| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
 Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:08 am Post subject: What is the worst Linux Distro? (May 2019) |
 |
|
What is the worst Linux Distro?
by Bryan Lunduke
on May 7, 2019
Video embedded:
https://www.linuxjournal.com/video/what-worst-linux-distro
He does have a "disclaimer" at the beginning stating that he probably hasn't seen or heard of "the worst."
https://youtu.be/IVXqfKcD5PQ?t=595
He's not entirely wrong, but he doesn't address the meta aspect and speaks of it as simply a "distro." Also not anything new since I've been using it.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
gorg86
Apprentice
Joined: 20 May 2011
Posts: 299
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 10:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
Ah Lunduke the bs artist/troll.
I still can't get over the fact that he is "Director of Marketing" for Purism. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 2:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
At least in this video he was pretty up front about predictable reactions. I don't think that qualifies as trolling.
I'm not familiar with the specifics of the other distros, but none of the criticisms seemed unwarranted.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ant P.
Watchman
Joined: 18 Apr 2009
Posts: 6920
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:42 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| gorg86 wrote: | Ah Lunduke the bs artist/troll.
I still can't get over the fact that he is "Director of Marketing" for Purism. |
No wonder the worst of the worst flocked to their social media site. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
skellr
l33t
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 976
Location: The Village, Portmeirion
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 5:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
He mentions that Gentoo isn't hardcore enough. I agree with that. Probably a result of "Fanboys" running around telling everyone it's 1337 and difficult.... it isn't. It's just a trarball that needs a kernel and whatever else to be up and running. Do it how you want, not what an installer wants. It is easy.
He also mentions the Documentation has fallen off. It has. Is there a separation from official documentation and the wiki? It's just "Gentoo Documentation" to most people. Someone stumbles around and just manages to get something working and then it's "I'm going to blog/wiki" what I did! Some of that stuff is just really lacking in depth. The explanations of how and why are rare. It's just "do this or that" or "paste this and that". Not what It used to be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| skellr wrote: | | He mentions that Gentoo isn't hardcore enough. I agree with that. Probably a result of "Fanboys" running around telling everyone it's 1337 and difficult.... it isn't. It's just a trarball that needs a kernel and whatever else to be up and running. Do it how you want, not what an installer wants. It is easy. |
I thought the hardcore / LFS comment and comparison was a bit odd, and primarily why it seems like he doesn't really understand where Gentoo would be a solution. It isn't trying to be an LFS (maybe a variety of ALFS, but haven't looked at it). And it obviously isn't a binary distro. Criticism that it isn't either of those is fine to that specific point, but it isn't trying to be either of those. The main reason I continue using Gentoo is that other options have almost no benefit (pre-packaged binaries) and more undesirable trade-offs (I don't want to install updates for software I don't use but was forced to install as a dependency). Although that latter part has been less true over time.
| skellr wrote: | | He also mentions the Documentation has fallen off. It has. Is there a separation from official documentation and the wiki? It's just "Gentoo Documentation" to most people. Someone stumbles around and just manages to get something working and then it's "I'm going to blog/wiki" what I did! Some of that stuff is just really lacking in depth. The explanations of how and why are rare. It's just "do this or that" or "paste this and that". Not what It used to be. |
I'm usually disappointed when I see documentation that seems wiki-based.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
John R. Graham
Administrator
Joined: 08 Mar 2005
Posts: 10590
Location: Somewhere over Atlanta, Georgia
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 6:59 pm Post subject: Re: What is the worst Linux Distro? (May 2019) |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | ...He's not entirely wrong, but he doesn't address the meta aspect and speaks of it as simply a "distro." Also not anything new since I've been using it. |
Yes, I concur. Regarding his comments on Gentoo, in the context of not talking about the benefits, I don't think he's particularly off base. I do think that our modern official documentation is a little bit more prescriptive and less descriptive than it used to be. (I still think it's very good.)
- John
_________________
I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Zucca
Moderator
Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Posts: 3357
Location: Rasi, Finland
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 7:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Well. I started with Gentoo and have learnt 99,99% of my Linux skills by using Gentoo...
It's not the installation that teaches you that much, it is the daily using that teaches.
I'd like to have few words with Mr. Lunduke. :D
_________________
..: Zucca :..
Gentoo IRC channels reside on Libera.Chat.
