Following a tutorial on an Ubuntu minimal install could be another option. A little less hands-on than arch, but you can still choose your desktop environment and all of your installed packaged if you don’t pull a meta package with all over the default software as a dependency.
Then again the same could be said for any minimal distro with robust repositories. None of them are really bad choices. It doesn’t matter beyond the level of support you can find online being higher for more popular distros. The paradox of choice tends to end up leaving people questioning hours upon end, time that can be spent just doing stuff. You will probably learn even in failure whereas getting mired in the ‘my distro rocks!’ debate never seems to leave anyone much wiser.
Hey’all
I intended to install ubuntu, but my ubuntu iso was being a pain, and since I already had arch downloaded I decided I’d just go through with that. I’ve now spent the better part of 6 hours installing Arch with Gnome (much of the time spent waiting for the downloads), and boy oh boy does it feel good. Had some network issues that had me pretty frustrated, and I was a dumbass with the locales for a bit, but I’ve got it all working now, and what an experience it was.
So, what all should I do to set it up? Like how do I set up the AU repository, and whatever else you guys recommend I do. Thanks
If you’re sticking with arch, getting your hands on either Pacaur or Yaourt is pretty much a must…I wont suggest one over the other as its user preference and there are enough Pacaur vs Yaourt flame wars on redit as it stands. Also if you want to get more use out of your command line, I can highly recommend Terminator and Zsh.
Ubuntu is quite good regarding hardware support, and Antergos is really nice too.
Arch is famous but I think you will tinker more than you would expect.
Have always a second computer or tablet at hand in case you mess something up and need to check something on the internet.
That would be a STRONG mark against it in my book. We’re married to CentOS 7 at work, and it’s universally loathed with a passion that burns hotter than a thousand suns.
Edit: I should clarify that I’m one of two FT employees, so “universally” might not be as broad in scope as the word implies.
That’s funny, most clients I’ve worked with prefer “Red Hut”. We usually have to cater to the Ubuntu crowd when they sneer and scold after we default to CentOS lol.
Mostly how nothing that we’ve needed to do works the way the docs claim it does. For example, it took a month to get the Omni-Path installed & configured because the docs are wrong about how a certain config file work (it claims hostnames or IP addresses will work… in reality it needs hostnames, but I’d used IP addresses to eliminate that class of errors ). Then, as part of an OS update, it helpfully “upgraded” us to the 10.3.x drivers from the 10.6.1 drivers. Thankfully it merely renamed our existing config files instead of overwriting them. (The built-in updater still insists that the re-installed 10.6.1 drivers are older than the 10.3.x drivers it has in whatever repo it’s looking in… hooray for, IDK, sorting numbers, I guess?)
The problem we’re working on now is getting Lustre installed… it’s been going about as well as Omni-Path did. Fortunately, my boss found someone who knows it really well and is willing to help us get it going, so “fingers crossed”, as they say.
Say no more. I totally get that. That’s part of their push for paid support, I suspect. Having an ex-redhat employee at my disposal is helpful, nearly daily.
I’m just hoping Linux is more polished for desktop use… My Mac Pro at home is from 2008, and Apple still hasn’t made a replacement for it, and if it dies before they do I really don’t want to switch to Windows.
