Hi!
I'm a Kubuntu user and heard that Kubuntu is not really the best KDE distro...
Iv'e heard that Archlinux is a good distro for KDE but is it easy to install?
i know that it has no GUI but is it hard to get X an KDE on arch?
Can i use Adept as a pacage manager?
Is pacman good?
Does Arch boot fast?
What do you think of KDE on Arch?:-)

afaik there is one Kubuntu developer named Jonathan.

From my experience:

1. 50% part of pacman is better than apt-get, while the other 50% not.
2. Arch boot is as fast as kubuntu, or to say marginally faster.
3. KDE on arch isn't much better than Kubuntu, but it always is newer.
4. ArchLinux is easy to install the kde desktop but not that easy to go much further. (it is very easy to install, much easier than kubuntu, but not that easy to install add-on software since it lacks the huge debian archive.)
5. Adept? no, I don't know because I'd never use it since 2006. Always use apt-get unless you don't care about a corrupted system.

You also have the option of using KDEmod, which is a splitted and patched KDE exclusively for Arch Linux.

Although, as I have not used Arch in quite a while (FreeBSD is so nice), I'm not sure how many patches are included in KDEmod4.

As for the distribution itself, Arch aims to follow the KISS philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid). While it may be a daunting task to install and set up an Arch installation for a user who doesn't have any GNU/Linux or UNIX experience, their wiki and forum are both very helpful.

Give it a shot. If you're not quite sure yet, just install it on another partition or disk and see how you like it.

If i install KDEmod on archlinux will KDE work like it does on every other system?

Or should i stick with Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Knoppix?

BTW:How is BSD diffrent than linux (user experience NOT kernel etc.)

If you are unsure, you can first try another distribution in a virtual machine like VirtualBox or qemu...

Nowadays it's quite easy to do so and it will probably give you a much better answer to your questions than some words in a forum thread.

Jonathan@Kubuntu wrote:Hi!
I'm a Kubuntu user and heard that Kubuntu is not really the best KDE distro...
Iv'e heard that Archlinux is a good distro for KDE but is it easy to install?
i know that it has no GUI but is it hard to get X an KDE on arch?
Can i use Adept as a pacage manager?
Is pacman good?
Does Arch boot fast?
What do you think of KDE on Arch?:-)

Arch is a very nice distro and pacman is a very good package manager.
But it's difficult to install, especially for new users.

If you want a good KDE Distro that you can easily install, that I would prefer Mandriva (IMHO the best KDE Distro), or maybe SuSE or Fedora. The bootspeed is quite similar I think. For me Mandriva boots in a minute (Arch is a bit faster). But you can optimize all system, if you want to (with GUI in Mandriva).

Thats my personal opinion. And you've already got the tip to test the various distros in a virtual machine.

Regards,
TeaAge

Jonathan@Kubuntu wrote:I'm a Kubuntu user and heard that Kubuntu is not really the best KDE distro...
Iv'e heard that Archlinux is a good distro for KDE but is it easy to install?

ArchLinux is harder to install. It gives you a bare bones install, and everything else is installed from a package later. There is a LOT of manual configuration and file editing required. It's not as bad as some distros, but it's a world of difference from Kubuntu.

On the bright side, it does give you a very lean system with a stock vanilla KDE. It also has an excellent wiki with tons of very helpful HOWTOs. The documentation actually made it easier for me than Kubuntu.

On the downside, it's very "bleeding edge". You will frequently get cut. I really wish there were a "stable" branch, or a repo of older packages I could fall back on. But the rolling release benefits are enough that I stick to it.

Jonathan@Kubuntu wrote:What do you think of KDE on Arch?:-)

The KDE on Arch is *real* KDE. It's vanilla, meaning that Arch has not attempted to "improve" it or backport features. There's no special theming or branding. For many people this is a very good thing. It actually makes KDE more stable than many other distros, even with the bleeding edge philosophy of Arch. But a few people like all the mods and backports. If that's what you want, there is KDEmod, which is separate from Arch, but provides Arch packages for KDE that are highly modified, tweaked, eye-candied, etc. They also provide a vanilla KDE3, for those who want to stick with the tried and true.

Jonathan@Kubuntu wrote:BTW:How is BSD diffrent than linux (user experience NOT kernel etc.)

Don't really want to derail this thread, but... ok.

(I use FreeBSD, so I'll talk about that one, even though I'm sure that (Open|Net|DragonFly)BSD may also apply.)

I *really* like FreeBSD. If you are experienced with *NIX, then FreeBSD really is a dream come true. When compared to many GNU/Linux distributions, everything about it just makes sense. Configuration files are always in the same locations. Applications are always separated from the "base system". Because there are no "distributions" of FreeBSD (unless you consider PC-BSD and DesktopBSD to be "distributions"), these things never change, you have a greater sense of uniformity then you would on GNU/Linux.

There are several down sides, though. The biggest one is hardware. While FreeBSD supports most hardware, there are many devices that don't work. But, because of the stability and uniformity of the the development method, drivers that are supposed to work actually do, as opposed to GNU/Linux, where there is a good chance that something may cause it not to work.

