Why does everyone run Ubuntu :( Why not Arch?

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Why is it everyone I see online runs Ubuntu linux or no linux at all? I mean come on, Ubuntu is to bloated to be called linux anymore in my opinion. I consider a true linux user someone who uses either Gentoo or Arch custom compiled to their specific computer/needs. I mean come on, it's not that hard to compile a distro

Archlinux with Openbox window manager is FTW!

gentoo.org
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Well, there's a couple reasons behind it.

Ubuntu is easy to use. Now, that might make you think that I'm not a "real" Linux user because I run Ubuntu, but I don't really give a damn what you think. I like Ubuntu. Making stuff easy for the user isn't evil.

Ubuntu is very popular and well-supported. Arch? Not so much.

Hardware support. My wifi card is completely unsupported under Gentoo, and there is, as far as I am aware, no way of making it work. Ubuntu supports it out of the box.

I have 4GB of RAM. Why the hell do I need to run some stark, featureless piece of crap like Openbox or fluxbox when I can have all the style and functionality of GNOME/KDE and Compiz Fusion? Even with half a gig of memory, GNOME will run great. At 256MB, XFCE or LXDE would work quite well. And IceWM's not bad- lightweight, but with more functionality than *box. There's no need for the ultra-lightweight WMs unless you're running really crappy hardware. Unless you're just doing it to pretend you're 1337 and don't need a real UI.

Now, this is not to say I'm opposed to the idea of using other distros. I have Debian in VirtualBox to look at it (doesn't seem substantially different enough from Ubuntu to be worth the hassle of repartitioning my HD for a real installation) and I'd like, at some point, to try out things like Arch. But for my current needs, with only one computer (a laptop) which is set up in a tri-boot, I need to keep it working and spending time screwing around with Arch is not something I feel comfortable with doing right now. Plus, who knows if Arch supports my wifi card? Does flash work in 64-bit Arch? Ubuntu works quite well for me, and I'll stick with it until I find something that is definitely better. And since Linux is Linux is Linux, there's not really all that much fundamental difference between the various distros.

Anyways, to each his own. You like Arch, use Arch. I like Ubuntu, I'll use it until I feel like trying something else. But every time I've forayed into another distro, I've come back to Ubuntu- at the end of the day, it's just one of the best-put-together distros and has the functionality I need and want.

Never meant nothing bad by it, sorry if it sounded that way.

Arch64 has native flash support in the AUR (community based packages), I got Arch working on my 64bit laptop as my first install and got wifi working within 2 hours (broadcom bcm card). I have double your memory and still run Arch, but I guess I'm just the kind of person who only wants what I need on a computer. But I also dual boot with Vista Ultimate for my gaming. My other computers run different distros from Arch to CentOS for servers, etc.

Just wondering why everyone went to Ubuntu, but I forgot they were documented to good. So, sorry if I sounded like Ubuntu sucked, wasn't thinking when I posted.

Ah, those damn Broadcom cards. How much of a hassle was it to get yours working in Arch? Was the documentation easy to follow? I've been considering a try of Arch for a while, but not wanted to get lost somewhere. That's another thing about Ubuntu- the documentation and the forums are excellent.

Vista Ultimate sucks. I have that on my machine too, and it runs slow with 4GB of RAM. How'd they manage that?

There's a registry edit that supposedly makes Vista super fast or something, but haven't tried it yet.

The Arch Wiki was good for me. They got a very active IRC channel as well. But don't go in there without at least some kind of Computer/Linux knowledge as they tend to be kinda of hostile, especially if you haven't read the wiki any.

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners_Guide - Arch Beginner Guide
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Off ... tall_Guide - Arch Post Install Guide

The beginner guide has pretty much everything you need to get started with the install, setting up a GUI environment, etc. The live cd is text based though. But it's fairly easy to understand. I switched to Arch after only a couple weeks on Ubuntu and haven't looked back.

EDIT: Do you have the 64 bit of Vista? Remember, 32 bit versions only support up to 4gb TOTAL memory. That includes RAM, Graphic Memory, etc. Vista runs semi-fast for my gaming needs at 8gb, but you'll need at least 4gb+ to run Vista semi-ok.

