Arch ... filled *all* my holes
Now there's a good slogan candidate for the 2024 Arch Linux NSFW T-Shirt contest (that I just made up).
Now who can make an arch logo out of a couple of "adult toys".
]]>I started with ArchBang (w/Openbox), a derivative, on an x86(386) Netbook. Loved it, but went on to Cinnarch (later Antergos), briefly Manjaro, then worked up enough courage to install Arch per the *Installation Guide* in early 2014.
Arch, I found, filled *all* my holes and I have not strayed. I play with all of the derivates--but always come home.
]]>Sometime in 2000 I decided to give Linux From Scratch (LFS) a try, but failed miserably when I didn't heed the warnings and tried more up-to-date versions of the software it has you compile. Somehow I stumbled on Gentoo (which is essentially like LFS with a decent package manager), and used it from 2000-2005.
In 2005 I got really tired of big packages taking upwards of a week to compile, so I ran screaming to Ubuntu since I knew it would be that different. I got a job at a company whose claim to fame was a notable open source project that primarily ran on Linux, and a coworker convinced me to try Debian. I was much happier with the switch, and I was on Debian from 2007-2021.
I've been using Arch since 2015, and after landing on the Arch Wiki most times when trying to fix something in Debian[2] I decided to install it on my daily driver. No better way to force yourself to learn a new OS, right? Over time, I found myself increasingly annoyed with the Debian way of doing things, with bespoke patches and configuration utilities, not to mention Debian Stable[3] is always woefully out of date. I finally replaced my last Debian machine (a DIY router) with Arch in 2021, and haven't been happier!
As you can see, I haven't done a lot of distro hopping, and I typically stick to a distro for a good while before I give up and move onto something else. I have been pretty much reliant on myself for configuring things for a long time; Arch is perfect for this, and never gets in the way. If I were to try something new, it wouldn't be on my daily driver; I'd probably install NixOS, because it's that different, but I have no real plans to do that.
[1] The first words out of the professor's mouth were,
"January 12, 1997, HAL-9000 goes online." (the first line of the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey)
For the longest time I thought the first class was that day, but January 12, 1997 was a Sunday, so I wasn't in class. I think I was in a Monday, Wednesday, Friday section, so it was something like 08:00 or 09:00 that Monday morning. My whole world changed that day.
[2] I always found the Debian documentation to be woefully out of date, so it was quite refreshing to find the Arch Wiki articles were mostly apt to my problems.
[3] Use Sid/Unstable you say? That's all well and good until it thaws and the Debian devs decide to overhaul and play with any subsystems you rely on. Case in point: I was on Sid when they decided to overhaul how Debian handles Haskell packages, and I could not compile my xmonad.hs for several weeks. This happened as I was trying to fix something in it, and had to wait for this to be abated before I could continue working on it. For whatever reason, I eschew having language-specific package managers installed that aren't part of the distro; so things like cabal and stack were something I didn't want to use.
]]>I started like this, not because of the battery, but to have more control of my system. in my case, I did this path, Windows > Ubuntu > Arch.
Best choice I've made!
]]>When I had Windows 10 on this thing, the CPU was constantly running at 95-100%. Now with a KDE environment it's running at 10-20% while I'm typing this up. There's no sputtering or stuttering, I've had no network issues (although I've only used it in my home), it's just smooth has butter.
]]>While I do not care for Windows personally, we ask that it and other operating systems be treated with respect. Note that showing professional respect does not imply criticism is prohibited, just do it with respect.
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