--
| Quote: | | I am NaN! I am a man! |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
skellr
l33t
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 976
Location: The Village, Portmeirion
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 8:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | I thought the hardcore / LFS comment and comparison was a bit odd, and primarily why it seems like he doesn't really understand where Gentoo would be a solution. It isn't trying to be an LFS (maybe a variety of ALFS, but haven't looked at it). And it obviously isn't a binary distro. Criticism that it isn't either of those is fine to that specific point, but it isn't trying to be either of those. The main reason I continue using Gentoo is that other options have almost no benefit (pre-packaged binaries) and more undesirable trade-offs (I don't want to install updates for software I don't use but was forced to install as a dependency). Although that latter part has been less true over time. |
Yes. Reminds me of Linus just wanting to code and not worry about the system. That is Gentoo!
You set it how you want and that's how it will stay. You don't get a new init system, DE, WM, boot loader after an update. If there is a problem you don't have to fight a bunch of convoluted scripts telling you "no, thats not how we want it" to get things working again. It's your system, the way you want it, without problems from something you don't need.
Sure, there are some fundamental concepts regarding ABI changes, linking, and compiling from source that are helpful to know. I guarantee those issues are less frequent than any unexpected problem that crops up from any binary distro. They are just too convoluted with too many points of failure. Might as well just use Windows... Windows is more stable than Ubuntu isn't it? Remember hoops to jump through to just play an mp3 or install NVIDIA drivers? How hard was it on Gentoo in comparison? Not much is going to change unless the software you use becomes abandon-ware.
I don't get it. Never seen more odd application crashes/behavior than from a binary distro or Windows. What can we do about it with them? just wait for someone else to fix it. Really? There is a price for everything. The price for Gentoo is quite cheap, IMO.
I'll stop before I go off on a tangent.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:08 pm Post subject: Re: What is the worst Linux Distro? (May 2019) |
|
|
| John R. Graham wrote: | | Regarding his comments on Gentoo, in the context of not talking about the benefits, I don't think he's particularly off base. |
I agree. They seemed fairly superficial. Cut & paste commands to perform the install; "a lot of work" to install and maintain; "hides" too much that could facilitate learning.
Cut & paste as an install process is the most obvious. If the position of the developers remains "There can be only one! (installer)," then that will always remain. Unfortunate, but perhaps that is a bit of intentional "hazing" to keep away people not willing to put forth some basic effort. Although it seems like a basic tool could exist to reduce some of the boilerplate, with the goal of being as universal as possible. That leads to a lot of up front work to get an instlalation.
Maintenance is mostly not that bad for one or a few similarly configured desktops / servers. It is when divergent systems come into play that maintenance effort seems to increases potentially significantly.
But I disagree on the "hides" too much compared to LFS. I'd offer that Gentoo presents the information as the user is ready or becomes interested in learning the next "thing" (not the same for each user). More succintly, it offers a carrot to the curious. In some ways, that is better than LFS. LFS requires intentional and significant interest in learning a lot of information up front. That probably deters a lot of casual users who'd like to know, but aren't ready to dive into the deep end.
A related anecdote, I decided to go through LFS a handful of years back. I quickly found myself thinking of what to do in order to reduce repeating certain steps over and over. Such as keeping track of urls for sources, dependencies, etc. The obvious first things that will come up. Unsurprisingly, I started to "reinvent" the very simplest parts of an ebuild. Recognizing that, I tried to avoid reinvention, but I wasn't able to quickly come up with a "better" means of managing those objectives. It would appear that either that information exists in files like ebuilds and in a format similar to the portage tree, or probably a database of some kind. Without more directly realted experience, there was no immediately obvious better way. Separate from that is portage the tool.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| skellr wrote: | | Yes. Reminds me of Linus just wanting to code and not worry about the system. That is Gentoo! |
 That isn't how I interpreted his comments.
| skellr wrote: | | Might as well just use Windows... |
I gave up Windows on the desktop not long after I first installed Gentoo. But I didn't have problems with Vista on my laptop, so it wasn't worth converting. It took Windows 10 to force me to abandon it. I'm not thrilled to be honest, but that's mostly "laptop" items as opposed to general desktop issues.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
skellr
l33t
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 976
Location: The Village, Portmeirion
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 11:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | skellr wrote: | | Yes. Reminds me of Linus just wanting to code and not worry about the system. That is Gentoo! |
That isn't how I interpreted his comments. |
I probably skiped ahead to phase 2.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fedeliallalinea
Administrator
Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Posts: 30959
Location: here
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 5:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Zucca wrote: | Well. I started with Gentoo and have learnt 99,99% of my Linux skills by using Gentoo...
