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RFC2324 posted:https://software.opensuse.org/ Yea I always wanted to use Tumbleweed, but it's really a nontrivial task to convert over my very stable systems. If I get a new Thinkpad I could replace the Manjaro i3 I put on a t470, which was a 1 click insta install for an i3 that is already very polished, god I am so over trying to rice up an Arch.
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Jan 25, 2021 01:50
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RFC2324 posted:arch is fine if you don't mind spending all day googling to install it, and then spend a few hours every month googling to fix it. I enjoyed that kind of thing back in the day, and its why I am good at googling these issues, but nowadays I just want something that holds my hand, so I use OpenSUSE. Between YaST2 and whatever that online database of every package ever is called the only thing I want for is a laptop I didn't already nuke When I installed arch, the live usb installation image came with and autoenabled critical things that I needed for networking by default. Then, I found out that the actual installed system did not even come with any of those critical networking packages. I think this causes new arch users a lot of grief, because most other distros automatically install a networking package as part of the installation procedure for you so that you can immediately connect to ethernet or wifi. In arch, you have to do this manually while still booted into the live usb environment, and there aren't explicit commands in the arch wiki installation guide that tell you step-by-step which packages to install. So a lot of newbies will treat the arch wiki installation guide as a step-by-step command guide and consequently miss these details, and then wonder why they can't connect to the internet. Then, they will ask on forums for help, and snarky advanced users will say "rtfm" instead of pointing out or explaining exactly where they went wrong 
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Jan 25, 2021 01:50
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There is a step for that https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide#Network_configuration
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Jan 25, 2021 01:52
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The Gadfly posted:I think this causes new arch users a lot of grief, because most other distros automatically install a networking package as part of the installation procedure for you so that you can immediately connect to ethernet or wifi. Yes this was really bad because, at least in my experience with WIFI, none of the suggested routes would function correctly so I was digging down into option E through the list of wifi enablers
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Jan 25, 2021 01:53
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xtal posted:There is a step for that https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide#Network_configuration That's just the hostfile. You need to install the actual networking packages you need before that. The actual step is in the line: quote:
Which has a hyperlink, but I think a lot of newbies probably miss this part because it's not an explicit command that they can just copy paste
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Jan 25, 2021 02:02
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Cheese Thief posted:Yea I always wanted to use Tumbleweed, but it's really a nontrivial task to convert over my very stable systems. If I get a new Thinkpad I could replace the Manjaro i3 I put on a t470, which was a 1 click insta install for an i3 that is already very polished, god I am so over trying to rice up an Arch. Honest question - what’s notable/interesting about running OpenSUSE? This is the one corner in my, admittedly small, view into *nix users that actually talks about OpenSUSE. But none of the other various Professional Computer Toucher communities I’m involved with have ever mentioned even a passing interest in using OpenSUSE. Just curious what folks like about it.
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Jan 25, 2021 02:07
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rufius posted:Honest question - what’s notable/interesting about running OpenSUSE? SuSE is the german equivalent to RHEL, and OpenSuSE is basically fedora, but they have YaST2, which is an amazing all in one, ncurses based(there is an x version too) system configuration utility. loving thing will set a new server up as an LDAP server with convenient menu driven interfaces. Its a cheat code for linux, but it still lets you get into all the configs without any more pain than RHEL family. Oh, and as a distro SuSE has the same kind of corporate backing as RHEL, and so is very well done. its also thorough as gently caress about everything Its not real big because of that german origin. for a long time there was no support in english, so you were stuck trying to figure out german language forums if anything suse specific went wrong.
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Jan 25, 2021 02:37
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The appeal of Arch is being able to cherry pick what packages you want. The installer gives you everything needed to accomplish this. The reason I use Arch is because I'm able to quickly install only what I need and no more. Complaining that the base package doesn't come with your favorite wifi networking client, or any other package, is kinda missing the point. I think new linux users end up with Arch and these issues with installation because of the memes or taking bad advice from people who know better than to recommend it to new users. Anyone reading the installation guide and paying attention will be fine.
