General Linux Chat and Small Questions v. I broke my Arch Install - Hardware & Software

Well guys, I finally broke my Arch install after not being able to touch it for half a year and then trying (and failing) to update it. Rather than reinstalling, I think i'm going to try out a different distro. Gentoo is an option, but I'd like some other opinions from you guys.

honestly anything's better than arch you could go with opensuse if you're feeling silly otherwise i'm voting gentoo

[QUOTE=sabreman;41091010]Just wondering, are there any good alternatives to raspberry pi? Preferably with built-in wifi and a price < $80 Actually let me be more specific: All I really need is a good processor and a decent amount of ram (>= 1ghz, >= 512), an ethernet port (wifi is nice but not needed), usb, and HDMI out. I really have no need for any kind of serial/pin connectors. I have no idea if this is realistic since I don't know much about microcomputing.[/QUOTE] [URL]http://www.geekbuying.com/item/Zealz-GK802-Freescale-i-MX6-Quad-Core-Android-Mini-PC-Cortex-A9-DDR3-1GB-RAM-8GB-ROM-TV-Box-Dongle-Black-312807.html[/URL] Add in a decent USB hub and a USB to Ethernet adapter (wi-fi is built in) The whole developer shebang is available for the processor, so expect it to get better and better community developed open-source drivers.

[QUOTE=lavacano;41097092]honestly anything's better than arch you could go with opensuse if you're feeling silly otherwise i'm voting gentoo[/QUOTE] An Arch dev somewhere just began weeping at the realization that his distribution will never match up to the [url=http://funroll-loops.info/]powerhouse[/url] that is Gentoo.

[QUOTE=Rayjingstorm;41100336]An Arch dev somewhere just began weeping at the realization that his distribution will never match up to the [url=http://funroll-loops.info/]powerhouse[/url] that is Gentoo.[/QUOTE] pfft If a Gentoo user has to put down every other distro and parade the fact that he's a Gentoo user then he's obviously a poser, can't be trusted for shit Sure I'm proud of my Gentoo-ness, and yes I bash Arch a lot, but I'm nowhere near that level of bad.

I am very confused by you. Arch and Gentoo have very similar philosophies: minimalism, customizability, user responsibility, etc. The only big difference is that Arch provides binary packages (and even then you could use ABS for a more Gentoo-like experience). And yet you say "anything's better than Arch". Why?

[QUOTE=lavacano;41102642]pfft If a Gentoo user has to put down every other distro and parade the fact that he's a Gentoo user then he's obviously a poser, can't be trusted for shit Sure I'm proud of my Gentoo-ness, and yes I bash Arch a lot, but I'm nowhere near that level of bad.[/QUOTE] I'm only kidding you, guy; like Larikang says the two distros don't sound so different, but you cast the first stone, I only reciprocated :v: It boils down to a difference of opinion; I can't even stand to wait for evince to compile (I use evince-gtk from the AUR) let alone my entire distribution, while others prefer it.

Chrome just spewed 100MB of this into my log. Of course now that I'm looking at the problem it's not happening anymore. [code]Jun 19 23:45:19 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:20 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:20 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:21 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:22 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:23 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:24 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:25 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data][/code] EDIT: Oh, that was caused by mplayer. Still don't know why chrome segfaulted and the log grew by 100MB though.

It clearly was showing you it's hatred for slim gingers, and how it wishes they were all fat blobs.

[QUOTE=IpHa;41106084]Chrome just spewed 100MB of this into my log. Of course now that I'm looking at the problem it's not happening anymore. [code]Jun 19 23:45:19 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:20 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:20 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:21 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:22 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:23 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:24 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data] Jun 19 23:45:25 Ginger slim[244]: [120B blob data][/code] EDIT: Oh, that was caused by mplayer. Still don't know why chrome segfaulted and the log grew by 100MB though.[/QUOTE] Sounds like a quantum phenomenon to me.

