Arch Linux 2009.08 Review - Part 1 of 2

Here is part 1 of my Arch Linux 2009.08 review. First, a bit of background info on Arch Linux. Arch Linux is a rolling release that tries to keep things simple following the KISS approach. Rolling Release means that the packages are brought up to date as long as you run an update from the package manager. This means that you can install Arch once and never need to install a new version. The only difference in each new install media is a newer snapshot of the "core" repository, and some changes within the installer itself. For example, Arch Linux 2009.02 added support to format a partition with the Ext4 filesystem, while 2009.08 replaced the old framework from the installer with a newer version called AIF (Arch Installation Framework). This is in contrast with Ubuntu in that Ubuntu has a new version every 6 months and only provides updates for bug fixes within each version. Arch has what the developers call "The Arch Way" which follows the KISS approach. Now, in this case, Arch isn't "simple" as in easy to use, but in cleanliness. For example, the larger of the 2 installation media types (Core and NetInstall) is about 350MB. It only contains what is necessary to get a usable system running in a CLI (Command Line Environment) and to get a working internet connection. Any changes to the operating system are done by the user. If the user wants to have a minimal CLI environment only running the Apache Web Server, the MySQL database, and an FTP server, they can set it up to do that. If one wants to install the KDE4 desktop and use a mix of web browsers such as Konqueror, Midori, Firefox, and Opera, they can do that as well. The choice is completely up to the user.

Arch Linux packages are optimized for i686 microprocessors, which means that you need at least an Intel Pentium II or an equivalent AMD processor to run it. Most linux distributions and their packages are compiled for i386 microprocessors, which means greater compatibility, but the system may run somewhat slower as a result.

There are quite a few installation images to choose from. 32-bit and 64-bit core CD images, 32-bit and 64-bit core USB images, and the same plus more for the NetInstall images. I chose the Arch Linux 2009.08 (32-bit) Core Installer and installed it in Virtualbox 3.0.4 .

The GRUB boot menu has quite a few options. More than the average Linux distro provides in their boot menu. It even has sub-menus. The most important choices to pick from are "Boot Arch Linux Live CD", "Boot Arch Linux Live CD [Legacy IDE, no SATA]" (for compatibility reasons), "Shutdown the Computer", "Reboot the Computer", Boot existing linux system, Boot Existing Windows System, and of course, a good old game of Space Invaders.

I edited a line in GRUB to get a resolution of 1024*768. To do this, I appended vga=773 to the kernel line.

Detecting hardware and all that. Loading the installation environment...

Still loading...

I timed that it took 2 minutes to boot from GRUB. So once it finished loading, I logged in as root (no password). Then I typed "/arch/setup" to run the installer.

There are 7 stages of the installer. "Select Source", "Set Clock", "Prepare Hard Drive(s)", "Select Packages", "Install Packages", "Configure System", and "Install Bootloader". Oh, and then there's "Exit Install".

I chose CORE as my source. That was easy.

To set the clock, you can use either UTC (Setting the computer's system clock to GMT and changing the operating system's clock to the appropriate time zone), or LocalTime (Changes the system clock's time along with the operating system's time changes. When dual-booting with Windows, it's best to use this option.).

Once that is chosen, you have the option of using NTP (Network Time Protocol) to sync the clock. Unfortunately, it says there is no internet connection. Since I'm not entirely sure how to bring up a connection and use DHCP in linux, I just used the little trick of choosing the NetInstall to automatically set up the network connection, then switched back to Core.

This is where the fun starts :D . While I have the option to Auto-Prepare the drive, I chose to partition it manually.

I decided to use a 128MB "/boot" partition, a 1100MB swap partition, and the "/" partition took up whatever space was left. If I wanted, I could have used a single partition for everything.

I formatted "/boot" as Ext2, "/" as Ext4, and "Swap" as.... swap.

There are 2 groups of packages. "Base", and "Base-Devel". I just chose base as I don't think I needed "base-devel", but in any case, I could just install the necessary packages at a later time.

The super long list of packages (there are more offscreen). I just kept the default selection for the "base" group.

Installing...

I would say this is the scariest part of the Arch Linux installation. You're given the chance to look over the main configuration files to adjust them to your liking.

When entering the "Configure System" part of the installer, you're given the option of which Text Editor you'd like to use. Nano, Joe, or vi.

/etc/rc.conf is Arch Linux's main configuration file. It allows the user to modify lots of settings including Localization, Hardware, Networking, Daemons, etc.

The file located at /etc/hosts is used to set up custom host names for the same computer (localhost), as well as to recognize other computers on the network.

A nice change in the 2009.08 installer is that if you change the hostname in rc.conf, it will automatically appear in the hosts file.

I just want to point something out here.

- In Unix-based systems (FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X), the hosts file is located at /etc/hosts .

- In Windows, the hosts file is located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts .

/etc/pacman.conf is the configuration file for Arch Linux's package manager called Pacman.

The repository mirrorlist is located at /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist . To select a mirror, I just uncommented (removed the number sign) the line with the mirror that I wanted to use.

An operating system would be useless if there wasn't a way to boot to it. There are 2 options to pick from. GRUB, or nothing. Naturally, I chose GRUB. The only change I made was appending the vga=773 option to the kernel line.

I installed GRUB to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the drive.

Well... the only thing left is to exit the installer and reboot.

I ran "pacman -Syu" to get the system up to date. There were 34MB of updates to download and install, so I updated them.

A few minutes later, my Arch Linux system was up to date.

In part 2, I will show how to get the XFCE desktop up and running.