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Comment by rkowalick | Hacker News Reader

I have been using Ubuntu now for a little over a year, and honestly, I find it incredibly tedious to do the most mundane amount of configuration. I want to adjust what programs get run at start up.

On Arch Linux, I go to /etc/rc.d and remove or modify any scripts, which are clearly labelled.

On Ubuntu, I think I need to weed through the dozen or so numbered /etc/rc directories and find what I need and modify. I got pretty frustrated about this.

I don't know where I'm going to be able to modify the modules that get run when my computer starts on Ubuntu, but with Arch, there is a clearly labeled array in the rc.conf file called modules.

It just seems like looking under the hood of ubuntu is something I'm not supposed to do, and arch requires you to when you install it, but it is tremendously simple.

I want to switch back.

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On Ubuntu, rather than weeding through the rc folders, just look in /etc/init.d/ or /etc/init (for upstart).

To make a program not start on startup, either apt-get remove it, or chmod -x the init script.

I've used both Arch and Ubuntu extensively, and I like them both. For servers, I tend to use Ubuntu server edition, which really isn't that much different to Arch + a few hours of setup. It's really just a stripped down Debian flavored linux... nothing complex about it... but you do get the benefit of being downstream from lots and lots of testing, Arch not so much.

Pacman is 10x simpler then deb/ppa, so Arch is great if you like to tinker, or if you are building a special purpose system - eg for freeswitch, mythtv, xbmc, kiosk browsing, appliances etc.

Thanks, I like Ubuntu Server as well. If it's good enough for Facebook (so I've heard, at least) it's good enough for me.

I currently run Ubuntu desktop 10.04, and several Ubuntu Servers in bridged VirtualBox vm's for development, which lets me simulate a multi-server production environment on my desktop.

However, I've been thinking about switching the desktop to Arch using Xmonad or i3, and KVM for the vm's (keeping Ubuntu Server).

Any experience running KVM on Arch? Assuming there's no issues with it.

re: kvm - this might be of help: http://blog.falconindy.com/articles/build-a-virtual-army.htm...

Great writeup, with scripts on github to boot. Thanks!

I also see qemu-kvm can run Windows too, which somehow escaped my notice. Cool. If only it could OS X as well, I could skip buying a Mac and spend the money on a souped up dev laptop from XoticPC instead.

Agreed. This is a great example of why I prefer Arch. Arch has BSD like startup and it's very simple to configure.

I realize Ubuntu is moving to upstart, maybe that will simplify things, but the current sysV run level model results in tedious complexity that I don't need. Other's might, but I don't.

There have been GUIs for the init scripts for ages, why don't you use them? Also, what's wrong about learning the init scripts, it's a common concept you will find on so many Linux/UNIX systems, it's just nice to know.

Usage of lsmod/rmmod and /etc/modprobe.d isn't exactly hard to understand either, though i don't know of a GUI for this.

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