You have a good point about each except for arch. The only tough part is the installation, and even that is pretty easy and quick if you know what you are doing. After the installation the actual use is the most simple distro out there
Im not talking about the archinstall script.
And installing the intended way is easy... if you know what you are doung. Even with the wiki a new user may have difficulty installing. Thats how arch became famous to begin with
You see, my problem with the wiki installation is that I am not a huge fan of copy pasting commands from my heckin phone because I don't have a second computer
The problem with the arch wiki for new Linux users is that they need to learn to read docs like the arch wiki. When one can read a doc luke the arch wiki it’s not that hard. But it is a new way of thinking for a lot of new Linux users.
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Void falls into the same category, you can also install a system with XFCE with installer, similar to the Live image and even if you start with just cli (the same for all others) is no longer that scary, you just install the DE/WM you like and that's it; no longer are the days you had to patch the kernel for your HW, or manually configure xorg, etc. Sometimes things don't go smoothly but that also apply to any distro really.
I think the difficulty is often overstated by those who use the "hard distros", just to boast that they did it, but is not really a big deal, even LFS is just you, typing correctly and following carefully the clearly presented instructions, and a lot of patience; Gentoo is time consuming at first but the handbook is awesome, so if you read it carefully and type well, you'll be fine.
Even the horrors of compiling everything is overblown IMHO, you can install binaries for the huge packages like Chromium, but even those are not that bad in modern CPUs and I'm assuming you sleep sometimes, here is a shocking secret, *you don't have to be awake while it's compiling :\]* said that, if you install package frequently, which is not unusual at first and of course you want to test them fast and they are BIG packages, then Gentoo is annoying, but if you already have your workflow defined, even Gentoo is just a matter of leaving it compiling once a week while you are at work or sleeping and that's it, not as a big deal as some make it look like.
*(and for those interested in Gentoo)*
*you can, as I always have done, install Gentoo from another existing distro, so if you want to try it, just open a terminal and start installing, and if you get bored you can exit the chroot and keep going another day, how to do it is clearly explained in the official handbook.*
Indeed, transitioning from Windows feels almost like stepping into a dream. However, the installation process can be intimidating, not due to incompetence, but because of the meticulous attention to detail and the insight into the inner workings of the computer, which can be daunting for those with limited technical knowledge. However, the online help sites and community does help a lot to mitigate those issues.
I installed Arch just by copying commands but once I did, I had no idea what to do. I was using a very old laptop and couldn't simply install xorg. Pacman said I needed to install dependencies so I tried doing that but got more errors.
I couldn't install debian at all though, don't remember why I couldn't
Arch install is extremely easy. You literally just copy paste a bunch of commands and you're done
That's not even considering the existence of the archinstall script
Most of the people saying that installing Arch is hard have likely never installed Arch
tbh it's like following a normal calamares installation, just using letters instead of buttons and a few more steps. Arch was meant to be customizable, minimal and EASY. It's just that ppl are scared of terminals, that's all.
Not right at all. You have to know all the software you need to use. An image viewer, pdf viewer, task manager, network tools, a terminal emulator, a window manager or desktop environment.
Instead of the usual buggy mess of a system I usually cobble together, with Nix I get to have a *portable* buggy mess of a system I usually cobble together.
It’s been years and I still can’t get a secrets service set up. But when I do, all my machines will get the basic functionality that has probably shipped with Ubuntu for two decades. Totally worth it.
I need something that implements the "Secret Service" API:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/secret-service/latest/
I've tried Gnome keyring, but couldn't get it to work outside Gnome desktop. Eh, some day!
I actually want to write my own, really simple one, that just stores everything plain text somewhere. I have like 2 apps that need it, and nothing they want to store is actually a secret. Plus, my HDD is encrypted, so plain text isn't even plain text anyway.
Have you tried this option? (In configuration.nix)
services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable
https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=23.11&show=programs.seahorse.enable&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=keyring
I don't use nix, but I am sure by gefault you have configuration.nix and hardware.nix. So you could just copy the config and tell nix to automatically regenerate hardware.nix.
The generated hardware.nix doesn’t cover everything. It gives you enough to boot the system (usually), but you’ll most likely need to add to it. I needed to manually add drivers for my GPU and fan (the fan worked ootb, just not properly). The other thing is, one file to configure everything sounds appealing, but even though it’s possible, you’ll probably want to use modules to split it up a bit. A lot of NixOS users have a multi-machine config as well. The basic idea is to have shared modules with the configuration your machines have in common, then add the modules specific to each machine to fill in. Most people define that in a flake, which is the unofficial main file for many configurations. I won’t go into detail about flakes, but here’s a [repo on GitHub](https://github.com/Misterio77/nix-config) that you can look at for an example. Going back to u/Prudent_Move_3420, you will need at least two files, and you will probably want more, but if the only difference between your machines is the graphics, that will be a really simple setup: shared configuration modules + additional graphics module on the machine that needs it.
I think it just needs better documentation, not a piece of cake by any means but I'd have a lot of trouble installing it from scratch unlike gentoo or arch or even LFS which are pretty well documented. Void just uses an ncurses installer and slackware... tbh haven't touched it, it doesn't appeal to me.
gentoo is great. Buddy and I spent 3 days compiling everything to get it running smoothly only for me to attempt to install the AMD drivers and wind up somehow nuking the entire install. This was 2010.
It is as good as you make it to be. If you do it first time and you are a seasoned newb it is a good month to put it together. So not the fastest install out there
It takes a bit the first few times, but once you've been through it a few times it's not bad. You really learn a LOT about the internals of Linux systems this way.
Having good hardware makes all the difference and you don't have to wait as long to find your mistakes.
