Why I Switched Back From Gentoo to Arch Linux After 2 Months

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Thu, 24 Nov 2022 00:40:00 +0800

In the end, I switched back to Arch Linux somewhat ashamedly and awkwardly. Although both are rolling-release distributions, the difficulty gap between Gentoo and Arch is truly too large. It seems I was not ready yet.

Where can one find a desktop Linux distribution that is highly customizable, has the latest software versions, and can be used solidly? These three conditions can never be satisfied at once.

In pursuit of the ultimate customized Linux system, I switched from openSUSE Tumbleweed to Arch Linux in July 2022, and then switched again to Gentoo Linux.

During this period, I gained a preliminary understanding of the low-level system compilation principles provided by Gentoo and LFS (installed with dual boot), learned how to migrate from OpenRC to Systemd, and experienced the pain of having to manually install some software myself. As for the system kernel, because I cheated by using the official precompiled binary (based on Fedora), I never had to worry about that part.

Playing large games such as War Thunder on Gentoo was no problem. Steam (Flatpak) + Proton handled everything.

Plasma Overdose theme

However, after using Gentoo Linux for two months and tasting its pros and cons, I decided to switch back to Arch Linux. My old habit was to upgrade Gentoo once a week. This time, because more than 50 KDE package slot conflicts appeared at once during Gentoo emerge, I thought I could no longer spend this time on low-level debugging, so I took out the Arch Linux USB and reinstalled the system.

This reason for leaving is not as ridiculous as my previous one for Ubuntu, right? Back then I left because I thought Ubuntu/Debian was too boring. openSUSE/Fedora gave people too many preinstalled things, which I did not like. Although they are not as exaggerated as the Windows 11 advertising machine, that heavyweight collection of proprietary software, that monster can only be locked inside a virtual machine.

A freshly installed Windows 11 system already has this many advertising APPs

Using Tumbleweed, Arch, and Gentoo: is that pushing myself into hell? Or heaven? In any case, after using rolling-release distributions close to upstream, I do not want to use stable-release distributions anymore.

Because of my distro-hopping habits, important data is placed on another hard drive and in the cloud (Software Liberty Association’s Nextcloud + private MEGA), so the preparation process did not take too long. After backing up the Windows and MacOS virtual machines, I reinstalled.

1. The Ultimate in Customization, the Test of Stability
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After thinking about it again and again, to answer the idea at the beginning, Arch is currently the optimal solution, and it must be pure Arch, not Arch-based “enhanced” distributions such as Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda, or Artix.

Gentoo and LFS are the ultimate in customization, and the software is also very new. You install the system almost from zero, and you also have to configure options for compiling packages. I can tolerate waiting for packages to compile, but manually handling package conflicts is infuriating. On a PC, I can slowly deal with it, but if installed on a laptop where mobility matters… I briefly tried Gentoo on the laptop, then later switched back to Arch as well. I had not even encountered upgrade conflict problems yet before I was nearly killed by compilation delays. Gentoo may be stable enough, but friends who like chasing updates will suffer greatly.

When debugging system problems, not only the beard, even the hair is about to fall out

Gentoo on Ivon's Blog

Why I Switched Back From Gentoo to Arch Linux After 2 Months

1. The Ultimate in Customization, the Test of Stability #

1. The Ultimate in Customization, the Test of Stability
#