Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
Anyone here moved away from Arch Linux?
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 10, 11, 12, 13  Next  
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo Chat
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
jonathan183
Guru
Guru


Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 318

PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:33 pm    Post subject: systemd killed the fun for me Reply with quote

I had been using Arch from at least 2008 (I think it was 2007), I recently wiped Arch off my desktop PC - I had not booted into Arch for much other than updating for some time. In my case systemd was the main issue ... I just did not get on with it.
I did like pacman and the AUR ... while I had a few problems before systemd was introduced I was able in general to solve them but systemd made no sense to me.

I initially struggled with portage but I think I have got to the point where I am more likely to be able to sort out issues with my Gentoo install than my Arch install.

For less experienced users I use Mint Debian Edition ... otherwise its Gentoo 8)

I can't see me returning to Arch - at least not while systemd forms part of the base system :roll:
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
swansreflectingelephants
n00b
n00b


Joined: 10 May 2016
Posts: 3
Location: Merseyside, UK

PostPosted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used Arch up until August and I still think it's a great distro. But, for the most part, it's all pretty automated and I wanted something more involved.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
roki942
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 18 Apr 2005
Posts: 285
Location: Seattle

PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I use to love having Archbang on my 2009 netbook .... then it started being a pain and it all traced back to systemd so I learned how to use distccd.
Archbang is now systemd free and uses OpenRC by default! :D http://bbs.archbang.org/viewtopic.php?id=5691
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
fturco
Veteran
Veteran


Joined: 08 Dec 2010
Posts: 1181
Location: Italy

PostPosted: Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm switching back again to Gentoo Linux from Parabola GNU/Linux-libre. It's impossible for me to forget how powerful Gentoo Linux is as opposed to Arch Linux based distributions or binary distributions in general. My goal now is to stop distribution hopping and improve my Gentoo Linux knowledge.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zucca
Moderator
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Posts: 3310
Location: Rasi, Finland

PostPosted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

fturco wrote:
My goal now is to stop distribution hopping and improve my Gentoo Linux knowledge.
Welcome back once again. :)
_________________
..: Zucca :..
Gentoo IRC channels reside on Libera.Chat.
--
Quote:
I am NaN! I am a man!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
irenicus09
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 07 Jun 2013
Posts: 118

PostPosted: Tue Nov 08, 2016 11:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've used Arch as a stepping stone to Gentoo. Having experience with Arch helped a lot because I didn't have to care much about stuff like manual partitioning, setting up luks encryption and the basic stuff which you figure out on your own during a typical Arch install. Therefore it allowed me to focus specifically on reading and learning the features that are exclusive to Gentoo like how portage works, use flags, etc.

Having experience with Arch helped a lot with Gentoo otherwise coming fresh off the boat as an Ubuntu user I would be overwhelmed and probably would give up trying to install Gentoo. The other secret to installing Gentoo is persistence. If you are willing to you can reach the point, but it is entirely upto you.

Arch is a good binary Linux distribution, I would use it specifically in a case where I don't have much time on my hand to go through a dedicated gentoo install.

Main reason that I like Gentoo and prefer it over arch is because it is a source based distribution, and you have the flexibility of software via USE flags.

USE flag is a killer feature of Gentoo in my opinion, and also the fact that it is a source based distribution...which is important for me because I'm sort of paranoid about security and don't trust binary builds on the same level.

In terms of documentation however Arch Linux sort of has an edge over Gentoo. I mean quality of both are more or less the same but Arch documentation is more detailed with plenty of examples and a vast amount of resources for you to reap benefit of and gain a better understanding. I'm glad that both these distros exist, as it allows us to have more choices as well as gain benefit from what the communities behind these distributions have to offer.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
alinefr
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 05 Jul 2009
Posts: 113
Location: São Paulo, Brasil

PostPosted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think it was 2006 or 2007, I got in love with FreeBSD. I used it for a couple of years but I had to give up when I bought a laptop, because of lack of hardware support. So I look around in the Linux world the closest distro from FreeBSD. Then I found Gentoo. I enjoyed at first but after a couple of months I got bored. The USE flags system was a mess. For every ebuild that we would build it required lots of tweaks in USE flags. The default didn't work. So every time you had to check flag by flag carefully and still, while building, a lot of things would break and you had to find out what was wrong. I think I did dive in the Gentoo world in the wrong time.