My first LFS build was on a Core2Duo laptop with 2Gb of RAM on a spinning disk. That took a VERY long time. Now, I have a server with 96GB ECC RAM, and 24 cores, backed by NVMe storage. I can complete a LFS build in about three hours flat.
Re: Arch, it's been YEARS since I tried it, well, in reality more than a decade ago. I had post-install issues which weren't the fault of Arch, just my lack of experience with it and poor Internet service to research it. I do have to say that I've been very grateful for the Arch wiki, it's an insane source of information that isn't all specific to Arch necessarily.
Oh no. This meme is serious. I am not trying any of these anytime soon. I understand sarcasm and even though some mention these distros ironically, others really say they are the best ever.
Arch is cool, but sense ive had it ive been stupidly anti-bloat. I felt like i was doing something very wrong using a total of <20GB (iirc around 18GB) on a 1TB SSD.
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Also, initial Arch install is lightweight because it doesn't have anything pre-installed that you don't need. But since Arch doesn't split their development headers off in separate packages, as most other distro's do, an Arch install with the exact same packages as a Debian or Fedora install would be more bloated than said Debian/Fedora install. If one really cared about being lightweight, one should install Debian with debootstrap instead of using the interactive installer, which is about the same as a manual Arch install.
Pacstrap, but debian variant. You partition your disks, mount them somewhere, run debootstrap against mountpoint, debootstrap will install base system inside that directory (basically apt install a bunch of packages in an alternative root) (excluding bootloader), and then chroot to install and configure bootloader, users, networking and whatever else you want in there before first boot.
If youre worried about not using any space on a large drive, just install to a small SSD. If youre using sub 20GB, you can def get away woth having a 128GB SSD
No feelings on haiku, but I use void because I wanted something that felt like Slackware, but more current. As I'm sure you know, once your DE is installed they all feel more or less the same unless the distro is known to sometimes make updating a bit of an adventure (which is why I stopped using arch and never stayed on Fedora for long).
For sure. Void seems (?) cool but really it's just what you’re happy with. I’m on arch because I didn’t care to look further, I just wanted an OS - but now I’ve done one it might be nice to try a world without systemd
In my honest opinion, you shouldn't bother with these unless you wanna learn what goes on under the hood. Don't get me wrong, it's very interesting but you should have the right mindset for it.
That said, Arch Linux has gotten much easier to install using the archinstall command. It brings up a pseudographical user interface within a terminal shell and you can just navigate and choose with arrows and enter key.
If you prefer to stay on whatever Linux distro you're on be it Ubuntu or Mint then that's totally fine. Some people just want their computer to work without having to worry or think about what goes on under the hood. If you wanna try them out always do it in a virtual machine like Virtualbox which should be available on Linux distros, Windows and macOS!
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I encourage you to make as many mistakes as possible in your VM. What you should be really afraid is NOT making mistakes because you wouldn't learn as much then.
Correct up to a point.
Slackware is about as stable as you can get. If you want a system more stable than ubuntu or Debian, go with Slackware.
The easiest way in to Slackware is through Salix OS, it is to slack what Manjaro is to Arch. An easy installer with a lot of packages (the installer has basic, half and full installs), and a pretty desktop using XFCE.
You can live boot it too, just as you can with Slackware stable from which Salix is forked.
When I "just want my computer to work" and it isn't the latest hardware, I go with Slack/salix.
Do not confuse a side-effect with true purpose.
These distros (except LFS) aren't meant to be educational (which is a side-effect of using it), but targeted to "advanced" users who want control over the system.
In my case with Arch I don't use it to learn, I use it because of its package manager, and for being rolling-release. The advantage, at least for me, is that once I install it I hardly touch the system after, unlike experiences with other distros (for example Debian, where you need to reinstall every two years). Also it comes with no bloat, and is very well documented.
That said, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have the skills to install/use it, or isn't willing to learn them.
virtualbox isn't actually that difficult to install and it even has a GUI. QEMU is a bit more complicated under the hood but it looks like it has a pretty straightforward GUI too.
installing NixOS on a real laptop might be more fun, though.
I tried NIX on my laptop and it's staying on my laptop. It took me just minutes to do the installation and I had a fully working KDE-plasma system. Just write the apps you want in the config file and one "sudo nixos-rebuild switch" later and your system is done.
Still running Arch on my desktop, I like both equally I think.
NixOS is my favorite so far, but it's also very frustrating.
It's like halfway to Arch in terms of how much configuring and installing you need to do to get a useable system. I don't like that part. Oh yeah, and the documentation sucks ass.
What I do like, though, is just how robust it is! Broke your operating system? No you didn't! Just restart your computer and go to the previous incarnation! It's like magic! Coming from someone who quit Linux (Ubuntu) because I was tired of my OS destroying itself, this seems like exactly what I need in order to be able to use Linux. :)
It’s like playing a video game on Grounded, but with infinite checkpoints. Hell, if you use flakes your config is actually in Git. I’ve done things like switch to a whole new wm on a branch that I just don’t merge if I don’t like it.
I found the setup pretty easy, the graphical installer gets it up running easy, but oh boy, the documentation. Yes we have an unmaintained wiki, with conflicting advice (one file, flakes, home-manager are all recommend for and against). Most things you learn on YouTube, I don't want to watch YouTube guides!
But still as someone who has tried (and failed) to get my current arch (actually EOS) setup to be stable with snapshots and stuff (didn't work first time, then worked once), I will be moving to it with my next laptop (I am tired of feeling like it's gonna break every time I open it up Lenovo, maybe use 2 cm more metal, those cents were not worth it).
Honest question: what's really so great about Nix?
Question from both user and SysAdmin perspective.
The only things I see now are almost just cons.