EDIT2: Let me warn you though, 99% of the users on the Arch forums run Openbox. Even the people with faster systems then me or you will run Openbox. Openbox truly is a very, very customizable window manager and it took no longer than a few seconds to download and install it from the repos.

Last edited by BryceEason on 27 Jan 2009, 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

To "compile a distro"? Mmmmhhhh ... first you need to learn to compile Kernel. The 2.6.26-Kernel has 28'487 settings. You would either need to analyse your hardware very well or just relay on a vanilla-Kernel.

Besides this: I work quite well with an debian-lenny which is simple to configure too. Also: Compiling and installing software from the sources is not that difficult and no distribution will stop you to do so. The only issue you need to be aware is not install software twice (one time with the package manager and one time manually; especially they often get mixted up between /usr and /usr/local).

When it comes to different distros you need to see first, what are your needs. I would certainly not install (as an extreme example) SuSE 11.1 on a 7 seven years old laptop. It may make sense to install SuSE on a reasonable modern box, not caring that much about system resources (it will anyway use less than any modern favour of WIN), because YaST is very good tool for the administration.

The light-weight distros have a price: A lack of hardware support. If your willing and able to configure /etc/X11/xorg.conf (and to compile enter the approbate kernel-module) or now how install to hplib and how intrudoce it into your sane-installation: Fine. If not, you better use Ubuntu or SuSE or RedHat.

The great thing with Linux is diversity. From systems which well on a few MB of an USB-Strick to blown-up system like SuSE. Why we should not use those which we need (or like to use) and starting dogmatic fights?

As far a distribution works along certain standards, it fine with me.

I never said it was easy or fast. If you got the time and will to learn what you're doing and know how what settings and all are there for, then go ahead and give it a shot. The worse you can do is f**k up, in that case just reformat and you're good.



Who says light-weight distros have a lack of hardware support? I've had to manually configure my xorg.conf many times and it's not that hard. I had to edit it to get my laptop to detect my touchpad and media buttons, had to do it for my laptop to detect the right monitor I had. Did it for fonts, etc. Now, my desktop everything was pretty much install and use. I use 64 bit versions of Arch on both computers and the only real problem I had was with my broadcom wifi card on my laptop. And now Arch64 includes native flash support, still in beta, but it works.

You do not need to reformat - you just need to exchange the udev and initrd and vmlinuz in /boot (or /). Reformating would mean for me to that a production computer would be out of order for 10 hours (because I would need to re-run all backups).



I did so ones - it is still the same graphic card since 2002 and so long the graphic card does not say "good bye" the card will stay.




ndiswrapper - there worst thinks.

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I do see any reason to upgrade the hardware more often than needed. The three desktops in the house are "evolutionary" products of the last 10 years and the only reason to replace any part is when it broke down (two motherboards, three power supplies and a sheer endless number of HDD).

Not that difficult: A few idiotic placed try-catch-blocks and perhaps an MS-Home-grown vector or string template class ...

Because Ubuntu is trendy.

Hey,

I am currently running gentoo and i love it, it gives you control of your system after all thats what linux was designed for a base where the user makes the decisions and sets it up.

I found gentoo very easy its one of the best documented distro's there are and like you said true linux. Its very fast boot is extreemly fast and so is all software. As for the wireless card your knowlage is only restricting you if your card works in ubuntu it will work in gentoo you just need to enable it in the kernel or use the win driver in ndiswrapper.

I love my gentoo install its great

p.s i have 2gb of ram a 1.42Ghz intel duel core prosesser which will run compiz-fusion and kde or gnome on full and i choose to use xmonad and xfce. its makes user experance neat and effective.

People use ubuntu because it allows them to stay relativly uneducated with computers which is not the way it should be. i disagree with what ubuntu is doing

With all due respect, but I see it always with some amusement what people think for what Linux was or has been designed.