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Jan 25, 2021 02:50
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tjones posted:The appeal of Arch is being able to cherry pick what packages you want. The installer gives you everything needed to accomplish this. The reason I use Arch is because I'm able to quickly install only what I need and no more. so you agree that the problem isn't actually arch, its people recommending arch to new users? because I think thats the core of most peoples objection to it. people keep recommending it to new users, who either give up on linux because its too hard, pick up bad habits of copy/pasting(which an above post just kinda accepted was the right thing to do, highlighting the problem), or happen to be in the 1% of people who want that level of complexity and total immersion right off the bat. This means only 1% of the time was it the right choice, and that 1% is guaranteed to distro hop their way to arch eventually anyway, because thats what that kind of person does. its why I have built a gentoo server, and have experience in hating debian, and have a powered down esxi server full of creative attempts at poo poo sitting in my closet. just stop recommending it, ffs, lol E: I also don't recommend SuSE to newbies for the same reason in reverse. its too easy and you don't really learn anything about the underlying system until it breaks and you dunno wtf. always configure your first few LDAP servers by hand
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Jan 25, 2021 02:58
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i mean, minimal debian install is like 400 megs unpacked, but it ships with working networking and isn't arch so yeah, i'm definitely missing its point IMO arch's place in the world is what gentoo's used to be. it's popular enough that it has a well travelled wiki, and also lovely enough that said wiki has an article for any linux problem you've ever encountered 
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Jan 25, 2021 02:59
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minato posted:the time in the prompt is when the prompt was displayed, not when you executed the command, right? Yes, but (at least in zsh) you can have it update the prompt just before the command executes in basically any manner you want. BlankSystemDaemon posted:It's not difficult to understand, but I do think that having time as part of the prompt is distracting as it seems like it'd be a value that's more or less constantly changing? I don't have current time in my prompt, because tmux handles that for me too -- it's "time prompt was displayed" and then "time command was executed" is added as well just before command execution.
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Jan 25, 2021 03:04
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ToxicFrog posted:Yes, but (at least in zsh) you can have it update the prompt just before the command executes in basically any manner you want. I'm really starting to think I might want to start using a tmux shell
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Jan 25, 2021 03:06
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RFC2324 posted:so you agree that the problem isn't actually arch, its people recommending arch to new users? I wouldn't recommend it to anyone new to unix based systems, no. Anyone looking to learn linux? Possibly, if I thought they were serious about it and already had some technical know-how. Someone closely following the guide and taking the time to read, research, and understand each step before progressing to the next is different than someone looking for a one click installation solution, which is where I believe all the complaints of "I installed it now but how do I wifi!?!" come from. Truga posted:i mean, minimal debian install is like 400 megs unpacked, but it ships with working networking and isn't arch so yeah, i'm definitely missing its point My arch install script includes all the packages I need, including my preferred networking clients. I've built my install by hand over the years the way I like it. Installing a prebuilt and then having to modify by adding or removing packages is actually more work. You prefer debian. Thats cool. I like Arch. RFC2324 posted:I'm really starting to think I might want to start using a tmux shell Tmux is great. I highly recommend it but more for its multiplexing abilities. Headless sessions are useful.
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Jan 25, 2021 03:29
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tjones posted:The appeal of Arch is being able to cherry pick what packages you want. The installer gives you everything needed to accomplish this. The reason I use Arch is because I'm able to quickly install only what I need and no more. I agree with you even though my post probably came off as hating arch. Actually, my daily driver is arch, and I love using it. I just think that it's not for complete newbies or those that would rather only use linux than learn about it. I prefer picking the packages I need, and I don't even like desktop managers which almost always come preinstalled on other distros. I just use i3 without a dm instead. Maybe arch could include a script in the installation image to pacstrap stuff like the networking package as a cli prompt to make the installation process more automated. But then again maybe it's better to not make the arch install newb friendly as manjaro and other distros already have this covered.