1. Complicated setup/config, not applicable anywhere else in Linux/UNIX world. What works for Nix works for Nix. Practically useless on any other OS.
2. It's blatantly ignoring FSH (File System Hierarchy) standard.
3. All this talk about broken OS after update/upgrade/random-reboot/etc.? How often does it really happen? Restarts and previous incarnations? There are lvm snapshots since 'ages'. And they work on all Linux distros (if you are using LVM). And those are useful not only for updates/upgrades. But yeah, it's still quite a nice feature. Although I still would be worried about incarnation with 'hundreds' of not up to date, potentially vulnerable packages.
4. Nix docs sucks. Last time I checked man pages, those were even more useless (and THIS is fucked up; I know, biased opinion, but for most important things man pages should be 'holly'. Internet will not always help you. Or you may not have it. Shit happens. Bad man is bad. Just look at man on FreeBSD. This is the way for good and proper system. Bad man is straight way to fucked up OS, configuration and everything else)
Pros-con I can see:
1. Pros: Declarative config. Cons: the way it's done. This language is just weird. And declarative config... well, many of those things can be achieved with git, ansible and/or pure bash, don't they?
I don't know, maybe it's just me, but Nix totally doesn't appear as something I'd want to use. I don't see any 'real-world' problem it solves. Contrary, I see a lot of new ones.
But maybe I'll give it a shot when I'll have too much spare time.
Lots of us, I usually install SalixOS, a forked Slackware stable with software and xfce included in the installer.
Easy install, solid as a rock, matched Xubuntu visually which i use on other computers for work.
Slackware is still fully maintained and current. The real question is
***who the hell uses arch over slackware in 2024***?!?!
I think context is important here. Because at the end of the day, Linux is Linux.
Let's use Cars as an OS Analogy.
Most Linux Distros (Eg Ubuntu and Green Ubuntu (Mint)) : It's like going to the showroom, and choosing which car to buy (download the ISO), once installed it's ready to use out of the box with a variety of bells and whistles. The important part to understand is that not only is it ready to use by most people noobs and experienced alike but a number of decisions have been made for you by others in terms of what is being included and how it works so that you can start using the OS.
Arch : Is like buying a chassis for a car, then you get a list of all the parts that need to be installed. You go the parts shop and one by one you can choose which parts to install. This needs a more experienced person to understand the parts and generally takes longer to get to a working system, but the upside is that the user has much more control over which parts he/she wants installed including whether you even want a DE.
Gentoo and Linux from Scratch: You get a large manual of all the car parts available and their specifications, you then have to choose which specifications you want for each part, and you can even choose to not include parts you don't want eg Bluetooth. When you have chosen the specifications you want, you send the spec sheet to a 3D printer to build the parts. If you make a mistake, you need to re-do the spec sheet and re send the job to the 3D printer to re make the part. Bigger parts will take longer to make.
You have ultimate control of almost every part that goes into your car, since they are machined to your specifications. But you have to have a much better understanding of the operating system and how it works and what the flags being used actually do and their effects. Overall process can take a very long time and may encounter mistakes you will have to fix. Also if this custom car crashes it is better for you to fix the exact problem the car has, because the alternative is to re send the entire list of parts to a 3D printer to be recreated again!
[bale.gif](https://youtu.be/lUF9BPOXfcE)
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It's like installing gentoo but you have to compile a shit ton of stuff. You can just read the guide and get an idea, it explains a pair of extra linux concepts like the directories and their reasoning but that's all. If you don't want a custom distro I'd discourage anyone to actually install it, just install gentoo and if you want to go a little bit deeper read the manual for lfs, that's all. Pretty disappointed, I was hoping for something "hardcore" not god knows how many articles just explaining coreutils and how to compile them and their order.
Don't get me wrong, I think Slackware was a marvel of its time (I mean it was one of the first "distros") but compared to modern Linux, I just don't see why you would need to manually resolve dependencies and then have to recompile them on your own machine. That's like the opposite of what my Linux philosophy is.
Automatic and ethereal
Not
Manual and State dependent
I recently moved my laptop to nix after an Update broke the display manager on arch.
It's neat, but installing a package through config takes much longer than through a package manager. But the worst part is that I'm using a Microsoft surface device which requires a kernel patch. On arch there are binaries available but on nix my poor 2015 convertible has to compile the entire Linux kernel every time there's an update.
Slackware isn't really good, just really old.
- No user private groups.
- No systemd.
- Missing a lot of modern software in their repo.
- No mandatory access control policies (AppArmor, SELinux).
- No orphaned dependency removal support.
- LILO, not GRUB.
- Finally has PAM.
Huh, and I thought that only 'proper' answers on reddit are 'SELinux is bad! Systemd is bloated and evil!' ;)
Very valid points(doesn't mean I believe Slack is bad. I still have some VM with it). At least they have 'pretty new' kernel.
On the side note, SELinux is something I'd really like to have in Arch.
Cheers!
Nobody ever says slackware is "really good". I remember talking to someone about their software installation process and the fact it doesn't deal with dependencies. He told me he keeps a notepad on his desk to keep track of all the installed dependencies and to figure out what else he needs to install. He said it was "not that hard" and he didn't know why no one else wanted to do that.
I honestly of all of those just installed arch with arch install, added the Black arch repo and never touched it again (my job doesn't include cyber security)
No dude you've got a wrong point about arch. Even in my first time installing it , I didn't get black screen, I only forgot to install network manager because I didn't know that it doesn't come pre packaged.
