I think it's time for a new OS on the "Distro Tester"

NixOS is neat, but I just don’t feel comfortable with it (enough to keep it). I’m happy with Arch based (Endeavour or ArcoLinux mainly) as a daily driver distro.
In fact, I finally took the time today to try again (been more than a year…probably two since my last unsuccessful attempt) to install Arch the Arch Way. It was successful, I got a DE up in fact. Then, I’m like, ok…what does this give me that I couldn’t have gotten easier? Well I guess the answer is satisfaction? I like to try everything at least once.
Golly Gee, I need a new distro to play with now.

To be fair, installing Arch the “Arch way” helps familiarize you with the system. It’s also nice to have that level of control if you’re working with a minimal system or making a set up for a very specific purpose. That being said, EOS gives you a lot of flexibility with a much quicker install.
.
As I type this, I’ve finally gotten around to getting Gentoo going on my old PC. Got delayed by some “emergency plumbing issues”. First emerge is going on right now, I suspect it will take a while.

I am trying Fedora Kionite in VM and it’s definitely an interesting OS. Still need to try podman.

I used GhostBSD and I liked so much that I went on tried FreeBSD. I feel like BSD systems are what Linux used to be 10-15 years ago. It’s not desktop ready. It doesn’t support newer hardware and hack even Netflix doesn’t work in browsers and many other apps that Linux supports openly. One thing for sure is that FreeBSD feels like a complete OS because of their own kernel and system is neatly organized compared to Arch/Linux.

If you just want to learn something different, there is always this: http://www.slackware.com/

:slight_smile:

1 Like

Ok, it’s on the “to-do” list, but I feel like I put my poor old machine through some aweful “compiler hell” with Gentoo recently so, I’ll give it a bit of a rest. Maybe Fedora next :wink:

I started my Linux journey with Slackware back in the days when books came with CDs with Slackware on it. Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away. Frankly, I don’t want to go back…please don’t extradite me.

1 Like

I started in the 90’s with RedHat because I’d gotten frustrated with IBM’s support of OS2/Warp. This is why I have no interest in “Ricing”. I’ve done my time with startx and FVWM thank you very much :wink:

1 Like

Did my first ever dive into the Fedora world, just the other day. While there appear to be some hickups with the new distro with many, I have to say I like it.

Some features I discovered on Gnome (next to the journal logs filling up) are among extensions for the 42 version that appealed to me.
Xfce runs pretty smooth and stable.

Trying to install unbound as DNS resolver failed badly, though. Had a hard time getting dns-resolution back and running from that failed attempt today.

But learning, yes. Here’s to ISO-Testers!

:beers:

1 Like

From what I’ve been hearing, Fedora is pretty impressive these days.

2 Likes

impressive-fedora

:wink:

3 Likes

@dalto

You know I was just thinking that Fedora is going to change how it handles it’s package management by implementing MicroDNF.

You can find out more about the features here:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MajorUpgradeOfMicrodnf

Personally what attracts me to Fedora is their claim of it being more stable based on their testing and not changing installed packages as quickly as Arch. This kind of thing is more idea when I setup computers for non technical people.

1 Like

Had anyone tried this ?

https://redcorelinux.org/
.
.
https://www.sabayon.org/

If your desire to explore is still not quenched, openSUSE is very polished too and is able to use RPM which is a big plus as it means that it is possible to use Fedora packages where they are missing from the openSUSE repositories.

As a plus, openSUSE Timbleweed is a rolling distro.

My experience with them is that the maintainers are very careful about polish and consistent look and feel. High quality German engineering :slight_smile:

Requires a bit of getting used to with the YasT system.

Yes, they are gentoo derivatives.

Last I checked which was while back now sabayon was basically dead and merging with funtoo.

1 Like

Fedora has been very stable since Fedora 26. It is my daily driver and has been for about 5 years now. I initially made the move because I needed additional SELinux experience and familiarity with the Redhat eco-system. The biggest hurdle is accounting for SELinux. Sure, you could turn it off, but then you are missing out on one of the major reasons to run Fedora. Most of the time I notice complaints about Fedora it boils down to the user not taking SELinux into account. Once you get past that it is a stellar distribution.

3 Likes

I visited the page of Redcore Linux, to know about it, and also tried to find some video on this.
According to you, how was the usage experience of Redcore ?

Last time I looked at redcore was probably 18+ months ago. I wouldn’t trust my memory enough on that to provide good feedback.

What are some important usage methodologies differences between Arch based systems and Gentoo based systems ?

.
I think this question will sum up my queries in this regard.

That is quite a question. :thinking:

On Gentoo, almost everything is built from source. That has some implications:

  • It takes much longer to update and install pretty much anything.
  • You have immense levels of control on how software is built and what dependencies you want to bring in.
  • Getting everything configured the way you want takes a much more hands-on approach than a distro like Arch but once you have you truly have a system that you have made your own.

Over the years some of the Gentoo-based distros have tried to do some things to make it easier/more convenient.

  • Add installers to give you an out-of-the-box starting point instead of having to configure everything from nothing.
  • Supplement with a binary repo so less software has to be built from source.

I have never found the latter point to be very effective. Building and customizing the applications yourself is the whole point of gentoo. Without that, you lose a lot of the value of gentoo and you are left with a hybrid that seems to offer the worst of both instead of the best.

That being said, that isn’t a comment about redcore specifically. I don’t remember exactly what they are doing or how well it worked.

1 Like

There is a LiveGUI ISO available at the moment, maybe give it a shot or try install in a virtual machine and see if its your thing or not

1 Like