7 ms·

Arch Linux is much superior to Debian, imo.

by smabie 6y ago

rovr138 6y ago
Can you at least expand on why that's your opinion?
- nsajko 6y ago
  Up-to-dateness, no unnecessary distro-specific patching. EDIT: My comment was ambiguous, I didn't mean that there are no Archlinux-specific patches; rather that there's more of an effort with Archlinux to let upstream be upstream.
  - soraminazuki 6y ago
    No "unnecessary" patching, like seriously? I see so many patches in the Arch packages repo I can't even count them all: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=patch https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=patc... https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=sed https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=sed But putting that aside, all distros need huge amounts of patching to make each package get along with the rest of the system. Without patching, many of them won't even build in the first place.
    - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
      You have not seen what Debian did to exim, yet.
    - Foxboron 6y ago
      There are duplicate PKGBUILD files in the repository, so depending on the PKGBUILD and where it is, there might be 3 results for every 1 patch. In many cases there are two hits pr 1 patch.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - idoubtit 6y ago
    > Up-to-dateness I've read this at least a dozen of times, mostly on HN, and mostly by Archlinux advocates. Many people seem to ignore that Debian testing and Debian unstable are continuously updated (rolling releases). Please stop propagating false claims that taint Archlinux's community reputation.
    - jhardy54 6y ago
      Have you tried running Debian unstable (Sid)? If not, I'd suggest you try it before advocating that it's comparable to running Arch. I think the parent comment was silly, but let's not pretend that Sid is a meant to be used as a daily driver.
      - rscho 6y ago
        Testing is usually around 2 weeks behind unstable, and I use it as my daily driver.
        sam_lowry_ 6y ago
        Except the kernel, unlike in Arch.
        jhardy54 6y ago
        I'm not familiar with any evidence of that, but I'd like to point out that Debian unstable has a higher percentage of outdated packages than Arch. Compare "outdated projects percentage": - https://repology.org/repository/debian_unstable https://repology.org/repository/debian_unstable - https://repology.org/repository/arch https://repology.org/repository/arch
        soraminazuki 6y ago
        Looking at that data, Debian unstable maintains roughly 3x more packages than Arch official.
        6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- scaladev 6y ago
  Superior documentation and AUR. You can find almost anything in AUR, including all the proprietary crap, and install it all with one command. It's also very easy to write a PKGBUILD and upload it to AUR if you don't find what you need, because the package format is so much simpler. Here are two specific examples which other distros might struggle with: repackaging a tarball to a proper system package which is tracked by the package manager https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=dotnet-core-bin https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=dotne... building a proper system package from the source (with one command! no `configure; make; make install` lunacy): https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=sway-git https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=sway-...
  - heavyset_go 6y ago
    > Superior documentation and AUR. You can find almost anything in AUR, including all the proprietary crap, and install it all with one command. It's also very easy to write a PKGBUILD and upload it to AUR if you don't find what you need, because the package format is so much simpler. I'm a Debian fan, but these two points are very true. Arch documentation is great, and writing PKGBUILD files is easier than packaging for distribution via Apt. I don't even use Arch, but I still release for it because it's easy.
toyg 6y ago
Technical comparisons are not relevant to my comment. What is Arch’s charter? How are its leaders elected? How are its processes defined?
- edflsafoiewq 6y ago
  What does any of that matter if it doesn't lead to technical superiority? You use an OS for its technical qualities, not for its charter.
  - wolco2 6y ago
    When did technical superiority ever matter when it came to an OS? Your living in a world where OS/2 kills windows 3.11 for workgroups. Where Sega's master system outsold Super Nintendo.
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      Yes but in neither of those cases the winner got there because of "better democracy" or governance Win 3.11 was more user friendly than OS/2. Not sure about the Sega/Nintendo issue, the Master System was comparable to the NES, the SNES to the Genesis/MegaDrive
- Foxboron 6y ago
  I'll start off with a hyperbole: We don't have any of that. But that isn't really true. Arch historically has always been a DIY distribution with an equally DIY contribution structure. Our leaders has been BDFLs for close to two decades until the process was formalized and we held our first project leader election this year. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Project_Leader https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Project_L... https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-future-of-the-arch-linux-project-leader/ https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-future-of-the-arch-linux-... There isn't any RFC process, but some consensus making on the mailing list and who wants to work on stuff. The only other formalized structure is the Trusted Users which are elected in a formalized process. https://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html https://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html There is probably a lot of bad things with a less formalized process, but it allows Arch to move fairly rapidly and decide things without a lot of internal politics.