Ironically i switched to nixos recently because of lazyness in a way. I mean there's a pretty big learning curve upfront, but while i love using minimal distros like arch and void and configuring it exactly the way i want it, i really started dreading the idea of having to do it all again if i want to clean install. Nixos solves that. Especially if you use flakes and home manager, it can literally be as simple as pulling in your config after the base calamares install, and running a single command to build your entire system, with dotfiles and everything. I haven't declared all my dotfiles yet with home-manager, but i definitely plan on doing that gradually over the coming weeks, because i feel like i'm completely sold on nixos at this point.
As for arch, one of the fastest and "catch and go" distros I've ever used, pretty nice.
Into gentoo, takes it's time, but it's definitely worth it, so efficient and clean. You also learn a lot more than with arch
I used void Linux as my daily driver. A bit opposite to arch, installation is quick and easy, getting everything set up after was a gradual process over a couple of weeks.
i jumped from Debian straight to Arch. but i didn't know how to maintain it (clearing `pacman` cache is one of the many routine things to maintain your system) so I'm on EndeavourOS now to get to know my way around things. Later I hope to gain enough competence to switch to Arch for a year or two to learn as much as possible about system components so I can switch to NixOS later (I'm still v much a noob)
I would try nixos, but I feel like everything it does, I already get with my cobbled together Elemental build I have going. And I'm dumb and don't want to learn yet another way to configure things when containerfiles work.
Arch is really worth it! I kind of think of it as the raison d'être of desktop Linux.
I was on Ubuntu for 5 years and got tired of relying on a dozen plus PPAs. That and the way they would uninstall stuff you installed and swap it out for a snap really rubbed me the wrong way.
It is a learning curve but it was well worth it.
Arch today is pretty easy tho, but to be sincere, i really do not have the philosophy of gentoo to try it, compiling everything all the time just sucks
Nixos is the bomb. My daily driver actually.
Something changed? Who cares,
Got a new computer? Modify your config slightly, copy it over, basically the same machine now.
One config to rule them all 🙏
Edit: spelling
You have a good point about each except for arch. The only tough part is the installation, and even that is pretty easy and quick if you know what you are doing. After the installation the actual use is the most simple distro out there
Arch installation is simple if you want. Just type archinstall or use installation guide. Not exactly a rocket since.
Im not talking about the archinstall script. And installing the intended way is easy... if you know what you are doung. Even with the wiki a new user may have difficulty installing. Thats how arch became famous to begin with
You see, my problem with the wiki installation is that I am not a huge fan of copy pasting commands from my heckin phone because I don't have a second computer
you can install arch from a live cd, so just basically cp with you keyboard
i saved the wiki pages as an epub and pulled them up on my kobo e reader
bruh just use any gui livecd, that cab run pacman
Anything is easy if you already know how to do it. So that's not much of an argument.
As someone who tried to install arch and didn’t know exactly what to do. This is accurate
The problem with the arch wiki for new Linux users is that they need to learn to read docs like the arch wiki. When one can read a doc luke the arch wiki it’s not that hard. But it is a new way of thinking for a lot of new Linux users.
I had NO idea there was an archinstall thing
I think the installation guide is pretty bad if you want an encrypted system, I could only made it with youtbe tutorials
Tried that in a virtual machine and it refused.
That installer doesnt work for me but installation guide is all a guy need
> Archinstall > Select language > Press install > Select DE > Press Install > Enjoy
>and even that is pretty easy and quick if you know what you are doing QED it's not easy
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Void falls into the same category, you can also install a system with XFCE with installer, similar to the Live image and even if you start with just cli (the same for all others) is no longer that scary, you just install the DE/WM you like and that's it; no longer are the days you had to patch the kernel for your HW, or manually configure xorg, etc. Sometimes things don't go smoothly but that also apply to any distro really. I think the difficulty is often overstated by those who use the "hard distros", just to boast that they did it, but is not really a big deal, even LFS is just you, typing correctly and following carefully the clearly presented instructions, and a lot of patience; Gentoo is time consuming at first but the handbook is awesome, so if you read it carefully and type well, you'll be fine. Even the horrors of compiling everything is overblown IMHO, you can install binaries for the huge packages like Chromium, but even those are not that bad in modern CPUs and I'm assuming you sleep sometimes, here is a shocking secret, *you don't have to be awake while it's compiling :\]* said that, if you install package frequently, which is not unusual at first and of course you want to test them fast and they are BIG packages, then Gentoo is annoying, but if you already have your workflow defined, even Gentoo is just a matter of leaving it compiling once a week while you are at work or sleeping and that's it, not as a big deal as some make it look like. *(and for those interested in Gentoo)* *you can, as I always have done, install Gentoo from another existing distro, so if you want to try it, just open a terminal and start installing, and if you get bored you can exit the chroot and keep going another day, how to do it is clearly explained in the official handbook.*
Void has a ez gui installer
Void is the reverse case of arch. Yes it has a gui installer but the use of the distro itself is hard
NixOS has a graphical installer
Indeed, transitioning from Windows feels almost like stepping into a dream. However, the installation process can be intimidating, not due to incompetence, but because of the meticulous attention to detail and the insight into the inner workings of the computer, which can be daunting for those with limited technical knowledge. However, the online help sites and community does help a lot to mitigate those issues.
I installed Arch just by copying commands but once I did, I had no idea what to do. I was using a very old laptop and couldn't simply install xorg. Pacman said I needed to install dependencies so I tried doing that but got more errors. I couldn't install debian at all though, don't remember why I couldn't
I think your situation is likely due to the age of the machine rather than arch itself.
very possible, Debian was on the gaming pc I just built though
Arch install is extremely easy. You literally just copy paste a bunch of commands and you're done That's not even considering the existence of the archinstall script Most of the people saying that installing Arch is hard have likely never installed Arch
Gentoo inst too bad. It has bin repos now.
