
Arch Linux moves up to Linux 3.0 - darkduck
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2477413399.html
======
prg318
"Based in part on the minimalist CRUX distribution, Arch Linux was launched by
Judd Vinet in March 2002"

Nitpick correction: Judd Vinet created Arch from scratch in 2002 based on the
minimalistic ideas of CRUX, but Arch Linux was built from scratch, and pacman
was written by Judd in C.

The article is also somewhat misleading -- toting this release as having a ton
of new features over the previous release. Arch Linux is a rolling release
distribution and any sane Archer will immediately completely update their
system after a fresh install, so none of these features are really new to any
existing Arch Linux user.

The syslinux installation functionality from the installer, as well as BTRFS
support from the installer, is new and good to see.

Arch moved to Linux days after 3.0.0 was released. It's nice to use a
distribution where you can have the latest versions of everything for testing
and development. I've been using it for six or seven years and still prefer it
on my desktop and (not-so-mission-critical) servers.

------
RexRollman
Of all the Linux distributions, Arch is my current favorite. I especially like
its init system and Pacman. It also has an incredible wiki.

~~~
steve-howard
I love using Arch. The rolling release means there's no eventual super-painful
process for updating; you just update everything and your system is up to
date. It does break sometimes, but in recent years developments in both the
installers and pacman have made it a lot easier to get a system that Just
Works (for many things). I was pleasantly surprised to learn about KMS, which
lets graphics drivers deal with the console/X resolution (so I don't have to
remember which vga=0xsomething I need).

~~~
cliang
I'd like to hear more about the degree to which things do sometimes break and
the steps that users generally take to fix them. Thanks.

~~~
arnoooooo
If you have ever tried to install the latest version of a distro while keeping
the config from the previous version, it's basically the same except spread
out over time, which I find a lot more comfortable.

When something is broken after an update, either :

\- the steps to take are immediately obvious from the error message

\- it looks like a config issue, and I'll then have a look at the new config
file pacman has created as file.conf.pacnew and try to merge it with my
existing file.conf

\- I have no idea and google the error message with "site:bbs.archlinux.org",
which 99% of the time will yield the answer quickly.

I have a few packages that are excluded from pacman updates, because they're
too important for work (SBCL mainly). They will only be updated once in a
while. The rest ot the updates are done depending on my work and my mood :
I'll do a complete update, particularly on my home server, only when I have
time for it and am in the mood to fix things,

Overall, I find it much more comfortable than always postponing installing the
new version of a distro because it will be too much work to replicate my
setup, and ending up stuck with outdated software.

------
daedhel
I used Arch for years.

But in the last year, my system broke 4 times with updates mainly due to major
changes in configs, wich weren't in the news.

This distro is not stable.

It's time to go back to Sid.

~~~
vegai
I was kinda with you until "to Sid".

~~~
daedhel
How so ?

------
helper
Why is this news? The 3.0 kernel could very well have been called 2.6.40,
would that have been news worthy?

~~~
gtaylor
Because Arch had to make some changes due to assumptions on their end, w.r.t
kernel naming scheme. This is part of the breakage that the article mentions.

~~~
Ideka
Also note that Arch is a rolling-release OS. The lastest iso (previous to the
linux 3.0 one) was released on june/july last year -- that's 15 months ago.