georgyo 6y ago
I'm a huge fan of Arch Linux and would say that it is the best for personal use. However I wouldn't dream of running on a fleet of several. I currently have 6 nspawn containers I run, and it's not as consistent to ensure an update won't break it. Debian is great if you are running many servers. It's slow moving rate is due to care of not breaking the world.
- nextos 6y ago
  I like Debian as a community, but I think it would benefit from decentralization to speed up development. The community is great, but current package management techniques and processes are the equivalent of SVN, with modern approaches like Nix or Guix being the equivalent to Git. In Debian, the whole tree of packages has to be in sync. That works well for Arch, as it is a rolling release, but IMHO that slows down Debian as it doesn't use their manpower efficiently. Longtime ago, when Nix was not popular, there was a discussion in debian-devel about adopting Nix. It was probably premature. This discussion has resurfaced a number of times. I think currently they would benefit enormously from Nix or rolling out their own tooling that implemented equivalent ideas. With such a big community and large package set, packages should be able to be decoupled from each other so that they can depend on different library versions and move at their own pace. Also, Nix-like tooling would allow to automate and test most package updates when upstream changes, or find common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) automatically. Currently, there's a lot of manual intervention needed to do this. This would also be advantageous for end users, as they could mix and match packages from different channels. PPAs are an inferior solution.
  - jancsika 6y ago
    These are great points. You might consider bringing it up with Debian developers again. Despite some of the difficulties the author mentioned in the article, Debian has successfully spearheaded some ambitious project-wide initiatives, like reproducible builds. So I don't think it's out of the question that they could vastly improve the packaging experience for both users and developers with something like Nix or Guix. Of course the biggest question is: how does one get there from here? For example-- can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come?
ssivark 6y ago
While I like and use (and even recommend) Archlinux, Debian’s track record is absolutely venerable. It’s a huge accomplishment to carry so many people and an ecosystem along with you over decades, doing all the unsexy tasks (the number of packages!) and serving as a stable platform in support of user freedom, on top of which others can build nimbler and sexier offerings. The Debian project deserves our utmost respect for its effectiveness in organizing a community around a goal.
chuckSu 6y ago
k
eznzt 6y ago
The best part of not using Arch Linux is not having to deal with the Arch Linux community.
heavyset_go 6y ago
Debian is one of the only distributions releasing images for 32-bit x86, old PPC, and other less popular architectures[1]. Arch just targets 64-bit x86. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures
- pabs3 6y ago
  At this point there are no porters for i386 and it no longer has the porter waiver from the release team, so it is likely at this point that Debian bullseye will support 32-bit x86. Old PPC and many other architectures were dropped from releases many years ago. There were no replies to the roll call for porters yet, so it looks like Debian bullseye will just be amd64 too, unless people are replying privately for some reason. https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/CAM8zJQvyaL0quk57Tyzqb4jiE74BoCdfkkfDif+jUEbr7kOd+w@mail.gmail.com/firsthit https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/CAM8zJQvyaL0quk57Tyzqb... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25166634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25166634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24974822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24974822
  - toyg 6y ago
    I expect all replies are private. There are plenty of people working on ARM, just to mention one other arch.
- hedora 6y ago
  Arch isn’t x64 only. Manjaro’s an Arch derivative, and is the preloaded OS on Pine Book Pro’s (they used to preload debian). The switch is disappointing for me, since I’d prefer Debian with a minimalist wm. However, manjaro + kde is good enough for light usage, and definitely easier for more mainstream users.
  - basicneo 6y ago
    Sounds like Arch is still x64 only, if you have to use a derivative to use other architectures?
bayindirh 6y ago
For personal use, maybe. For fleet usage, production, set'n'forget servers and any critical role, no. I can provision 100+ Debian servers in any configuration I want under 15 minutes by utilizing the features of the OS itself and, forget them after setting them up. We actually lost one Debian server in a system room (in a rack of unlabeled cluster of identical servers) and, it was working flawlessly when we re-found it months later.
Dahoon 6y ago
How do you know if someone uses Arch Linux.....
thom 6y ago
I love the idea of Arch Linux and it probably is worth everyone who's really interested in Linux trying it at least once. But it's also the only distro I have used for probably more than 10 years where I found myself having to edit my X config to try and get something to work. At that point I just backed away from the keyboard slowly and realised it wasn't worth my time. I do still have a throwaway cheap VPS with Arch, but even then I can't recommend it because the security story is largely non-existent.

