[Qgis-user] qgis on Arch (was: qgis on linuxmint?)

[Alister Hood]

Hi,

> Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 11:36:28 +0100
> From: Ant?nio M. Rodrigues <amcrgrodrigues at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] qgis on linuxmint?
> To: qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
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> 
> Hi all,
> 
> A quick question concerning QGIS (and other software - GRASS, R ...) on
> Linux.
> 
> I have a MAC but at work I am thinking a getting a new machine, running
> Linux. After browsing the net for optional distributions, I came across
> ArchLinux. It immediately caught my attention with the phrase "A simple,
> lightweight distribution".

Why get a new machine? -  you could use a real operating system on that Mac ;)
 
> The question is: the fact that it is "so lightweight", does it mean it will
> be painstakingly hard to get every bits together in order to have all
> frameworks, all dependencies, etc, working in order to have a fully working
> GIS workstation (QGIS, GRASS, R, ...)?
> 
> Thanks.
> Regards,
> Ant?nio

I use Arch at home because I want a distribution which is minimalistic and a true rolling release.

Installing packages generally: unless a package is obscure enough that no one maintains an Archbuild, it should be easy to install, although if it is only available in the AUR you will have to wait for it to compile from source (the AUR only provides build scripts, not binary packages).

Installing QGIS: was not at all difficult (and I was surprised by how quickly it compiled on my computer which was obsolete a decate ago, compared to on the quad core Windows machine at my work :) )

Configuration: with Arch you need to be aware that, as Wikipedia says: "The design approach of the development team focuses on simplicity from a developer's standpoint rather than a user's standpoint - elegance, code correctness, and minimalism".  So "simple" does not mean "it just works; put the disk in the computer, boot it up and you will have a full desktop with every application most people could need; no configuration necessary", as is the aim of a distro like Puppy or Ubuntu.  With Arch you need to install all the packages you want (window manager, filer, browser, etc) and do a reasonable amount of configuration (which means you need to read the instructions!).  Arch doesn't automatically install a graphical desktop environment.  It doesn't have a gui package manager.  etc.

Having said that, there may be unofficial versions of Arch which provide you with a full functional desktop 'out of the box' (I think Archbang was one of these, although I have a feeling it is a fully independent distro now).  And I guess if you installed Arch, did the basic configuration and installed a desktop environment, particularly a major one like KDE or Gnome (I guess most people would want one of the forks of Gnome2, rather than Gnome 3), then most things would "just work".  But personally I like to use a lot of more obscure, lightweight packages :)

FWIW if I was happy with a mainstream desktop environment I think I would try Linux Mint Debian Edition.

Alister