Artix - new kid on the block

[viking60]

Artix is a new Arch based distro that is coming from Manjaro (or something like that)!
The Artix people are no big fans of Systemd and firmly believe that it represents the dark side of the force.

Artoo has been maintaining an OpenRc version in Manjaro which will be discontinued.
The Artix people found it to hard to maintain a Manjaro OpenRC version so they forked it to get completely away from Systemd.

Why? Does not Systemd represent the standardization that the Linux world has been screaming about for years?

Well...the answer is Yes but there is this other side of the coin.....

Some people suspect that when a code gets Huge and is managed by big corporations and looses transparency then there is a potential for exploiting it.

I wonder why? We all know that the US government or any other government in the free world would not dream of something like that....right?

Anyway these crazy guys decided to make a distro that is systemd free and based on Arch.
I do remember good old rc.conf and how I was in control of my Arch so I kind of like the idea (...call me crazy )

The main developer Artoo is clear about one thing; You need Linux experience to go for Artix - this is not for greenhorns.

Fair enough.... and since I do not consider myself a greenhorn I downloaded the iso and decided to install it in a VM.

Since the distro seems to be Qt oriented...I decided to try it with Xfce4...which is not

So I fired up the iso in VB and got a setup interface from the installer - Calamares - that was way out of proportions - but manageable with a lot of scrolling.

Chosing lxqt and keyboard etc. It all worked so I booted in to a nice lxqt DE.

Here I found no "Install here" button so the Artix guys were not kidding...this is not for beginners.

I found the Calamares installer under "System" in the menu and fired it. Here I was prompted for a password and simply tried "artix" which worked.

So finally I can start installing this thing then...

I got a choice to install the base system and Xorg and Lxqt and I chose all of them (Figuring I could install xfce4 later...) and happily got my self a

After a while the installation fails with a python error in Line 54 of Calamares

Caramba! By now I was ready to confiscate Artoos huge collection of Ompa Music but decided to only try to install the base system first....

That went through nicely!

Booting into the system I did remove the Signature security in Pacman to avoid complaints during the installation and setting up keys - it is explained on the Artix site .

Now it was time to install xorg and xfce4 with pacman. no problems there.

Since I wanted to auto-start xfce4 I edited ~/.bashrc and added startxfce4 at the bottom.

Time to enjoy the fruits of my work then...rebooting and got to a CLI login.

I logged in and...
Wait for it...

Wait for it...

I will use it for a while and report later....

[viking60]

Installed dkms and virtualbox guest utils:

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sudo pacman -S virtualbox-guest-utils

so now I have a nice resolution. So far I have found what I need in the repos and it is working nicely.....
Installed lightdm login manager it works just fine so I removed the startxfce4 from .bashrc...
Installed Chromium and I am posting with it now. ....
Things are looking up

Since we are now systemd-free; here is a translation of the common comands
Systemd..................................................................................... OpenRC Description

systemctl list-units systemctl --failed systemctl --all systemctl (start, stop, restart, status) daemon.service systemctl (enable, disable) daemon.service

rc-status List running services status rc-status --crashed Check failed services rc-update -v show Display all available services. rc-service (start, stop, restart, status) daemon Change service state. rc-update (add, del) daemon Turn service on or off.

So far it works like Arch or Manjaro but without the bloat of systemd.

I installed a few themes and changed the look and feel again. It is all there so I still don't miss anything.

[viking60]

Even If I do not miss anything yet - I know I will sometime in the future.

..Unless I have access to the AUR where just about anything is available

Yaourt is an AUR helper that makes the handling of these packages very easy and I have been very happy with it over the years.

In Manjaro we are spoiled with Yaourt working out of the box - this is not the case in Artix because it is Arch based.

So time to get this thing then.

I installed git

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sudo pacman -S git

I also need base-devel

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sudo pacman -S base-devel

Now it is simply a matter of doing this exactly as below

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git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/package-query.git
cd package-query
makepkg -si
cd ..
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yaourt.git
cd yaourt
makepkg -si
cd ..

Just do it after the "monkey see monkey do" method and you will have a working Yaourt and can install anything from the AUR.

At this point all developers will warn you and tell you how bad and dangerous AUR can bee.

You can (and probably should) listen to them ....or do as I do...I ignore them because I have not fallen on my nose yet (not much anyway),

..And just as I had finished the install I discovered that I do miss the Tor-Browser! So this alone justifies the access to AUR since Tor is not in the repos.

Remember to do this before you install Tor-Browser

[viking60]

Artix is stable and gives no surprises. I dont miss anything and it works just like a regular Arch or Manjaro. The difference is the lack of the bloated systemd.
Other than that the functionality is the same. There is no downside to skipping systemd really...

Behold ....Artix the movie (client in VB in Manjaro).


https://youtu.be/89DmBAqu78Y

Vimeo version (without music)

[dedanna1029]

Very nice. I have a new computer on the way. Who knows, I may give it a shot.

[viking60]

Yes this is a good one and would be right up your alley.

[dedanna1029]

Nice. I'll still have a wait for the computer, looks like, but I know I'll be perfectly happy to dump systemd on its arse.

[jasmyndube]

Nice. I'll still have a wait for the computer, looks like, but I know I'll be perfectly happy to dump systemd on its arse.http://www.hardmenstore.com/extenze-review/

This was just a kins seirously it you see that way