Last week I finally decided to try another Linux distribution. Even though I started off with Slackware on floppy disks I eventually got really lazy and started to use Ubuntu Linux. I remember those days when I was helping out with the KDE project on the first KDE Beta release. What I remember is my system being fast and also being just how I liked it. Recently I tried running KDE under both Ubuntu and Kubuntu and noticed how slow it ran. It was ver sluggish, even on my Core 2 Duo with 2gigs of ram.

Needless to say I have switch to a more traditional Linux, this time Arch Linux. Arch Linux gives you the old-school feel but lets you be a little bit lazy at the same time. Using the console program pacman you can easy download and install applications for your system. The cool thing is, the application binaries you get are compiled as if you compiled them from source, and they are compiled for Pentium class (i686) and above! With noob distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora or even Debian, you really never know what you are getting as the software comes with everything pre-installed. They also load a ton of additional crap during boot and for your GUI! Arch compiles from the authors source code, not from a modified version, giving you the real deal.

Well today I decided to really test out Arch Linux and give KDE (my GUI roots) a try again. Keep in mind this is the same exact unmodified system that I used when I tested KDE under Ubuntu 9.10. So i fired up pacman -S kde…. and waited for my work’s proxy server to download at an awesome (fail) 50kb/s. After more than I wanted to wait I edited my ~/.initrc file and put in exec startkde. I ran startkde and all of a sudden there was a full blown KDE desktop in front of my face. I really wasn’t even sure if it was KDE at first because it loaded so fast. Seriously? Yeah. It’s very obvious that the noob distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora etc..) are loading a ton of extra stuff at boot eating up loads of system resources.

Apologies.
I’m sorry for picking on Ubuntu and the other guys. They are GREAT Linux distributions, but if you have a little bit of Linux experience, know how to read (arch wiki FTW!) and know the basic Linux commands, Arch Linux might give you a better edge performance wise. I’m the super lazy type when it comes to computers and even I spent the time, and it was worth it!

I’ll continue to use Arch Linux as my main O.S. at work and we’ll see how it adds up in the Long run. Although Ubuntu and noobs seem to be a little hoggish, they did run pretty durn good without any issue.

Note: I had no problem getting ndis wrappers working for my WiFi card. The Broadcom (Those pain in the ass Dell WiFi) 4312 WiFi card works out of the box which was surprising. I guess the Linux kernel has included these drivers now. (Note, I found out those pesky Broadcom/dell Wifi cards now have native Linux drivers. Yay!)

Note #2: If you have know experience what-so-ever in Linux, I recommend Ubuntu for trying it out, and Gentoo for learning how it works. If you really want to learn Linux, Google “Linux from Scratch” and try to do an install that way.

Check out my extended Arch Linux Review Here. (Testing Blender, Kdevelop and Irrlicht.