dslreports logo
 
    All Forums Hot Topics Gallery
spc
Search similar:


uniqs
777

Selenia
Gentoo Convert
Premium Member
join:2006-09-22
Fort Smith, AR

Selenia

Premium Member

Any distro suggestions? Looking to leave Gentoo

I will need to find time to install one as I have been very busy lately. I love the speed and flexibility of use flags present in Gentoo. I just no longer have time to bang my head against the wall for hours nearly every update where something will inevitably go wrong. I don't have time for the feeling of dread every week and the anger issues this has been bringing me. Work has been stressful enough lately and this added stress when I simply try to update my computer then get some work done is threatening to push me over the edge.

I would like a distro with this speed advantage on an older CPU as well as have packages include the KDE and audio plugins I need for apps to integrate nicely in my environment. WINE with gnutls is a must. But it needs to upgrade smoothly and not spend hours fighting me every time I try to keep up to date. Does such a distro exist?

jazzlady
join:2005-08-04
Tannersville, PA

1 recommendation

jazzlady

Member

I used Ubuntu 10.04 for a year, then when they switched to Unity GUI I switched to Xubuntu.

I used Xubuntu for a year+ until the updates started giving me issues such as you describe. Plus I had a few other bizarre issues I couldn't fix. I was also sick of having to reinstall it with every new release.

I finally threw in the towel with Debian based distro's and gave Manjaro XFCE (Arch based) a try.

I have it on my 2 year old Dell XPS-8500 desktop, and also on my 3 year old Acer Aspire laptop.

I am loving it. It runs like a dream. It is super fast. It is very stable. I have no issues after doing system upgrades.

It is a rolling release, so I never have to reinstall it, just keep up with the updates.

It was a bit of an adjustment not being able to use .deb's anymore, but the package manager in Arch (Pamac) is very similar to Synaptic, and there are tons of apps in the regular Arch and AUR repo's...

You might want to give Manjaro a look.

paradigmfl
join:2005-07-16

paradigmfl to Selenia

Member

to Selenia
Gentoo is pretty stable for me as long as I stay in the stable branches and do not install from overlays. Also you seem to be using pulseaudio and systemd, right? Most people in Gentoo don't so those packages probably do not get as much support. I guess that is just how it is. Also I'm sure you probably already know this but just in case if the upgrade fails you still usually have a working system. You don't have to deal with it there and then. In fact often you can just sync again tomorrow and it will then work being a temporary issue which was since fixed.

Another idea would be to use btrfs with snapper. If the update fails just restore from a snapshot and try again next week. Life is short, right?

Arch is the closest thing to Gentoo in a binary distribution I know of. However you will run into breakage with it too and you are technically supposed to always run at the current stable upstream release. You can ignore upgrades but it isn't officially supported. It should be stable enough for you but don't be surprised if you run into problems.

OpenSUSE is a good choice if you like KDE and want some stability. It seems quite polished. I'm not sure about really old hardware though.

Selenia
Gentoo Convert
Premium Member
join:2006-09-22
Fort Smith, AR

1 edit

Selenia

Premium Member

I did decide to stick with Gentoo for now after getting some insights. I also learned the weekend is the worst time to sync, oops. I guess I should sync during the week then do my weekend upgrades(only have time on weekend, barely at that). I have no stability issues except extreme tux racer stopped working which I hope they fix. Just a lot of portage complaining on upgrades.

Edit: Oh and we're talking a Pentium G6951 @3.8 Ghz with 8 gigs of RAM, so a small step up from a Core2Duo. My other machines are i7s but I am a bit fussier with this machine, being older, I want it to run with max performance.

Ian1
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18
ON

1 recommendation

Ian1 to jazzlady

Premium Member

to jazzlady
said by jazzlady:

It was a bit of an adjustment not being able to use .deb's anymore, but the package manager in Arch (Pamac) is very similar to Synaptic, and there are tons of apps in the regular Arch and AUR repo's...

You might want to give Manjaro a look.

Although it was directed at someone else, I gave Manjaro a try. Still trying to get used to Pacman. I'm more familiar with Debian based. Although it seems fine, I am still not sure if I like it better than XFCE based Ubuntu.

jazzlady
join:2005-08-04
Tannersville, PA

jazzlady

Member

said by Ian1:

Although it was directed at someone else, I gave Manjaro a try. Still trying to get used to Pacman. I'm more familiar with Debian based. Although it seems fine, I am still not sure if I like it better than XFCE based Ubuntu.

Oops, got behind in replying... busy week.

I honestly don't know if I like it "better" than Xubuntu either TBH- but I had unsolvable issues with Xubuntu that I couldn't deal with anymore.

I do like the fact that it's a rolling release though. I think that's much better than having to reinstall it over and over like the 'buntu's...

thender
Screen tycoon
Premium Member
join:2009-01-01
Brooklyn, NY

1 recommendation

thender to Selenia

Premium Member

to Selenia
I've been using Gentoo since 2003 and I feel the same way. I was fighting the fact that a modded xf86-input-evdev stopped working becaue of some synproto stuff after an update. Then, I reverted to a backup of an older install. Upon updating it pulseaudio no longer worked.

Gentoo is supposed to be about choice, and I respect that if it works well for the people who use it. Use what works best for you. For me, Gentoo is about fighting the operating system instead of using it, every step of the way. I could really dig into some of these issues for hours and finally reach a conclusion, but I'd rather spend that time working, enjoying entertainment on my machine, or spending time with people.

I like Debian because it works well, isn't bloated out of the box, and has excellent support as a major distribution.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

El Quintron to Selenia

Premium Member

to Selenia
Another vote for Manjaro here. I switched to it a while back after having a fit a Mint, I like it a lot better, and I'm enjoying pacman to boot.

I think with what I know from your skill level Manjaro or Arch would be a good fit.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

Wily_One

Premium Member

Would y'all say this Manjaro would be suitable in a VM? (On a 64-bit Windows host.)

I'm looking for something lightweight, and except for the need to occasionally check basic functionality-type things in a web browser, can get by most of the time without any GUI at all.

El Quintron
Cancel Culture Ambassador
Premium Member
join:2008-04-28
Tronna

1 recommendation

El Quintron

Premium Member

I've only ever V/M'd windows from Linux, but it seems like a good candidate according to them:

»wiki.manjaro.org/index.p ··· rtualbox

Ian1
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18
ON

Ian1 to Wily_One

Premium Member

to Wily_One
said by Wily_One:

Would y'all say this Manjaro would be suitable in a VM? (On a 64-bit Windows host.)

I am running it just fine as 64-bit within 64-bit Windows 8.1. I am using VMware Player, not Virtualbox.

It runs fast, and in full-screen It's hard to tell the difference versus running it natively unless I try something 3-D intensive.

Wily_One
Premium Member
join:2002-11-24
San Jose, CA

Wily_One to Selenia

Premium Member

to Selenia
Cool, thanks guys.