then possibly file bug reports/feedback/suggestions whenever i can.
Yes, this is what most people on QA team do. testing in spare time:)

btw, the ubuntu classroom is the reason why i recently upgraded my 512 kbps connection to 8 mbps (temporarily) so that i can keep up with the rest of the class while they are downloading/working during the classroom session itself! :D
whoa. that must have costed you a bomb! how much. if you don't mind telling

but i was encouraged to see a healthy number of users logged on for the classroom (even though i cant tell how many from india)
Next time, try /WHOIS:eek:hyeah:
the useless private/govt ISPs should really think about making broadband fast and cheap so any tom, dick and harry who has time/interest can start getting involved... really sad state of affairs today.
Agree!
Even though people are willing to pay, there are no decent unlimited plans:mad:

{Edit}
Here is my currect Archlinux Desktop:

 

Dark Star

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May 7, 2006
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Why Arch linux not recognizing the partitions during installation. It has marked all the partition as no:fs, I am quite skeptical about this and have postponed the installation. Should I go forward and install it ? Will I loose the data if I don't touch the flags of my data partition ?
 

balashome

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Oct 1, 2006
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As for a good 'rolling release' distribution which is also cutting edge - how about Sidux. Sometimes, one can complain it is far too cutting edge to be used in production :).
 

arun687

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Just installed Arch and set it up with gnome, certainly was a different experience. What mirrors do you guys use? I'm getting terrible speeds ~70-80 kBps on India and Japan mirrors, on 2mbps connection.

People using KDE with Arch, is KDE 4.5x stable enough and much better than gnome? I've always used Gnome and feel comfortable with it, however I'm hearing very good things about KDE 4.
 

Gaurish

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arun687 said:
Just installed Arch and set it up with gnome, certainly was a different experience. What mirrors do you guys use? I'm getting terrible speeds ~70-80 kBps on India and Japan mirrors, on 2mbps connection.

you can sort all mirror on basis of speed. I generally use kernel.org mirror

see this:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mirrors#Combined_listing_by_speed_and_status

People using KDE with Arch, is KDE 4.5x stable enough and much better than gnome? I've always used Gnome and feel comfortable with it, however I'm hearing very good things about KDE 4.

KDE has lot more bling-bling than gnome and also has more features. so you try and then decide
 
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arun687

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^^
Thanks a lot mate. :) Just used the reflector script to sort the mirrors and now getting 250-270 kBps. :D

Will try out KDE soon and see how it works in Arch.
 

hellknight_mnd

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May 4, 2008
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Thanks a lot Gaurish, I needed that too..

btw.. nice to see that Indian Institutes of Technology are hosting Linux mirrors.. I've also see Fedora mirrors in India in an IIT.


--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

One more question.. When I issue the following command :-

Code:
[B]service network restart[/B]

or other commands like it which I used in Fedora, they don't seem to work in Arch. Can you please tell me how can I enable them, or the proper procedure which is used in Arch?
 

Gaurish

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you can need to use

/etc/rc.d/network restart

But to make it more simple, I have written a small bash script

PHP:
start()

{

 for arg in $*; do

   sudo /etc/rc.d/$arg start

 done

}

restart()

{

 for arg in $*; do

   sudo /etc/rc.d/$arg restart

 done

}

stop()

{

 for arg in $*; do

   sudo /etc/rc.d/$arg stop

 done

}

status()

{

       for arg in $*; do

               sudo /etc/rc.d/$arg status

       done

}

}

add this file into your ~/.bashrc file. it works like this

Code:
$ start <insert service name>

$ stop <insert service name>

$ restart <insert service name>

$ status <insert service name>

Example,

Code:
[I]$ restart network[/I]

Simple isn't it? all thanks to me:p
 

hellknight_mnd

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May 4, 2008
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Damn that was awesome.. so Arch basically has rc.d directory in place of init.d directory which is present in Fedora.. Sorry to bother you mate, but you see I've been using Fedora since the days of Fedora Core 4. I switched many distros but was really sick of installing every new release when it was shipped. That's why I switched to Arch Linux, coz its a rolling release. And I must say, its damn awesome. Even in 64-bit mode, with 10 tabs open in Chromium or Opera or Firefox, Amarok running in GNOME & Pidgin, the RAM usage never exceeds 700 MB. It used to be around 1 GB in Ubuntu and Fedora.

