Linux Arch Linux discussion thread

vishalrao

vishalrao

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Couldn't resist creating this :) Other 2 threads are already derailed:

http://www.techenclave.com/open-source-and-linux/which-linux-os-would-suit-me-140246.html
http://www.techenclave.com/open-source-and-linux/best-rolling-release-linux-distro-140540.html

I guess we can post our installation status/experience and any troubleshooting questions/solutions here...

Arch is looking really good, fun to install and setup/configure, works fast, the only hassle being slow broadband makes you want to shoot yourself heh :ohyeah:
 
Repeating my qesution :P WIll look at wiki later on

I have few problem. I think I haven't done configuration correctly. There are lots of mirrors in the pacman-mirror list. It was asking to select one should I download the rest and select one ?

I haven't configure the net from the netconfig wizard in the configuration panel while installing .. Now when I ping after logging in as root it says ping :unknown host Google

What am I doing wrong ?

Ohh and I was thinking of starting the same :)
 
Can you post contents of following files (using some pastebin) site or zip and attach here?

/etc/rc.conf

/etc/pacman.conf

/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

/etc/hosts

/etc/resolv.conf

And mention whether you are using static IP or dynamic (DHCP)...

BTW I uninstalled KDE 4.2 now installing 4.3rc2... hope I dont screw up :D
 
@ Dark Star



forget pacman for downloading

it sucks, and it downloads only from 1 mirror.

use powerpill, its a wrapper for pacman, it will download from multiple FTPs and at once and the speeds will be amazing of course.

just see wiki for more on how to install community stuff.

the installation is still done by pacman though. since powerpill is only wrapper as said.

get yaourt also if its fixed.
 
Dark Star said:
Repeating my qesution :P WIll look at wiki later on

I have few problem. I think I haven't done configuration correctly. There are lots of mirrors in the pacman-mirror list. It was asking to select one should I download the rest and select one ?
Click to expand...

Use the bundled rankmirror script to get fatest mirrors.

More info and related tweaks for pacman:

Improve Pacman Performance - ArchWiki

I haven't configure the net from the netconfig wizard in the configuration panel while installing .. Now when I ping after logging in as root it says ping :unknown host Google

What am I doing wrong ?
Click to expand...

there is no need to use complicated wizards as such:P

just put your network config in network section of /etc/rc.conf file check the wiki for help

I use dhcp so it works out of the box for me, no config needed ;)
 
i am facing problem with powerpill where large sets of download fail files with download aborted errors, after researching it looks like its due to some mirrors being more out of date than others (out of sync with each other) so i am trying out the reflector package...
 
Screenshot:
 

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thanks... i think you mean "left side" :P

vishalrao said:
i am facing problem with powerpill where large sets of download fail files with download aborted errors, after researching it looks like its due to some mirrors being more out of date than others (out of sync with each other) so i am trying out the reflector package...
Click to expand...

reflector is neat, regularly running "reflector -f 3 -h 1 -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist" gets me the 3 fastest and most uptodate mirrors which then works nicely with pacman and powerpill... "download aborted" errors still occur but rarely and only at the start of downloading each file.
 
Installed a few things like VLC, OpenOffice (go-ooo), VirtualBox (PUEL) then wanted to install VPN (PPTP) to connect to work from home but got stuck.

KDE's network manager PPTP support still doesn't work. Earlier I used to install GNOME's network manager applet with PPTP support and run that in the KDE desktop system tray but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work in Arch (the systray icon would appear and disappear immediately!).

Found a package called kvpnc which claimed to have vpn pptp support but that would crash while trying to change configuration settings.

Was almost at a loss and ready to wipe out Arch and reinstall Kubuntu then came across KVPNC's FAQ page at KVpnc - KDE frontend for various VPN clients ::: Download which had the following instructions which worked for me:

Get lastest development version from SVN respository (KDE4):

Requirements for building:

qt4 development files (libqt4-dev)

kdelibs development files (kdelibs-dev)

cmake

Code: 
svn co svn://anonsvn.kde.org/home/kde/trunk/playground/network/kvpnc kvpnc-kde4

 cd kvpnc-kde4

 cmake .

 make

 su

 make install

 exit
Click to expand...

After setting up PPTP config options (was a bit of a fight there too) now I can do VPN thus avoiding a deal-breaker which would have caused me to give up and reinstall :ohyeah:
 
Update:

Installed "pdnsd" local dns caching server to speed up browsing avoiding slow DNS servers: Pdnsd - ArchWiki

Note its still good to have something like OpenDNS which pdnsd talks to, but OpenDNS has their privacy/redirect issue: OpenDNS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which you can avoid by signing up and turning off the "typo correction" and "proxy url" settings. This was necessary because it was interfering with my VPN office hostname lookups.

I also have multiple dynamic dns accounts/hosts and use OpenDNS' dnsomatic.com service to update all of them with a single request from the "ddclient" package which is also available in the Arch repos and works nicely!
 
Duh :| I still don't have enough time installing this :| Can't even restart mdv :P

Rest of the distro installed are just eating dust . Maybe I'll install when I buy myself a laptop.. but waiting is not a good option :P Will try and clean my other installation with Arch :) .The vbox setup is still lying dead :lol:
 
Well its there's no compelling reason to try/switch to Arch distro, its a slow install/configuration process but is fun since you spend a lot of time in the command line tinkering with and searching for info to get this and that running smoothly. Main thing is, are you running (whatever distro) KDE 4.3 already? No need to wait for a distro release in October time you can start enjoying the cool window switch "slideback" desktop effect right now heh...
 
Its not that slow, its quite fast with BSNL 500 2Mbps ! Just work out from 2AM - 8 AM.

Issue your GUI KDE,GNOME download commands and go to bed and wake up next morning ;) ! lol ! Super fast, you never notice or feel the wait of download.

I have been off arch for quite a while, need to get back asap.
 
2 mbps should be bearable for those who have it, but not for those on even BSNL 512 kbps UL which I've got coz unlimited is important to me :)
 
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