[arch-general] What jobs/tasks is arch the best at?
For example non OS: A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but that is not the best tool for the job/task. Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), what jobs/task is it the best at? Thank you
On Fri, Apr 15, 2016 at 4:21 AM, <theodore.preuninger@lycos.com> wrote:
For example non OS:
A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but that is not the best tool for the job/task.
Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), what jobs/task is it the best at?
Thank you
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux#Principles Arch is what you make it (TM) It's best at finding bugs before they get into Ubuntu.
Arch is what you make it (TM)
It's best at finding bugs before they get into Ubuntu.
Also check https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questions#Why_would_I_... Other than those points you should be able to reasonably adapt it to whatever situation you are in.
Op 14 apr. 2016 22:21 schreef <theodore.preuninger@lycos.com>:
For example non OS:
A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but that is not the best tool for the job/task.
Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), what jobs/task is it the best at?
IMHO Arch is very good at: - Educating users who want to know how Linux really works - pleasing power users in letting them have control over the system - being nice to users who don't want to reinstall every few months, just because there's a new release - people who like to use (b)leading edge software Or in short: for those who like to stay in control of their systems. It's less suited for those that have little interest in the O.S. and/or reading documentation. I guess the old UNIX adage can be applied here: It is very user friendly. It's just picky who it's friends are. For me personally, Arch is very good for my home systems. Keeping everything up2date is just one command away and rarely breaks stuff. Even when something breaks, it's usually a simple fix. I myself wouldn't use it @work, mainly because of 3rd party (commercial) applications that have a hard time keeping up with the pace of OSS development. My info on other distros is a bit dated. I used debian before switching to Arch. In those days Gentoo and LFS were mostly named as options for power users, besides freebsd/netbsd. Arch looked a bit like Gentoo without the long waits for compiling, with a very enthusiastic community and a very nice package manager. ~10 years later I'm still using the same installation (though only the pacman log proves it ;) ). Mvg, Guus Snijders
yep. and when install, there will be minimum environment. Arch is How you make it(tm) Enjoy. 2016/04/15 6:10 "Guus Snijders" <gsnijders@gmail.com>:
Op 14 apr. 2016 22:21 schreef <theodore.preuninger@lycos.com>:
For example non OS:
A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but that is not the best tool for the job/task.
Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), what jobs/task is it the best at?
IMHO Arch is very good at: - Educating users who want to know how Linux really works - pleasing power users in letting them have control over the system - being nice to users who don't want to reinstall every few months, just because there's a new release - people who like to use (b)leading edge software
Or in short: for those who like to stay in control of their systems.
It's less suited for those that have little interest in the O.S. and/or reading documentation.
I guess the old UNIX adage can be applied here: It is very user friendly. It's just picky who it's friends are.
For me personally, Arch is very good for my home systems. Keeping everything up2date is just one command away and rarely breaks stuff. Even when something breaks, it's usually a simple fix. I myself wouldn't use it @work, mainly because of 3rd party (commercial) applications that have a hard time keeping up with the pace of OSS development.
My info on other distros is a bit dated. I used debian before switching to Arch. In those days Gentoo and LFS were mostly named as options for power users, besides freebsd/netbsd. Arch looked a bit like Gentoo without the long waits for compiling, with a very enthusiastic community and a very nice package manager. ~10 years later I'm still using the same installation (though only the pacman log proves it ;) ).
