6 ms·

Probably switching from macOs to Arch Linux soon myself

bogomipz 10y ago
I'd be curious if you are looking at laptops which ones you are looking at to run Arch on as a replacement. I'm in a similar boat.
- hossbeast 10y ago
  I'm a big fan of the Dell XPS laptops for this use case.
bobsam 10y ago
Why is arch so popular among switchers? It is not very user friendly and requires manual work to set up unlike, say, ubuntu
- eptcyka 10y ago
  Whilst it may not be easy to setup (but I'd argue it's more tedious than hard), it gets out of your way once it's up and running. And, since it's rolling and not release based, once it's setup, you barely ever have to change anything about it. At least that is why I've chosen to use arch. Well, that and recent GCC releases.
  - domenukk 10y ago
    Everytime you upgrade you should check their webpage before, since they sometimes decide to move folders around or break things... Not really out of the way there. (I've been using it for months before I decided it was not for me. Or was it the other way round?)
- mod 10y ago
  As a developer, I find arch slightly more friendly. Trying to get recent versions of development packages like ruby, java, npm, etc--can be a bitch on Ubuntu, where the repositories lag years behind arch.
  - willtim 10y ago
    If you're a developer, make sure you check out NixOS. The ability to install different versions/builds of libraries and packages side-by-side safely and without containers is a huge win. I typically pin my base system at a stable release, using rolling releases for desktop and dev packages (which is possible even if different versions of libc are needed).
- asamarin 10y ago
  For me, three reasons: - Pacman (with pacaur on top of it) - The Arch Wiki - Bleeding-edge software
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  After the initial setup, (which BTW is extremely well documented on the wiki), Arch is actually super user friendly. Compared to Ubuntu, you always get the latest software, never have to reinstall, aur has more esoteric software and pacman is faster than apt.
  - johnny22 10y ago
    do you really still have to reinstall Ubuntu on upgrades? or are you using reinstall in a more figurative sense? I use Fedora, and the upgrade process tends to work. I remember there was a time when Ubuntu wasn't so great at upgrades in various situations, but I'd hoped that sort of thing would be fixed by now.
    - AsyncAwait 10y ago
      The Ubuntu upgrade process is still fairly broken if you have anything outside of the default install, but I am glad to hear that it works well enough on Fedora.
Asooka 10y ago
I use Arch myself, but at this point I'm absolutely convinced I do so only because I'm a masochist. I work as a C++ dev on a large multiplatform project and from what I've observed there is almost nothing that Linux does better than Windows for a person looking to do work on his computer. The only two things I would miss if I switched to Windows right now are rr (Mozilla's record and replay debugger) and ccache. Linux can definitely fare better as a server OS, allowing you to hit higher concurrent connections, etc. But while it has a strong focus as far as providing a fast and robust platform, it completely lacks any focus, coherence and direction in being a tool used by humans, i.e. a Desktop OS. I kind of like dealing with it and make good money doing so, but I would never recommend anyone switch to Linux. At this point it's a bit like that old joke about Stroustrup making C++ complicated because C was too easy and the jobs didn't pay enough - if I wasn't 100% certain of the sheer hubris present in everyone involved, I'd chalk up all the problems to "we want to minimize the number of Linux devs so they can be higher paid". Note, I'm not calling anyone stupid - all the people involved are highly intelligent, but it works out like that experiment where you get 100 monkeys banging randomly at typewriters to produce the works of Shakespeare; except here the monkeys are professors with PhDs in literature, each of which has a different, very well thought-out idea of how best to fix it. Then some poor sods bundle it all up and you get Fedorio and Debliet with instructions on the cover like "if you want to read about Romeo's sidequest of slaying a dragon, turn to page 1257" and a few of the pages are blank so you can stitch up the story in exactly the way you want it. Some people like that. The rest of you, please save your sanity, just go to the library and check out Winter's Tale or Macbeth.
- simion314 10y ago
  My suggestion is to install Ubuntu or a derivative, and for development you should use VMs or containers to keep your system clean, if you use VM then you can move your dev setup to a different OS too. Because you can copy paste commands from Arch wiki and install Arch does not mean you should do it or make you a experienced/advanced Linux user.
  - willtim 10y ago
    NixOS is also a lightweight alternative to containers.