Arch Linux is much superior to Debian, imo.

by smabie 6y ago

Arch Linux is much superior to Debian, imo.

rovr138 6y ago

Can you at least expand on why that's your opinion?

nsajko 6y ago
Up-to-dateness, no unnecessary distro-specific patching. EDIT: My comment was ambiguous, I didn't mean that there are no Archlinux-specific patches; rather that there's more of an effort with Archlinux to let upstream be upstream.
- soraminazuki 6y ago
  No "unnecessary" patching, like seriously? I see so many patches in the Arch packages repo I can't even count them all: https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=patch https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=patc... https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=sed https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/search?q=sed But putting that aside, all distros need huge amounts of patching to make each package get along with the rest of the system. Without patching, many of them won't even build in the first place.
  - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
    You have not seen what Debian did to exim, yet.
  - Foxboron 6y ago
    There are duplicate PKGBUILD files in the repository, so depending on the PKGBUILD and where it is, there might be 3 results for every 1 patch. In many cases there are two hits pr 1 patch.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- idoubtit 6y ago
  > Up-to-dateness I've read this at least a dozen of times, mostly on HN, and mostly by Archlinux advocates. Many people seem to ignore that Debian testing and Debian unstable are continuously updated (rolling releases). Please stop propagating false claims that taint Archlinux's community reputation.
  - jhardy54 6y ago
    Have you tried running Debian unstable (Sid)? If not, I'd suggest you try it before advocating that it's comparable to running Arch. I think the parent comment was silly, but let's not pretend that Sid is a meant to be used as a daily driver.
    - rscho 6y ago
      Testing is usually around 2 weeks behind unstable, and I use it as my daily driver.
      - sam_lowry_ 6y ago
        Except the kernel, unlike in Arch.
      - jhardy54 6y ago
        I'm not familiar with any evidence of that, but I'd like to point out that Debian unstable has a higher percentage of outdated packages than Arch. Compare "outdated projects percentage": - https://repology.org/repository/debian_unstable https://repology.org/repository/debian_unstable - https://repology.org/repository/arch https://repology.org/repository/arch
        soraminazuki 6y ago
        Looking at that data, Debian unstable maintains roughly 3x more packages than Arch official.
        6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
scaladev 6y ago
Superior documentation and AUR. You can find almost anything in AUR, including all the proprietary crap, and install it all with one command. It's also very easy to write a PKGBUILD and upload it to AUR if you don't find what you need, because the package format is so much simpler. Here are two specific examples which other distros might struggle with: repackaging a tarball to a proper system package which is tracked by the package manager https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=dotnet-core-bin https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=dotne... building a proper system package from the source (with one command! no `configure; make; make install` lunacy): https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=sway-git https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=sway-...
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Superior documentation and AUR. You can find almost anything in AUR, including all the proprietary crap, and install it all with one command. It's also very easy to write a PKGBUILD and upload it to AUR if you don't find what you need, because the package format is so much simpler. I'm a Debian fan, but these two points are very true. Arch documentation is great, and writing PKGBUILD files is easier than packaging for distribution via Apt. I don't even use Arch, but I still release for it because it's easy.

toyg 6y ago

Technical comparisons are not relevant to my comment. What is Arch’s charter? How are its leaders elected? How are its processes defined?

edflsafoiewq 6y ago
What does any of that matter if it doesn't lead to technical superiority? You use an OS for its technical qualities, not for its charter.
- wolco2 6y ago
  When did technical superiority ever matter when it came to an OS? Your living in a world where OS/2 kills windows 3.11 for workgroups. Where Sega's master system outsold Super Nintendo.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Yes but in neither of those cases the winner got there because of "better democracy" or governance Win 3.11 was more user friendly than OS/2. Not sure about the Sega/Nintendo issue, the Master System was comparable to the NES, the SNES to the Genesis/MegaDrive
Foxboron 6y ago
I'll start off with a hyperbole: We don't have any of that. But that isn't really true. Arch historically has always been a DIY distribution with an equally DIY contribution structure. Our leaders has been BDFLs for close to two decades until the process was formalized and we held our first project leader election this year. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Project_Leader https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Project_L... https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-future-of-the-arch-linux-project-leader/ https://www.archlinux.org/news/the-future-of-the-arch-linux-... There isn't any RFC process, but some consensus making on the mailing list and who wants to work on stuff. The only other formalized structure is the Trusted Users which are elected in a formalized process. https://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html https://aur.archlinux.org/trusted-user/TUbylaws.html There is probably a lot of bad things with a less formalized process, but it allows Arch to move fairly rapidly and decide things without a lot of internal politics.

