Comments on: Build up, don’t tear down

By: Twenty-ten: The picks of the litter « Motho ke motho ka botho

Twenty-ten: The picks of the litter « Motho ke motho ka botho — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 23:40:19 +0000

[...] percent assurance, that any speed improvement you might remember if you moved to Arch from Ubuntu, you will see again if you move from Arch to Crux. Believe you [...]

By: Three things Phoronix couldn’t measure « Motho ke motho ka botho

Three things Phoronix couldn’t measure « Motho ke motho ka botho — Fri, 21 May 2010 23:06:22 +0000

[...] praises for Arch’s speed aren’t because it moves faster at the core levels, but because the systems you build yourself are innately faster than the ones Ubuntu releases. Look around this site for a few illustrations of that. (And yes, you can do similar things with [...]

By: Accepting things as they are « Motho ke motho ka botho

Accepting things as they are « Motho ke motho ka botho — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:36:52 +0000

[...] as I have mentioned in the past, tweaking and coddling Arch Linux to approach its asymptote for speed isn’t interesting any [...]

By: muaythaimaster74

muaythaimaster74 — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:07:48 +0000

It’s an interesting perspective considering moving from Arch to Crux. I know personally that I moved from Slack to Arch for ease of use on my more powerful machines. On most of my “hardware challenged” boxes I tend to still use a minimal Slack install and tend to micromanage more.

By: K.Mandla

K.Mandla — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:23:03 +0000

No, not really. If I look back even as far as about two years ago, the software I was using in Openbox setups in Ubuntu is about the same as what I use in Crux now. There are some packages I have to put together myself, but I get by with a little help from my friends. And honestly, the ratio of effort expended to performance increased is only daunting at first. After the initial nail-biting of getting everything to work, it gets much easier.

By: An_Dynas

An_Dynas — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:59:23 +0000

K,
always impressed by what you’ll do for the speed. You get more out of a 550mhz than most do from a dual-core. My problem is that I need a security blanket. I recognize that I’m still a relative noob, but every time I get away from a Ubuntu-based distro, I find that the repositories are just not as complete (not to mention missing that incredibly active forum when I run into problems). Not advocating for Ubuntu, just curious whether you miss stuff in Crux.

By: K.Mandla

K.Mandla — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:38:23 +0000

Armor Nick: It did seem like overkill about a year ago, but when I realized I could do it smart and not waste an immense amount of time waiting, I realized there’s not much time lost. I keep compiled packages on hand for each system, and that way I can hopscotch up through dependencies if I find myself reinstalling something. And if I relegate my compilation times to when I’m not really using the computer — like when I’m at work or when I’m asleep — then there’s no inconvenience to me.

Of course, if you’re on a strong machine, like the one you describe, most stuff would only take a few minutes to compile. I daresay sometimes compiling it yourself might be faster than downloading a binary package if the source is slow. …

By: K.Mandla

K.Mandla — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:35:32 +0000

Onyros: I don’t know. The last time I put Arch on my 550Mhz machine was only about three weeks ago. udev times were sometimes above 20 seconds, which was completely unacceptable. And since the hardware almost never changes on those machines, scanning and rescanning the configuration every day when I turned it on … well, that was what pushed me toward Crux in the first place, so its unlikely that I’d suffer that kind of lag again unless I needed something that I just couldn’t get from Crux. But, we could say that about anything, really.

Arch is very well balanced; I will give it that. There are times when I wish I didn’t have to compile something, just to open a file or try a new program. But times like that are when I use live CDs (yay SliTaz!) and decide how badly I want to explore a new application.

By: Onyros

Onyros — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:46:41 +0000

I fear the Crux! Just kidding, but last time I dedicated myself to that kind of system, I was gentooing left and right, and spent too much time optimizing for that 1 or 2 second gain.

I love Arch, really do. It strikes that perfect balance, for me, especially because it isn’t hard to maintain. And after a few setups, it is especially simple to start with. I even use Arch on servers, so that says a bit.

As for the 16 second boot time, I have an EEEPC 701 which boots in 15, and that’s far from a speed demon, too; my main desktop boots in 19 seconds (probably due to peripherals) and an Advent Atom powered netbook which boots in 17 seconds, without too much hassle. Also, the biggest problem with Arch booting, the much maligned udev system which you once wrote about somewhere in here, is incredibly improved by now: I went from 7000 ms and sometimes 9000 ms to a slippery 2000 ms and sometimes less with the latest updates.

But I do get what you mean, it’s better to start lean and then add to that, than going the other way around. At least for me, with Arch I always do the inverse, I start lean and then add up, and that’s why it makes sense, TO ME. So I understand you, completely. And that’s one of the reasons I stopped using Ubuntu altogether, though I keep endorsing it whenever possible. I always ended up removing too much that I didn’t want or need, and it got worse every 6 months

By: Armor Nick

Armor Nick — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:17:30 +0000

Don’t you think it’s a bit overkill to compile *everything* from source? I mean, assembling your own system is one thing, but creating your own system is another.

Although, with my not-yet-a-year-old inspiron 1525 (Intel Core 2 Due 2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM), I can afford not to use this. Your computers are pretty old by that standard. Sorry for showing off, btw.

It seems cool, though, and maybe in a few years I could do this too