Arch Linux CORE

Well, I just felt like trying out Arch Linux, a bleeding edge Slackware-like distro and its great so far. Heres a review

Install

Install went smoothly, great comments on all the configuration and I knew what packages I needed. I rate Install to be 4.5 out of 5 (Could have been GUI but hey its for intermediate/advanced)

First Boot

First boot was eh but that was mostly because I was unfamiliar with pacman. For example it didnt come with xorg. This was a pain because the mirror that I selected was pretty darn slow so it took a good half hour to install xorg and gnome. Then I switched to a faster mirror (I pinged all of the mirrors on the mirrorlist and picked the one with the least ms to respond) and I updated. It updated very smoothly and I had no problems updating.

2nd Boot

Now I actually tested xorg and i had a few anoyances. For example, gnome package didnt install gdm. This wasnt bad but instead of typing startx I have to type gdm. Another thing that bothered me was the crappy fonts. I used the guide From Ubuntu Site and it worked fine, I just had to install msttcorefonts and then change all default fonts except terminal font to the one that ubuntu site gives me. After that I killed the xserver and then installed the nvidia graphics drivers. This went smoothly. And Finally I setup mutlimedia hotkeys and saved a copy of the .Xmodmap file on my storage hardrive for later use.

That’s all for now but so far Arch has beaten Slackware and any other linux distro I’ve used