[QUOTE=Larikang;41104589]I am very confused by you. Arch and Gentoo have very similar philosophies: minimalism, customizability, user responsibility, etc. The only big difference is that Arch provides binary packages (and even then you could use ABS for a more Gentoo-like experience). And yet you say "anything's better than Arch". Why?[/QUOTE] Every single time I've tried to get an Arch system going, it collapses before I can even consider where to go from the base. And it's not PEBKAC - I'm following their install guide [b]to the letter[/b], and there is [b]always[/b] an unaddressed error, or a missing program, or something. And then of course the Arch devs have a habit of not giving adequate warning when they're about to change a core aspect of the system; see the /lib incident - the proper notice would have been a big warning as you run "pacman -Su" or whatever the hell your command is at least a week before the actual move, instead you had to check some backwater corner of the Arch site. Per package breaking can be on the website if it wants to be (I'd prefer in front of me but that's another point), but shit that will result in catastrophic failure if unaddressed needs a bit more of a heads-up, especially for those with only one system. They moved the news to the front page since then but it's still not enough. And then there's also the fact that pacman is confusing as shit. What the fuck were they thinking when they set up what arguments do what? What the hell is any of that? Any other package manager is way more sensible. I can still remember how to use zypper, and I used openSUSE for all of five minutes. Meanwhile, I took a valiant attempt to get a working Arch system, spent a grand total of four hours and read countless documents trying to figure out how the hell to solve problem after problem after problem, and I still don't understand jack shit about pacman. On a final note, I never much cared for the philosophy of my software, only if it works, and if it works in accordance to my needs and/or preferences. We could argue a program's philosophy until Socrates the Fifteenth has his big break, but at the end of the day I'm just going to stand by my point of "Arch doesn't work". [QUOTE=Rayjingstorm;41105472]I'm only kidding you, guy; like Larikang says the two distros don't sound so different, but you cast the first stone, I only reciprocated :v:[/quote] I figured you were only picking on me, which is why I didn't rate you dumb or anything, but I still felt like addressing it. [quote]It boils down to a difference of opinion; I can't even stand to wait for evince to compile (I use evince-gtk from the AUR) let alone my entire distribution, while others prefer it.[/QUOTE] This is actually a fair point, and it's why I don't look down on anyone for using some other distro. As much as I think Gentoo's compile/USE flag combo just blows everything else out of the water, I recognize the fact that compiling takes [b]forever[/b], and not everyone is willing or able to fire up Beat Hazard or something while they're waiting for a huge compile job.

I used to love arch, but the update catastrophes always got me down.

I believe the "trick" to use Arch is to update often. I had a partition on my dad's laptop with Arch on it which I haven't updated in about a month or so (the /lib incident happened during that month), and when I updated it just died. Meanwhile, I was able to update my main PC, which I update every one or two days, just fine. Of course, I had to move some files from the remaining lib folders into /usr/lib manually and to run pacman -Syu --ignore filesystem,bash prior to moving the files, then to update bash and then to update everything using pacman -Su. And it didn't die! Wheeeeee

Arch is for the occasional sadomasochist, while Gentoo is for the hardcore gimp submissive slave. One persons big problem is another persons kink.

Well, thinking about getting Ubuntu... but I've heard bad things about Unity, and system in overall. But Debian-based systems are really simple for me (worked on Mint 14 and Debian 6 for a while), so, I really don't know...

[QUOTE=DrAkcel;41110182]Well, thinking about getting Ubuntu... but I've heard bad things about Unity, and system in overall.[/QUOTE] Xubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu.

I'm running on Mint KDE at the moment (AMD's drivers didn't support Xorg 1.14 when I needed an OS), I already miss some of the more up to date software. It's a bit of a pain to go hunting down the updated repositories for KDE and all that rather than just having it all installed.

[QUOTE=sabreman;41091010]Just wondering, are there any good alternatives to raspberry pi? Preferably with built-in wifi and a price < $80 Actually let me be more specific: All I really need is a good processor and a decent amount of ram (>= 1ghz, >= 512), an ethernet port (wifi is nice but not needed), usb, and HDMI out. I really have no need for any kind of serial/pin connectors. I have no idea if this is realistic since I don't know much about microcomputing.[/QUOTE] Do you actually have a Raspberry Pi?

So after fixing my graphics driver, dual display, and network time synchronization on Arch, I screwed up my Ethernet connection while trying to configure wireless and Ethernet/wireless failover. I need to take a break from this and maybe switch to another distro...

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/j3pXqEL.jpg[/IMG] This is my setup. I ordered this case off of builttospec.com, apparently the guy makes them himself and personally ships them to you. Very impressive. All I have connected to mine is a power cord, and a small LB-Link wifi adapter. It is currently serving as a Tor relay. All I use to control it is SSH. I hardly ever have to because, you know, it runs Linux. [B][U]OH GOD WHY IS THE PICTURE SO BIG[/U][/B]

I want a computer that small with the power of my desktop some day. Some day... [editline]20th June 2013[/editline] my RPi isn't used much anymore because I started using spotify instead of NCMPCPP/MPD :(

[QUOTE=Squerl101;41112514][IMG]http://i.imgur.com/j3pXqEL.jpg[/IMG] This is my setup. I ordered this case off of builttospec.com, apparently the guy makes them himself and personally ships them to you. Very impressive. All I have connected to mine is a power cord, and a small LB-Link wifi adapter. It is currently serving as a Tor relay. All I use to control it is SSH. I hardly ever have to because, you know, it runs Linux. [B][U]OH GOD WHY IS THE PICTURE SO BIG[/U][/B][/QUOTE] Use [noparse][t][/t][/noparse] tags to keep images under control. [t]http://i.imgur.com/j3pXqEL.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=DrAkcel;41110182]Well, thinking about getting Ubuntu... but I've heard bad things about Unity, and system in overall. But Debian-based systems are really simple for me (worked on Mint 14 and Debian 6 for a while), so, I really don't know...[/QUOTE] You can optionally run Ubuntu Gnome

Chromium keeps segfaulting and shitting in my log. Guess I get to try Firefox for a while. [editline]20th June 2013[/editline] ooh! I forgot my avatar was an APNG!

