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Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

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Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#231

Post by KozmoNau7 »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #187
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"a. There's no need to 'read the documentation' before every update a quick glance at the news feed will do." That is part of the documentation. Users shouldn't have to subscribe to a news feeds in order to correctly update their systems. Do you subscribe to Microsoft's or Apple's update news feed? If you do, you're unlike 99.999% of users. "b. macOS doesn't track and update every package on your system." Mint does.…

But the perception that "shit happens way more on Arch or Gentoo" is your subjective opinion, because that's how it happened to you, others see it differently, I still remember the very first Ubuntu I've tried (6.10) being garbage on my hw compared to Mandrake, but that didn't seem to be the case for a lot of people evidently since it became so popular.

There are a lot more updates on Arch that require manual actions to be taken in order to work correctly, when compared to Mint or Ubuntu.

Similarly, the config file merging process on Arch is basically 100% manual (I know pacdiff makes it a little easier, but still).

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#232

Post by KozmoNau7 »

erikbye wrote: post #186
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ran Arch for ~9 years, and there were several cases of OS/boot-breaking updates, requiring me to boot from a USB stick and manually fix things when the updates decided to shit all over the system. Having to manually cross-reference an update list with a list of "oh damn, you need to do these manual steps or you'll break everything" errata from the Arch news feed is not my idea of a good time. The only reason the Ar…

YMMV. Mint packages tend to be quite old, even older than Ubuntu. This is no good if you want to run close to, or, upstream versions, which Arch excels at. Of course, you can install software not using your package manager, but that defeats the point of having centralized package management in the first place and can cause problems.

I used to think I wanted the very latest version of every single application, not matter what.

These days, only Chrome, Spotify, Qbittorrent and a couple of others are the newest versions (through PPAs), everything else is just stock and works perfectly fine.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#233

Post by erikbye »

axaxs wrote: post #217
erikbye wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't you just use Arch-Anywhere? https://arch-anywhere.org/ Besides, the manual installation process of Arch does not consist of that many steps; it takes but a few minutes (perhaps not the first time). To shorten it further you can write your own installation script or use extant ones, of which there are many (Arch-Anywhere being one). I harp on Arch-Anywhere because Antergos != Arch and Arch > Antergos and ot…

Antergos IS Arch, depending on how you look at it. It's not like the Ubuntu->Debian relationship. Installing Antergos gives you a fully functional Arch install.

https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/4uzev2/antergos_...

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#234

Post by KozmoNau7 »

zamber wrote: post #220
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #59

I fell in love with Arch, after having used Gentoo for years, and Debian before that. The straightforwardness appealed to me, it's a binary distribution with a rolling release cycle and no custom-finagled packages. But after a while, I got tired of manually configuring everything , doing all kinds of weird house-keeping and having to randomly boot from a USB stick to rescue my system from some update with untested co…

From my 4 years with Mint on a light usage PC I can say is no better than a rolling release. The main difference is that you can be sure Mint will break after a version upgrade. Arch on the other hand will make you copy/paste wiki issue solutions after each update. Also there's systemd, netctl, choosing a DE, etc. Also there's no way to reliably do non-interactive updates on Arch because otherwise it's not secure eno…

I've updated both my desktop and my laptop from 18 to 18.1 to 18.2 with absolutely no issues at all. Or are you talking about major versions?

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#235

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

erikbye wrote: post #26

I've been a Linux user since early Slackware. Arch is the only distro I will recommend, and, contrary to its image as a tinkerer's distro, it's the only Linux install I've had that "just works" and works. Install once, and never again. Minimal, stable. Packages are updated promptly, and I never had a problem using user repo packages.

