Coming from a background of using MS-DOS for about 4 or 5 years exclusively (MS-Dos 4.1 or something) Being new to Linux and *nix in general I thought that I would want to learn from the “ground up”. I did not want the bloat of Redhat or Mandrake but wanted something simple where I could learn the “stuff” of the OS.
If I ever needed to use a computer exclusively with Linux like a dedicated graphics workstation or server I would most likely use RedHat. But since I would use a “PC emulator” like Bochs or Vmware I just wanted to learn with something small. So I was at Distrowatch and was looking for something that suited me. I tried Slackware but it seemed too slow on releases. I tried Debian but it seemed too out of date and when I upgraded to testing and unstable things would break and I wanted to make GCC 3.x my compiler but I did an “apt-get” and got the GCC 3.x but didn’t know how to make it default. Then I tried Gentoo and got it working but could never compile my kernel correctly and did not like the idea that I HAD to “compile” everything. Then I tried FreeBSD, and I LOVE it, but alas there is nothing that even comes close to linuxconf but I LOVE the ports system. Then I found Arch Linux, it had a very simple install, small base, simple package management, a BSD style ports system and wonderful package updating.
Install & Running Arch
After I downloaded the ISO of .03 (Firefly) I started the install program and it was easy to get through like FreeBSD’s only a tad simpler. Got the base only installed (minus vim, but I added nano and dhcpcd) and ran the “insmod mii; insmod pcnet32; dhcpcd; ifconfig” and got my network card to work I ran the “pacman –Syu” when asked to update you hit NO, then you run “pacman –Sy pacman” then “pacman –Syu” and updated my packages. After that you run “pacman –S cvsup” and then “abs” and you get your BSD style “ports” system (you just “cd” to the dir and run “makepkg” and it will build and compile the program and then you get a xxx.pkg.tar.gz file and can use the “pacman –A xxx.pkg.tar.gz” to install or if you don’t like compiling you can run a pacman –S and you will download the packages in binary form. I found this system very nice.
Conclusion
In closing I just wanted to ask all you who would be interested to help this project because they have a only have SMALL selection of packages and if they could get more they would be very popular IMHO.
In review after you get an install working (during the install you NEED to check your lilo.conf to make sure the partitions are right.)
“Pacman –syu” and answer NO
“pacman –sy pacman”
“pacman –syu” answer YES
Rerun lilo (again check the lilo.conf)
“pacman –s cvsup; cd /usr/abs; abs” (only if you want BSD style ports and Unofficial packages) (use “abs” to update it too)
When the flowing come out I want to try them:
Debian with GCC 3.2x as default compiler
Slackware 9.0
Gentoo 1.4
FreeBSD 5.0
Just out of curiosity what is the best file system to use: Ext3, XFS, ReisferFS, or JFS? (I heard that XFS had no “backup FAT”, or whatever that is)
Just out of curiosity what is the best file system to use: Ext3, XFS, ReisferFS, or JFS (I had heard that XFS had no “backup FAT” or whatever it is”
That really depends on what you’re doing. Personally I use ReiserFS for most of my partitions. The exception is my media server (audio/video) which uses XFS. Each FS has it strong and weak points. If you don’t much care about choosing the best one I’d just go with the default one that your distro installs. They’re all good enough for day to day use anyway.
-fooks
im VERY happy with ReiserFS. use it, you will like it (speed it up in fstab with notail,noatime
I have been wating for gentoo 1.4 for over 6 months it seems, i want to try it. Im currently using Slackware 8.1 and i love it, and I cant wait to try 9.0. I also need to experiment with *BSD.
l8er
Is true XFS is the fastest ?
I don’t know regarding speed. But xfs is rock solid. I love it and use it everywhere I can.
Does it has /etc/make.conf or something else similar to *BSDs’ /etc/make.conf? Just wondering, because it’s very flexible to configure the flags for compile and etc. I believe, Gnome has /etc/make.conf too.
pacman? Hehe, that’s funny name for it. I gotta to visit ArchLinux’s website to find more information. Wondering, why they pick “pacman”? That’s little weird.
Pac(kage) Man(ager)
Geeky as it is I love punnish/subtlely funny package names.
> I thought that I would want to learn from the “ground up”.
<snip>
> got it working but could never compile my kernel correctly
Kernel compiles are required to learn from the ground up.
‘sin the book guv.
there is a group called Linux from sratch http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/
they are writing a documant how to build your own Linux
I leard a Lot about linux by that way
mfg
Geos
Arch Linux (archlinux.org)!=Ark Linux (arklinux.org), who existed first?