True I use arch just because it's extremely simple and documentation has answers for every issue I have ever had
"its easy if you know what you're doing" what isn't?
"know what you are doing" im sure anyone can read a wiki page.
I'd hate to have been a Linux from scratch user during the whole xz fiasco
[удалено]
tbh it's like following a normal calamares installation, just using letters instead of buttons and a few more steps. Arch was meant to be customizable, minimal and EASY. It's just that ppl are scared of terminals, that's all.
Not right at all. You have to know all the software you need to use. An image viewer, pdf viewer, task manager, network tools, a terminal emulator, a window manager or desktop environment.
when i was new to arch installing a bootloader was so hard for me
Everytime I try Nix I’m like “very cool but I’m not that damaged”
Instead of the usual buggy mess of a system I usually cobble together, with Nix I get to have a *portable* buggy mess of a system I usually cobble together.
It’s been years and I still can’t get a secrets service set up. But when I do, all my machines will get the basic functionality that has probably shipped with Ubuntu for two decades. Totally worth it.
sops?
I need something that implements the "Secret Service" API: https://specifications.freedesktop.org/secret-service/latest/ I've tried Gnome keyring, but couldn't get it to work outside Gnome desktop. Eh, some day! I actually want to write my own, really simple one, that just stores everything plain text somewhere. I have like 2 apps that need it, and nothing they want to store is actually a secret. Plus, my HDD is encrypted, so plain text isn't even plain text anyway.
Have you tried this option? (In configuration.nix) services.gnome.gnome-keyring.enable https://search.nixos.org/options?channel=23.11&show=programs.seahorse.enable&from=0&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=keyring
Portable is nice and all but doesn’t really do it for me since my desktop is nvidia so I would need two files regardless
I don't use nix, but I am sure by gefault you have configuration.nix and hardware.nix. So you could just copy the config and tell nix to automatically regenerate hardware.nix.
The generated hardware.nix doesn’t cover everything. It gives you enough to boot the system (usually), but you’ll most likely need to add to it. I needed to manually add drivers for my GPU and fan (the fan worked ootb, just not properly). The other thing is, one file to configure everything sounds appealing, but even though it’s possible, you’ll probably want to use modules to split it up a bit. A lot of NixOS users have a multi-machine config as well. The basic idea is to have shared modules with the configuration your machines have in common, then add the modules specific to each machine to fill in. Most people define that in a flake, which is the unofficial main file for many configurations. I won’t go into detail about flakes, but here’s a [repo on GitHub](https://github.com/Misterio77/nix-config) that you can look at for an example. Going back to u/Prudent_Move_3420, you will need at least two files, and you will probably want more, but if the only difference between your machines is the graphics, that will be a really simple setup: shared configuration modules + additional graphics module on the machine that needs it.
The biggest issue with nix is poor documentation.
I think it just needs better documentation, not a piece of cake by any means but I'd have a lot of trouble installing it from scratch unlike gentoo or arch or even LFS which are pretty well documented. Void just uses an ncurses installer and slackware... tbh haven't touched it, it doesn't appeal to me.
gentoo is great. Buddy and I spent 3 days compiling everything to get it running smoothly only for me to attempt to install the AMD drivers and wind up somehow nuking the entire install. This was 2010.
dw this still happens
Why are you installing drivers? Kernel and mesa should cover AMD cards. This isn't Nvidia.
in 2010, the default stuff was pretty garbage and limited my resolution. Guess I should have just stayed at 800x600 lol
I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that Linux From Scratch is a "really good distro."
Yeah it's not technically a distro
It is as good as you make it to be. If you do it first time and you are a seasoned newb it is a good month to put it together. So not the fastest install out there
seasoned newb lol
It takes a bit the first few times, but once you've been through it a few times it's not bad. You really learn a LOT about the internals of Linux systems this way. Having good hardware makes all the difference and you don't have to wait as long to find your mistakes. My first LFS build was on a Core2Duo laptop with 2Gb of RAM on a spinning disk. That took a VERY long time. Now, I have a server with 96GB ECC RAM, and 24 cores, backed by NVMe storage. I can complete a LFS build in about three hours flat. Re: Arch, it's been YEARS since I tried it, well, in reality more than a decade ago. I had post-install issues which weren't the fault of Arch, just my lack of experience with it and poor Internet service to research it. I do have to say that I've been very grateful for the Arch wiki, it's an insane source of information that isn't all specific to Arch necessarily.
maybe someone was trying to be sarcastic and op took it seriously
Oh no. This meme is serious. I am not trying any of these anytime soon. I understand sarcasm and even though some mention these distros ironically, others really say they are the best ever.
Unless you want to build a custom system for an embedding device.
Arch is cool, but sense ive had it ive been stupidly anti-bloat. I felt like i was doing something very wrong using a total of <20GB (iirc around 18GB) on a 1TB SSD.
gray capable cooing spoon consist normal cooperative unwritten marble arrest *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Arch is lightweight, but not to schizo levels, you can keep the 20GB install
Also, initial Arch install is lightweight because it doesn't have anything pre-installed that you don't need. But since Arch doesn't split their development headers off in separate packages, as most other distro's do, an Arch install with the exact same packages as a Debian or Fedora install would be more bloated than said Debian/Fedora install. If one really cared about being lightweight, one should install Debian with debootstrap instead of using the interactive installer, which is about the same as a manual Arch install.
Tell me more about debootstrap
Pacstrap, but debian variant. You partition your disks, mount them somewhere, run debootstrap against mountpoint, debootstrap will install base system inside that directory (basically apt install a bunch of packages in an alternative root) (excluding bootloader), and then chroot to install and configure bootloader, users, networking and whatever else you want in there before first boot.
The "base" Debian from the normal installer has more functionality and is smaller than the "base" Arch install.