A simple fact is that Linux has been designed by Linus Torvalds to run something UNIX-like on a i286/i386 and GNU Hurd wasn't ready. One of the legacies is the monolithic Linux Kernel which caused a big debate in the early 1990's. This legacy is some respect still a problem, was even in 1990's seen as outdated: "True, linux is monolithic, and I agree that microkernels are nicer. With a less argumentative subject, ... From a theoretical (and aesthetical) standpoint linux looses." Linus Torvalds, 30 Jan. 1992 - This problem has been still not solved. The great work for the kernel, the growing sophistication of the Kernel-sources makes this basic problem of Linux, of having an out-dated Kernel-Architecture even worst, because we just can't throw away the great work done till now.

We have this legacy and I would see here reasonable approaches for more important than endless distro-wars, which easily can lead to the same devastating effect like the UNIX-wars in 1980's.

I shouldn't have to hack Windows to get it functional. I already have Linux if I want to have to hack my OS, and the benefits are greater in Linux.


Nope, I'm on 32-bit Vista and it only sees 3GB of RAM. I've never seen any OS that needed more than 512MB to run smoothly except for Vista, which won't run well no matter how much RAM you give it. Pitiful. I mean, the next most bloated OS I've ever seen is OS X Leopard (10.5) and that runs great on 1GB (the lowest I've ever seen it installed on) and probably would be at least OK with less than that. I can't figure out what Vista is doing differently that makes it so slow- it's not giving me more eyecandy than my Ubuntu with Compiz, and it's not doing anything for me that Leopard didn't do better.


My neighbor (an Arch fanatic) is a big fan of Aweseome WM. I played with Fluxbox for a while and it wasn't bad (pretty snappy compared to GNOME, even on my system) but I want the extra functionality that comes with a full DE. GNOME seems to be relatively tweak-able so I don't worry too much, especially as I find the default GNOME layout very nice and intuitive to begin with. Besides, I'm not giving up Compiz Fusion anytime soon.

Ubuntu is friendly to the n00bs. You try to use Gentoo, and it is expected (before you try to ask anyone for help) that you already know your way around Linux pretty well. "RTFM" is not a good way to get people to switch to Linux. Ubuntu for the past few years has been most people's first introduction to Linux, and easing the transition from Mac/Windows to Linux is not a bad thing. You can still do things the "hard way" if you want, and you can later move on from Ubuntu to a more difficult distro, but there's not really any reason why you must do so to be a "real" Linux user.

Out of curiosity, from whence comes this mentality that "if it's easy to use, it's not really Linux?" Why the elitism of Gentoo users towards Ubuntu users? I don't care if you want to be a masochist and spend the better part of a week installing your system. Go ahead and do that. Meanwhile, I also have all the advantages of Linux in an easy, half-hour installation of Ubuntu, VectorLinux, OpenSUSE, etc.

Ubuntu is the entry door to the Linux club and I am the doorman.

Its hardly bloated. I run a LOT of services and I am only using 400megs of ram. I've never managed to take up enough ram to even touch the swap, so I removed it. My four year old dual core is running at 10-15% each as I type this.

I just checked. Turning compiz off reduced my ram usage by 15 megs. That is tiny. The price for pretty is very low.

People become educated by degrees. Its unreasonable for you to assume the average windows or OSX user will drop those and dive into gentoo or arch. Let them take baby steps and be friendly to them or they will NEVER migrate to your favourite disto. A snobby Linux user is of no use to our community.

Maybe that is why Ubuntu is popular. Its friendly and accepting.

You know, a lot of people run ubuntu because they want their computer to work without having to mess around with a lot of stuff. Many people don't have the time for compiling everything or even know how to, which you seem not to understand. It seems you just expect people to know how to compile the kernal the first time they use linux. Not everyone is a expert with computers. People want something that works so they can use their computer to get work done.

I run Debian Lenny on my desktop and Ubuntu on one of my laptops. I have FreeBSD on another laptop(I found the laptop in someones trash and installed FreeBSD), which is actually much easier to set up broadcom in. I run Ubuntu on my other laptop because everything just works and I don't have to really do anything.