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> Maybe this all marks me as fallen from the ranks of the Linux cognoscenti, but I don't care. I just want to get on with my life. In the same way that I see a

> Maybe this all marks me as fallen from the ranks of the Linux cognoscenti, but I don't care. I just want to get on with my life. In the same way that I see a lot of people gush about Mac OS, Mint simply gets out of my way and lets me get on with stuff I actually want/need to do. Interesting -- this is what I would say about Arch. I switched to Arch right after the systemd transition, so I'm sure I missed a big opportunity for breakage. But in those four years I've barely had to think about system administration, beyond routinely running pacman -Syu. I used to have to do a fresh install every six months when a new Fedora would break everything. I don't think this makes me a member of the cognoscenti at all, and I think the whole "Arch is for the l33t" meme is wildly inaccurate. Arch is by far the easiest distro I've ever used.

AsyncAwait 9y ago
> I switched to Arch right after the systemd transition, so I'm sure I missed a big opportunity for breakage. I experienced that transition and while you had to read the wiki somewhat carefully, I remember being a bit 'disappointed' afterwards as to how smooth/uneventful it was, it sounded way more scary than it actually was.
- saimiam 9y ago
  Well, just yesterday, I had to go back a release from Ubuntu 17.04 to 16.04 because of some oscure DNS related systemd-resolved bug which I spent all day trying to fix. Mind you, this bug has been under active discussion for a while now. Since my 16.04 server is just a day old now, I'm thinking I'll bite the bullet and switch to a troublefree distro recommended in this thread. (Not a Linux cognoscenti.)
  - traverseda 9y ago
    Huh, I had to do the same thing yesterday. Interesting coincidence. Did you add DNSSEC=no to /etc/systemd/resolved.conf? That fixed the problem I had yesterday, which is probably a different problem.
    - saimiam 9y ago
      I did but that didn't work for me. Btw, were you on a Linode in a southern US city? - I changed DNSSEC to NO. - I had DNSmasq running which was apparently blocking systemd-resolved from binding to 127.0.0.1.53#53. I first changed dnsmasq's port to 5300 from 53 and then killed dnsmasq but that didn't solve the issue either. 3. I manually linked resolv.conf to a non standard location which I hand edited to contain the name servers I wanted my server to use - didn't work.
discreditable 9y ago
> I switched to Arch right after the systemd transition, so I'm sure I missed a big opportunity for breakage. I've had a server running for several years on Arch. The systemd transition wasn't bad. I didn't have any custom init scripts to migrate, so it was mostly update & reboot. Arch is a great install once and update forever system. I even migrated my install in-place from x86 to amd64 after upgrading the CPU. There's a wiki article for it! https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_architectures https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_archi...
- sevensor 9y ago
  > I even migrated my install in-place from x86 to amd64 after upgrading the CPU My hat is off to you -- I would have guessed that wasn't possible!
  - bartkmq 9y ago
    I guess that's the magic of the Arch Wiki¹. Even if not using Arch I often find it far more useful and up-to-date than the wiki of my own distributions (Ubuntu and Manjaro). [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_architectures https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_archi...
    - earenndil 9y ago
      I know what you mean. Hell, I've even used arch wiki for freebsd!
  - stevekemp 9y ago
    I've done that a couple of times over the years, on Debian systems. Largely as a result of moving from UML->KVM. This is roughly the guide I followed, which has existed for a good few years. https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    On a multiarch distro, like Exherbo or Debian, you can switch architectures by cross compiling for the target arch. On Exherbo, after cross compiling, one only needs to change the /usr/host symlink and reboot.
KozmoNau7 9y ago
I thought Arch was easy, and then I tried an actual mature well thought out desktop distro ;-)
- adrusi 9y ago
  I tried Debian about a year ago hoping to share your insight, but I discovered that if I wanted to understand how to configure some piece of software, I had to look at both the Debian documentation and the upstream documentation for it, and I found that creating custom packages was harder, or at least harder to learn (when I made my first arch package, it took me less than an hour to figure out how ABS works, and packaging a deb seemed much more arcane). I stuck with it for a month, but ultimately found it to be an inferior experience.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    That's one of the reasons that I stick with the Ubuntu family. The community, and thus the support, is vast and easily discoverable. If you're curious, I prefer Lubuntu.
  - lomnakkus 9y ago
    That's one of the big selling points of Arch Linux for me, personally: They try their very best to avoid various custom patches, etc. This is probably also a big reason that the Arch Wiki is one of the greatest sources of information on configuring anything... for any distribution that doesn't fiddle too much with the upstream packages.
lunchables 9y ago
I agree, except for the installation. Manjaro I think would be a great compromise.
- kazagistar 9y ago
  For those who don't know, Manjaro is a distro based on arch with a full graphical installer and such. Easy to install Arch.
- nogbit 9y ago
  The community editions are great as well, Manjaro with i3 is fantastic. If you like vim you will love a tilling window manager.
- OtterCoder 9y ago
  Argh. I spent most of yesterday trying to set up a dual boot with Manjaro and nearly bricked my machine. It is really dependant on hardware I think.
  - mpwoz 9y ago
    Same! I've tried the community, kde, and xfce isos on a second drive and have yet to achieve a bootable system. I'll probably tinker with it a bit more this weekend since Manjaro sounds like the perfect distro for me, but I'm getting close to giving up :/
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    Installing Manjaro as a second OS and think bricking is a large possibility, I'd bet you have a UEFI install of Windows and used a crappy USB writer that doesn't allow for UEFI.
- saghm 9y ago
  Personally, I prefer dealing with Arch's installation process to other distros. Most graphical installers I've used are extraordinarily inflexible with filesystem options, e.g. dual-booting with full-disk encryption or full-disk-encryption with a non-ext4 filesystem.
kochthesecond 9y ago
The systemd transition was literally hell and nearly broke me. Took me nearly a year to go back to Arch. But I came back for how easy I can modify aur packages and still have them versioned by pacman.