It gets even better if you prefer to build everything (third party apps, and the base system if you really wanted to). The BSDs include what's called a 'ports tree', which is an organized set of directories with files that describe how a piece of software should be installed. The advantage? You get to specify exactly how you want your software to be made, and then it is built specifically for your system. Arch has something similar, called the Arch Build System (ABS). But, AFAIK, you can't update your system through just the ABS, but have to use build and install newer custom packages manually (as opposed to ports, which are all automated). FreeBSD also includes binary packages, in case you would rather use them.

If, after trying Arch, you don't care for it, I wouldn't recommend trying FreeBSD, as you would probably find it even worse. But, if you do like Arch, you may find FreeBSD to be even nicer.

Thanks!
Im gonna try arch in a virtual machine first and them maybe try BSD:star:
can i install packages in a grapical way like adept?

There is no gui for pacman by default but you can install shaman which is a very nice and complete frontend for pacman made by the same guys that make kdemod (i think)

jrick wrote:

Jonathan@Kubuntu wrote:BTW:How is BSD diffrent than linux (user experience NOT kernel etc.)

Don't really want to derail this thread, but... ok.

(I use FreeBSD, so I'll talk about that one, even though I'm sure that (Open|Net|DragonFly)BSD may also apply.)

I *really* like FreeBSD. If you are experienced with *NIX, then FreeBSD really is a dream come true. When compared to many GNU/Linux distributions, everything about it just makes sense. Configuration files are always in the same locations. Applications are always separated from the "base system". Because there are no "distributions" of FreeBSD (unless you consider PC-BSD and DesktopBSD to be "distributions"), these things never change, you have a greater sense of uniformity then you would on GNU/Linux.

This does not apply here. If you only use one distro(wich is probably most of the cases) the uniformity and files will always be in the same place

There are several down sides, though. The biggest one is hardware. While FreeBSD supports most hardware, there are many devices that don't work. But, because of the stability and uniformity of the the development method, drivers that are supposed to work actually do, as opposed to GNU/Linux, where there is a good chance that something may cause it not to work.

The lack of hardware support is probably the worst about BSD systems (for "desktop" users I mean). Actually, it's probably the only thing that keeps me away from FreeBSD ( suspend to ram on my laptop did not work, neither did the bluetooth).

It gets even better if you prefer to build everything (third party apps, and the base system if you really wanted to). The BSDs include what's called a 'ports tree', which is an organized set of directories with files that describe how a piece of software should be installed. The advantage? You get to specify exactly how you want your software to be made, and then it is built specifically for your system. Arch has something similar, called the Arch Build System (ABS). But, AFAIK, you can't update your system through just the ABS, but have to use build and install newer custom packages manually (as opposed to ports, which are all automated). FreeBSD also includes binary packages, in case you would rather use them.

This is not true, you *can* build your own system with abs.

If, after trying Arch, you don't care for it, I wouldn't recommend trying FreeBSD, as you would probably find it even worse. But, if you do like Arch, you may find FreeBSD to be even nicer.

In the near future, whenever I'm able to find some time to spend dealing with freebsd installation and configuration, I'll give it another try

Anyway, this is way offtopic thefore my apologies for it. Getting back to the topic, I would say that freebsd wouldn't be a good option if you want bleeding edge KDE desktop because it usually takes some more time to get it working on a freebsd system ( notice the "usually")

About Arch, it has been my operating system since a couple of years now and it has always worked flawlessly from the begining with KDE on top of it

If you are a newbie, I would rather go for Opensuse or Mandriva.

Just my two cents...

Damnshock

Damnshock wrote:

jrick wrote:...Because there are no "distributions" of FreeBSD (unless you consider PC-BSD and DesktopBSD to be "distributions"), these things never change, you have a greater sense of uniformity then you would on GNU/Linux.

This does not apply here. If you only use one distro(wich is probably most of the cases) the uniformity and files will always be in the same place

Only partially true. I've seen Linux man pages that do NOT match the distro. If you ask a Linux question online, you will get twenty non-uniform answers. If you ask a FreeBSD question online, you will get only one answer. Buy a generic Linux book, and you'll stumble over every page, but buy a FreeBSD book and it's all applicable.

Also, you don't always get the choice of using just one distro. If you're a "Linux contractor/consultant/admin", you may be dealing with several different distros simultaneously. But be a "FreeBSD contractor/consultant/admin", and there's just one FreeBSD to deal with. Sure there will be differences between older and newer versions, but nothing like the hodgepodge that is Linux.

Please note that this doesn't make Linux bad, or inferior to FreeBSD, or anything like that. It's just different, that's all.

The lack of hardware support is probably the worst about BSD systems (for "desktop" users I mean). Actually, it's probably the only thing that keeps me away from FreeBSD ( suspend to ram on my laptop did not work, neither did the bluetooth).

If 100% hardware compatibility is your chief concern, then stick with Windows. Seriously. Suspend to RAM doesn't work on my laptop either... even with Linux! But the hardware problem does suck, but it's not as bad as some people make it out. Do a bit of research before you buy your hardware and you'll be fine.

p.s. Both my laptop and desktop systems have hardware in them that was supported under FreeBSD *before* they were supported under Linux.

Damnshock wrote:This is not true, you *can* build your own system with abs.

Well, the last time that I used Arch (about a year ago), I could update my ABS tree and edit the PKGBUILDs to make my own custom package, but what I was referring to is that, unlike the FreeBSD ports tree, updates are all through binaries. And because Arch distributes only their binaries, you have to manually update your PKGBUILDs and then build the newer versions of your own custom packages, and then upgrade to these newer versions (perhaps by setting up your own repository). There is (was?) no way to just update the ABS tree, and then run one command to build and reinstall all updates, even with your own modifications.

But as Arch is a rapidly moving target and I haven't used it in quite a while, so if things have changed, please do tell. I'd love to try it out!

I don't know if you (or anyone else has) read this, but (while old), it is a great comparison between the design philosophies of GNU/Linux and FreeBSD, and an explanation of FreeBSD's differences.

Brandybuck wrote:

Damnshock wrote:

jrick wrote:...Because there are no "distributions" of FreeBSD (unless you consider PC-BSD and DesktopBSD to be "distributions"), these things never change, you have a greater sense of uniformity then you would on GNU/Linux.

This does not apply here. If you only use one distro(wich is probably most of the cases) the uniformity and files will always be in the same place

Only partially true. I've seen Linux man pages that do NOT match the distro. If you ask a Linux question online, you will get twenty non-uniform answers. If you ask a FreeBSD question online, you will get only one answer. Buy a generic Linux book, and you'll stumble over every page, but buy a FreeBSD book and it's all applicable.

Also, you don't always get the choice of using just one distro. If you're a "Linux contractor/consultant/admin", you may be dealing with several different distros simultaneously. But be a "FreeBSD contractor/consultant/admin", and there's just one FreeBSD to deal with. Sure there will be differences between older and newer versions, but nothing like the hodgepodge that is Linux.

Please note that this doesn't make Linux bad, or inferior to FreeBSD, or anything like that. It's just different, that's all.

Nobody is talking about better or worse I do talk about something to compare about. You, again, are talking about linux diversity but this is not the point here. In your example of a book you wouldn't buy a linux book, you'd get a $DISTRO_OF_YOUR_CHOICE book. You wouldn't be a linux contractor/consultant/admin, you'd be a $DISTRO_OF_YOUR_CHOICE contractor/Consultant/admin. You might argue that's not usefull but that's not the point where you can actually compare freebsd to "linux". What you are doing would be as if I said that BSD changes between openbsd or freebsd!

The lack of hardware support is probably the worst about BSD systems (for "desktop" users I mean). Actually, it's probably the only thing that keeps me away from FreeBSD ( suspend to ram on my laptop did not work, neither did the bluetooth).

If 100% hardware compatibility is your chief concern, then stick with Windows. Seriously. Suspend to RAM doesn't work on my laptop either... even with Linux! But the hardware problem does suck, but it's not as bad as some people make it out. Do a bit of research before you buy your hardware and you'll be fine.

Dude, what is this about? What does windows have to do here? And, just to make you notice, I've been windows free for over 10 years now so don't come and tell me "stick to Windows" while adding nothing to the discussion.

p.s. Both my laptop and desktop systems have hardware in them that was supported under FreeBSD *before* they were supported under Linux.

That may happen in some cases, the fact is that linux supports more hardware than freebsd does though.[hr]

jrick wrote:

Damnshock wrote:This is not true, you *can* build your own system with abs.

Well, the last time that I used Arch (about a year ago), I could update my ABS tree and edit the PKGBUILDs to make my own custom package, but what I was referring to is that, unlike the FreeBSD ports tree, updates are all through binaries. And because Arch distributes only their binaries, you have to manually update your PKGBUILDs and then build the newer versions of your own custom packages, and then upgrade to these newer versions (perhaps by setting up your own repository). There is (was?) no way to just update the ABS tree, and then run one command to build and reinstall all updates, even with your own modifications.

But as Arch is a rapidly moving target and I haven't used it in quite a while, so if things have changed, please do tell. I'd love to try it out!

I don't know if you (or anyone else has) read this, but (while old), it is a great comparison between the design philosophies of GNU/Linux and FreeBSD, and an explanation of FreeBSD's differences.

I'm not an expert so I can't really explain how to do that :S You can have a look at he "makeworld" script anyway

Damnshock

Damnshock wrote:I'm not an expert so I can't really explain how to do that :S You can have a look at he "makeworld" script anyway

Hmm, sounds familiar. But doesn't that script build *every* package in /var/abs ? Still not quite the same as a ports tree.

While ABS is a good tool if you have only a handful of custom packages, it really doesn't scale as well as a ports tree would if you were dealing with many of these custom packages. (I've never used it, but I'm pretty sure that Gentoo has something very similar with their "portage tree", so perhaps that would be a better comparison than to ABS.)

EDIT: Or maybe a distribution like SourceMage/Sorcerer/Lunar.