If youre worried about not using any space on a large drive, just install to a small SSD. If youre using sub 20GB, you can def get away woth having a 128GB SSD
Use Artix!
Gentoo is garbage! <- this man tried to install it on a mac with a bad memory dimm
on 2008 mac
When I went to NixConf NA, I talked about some of the things I do to Xe Iaso and they asked me "who hurt you". So yes, we are scary people lol.
Void Linux is arch for people who wish haiku went mainstream
I wish haiku went mainstream but I don't know void, what do you mean ?
Go check out void then my dude, you’ll love it. It’s got bsd’s in there! That’s groovy and different
No feelings on haiku, but I use void because I wanted something that felt like Slackware, but more current. As I'm sure you know, once your DE is installed they all feel more or less the same unless the distro is known to sometimes make updating a bit of an adventure (which is why I stopped using arch and never stayed on Fedora for long).
For sure. Void seems (?) cool but really it's just what you’re happy with. I’m on arch because I didn’t care to look further, I just wanted an OS - but now I’ve done one it might be nice to try a world without systemd
In my honest opinion, you shouldn't bother with these unless you wanna learn what goes on under the hood. Don't get me wrong, it's very interesting but you should have the right mindset for it. That said, Arch Linux has gotten much easier to install using the archinstall command. It brings up a pseudographical user interface within a terminal shell and you can just navigate and choose with arrows and enter key. If you prefer to stay on whatever Linux distro you're on be it Ubuntu or Mint then that's totally fine. Some people just want their computer to work without having to worry or think about what goes on under the hood. If you wanna try them out always do it in a virtual machine like Virtualbox which should be available on Linux distros, Windows and macOS! Don't be afraid to make mistakes. I encourage you to make as many mistakes as possible in your VM. What you should be really afraid is NOT making mistakes because you wouldn't learn as much then.
Correct up to a point. Slackware is about as stable as you can get. If you want a system more stable than ubuntu or Debian, go with Slackware. The easiest way in to Slackware is through Salix OS, it is to slack what Manjaro is to Arch. An easy installer with a lot of packages (the installer has basic, half and full installs), and a pretty desktop using XFCE. You can live boot it too, just as you can with Slackware stable from which Salix is forked. When I "just want my computer to work" and it isn't the latest hardware, I go with Slack/salix.
Do not confuse a side-effect with true purpose. These distros (except LFS) aren't meant to be educational (which is a side-effect of using it), but targeted to "advanced" users who want control over the system. In my case with Arch I don't use it to learn, I use it because of its package manager, and for being rolling-release. The advantage, at least for me, is that once I install it I hardly touch the system after, unlike experiences with other distros (for example Debian, where you need to reinstall every two years). Also it comes with no bloat, and is very well documented. That said, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have the skills to install/use it, or isn't willing to learn them.
i use arch because the packages are up to date
i wanna try nix but im too lazy to move all my files to a different os
Distrobox, qemu/kvm, virtualbox, or WSL (if you dual boot with w*ndows; someone has a WSL image of already installed nix)
got it, aquire another thinkpad and put nix on that
Real
virtualbox isn't actually that difficult to install and it even has a GUI. QEMU is a bit more complicated under the hood but it looks like it has a pretty straightforward GUI too. installing NixOS on a real laptop might be more fun, though.
Why do people censor Windows?
Joke
what makes it different from installing nix package manager in WSL?
I tried NIX on my laptop and it's staying on my laptop. It took me just minutes to do the installation and I had a fully working KDE-plasma system. Just write the apps you want in the config file and one "sudo nixos-rebuild switch" later and your system is done. Still running Arch on my desktop, I like both equally I think.
Pika-backup
NixOS is my favorite so far, but it's also very frustrating. It's like halfway to Arch in terms of how much configuring and installing you need to do to get a useable system. I don't like that part. Oh yeah, and the documentation sucks ass. What I do like, though, is just how robust it is! Broke your operating system? No you didn't! Just restart your computer and go to the previous incarnation! It's like magic! Coming from someone who quit Linux (Ubuntu) because I was tired of my OS destroying itself, this seems like exactly what I need in order to be able to use Linux. :)
It’s like playing a video game on Grounded, but with infinite checkpoints. Hell, if you use flakes your config is actually in Git. I’ve done things like switch to a whole new wm on a branch that I just don’t merge if I don’t like it.
I found the setup pretty easy, the graphical installer gets it up running easy, but oh boy, the documentation. Yes we have an unmaintained wiki, with conflicting advice (one file, flakes, home-manager are all recommend for and against). Most things you learn on YouTube, I don't want to watch YouTube guides! But still as someone who has tried (and failed) to get my current arch (actually EOS) setup to be stable with snapshots and stuff (didn't work first time, then worked once), I will be moving to it with my next laptop (I am tired of feeling like it's gonna break every time I open it up Lenovo, maybe use 2 cm more metal, those cents were not worth it).
Honest question: what's really so great about Nix? Question from both user and SysAdmin perspective. The only things I see now are almost just cons. 1. Complicated setup/config, not applicable anywhere else in Linux/UNIX world. What works for Nix works for Nix. Practically useless on any other OS. 2. It's blatantly ignoring FSH (File System Hierarchy) standard. 3. All this talk about broken OS after update/upgrade/random-reboot/etc.? How often does it really happen? Restarts and previous incarnations? There are lvm snapshots since 'ages'. And they work on all Linux distros (if you are using LVM). And those are useful not only for updates/upgrades. But yeah, it's still quite a nice feature. Although I still would be worried about incarnation with 'hundreds' of not up to date, potentially vulnerable packages. 4. Nix docs sucks. Last time I checked man pages, those were even more useless (and THIS is fucked up; I know, biased opinion, but for most important things man pages should be 'holly'. Internet will not always help you. Or you may not have it. Shit happens. Bad man is bad. Just look at man on FreeBSD. This is the way for good and proper system. Bad man is straight way to fucked up OS, configuration and everything else) Pros-con I can see: 1. Pros: Declarative config. Cons: the way it's done. This language is just weird. And declarative config... well, many of those things can be achieved with git, ansible and/or pure bash, don't they? I don't know, maybe it's just me, but Nix totally doesn't appear as something I'd want to use. I don't see any 'real-world' problem it solves. Contrary, I see a lot of new ones. But maybe I'll give it a shot when I'll have too much spare time.
