Arch

I'm interested in Arch, but have a few questions:

Which is the better install method (I have a PPPoE internet access)? Core or FTP?

Ext3 is the most commonly used, but is it the best to use with Arch?

What about using different partitions & filesystems for stuff like /var and /?

 

Mr bumpo-popo!

 

I can't speak for the installation method, but I would advise that you stick with ext3; it offers decent performance with robust journaling. ReiserFS v4 offers amazing performance but it is still experimental, while XFS is not suitable for laptops.

 

What about JFS? All we need now is blackbird to contribute as well.

 

I have arch installed on my lenovo t61p laptop. 200GB HD - 4 GB RAM
I installed via cdrom and everything was very straight forward and took just a couple of hours following their installation wiki.. I chose to install kdemod.

As for partions, I went with..
/boot - 500 MB
/ - 20 GB
/home - remaining space
swap - 6 GB

Edit: I used reiserfs. no problems.

 

I'm thinking of a Openbox/GNOME combination. Is that good?

 

How did you get /home mounted as a separate partition? Does the installer do it for you?

I've tried following HowTo's for separating /home on its own partition, but its never worked out.

 

zephyrus, only you can determine what desktop environment you like. If you are new to linux, may I suggest trying the ubuntu live cd to get a taste of gnome and perhaps opensuse to get a taste of kde.


Bog,
One of the first tasks in arch setup is partitioning the hard drive/setting the mount points. Before I installed, I decided to use the 4 partitions mentioned above so I knew exactly how to partition once I got there in the installation. Then you set the mount points. If my hard drive is sda, I partitioned it so:
sda1 - /boot
sda2 - /
sda3 -/home
sda4 - swap

Once you get to mount points, I blieve it asks first which partition you want as swap (sda4). Then it asks what partition will be / (sda2). After that it asks if you want to set any other mount points. I did, so I labeled sda1 as /boot and sda3 as /home and formatted all partitions. Hope that helps...kind of tough to describe in words.

 

I use Ubuntu now, so I know what it's like. But I was just wondering if the Openbox/GNOME is a good combination for speed/functionaltiy/prettiness.

I've seen people at archlinux forums have a seperate /var. What exactly goes into /var?

I'm going to dual boot it with XP, so, obviously, something's going to have to be in a logical partition. Can swap work from a logic partition?

 

/var is where variable files are kept. Some of the important subdirectories include /var/www (Apache web server files default location), /var/log (log files), and /var/mail (mailboxes). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard for more info on the purposes of the various root directories.

Learn how to use Google
http://www.google.com/search?q=swap+logical+partition
The first result has the answer:

 

As long as you don't mind putting in the time, it can achieve all three.

 

Been ages since I've been active.

For installing Arch, just grab the core iso. Its going to simplify the install process, will include all the latest updates and the iso isn't that big either.

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Here are some explanations of the mount points you asked about:

"/" Is for your root partition and is mandatory

"swap" Is for your swap file and is a mandatory partition

"/boot" Is optional, and used for the boot stuff such as grub, if not created it all gets put into /

"/var" Again optional, it is used for spooling data such as mail and printer stuff. If not created it gets put into /

"/home" Is optional, keeps your home partition, if not made it gets put into /.


I normally create a "/", "swap" and "/home" partition. This way, if my system gets nuked all my personal data is safe in a different partition.

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As for what type of file system you need, stick with either ext3 (recommended) or Reiserfs. Ext3 is the most commonly used as it suits everyone, the rest have their specific purposes. If you do a lot of copying / downloading of large files then Ext3 is the way to go.

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Openbox and Gnome look great (It removes the horrible metacity problem of leaving black trails when you minimize or maximize a window), I never use compiz anyway, gets in the way. Openbox isnt that hard or big to install, after youve installed it, in the log in manager you'll see an option for openbox+gnome amongst the usual options.

Good luck, you'll learn a whole lot more about Linux during the install and won't need to hop on the forums or irc as frequently to solve problems

 

I know about using a seperate /home, I do that too. But what is the main purpose of keeping a seperate partition for /boot and /var? Speed or security or...?

Aye, I agree. Compiz is good for eye candy, but is otherwise a big drag. Thanks, blackbird for all the help.

*sigh* I've been using Windows nowadays, because Ubuntu's been giving me this GNOME daemon settings error thing. And after I watch Realplayer videos all other videos have a blue hue. We'll see if Arch is better.

 

To the average user, having a seperate /boot or /var isnt of much use.

Have a read of this

http://blog.flameeyes.eu/articles/2007/11/02/why-people-insist-on-using-boot

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As for your blue hue, its a bug in Ubuntu. I had that too, you have to mess with the color settings in the players to get it right. OR apply the various fixes.

One such fix which works for a lot is this

launch gstreamer-properties from terminal
change the video output plugin to custom
change the video output pipeline to:

ffmpegcolorspace ! video/x-raw-yuv,format=(fourcc)YV12 ! xvimagesink

 

Having separate /boot is very useful if you like to install multiple distros on your PC.

Arch is good. However, it does take lots of work to setup everything, especially on laptops.

 

Yeah, but still, holidays are here.. So, why not?