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Fine with ARCH, but is there any better distro out there?
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HerrLange Oct 6, 2018
I‘m about to replace my entire pc (except gfx card) with either the upcoming ryzen 2 or the intel 9xxx cpus next spring. This includes the SSDs. Therefore and because I want to I will install linux from scratch.

At the moment I‘m using Arch. The installation is about 4 years old and I‘m totally pleased in terms of stability and performance. I had only issues with updates introducing wayland defaults interfering with my nvidia gfx card.

Honestly I‘m addicted to versions and really need to have the latest version of most things. E.g. gfx drivers, kernel, browsers, gnome and numerous utilities. For security reasons I try to minimize 3rd pary repos or things like AUR or PPA. Currently I have just 3 AUR packages installed.

In the beginning I tried to have this with ubuntu ending up in trusting dozends of alternative repos and PPAs. But in my opinion this puts you into a high risk because you cannot really trust all those repos that run software wth root privelagues. So i switched to rolling release/Arch which seems the best option for me. Do you think this is true?

What do you think about Antergos? It seems to be ARCH with an installer? Are there any disadvantages compared do a desktop linux setup done like ARCH traditional?

I plan to try out Open Suse thumbleweed. I already tried to Fedora but wasn‘t that pleased.
At work I deal a lot with SLES, RHEL, core os, tiny box and Ubuntu. I never really made experiences with Debian, but most of my raspies are running raspian because I care only about stability (and security). I never touched any other distros like Slackware so far.

Are there other distros that I should have a look at or you would recommend under the given boundarys?
Shmerl Oct 7, 2018
I'm using Debian testing, which in general is good.
ageres Oct 7, 2018
But software from standard repos and from PPAs is made by the same people, what's risky in that? For example, if you install LibreOffice in Ubuntu 18.04, you'll get version 6.0 while there is version 6.1 in its PPA. If a PPA is stated on an official website of some program, I believe it's safe.

If you are fine with Arch, stick with Arch. You can also try upcoming Ubuntu 18.10 (Lubuntu finally switches from LXDE to LXQt there) which is going to have the newest possible software without a need to use many PPAs. The downside is that you'll have to upgrade it every six month, and this could be annoying if you are accustomed to a rolling-release distro.
Shmerl Oct 7, 2018
If you prefer rolling distros, don't use Ubuntu. It's not rolling by design. Since you are already comfortable with Arch, continue using rolling distros in general.
dvd Oct 7, 2018
If you are happy/comfortable with Arch, don't switch. If you want to experiment with new software do it in a VM or on your existing setup. If you are dead set on switching, with steamos/ubuntu/debian you are probably less likely to run into problems with proprietary games, with steamos/ubutnu being better choices if you want support for your games.
ziabice Oct 7, 2018
If you are an Arch user, your natural choice is Manjaro Linux, which is an Arch Linux derivative.

Pros:
- It's still Arch Linux, but is oriented toward the casual user
- Rolling release
- All the software you already know from Arch Linux (pacman, etc...), plus AUR
- Graphical installer and settings manager
- Graphical package manager
- Packages are more tested
- Supports latest NVIDIA drivers out of the box
- Great community

Cons:
- It's a rolling release, but "less rolling": you have to wait longer for upgrades (usually a week or two)
- Sometimes packages from AUR can't be installed because the system has old packages or conflicting one (it's not so common, but it happens)
Samsai Oct 7, 2018
If you are already happy with Arch, using an Arch derivative gets you nothing. Manjaro is basically just an out-dated Arch with its own semi-rolling repositories (which means if you ask the Arch community for support you won't be getting any) and Antergos is just Arch but with some themes and an installer.

So, basically, if you like Arch then Arch is what you want. Not really any other distro out there quite like it.
HerrLange Oct 7, 2018
Thx for the comments so far @all

Honestly I dislike the concept of Manjaro and am not convinced it helps avoiding issues. In a best case they are able to automate things like manually deleting packages/folders which is sometimes necessary for Arch. Also I'm fine with the console.

Regarding Antergos which seems to be widely used:
Is it bloated or do I really start with a naked linux?
Does it make some choices I have to revert or can't influence, e.g. using networkmanager? Partitioning? Bootloader? ...?
lucinos Oct 7, 2018
Quoting: madchaotikanThx for the comments so far @all

Honestly I dislike the concept of Manjaro and am not convinced it helps avoiding issues. In a best case they are able to automate things like manually deleting packages/folders which is sometimes necessary for Arch. Also I'm fine with the console.

Regarding Antergos which seems to be widely used:
Is it bloated or do I really start with a naked linux?
Does it make some choices I have to revert or can't influence, e.g. using networkmanager? Partitioning? Bootloader? ...?

Manjaro does not really helps avoiding issues but I would suggest just try it! Easiest installation ever! Personally I had bad experience with Antergos and did not tried it again and probably never try it again since I am just using Arch and Manjaro, and on older computers Bunsenlabs (debian).

Bootloader I only trust Grub. I tried other bootloaders but they where not as easy and reliable.
skyrrd Oct 8, 2018
Some time ago that I used antergos, but iirc it's rather a shortcut to a working desktop environment (some to choose from) then an independent distribution. It doesn't have any own repositories or does differ in any other way from arch than making the install process quite simple.

Don't get me wrong I used to love arch and also antergos when I didn't have the nerves to set up the complete system from scratch.

With antergos you will basically, have the same choices as with arch. Partitioning ca happen automatically or manually with chnci installer and regarding bootloader there is grub and I believe one alternative.
But the simplification of the install process also takes away some degree of control over what gets installed and what settings are configured, but most things can be changed afterwards.

But, if you really want to have complete control over your setup and don't mind compiling your packages from source, you could also give gentoo a try. I have been a former arch user and I must say I really love gentoo now. But everyone has his very own taste ?
damarrin Oct 8, 2018
Quoting: skyrrdBut everyone has his very own taste ?

So sexist. Where is a code of conduct where you need one?

Spoiler, click me
It's a joke.
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