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Jan 25, 2021 03:37
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I mean, for all the poo poo Arch is getting. My experience installing my variant here was better than the last time I installed Ubuntu like half a decade ago, even with the smarmy power users on the distro's forum. I couldn't even get my Ubuntu install last time to connect to the internet so gave up after a couple of days. This time it also didn't nuke my bootloader when I did a dual boot! Nitrousoxide fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 04:29
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The Gadfly posted:Maybe arch could include a script in the installation image to pacstrap stuff like the networking package as a cli prompt to make the installation process more automated. But then again maybe it's better to not make the arch install newb friendly as manjaro and other distros already have this covered. I agree on all points. I also think Manjaro is a bit of a mistake as a lot of times it is passed off as "arch but for new guys" and you get people who end up in the same boat when something goes wrong. You can easily write a script file yourself to install all your packages you want after you've installed base. Theres no need for the arch boot system to include it as it would just complicate things. If you already have an Arch system setup, the following commands are helpful: 'pacman -Q' will show all installed packages 'pacman -Qe' will show all explicitly installed packages Read the man page for pacman for more query options as you can get fairly granular results for what you want to return. Then you can use that to generate a list of everything on your current system for whatever purpose you need and add that to your backup scripts. For instance, I use this to dump all of my explicit packages and redirect it to a file. My backup script runs this command and includes the file in my archive so I can easily see what was installed when and I can pull that package list to then build a new install from if needed. code:EDIT: Since I'm offering advice in regards to pacman, if you were to do something like what I do above, I would suggest also checking for orphans anytime you reinstall from a static package list. Orphans occur from time to time in Arch and its worthwhile to check for and remove any packages if they are no longer needed: quote:pacman -Qdt tjones fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Jan 25, 2021 |
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Jan 25, 2021 04:32
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I'm here to tell you that dnf (Fedora) and apt (Debian/Ubuntu) can do all those things as it relates to manually and automatically installed packages. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Jan 25, 2021 04:48
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waffle iron posted:I'm here to tell you that dnf (Fedora) and apt (Debian/Ubuntu) can do all those things as it relates to manually and automatically installed packages. zypper is quite good too φ(゜▽゜*)♪
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Jan 25, 2021 04:49
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Package management has come a long way in the last twenty years. I recently watched this video and was reminded of my attempts to install Debian 2.1 or 2.2 on a Packard Bell computer in 1999 or 2000. (The CDs were burned on an external parallel port CD burner connected to a Dell laptop of that era.) dselect and x86config can burn in hell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQQCcvFUzrg
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Jan 25, 2021 04:57
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waffle iron posted:Package management has come a long way in the last twenty years. I recently watched this video and was reminded of my attempts to install Debian 2.1 or 2.2 on a Packard Bell computer in 1999 or 2000. (The CDs were burned on an external parallel port CD burner connected to a Dell laptop of that era.) dselect and x86config can burn in hell. slack, from floppy, in 1996
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Jan 25, 2021 05:06
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waffle iron posted:I'm here to tell you that dnf (Fedora) and apt (Debian/Ubuntu) can do all those things as it relates to manually and automatically installed packages. My point being that Arch's base package group that is installed on installation contains a total of 27 packages. https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any/base/ It has been years since I've used Fedora/RH/Centos and I've only used Debian in Ubuntu desktop distros in the last 10 years. Do either's minimal install option get as lean as that?
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Jan 25, 2021 05:10
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tjones posted:My point being that Arch's base package group that is installed on installation contains a total of 27 packages. I prefer to have a system that can do things, but point taken?
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Jan 25, 2021 05:27
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tjones posted:I agree on all points. I also think Manjaro is a bit of a mistake as a lot of times it is passed off as "arch but for new guys" and you get people who end up in the same boat when something goes wrong. Yeah, going from a gui one-click install process to trying to chroot into your system to fix some specific issue without a gui must be jarring. tjones posted:
Thanks for the tip. This seems useful. My tip for backup-related stuff is to just have all your configs hard linked to a git repo. So whenever you change a config, it automatically gets reflected in that repo, and then you just need to commit the changes. You can even incorporate this (using git diff --exit-code as the conditional to check for changes) into your backup script, so that you don't have to manually commit changes. The rest of my backup script are rsync commands for the normal backup process. I think a lot of people already use git for easy access to their configs though, so it's not anything too insightful.
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Jan 25, 2021 05:39
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waffle iron posted:I prefer to have a system that can do things, but point taken? Arch is an easy way to LFS without having to spend time compiling things. My system does everything I want and only includes what I need.