So I discovered Arch Linux. And I really enjoy it. One of the things I like was the simplicity. You could configure all your startup items in rc.conf. In the same way as FreeBSD, rc.conf was a place to configure the major aspects of the system. Very clean, easy and pretty. Pacman was fun, but also good was that we could be able to find anything we want in AUR. And if what we are looking for was not there we could easily create one. I had a couple of packages maintained in AUR, so I had the feeling that the distro was mine as well. I didn't have to depend all the time in someone else's work. But then things started to change. First, rc.conf had lost most of its properties. And then, systemd. I did install systemd, got it running for a couple of months but I was not happy at all. The things that made me enjoy Arch had gone away. So where would I go? I went to the old Debian world, as I had used for years (it was before it had switched to systemd). I did use it for a while but Debian was not the same. Debian Unstable at that time was not as Stable as use to be (yes, in 2003, 2004, Debian Unstable was more stable than most distros).

So when I bought a new laptop I felt encouraged to give to my new toy the best setup possible. I decided to try Gentoo again. One of the things that made me back to Gentoo was the distro's position on systemd. You could use it, but you don't have to. I found out this time that Gentoo is a lot more mature than the time I had used it. The USE flags now just works. It still gives you all the possible choice you could made about adding new features or removing things you don't want but the default usually just works. The community I think is one of the friendliest ones in the Linux world. Layman overlays acts like AUR, and also I could make my own overlay without hassle. I'm running Gentoo for a couple of years at this second time (maybe 3 or 4 years) and I don't think I will leave anytime soon. Except if something like the "Arch Linux systemd switch" happens here.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Amity88
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 03 Jul 2010
Posts: 260
Location: Third planet from the Sun

PostPosted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@alinefr,
By the looks of it, SystemD might just eventually force every distro into using it. It's assimilating so much extra stuff that it'll be only time before it becomes an unavoidable dependency of some package we need. I'm curious about what your plans are when that happens. The BSDs are mostly out of the question because of poor hardware support
_________________
Ant P. wrote:
The enterprise distros sell their binaries. Canonical sells their users.


Also... Be ignorant... Be happy! :)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
jonathan183
Guru
Guru


Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 318

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Amity88 wrote:
By the looks of it, SystemD might just eventually force every distro into using it.

If Gentoo gets to the point where using it without systemd becomes a real problem then Funtoo would be next on the list for me ...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54096
Location: 56N 3W

PostPosted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 5:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

jonathan183,

If Gentoo can't keep systemd out, Funtoo won't be far behind. They have less resource than Gentoo.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
jonathan183
Guru
Guru


Joined: 13 Dec 2011
Posts: 318

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 12:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

NeddySeagoon wrote:
jonathan183,

If Gentoo can't keep systemd out, Funtoo won't be far behind. They have less resource than Gentoo.


maybe I am getting false hope from things like http://www.funtoo.org/Mitigating_Systemd ...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
unixlike
n00b
n00b


Joined: 18 Dec 2016
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 11:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That mitigating systemd page is 2 years old. I also believe that funtoo's future is closely tied to gentoo's. But funtoo also has flops, right? if they believe in tht, they should stick to their flops and one such flop (funtoo linux optimization proposal) is funtoo systemd-free.

I am noob enough to see flame wars as interesting topics. I have never used arch so I am in no man's land. I am more pragmatic than most, I guess, but my belief is that I'm not alone. One reason I read gentoo forums beside the fact that people like Neddy are still lurking such places, is their anti-systemd threads.

In late 90s, I was the kid with 3 or 4 boxes of 1.44mb floppy disks that was gathering infos about the opensource world. The only linux discussed in the local magazines and featured on their cds was red hat. Even now I am interested in rhel and I like to stay current with their pdf manuals, system administration lessons and topics and even their technology preview materials.

