Arch Linux for beginners

Integration

Occasionally, critical applications are only available for operating systems other than Linux. Although the Wine project runs many Windows programs by implementing the Windows application binary interface (ABI) in userspace, it does require a fair amount of installation and special settings in numerous programs. Along with Wine, then, Apricity OS natively includes PlayOnLinux [5], a Wine graphical front end, which is perfectly suitable for Wine neophytes and users moving to Linux from Windows.

PlayOnLinux comes with a database containing the optimal Wine settings for many Windows applications. Calling PlayOnLinux opens a small window, in which you also manage the third-party applications. The program offers you the option of selecting from pre-tested applications, sorted by group, or installing a new application (Figure 5 ).

Figure 5: Easy access to Windows programs, thanks to PlayOnLinux.

File Sync

The Syncthing [6] data synchronizer – a powerful tool that also comes with a Gtk-capable interface – helps you move data between devices (e.g., desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets), without resorting to proprietary cloud vendors like Dropbox or Google Drive. The Syncthing icon in the application browser launches the program and sets up the service when first run. Then, you can proceed to install the program on your other computers or mobile devices. Corresponding apps are available for Linux, Mac OS X , Windows, and Android. Data synchronization takes place via an encrypted peer-to-peer protocol. The authentication mechanism means that no external party can access your data (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Syncthing simplifies data synchronization between multiple devices.

Software

Apricity OS gives you full access to the software repositories of Arch Linux; additionally, the developers offer an individual core repository. Because Arch Linux uses a proprietary package format and has its own package management system in the form of Pacman, users of other Linux distributions first need to become familiar with the graphical package manager. However, it is very similar to tools like Synaptic and comes with an easy-to-learn interface (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Software without end, thanks to many repositories.

The package selection leaves virtually nothing to be desired: in addition to the official Arch repositories, Core, Extra, Community, and Multilib, the selection also includes the Apricity Core repository and the Arch User repository. This means that the distribution offers a more comprehensive software inventory than, for example, Debian or Ubuntu immediately after installing. Thanks to the rolling release principle, the package sources always contain the latest versions of the programs.

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