From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
That's like seeing the Otaku gang, deciding to give this Anime a go, watching Dragon Ball and asking "what's so special about this?".
Some people make some random thing their personality, others enjoy the same thing without making a big fuzz about it. Arch is great because of the wiki and the AUR, other distros have their own pros and cons.
The one benefit Arch has for me (even though I no longer use it as I found I'm not too fond of rolling releases), is that the AUR with an AUR helper takes care of getting any Linux packages installed. No need to copy commands off a github repo or something like that.
using vim to edit a .conf file
that's the nixos people
Most who use Arch prefer to use a customized tiling window manager instead of a desktop environment. I tried using i3, and I do understand tiling WMs, but they're not really for me and I won't be able to do a crazy design out of them.
I have been a GNU/Linux user for about 15 years. During that time, I have alternated between Arch and Gentoo.
Gentoo is very time consuming and complex, and Arch is a pain to keep clean. However, the ability to customize the system to your preferred configuration is a big draw for both.
For a light user like me, patching and customizing to PKGBUILD is just fine. Personally, I sometimes wish for something like the USE flag in Portage.
I tried it and was underwhelmed, but also overwhelmed.
I love the idea of choosing everything I want, but Arch also meant the pain of learning to install everything I actually need first.
Is there a minimalistic distro that installs all just the essentials (drivers, services like DHCP, a package manager, desktop GUI), and then I choose from there?