317
Realizing Arch isn't for me after updating broke VLC (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
268 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I realized my VLC was broke some point in the week after updating Arch. I spend time troubleshooting then find a forum post with replies from an Arch moderator saying they knew it would happen and it's my fault for not wanting to read through pages of changelogs. Another mod post says they won't announce that on the RSS feed either. I thought I was doing good by following the RSS but I guess that's not enough.

I've been happily using Arch for 5 years but after reading those posts I've decided to look for a different distro. Does anyone have recommendations for the closest I can get to Arch but with a different attitude around updating?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Gentoo, honestly.

The community is much more friendly, the system is probably more arch than arch. The downside is compiling, but big packages have binaries now, and small packages build and install just about as fast as a binary distro.

Good hunting!

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Thanks for the suggestion. I enjoyed how much I learned from picking out packages to get Arch working. I'm getting a similar excitement reading about Gentoo use flags. Giving it serious consideration.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The problem with Gentoo is that you can't install anything in a hurry.

    Run VMs on Arch:

    1. pacman -S virt-manager
    2. Done.

    Run VMs on Gentoo?

    1. Read the Wiki
    2. Find out which USE-Flags you will want
    3. Fnd out the dependencies it's based on (QEMU), read that Wiki entry too
    4. See what USE-Flags you want
    5. See what Kernel options are needed. Recompile Kernel if changes were necessary.
    6. emerge -av app-emulation/virt-manager
    7. See if you have read the Wikis of all dependencies.
    8. Install.
    9. Read the dependencies wikis for how to set things up.
    10. Done

    Yes, this is an extreme example, but many large packages are a bit like this.
    That's why you will tripple-check if you really need sonething before installing it on Gentoo, or you are like me and install Boxes in a Flatpak instead.

    Personally i like Gentoo more than Arch because of all the buttons and knobs, and once it's set up it does not need more time than Arch, but installing stuff is sometimes hard.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    I loved Gentoo, it was the first distro I actually stuck with for more than a couple months, I used for 7 years or so.

    I went to arch because something broke (probably my fault) and I needed to write a paper that was due soon, and compilation of the required software took too long, so I switched so it wouldn't happen again. Arch was sold to me as "Gentoo with binaries".

    That being said I think you're being unfair. I read the Arch's wiki before installing unknown packages, mostly skimming, just like I did with Gentoo but Gentoo's docs were somewhat superior. The docs were one of the things I missed.

    Most of the time I didn't read about the use-flags, except for big packages like Gnome. I only changed the use-flags if I knew for sure I wouldn't use that functionality, so all the maybes and what-ifs still got compiled. TBH fiddling too much with use-flag feels like a newbie thing. On Arch there are actually more steps: I install the big multi-packages then uninstall the ones I don't want, because those are less than the ones I want, and I don't risk missing something.

    On neither Gentoo or Arch I read the docs of the dependencies unless there's a specific reason.

    Same goes for the Kernel. Don't disable things you don't know about, enable all things you maybe will use and all the what-ifs. Once I knew what these were, setting this was quick and simple because they are actually just a couple options.

    All that only has to be done once, because once you know, even if you reinstall the OS you don't have to investigate again unless something goes wrong because of changes.

    The community of Gentoo is great! Arch's community is okay.

    With both Arch and Gentoo you have to learn about the system and make choices. With Gentoo you have to make more choices but making them and learning is easier than Arch. If OP used Gentoo this would have gone smoother.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I agree that the Gentoo wiki is almost always better than the Arch wiki (and would recommend it to any user), but i really doubt installing complicated packages is remotely as hard as on Gentoo.

    While i have never used Arch before, i did use Manjaro, and there stuff was always just install the package and be done. I never had to alter the Kernel config, and all program features were just there. I also had VMs on Manjaro, and i do not remember any manual configuration (though that was many years ago, so maybe i misremember).

    Recently i wanted to encode a video in ffmpeg, but it didn't work. After a bit of searching i found that the codec requires a use-flag to be set. Classic Gentoo moment.

    It's not that i dislike Gentoo. In fact i do not consider returning to Arch (but i might switch to NixOS if my Gentoo install breaks). But i wouldn't switch to any other distro.
    It's just that Gentoo is configured in a way that is so minimal by default that even basic use-cases require changes in the Kernel config: systemd? Kernel config. Bluetooth? Kernel config. LUKS? Kernel config. Amdgpu? Yes, exactly. BTRFS? Yes. Blender? Yeah OK, that goes without kernel config.
    And the worst about the Kernel config: You don't know which values are set by default. You might just end up in nconfig realizing that the values were already set.

    Then there is the instability in the distKernel (which i use). I think i started with Kernel 5.10LTS ish. Every upgrade went well until like 6.1 LTS, when Emerge complained about i think module ordering or something. It would not emerge a newer Kernel any more, which made me reset my Kernel config and redo it entirely because i thought Kernel 5 and 6 configs might be incompatible. That worked (somehow) until 6.6 LTS, which i wanted to install at version 6.6.6 LTS. But emerge complained it could not install it. I waited and ignored the update, and eventually got trough at version 6.6.20 or so. After that it refused to update again, which made me blacklist all non LTS kernels. I am now on 6.12 LTS, even though i am not a LTS guy, simply because i don't want the hassle.

    And still, after all of this effort for being minimal, it boots in like 20s, while Arch does it in like 3 or so. Gentoo hates me.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Gentoo certainly teaches you a lot, but I would never recommend it to an average user. If you want to get any benefit from use flags for any packages, you will be compiling them from scratch and possibly their dependencies as well. Small packages are pretty fast, sure, but if you try to do something like compile Firefox, you could be waiting all day for that if you don't have a Threadripper or similar.

    Practically, unless you run exotic hardware you're unlikely to get any actual tangible benefits from tweaking most use flags on most packages. Which begs the question of why you're using such a low-level distro in the first place...

    Idk maybe I just didn't get it, but my month of running Gentoo was mostly just annoying. Again, great learning experience, but didn't make sense to me as a daily driver. It feels like it's for people who want to pore over the detailed patch notes for every package on their system, which is clearly not OP.

    NixOS gives me enough control over how individual packages are configured if I really want it, but in a way that stays entirely out of my way until I specifically want to fiddle. I'm not saying NixOS is any better for a new user, but as a pretty experienced one I found it more rewarding once I understood the ecosystem.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This might be the answer really, Gentoo is my favorite distro in theory. In practice I'm a lazy ass that just ends up installing binary packages for everything and missing the AUR.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •