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You can't really compare Arch to Gentoo really. Arch's goal is to keep it simple which they do via a extremely robust, but easy to understand package format. It

You can't really compare Arch to Gentoo really. Arch's goal is to keep it simple which they do via a extremely robust, but easy to understand package format. It takes almost no time to create a new package and submit it to the AUR. I can get the latest version of almost any piece of software I want with Arch between their standard package repo and the AUR. I can upload a small PKGBUILD easy-to-understand text file and create a package from it. Yum on the other hand is tedious to maintain. That is why RHEL and CentOS are often years behind stable packages in their repos, and using a two-year old kernel.

MertsA 6y ago
As someone who uses Arch as a daily driver and has spent plenty of time messing around with rpmbuild I disagree with your claim that yum (RPMs) is tedious to maintain. RHEL and CentOS are behind on software releases because they actually freeze functionality when they make a release and updates within a release will not upgrade to the latest and greatest major release of that software. They tediously backport bug fixes and security patches to keep the old version up to date and only upgrade to the latest and greatest when a new release comes around years later. Arch is just a rolling release, it's basically the equivalent of running Rawhide but waiting for a couple weeks to install updates. RedHat spends more effort supporting the old versions that they ship than just following upstream. The whole point of an enterprise distro with long term releases is that they don't do any of those major updates to add features between releases. I can install CentOS and not worry that an update is going to suddenly change how a package works. Just look at https://www.archlinux.org/news/ https://www.archlinux.org/news/, most of those almost bi-weekly news entries are stuff that I don't need to sweat on CentOS because they won't make any changes like that between releases.
- smitty1e 6y ago
  RHEL and CentOS make great sense in the office, where we do NOT want to waste time faffing about with the configuration. All of that is moved to the package manager. You will NOT use the walrus operator in python until the distro supports it. When I want to live closer to the edge, and get the latest QGIS going, Arch and AUR are there for me.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> Yum on the other hand is tedious to maintain. That is why RHEL and CentOS are often years behind stable packages in their repos, and using a two-year old kernel. No it's not. Red Hat is quite capable of packaging any version they want, but the whole point of RHEL is stability (read: no changes for years). Fedora Rawhide is bleeding edge on RPMs, if that's your speed.
- chungy 6y ago
  Absolutely. RHEL and CentOS are "years behind" because it is their mission to supply a stable distro; stability in this context meaning in the ABI at foremost. You can install a kernel driver via RPM that is years old, and as long as it's targeted to your RHEL version, it's supposed to just work. Same with every other application you might install. Fedora provides the rapid-release as well as rolling-release equivalent of RHEL; Fedora is the upstream for RHEL after all. Debian does much the same with the split between stable and unstable.
ognarb 6y ago
I use openSUSE tumbleweed with Krypton and I get always up to date package and my Plasma/KDE applications setup is in sync with git master. So I don't think the reason RHEL and CentOS are behind by years is because of th RPM format.
- techntoke 6y ago
  Have you taken a look at the AUR? I guarantee you there are several packages missing that you won't find with openSUSE and building those packages is significantly more challenging initially and in order to maintain and update than with Arch.

MertsA 6y ago

As someone who uses Arch as a daily driver and has spent plenty of time messing around with rpmbuild I disagree with your claim that yum (RPMs) is tedious to maintain. RHEL and CentOS are behind on software releases because they actually freeze functionality when they make a release and updates within a release will not upgrade to the latest and greatest major release of that software. They tediously backport bug fixes and security patches to keep the old version up to date and only upgrade to the latest and greatest when a new release comes around years later. Arch is just a rolling release, it's basically the equivalent of running Rawhide but waiting for a couple weeks to install updates. RedHat spends more effort supporting the old versions that they ship than just following upstream. The whole point of an enterprise distro with long term releases is that they don't do any of those major updates to add features between releases. I can install CentOS and not worry that an update is going to suddenly change how a package works. Just look at https://www.archlinux.org/news/ https://www.archlinux.org/news/, most of those almost bi-weekly news entries are stuff that I don't need to sweat on CentOS because they won't make any changes like that between releases.

smitty1e 6y ago
RHEL and CentOS make great sense in the office, where we do NOT want to waste time faffing about with the configuration. All of that is moved to the package manager. You will NOT use the walrus operator in python until the distro supports it. When I want to live closer to the edge, and get the latest QGIS going, Arch and AUR are there for me.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

> Yum on the other hand is tedious to maintain. That is why RHEL and CentOS are often years behind stable packages in their repos, and using a two-year old kernel. No it's not. Red Hat is quite capable of packaging any version they want, but the whole point of RHEL is stability (read: no changes for years). Fedora Rawhide is bleeding edge on RPMs, if that's your speed.

chungy 6y ago
Absolutely. RHEL and CentOS are "years behind" because it is their mission to supply a stable distro; stability in this context meaning in the ABI at foremost. You can install a kernel driver via RPM that is years old, and as long as it's targeted to your RHEL version, it's supposed to just work. Same with every other application you might install. Fedora provides the rapid-release as well as rolling-release equivalent of RHEL; Fedora is the upstream for RHEL after all. Debian does much the same with the split between stable and unstable.

ognarb 6y ago

I use openSUSE tumbleweed with Krypton and I get always up to date package and my Plasma/KDE applications setup is in sync with git master. So I don't think the reason RHEL and CentOS are behind by years is because of th RPM format.

techntoke 6y ago
Have you taken a look at the AUR? I guarantee you there are several packages missing that you won't find with openSUSE and building those packages is significantly more challenging initially and in order to maintain and update than with Arch.