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Arch-Based Antergos Linux Distribution Calls It Quits

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  • Grogan
    replied
    I'm taking back some of the praise for Manjaro that I gave. It's fine if you're not an old school user and just install their default desktop image and don't piss about, but after using it myself for some days I've come to see that it's somewhat broken.

    I used the Manjaro Architect installer (pretty much had to, because their dumbed down live DVD desktop image installer doesn't let you opt out of installing a boot loader, moreover, the only choices available are MBR installs, so you can't even fake it). I installed the KDE/Plasma package group and chose Minimal. The trouble started for me when I realized that my Plasma system tray wasn't working properly. Systray applets and notifiers were working, but programs couldn't put icons in the system tray. (Steam, VLC, game clients like Uplay running through Wine etc. which left me with no legit way to close them other than killing their processes). I tried to figure it out, and installed a lot more packages (including full Plasma/KDE metas) but something needle-in-haystack was missing and the package dependencies don't really track everything. I'm not talking about shared library dependencies, but package associations.

    OK, so I got pissed off and gutted the system like a fish. I had trouble removing packages due to retarded circular dependencies. I installed XFCE and was just using "startxfce4" to start it as I'd removed SDDM and everything else with KDE dependencies.

    Then, a big round of updates came up and pacman -Syu tried to put back a bunch of KDE packages that I removed. So I did more gutting, and added package groups to ignore.

    So I let it take the updates (I was saying N until it was going to do the right thing) and took the XFCE -pre release that they were pushing out. Well, that turned out to be more sluggish than even the last one (I hadn't used XFCE in a long time, it used to be snappy happy). The new xfce power manager wasn't working correctly, my display wouldn't resume and I was having to switch to another TTY and back again to get it to wake. So I disabled it and it didn't really disable itself. So I removed the damned package and not even X11 had its defaults, I had to use xset manually. Shame on Manjaro for pushing out that prerelease poo in their STABLE distro. I was attracted to it because it was going to be "like Arch but with software version stability". Kind of goes out the window doesn't it?

    Meanwhile, things that I really would like an update for (e.g. Mesa) get chirping crickets. I'll have to compile that myself too.

    Finally, I just got pissed off and spent the better part of the day yesterday getting TDE (Trinity Desktop) to compile, which is now my favourite environment nowadays and everything is snappy and functioning correctly. From startx to desktop is fast, just like my Slackware setup now.

    So now I have a nice clean system for my gaming environment, but what was the point of using Manjaro if I was going to gut it anyway? I'd have been better off with Arch, taking my chances with their more aggressive "rolling release" philosophy.

    *buntu is probably the best distro base for a gaming environment, it's an expected environment and the PPAs make it very convenient, but it involves eating a lot of dog food. I was looking for something that balanced convenience with a better dev environment and I guess I have that now. Slackware is still my favourite (and I use that for my real, work environment) but that would be a real chore to get all the dependencies (+multilib) and environment for running Steam/Origin games etc.

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  • oiaohm
    replied
    Originally posted by debianxfce View Post
    It is a very easy one man project to create and maintain your own distribution with Debian simple-cdd.
    https://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto
    You are kidding me right. You have never done this.

    Reality is you will need to update the installer somewhere between 1 once a month to once every 3 months to remain secure to deal with CVE as they come up. You can possible extend this to once every 6 months if your worry is only hardware compatibility. This is still a treadmill.

    Of course these does not cover having the hardware to test your installer before release that it works. You need a community for this so its no longer a one man project.

    Next you decide to theme your distributions to make it look unique. Now read the following
    An open letter from independent app developers to the wider GNOME community


    Yes you have theme your distribution you now have to keep on repairing/updating your theme so applications work.

    You now get requests for a few custom applications you add those. Now you have a 24/7 job with no days off and not being paid a cent. So by this point you absolutely need a community or you will quit.

    Now its better to work with the upstream distribution so you are not a one man project. Doing a custom installer alone is not as light as what you think if doing a custom installer you should be looking to be at least a team of 3. So that if 1 or 2 people cannot do the work on CVE issues there is a third who can.

    The idea that maintain your own distribution is a valid idea is wrong. You need a small team to-do it well. If you have made your own distribution as a one man project it should really just be a demo asking for extra people to come in to make the workload stable. If you get no assistance early on scrap it quickly because it will not get better instead the load will increase until you burn out and drop the project.. No assistance will mean your name could end up mud from all the users who were using your stuff who would not step up to help.

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  • halo9en
    replied

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  • Baguy
    replied
    Originally posted by davidbepo View Post

    use the testing or unstable branches, i use the testing one
    This defeats the purpose of using Manjaro then. Besides holding your hand with one or two extra graphical utilities, there's not much else going for it beyond the plasma theming. That said, even the testing and unstable branches lag behind in some regards, and they introduce problems into Manjaro. You also don't get a dedicated security team with Manjaro, and they've had multiple issues in regards to key errors and repositories over the years. In my opinion it's a very, very bad idea to introduce a new user into a rolling distro such as Manjaro, which is bound to run into bugs at some point, especially because it's by default using older software which isn't patched with the latest bug or security fixes.

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  • halo9en
    replied
    Originally posted by Baguy View Post
    I still prefer the CLI installer Anarchy Linux. Makes things quick and easy and i can leave my system while it's installing. Antergos always had problems with it's installer for me... the temporary install cache failing to work, the installer freezing up and crashing, and forgetting drive settings i selected.
    What I like the most in Antergos' cnchi is, it lets you install Arch on a LUKS encrypted partition (not just on the whole drive) in minutes.

    Judging from what the intro on Anarchy's github says, it offers "full drive automatic partitioning with luks" and "manual partition using cfdisk". Haven't tried it yet tho.

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  • halo9en
    replied
    Originally posted by paupav View Post
    I had Antergos for quite a while. I've even spent time improving their wiki. I don't believe their audience can be big. If you want rolling release use Manjaro, else use Ubuntu.
    The daily Distrowatch ranking said otherwise. And anyway, Manjaro doesn't even use the official Arch repos.

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  • VanCoding
    replied
    Well..., time to finally switch to Nixos then :P

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  • starshipeleven
    replied
    Originally posted by k1e0x View Post
    FreeBSD makes this aspect much easier.. I do know Grub can boot ZFS tho.
    GRUB does not support a bunch of ZFS features though

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  • k1e0x
    replied
    Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post

    Run the installer from the command line with --help and you'll find it. It used to be readily available and then it wasn't. /boot required a different partition or drive like most ZFS on root setups. It was two years ago the last time I did that so it may have changed. I switched to Manjaro from that after a systemd update broke my system.
    Most? That kind of makes boot environments useless. Pretty sure Linux can boot ZFS native. Boot, Root, and all. EFI causes a problem with this but... you kind of want the kernel on ZFS.. (and all former kernels)

    FreeBSD makes this aspect much easier.. I do know Grub can boot ZFS tho.
    Last edited by k1e0x; 22 May 2019, 03:53 PM.

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  • stingray454
    replied
    Originally posted by skeevy420 View Post

    Do you know if the ZFS on root install options only accessible from running the installer via the command line with flags can be found there? That was the main reason I liked Antergos -- the very easy ZFS on root installs.
    No idea, sorry. Did a quick google for alternatives and this popped up, that's all I know about it. Seems to be a fork (copy?) of Antergos with more DE's added. Not really sure what the difference is, I got the impression there might be a bit better base configurations for some DE's.. but other than that, no clue.

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