Arch Linux

[frog]

I'm falling in love with Arch and I know a fair portion of the users on this forum use it. Can you tell me why you moved to Arch? What do you like about it better than other, more traditional OS's like Debian or Ubuntu(other than speed[less abstraction])?

[Axon]

Actually I'm also considering moving to Arch. Got tired of Mint.

[Xtatics]

It's on my to try list. I use Fedora at work with KDE. Yes I'm a rebel, I use KDE. (I've crashed every other WM including XFCE at work). We're stuck on VMs so I can't actually fix the crap that is wrong with them without just starting a whole new profile. But I think I may give Arch a try.

[namespace7]

arch is amazing, but only as amazing as you configure it to be. So for someone who knows exactly what software and features he wants in his environment, arch is nice. Its also a good way to learn more about linux, as you have to install and set up most things yourself.

Its my second favourite linux distro (after crunchbang).

[Snayler]

Its my second favourite linux distro (after crunchbang).

Crunchbang is awesome! You can also try Archbang. They're both good systems for those old computers laying around.

[frog]

arch is amazing, but only as amazing as you configure it to be. So for someone who knows exactly what software and features he wants in his environment, arch is nice. Its also a good way to learn more about linux, as you have to install and set up most things yourself.

Its my second favourite linux distro (after crunchbang).

I need control and understanding over my Linux. I am compulsive about configuration and cleanliness. Mint has too many extra sub-systems(is feature-rich) and as a result, runs very slowly compared to Arch or just debian by itself. It depends on what you need to get done. I find Arch's filesystem layout is much friendlier and more straight forward. The only thing I need now is a utility to install official Nvidia drivers to get my HDMI audio working correctly.

I just installed Cinnarch on a Pentium 4 Hyperthreaded(2 logical processors) and 2gb of DDR2. It runs better than a Athlon X2 215(2 physical cores) with 2gb of DDR2 running Mint 13. I like Cinnamon much better on Arch and this will be my official OS because I didn't have to do a whole lot as far as configuration after installation.

The most of my worries were getting some good applications installed(nmap, tor, geany, wireshark, vim, conky) and configuring my usual stuff(.vimrc, .conkyrc, .bashrc, /etc stuff).

I do have one question.. is there a way to add/remove items from init like debian's `update-rc.d -f sshd remove` or `update-rc.d sshd defaults`. I'm talking about the different systemd startup that I'm not used to. If I was disable a service from startup I would probably just chmod u-x <filename>. Is this the right or wrong way?

[fluxdaemon]

Crunchbang is awesome! You can also try Archbang. They're both good systems for those old computers laying around.

I'm using Archbang as I type this
It's been my favorite so far

I do have one question.. is there a way to add/remove items from init like debian's `update-rc.d -f sshd remove` or `update-rc.d sshd defaults`. I'm talking about the different systemd startup that I'm not used to. If I was disable a service from startup I would probably just chmod u-x <filename>. Is this the right or wrong way?

Is this what you needed?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Daemons

[frog]

Well, that pointed me in the right direction as far as describing what I'm looking for..

What I'm trying to do is add/remove items from the daemon list in arch. If I wanted to keep the startup script for later, I suppose it would be best to just make it non-exec and that would do the trick.

[fluxdaemon]

Well daemons are stored in several places


/etc/systemd/system
/usr/lib/systemd/system
/run/systemd/system


To remove them from boot just do:
systemctl disable <service name>


And to stop at runtime do:
systemctl stop <service name>

[frog]

That's helpful; thank you. I don't want to kill at runtime though, I want to set it up so that I keep something from running at boot time or so that I can start something at boot time.

[fluxdaemon]

To start or stop something from running at boot just do

systemctl enable/disable <service name>


not sure if you have to be root or not though

[frog]

Wow, that's easy. When I searched for the sshd.service file I found out everything I needed to know. The .service file is the initscript and it calls the daemon right out of /usr/sbin/. Thank you for the reply fluxd.

One more question. If there are multiple directories for your daemons(.service files), how does systemctl know where to look to read them and enable or disable them?

EDIT: Being able to add/remove from startup and enable/disable in runtime from the same command == glorious also you have to be root.

[fluxdaemon]

Yea, no problem


It knows that daemons will be in those directories and keeps track of what's enabled and disabled


If you just type


systemctl


It will list all of the services, what state they're in and a description for each one


systemctl enable/disable and systemctl start/stop are different though
enable/disable will change if they start at boot and start/stop will only change the service until you reboot

[frog]

Fair enough. It's safe to assume those directories are hard coded into the program.

[proxx]

Welcome to club archlinux.
If you got any specific questions in the future ; been arch user for ~ 1 year.


Im still running initscripts.
Gonna move to systemD soon , when I have a stable Inet connection.