Mvg, Guus Snijders
I've been using Linux since several years, but only prepared distros like Ubuntu, Linux Mint etc. By installing Arch Linux, I learned A LOT of how linux work, although I already knew a lot :D Furthermore, I feel like knowing each service running by name, since I have manually enabled it, so I am much faster in trubleshooting without needing to Google with service delivers e.g. network connections. Am 15.04.2016 um 00:03 schrieb Dragon ryu: > yep. and when install, there will be minimum environment. > Arch is How you make it(tm) > Enjoy. > 2016/04/15 6:10 "Guus Snijders" <gsnijders@gmail.com>: > >> Op 14 apr. 2016 22:21 schreef <theodore.preuninger@lycos.com>: >>> For example non OS: >>> >>> A hammer is the best to get in a nail. Could use a screw driver, but >>> that is not the best tool for the job/task. >>> >>> Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example >>> against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), >>> what jobs/task is it the best at? >> IMHO Arch is very good at: >> - Educating users who want to know how Linux really works >> - pleasing power users in letting them have control over the system >> - being nice to users who don't want to reinstall every few months, just >> because there's a new release >> - people who like to use (b)leading edge software >> >> Or in short: for those who like to stay in control of their systems. >> >> It's less suited for those that have little interest in the O.S. and/or >> reading documentation. >> >> I guess the old UNIX adage can be applied here: >> It is very user friendly. It's just picky who it's friends are. >> >> For me personally, Arch is very good for my home systems. Keeping >> everything up2date is just one command away and rarely breaks stuff. Even >> when something breaks, it's usually a simple fix. >> I myself wouldn't use it @work, mainly because of 3rd party (commercial) >> applications that have a hard time keeping up with the pace of OSS >> development. >> >> My info on other distros is a bit dated. I used debian before switching to >> Arch. In those days Gentoo and LFS were mostly named as options for power >> users, besides freebsd/netbsd. >> Arch looked a bit like Gentoo without the long waits for compiling, with a >> very enthusiastic community and a very nice package manager. ~10 years >> later I'm still using the same installation (though only the pacman log >> proves it ;) ). >> >> Mvg, >> Guus Snijders >>
* theodore.preuninger@lycos.com <theodore.preuninger@lycos.com> [2016-04-14 16:21] :
Comparing ARCH to other distros in the SAME CATEGORY (not for example against pfSense - one of many distros designed for connection sharing), what jobs/task is it the best at?
== Virtual machines! (easy on resources) == I bought a server with 16 GB of RAM for my home lab. My Archlinux VMs are more than happy with 512 MB of RAM each and a 20 GB virtual hard drive. All my qcow2 files are still under 10 GB. This allows me to isolate each service in its own virtual machine. The whole fleet is orchestrated with Ansible. Of course the hypervisor is also an Archlinux system running libvirtd. I have a VM for ns1, ns2, openvpn, mail, pacman cache and local repo, dhcp, web, db, unify, munin, a tor relay node, backups (this one has a dedicated physical drive), ntp, a few temporary ones for testing and development, and a FreeIPA domain controller on FedoraServer (that one needs 1 GB), and plans for more services/VMs like CalDAV and CardDAV, OwnCloud or similar and XMMP with plenty of resources to spare. == It's not exactly a distro, it's almost a distro framework == One way I like to see Archlinux is as a distribution *framework*. It's not like other distributions where all the pieces are carefully put together in a beast system with everything included. You shape it as you need it. For example, Archlinux is running my main home workstation with Gnome 3 and all the desktop applications you'd expect. My next project is to make a homebrew router with Firewalld on ArchLinux and a low-power system board. And Arch is really perfect for both. Other distros have various specialized "editions". Fedora Workstation, Fedora Server, etc. For Archlinux, there is just Archlinux. == It makes good system administrators == I agree with what the others said about the education value of Arch. But there is also a value as a system administrator of "production" systems (production because my home network goes down if I screw up). Since I study so many options and make so many decisions when building an Archlinux system, I get to know every part of it and fixing problems is really quick. Those system administration skillsets are portable between vastly different Archlinux systems. The skills are even portable to other distros. I became really comfortable with systemd even before some of my colleagues heard about its existence and now CentOS 7 is entering the field. == Where it isn't the best == I wouldn't use Arch for my computer at work. I use Fedora, some use Ubuntu, Mint or OS X. Archlinux isn't fast to set up. It requires reading, decision making, testing, incremental edits, so if you don't need or want to make choices, and your environment is really fast paced, maybe you're better offloading some decision making to the distro maintainers and go with a mainstream distro. Cheers, -- Alexandre de Verteuil <alexandre@deverteuil.net> public key ID : 0xDD237C00 http://alexandre.deverteuil.net/
participants (7)
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Alexandre de Verteuil
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Dragon ryu
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Guus Snijders
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L. Rose
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Maxwell Anselm
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Oon-Ee Ng
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theodore.preuninger＠lycos.com