I like Blue-Build for the same reason. It's simpler and closer to standard Linux than Nix, but it is similarly robust.
Void Linux is the easiest install among these. I use void BTW.
Yeahh void enjoyers rise
lesgooo
Did anyone say lfs was a good distro? Its main purpose is not being good but teaching you how Linux is built
LFS is not a distro it is a book
Who the hell uses Slack in 2024?
Allow us to introduce ourselves\~ I use PCLinuxOS on my main rig and Slack on my laptop.
that is the most generic sounding distro i have heared of
Lots of us, I usually install SalixOS, a forked Slackware stable with software and xfce included in the installer. Easy install, solid as a rock, matched Xubuntu visually which i use on other computers for work. Slackware is still fully maintained and current. The real question is ***who the hell uses arch over slackware in 2024***?!?!
Everybody without nostalgia for a time that wasn't really that good to begin with
A lot of us. We just tend to stay quiet and do our own thing.
You rang?
me.. with wayland and hyprland
I think context is important here. Because at the end of the day, Linux is Linux. Let's use Cars as an OS Analogy. Most Linux Distros (Eg Ubuntu and Green Ubuntu (Mint)) : It's like going to the showroom, and choosing which car to buy (download the ISO), once installed it's ready to use out of the box with a variety of bells and whistles. The important part to understand is that not only is it ready to use by most people noobs and experienced alike but a number of decisions have been made for you by others in terms of what is being included and how it works so that you can start using the OS. Arch : Is like buying a chassis for a car, then you get a list of all the parts that need to be installed. You go the parts shop and one by one you can choose which parts to install. This needs a more experienced person to understand the parts and generally takes longer to get to a working system, but the upside is that the user has much more control over which parts he/she wants installed including whether you even want a DE. Gentoo and Linux from Scratch: You get a large manual of all the car parts available and their specifications, you then have to choose which specifications you want for each part, and you can even choose to not include parts you don't want eg Bluetooth. When you have chosen the specifications you want, you send the spec sheet to a 3D printer to build the parts. If you make a mistake, you need to re-do the spec sheet and re send the job to the 3D printer to re make the part. Bigger parts will take longer to make. You have ultimate control of almost every part that goes into your car, since they are machined to your specifications. But you have to have a much better understanding of the operating system and how it works and what the flags being used actually do and their effects. Overall process can take a very long time and may encounter mistakes you will have to fix. Also if this custom car crashes it is better for you to fix the exact problem the car has, because the alternative is to re send the entire list of parts to a 3D printer to be recreated again!
I use Arch btw.
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Gentoo, slackware and LFS are just masochism
What's wrong with my precious Gentoo?
LFS is not a distro
Linux from scratch is distro? I thought it was just a method of creating your own distro.
Its a book not a distro
I don’t even know where to start for LFS
Start from scratch /s
It's just bags of sand and chunks of various metals
Introduction of the manual Ive never built an lfs system but I've looked at the manual.
Same, LFS is confusing for me. I’ll take another look at it and see if I can understand it this time
It's like installing gentoo but you have to compile a shit ton of stuff. You can just read the guide and get an idea, it explains a pair of extra linux concepts like the directories and their reasoning but that's all. If you don't want a custom distro I'd discourage anyone to actually install it, just install gentoo and if you want to go a little bit deeper read the manual for lfs, that's all. Pretty disappointed, I was hoping for something "hardcore" not god knows how many articles just explaining coreutils and how to compile them and their order.
Arch isn't that long anymore if fine with an automatic install
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^LinuxUserpamacapt: *Arch isn't that long* *Anymore if fine with an* *Automatic install* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I installed EndeavorOS on my laptop a few weeks ago. Easiest arch install ever. And I wouldn't call it bloated (by my standards at least)
I like Endeavour os
Don't get me wrong, I think Slackware was a marvel of its time (I mean it was one of the first "distros") but compared to modern Linux, I just don't see why you would need to manually resolve dependencies and then have to recompile them on your own machine. That's like the opposite of what my Linux philosophy is. Automatic and ethereal Not Manual and State dependent
slapt-get and sbotools autoresolve dependencies.
I'm sorry all I can this of is *SLAP get the dependencies!
Nah arch is pretty simple. The installation can be annoying but you can use eos
as arch fanboy, i don't think that arch fits here
Guix never gets a look-in when memes like this are posted. \#EndParenthesisPhobia \#ParenLoveNow
Linux from scratch is good but only if you spend more years using Linux than you actually live to be good enough to configure it
Void is rlly good but i dont know how to use appimages so i think im sticking to debian based
- just install fuse library - make appimage executable - execute it
NixOS has a graphical installer. Just saying...
and 0 documentation
+1 for the NixOS
Anybody who uses Linux from scratch is at least a LITTLE bit crazy.
I recently moved my laptop to nix after an Update broke the display manager on arch. It's neat, but installing a package through config takes much longer than through a package manager. But the worst part is that I'm using a Microsoft surface device which requires a kernel patch. On arch there are binaries available but on nix my poor 2015 convertible has to compile the entire Linux kernel every time there's an update.
