I use Windows btw
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Is it just me, or are the more active posters here actually Windows refugees who haven’t used Linux for too long?
Isn’t that how most of us got started with Linux?
Ack, my deleted comment is visible somehow!
…Anyway, I agree. I wasn’t saying it’s necessarily bad, just that there seemed to be an influx of new posts that sound like they came from Linux virgins.
I only use Red Star OS on my machines.
** Kim Jong Un has joined the conversation
Excellent choice.
Ubuntu was good until it went all corporate and scummy. Now I run Endeavor OS(Arch btw)
Arch is good for a machine that gets used a lot, but for something where you need stability or to be able to run it for a long time between restarts and updates, something Debian-based is preferable. Just not modern Ubuntu because Snaps are performance-sapping nightmares.
Arch desktop, Debian server has suited me well. Apt seems really slow compared to pacman, but besides that Debian is great.
But with Arch you have to pay attention whenever you update or else you brick your whole system. Ask me how I know.
I’ve decided it’s not worth my time trying to figure it out. I just use KDE Neon and press the “check for updates” button. Don’t get me wrong - I know my way around a terminal - but honestly it’s just not worth my time anymore. Just give me a thing that works without me needing to think about it.
You represent the meme so well. Eventually checking Arch news for a manual intervention, using pacman properly, and making sure your system is properly maintained on a regular basis can be a bit of a hassle, which is why sooner or later you’ll choose something like KDE Neon or Mint or something similar.
He represents the meme well in the sense that these memes are all made by people who tried to climb up the bell curve but fell back down to the start, and think that’s the same as reaching the end.
He literally says he couldn’t figure it out. That doesn’t make him smarter than people who can figure it out and use Arch with no problem.
He represents the meme well in the sense that these memes are all made by people who tried to climb up the bell curve but fell back down to the start, and think that’s the same as reaching the end.
That’s true, that could be a trap! I mean I’m currently toying around in Arch and so far there’s been no problems at all, but I’m just a casual user and I’d say that I fall left-side to the curve. I’m one of those in the “OS is a bootloader to the browser and maybe other applications” camp. I do feel though that it’s possible that some people may not want to think about maintaining Arch (Arch is just an example obviously), and would rather turn off their brain when it comes to system maintenance and use something like Ubuntu or Fedora or Mint, which is the point of the meme. He said that it’s not worth his time figuring it out, not that he couldn’t figure it out, if that’s worth any distinction.
Another example I can think of is using Vim when you could just use Nano or any generic text editor. I mean I use Vim as well (for pretty much everything), but in the end some people may not want to spend time getting decent at Vim because they don’t feel it’s worth their time, not because they inherently can’t. If he spent some time, he may be able to do it. I’m sure most Linux users can. But it’s just the time and energy that you must expend to get there, and not everybody feels it’s worth it, even technically proficient Linux users.
A more general abstraction of this bell curve principle is sorta like managing depression; the left-side of the curve will say something like exercise, socialising, eating healthy foods, and having life purpose. The middle might say that we need SSRIs, multiple therapy sessions, mindfulness exercises, daily journaling, compassion training etc. But, the right-side of the curve might again say exercise, socialising, eating healthy foods, and having life purpose. A realisation that something is not worth your time is not inherently indicative of the inability to do said something, though I get your point. It’s all good though!
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That’s why no matter how much we make fun of Windows or MacOS, they both are still “just works OS” for friends/family who might not care / have time about facing issues that Linux users are accustomed to firing up the terminal to solve. Well, it might change someday. We can always hope.
On the flip side, it’s a rolling-release distro, so you don’t have to play a game of “what broke?” whenever you do a major version upgrade or do a clean install to avoid it, because there are no major version updates. And the AUR is pretty much the reason to use Arch outside of being at the cutting edge (which is mainly useful for using brand new hardware that hasn’t got the best support in the more conventional distros yet, like a new laptop).
This. I still daily drive arch, and, even though I’ve rarely had any breaking updates, it’s always feels like a gamble. Have to keep a mental note of which critical packages are being updated, just in case I have to rollback the package. Always carrying an install medium with an arch iso when taking my laptop out.
Always carrying an install medium with an arch iso when taking my laptop out.
Same. Have to say Ventoy is an amazing tool, my emergency USB stick has 4 distros and Windows, just in case. There is also some Android app that let’s you turn your phone into bootable medium
I didn’t know you could turn a phone into a bootable medium!
As far as I remember it was DriveDroid and required root. I used to have small ISOs on my phone, like Arch, Super Grub2 Disk, GParted
Interesting. Thanks!
I toy around with Arch a little bit but sometimes these are the kinds of things that you really don’t want to think about. But the tradeoff is latest packages, of course.
I abandoned ubuntu for that very same experience, found your Ubuntu zen on manjaro instead. Funny how it goes sometimes.
I’ve only used Manjaro a little bit but isn’t it the case the Manjaro holds back updates before rolling them out, thereby messing with stuff if you use the AUR?
