EvilZone
General Tech => Operating System => : A-Dub April 11, 2013, 05:00:51 AM
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I want to jump straight at Arch. Honestly that's a little crazy, i know.. i have little exp. With terminals, i haven't been using Linux for more that 4 months (Ubuntu), But Arch is the whole reason i got into Linux in the first place. I posted a thread about booting it from a USB .. and i was accused of being lazy and that i was crazy if i thought i could boot Arch with no problems. so now im asking this: what can i do to prepare my self for a full installation of Arch. i don't care how long it will take me thats fine. i want to know what i need to do.. what do i research? what do i study? Dont fucking tell me to go Google it... no. im asking the web personally. im honestly waiting for that down to earth response from Lucid :D
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I'm actually waiting for a guru response from lucid as well.
And no I have not Googled it I just have that on my todo list somewhere in place 327.
but tbh I can't imagine it being much harder then just go for it and google from other PC or phone it there's complications.
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I want to jump straight at Arch. Honestly that's a little crazy, i know.. i have little exp. With terminals, i haven't been using Linux for more that 4 months (Ubuntu), But Arch is the whole reason i got into Linux in the first place. I posted a thread about booting it from a USB .. and i was accused of being lazy and that i was crazy if i thought i could boot Arch with no problems. so now im asking this: what can i do to prepare my self for a full installation of Arch. i don't care how long it will take me thats fine. i want to know what i need to do.. what do i research? what do i study? Dont fucking tell me to go Google it... no. im asking the web personally. im honestly waiting for that down to earth response from Lucid :D
i am going to tell you to fucking google it, which should return the documentation for arch. Arch linux may be a royal PITA to install, but it also has some of the most complete documentation out there, of any distro. So google for it, or check our ebooks section, and read the docs. I had a brief experiment with arch on a VM but abandoned that due to time constraints, i will return one day!
My advice? Get a dedicated machine you can install it on though, arch is a finnicky distro and in my experience doing a LiveCD (or USB) boot is always a bit harder than running it from a HDD. So i would suggest keeping a copy of the docs on hand, either on another machine in ebook or printed somehow, then just following their install guide and trying to get it set up as a permanent install on a HDD. Or as a dual boot if you only have one comp. Once you have that down, and feel more comfortable getting around within Arch, then you might look into a USB boot device. But overall, it's a tough one and takes a little time and dedication (which you say you have, kudos) but if you have those then its deffo learning as you get reallll messy with the guts of linux and you'll learn a shit ton. Be prepared to wipe and re-install a lot, and dont let that frustrate you as it's a learning process. Shoot, when I learned Debian i reinstalled it 3 times in the first week and another like 5 tiems in the 2 weeks after that haha. Just messing around with my first linux distro, and not letting those reinstalls discourage me allowed me to learn sooo much though. I am now extremely comfortable in my debian environment, and have expanded to slackware on a diff machine to learn that. Eventually I'll return to Arch and then Gentoo...
To summarize, read the docs before and during the install, have google ready to google specific problems (like, XYZ showed up on my screen so google that XYZ with the word Arch and see what pops up.) and be prepared for lots of troubleshooting and re-installing if you bork it. Sometimes it's easier to re-install than it is to try and re-install only certain dependencies or libraries you may have messed up or rm'd lol.
Cheers man, i wish you luck ^_^
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Thanks so much, if jumping straight at it is the best thing to do then i will. ill run it along side w7 for now, i appluad you sir.. thanks for the advice, and how your experiences were. <3
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I wouldn't suggest dual-booting as the first introduction, personally. I would instead suggest using a VM if you don't have a box that you can dedicate to it. Jumping straight in is kinda the better way to go. You should probably try to forget everything you've learned from Windows first. Comparing things you're learning from Linux to what you've learned in Windows tends to be counter-productive. Daemon's advice on looking up documentation is wonderful.
Good luck && have fun.
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I have heard tons of linux users overtly discouraging newer linux users from using Arch linux for years and I think it's bullshit. I installed Arch after only a few short months using (Ubuntu) linux. So I had a total of maybe...four, five months of linux experience. I did fine. Granted there was quite a bit of frustration and no small amount of reinstalling but it was worth it. I say do it. You just need to READ READ READ. The only resource you'll ever need is the Arch Wiki. Don't listen to anything else. It's good advice to get a dedicated machine to install it on and Arch is definitely sensitive and dual-booting can be a bit confusing, but I dual-booted my first time so it's not impossible.
Just keep in mind that Arch linux won't make you a linux genius. The only thing that makes you a better linux user is yourself.
Oh, and one last thing. I highly recommend keeping a live Arch USB. It can be a highly beneficial tool. Whether you need to reinstall or chroot into the system to reset a password or fixed a config file, it's handy. It can be the difference between fixing your system or giving up. At least for me. I have Arch on my computer and I STILL have an Arch USB to this day.
Good luck.
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and i think am also gonna move to arch soon. just still maning up on the debian system for now.
thanks for this advice though.
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I have been using debian for a few years now and see no reason to switch to anything else. i have thought about moving away from gnome to a tile based manager but just have not made the jump yet.
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Oh the wonderful community of EZ, thanks Lucid / Xires / Daemon.