… erm, I think not. I had some major issues with XFS and various types of instability – I believe it’s documented on the web in various places too…
That said, I also think there have been recent patches to the SGI XFS sources, to fix some issues. Perhaps it’s all been fixed.
I’m using ReiserFS – no probs now. It was a pain to retrieve all my data from my chewed up XFS partition though!
It has been for months in the rc1 form.
Ya, and also have a look and visit us in irc.linuxfromscratch.org#lfs.
We don’t bite 🙂
Check update-alternative …
Regards,
C.
Whats with the red headlines?
> Check update-alternative …
Isn’t there an easier solution? Should be like this:
# set-as-default packagename
I went to a presentation at work (SGI) on Linux filesystems. At the time (this was a few months back now, so all could have changed) I think that on uniprocessor machines XFS was not the best performing filesystem, but by the time you got up to 64 processors XFS ruled the roost (especially as this kind of task [i.e.: big filesystem, lots of processors, perhaps big files] was what XFS was designed for).
XFS is still a very solid filesystem, and you’re unlikely to get any problems with it (I use it on my laptop). In fact, the only time I have had trouble was with kernel 2.5, and it turned out to be the broken IDE driver that was in there at the time.
Ralph
These are my own opinions, not those of my employer.
@Umm –> It has a red headline ’cause it’s an original OSNews article.
About the article –> Is it a Gentoo’s poor cousin ?
I’m using it exclusively on a Mandrake 9.0 box. No problems so far. I remember that, when using a mix of filesystems – ext3 for /boot/ and /, xfs for /home and /opt, reiserfs for /var and /usr, on Mandrake 8.1 ( maybe 8.2?), the system was unbearably slow.
I’ve not tried mixing and matching filesystems since.
http://www.sourcemage.org/ If you are really interested in “from the ground up” learning I recommend you try SourceMage. It is somewhat like Gentoo; ie, it is source based but easier to use IMHO and has more packages than you could ever want.
Are u guys having trouble with IBM´s JFS ?
Another question:
Do u know the diferences between ext2, ext3, XFS, JFS, ReiserFS?
I would like to know if i can find a comparision chart, or a review between all of them , including pros and cons, showing more specif details…
No, it’s not a poor gentoo clone, primarily it’s binary based and i686 optimised.
I’ve been using Arch for a while now, and i think it’s pretty amazing. I really like it’s up-to-date-ness…Whenever a new version of a program comes out, the package is updated asap. Pretty cool. Creation of packages is really easy, and packages have few bugs due to it’s binary based origin, which also causes software to install fast.
That said, when you want to compile something with your own settings, the abs system (a bit like the *BSD ports system) does it for you (all binary packages are also available in the abs system as source packages). It’s really great. Try it folks.
I am running United Linux/SCO Linux 4.0 for around a week or so. So, here is what I suggest:
1) JFS is very stable, fast and haven’t experienced any issues.
2) If you want a basic, no nonsense Linux distro, SCO Linux 4.0 is available for download right now for non-commercial/developer use.
XFS is by far the fastest and the best file system. Although, IBM’s JFS is not that bad either and pretty speedy. But what ever, I’ve been using XFS for a good while and it works great. ReiserFS gets too slow if you have large files but is pretty good if you only have small ones. As for Ext3, it’s just ext2 with a journal. So in conclusion, yes, XFS is probably the best one to use…
Complaining about ‘bloat’ and then ditching FBSD for the lack of Linuxconf, which is the most ‘bloated’ system management suite available. And if you’d ever used the ports system for a while, you’d have experienced that it eats up disk space for breakfast, lunch and dinner, if not maintained carefully.
BTW, last time I checked the minimum installation of Mandrake was something about 90 MB.
monty
I use XFS almost everywhere. The only (?) drawbacks are that it’s slow in removing files (a known “bug”), you can’t have the lilo boot record on an XFS partition (it has to be in MBR [also known and documented]) and according to http://conferences.oreillynet.com/presentations/os2002/wessels_duan… it’s slower than Reiser with squid.
The upcoming Reiser4 is supposed to be even faster (fastest of them all according to Hans Reiser).
I tried IBM-JFS back in mid 2001 and encountered some errors that put me back, though I guess it’s matured a lot since.
I often use ext3 for /boot (for no particular reason, on some boxes that’s XFS as well) but somehow it feels like a toy-jfs.
XFS feels rock solid and has a history (from IRIX) that only JFS perhaps can rival.
/Peder
For those interested in the pros and cons of the different Linux FS, Daniel Robbins (alias “Mr Gentoo”) has written a very good series of articles on the IBM Developerworks site.
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/