4 ms·

What do you use? I have tried this multiple times and always give up. I ran FreeBSD for a decade as a server in a datacentre and have a deep and abiding love fo

by vr46 6y ago

What do you use? I have tried this multiple times and always give up. I ran FreeBSD for a decade as a server in a datacentre and have a deep and abiding love for it, but it doesn't sound it makes a usable desktop these days. Ubuntu appears to be the desktop of choice, but I find it buggy, sluggish and tedious. I'd like a practical and speedy OS that is responsive and configurable. But I don't know enough :)

johnmaguire2013 6y ago
If you're comfortable reading docs and starting from the command line, Arch is the hands down winner IMO. Rolling release distro means everything is up-to-date. AUR is packed with anything you could wish for. The Arch wiki is indispensable.
aaomidi 6y ago
Not OP but I do recommend PopOS. It's worked really well for me. The sluggish performance you're getting is honestly probably related to CFS (the default linux process scheduler). Windows does an AMAZING job with scheduling for UI applications. You almost never feel like your computer is struggling because anything UI related gets scheduled first. CFS does not do this. I've found that changing the scheduler to something that may be less efficient overall, but is aimed at desktop use makes my experience so much better.
- tomwojcik 6y ago
  +1 for PopOS. I used to run Manjaro for ~3 years but then I managed to break it. After that I switched to PopOS. Couldnt be happier after over 4 years of using it.
- anderspitman 6y ago
  Never heard of Pop before today. Looks cool. Love the built-in tiling functionality. Do they use a different scheduler by default?
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Unfortunately they do not. I did end up just installing Xanmod.
- vr46 6y ago
  Looks great. Let me try Arch this weekend and then give PopOS a try.
anderspitman 6y ago
I use Arch. I love it and I think it's gotten a easier to install over the years (hard to gauge because I also understand more), but it does lean towards the minimalist side. The big win for me is using a lightweight window manager (i3 in my case), which you can do with any distro. My main recommendation is stick with one of the major distros because you'll get more results when you search for solutions to issues. With Ubuntu you'll find more hits for specific problems, but I think the quality is also sometimes lower. Whereas I think Arch has the best documentation (for linux in general, not just Arch) but in general you'll need to understand more about what's happening under the hood.
- veddox 6y ago
  How often do you run into packaging problems? As in, you need some software but it‘s only available for Linux via the Ubuntu repos?
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    Rarely. I think between the official repositories and the AUR, there's probably more useful, updated software than is available for Ubuntu. Granted, I probably use less programs than most people, and I'm the type of person who would rather download the nodejs tarball and update my PATH than use the system package or nvm.
  - johnmaguire2013 6y ago
    I more often run into this issue on Debian-based distros than on Arch, due to the Arch User Repository (AUR).
- vr46 6y ago
  Sold, on all counts. I have an MBA 2012 running Ubuntu that will be trashed this weekend in favour of Arch.
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    One of my favorite things about Arch is booting up a fresh install and seeing something like 10 processes running and a tiny amount of memory being used (granted that might be archlinuxarm I'm remembering). It feels like a blank canvas.
gentleman11 6y ago
The sluggish performance you get is from gnome (the user interface/desktop environment that Ubuntu defaults to). Every 6 months there is an update that noticeably improves things. If you don’t want to wait for it to be totally smother out, check out another desktop environment like xfce or plasma. Try plasma first since it’s got prettier visuals, but I like the simplicity of xfce (honestly, I rather enjoy gnome so use that most of the time)
nix23 6y ago
All my Servers are FreeBSD too, but on the Laptop (because of wireless) i have now openSuse Tumbleweed but with the XFS Filesystem. It's fast and reliable, but to be honest i just need a Terminal, mosh/ssh, mpv, uemacs, Firefox, Wine(for MM VI) and Dosbox on it.
jlkuester7 6y ago
I have been really happy with Manjaro (the Gnome variant). Based on Arch (love the AUR), but easier to setup (more opinionated out of the box). Honestly the dark theme of the Gnome variant is the most beautiful dark theme I have ever found for a Linux DE. I know there are lots of ways to tweak the various DEs to get some cool looking dark themes, but my experience is that they can take a lot of manual configuring and tend to still fail on the edge cases. The dark theme bundled with Manjaro Gnome looks amazing right out of the box!