Seriously? Arch has always been "works now, breaks every couple of weeks in a spectacular and time consuming way" for me. It reminds me of my Gentoo days when I was a student and had time to burn on endless sessions of configurations and debugging. Every few years I let some avid fan convince me that it has gotten really better. Always ending in the same time consuming nightmare. When I was a freelancer, that time was precious, and I used Ubuntu on my laptop to have a modern and stable desktop. Sorry, but I can only shake my head in disbelief at the glowing praise I read here.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#236

Post by busterarm »

catpolice wrote: post #164

I used to love Arch wholeheartedly. The systemd transition left a bad taste in my mouth, and I haven't felt like I've had full control of my system since then, but I periodically try other Linux distributions but I always end up coming back to Arch. My experience with other distributions always goes something like this: Oh this is nice and easy Hm, there isn't a package for this thing I love. I guess I'll build it my…

I'm with you.

I cut my teeth on Slackware, then Debian and was a happy Arch user for years up until the systemd transition. I'm negative on it in general, but the upgrade completely borked my system. For the life of me could not find a way to recover it. And I know my way around the system...

Switched to OpenBSD and haven't looked back since. There's not all that much to tweak, mainly because I'm always in console. If I need to browse websites I can use my company issued mbp or my ipad.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#237

Post by AnonymousPlanet »

erikbye wrote: post #124
KozmoNau7 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is exactly my point. Put off updating for a couple of weeks because you're got better things to do? You may end up borking your system unwittingly. Not subscribed to the Arch news feed and intimately familiar with the packages installed on your system? You may end up borking your system unwittingly. Arch is good for dedicated power users, who want to tinker around. But most of us just want to get stuff done, no…

Stop perpetuating this myth that you have to mess around and tinker to keep Arch in working condition. It's one update command, and it's not something you need to do daily. You can put it off for weeks, all that will happen is you'll have a bigger download. I use Arch exactly because I want to get shit done. My way.

Sorry, but that is exactly my experience. Over and over. Arch breaking every couple of weeks in a time consuming way. Maybe your setup is so minimal that you aren't affected? For me it was "oh my, what's broken now again?". This really hurts, if you're a freelancer and time is your own money and not your employer's.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#238

Post by Pete_D »

catpolice wrote: post #164

I used to love Arch wholeheartedly. The systemd transition left a bad taste in my mouth, and I haven't felt like I've had full control of my system since then, but I periodically try other Linux distributions but I always end up coming back to Arch. My experience with other distributions always goes something like this: Oh this is nice and easy Hm, there isn't a package for this thing I love. I guess I'll build it my…

Have you tried Gentoo?

I switched from Arch to Gentoo a few years ago (before systemd was on the radar). After installation, which is admittedly more involved, I found it felt much the same as Arch for day-to-day usage. And, for all the possible criticisms of Gentoo, you'll definitely feel in full control of your system.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#239

Post by Accacin »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #59

I fell in love with Arch, after having used Gentoo for years, and Debian before that. The straightforwardness appealed to me, it's a binary distribution with a rolling release cycle and no custom-finagled packages. But after a while, I got tired of manually configuring everything , doing all kinds of weird house-keeping and having to randomly boot from a USB stick to rescue my system from some update with untested co…

Not saying you're wrong, just chipping in my opinion. I've been using it for about three years and in that time I've broke something when updating exactly once.

I've got around 1100 packages installed, so I'm not a really heavy or really light user.

Configuration wise, most of my stuff is stored in dotfiles and if I ever need to reinstall then I pull them down from github and I'm back where I was.

That said Mint is a wonderful OS and I can see the appeal.

Re: Why I Fell in Love with Arch Linux (2015)

#240

Post by erikbye »

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #232
erikbye wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YMMV. Mint packages tend to be quite old, even older than Ubuntu. This is no good if you want to run close to, or, upstream versions, which Arch excels at. Of course, you can install software not using your package manager, but that defeats the point of having centralized package management in the first place and can cause problems.

I used to think I wanted the very latest version of every single application, not matter what. These days, only Chrome, Spotify, Qbittorrent and a couple of others are the newest versions (through PPAs), everything else is just stock and works perfectly fine.

I'm not even talking about end-user applications. You have different needs as a developer. I need libraries and compilation chains to be up to date.
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