Arch Linux or Gentoo?


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I am undecided on which I should go with, I would like to use Linux but I do not like the precompiled distros and I like to tweak things to get the most out of my system, Gentoo is a pain to build on my laptop, It is mainly the time issue that is pushing me away from it, Arch seems to offer the best of both worlds and cut down on time required to set it up.

I have tried Ubuntu and Mint but they seem to be clunky and slow, then again it could just be me

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Would prefer not to build things, but I am thinking of moving my little server over to arch if it goes well on laptop, I suppose having the option to tweak is good, don't know if I will or not but I think I need to use it before I pass judgment :)

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Use arch if you've never used linux.

Jumping into gentoo when you've never toyed with the underhood of GNU/linux is like learning to skydive without and lessons and just being pushed out - without a parachute.

For example due (gentoo) due to portage if you don't manually set the inode count when creating the file systems, you'll run out of inodes and won't be able to create any files on your system - even if you have space spare.

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I got on better with Gentoo than Arch but the time to build puts me of too

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Use arch if you've never used linux.

Jumping into gentoo when you've never toyed with the underhood of GNU/linux is like learning to skydive without and lessons and just being pushed out - without a parachute.

For example due (gentoo) due to portage if you don't manually set the inode count when creating the file systems, you'll run out of inodes and won't be able to create any files on your system - even if you have space spare.

I use Gentoo, and have done for a few years on and off, most of the time I never hit the filesystem limit so that shouldn't be an issue (hopefully)

I got on better with Gentoo than Arch but the time to build puts me of too

I will try out Arch and if I don't like it I will just have to swallow it and rebuild gentoo, just a pain finding stuff for XFCE as the apps for that arent as good as under KDE, which is a pain as KDE seems to be more bloat now, even if you don'tt use the meta parts of it and compile parts of KDE

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It's not so much a case of building but know that you start with a base install. From there you install the components you need. No bloat is installed. The result is a speedy and lightweight OS.

I used Arch for some time now. I do miss the GUI install as it's generally easier to install being a Windows user myself. I rebuilt my two servers though recently as I needed to move from init to systemd. There's guides to do this but I was failing badly at it.

I actually wrote down most installation steps in a notepad file. Some of this might be useful to you. Let me know if you want to take a look. There's guides on the wiki and their forums are very active with lots of people willing to assist you.

If your unsure why not virtualise your install to test with?

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I am bored and need something to do, as someone who suffers with depression I find it is better to keep my mind occupied and doing stuff, otherwise I get bored, then the bad thoughts come :( I have images of my systems so it wouldn't take long to put stuff back in :)

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I moved to Arch from Ubuntu when they introduced Unity (yeah, could've installed a different environment. But where's the fun in that?).

I did have Gentoo on one hand, and Arch on the other. Finally went with Arch, since with the number of packages I depend on, it would've taken forever to set up on Gentoo.

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I moved to Arch from Ubuntu when they introduced Unity (yeah, could've installed a different environment. But where's the fun in that?).

I did have Gentoo on one hand, and Arch on the other. Finally went with Arch, since with the number of packages I depend on, it would've taken forever to set up on Gentoo.

Try compiling GCC and Libre office or Thunderbird and Chrome - they take the longest for me :p

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Try compiling GCC and Libre office or Thunderbird and Chrome - they take the longest for me :p

I know.. I basically Ctrl-C'd halfway through GCC and nuked the thing for Arch. :p

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I run Arch as a day to day Virtual OS I do a fair bit of coding in it. It's pretty straight forward even for a linux newbie like myself. It's also much faster than Ubuntu or any other major league distro.

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If you want to learn server stuff, get CentOS/RedHat/OracleLinux.. If you want to hack around, get Arch or Gentoo.. and I mean hack.. and spend lots of time doing it.

RedHat based distros are all the rage and your skills/knowledge gained there will be exponentially better for you than Gentoo/arch..

I avoid debian and ubunto's.. one never gets updates and the other is well, whatever..

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I'm not sure I agree with that. Installing CentOS is done with a GUI so easy to understand. Arch is completely CLI. There no automatic partitioning or formatting. You end up learning a lot more when doing the install by hand rather than the computer doing it for you.

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first issue already

/dev/sda4 alignment is offset by 2560bytes.

this may result in very poor performance re-partitioning is suggested

edit seems it was a cfdisk issue

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I got it working on the first go!!!!! :p

And there was me thinking i would balls it up :)

edit: spoke too soon, cant get network up :(

did you dhcpcd as root? Is it wired or wireless? Wireless does have some issues where you have to sometimes compile drivers manually. You may also have to do the ifconfig stuff and start up the adapter manually.

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I got it working on the first go!!!!! :p

And there was me thinking i would balls it up :)

edit: spoke too soon, cant get network up :(

this is the problem i have everytime with Arch and still have not managed to get it working yet

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not going to give up just yet :p

edit:

running ip addr add 192.168.1.3/24 dev eth0

ip route add default via 192.168.1.15

and ip link set eth0 up

gets me online but i thought that should have been done automatically, I followed what they said to the letter :/

Solved it, seems ethernet-static wasn't copied to /etc/network.d - like it should have been - after a reboot network is still working :)

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