KDE 4.8 hits Arch repos

Finally, two or more days after announce in more popular blogs such as WebUpd8 and OMGUbuntu, KDE 4.8 hits my nearest arch mirror. So I decided to update and see what's new and improved in this long awaited version.

Gobohide kernel patch

You probably have heard about GoboHide kernel patch ? If not, here is the short story:
GoboHide is an idea for redesign of linux directory tree in a more user friendly way. The trick is to patch the linux kernel with a user specified list of directories, that should not listed and returned to the user if directory listing is required ('ls' command for example). The readdir() kernel function is then patched to look into this list and if an entry found, then it is just skipped. Very tricky...
The origin of GoboHide comes from GoboLinux and is well described here.

MoonOS screenshot, featuring new directory structure

The long way to AmeLinux

AmeLinux is my idea for Arch Linux based distro. AME is acronym for Arch Made Easy. In the begining this was only a project for MacOSX like Desktop environment - AnticoDeluxe (see here, here and my old blog). I can not continue coding for this project, but I will start a new rewrite very soon.

OpenSuse 12.1 and Tumbleweed vs ArchLinux, part 2

Here is the rest of my short comparison:

Feature	ArchLinux	openSuse
Package updates	Very often, about every day	Rare.Tumbleweed repo is updated more often,though.
Comunity support	Large and friendly	Very large
I want a customized iso?	You can build it yourself with Archiso. It is not so easy, but doable :) You will find it very powerful	Use Suse Studio It is a mater of some clicks and voila. Customization is very limited and Package Management is like a hell There is also kiwi (like archiso). I haven't tried yet.
ARM support	Yes, see ArchlinuxArm	Yes, but there are limited support with Kiwi builder and no support with Suse Studio

That's all. I think I will stick with ArchLinux for a while as it is more powerful and more customizeable. And I will try to create a separate repo, keeping packages for about a 3 or 6 monts for stability, and only applying patches, if needed at all. Just like Canonical made Ubuntu :)

OpenSuse 12.1 and Tumbleweed vs ArchLinux, part 1

Today I will compare side by side two of my favorite distros : ArchLinux (current) and openSuse 12.1. Both of them are fast and have quite recent software packages. There are many differences, though. Read them all

Feature	ArchLinux	openSuse
Linux Kernel	3.2.1	3.1 (3.2.1 available as update in Tumbleweed)
Boot speed (Compaq 610)	very fast, under 20s to KDM	comparable fast, about 20s
Package manager	Pacman there are several GUI haven't tested yet	zypper, rpm, there is YAST GUI, not so nice, though
Repositories	Central repos + AUR all in one place	Central repos + various OBS There is also a Packman repo, containing most closed source packages, also Tumbleweed and more. All in all, very bad design; There is web interface to OBS, which helps at some point;
If a package does not exists in repo?	You can create user package very easily and build it yourself via mapkepkg command	There is OBS, and as I said, with web interface, OBS has very often downtimes and failures, though. Despite this, OBS is great, you can build a package (like kernel)very quickly in the cloud saving your own machine
Configuration, Settngs utility	Mostly none, all is done by hand in various config files	YAST - for most of people (including my boss :) it is perfect configuration tool I dont like the way it looks, openSuse devs could make it better

Best way to get started with ArchLinux

I really like ArchLinux. But it is very hard to install for me. Just because official iso does contains only very limited subset of base packages without any GUI. This requires to know what to install and how to install. Then it comes many adjustments and tweaks to make it all work.

Fortunately, there is an easy way. Just go to http://archbang.org/ and download Archbang. This is fully featured ArchLinux, tweaked and customized for you. Ready to run in livecd mode and also install on your computer. Archbang does come with very basic GUI, though. GUI is Blackbox WM and limited, but functional desktop environment like panels and app menus.

Cool, eh!
Just to get started.

My new blog. Read how to make the most exiting linux distro more stable and ever productive.