My take is they’re a little more cautious than full Arch. Arch will just push stuff because it’s “ready”, Manjaro does at least some testing so I’m not the guinea pig.
I don’t have any issues with AUR stuff though, everything pretty much works out of the box.
How do you roll back packages? Do you use Timeshift or just using pacman?
just
pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/package-X.Y.Z.tar.xzor install the downgrade script for a better experience. not sure about timeshift, it sounds like a backup tool to me.This is the Arch way, I feel. Timeshift though, if I’m not mistaken, is a system restore tool, which seems pretty useful though I’ve never used it myself.
all roads lead to ubuntu
In the end, I stopped on NixOS.
Perhaps the design philosophy of NixOS will be for the future.
Maybe?
I’m using MX Linux for a couple of years, it fills my need.
le me about to say fedora is a viable alternative
(remembers red hat is shitting the bed right now)
(radio silence)
Where about does Debian land on this bell curve? Asking for a friend.
It lands on a server
Up the stream of Ubuntu.
I read “Debian is for servers.”. WTF?
The real pros use a combination of Kali Linux, a BSD and a Mint install as a fallback
My first foray into Linux was Pop OS since I read it was a good beginner distro… eventually I got frustrated with the amount of programs I tried to install that were way out of date if installed through Ubuntu… having to add repositories was annoying and they weren’t even the latest versions. I then switched to EndeavourOS and I’ve been happy! I know arch isn’t considered a “beginner” distro, but I’ve found it quite stable.
Ubuntu today is pretty trash. I’d replace it with fedora today
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it doesn’t change fedora
Yup, you’re in the middle of the bell curve
No seriously I always install Ubuntu on work machines and they got more breakage in the past couple of years than my arch machine.
You’re in the middle of the 2000s.
This sort of stuff always makes me wonder…WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ALL USING YOUR OS FOR?. All I want my OS to do is hold my files, execute my programs and stay the hell out of my way. What could people possibly be doing with their OS that makes version and distro wars worth more than two seconds of your life? Its like arguing about which calculator or plain text editor is best. I dont care. It adds the numbers, it changes the letters, as long as it isnt doing anything else: who cares.
Its like arguing about which calculator or plain text editor is best.
it’s obviously emacs
as long as it isnt doing anything else: who cares.
That’s a big part of the distro discussion. Ubuntu for example forces snaps down your throat if you don’t pay attention, which usually leads to issues down the line.
Some people are more extreme in that regard and want their system to do absolutely nothing they haven’t explicitly configured. And there’s a distro for everyone.
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That can be nice, but if I actually care about new features in a program Im compiling the RC manually. Otherwise its just more frequent 50GB downloads for some imperceptible incremental change to CUPS and Libre Office.
but if I actually care about new features in a program Im compiling the RC manually
That’s actually one of the reasons I switched and settled on arch. Not only do you get latest upstream binary versions, but building stuff is easier without the need to hunt down all dev package versions and a lot of packages have their git versions in AUR. Pull in all latest commits, build and install with just a single command!
Otherwise its just more frequent 50GB downloads for some imperceptible incremental change to CUPS and Libre Office.
Well I have no idea what kind of Libreoffice you’ve been installing lmao. I likely spend more bandwidth looking at memes and shitposts and youtube per day than a single weekly update.
Uh… software development? Other work stuff?
Once you have lived through library dependency hell, you care
How often does that happen to you? Im almost 20 years on Linux full time and it hasnt to me once. I had a wifi driver go out after an update once and Nvida drivers twice. Ive had to roll back a kernal upgrade exactly one time. Those are the only problems and each one took like ten minutes to troubleshoot and fix.
Yeah, if you tend to use your servers for pretty vanilla uses you may not have encountered it much. Once you get into the deep end, it gets deep quick.
Same thing as people arguing about their golf clubs, pointless yes, but distracting…
Most people in the distro wars know it’s pointless and that a tool is a tool, but measuring dicks is as old as humanity and when flipping your dong out wasn’t deemed appropriate anymore, people started arguing about distros
It’s pretty memed on at this point (arch users, gentoo users, NixOS et. al) but I’d make the point - truly without being pedantic - sometimes you just want stuff the way you want them. Should everybody deal with portage on a daily basis? God no. Is it a viable option for folks to keep their build in check and know exactly what’s going on down to their flags/libs? Absolutely. Same reasons with why some folks jive with the AUR.
It’s all about finding use case, just like any piece of tech. Yes there’s dick measuring and all else that comes with that, but there’s a good amount of merit to “I like how this distro revolves around x, it makes sense to me so it’s easier for me to maintain”. If those are some of the things that get Linux on the daily driver aspect, I’m all with it.
I just wanted something reliable for gaming that didn’t come with a ton of bloat. I settled on EndeavourOS.
The less important something is, the more people will argue over it.
See: high school elections, car brands, toilet paper orientation
And that’s why I’ve been running Ubuntu on my main machines since 2004.