[QUOTE=IpHa;41115642]Chromium keeps segfaulting and shitting in my log. Guess I get to try Firefox for a while. [editline]20th June 2013[/editline] ooh! I forgot my avatar was an APNG![/QUOTE] I can see your icon animate fine, and I'm on Firefox (only because it has better support for Vimperator, though).

I really hate to do this... but I've got to argue this one. [QUOTE=lavacano;41107025]Every single time I've tried to get an Arch system going, it collapses before I can even consider where to go from the base. And it's not PEBKAC - I'm following their install guide [b]to the letter[/b], and there is [b]always[/b] an unaddressed error, or a missing program, or something.[/QUOTE] Do you realize there's a big difference between the [url=https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_Guide]installation guide[/url] and the [url=https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide]beginner's guide[/url]? The former assumes you already know your way around and just lays out the steps necessary for installation. The latter is much more explicit about everything and goes into all the common "gotchas". Honestly, I'm going to have to say this [i]is[/i] PEBKAC, because I did my first Arch install with only basic familiarity with Ubuntu and managed to get through it in a day with just careful reading of the beginner's guide. Now that I'm more experienced, I could probably get Arch fully installed in about an hour. [QUOTE=lavacano;41107025]And then of course the Arch devs have a habit of not giving adequate warning when they're about to change a core aspect of the system; see the /lib incident - the proper notice would have been a big warning as you run "pacman -Su" or whatever the hell your command is at least a week before the actual move, instead you had to check some backwater corner of the Arch site. Per package breaking can be on the website if it wants to be (I'd prefer in front of me but that's another point), but shit that will result in catastrophic failure if unaddressed needs a bit more of a heads-up, especially for those with only one system. They moved the news to the front page since then but it's still not enough.[/QUOTE] pacman will [b]never[/b] break your system unless you explicitly tell it to; by doing something silly like adding --force for a full system upgrade or recursively removing a package without thinking. Complaining about this is like complaining that running rm -rf as root can easily break your system. How is a post on the front page with explicit steps of how to perform the upgrade and a [url=https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewforum.php?id=44]dedicated subforum[/url] not enough? Yeah, I had a hard time with the /lib upgrade - which means I had to go a couple of days without upgrading my system while I figured out the problem. Oh no. [QUOTE=lavacano;41107025]And then there's also the fact that pacman is confusing as shit. What the fuck were they thinking when they set up what arguments do what? What the hell is any of that? Any other package manager is way more sensible. I can still remember how to use zypper, and I used openSUSE for all of five minutes. Meanwhile, I took a valiant attempt to get a working Arch system, spent a grand total of four hours and read countless documents trying to figure out how the hell to solve problem after problem after problem, and I still don't understand jack shit about pacman.[/QUOTE] Again, you're really selling the PEBKAC theory here. Get ready for your 10 second pacman tutorial. -Sy : sync package database. -S foo : install package foo from repos. -Su : full system upgrade. -U foo : install package from file or URL. -Rs foo : remove foo and unneeded dependencies. -Qs foo : search installed packages by name/description. That's it. Those are the only pacman commands I know by heart and I get by fine. [QUOTE=lavacano;41107025]I'm just going to stand by my point of "Arch doesn't work".[/QUOTE] How about when people ask your opinion of Arch, you instead tell the truth: [b]you[/b] couldn't figure out how to get Arch to work.

[QUOTE=Rayjingstorm;41118142]I can see your icon animate fine, and I'm on Firefox (only because it has better support for Vimperator, though).[/QUOTE] that's what he meant. On chrome you have to use a apng plugin

[QUOTE=Killervalon;41118590]that's what he meant. On chrome you have to use a apng plugin[/QUOTE] Yeah, I wish chrome would support apng, but they didn't really take off and replace gifs as intended. [QUOTE=Larikang;41118204]-snip-[/QUOTE] People will always hate on Arch, just like every other distro; Ubuntu is bloated, Gentoo is for ricers, Debian is outdated, etc.

Does anyone here run Fedora? can you run the nvidia binary driver without much hassle?

Last time I tried Fedora it was a pain to get the binary drivers working. It's probably improved though.