AsyncAwait 9y ago

> I switched to Arch right after the systemd transition, so I'm sure I missed a big opportunity for breakage. I experienced that transition and while you had to read the wiki somewhat carefully, I remember being a bit 'disappointed' afterwards as to how smooth/uneventful it was, it sounded way more scary than it actually was.

saimiam 9y ago
Well, just yesterday, I had to go back a release from Ubuntu 17.04 to 16.04 because of some oscure DNS related systemd-resolved bug which I spent all day trying to fix. Mind you, this bug has been under active discussion for a while now. Since my 16.04 server is just a day old now, I'm thinking I'll bite the bullet and switch to a troublefree distro recommended in this thread. (Not a Linux cognoscenti.)
- traverseda 9y ago
  Huh, I had to do the same thing yesterday. Interesting coincidence. Did you add DNSSEC=no to /etc/systemd/resolved.conf? That fixed the problem I had yesterday, which is probably a different problem.
  - saimiam 9y ago
    I did but that didn't work for me. Btw, were you on a Linode in a southern US city? - I changed DNSSEC to NO. - I had DNSmasq running which was apparently blocking systemd-resolved from binding to 127.0.0.1.53#53. I first changed dnsmasq's port to 5300 from 53 and then killed dnsmasq but that didn't solve the issue either. 3. I manually linked resolv.conf to a non standard location which I hand edited to contain the name servers I wanted my server to use - didn't work.

discreditable 9y ago

> I switched to Arch right after the systemd transition, so I'm sure I missed a big opportunity for breakage. I've had a server running for several years on Arch. The systemd transition wasn't bad. I didn't have any custom init scripts to migrate, so it was mostly update & reboot. Arch is a great install once and update forever system. I even migrated my install in-place from x86 to amd64 after upgrading the CPU. There's a wiki article for it! https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_architectures https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_archi...

sevensor 9y ago
> I even migrated my install in-place from x86 to amd64 after upgrading the CPU My hat is off to you -- I would have guessed that wasn't possible!
- bartkmq 9y ago
  I guess that's the magic of the Arch Wiki¹. Even if not using Arch I often find it far more useful and up-to-date than the wiki of my own distributions (Ubuntu and Manjaro). [1]: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_architectures https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Migrating_between_archi...
  - earenndil 9y ago
    I know what you mean. Hell, I've even used arch wiki for freebsd!
- stevekemp 9y ago
  I've done that a couple of times over the years, on Debian systems. Largely as a result of moving from UML->KVM. This is roughly the guide I followed, which has existed for a good few years. https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit https://wiki.debian.org/Migrate32To64Bit
- tanderson92 9y ago
  On a multiarch distro, like Exherbo or Debian, you can switch architectures by cross compiling for the target arch. On Exherbo, after cross compiling, one only needs to change the /usr/host symlink and reboot.

KozmoNau7 9y ago

I thought Arch was easy, and then I tried an actual mature well thought out desktop distro ;-)

adrusi 9y ago
I tried Debian about a year ago hoping to share your insight, but I discovered that if I wanted to understand how to configure some piece of software, I had to look at both the Debian documentation and the upstream documentation for it, and I found that creating custom packages was harder, or at least harder to learn (when I made my first arch package, it took me less than an hour to figure out how ABS works, and packaging a deb seemed much more arcane). I stuck with it for a month, but ultimately found it to be an inferior experience.
- KGIII 9y ago
  That's one of the reasons that I stick with the Ubuntu family. The community, and thus the support, is vast and easily discoverable. If you're curious, I prefer Lubuntu.
- lomnakkus 9y ago
  That's one of the big selling points of Arch Linux for me, personally: They try their very best to avoid various custom patches, etc. This is probably also a big reason that the Arch Wiki is one of the greatest sources of information on configuring anything... for any distribution that doesn't fiddle too much with the upstream packages.

lunchables 9y ago

I agree, except for the installation. Manjaro I think would be a great compromise.

kazagistar 9y ago
For those who don't know, Manjaro is a distro based on arch with a full graphical installer and such. Easy to install Arch.
nogbit 9y ago
The community editions are great as well, Manjaro with i3 is fantastic. If you like vim you will love a tilling window manager.
OtterCoder 9y ago
Argh. I spent most of yesterday trying to set up a dual boot with Manjaro and nearly bricked my machine. It is really dependant on hardware I think.
- mpwoz 9y ago
  Same! I've tried the community, kde, and xfce isos on a second drive and have yet to achieve a bootable system. I'll probably tinker with it a bit more this weekend since Manjaro sounds like the perfect distro for me, but I'm getting close to giving up :/
- boomboomsubban 9y ago
  Installing Manjaro as a second OS and think bricking is a large possibility, I'd bet you have a UEFI install of Windows and used a crappy USB writer that doesn't allow for UEFI.
saghm 9y ago
Personally, I prefer dealing with Arch's installation process to other distros. Most graphical installers I've used are extraordinarily inflexible with filesystem options, e.g. dual-booting with full-disk encryption or full-disk-encryption with a non-ext4 filesystem.

kochthesecond 9y ago

The systemd transition was literally hell and nearly broke me. Took me nearly a year to go back to Arch. But I came back for how easy I can modify aur packages and still have them versioned by pacman.