One more question. I used to schedule shutdowns in Fedora using the at command. But it is not present here. I know about the crontab file, but it is a cumbersome job to update it every time I need to schedule something. Can you please tell me how to install at daemon in Arch Linux?
 

arun687

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Just installed KDE and exploring now. Freaking awesome. KDE 4 is looking very intuitive, lots of eye candy and surprisingly running very fast in Arch, I had tried KDE in opensuse where it was dead slow and pretty unstable too, I guess that was KDE 4.4 or 4.3. The advantages of rolling distro is already seen here.

I guess I'll be playing around a little more and then finally settle with KDE and remove Gnome. Arch Rocks! Every effort that goes into configuring and getting the install set up and running is totally worth it IMO.
 

hellknight_mnd

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Before installing NVIDIA drivers for my graphics card (GTX 260), I was getting full resolution in text mode too (1920x1080).. But, now I'm getting low res, I think around 1024x768 in text mode... Can you tell me how can I get full resolution in text mode? Everything is working fine in INIT 5 or graphical mode.. Here is the output of my menu.lst file..

PHP:
# Config file for GRUB - The GNU GRand Unified Bootloader
# /boot/grub/menu.lst

# DEVICE NAME CONVERSIONS 
#
#  Linux           Grub
# -------------------------
#  /dev/fd0        (fd0)
#  /dev/sda        (hd0)
#  /dev/sdb2       (hd1,1)
#  /dev/sda3       (hd0,2)
#

#  FRAMEBUFFER RESOLUTION SETTINGS
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#          | 640x480    800x600    1024x768   1280x1024
#      ----+--------------------------------------------
#      256 | 0x301=769  0x303=771  0x305=773   0x307=775
#      32K | 0x310=784  0x313=787  0x316=790   0x319=793
#      64K | 0x311=785  0x314=788  0x317=791   0x31A=794
#      16M | 0x312=786  0x315=789  0x318=792   0x31B=795
#     +-------------------------------------------------+
#  for more details and different resolutions see
#  [url]http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GRUB#Framebuffer_Resolution[/url] 

# general configuration:
timeout   5
default   0
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

# boot sections follow
# each is implicitly numbered from 0 in the order of appearance below
#
# TIP: If you want a 1024x768 framebuffer, add "vga=773" to your kernel line.
#
#-*

# (0) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux
root   (hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title  Arch Linux Fallback
root   (hd0,6)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda9 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

# (2) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
 

vishalrao

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wasnt there a "pretty fonts" wiki howto link on arch site?

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

hmmm, im thinking now that ubuntu is quite stable and boring, i should get back on rolling arch distro :D lets see if i can start NOW! (monday office work be damned)

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

installed the base system, kde download/install in progress...

try adding vga=993 (or whatever is the closest mode number) at the end of each kernel= line after the "ro " part...
 

Gaurish

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hellknight_mnd said:
Before installing NVIDIA drivers for my graphics card (GTX 260), I was getting full resolution in text mode too (1920x1080).. But, now I'm getting low res, I think around 1024x768 in text mode... Can you tell me how can I get full resolution in text mode? Everything is working fine in INIT 5 or graphical mode.. Here is the output of my menu.lst file..
Try finding it using hwinfo
  • apt-get install hwinfo
  • hwinfo –framebuffer
  • Then make a backup copy of your /boot/grub/menu.lst and add to your kernel line
vga=0x035a where 0x035a is the wanted resolution mode.