I'd be curious if you are looking at laptops which ones you are looking at to run Arch on as a replacement. I'm in a similar boat.

hossbeast 10y ago
I'm a big fan of the Dell XPS laptops for this use case.

bobsam 10y ago

Why is arch so popular among switchers? It is not very user friendly and requires manual work to set up unlike, say, ubuntu

eptcyka 10y ago
Whilst it may not be easy to setup (but I'd argue it's more tedious than hard), it gets out of your way once it's up and running. And, since it's rolling and not release based, once it's setup, you barely ever have to change anything about it. At least that is why I've chosen to use arch. Well, that and recent GCC releases.
- domenukk 10y ago
  Everytime you upgrade you should check their webpage before, since they sometimes decide to move folders around or break things... Not really out of the way there. (I've been using it for months before I decided it was not for me. Or was it the other way round?)
mod 10y ago
As a developer, I find arch slightly more friendly. Trying to get recent versions of development packages like ruby, java, npm, etc--can be a bitch on Ubuntu, where the repositories lag years behind arch.
- willtim 10y ago
  If you're a developer, make sure you check out NixOS. The ability to install different versions/builds of libraries and packages side-by-side safely and without containers is a huge win. I typically pin my base system at a stable release, using rolling releases for desktop and dev packages (which is possible even if different versions of libc are needed).
asamarin 10y ago
For me, three reasons: - Pacman (with pacaur on top of it) - The Arch Wiki - Bleeding-edge software
AsyncAwait 10y ago
After the initial setup, (which BTW is extremely well documented on the wiki), Arch is actually super user friendly. Compared to Ubuntu, you always get the latest software, never have to reinstall, aur has more esoteric software and pacman is faster than apt.
- johnny22 10y ago
  do you really still have to reinstall Ubuntu on upgrades? or are you using reinstall in a more figurative sense? I use Fedora, and the upgrade process tends to work. I remember there was a time when Ubuntu wasn't so great at upgrades in various situations, but I'd hoped that sort of thing would be fixed by now.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    The Ubuntu upgrade process is still fairly broken if you have anything outside of the default install, but I am glad to hear that it works well enough on Fedora.

Asooka 10y ago

I use Arch myself, but at this point I'm absolutely convinced I do so only because I'm a masochist. I work as a C++ dev on a large multiplatform project and from what I've observed there is almost nothing that Linux does better than Windows for a person looking to do work on his computer. The only two things I would miss if I switched to Windows right now are rr (Mozilla's record and replay debugger) and ccache. Linux can definitely fare better as a server OS, allowing you to hit higher concurrent connections, etc. But while it has a strong focus as far as providing a fast and robust platform, it completely lacks any focus, coherence and direction in being a tool used by humans, i.e. a Desktop OS. I kind of like dealing with it and make good money doing so, but I would never recommend anyone switch to Linux. At this point it's a bit like that old joke about Stroustrup making C++ complicated because C was too easy and the jobs didn't pay enough - if I wasn't 100% certain of the sheer hubris present in everyone involved, I'd chalk up all the problems to "we want to minimize the number of Linux devs so they can be higher paid". Note, I'm not calling anyone stupid - all the people involved are highly intelligent, but it works out like that experiment where you get 100 monkeys banging randomly at typewriters to produce the works of Shakespeare; except here the monkeys are professors with PhDs in literature, each of which has a different, very well thought-out idea of how best to fix it. Then some poor sods bundle it all up and you get Fedorio and Debliet with instructions on the cover like "if you want to read about Romeo's sidequest of slaying a dragon, turn to page 1257" and a few of the pages are blank so you can stitch up the story in exactly the way you want it. Some people like that. The rest of you, please save your sanity, just go to the library and check out Winter's Tale or Macbeth.

simion314 10y ago
My suggestion is to install Ubuntu or a derivative, and for development you should use VMs or containers to keep your system clean, if you use VM then you can move your dev setup to a different OS too. Because you can copy paste commands from Arch wiki and install Arch does not mean you should do it or make you a experienced/advanced Linux user.
- willtim 10y ago
  NixOS is also a lightweight alternative to containers.