I was using a proprietary os back then because I didn't have a net connection and I stupidly believed that using a bsd or a linux distribution was cool only with a permanent connection to internet. I tried to be well informed while offline. Once I got net in 2005, my distro hopping pathway adventure began: slackware 10.2 (for lilo+reiserfsroot) - freebsd (found about jails) - gentoo (found that I have to install it from stage1 + only place that talked about different disks multi swap same priority and thought that that's possible only in gentoo) - centos (learning + teamedup network interfaces + software raid + gnome2) - crux linux - dragonflybsd (hammer) (journey ended when both crux and dragonfly went 64bit only ; now I want to return to them) - funtoo (because daniel robbins is back and because there were stage3 tars already tailored exactly for my very old cpus) - linux from scratch - alpine linux - suckless and plan9 - alpine linux (musl) - linux from scratch - retro linux software distribution ver2 by dimkr - openbsd (for bioctl softraid and new rcctl) - suckless stali.

I am not scared of systemd and I hope many will switch to it already. When I got interested in these distros there was a chart. I am not kidding, a chart that listed a few very old distros back in the 90s that had a unix-like characteristic, there were distros that were unix like and there were distros that were even more unix-like. I never touched debian and i never touched arch although there was starch, a statically linked arch that interested me but it died before I got the chance to see what's like. When people say that there are bsds that will probably addopt systemd, my notsoinformed thought goes straight to freebsd and pcbsd. Pcbsd since their rename to trueos, screams basically for systemd and this is just my opinion, a noob. I don't think systemd will change my world. Why? because my world was and still is unixlike and kiss and there is no point to adapt to something less unixlike than what I wanted to use back in the days.

edit:warning, highly opinionated individual; unixlike as in what unix should have been as opposed to multics, there are flaws in all the unixlike oses, I am stupid enough to believe that my unixlike term is an aspirational one.


Last edited by unixlike on Tue Dec 20, 2016 9:17 pm; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeddySeagoon
Administrator
Administrator


Joined: 05 Jul 2003
Posts: 54096
Location: 56N 3W

PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2016 11:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

unixlike,

Welcome to Gentoo. This chart?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Amity88
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 03 Jul 2010
Posts: 260
Location: Third planet from the Sun

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 4:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

@Unixlike,
First of all, welcome to Gentoo!

unixlike wrote:
I never touched debian and i never touched arch although there was starch, a statically linked arch that interested me but it died before I got the chance to see what's like.

If you've used *buntu or Mint, think of Debian as a version of those with a lag of few years and much better stability. This is why it was surprising when they adopted SysD.

Arch is similar to Gentoo but things install fast cause they're all binary. I never really bothered to learn the intricacies of Arch cause I'm more used to Gentoo when it comes to rolling-release distros. I can configure it faster.

unixlike wrote:

When people say that there are bsds that will probably addopt systemd, my notsoinformed thought goes straight to freebsd and pcbsd. Pcbsd since their rename to trueos, screams basically for systemd

I didn't know that PC-BSD got renamed. As far as I know, the *BSDs are only planning to port the init equivalent part of SysD, not the whole damn SystemD operating system.

Sorry to lint-pick but why do you encourage SysD adoption when you yourself prefer not to? seems like a contradiction to me.

unixlike wrote:

I am not scared of systemd and I hope many will switch to it already.


unixlike wrote:

I don't think systemd will change my world. Why? because my world was and still is unixlike and kiss and there is no point to adapt to something less unixlike than what I wanted to use back in the days.


On a closing note, I did play around with SysD a few years back when it was just an init system as it claimed to be. Unlike back then, I hate it a lot these days and that is not because it's replacing init but because it's being forced-fed. It seems to be designed to get entrenched and its internals are intentionally hard to decipher. If you think of the flame-wars of old, there was always a choice. Here they're trying to actively become the only choice. Have a read through the other thread in this forum, there is a lot more information there.
_________________
Ant P. wrote:
The enterprise distros sell their binaries. Canonical sells their users.


Also... Be ignorant... Be happy! :)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
unixlike
n00b
n00b


Joined: 18 Dec 2016
Posts: 4

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It wasn't a phylogenetic graph, it was a crude double headed arrow pointing to less unixlike in the lleft and to more unixlike in the right. Many flavours, all ship the linux kernel and 80-90% of the packages are the same, but some are a closer resemblance of unix rather than a closer resemblance to some other linux distribution. People were posting it to make others know their place, since there were countless flame wars on forums. Debian was less unixlike than Slackware and this chart is what I remembered @debian-systemd-adoption. What I want to highlight is that unixlike was a tunable that was taking values from 0 to 255 and back then this word was a Star of Bethlehem and for me unixlike remains valid, a sane atribute.

