• 9point6@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Part of me wants to main Gentoo just to neutralise any arch smug I come across.

    But then I remember I don’t really want a 2nd job

    • pixelscript@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      I imagine telling an Arch user you use Gentoo is like telling a Texan that if you cut Alaska into two halves Texas would be the third largest US state.

    • traches@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      This thread once again proving that complaints about arch elitism are 1000x more common than actual arch elitism

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This would have been the perfect comment if you were from a slightly different instance

        Edit: wait there is (was?) an “I use arch btw” instance right? I’m not imagining it?

      • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This guy uses arch btw.

        No seriously, there’s plenty of arch elitism in this thread alone, And other distros too. You really don’t need to be preemptively defensive about it though.

        • traches@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          I just scrolled the whole thread and can’t find any at all, what are you talking about?

          Elitism isn’t „I like arch and I think it is good for some stuff”, it’s „I’m smart because I use arch, you’re dumb if you don’t, and any problems you have with it are your fault.”

    • TootSweet@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I’m literally in the process of switching my main from Arch to Gentoo now. (Yes it’s taking a while.) And I intend to be even more smug. Bwahahaha!

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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      1 month ago

      Gentoo is not that bad. Its just arch with a longer install. You still got to read the wiki when installing something and still have to follow the news.

      • SleveMcDichael@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        IMO Arch’s defaults (especially w.r.t. audio and fonts) are a little nicer than Gentoo’s, but that’s a pretty minor inconvenience all things considered.

        • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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          1 month ago

          Arch’s defaults haven’t always been good and I’d argue they are still not good enough for users to rely on. As an arch user (im not an arch user) you are expected to not just plug and play everything without checking its configuration matches your system and needs.

    • pimento64@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Gentoo, that’s fun. Brings back a lot of memories from Kindergarten. Let me know when you’re ready to build LFS with the big dogs.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        1 month ago

        I’m surprised LFS is still around. I used that on my main computer back when Linux kernel versions started with 2.4. it was my third distribution after red hat and Debian

    • freijon@lemmings.world
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      1 month ago

      I don’t get that ‘Gentoo takes forever’ argument. With todays hardware it’s really a non-issue. Just let the updates compile in the background while you do other stuff. My Arch install broke several times, not so my Gentoo. Also, the Gentoo community is really kind and don’t treat you like an idiot for not knowing something.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago
    Warning: Hot take

    Who you are and what your needs are will affect which distro is best for you.

    • somenonewho@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      What? Sacrilege. Of course my mum’s PC runs arch so does my server I would install arch on a hospital Server and have it auto update if they’d let me … /s

  • forrcaho@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    I would really like to thank the Arch community for maintaining such a wonderful wiki; it’s great that your nuts-and-bolts approach naturally generates the best documentation. That said, Debian will always be my distro of choice.

    • nadiaraven@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I’m officially off of arch now and back on debian, my first and true linux love. I used to love arch for the AUR, but I had a couple of AUR packages that took so long to upgrade, they were basically un-upgradeable. I switched from i3 on X to sway on Wayland at the same time, so I can’t say how much of my issues were that, but various small issues are no longer issues, like better Playstation controller support. And I don’t have to restart every time I update repositories because I’m not constantly upgrading the Linux kernel. And there are so many .deb packages! But sincerely, thank you arch community. I still use the arch wiki.

    • hamFoilHat@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I really like Debian, it’s what I use at work and for servers at home. At least until a few weeks ago when I decided to try NixOS. I’m really liking it so far and am thinking of switching over my other home servers.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      i run arch on my workstation because the flexibility of being able to install any given recent software is just too great. Compared to something like debian which i run on my server, it’s great, you just don’t things that are up to date very often. But it’s incredibly stable.

      I truly am living the best of both worlds right now.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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      1 month ago

      Debian

      As long as you’re not using the distro’s 5 year old version of 3D printer slicing software with ancient printer models in it and go for the newest appimage/flatpak instead (just dealt with this last night).

      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        Yep. When it has the package I need, flatpak elevates Debian to the last distro I will ever need.

        And when flatpak doesn’t have the package I need, there’s always Fedora.

        (I know - I’m a meme for hating snaps that much. Lol.)

  • مهما طال الليل@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    The desktop environment and package manager has a greater effect on your user experience than the distro

    I used to use Ubuntu and Mint now I use SteamOS.

    • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      How does SteamOS hold up as a daily driver compared to Mint? I always imagined its like a souped up version of steams big picture mode. Is it a good desktop enviroment that comes with ways to manage files and make web app shortcuts?

    • SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Agree. KDE neon is my daily right now. Very good out of the box. I just had to nuke snaps on it. Plays very nicely on laptops in terms of battery life, noise and temperature. Sleep and hibernate also works very well.

  • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Arrays start at 0, which leaves plenty of room for SCO Linux powered by UnitedLinux

    Wait, I think there was an underflow error…

    • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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      1 month ago

      You’re not wrong.

      As my hatred for snaps has removed Ubuntu from my install set, I’m finding myself quietly installing Fedora anywhere that Debian won’t do.

      My preferences change with the wind, but Fedora is a fantastic default choice.

      • ikidd@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        It’s always been Debian on servers for me, any time I’ve strayed from that I’ve regretted it. And Fedora has become my home on the desktop, it’s just so hard to break. I like fixing things and learning, but it’s annoying to always have to do it on your main system.

    • Sixty@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      All I need is a community repo, and a cfg edit to parallel download. That’s it, perfection.

  • BakedCookie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 month ago

    I needed to quickly get something up and running on a laptop so that I could take it in the field. I thought about reinstalling arch for a minute but decided to go with Ubuntu. And you know what? It was good enough. The install was easy peasy, and everything just worked right out of the box. If I was setting up a long term machine I’d probably go with arch, but just to get some shit done on a timeline? Yeah, turned out Ubuntu was good enough.

    • Autonomous@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      too many possible things can go wrong with installers, with arch I know I’ll get it working faster if even the slightest issue occurs which would otherwise derail installer distros 🤷‍♂️

      • JustARegularNerd@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        In roughly 7 years of Linux, I think I’ve only run into issues with automated installers in partitioning if you choose to just go automatic everything and you have a wacky existing partition layout.

          • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
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            idk man I’ve been using linux since before we began recording the passage of time and automated installers are, you know… fine? There can be issues, sure, but its pretty damn rare on modern hardware that they aren’t the result of a config issue which can be sorted out in the bios (or similar). This is the Arch elitism that everyone complains about; just because something is easy doesn’t mean that it’s somehow bad.

            • autonomous@startrek.website
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              1 month ago

              Doesn’t have to be Arch, as long as I can do the commands by hand instead of trusting whoever built the installer. I used Gentoo many years ago as well for the same reasons.

              Distros like Arch simply make doing that very accessible when you are so intimately familiar with the process that an installer feels more like an obstacle than doing it yourself does.

              Nothing against those that lack the experience, the familiarity, or simply find doing it that way takes too much of their energy.

          • psud@aussie.zone
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            1 month ago

            I have been using Linux for a long time. I have installed many distributions, many different distributions. I can’t say I have ever had a problem with installers except:

            • Unsupported hardware, especially in kernel versions 2.4.*
            • Non-free wifi on Debian on laptops
            • Less than ideal partitioning on automatic, so I haven’t let it auto partition much since red hat in the 2000s. I let Mint auto partition my wife’s machine recently and that went fine.

            Do you have super odd hardware? Do your computers lie to the installer about present hardware?

  • Zink@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    College-aged me would have loved Arch. Maybe retirement me will have to play with it for fun in the vaults.

    Present-day me however, in middle age with a growing family and a full time job already working on Linux-based software all day, is a total slut for Linux Mint.

    It installs and gets running easier and faster than Windows, and is based on widely used and tested stuff from Ubuntu and Debian. It’s not the “learn how operating systems work” distro for sure, but there is a lot of practical use in the world for the “plug the installer drive into your busted old Windows 10 machine and in 15 minutes have a responsive useful Linux PC where your parents can find the Internet browser” distro!

    I am very interested to see if SteamOS makes a big push into desktops, though. A whole lot more of the desktop Linux world could become Arch based.

    • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      There’s always Bazzite, if you have gamers you want to get into Linux. It would be nice if SteamOS got bigger than it already is, but I don’t know if that’s the direction Valve wants to take it anymore. It seems more to me like they gave up on desktops, and are focusing on the mobile market with the Steam Deck, since that’s someplace where they quickly distinguished themselves.

  • MrAlternateTape@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Why is everybody so shy about liking Fedora? You don’t have to name lesser distro’s first to make them feel good, you can just outright say Fedora is the best…

    Joking. Whatever floats your boat is fine.

    • Persi@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      It isn’t so much that fedora is the best distro, just that all the other distros are worse.

      Using it is just common sense, not something anybody would feel proud about.

  • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Recently started using openSUSE Tumbleweed after 15 years of on and off Linux experimentation. I think I’ve finally found the distro to make me stay. :)

    • pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz
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      1 month ago

      I’ve recently switched from Debian to openSUSE Tumbleweed (edit: with KDE) and am extremely impressed, it’s just so polished. German engineering at its finest.