kernel26-bfs

Compiled during thanksgiving dinner, then placed into my bootloader. Makes the desktop more interactive at higher system loads. Fast as hell, and arch made it easy. Going to try more kernel configs later.

Network fixed + new hardware.

New network card, using the Ralink RT2870 driver (received from the AUR), and a new usb 2.0 pci adaptor from fry's electronics, fixed my network. It is now at 100%, don't know how I even managed with the other network card. Everything seems to be as it should, at the moment. New mouse + mousepad as well. Also, did some tmpfs modifications in /etc/fstab.

The wireless driver install for archlinux couldn't have been easier, didn't even use the driver cd. All I did was a lsusb to see what driver it used, then got the driver from the AUR, and added it to the MODULES section in /etc/rc.conf and rebooted.

Python3 trainwreck.

Python3, it will find it's way into your pants.

It seems that all my applications from the AUR need to be patched then reinstalled for them to work with python3. Unfortunately, bleachbit is a strictly python2 application. Meaning that even the py2to3.py script won't work. Everytime I want to run bleachbit, I have to cd to /usr/bin then, python2 bleachbit. This is not a problem, however, I will try to find a work around. For those of you who chuckled at the picture, shame on you.

Network once again crashes.

This is pretty much out of my control, it's a problem with the wireless card code base (802.11) calling a country and a datalink not responding. The only way to even see what happened is DMESG. Here's the part that shows the error.

cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain

zd1211rw 1-4:1.0: error ioread32(CR_REG1): -71

Once I unplug and replug the adaptor and hit refresh in wicd, it can connect again. The funny thing is, I had the best 8 and a half hours of uninterrupted wireless use without any errors, last night. So this just seems random.

wicd and usb update = stable internet

Now I don't get too frequent cutouts on my wireless internet connection. I even edited my timeouts to be a little longer. Arch linux rox my sox.

pacgraph

A nice handy cli app which helps to find bloat in your archlinux system, sorted by size when you run pacgraph -c. Install from AUR.

Pacupdate

^pacupdate tray icon^

Pacupdate is a handy tool that sits in your tray and alerts you of any updates for Archlinux. Pretty convenient, and it will still use my meth-mirrors.

Bought some meth and hid it in /etc/powerpill.conf

^--Powerpill after rank-mirrors.--^

No, really....ranked my mirrors (servers I get packages from) by speed, and now powerpill is flying like a whore who just railed meth. Does anyone read this blog? Will anyone get offended from my comparison of powerpill to a methhead? We will see,

Trying out openbox as a WM.

But don't worry, I still have ratpoison ;)
openbox is a nice refreshing change however.

Archlinux review.

Yes, folks, I am now running all my machines on archlinux. What made me switch? Well, let's take a little journey into the date 8/30/2010 (August 30th, 2010). It's about 2pm, I am on my Pclinuxos box (unknowingly for the final time) when, for the last time...flash plugin skips. Firefox 4 beta was no help in fixing the flash player either. I was annoyed of constantly having to run bleachbit whenever flash crashed. Then it dawned on me....what if I had a bleeding edge distro that I can practically build from the ground up...(Ok, so the thoughts did not go exactly like that.) I had been running arch linux on my laptop for quite sometime now, and really digging the ease of maintenance, yet if you wanted to, you can get your hands dirty (more-so than pclinuxos) and without the reliance of rpms. I had been contemplating on whether I wanted to rebuild my system from the ground up this time, but first, I backed up some config files into my misc partition. I burn the newest arch snapshot at the time (20100829-archlinux-core-i386.iso) and proceed to install, once I get past the installer I am greeted by a command line interface, then I go to bed.
----------------------------------------THE NEXT DAY--------------------------------------------------
SETTING UP ARCH: (NOTE: I wouldn't recommend arch to the first time linux user.)
First things, first, I never actually thought I would get arch up and running...what occurs next are a series of roadblocks that test my linux skills. (Think of that scene in golden child, where eddie murphy has to pass a series of tests to get the blade.)
Pretty much to setup my arch machine, I had the arch wiki on tty 2 that I could follow.
One of the major areas that the wiki pointed me to was getting a config script for my wpa2 network, so I could get this sucker online and synced. I have the zd1211 wifi card, and thankfully I am running a machine with usb 2.0 port so, setting up the network was a breeze, once I got the basic layout down. I just needed to add the script to rc.conf so it could load. I edited /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist and uncommented the mirrors that I wanted then, I ran a pacman -Syu (to sync and update the servers.) Once I get the new packages, I install my graphics card drivers (for nvidia geforce 7200) and my window manager of choice (ratpoison). Then I run X -configure, and pacman -S slim then add slim to my daemon array. Next I am greeted to a login manager. Once, I login, I am in bare ratpoison, so I chmod my old config files and move them to the appropriate places. All that i have to do now is get some programs (which I already have done).
-----------------------------------------------FINAL THOUGHTS--------------------------------------
In the linux distro world, I have tried many distros, ubuntu, opensuse, mandriva, sabayon, gentoo, pclinuxos and many many more, but, the one distro that is perfect for me is archlinux, it doesn't hold your hand, but, it doesn't get bloated unless you choose to make it bloated by force feeding it packages.
Here's my archlinux screenshot on the forums.
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=822211#p822211

yaourt & powerpill

Yaourt is a great tool for grabbing packages from the AUR. You can even update it just like pacman.

Powerpill is an enhancement of pacman, that accelerates download speeds and gives you more verbose.

If you couldn't tell I am now running arch linux, where before, I was running pclinuxos2010.

Once you go arch, you never go back.

Why I use linux

1. Free
2. You can change any detail you wish.
3. You can make it faster because, you can get "under the hood"
4. huge community where if you have a problem, they will help you out.