georgyo 6y ago

I'm a huge fan of Arch Linux and would say that it is the best for personal use. However I wouldn't dream of running on a fleet of several. I currently have 6 nspawn containers I run, and it's not as consistent to ensure an update won't break it. Debian is great if you are running many servers. It's slow moving rate is due to care of not breaking the world.

nextos 6y ago
I like Debian as a community, but I think it would benefit from decentralization to speed up development. The community is great, but current package management techniques and processes are the equivalent of SVN, with modern approaches like Nix or Guix being the equivalent to Git. In Debian, the whole tree of packages has to be in sync. That works well for Arch, as it is a rolling release, but IMHO that slows down Debian as it doesn't use their manpower efficiently. Longtime ago, when Nix was not popular, there was a discussion in debian-devel about adopting Nix. It was probably premature. This discussion has resurfaced a number of times. I think currently they would benefit enormously from Nix or rolling out their own tooling that implemented equivalent ideas. With such a big community and large package set, packages should be able to be decoupled from each other so that they can depend on different library versions and move at their own pace. Also, Nix-like tooling would allow to automate and test most package updates when upstream changes, or find common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) automatically. Currently, there's a lot of manual intervention needed to do this. This would also be advantageous for end users, as they could mix and match packages from different channels. PPAs are an inferior solution.
- jancsika 6y ago
  These are great points. You might consider bringing it up with Debian developers again. Despite some of the difficulties the author mentioned in the article, Debian has successfully spearheaded some ambitious project-wide initiatives, like reproducible builds. So I don't think it's out of the question that they could vastly improve the packaging experience for both users and developers with something like Nix or Guix. Of course the biggest question is: how does one get there from here? For example-- can the Nix packaging approach coexist and play nice with the current Debian packaging system for years to come?

ssivark 6y ago

While I like and use (and even recommend) Archlinux, Debian’s track record is absolutely venerable. It’s a huge accomplishment to carry so many people and an ecosystem along with you over decades, doing all the unsexy tasks (the number of packages!) and serving as a stable platform in support of user freedom, on top of which others can build nimbler and sexier offerings. The Debian project deserves our utmost respect for its effectiveness in organizing a community around a goal.

chuckSu 6y ago

eznzt 6y ago

The best part of not using Arch Linux is not having to deal with the Arch Linux community.

heavyset_go 6y ago

Debian is one of the only distributions releasing images for 32-bit x86, old PPC, and other less popular architectures[1]. Arch just targets 64-bit x86. [1] https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures https://wiki.debian.org/SupportedArchitectures

pabs3 6y ago
At this point there are no porters for i386 and it no longer has the porter waiver from the release team, so it is likely at this point that Debian bullseye will support 32-bit x86. Old PPC and many other architectures were dropped from releases many years ago. There were no replies to the roll call for porters yet, so it looks like Debian bullseye will just be amd64 too, unless people are replying privately for some reason. https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/CAM8zJQvyaL0quk57Tyzqb4jiE74BoCdfkkfDif+jUEbr7kOd+w@mail.gmail.com/firsthit https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/CAM8zJQvyaL0quk57Tyzqb... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25166634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25166634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24974822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24974822
- toyg 6y ago
  I expect all replies are private. There are plenty of people working on ARM, just to mention one other arch.
hedora 6y ago
Arch isn’t x64 only. Manjaro’s an Arch derivative, and is the preloaded OS on Pine Book Pro’s (they used to preload debian). The switch is disappointing for me, since I’d prefer Debian with a minimalist wm. However, manjaro + kde is good enough for light usage, and definitely easier for more mainstream users.
- basicneo 6y ago
  Sounds like Arch is still x64 only, if you have to use a derivative to use other architectures?

bayindirh 6y ago

For personal use, maybe. For fleet usage, production, set'n'forget servers and any critical role, no. I can provision 100+ Debian servers in any configuration I want under 15 minutes by utilizing the features of the OS itself and, forget them after setting them up. We actually lost one Debian server in a system room (in a rack of unlabeled cluster of identical servers) and, it was working flawlessly when we re-found it months later.

Dahoon 6y ago

How do you know if someone uses Arch Linux.....

thom 6y ago

I love the idea of Arch Linux and it probably is worth everyone who's really interested in Linux trying it at least once. But it's also the only distro I have used for probably more than 10 years where I found myself having to edit my X config to try and get something to work. At that point I just backed away from the keyboard slowly and realised it wasn't worth my time. I do still have a throwaway cheap VPS with Arch, but even then I can't recommend it because the security story is largely non-existent.