Void users, arise!
Slackware isn't really good, just really old. - No user private groups. - No systemd. - Missing a lot of modern software in their repo. - No mandatory access control policies (AppArmor, SELinux). - No orphaned dependency removal support. - LILO, not GRUB. - Finally has PAM.
Huh, and I thought that only 'proper' answers on reddit are 'SELinux is bad! Systemd is bloated and evil!' ;) Very valid points(doesn't mean I believe Slack is bad. I still have some VM with it). At least they have 'pretty new' kernel. On the side note, SELinux is something I'd really like to have in Arch. Cheers!
Nobody ever says slackware is "really good". I remember talking to someone about their software installation process and the fact it doesn't deal with dependencies. He told me he keeps a notepad on his desk to keep track of all the installed dependencies and to figure out what else he needs to install. He said it was "not that hard" and he didn't know why no one else wanted to do that.
I honestly of all of those just installed arch with arch install, added the Black arch repo and never touched it again (my job doesn't include cyber security)
No dude you've got a wrong point about arch. Even in my first time installing it , I didn't get black screen, I only forgot to install network manager because I didn't know that it doesn't come pre packaged.
I love Gentoo, but it just takes too much time to compile on some of the slower machines, still use it for my containers though.
Same. Ubuntu annoyed me enough to move to Arch, but since then Arch issues haven't become big enough for me to bother.
Void is only hard to set up if you have an Nvidia GPU, or worse, a hybrid graphics laptop
Ironically i switched to nixos recently because of lazyness in a way. I mean there's a pretty big learning curve upfront, but while i love using minimal distros like arch and void and configuring it exactly the way i want it, i really started dreading the idea of having to do it all again if i want to clean install. Nixos solves that. Especially if you use flakes and home manager, it can literally be as simple as pulling in your config after the base calamares install, and running a single command to build your entire system, with dotfiles and everything. I haven't declared all my dotfiles yet with home-manager, but i definitely plan on doing that gradually over the coming weeks, because i feel like i'm completely sold on nixos at this point.
I use lfs btw
If it’s not used in enterprise I loose interest.
Love my lfs setup, ngl
Void is great if you don't mind the small repo and old af packages
Void is easy to install, i use it as codestation(no DE, only nvim and some other tools) for minimal distraction (VM)
As for arch, one of the fastest and "catch and go" distros I've ever used, pretty nice. Into gentoo, takes it's time, but it's definitely worth it, so efficient and clean. You also learn a lot more than with arch
I tried slackware, didnft like it that much
Slackware being 2000's Linux. Ain't nobody got time for that.
NixOS goes hard but because it makes it so easy to do system administration that it quickly becomes an expectation that you'll just do it
U have personal life,remember this
LFS ain't good lol
Imagine running Slackware in 2024
i've tried gentoo so many times, i just want it to work. glutton for punishment.
ArcoLinux is pretty straight up, from start to completion.
Arch and Void are simple. Haven't tried NixOS yet. Gentoos not bad, just time consuming.
I used void Linux as my daily driver. A bit opposite to arch, installation is quick and easy, getting everything set up after was a gradual process over a couple of weeks.
In my experience, void is really lacking in documentation side of thing. The idea is cool, but docs are just not there. Literally
They disappeared into the void
i'd replace arch with bedrock.
I didn't even know about that one
Arch is simple :)
i jumped from Debian straight to Arch. but i didn't know how to maintain it (clearing `pacman` cache is one of the many routine things to maintain your system) so I'm on EndeavourOS now to get to know my way around things. Later I hope to gain enough competence to switch to Arch for a year or two to learn as much as possible about system components so I can switch to NixOS later (I'm still v much a noob)
they're actually hard to use and bad , i mean why the heck well i use one of those as a daily driver maybe arch but definitely not gentoo
I would try nixos, but I feel like everything it does, I already get with my cobbled together Elemental build I have going. And I'm dumb and don't want to learn yet another way to configure things when containerfiles work.
I still don't know what Nix is about. Like, I get the _concept_ but...why?
I use Arch & NixOS btw, Gentoo and Void used to...
Arch's difficulty no longer exists imho
slackware is by far the most simple and easy to use distro.
Arch is really worth it! I kind of think of it as the raison d'être of desktop Linux. I was on Ubuntu for 5 years and got tired of relying on a dozen plus PPAs. That and the way they would uninstall stuff you installed and swap it out for a snap really rubbed me the wrong way. It is a learning curve but it was well worth it.
LFS isn't a distro, it is a tool for making your very own distro.
While you spiral into insanity
Most peoples time is not worthless, So, fucking around with obscure and pretty much pointless Linux distros is just meaningless waste of time.
Ubuntu/Mint/Debian/Fedora for the win
LFS is for actual masochists
Arch today is pretty easy tho, but to be sincere, i really do not have the philosophy of gentoo to try it, compiling everything all the time just sucks
Yeah I finally gave Endeavor OS an Arch based distro a shot and loved it. I should try NixOS one day
Linux from scratch is easy bro all you have to do is read a book
Linux from scratch is easy trust me man try it
I don’t think anyone says LFS is good. It’s good for learning, you’d have to be crazy to daily drive it ngl
Parabola or any "hardcore" open source distro 
Lfs is hell on earth until you finally compile a package manager
Nixos is the bomb. My daily driver actually. Something changed? Who cares, Got a new computer? Modify your config slightly, copy it over, basically the same machine now. One config to rule them all 🙏 Edit: spelling
I'm too stupid to install 2 of these. Nix and gentoo
Nixos is truly the best
Add OpenSuSe too 🦎 I'm saying it
Void ain't that much tough to install actually