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Does anyone know why SteamOS is based on arch rather than Debian? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Just got a steam deck and immediately checked out the desktop mode, and I was somewhat surprised to see KDE and pacman as opposed to GNOME and apt, I have nothing against the former though a strong preference for the latter, anyone know why Volvo went in this direction?

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[–] 79 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Arch packaging is also significantly easier to work with in my experience. I've packaged for both for some years and I'll take the Arch build system over wrangling dpkg every chance I can.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Totally agree. Arch is actually a really good, simple system. That's why so many people pick it as their main distro. Once you have installed it a few times, it's just very simple how it works. There is no magic.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    The difficulty with arch is not get it up and running. It's about keeping it up to date. Do you have selinux enabled? I like selinux and among other things that's what fedora bundles for me. I could do everything myself but not only do I have to know the state of the art today, I also will have to know what's up tomorrow. I have to keep up with it. That is the difficulty with arch. Selinux is just one example but probably a prominent. I bet many people running arch have not installed it.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    How is keeping Arch up-to-date hard? Because there are a lot of updates?

    I found Arch to be easier to maintain than any other distro I use. Everything is managed by the package manager ( no snaps, no flatpaks, no PPAs ). Updates are frequent but small and manageable. There are really no update “events” to navigate. And everything is current enough that I never find myself working around missing features or incompatibilities. I found it to “just work”.

    I am not sure how your first point relates to SElinux. SELinux is part of the Red Hat ecosystem which is why Fedora uses it. It is not new ( SElinux may pre-date Arch Linux ). Whether you have it installed or not has nothing to do with how hard the system is to maintain. Default Debian installs do not use it either. Most Linux distros don’t. Ubuntu and SUSE use AppArmor instead.

    I do not use SElinux on desktop but it makes sense for a server. The Arch kernel includes SElinux support so all you have to do is install the package if you want it. Generally, Arch gives you a newer version than Fedora does.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Flatpak is another good example besides selinux. You as a user have to be up to date how to install packages. You have to install flatpak yourself. I trust that you are up to date enough, but many people lack time and especially interest in how the system works. Many people don't care as long as it works. On arch you have the freedom to do everything but you have to take care of a lot of thing on your own. E.g. fedora makes a lot of decisions for you. You do not have to read about firewalls, you can, but you don't have to. On arch I highly advise evryone to read what a firewall is and then decide which firewall to use and set the right settings. Arch is not bad but it's not for the average person who doesn't read readmes and guides and that's ok

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    You can also install "app stores" on arch, if you so desire. I believe the most famous one is pamac.

    You can configure the firewall with the KDE GUI, you don't need additional knowledge than the one you'd already need for any other system.

    I wouldn't recommend Arch for newbies with no technical background but I feel like EndeavourOS is very simple to install and use.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    I feel like this is the answer. if you've ever had to maintain a build pipeline or repository for .deb or .rpm, it's not exactly pleasant (it is extremely robust, however). arch packaging is very simple by comparison, and I really doubt they'd need much more.

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