Jump to content

Arch is stubborn


Recommended Posts

Okay, I have Arch up and running. Most things work now. What doesn't work yet is the following:

 

- Localisation of Gnome. I want to set it to German language, have edited all necessary config files and checked them twice in order to make sure that there is no mistake. Then I launch the language generator and get a positive feedback. When I apply the new language in gdm, the system tells me that german (de_DE blah) is not a valid language. In Gnome, I have then part of my system in german, the other part in english. Ouch.

 

- Sound. My soundcard is detected but cannot be activated in Gnome, although alsaconf and alsamixer have no problem with the card. Gstreamer asks for a valid module that I would have to install but doesn't ell me which. I took a look at the packages available and the information I got is absolutely zero, nada. Pacman gives me no useful information, either. And that is what I see as the main problems with pacman. No package information included like in urpmq.

 

- device handling: When I plug in an USB stick, I see two CD and DVD devices and one USB device mounted, although I have only one DVD, one CD and one USB device mounted. Strange. And no icons/popups on my desktop although they should be there, according to my Gnome configuration.

 

So, you Arch-gurus, now it is your turn to help me. ;)

 

Mandriva might be "outdated" by now, but at least it always did what I asked it to do. :D Maybe I can tame Arch in the next few days...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 32
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I haven't got it running at the moment, but I remember a lot of stuff was configured in /etc/rc.conf.

 

Not sure if that helps any, I only used in English and with KDE :P

 

And I gave up cos ndiswrapper stopped working and I lost networking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why should I want to use a gernan layout in Gnome?... 1000 points question. Simple answer: 'Cause I am from Germany. ;)

 

Ian, I know that most things are configures in rc.conf, but that doesn't help me at all. Everything is perfectly set up in my config files (yeah, I did a lot of reading and have spent a whopping six hours on configuring Arch) and it's still stubborn.

 

And no. Arch is currently not functioning as it should (I know, it was ironic, but anyway...). I mean I do have some years of Linux experience under my belt with several so called "expert distros" (Slackware, Debian, Gentoo) and still I am stuck. Something is weird here...

 

 

edit: YAY! I got the locale setting problem nearly solved. Using the de_DEeuro ISO-8859-15 locale caused problems and switching to de_DE.UTF-8 solved the issue mostly. Okay, the euro and "at" symbol don't work yet, just like all brackets, but I will solve that, too... I hope... Then there are still two more to solve. I guess the soundcard problem will be the easier one to fix.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing is interesting. I have reinstalled Mandriva on my primary harddisk (it took me exactly six minutes) and was curious how big the size difference between a "lean" distro like Arch and a "bloated" one like Mandriva is. Now, prepare for the shock of your life:

 

Arch has Gnome installed but is still missing Openoffice, evolution, firefox, gaim, gimp and some other applications that I have installed on Mandriva and it has the new modular Xorg, which is supposed to be smaller in size.

 

Arch uses roughly 1,68 GB on my secondary harddisk.

 

Mandriva (with the bloated Xorg, OOo, Gimp, etc) uses roughly 1,54 GB on my primary harddisk!!

 

How is this possible that the "lean" Arch distro needs more space for fewer apps than the "bloated" Mandriva???? :huh:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are you joking around? :D I explained it earlier why I want german language support: I am from Germany and as a journalist, I need a working german keyboard and german desktop layout. That ain't so hard to understand, is it? ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hard drive space:

rm -rf /var/cache/pacman/pkg/*.tar.gz

cleans out the packages from pacman. since most of your packages are comming down from the server, even the ones from the install if you choose network or if you updated after you installed it. also keep in mind that with arch there are no -devel packages, so you're getting everything you need - not just the binaries.

 

sound: have you read the wiki article? lots of information there, probably will solve your problems.

 

localization, you're probably just missing a package or something. i'm not sure off the top of my head.

 

i don't know what's up with your udev and seeing multiple devices. doesn't happy here :-P

 

arch isn't weird :P it's just not in-your-face-simple.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Localization in Arch is done by editing a single file: /etc/profile

Since the introduction of the latest glibc, not all locales are included, but generating them is really simple:

http://www.archlinux.org/news/209/

(and yeah, I forgive you for missing it, it may be self-explicable for dedicated Arch users, but since it's some 4 months old it's quite easy to miss! :P ). And yes, I do agree that this should be in capitals in the wiki, but as you have already noticed the single weak point of Arch is the documentation, which isn't as good as it should be (aknowledged by everyone, including the distro founder).

Regards.

Edited by scarecrow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh, Slackware wasn't simple either, but there, the devices handling was - for me -predictable.

 

Yes, I have read the wiki and will work on the soundcard thing. But first I want to fix that idiotic locales annoyance. And I have edited /etc.rc.conf, etc/profile and run the locale-gen. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah... I finally got my @ and ?‚? keys working. pfff.... but sound is still a no go. :D

 

Oh, and even after cleaning the cache, Arch uses more space than Mandriva. :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, I was only referring to the harddisk space. It is simply surprising to me that it actually needs more space on the harddrive for less files. Maybe it is because there is more documentation in the config files included than in Mandriva... :unsure:

 

RAM usage in Arch: Gnome + Epiphany + Xchat: 111.2 MB. Will post the results of Mandriva once I boot into it again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, and even after cleaning the cache, Arch uses more space than Mandriva. :lol:

 

Of course it does.

For example, "pacman -Sy gnome gnome-extra" installs the whole gnome desktop, PLUS the devel packages, which are not separated from the execs and libs (this is typical Arch philosophy, but it's absolutely the same under Slackware as well). If you were a KDE user, then even after cleaning cache, KDE would eat almost 600MB of HD space- everything installed.

So, no wonder it uses more space than in Mandriva- but as Tyme said, no way the almost vanilla Arch kernel uses more resources than the heavily patched Mandriva one...

Edited by scarecrow
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm... Now I have booted into Mandy and have: Gnome + Xchat + Epiphany running plus the sound server (which is not yet working on my Arch) and I get 85,1 MB Ram usage. that is a difference of 26.1 MB Ram. And a bare Gnome desktop uses only 72,1 MB Ram in Mandriva 2006. I think we have a new topic for a heated discussion, folks. :D

 

And scarecrow, I have exactly the same applications installed in Arch and Mandy. Thus the Gnome apps are not the answer to the hdd-space usage question. The answer must lay somewhere else, but where? :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...