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Jan 25, 2021 05:43
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waffle iron posted:Package management has come a long way in the last twenty years. I recently watched this video and was reminded of my attempts to install Debian 2.1 or 2.2 on a Packard Bell computer in 1999 or 2000. (The CDs were burned on an external parallel port CD burner connected to a Dell laptop of that era.) dselect and x86config can burn in hell. Long story short, I was looking into installing Linux in late-1999 and complaining about it on IRC. So a friend printed the FreeBSD Handbook and burned FreeBSD 4.0 to CDs, gave me both, and I never really looked back.
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Jan 25, 2021 07:31
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Nitrousoxide posted:I mean, for all the poo poo Arch is getting. My experience installing my variant here was better than the last time I installed Ubuntu like half a decade ago, even with the smarmy power users on the distro's forum. RIGHT. When I dual booted Ubuntu + Win10, Win10 updated itself like it will do then just decided to format all my Ubuntu bootloaders, just randomly ruined my Ubuntu install al on it's own, I was pissed off and deleted Windows in a rage to never look back.
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Jan 25, 2021 14:25
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rufius posted:Honest question - what’s notable/interesting about running OpenSUSE? I like rolling distros, so Tumbleweed ticks all those boxes for me while also have the Suse name, which is more respected I'd reckon than Arch in an enterprise world.
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Jan 25, 2021 14:28
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Cheese Thief posted:RIGHT. When I dual booted Ubuntu + Win10, Win10 updated itself like it will do then just decided to format all my Ubuntu bootloaders, just randomly ruined my Ubuntu install al on it's own, I was pissed off and deleted Windows in a rage to never look back. The trick to avoid this is use multiple drives if possible, because then you can put EFI PE32+ binary images on each drive so that you simply select which drive to boot from.
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Jan 25, 2021 15:51
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Cheese Thief posted:RIGHT. When I dual booted Ubuntu + Win10, Win10 updated itself like it will do then just decided to format all my Ubuntu bootloaders, just randomly ruined my Ubuntu install al on it's own, I was pissed off and deleted Windows in a rage to never look back. Been using dual boot for a while now and grub failed me a few times back then but haven't got me any problems in the last 2 or so years I think? What do you guys think the average computer toucher level is to recommend a build yourself distro for beginners? People new to linux structure and terminal will very likely go in blind and gently caress up, you could say they gotta be motivated enough to get through the hurdle but people who are interested in learning might not necessarily need that level of control for their intended uses anyway. For someone with a clear objective looking for a specific functionality, sure, it's better to put it together and leave it stable, but for "getting to know" linux i'd say a beginner is better off making a separate home partition and installing something that mostly works out of the box like Mint, Ubuntu or Pop! and start playing with it, and if it breaks you just reinstall and keep your user data.
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Jan 25, 2021 15:59
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Re: SUSE chat - thanks for responses. That helps! I mostly use OpenBSD and Ubuntu LTS but next time I’ll try out OpenSUSE.
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Jan 25, 2021 16:35
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bagual posted:Been using dual boot for a while now and grub failed me a few times back then but haven't got me any problems in the last 2 or so years I think? I'm not sure I know what distro meets this, but imo the ideal beginners distro would have a guided installer(not one click), and mostly work in that stuff won't be broken, but will still be rough enough to encourage you to poke around. This is distinct from the distro you want to inflict on your mom/boss/other non-toucher, which should really just work and look/feel smooth.
