random ? (Page 1 of 2)

Maybe you should try the latest arch iso. I don't know what's wrong with your WPA, I installed Arch on a netbook via WPA2 last week. You seem to have this problem with most Distros, so you're either doing it wrong or your chipset is giving you a hard time.

the day i get this ambitious i'll do Linux From Scratch

I did this some months ago, and actually have now an empty partition ready just for this purpose. But I have to say, I did succeed in installing a working LFS, but it was nothing spectactular. Actually, I didn't feel I really learnt something. The book is so clear that all you've got to do is step by step follow the instructions (very close even to just copy-pasting them straight from the book).

I hope that with Beyond Linux From Scratch (where you set up your desktop environment, GUI etc..) I'll get to learn a bit more though..

Otherwise, I think I'm more like .not, instead of trying to know several distros, try to know one good strong distro as much as possible. For me that's debian, as that's probably the one I'm most likely to do any serious work on. (I see Arch mainly as a hobby distro. It's fun to set up a working desktop, but that's as far you'll get with it).

Last edited by Xardas (2011-09-08 15:57:48)

If you didn't learn anything from an LFS install, then you probably already know a lot and will be disappointed in the lack of new knowledge. There isn't that much to learn about linux driven operating systems, as soon as you understood one init system, you pretty much got them all.

You might be on the verge of waisting your time, because of the misconception, that it is Linux one has to master. You won't learn much from installing an operating system as you would from maintaining it. Here comes my dirty little checklist for you:

( ) Have you mastered at least one of the three most used shell implementations ([ba|da|z]sh)?
( ) Are you fluent in grep, sed and awk?
( ) Have you mastered |, > (>>) and < (<<)?
( ) Have you mastered &, && and || ?
( ) Have you mastered job control (ps, kill, ctrl+z, fg, bg, nohup ...)?
( ) Have you (fully) mastered the Debian package management (apt-*, aptitude, dpkg, dpkg-*, dselect), including the creation of a distributable package?
( ) Do you know how to add/remove/activate/deactivate/autorun/blacklist modules in your distro's init system?
( ) Have you mastered cron and at least one of it's iterations?
( ) Can you live without a shell for a while and still do all the tasks you would do with a desktop (using vim/emacs/nano, screen/tmux), including frame buffer supplements for your graphical tasks?

I could think of more, but that's enough for now. If you can't say "yes" to all the questions above, it's not the distro's fault you don't feel any progress, because this is what any distro can do. So if it's the lack of wireless encription that stops you from installing Debian, take one of the offsprings like crunchbang, install it and remove all the junk you don't want to have. A good practice would be to remove plymouth and replace System V with systemd.

By the way: I'm using Arch Linux as a productive system on both my desktop and my laptop. It actually is easier to maintain for me, because I set it up myself. It's neither hard to maintain, nor does it die often. There is only trouble, when big upstream packages change, like Gnome2→Gnome3 or the migration from python2 to python3 as /usr/bin/python and env python.

Nice post Awebb, and of course you're spot on. I didn't want to say I know enough 'linux', which certainly isn't the case. But as you say, it's the maintaining bit that you won't learn by only installing and configuring them. I've been doing that to LFS, arch, chakra, Ubuntu, Opensuse and Crunchbang now but in the end you feel like you're learning nothing new and only do the same things over again. The occasional troubles only learn you some very narrow knowledge about some very specific issue.

I think the best way is to systematically pick a subject and study it; in the field tinkering with your pc only gets you incomplete and very circumstancial knowledge..

I know that I didn't master any of these points. I still have to look up things too often. What I can say is that I mastered the use of search tools on the internet, because I know I can find it - if it exists - in a reasonable ammount of time. This kind of takes away the learning effect from the other skills :-D

You already have a very complex system at hand. Try running Debian CLI only for a week without missing anything. Learn the above mentioned things. I'd gladly support anyone doing this, so the first thing you should try is writing me a PM in links/lynx/elinks :-)

I loved Archbang when i installed it and seriously wanted to install Arch from scratch. When I went to do so for some reason whenever i went to connect to the router (following the instructions almost to the letter.) it would not connect. I seriously believe at this time that it was because the routers name had the special character & in it. I don't know if i can connect to the one that i am currently using. (name is
TimelineX_Network) but will arch accept the "_"?

the reason it's so important to me is that i may very well be becoming a tech with amazon.com in the near future.

primarily they run Red Hat linux as their servers and TinyCore on the xterms at the pack stations.

learning to install and configure linux from scratch will go a longs way to the knowledge that i will end up needing. Currently i am reading through a few linux books and also watching the Triansignal linux+ training videos..

this one was more for personal then the work. though its also a bonus knowing what one to work with the get that as well. don't think any of my current machines could actually run fedora effectively.

^ SR11 has the coolest.  Wife.  Ever.

...but why is the title of the thread "random?" ?

Since I think I am to blame for resurrecting this thread, I might as well add my comments. I agree with ivanovnegro and a_movingtarget that the hype around arch is overblown. I've installed it three times in the past week (not because it broke, but just to see if I could do it) and apart from some minor issues easily solved in the install instructions or wiki it went well. As a_movingtarget said, the first time was a beautiful moment, but so was the first time I ran smxi and upgraded to sid, and the first time I edited fstab and it worked, the first time I changed permissions on a folder, my first bash script, and even the first time I installed Linux and was able to dual boot Windows.

I also agree with Awebb when he says

which is why I'm not unhappy when things break -- I learn more from fixing things than I do from another conky or tint2 tweak. I've alwas been a geek for the low-level stuff, and my Linux systems have been moving toward more and more minimal. I do plan to try the GUI-free week soon.

But I still don't know why this thread is called "random"