The more time I spend with Linux the more I realize that Distro doesn’t matter, GUI doesn’t matter, experience doesn’t matter.
Distro doesn’t matter because you will inevitably come across something that you need that doesn’t work on your distribution.
GUI doesn’t matter because no matter what you do you will %100 have to use the terminal and if you can do it once you can do it again.
Experience doesn’t matter because if you’re inexperienced you have to go outside your Comfort zone, if you’re experienced you got there because you like going outside your comfort zone and you will constantly stay in that state.
Arch is the distro that did hold the longest against my torture yet, maybe because everything is from the same repo 🤔😂
I wish gentoo was more explored, I felt the same way and then it finally scratched the itch of things working (perhaps even too many options). I actually ended up using gentoo because it was less of a headache to just get things to work in a way that does not feel hacky
I moved to Arch about 20 years ago because I wanted Gentoo but I didn’t want to wait hours for compilation. I remember it fondly though. emerge was kind of a killer feature.
Though I gotta say, I’m a bit more curious now that we have better processors. And I’m curious what I’ve missed over the years.
I tried out Gentoo for a while, and just using binaries for the web browser and office suite made the compile times a complete non-issue. The problem I had that made me give it up was that when there is software you want that isn’t in the official repos there are a thousand different ways of getting it, and all of them suck. Overlays are supposed to be the solution for that, but man that experience was just awful.
I tried all kinds of things, but in the end all the options basically boiled down to risking breakage, maintaining my own packages, or not using emerge at all, which just feels like it’s defeating the whole purpose of being on Gentoo in the first place.
That huge chunk of learning required for arch when you’ve never used Linux before is really hard to imagine when you have years of experience working Linux under your belt. That does not mean it doesn’t exist for new users though.
That shit’s complex and long. Much as I appreciate the sentiment of “the distro doesn’t matter” I really can’t agree.
I realised the same thing.
When I was switching from Windows to Linux on my PCs (both at home and at work), I originally wanted to use Debian because I’m most familiar with it and have been running it on servers for 20+ years.
I have to use Fedora at work though - it’s a lightly-modified version of Fedora that runs some automatic configuration on first boot and first log in for things like ensuring disk encryption is enabled (including adding randomly-generated secondary keys for IT support), 802.1x certificates for Ethernet and VPN auth, Chef, endpoint security, etc.
Anyways, I started using it and love it. I’m running it at home now too. I realised the difference between distros is much narrower than it used to be.
WTF are you guys doing with your PCs??? I’ve been running Mint for over a year now and the only time I’ve used the terminal was to open a port for Chromecast. I browse, I game, I watch shows, etc. maybe I’m just really lucky, idk, it’s been nothing but smooth sailing.
I personally use it to run a headless docker on fedora 40 server with containers holding jellyfin, filebrowser, pia, qBittorrent a desktop in noVNC a pfsense server, and probably some stuff I forgot.
Why is that not a standard use case?
But in all seriousness I guess I get your point.
Not exactly advanced, but I missed the super+P shortcut when switching from desk and monitor to sofa and TV. Made a couple of one line shell scripts that call Xrandr then bound them to keyboard shortcuts.
Meh, don’t worry about it. If you are happy with how it’s going for you - enjoy the ride! Not everyone needs to be bothered by the terminal. But it IS there if you need it or want to use it.
Besides, if Arch users wanted to be be real gurus they’d be running EMACS and not Arch.
Yes and no for me
Distro doesn’t matter because they only differ in package manager and initial configuration, you can always compile things if you really need it.
GUI doesn’t matter because you’ll end up with all KDE and gnome dependencies installed anyway because your applications need it.
Experience probably matters, but if it doesn’t, it may be because there is just so much there to know.
Experience doesn’t matter because if you’re inexperienced you have to go outside your Comfort zone, if you’re experienced you got there because you like going outside your comfort zone and you will constantly stay in that state.
I was experimenting a lot during my early Linux months but then I found what works for me and settled with it. I don’t leave my comfort zone much anymore.
