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@@ -14,26 +14,22 @@ Which is not to say the Arch community is any better, just that Arch itself has
But there's more to it than that.
-I've always known I'd end up with Arch. If you take a strange, peaceful joy in configuring things with plain text files you too will eventually end up with Arch. Or you'll end up fighting everything else you try. My Arch setup is minimalist, no desktop, just [Openbox](http://openbox.org/wiki/Main_Page) and [Tint2](https://gitlab.com/o9000/tint2). I primarily open apps with [dmenu](http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/) and do most of my file system tasks from the terminal using bash (or [Ranger](http://nongnu.org/ranger/) if I want something fancier). Currently my setup uses about 200MB of RAM with no apps open, meaning I have no need to spend more than $400 on a PC, which makes me happy.
-
-<figure class="picwide">
-<img src="https://images.luxagraf.net/2016/arch.jpg" class="picwide" />
-<figcaption>That's all there is to it.</figcaption>
-</figure>
+I've always known I'd end up with Arch. If you take a strange, peaceful joy in configuring things with plain text files you too will eventually end up with Arch. Or you'll end up fighting everything else you try. My Arch setup is minimalist, just the [i3](https://i3wm.org/) window manager with [i3status](https://i3wm.org/i3status/manpage.html). I open apps with [dmenu](http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/) and do most of my file system tasks from the terminal using bash (or [Ranger](http://nongnu.org/ranger/) if I want something fancier). Currently my setup uses about 200MB of RAM with no apps open, meaning I have no need to spend more than $400 on a PC, which makes me happy.
+<img src="images/2018/arch.jpg" id="image-1211" class="picwide caption" />
Arch was also liberating for me precisely because it is the end of the line -- there's nothing else to explore. I'm done. I have my stack and I can move on to other things. It's been a long time since that was true.
-Arch is unquestionably the best linux distro I've used. It has a simple, clean install that doesn't bundle tons of crap and lets you decide what to install. Sure there's Debian minimal too if you're really opposed to Arch (like I was for a while), but then you end up with more out of date software. To me that's fine for the server. In fact these words are being served from a Debian server (these days I use [SSD VPS hosting by Evolution Host](https://evolution-host.com/ssd-vps-hosting.php)).
+Arch is unquestionably the best linux distro I've used. It has a simple, clean install that doesn't bundle tons of crap and lets you decide what to install. Sure there's Debian minimal too if you're really opposed to Arch (like I was for a while), but then you end up with more out of date software. I've even switched to using Arch on my server. This server in fact. I still use Debian for client sites, but these words are being served from an Arch server. Lately I've been using [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=6825229) (affiliate link) precisely because they make it easy to install Arch on a VPS.
On the desktop though Debian's packages are too out of date for my tastes. Yeah, even testing. Okay not Sid. But have you ever managed to keep Sid working through more than one update?
My experience with Arch so far is much, much stabler than Sid or testing. And, more important for me, managing your out of repo software is a million times easier in Arch. There's no need to remember or track what was installed with dpkg-buildpackage, what used checkinstall or apt-src or god forbid some horror you re-packaged from an .rpm file. Not that I would do that. Cough.
-Arch has a decent set of repositories with most of the software you'd ever want all official like and whatnot. Yeah it's tiny compared to Debian, but my needs are simple: bash, vim, tmux, mutt, newsbeuter, mpd, git, git annex, feh, Openbox, tint2, gimp, darktable and dev stuff like python3, postgis, etc. Every distro has this stuff.
+Arch has a decent set of repositories with most of the software you'd ever want all official like and whatnot. Yeah it's tiny compared to Debian, but my needs are simple: i3, bash, vim, tmux, mutt, newsboat, mpd, git, feh, gimp, darktable and dev stuff like python3, postgis, etc. Every distro has this stuff.
-Arch's real strength though is how amazingly easy it is to package your own software. Because even Debian's epically oversized repos can't hold everything. The Debian repos pale next to the Arch User Respository (AUR), which has just about every piece of software available for Linux. And it's up-to-date. So up to date that half the AUR packages have a -git variant that's pulled straight from git. The best part is there are tools to manage and update all these out of repo packages. I strongly suggest you learn to package and install AUR repos by hand, but once you've done that a few times and you know what's happening I suggest installing [yaourt](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/yaourt/) to simplify managing all those AUR installs.
+Arch's real strength though is how amazingly easy it is to package your own software. Because even Debian's epically oversized repos can't hold everything. The Debian repos pale next to the Arch User Respository (AUR), which has just about every piece of software available for Linux. And it's up-to-date. So up-to-date that half the AUR packages have a -git variant that's pulled straight from the project's git repo. The best part is there are tools to manage and update all these out of repo packages. I strongly suggest you learn to package and install AUR repos by hand, but once you've done that a few times and you know what's happening I suggest installing [yaourt](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/yaourt/) to simplify managing all those AUR installs.
-I've installed Arch on four machines at this point. I started with my Macbook Pro, which I've since sold (no need for high end hardware with my setup), but it ran Arch like a champ (what a relief to not need OS X). I also installed Arch on a Dell Chromebook 13 (by far the hardest of the bunch) I used [this guide](https://github.com/Kerryliu/Native-Linux-on-Dell-Chromebook-13/wiki) to get everything set up and then I banged my head against the Arch Wiki beginner page, installing and failing over and over again until I gave up on GPT, went with MBR and Grub. It works, but I have to eject the microSD card I use for extra storage whenever I reboot (I suspect either it's a shortcoming of the legacy firmware patch or maybe I need to edit the fstab file, but I haven't bothered to debug it since it has an easy fix). Getting ALSA working on this machine was a pain, but otherwise everything was fine.
+I've installed Arch on about a dozen machines at this point. I started with my Macbook Pro, which I've since sold (no need for high end hardware with my setup), but it ran Arch like a champ (what a relief to not need OS X). I also installed Arch on a Dell Chromebook 13 (by far the hardest of the bunch) I used [this guide](https://github.com/Kerryliu/Native-Linux-on-Dell-Chromebook-13/wiki) to get everything set up and then I banged my head against the Arch Wiki beginner page, installing and failing over and over again until I gave up on GPT, went with MBR and Grub. It works, but I have to eject the microSD card I use for extra storage whenever I reboot (I suspect either it's a shortcoming of the legacy firmware patch or maybe I need to edit the fstab file, but I haven't bothered to debug it since it has an easy fix). Getting ALSA working on this machine was a pain, but otherwise everything was fine.
-And then there's my EeePC 1005HA, which I bought in 2008 and is still chugging along. It was a snap, I installed everything as per the Arch wiki and it just worked. Take that Apple.
+Currently I use a Lenovo x250 that I picked up off eBay for a couple hundred bucks and upgraded with a bigger hard drive and 1080p screen. It runs Arch like a champ and gives me all I could ever want in a laptop. Okay, maybe more RAM would be nice for my occasional bouts of video editing, but otherwise it's more than enough.