It is more like an escalator these days and not a double headed arrow, everything moving to left and less unixlike, the items in the left at a greater speed while some of the items in the right are so far into the right that they seem motionless. I don't believe in extinction. Crying for those, that adopted it, is futile, since it's a cry for disappointment, a cry for what one thought something is but it turned out it's not. I'm in here to use something that is closer to unix, not to make a pro or anti campain. The faster they adopt it, the bigger the chance for smaller projects to grow (it seems that all the projects I care for these days are obscure at best for many). The faster they adopt it the sooner the formation of groups in which I'll feel represented. The faster they adopt it, the more interesting it becomes, considering that while cooking for myself, I keep an eye on their el7 frying pan and I've been doing it ever since red hat and suse were the only things featured in the magazines of the late 90s. I like the fact that there are some that get to hold the cover. Good things come the hard way. Linux is everywhere, I'm not as interested as I used to be. Arch linux wasn't for me because things like CRUX were much more unixlike at that time from my point of view. Well, CRUX won't adopt systemd so I was right again.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
irenicus09
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 07 Jun 2013
Posts: 118

PostPosted: Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@NeddySeagoon: For a second I lost my mind when I couldn't find Gentoo in that chart :P

Interesting chart, thanks for the share.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
alphaomega325
n00b
n00b


Joined: 02 Jan 2017
Posts: 42

PostPosted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 4:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just migrated from arch on my desktop machine, and once I understood how to use portage and use flags I am loving gentoo so far. But I will probably keep arch on my laptop due to the fact that I basically designated my laptop as my school computer and I want it to be as reliable as possible while I am learning on how to fully use gentoo.

Although I do have one thing to add. A thank you to the team who are behind the gentoolkit project for without you I would have probably migrated back to arch.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
hariskar
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 29 Jan 2017
Posts: 168

PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 6:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I came from Arch 2-3 weeks ago. I was using Arch the last 3-4 years and switched because I wanted to try a source based distro. I like a lot Gentoo so far, what I want to understand is if the increased maintenance time/effort needed by Gentoo is worth the effort for my needs and system.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
fcl
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 31 Dec 2016
Posts: 77

PostPosted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 11:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hariskar wrote:
I came from Arch 2-3 weeks ago. I was using Arch the last 3-4 years and switched because I wanted to try a source based distro. I like a lot Gentoo so far, what I want to understand is if the increased maintenance time/effort needed by Gentoo is worth the effort for my needs and system.

Gentoo can be high maintenance but it doesn't have to be. It all depends on how much you want to customize your setup. If you simply use a desktop profile and go with the defaults you can generally get away by updating @world once a week or every two weeks and be done with it. That will take from 5 minutes to hours in worst case (but you can continue to use the system while it's happening in the background, big deal).
Then again you can use a plain non-desktop profile, set -* to all USE flags in make.conf and fine tune everything yourself. If so it can get pretty high maintenance but hey, you can do it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
hariskar
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 29 Jan 2017
Posts: 168

PostPosted: Tue Feb 28, 2017 5:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

fcl, thank you! That is the impression I have till now!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Amputaatio
n00b
n00b


Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 6

PostPosted: Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im a linux newbie.

I just started using Linux two weeks ago. I had all kinds of issues installing linux with a USB drive because my Windows system would not even detect it no matter how many different guides I followed. I tried multiple distros but had no luck detecting them on my laptop. Even if I got lucky it would only allow me to write and format the memory on my flash drive. I gave up on using USB drives, I started trying to use Gentoo and Arch Linux on burned CD's and neither worked. Eventually I found the the Debian "Non Free" ISO on a burned CD and that booted up easily no problem on my laptop so I installed Debian Stable. I like the system and it updates well and I have gone over the features. I am dissapointed though with how I can't get newer software I am looking for on my system. I thought about using Debian unstable. The problem with that though is on the download page it says it is not supported by their security team. It seems they only have an interest in doing security testing for Debian Stable. The security auditing on Debian Stable is very nice, but I want to have faster and more updated software quicker.
To me it seemed that Arch Linux had more esteem for faster software but I was curious on a lot of their security implementations. I did a little bit of reading and saw that they have an active security team that works on Arch Linux to actively maintain it. This would probaly be a selling point for me if I care about having extremely fast updates with less user functionality like you would on Gentoo.


