Over Ubuntu, want to move to arch

What is the fastest, most painless way there? If i can’t update 18.04 anymore because i want vanilla gnome. I’m gone.

Here is a guide to installing Arch.

This will tell you how to install Gnome.

You might also want to consider giving Manjaro a try. It is Arch based, but is supposed to be a little more user friendly for someone not too familiar with Arch. It has an iso link to get you on Gnome at the initial install. It is the 3rd down the page.

https://manjaro.org/get-manjaro/

Thanks for the links

Manjaro - looks like ubuntu. Just want the vanilla install

Does conky work on arch-gnome

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Not that I know anything about it personally, but a simple search for “vanilla gnome on ubuntu” brings up this:

VanillaGnome

I would just go for 20.04 as there won’t be any major changes between now and ~3 weeks when it is released. Been using Lubuntu 20.04 since early January without issues aside from changing a few programs back because I dislike some of the new choices.

Or you can change your distro. If your sole motivation is vanilla Gnome then I’d imagine just making it work in Ubuntu would be a far easier task.

EDIT - It looks like there are some different packages such as vanilla-gnome-desktop and vanilla-gnome-default-settings. If you are going to nuke the OS from orbit anyway it might be worth playing around with.

Err:8 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu disco Release
  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.95.83 80]
Reading package lists... Done                      
E: The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu disco Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Updating from such a repository can't be done securely, and is therefore disabled by default.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.

Can’t update.

It’s set for Disco instead of Bionic for some reason. Anyway the vanilla is in the regular repositories, so you could remove the PPA. In any event I would start with 20.04 as a base for making a franken distro.

Actually, if you want to wait, they will put out a mini.iso that you could build the vanilla on top of to make sure none of the default Ubuntu style Gnome stuff is hiding. That’s a little more work but not bad if you follow a guide.

Well maybe try Fedora?
As far as i’m concerned that is pretty close to vanilla Gnome.

But in general it’s just a matter of a custom theme and certain added extensions on ubuntu.
You could basically install the vanilla gnome desktop ontop pretty much every distribution.
But if the said distro already features a different desktop,
then you will have to deal with double applications like two file managers and what not.

So that’s why using a distro like Fedora that pretty much uses plain Gnome,
will always be a better smoother experience.
Or you could of course try Arch or Debian as well.

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I just installed arch on my main/gaming PC yesterday after getting fed up with windows. I don’t buy into the archlinux elitist BS but it is a great distro, (btw :wink:). One of my favorite aspects of it are that they change as little as possible from upstream. Which, ironically (for a rolling distro), makes for a pretty stable experience. The one thing about arch, you prob already know this, is that you have to put in a tad more effort on getting everything setup how you like. Which depending on your perspective could be a good thing or a bad thing :man_shrugging:.

If you do end up going with arch I would be happy to help you through any of the questions you might have in the install process. The arch wiki is excellent, but at times, it can be a little sparse depending on your existing linux-fu.

fastest and painless may be Manjaro minimal ISO
or use the Architect installer to cutomise what to install

Maybe give Antergos a look also. Been running it for a quite a few years on my home PC and would highly recommend it.

I like to see it as most of the benefits of Arch, without any of the hassle.

Unfortunately, Antergos is dead.

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antergos

On 21 May 2019 the developers announced the end of development for the project, citing lack of time to work on it. They explained, “Today, we are announcing the end of this project. As many of you probably noticed over the past several months, we no longer have enough free time to properly maintain Antergos. We came to this decision because we believe that continuing to neglect the project would be a huge disservice to the community. Taking this action now, while the project’s code still works, provides an opportunity for interested developers to take what they find useful and start their own projects.”[7]

The developers indicated that existing users will cease getting Antergos updates, eventually the Antergos repositories will be removed via an update and users will be left essentially running Arch Linux. The forums and wiki will be maintained for a maximum of three further months

Hey all, Thanks for the input. I think I’m going with arch. I want to up my linux game and play games ()steam. Was contemplating Gentoo but I don’t think steam runs on it.

Also, this thread has got me pumped for arch:

Or just be a lazy pric and go to 20.04

Why ever ubuntu which sends data to cononical? Shoulda used Debian instead :woman_shrugging:t3:

Not sure what you are trying to say?
But Debian also sends data to Debian about most used apps etc.

So yeah… Lets not start an offtopic discussion like that.

Stream runs on Gentoo.

Every distro sends data to the distro org. This is how you get updates and patches.

Do not start this conversation, please. Stallman is an idiot and it’s been proven for over a decade now that Canonical does not “steal” your information.

Is Manjaro Architect an option? I’m looking to switch to Manjaro, myself, on my desktop, and I noticed this.

Setup and configure Manjaro in every detail using the CLI.

This edition comes with a TUI installer.

date = “2020-03-24T15:30:33UTC”

Manjaro-Architect offers total customization on your Manjaro installation:

  • choose which Manjaro kernels you want to use, or multiple kernels.
  • choose any Manjaro branch (stable, testing or unstable)
  • choose your desktop from all current Manjaro editions, regardless of what install media you run the installer from. You can also install the base system only without graphical user interface.
  • add any unconfigured desktop environment
  • choose the default shell for user (bash, zsh or fish)
  • choose your graphics drivers to be installed with mhwd
  • choose extra packages to be installed

Slightly off-topic rambling:
Will probably use Elementary OS on my Macbook; Pop!_OS on my Latitude (though still on the fence there); and try random distros on a massive Acer laptop I barely use (great for educational purposes).