by vr46 6y ago

johnmaguire2013 6y ago

If you're comfortable reading docs and starting from the command line, Arch is the hands down winner IMO. Rolling release distro means everything is up-to-date. AUR is packed with anything you could wish for. The Arch wiki is indispensable.

aaomidi 6y ago

Not OP but I do recommend PopOS. It's worked really well for me. The sluggish performance you're getting is honestly probably related to CFS (the default linux process scheduler). Windows does an AMAZING job with scheduling for UI applications. You almost never feel like your computer is struggling because anything UI related gets scheduled first. CFS does not do this. I've found that changing the scheduler to something that may be less efficient overall, but is aimed at desktop use makes my experience so much better.

tomwojcik 6y ago
+1 for PopOS. I used to run Manjaro for ~3 years but then I managed to break it. After that I switched to PopOS. Couldnt be happier after over 4 years of using it.
anderspitman 6y ago
Never heard of Pop before today. Looks cool. Love the built-in tiling functionality. Do they use a different scheduler by default?
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Unfortunately they do not. I did end up just installing Xanmod.
vr46 6y ago
Looks great. Let me try Arch this weekend and then give PopOS a try.

anderspitman 6y ago

I use Arch. I love it and I think it's gotten a easier to install over the years (hard to gauge because I also understand more), but it does lean towards the minimalist side. The big win for me is using a lightweight window manager (i3 in my case), which you can do with any distro. My main recommendation is stick with one of the major distros because you'll get more results when you search for solutions to issues. With Ubuntu you'll find more hits for specific problems, but I think the quality is also sometimes lower. Whereas I think Arch has the best documentation (for linux in general, not just Arch) but in general you'll need to understand more about what's happening under the hood.

veddox 6y ago
How often do you run into packaging problems? As in, you need some software but it‘s only available for Linux via the Ubuntu repos?
- anderspitman 6y ago
  Rarely. I think between the official repositories and the AUR, there's probably more useful, updated software than is available for Ubuntu. Granted, I probably use less programs than most people, and I'm the type of person who would rather download the nodejs tarball and update my PATH than use the system package or nvm.
- johnmaguire2013 6y ago
  I more often run into this issue on Debian-based distros than on Arch, due to the Arch User Repository (AUR).
vr46 6y ago
Sold, on all counts. I have an MBA 2012 running Ubuntu that will be trashed this weekend in favour of Arch.
- anderspitman 6y ago
  One of my favorite things about Arch is booting up a fresh install and seeing something like 10 processes running and a tiny amount of memory being used (granted that might be archlinuxarm I'm remembering). It feels like a blank canvas.

gentleman11 6y ago

The sluggish performance you get is from gnome (the user interface/desktop environment that Ubuntu defaults to). Every 6 months there is an update that noticeably improves things. If you don’t want to wait for it to be totally smother out, check out another desktop environment like xfce or plasma. Try plasma first since it’s got prettier visuals, but I like the simplicity of xfce (honestly, I rather enjoy gnome so use that most of the time)

nix23 6y ago

All my Servers are FreeBSD too, but on the Laptop (because of wireless) i have now openSuse Tumbleweed but with the XFS Filesystem. It's fast and reliable, but to be honest i just need a Terminal, mosh/ssh, mpv, uemacs, Firefox, Wine(for MM VI) and Dosbox on it.

jlkuester7 6y ago

I have been really happy with Manjaro (the Gnome variant). Based on Arch (love the AUR), but easier to setup (more opinionated out of the box). Honestly the dark theme of the Gnome variant is the most beautiful dark theme I have ever found for a Linux DE. I know there are lots of ways to tweak the various DEs to get some cool looking dark themes, but my experience is that they can take a lot of manual configuring and tend to still fail on the edge cases. The dark theme bundled with Manjaro Gnome looks amazing right out of the box!