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Jan 25, 2021 17:25
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I've moved my whole family over to Ubuntu with KDE and they have had very little problems adjusting. If you show someone how to open a browser, calculator, notepad, and Libre office, most will do fine. Anyone with a habit of poking things or touching the settings for no reason will break any OS, IMO.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:13
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tjones posted:I've moved my whole family over to Ubuntu with KDE and they have had very little problems adjusting. Some OSes hide the buttons that can do that better than others, which the core of the arch philosophy is to draw big flashing arrows pointing them out and saying "fiddle with this!" Which is not bad! It's just not good for Grandma. And KDE really is the best DE imo. Its just super flexible and can be pretty af, as osx demonstrates.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:30
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RFC2324 posted:I'm not sure I know what distro meets this, but imo the ideal beginners distro would have a guided installer(not one click), and mostly work in that stuff won't be broken, but will still be rough enough to encourage you to poke around. I believe it's not either/or but more of a spectrum, someone who has a clear goal and needs linux would undoubtly benefit from configuring the install. Someone whose objective is "getting to know linux" for the first time out of interest would be better off starting from the inside of a easy stable distro and go for something with a little more control when they know what they want, and in my experience they'd just go whatever seems like default for everything in a guided install anyway. But i'm just a advocate for learning by breaking i guess, ymmv.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:45
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Nitrousoxide posted:If anyone cares, I finally got SS13 working by following this guide. I'm late to the party but going to agree with other posters and nth the Fedora recommendation. You seem like you're getting by and enjoy the tinkering (based on not giving up), so I don't want to discourage you from continuing with Arch, it can be a great OS. Despite that every hardcore nerd I've known, yours truly included, has eventually gotten sick of the constant tinkering with Arch. If you get there consider Fedora, I am a heavy gamer and do a lot of messing around with linux for work and play on most distros and I have found Fedora to be the sweet spot of latest kernel (so mainly hardware compatibility; AMD drivers in your case) and package versions to poo poo breaking arbitrarily. It's very easy to get a gaming fedora rig up and running these days as well with RPMFusion (community repo of non-free or license restricted packages, more pacman less AUR). Pick the spin of Fedora (they default to gnome, please use anything but gnome) you want, install RPMFusion repos, install steam and optionally nvidia drivers from RPMFusion, go hog wild with bleeding edge stability. They also default to BTRFS as of Fedora 33. Also you're probably aware but if not check out https://www.protondb.com/, it's a wiki for linux game compatibility with steam (proton) and will tell you at a glance how much of a bumpy ride or not you're in for with any given game, and what fixes you can do to get them running. That being said the Arch wiki is generally the first place I go to for any Linux questions, it's mostly universally applicable and quite excellent. Gentoo and OpenSuSE also have excellent wiki's. RFC2324 posted:I'm really starting to think I might want to start using a tmux shell I've started using it regularly and haven't found it useful as a shell replacement -- to many little gotchas I don't like that I maybe could fix but we all know how these things go... That said it's excellent for long running tasks, much better than my usual code:Nitrousoxide posted:I mean, for all the poo poo Arch is getting. My experience installing my variant here was better than the last time I installed Ubuntu like half a decade ago, even with the smarmy power users on the distro's forum. I'm not exactly sure when Ubuntu became a heaping pile of poo poo but... well here we are.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:55
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:This experience, or one like it, but with the added problem of issues with the documentation, is why I ended up on FreeBSD. But I can't do video games on FreeBSD 
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Jan 25, 2021 18:57
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bagual posted:I believe it's not either/or but more of a spectrum, someone who has a clear goal and needs linux would undoubtly benefit from configuring the install. Someone whose objective is "getting to know linux" for the first time out of interest would be better off starting from the inside of a easy stable distro and go for something with a little more control when they know what they want, and in my experience they'd just go whatever seems like default for everything in a guided install anyway. But i'm just a advocate for learning by breaking i guess, ymmv. I personally learn by breaking, and pushing unlabeled buttons is how I learned linux. Its not for everyone, and I have reached the point that I don't want normal every day use to be a learning experience anymore. There is an underlying attitude that anyone wanting to learn linux wants to learn the inner guts(because the people already in the community take that for granted) but that excludes the vast majority of normal users. For most users 'learning to use it' is figuring out how the menus work, maybe getting advanced enough to figure out how to adjust the resolution. Gotta ask if we want to shut those people out by assuming everyone is technical enough to go look up patches in a wiki, and other tasks that normal users would consider onerous.
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Jan 25, 2021 18:57
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tjones posted:I've moved my whole family over to Ubuntu with KDE and they have had very little problems adjusting. A long time ago, I gave my parents my old Dell Dimension Pentium IV with Ubuntu 6.0 on it. My mom complained that the coupon printer wouldn't work but she got the digital camera working on her own. They used that up until the HD puked.
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Jan 25, 2021 19:07
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I'm quite interested to see what comes of helloSystem, in terms of something that grandma can use. It's made by the person who made AppImage, and seems to have come very far in a short amount of time, so assuming it keeps up the progress, it might go places.
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Jan 25, 2021 19:16
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Mr. Crow posted:I'm not exactly sure when Ubuntu became a heaping pile of poo poo but... well here we are. I don't remember exactly but I think it was somewhere around 2009-2010.
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Jan 25, 2021 20:41
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