Thankfully the USB drive for Gentoo worked perfectly for installing on my Desktop.
Gentoo seems to be extremely intelligent with how it handles security and I love the way I can control certain things with it. I probaly will stick with learning Gentoo. I might play around with Arch Linux after I feel very comfortable with running Gentoo. Reading on the support page from Gentoo "Security is a primary focus of Gentoo Linux and ensuring the confidentiality and security of our users machines is of utmost importance to us." is music to my ears!
I have installed Gentoo and have been playing around with it and seem very impressed with the amount of control and features at hand. Gentoo seems to give you software extremely quick as well and I don't care about having the most bleeding edge software. I just wanted newer updates not too far behind. After I play around with Gentoo I highly doubt I will ever fully switch to Arch Linux anyway. I have a bit of rebelliousness inside of me I guess because even If I don't need to constantly use all of Gentoo's features everyday I still like knowing that the option is there for me. Knowing I am running a system where I can't control everything would bug me too much. I grew so tired of Windows for a reason with how I had little control and never want to back to feeling like I am in software jail.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zucca
Moderator
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Posts: 3310
Location: Rasi, Finland

PostPosted: Thu Mar 09, 2017 12:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Amputaatio, welcome to Gentoo!
I started my Linux journey with Gentoo, but I ran Arch few years kinda "out of curiosity". But I'm back now.

Assuming, based on your user name, you're a finn: tervetuloa.
_________________
..: Zucca :..
Gentoo IRC channels reside on Libera.Chat.
--
Quote:
I am NaN! I am a man!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Amputaatio
n00b
n00b


Joined: 03 Mar 2017
Posts: 6

PostPosted: Fri Mar 10, 2017 2:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Zucca wrote:
Amputaatio, welcome to Gentoo!
I started my Linux journey with Gentoo, but I ran Arch few years kinda "out of curiosity". But I'm back now.

Assuming, based on your user name, you're a finn: tervetuloa.


Nah just a big fan of Finnish underground music culture. Cheers!

Yeah I ran debian for about a week and configured everything I wanted and said meh time to get my hands dirty. :P
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ScOut3R
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 29 Apr 2005
Posts: 116
Location: Australia

PostPosted: Fri Jul 07, 2017 8:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's nothing like installing Gentoo from Arch Linux. :wink:

As others before me have already stated it's like arriving home. I used Gentoo for years, but that was more than 8 years ago. It was and still is my favourite, alongside Slackware. How I ended up with Arch for the past year I have no idea. I guess I wanted something simple that is not Ubuntu/Debian, but it never occured to me how simple Gentoo really is.

One other thing already pointed out is that how much faster compilation has become. I still remember my first go with Gentoo on a Pentium 2. I had my full system up and running in mere hours today. Just a few more tweaks left with the fonts then I'm set for life.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
stefan.jp
n00b
n00b


Joined: 11 Jul 2017
Posts: 1

PostPosted: Tue Jul 11, 2017 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just moved from Arch as well (well, technically it was Manjaro this time but I "converted" it to vanilla Arch, and finally had to go through the hassle of removing systemd and migrating to OpenRC).

Lately, the system was behaving rather badly, with frequent almost-quadratic rate of load average growth, and I couldn't diagnose it, tried a lot of things but nothing seemed to work. I felt the system was bloated and I didn't have enough control over it. Probably my fault though, for using Manjaro in the first place, but yeah. Was irritated by the lack of official support and the hassle of keeping it systemd-free. I wanted to refresh my rusty Linux Fu. Besides, Gentoo is in many ways BSD-like, and I am a huge fan of *BSD. Currently in the middle of building KVM into the kernel so I can virtualize FreeBSD and go through this.

Going to Gentoo now feels like the first time I tried Arch. So refreshing and exciting. :) :D
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Gentoo Chat All times are GMT
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 10, 11, 12, 13  Next
Page 11 of 13

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum