this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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During the first impressions of said distro, what feature surprised you the most?

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Bending the question a little but my second "first impression" of Arch's "simplicity" surprised me the most.

I was running Gentoo for a while before deciding to move back, and I was surprised that somehow I had

  • saved space
  • gotten faster at doing new things (...)
  • didn't lose any boot speed or anything like that

Granted, I had jumped on Gentoo because of misconceptions (speed, ricing, the idea that I needed USE flags), but going back, I saw things more clearly:

  • the AUR being basically a shell script download + 300 MB of base-devel was simpler and more space-efficient than /var/db/repos (IIRC -- since the portage and guru ebuilds were all held locally anyway after syncing, an on-demand AUR saved space).
    • the simple automatic build file audits on Arch felt more clean to me. I like checking my build files; had to make a script for the guru ebuild equivalent (but maybe there's a portage arg i missed somewhere -- wouldn't be the first time)
  • Arch repos separating parts of packages in case you don't need some part (like splitting some font into its languages, or splitting a package into x and x-doc and x-perl) was almost a simple USE flag-ish thing already
  • /etc/makepkg.conf was Gentoo's make.conf. And its build flags looked similar to the CFLAGS I manually set up anyway.
  • My boot time (btrfs inside LUKS with encrypted /boot) was the same with systemd vs. openrc
  • I realized I liked systemd (because of the completeness of my systemctl muscle memory, like with systemctl status and journalctl, or managing systemd-logind instead of using seatd and friends).

Not bashing on Gentoo or anything, but it's when I realized why Arch was "simple." Even me sorely missing /etc/portage/patches was quelled by paru -S <pkg> --fm vim --savechanges.

And Arch traveling at the speed of simplicity even quantifiably helped: Had to download aur/teams the other day with nine-minute warning.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not bashing on Gentoo or anything, but it's when I realized why Arch was "simple."

That's funny. I switched from Slackware to Gentoo in 2003 because it was simpler.

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

Yeah, it's pretty funny how distros just passed each other by like that. Back then it was Debian that was regarded as the hyper-poweruser distro:

The reason I havn't used Debian is because I can't install it. "This guy is totally clueless" you might think. My only response is that I'm writing this on a Gentoo box that I have installed myself.

And then now there are plenty of people reading this thread who liked Windows 7. As time passed, their grade on the ease-of-use of A passed the don't-get-in-my-way of B, and a load of Windows 10ers jumped ship to Linus & Friends, the last place their Windows 7 selves would have expected to go. Always a reminder that the end of history isn't now.

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

I just wish more distros made their terminal prompt and updater look as good as Gentoo's, it's weirdly the one thing I miss most about messing around with it