this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
875 points (96.0% liked)

linuxmemes

20880 readers
7 users here now

I use Arch btw


Sister communities:

Community rules

  1. Follow the site-wide rules and code of conduct
  2. Be civil
  3. Post Linux-related content
  4. No recent reposts

Please report posts and comments that break these rules!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (3 children)

I've used arch on one machine now, am a total noob to it, and I really like it. I see what people are raving about and I see no reason to shit on it. I don't really care if 6 years ago some people were annoying about it

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Arch is good, no doubt πŸ‘.

Void is better 😁.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (9 children)

Faster, more stable, no systemd, supports musl and architectures not usually supported by most distros. It's probably the most stable rolling release distro out there.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago (4 children)

What is the benefit of no systemd?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It's too popular and it works too well.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The main benefit is that when people get tired of distro flame wars, they can move on to init system flame wars.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (4 children)

With the price of energy being what it is, people need the systemd flame wars to keep them warm!

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I have no horse in this race, I don't have strong feelings about it either way as long as it works. But I can't help but notice that OP skipped replying to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

OP said β€œbloated and full of bugs”.

I've been using Arch since shortly before they started using systemd and literally never ran into a systemd bug.

I have no clue at this point what β€œbloated” means. Maybe if everything works and you don't have to hack up your own solution all the time, that's β€œbloat”?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh great so now i have to unlearn systemd again?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Runit is even easier than doing things in systemd.

https://youtu.be/PRpcqj9QR68

It really is that easy. Runit is probably the simplest init/service manager there is out there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Does it support glibc while it supports musl?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes. From their website:

C library diversity

Void Linux supports both the musl and GNU libc implementations, patching incompatible software when necessary and working with upstream developers to improve the correctness and portability of their projects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

"Patching incompatible software"

What does that mean? If glibc is supported why there is a portability issueand requirement of patches?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (5 children)

Presumably so it can work with either libc implementation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I have checked the void website and it does NOT support glibc. Here is it:

Wait edit: there is musl variant and glibc variant..

Incompatible software

musl practices very strict and minimal standard compliance. Many commonly used platform-specific extensions are not present. Because of this, it is common for software to need modification to compile and/or function properly. Void developers work to patch such software and hopefully get portability/correctness changes accepted into the upstream projects.

Proprietary software usually supports only glibc systems, though sometimes such applications are available as flatpaks and can be run on a musl system. In particular, the proprietary NVIDIA drivers do not support musl, which should be taken into account when evaluating hardware compatibility.

glibc chroot

Software requiring glibc can be run in a glibc chroot.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They are likely referring to musl. Patches might be needed for some programs to work with musl.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, there are basically 2 builds for every architecture. One is glibc, the other is musl. I haven't used the musl builds that much, just toyed with them a few times (mainly because of lack of software), but if you only use open source software that doesn't specifically depend on the GNU toolchain, yes, you can daily drive it, no doubt there. And yes, it is faster than the glibc builds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Yeah different builds. Not what i expected

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Gonna give it a try one day

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (11 children)

Many programs aren't packaged for Void though

load more comments (11 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. I will have to try it some time. I just know on my raspberry pi 5, out of the few OSes I could get to run on it, Arch was the fastest and smoothest running, and gets updates all the time. All this, even though rpi5 is not even officially supported yet!

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

The existence of ArchWiki and the Arch User Respository (AUR). And rolling releases, if that’s your thing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Basically just the fact that it's very lightweight, I was able to install it on an rpi5 (not officially supported), install only what I needed, and was able to resolve all the issues I had for my niche use-case.

There is a quite noticeable difference in how snappy it feels versus the official rpi OS. Arch runs way zippier on it. Those devices are a little limited hardware-wise so it makes a big difference in what it feels like to use that system.

I also like knowing that the updates flowing in so quickly, I get the latest fixes and new features before I would on any of the other distros I've used. I have always been a little scared of rolling releases but over the last couple months I haven't seen any breakages yet so fingers crossed! A lot of people have tried to tell me rolling release can be solid, but I was skeptical.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

snappy it feels versus the official rpi OS

I blame the desktop manager. Once I ditched the default von on the pi, and replaced it with standard gnome, the pi became almost as snappy as my regular notebook.

in general: standard debian should be exactly as light-weight as arch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh I misread what you wrote in the first paragraph. Yeah I actually did try that route too, installing Gnome on PI OS lite. I used this guide: https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=276512

It actually was pretty slow for me for some reason. I had some weird crashes and things too, so I abandoned that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

for me it was on a pi5. maybe the amd64 was what made it work for me? idk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Good to know. Yeah, I actually did try to install debian iirc but I didn't have any luck.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It's a bit tounge in cheek, nobody actually got mad at the arch namedropping. More like "I'm a platinum level player in LoL". Lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I always got the impression that it was more of an "Oh god one of THESE insufferable people". I'm just saying from my experience -- they have a point. Arch is pretty nice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

Damn you're calling me out. It's emerald now.

load more comments (1 replies)