This past weekend (starting on a Thursday) I decided to scrap my Arch install and install Gentoo. I suppose you could say I fell for the old 4chan meme.
Year | ||
---|---|---|
~2005 | Ubuntu | Installed on old laptop from a disc I got in a PC Magazine. Smashed the wifi card into the motherboard and that was the end of that install |
2010 | Ubuntu | On Macbook. This is how I learned to program in a Linux environment |
2012 | Crunchbang | Deleted Windows for a bit to learn Linux better |
2013 | Arch | Started "ricing" on the Macbook |
2019 | Manjaro | KDE + Linux Gaming (daily driving Linux) |
2020 | PopOS | Searching for better desktop/Nvidia experience |
2021-2024 | Arch/Artix | Using Ubuntu full-time at work |
Apr 2024 | Gentoo |
Arch has probably been the best distro I've experienced. I don't really need to explain all its benefits since they have all been answered elsewhere online. For me it was a great balance between customization, productivity and minimalism.
Thanks to the System Crafter's IRC channel, when everyone was discussing distros to try or ones that they use, I began contemplating (again) what my perfect distro would be.
The answer that I always land on is not Gentoo -- it's a BSD. After some time experimenting with FreeBSD, I really enjoyed the ecosystem and documentation that they had. It does come with a few quirks that I can't come to terms with, like having to use Linux emulation for some programs. It always seems possible to use it full-time but then a program sneaks up on you that only works under Linux. Perhaps once my Nvidia hardware dies then I will try out FreeBSD or OpenBSD again.
So, for GNU/Linux distributions, it came down to Artix vs Void vs Gentoo. Switching to Artix, something I've done before, would be trivial.
I spent a day looking into Void and experimenting in a VM, but I didn't really find it to be any better than Arch/Artix or have something beneficial that it could sell me. Unless the system has something drastically different to offer, like Nix/Guix (and I don't need extreme reproducibility), then it just seems not worth the time investment.
Gentoo seems to tick a lot of boxes for me:
At first, I was intimidated and irritated at the complexity, but the more I read the more I was convinced this is a great distro. Things started to make sense and I was actually learning and re-learning more about a GNU/Linux system under the hood.
It only took me a couple days (without full attention) to get up and running back to where I was with Arch. I utilized a few binary packages for large, compile intensive programs, like Firefox and a kernel.
Compiling everything might deter a lot of people, but for me it is a way to be
conscious of what I am installing and how to maintain a system that isn't full
of random packages. If I see that the dependency list of a package is much too
large, I'll reconsider using that package and look for an alternative. It was
annoying when I wanted to install shellcheck
and saw how many Haskell
dependencies it uses. I ended up installing the binary for it, which I was
thankful existed.
I still need some time to adjust to the utilities for maintaining a Gentoo system, so I can't really speak about much more yet.
Like a lot of people, I tend to go through tech phases. Eventually, I may just get tired of compiling stuff, especially if the time comes when I don't have a separate PC for work and have to quickly install some tools to be productive.
As I said before, I'd still like to try to work towards daily driving a BSD. There is also the possibility of looking for an even more hardcore Linux distro like LFS in order to really learn a system in and out. I could even take a completely different direction and install Debian and then manually compile fresh versions of programs that I frequently use.