Well, I’ve been edging around it for a while - slowly trying to get a bit more independent of Ubuntu, trying not to settle for the default install and making Linux work for me. It has been largely unsatisfying though, mainly because there are a lot of things I don’t like about Ubuntu, but all tempered with the fact that it does a lot of stuff well; and it really does ‘just work’. However, I hanker after a distribution that lets me have the same DIY experience that made me love Linux in the first place. Getting Linux up and running really was a triumph when I first started messing around with Suse, Mandrake and Red Hat back in the day. I miss the challenge, but I still need a system that has the potential to do everything I need.
Enter Arch Linux.
I had tried a VM install of this a while ago but decided to go all the way and do a clean install of it at the weekend. As I am writing this on that system, all geared up to use for work, it obviously has worked. But is it what I had hoped for? Yes it is! The install was actually relatively painless, if time consuming. Ubuntu 9.10 took about an hour from finishing my backup to having a completely clean install running, with all the packages I wanted installed and configured. Arch took more like three or four hours, but I really feel like I’ve built the system I want and, more importantly, I feel like I know how it all fits together. For my money Ubuntu is getting increasingly large-OS-like in its approach — and I’m including Windows and Mac in that — hiding a lot of detail from the user and changing some configuration to be more user-friendly ( for ‘user-friendly’ read ‘hard to understand and different to the way everyone else does it’).
Arch values simplicity in its best form — not meaning ‘dumbed-down’ or ’simplistic’ but meaning that everything works in a consistent way, and that your basic install is minimal but functional. You then add in the components you need to make the system you want to work with. It could be seen as a great distro for beginners, if that beginner is wanting to understand Linux and how to put a truly great and reliable system together, rather than beginning to use Linux because it is an OS that will let them ‘not use Windows’. No snobbery intended here — these are both equally legitimate paths into and through the Linux world. I think of it as being lord of the manor in both cases; with Arch you know where the wiring is, how the plumbing works, and more than a little about the structural stresses and strains of your manor. The Ubuntu manor is just as sturdy and impressive, its just you may need to call in an expert when you want to start making structural changes.
And with that almost supernatural straining of the art of simile, I’ll get back to my work…