It's not the installation that teaches you that much, it is the daily using that teaches. |
I fully agree
_________________
Questions are guaranteed in life; Answers aren't. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dr.Willy
Guru
Joined: 15 Jul 2007
Posts: 547
Location: NRW, Germany
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 9:17 am Post subject: Re: What is the worst Linux Distro? (May 2019) |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | Although it seems like a basic tool could exist to reduce some of the boilerplate, with the goal of being as universal as possible. That leads to a lot of up front work to get an instlalation. |
It would help if the stage3 came with better defaults.
I mean, look at this. Is there a reason the repos.conf file isn't just installed by the stage3 tarball? I mean, it is but you still have to copy it over from /usr/share, because …? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
skellr
l33t
Joined: 18 Jun 2005
Posts: 976
Location: The Village, Portmeirion
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 7:27 pm Post subject: Re: What is the worst Linux Distro? (May 2019) |
|
|
| Dr.Willy wrote: | | pjp wrote: | | Although it seems like a basic tool could exist to reduce some of the boilerplate, with the goal of being as universal as possible. That leads to a lot of up front work to get an instlalation. |
It would help if the stage3 came with better defaults.
I mean, look at this. Is there a reason the repos.conf file isn't just installed by the stage3 tarball? I mean, it is but you still have to copy it over from /usr/share, because …? |
Just skip repos.conf. The built in defaults will carry you.
it isn't mandatory... yet. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
erm67
l33t
Joined: 01 Nov 2005
Posts: 653
Location: EU
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 8:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I cannot even remember when I downloaded the last stage3 ... it was probaby 10 years ago ..... sometimes I just rm -rf /etc/portage, it's more or less like reinstalling.
_________________
Ok boomer
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Ab esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia
My fediverse account: @erm67@erm67.dynu.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 10:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| erm67 wrote: | | I cannot even remember when I downloaded the last stage3 ... it was probaby 10 years ago ..... sometimes I just rm -rf /etc/portage, it's more or less like reinstalling. |
So, no new installs? Do you just migrate an existing install to new hardware, common binaries? I usually start with a fresh install for convenience.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Goverp
Advocate
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 2014
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
erm67
l33t
Joined: 01 Nov 2005
Posts: 653
Location: EU
|
| Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 11:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | erm67 wrote: | | I cannot even remember when I downloaded the last stage3 ... it was probaby 10 years ago ..... sometimes I just rm -rf /etc/portage, it's more or less like reinstalling. |
So, no new installs? Do you just migrate an existing install to new hardware, common binaries? I usually start with a fresh install for convenience. |
Most of the times just copy the partition over to a new disk, once I used a fsarchiver backup when a system disk failed. I remove -march=native from the CFLAGS, emerge -e @system before copying the partition and emerge -e @ world on the new hardware, it always worked and mostly unattended (luck maybe?) I clean up /etc/portage sometimes.
I don't see any convenience in a new install, apart the fun of the install itself.
_________________
Ok boomer
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Ab esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia
My fediverse account: @erm67@erm67.dynu.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Zucca
Moderator
Joined: 14 Jun 2007
Posts: 3357
Location: Rasi, Finland
|
| Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I do mostly the same. Although I tend to emerge -e @world with -march=generic and then move to a new system.
_________________
..: Zucca :..
Gentoo IRC channels reside on Libera.Chat.
--
| Quote: | | I am NaN! I am a man! |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Anon-E-moose
Watchman
Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 6102
Location: Dallas area
|
| Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 12:57 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If you remove march= altogether, this is the result -mtune=generic -march=x86-64
with march=generic this is the result -march=generic
Edit to add: the common consensus is that if not mentioned mtune=generic, but I'm not 100% sure of that
reference march=native on my system
| Code: | | -march=bdver2 -mmmx -mno-3dnow -msse -msse2 -msse3 -mssse3 -msse4a -mcx16 -msahf -mno-movbe -maes -mno-sha -mpclmul -mpopcnt -mabm -mlwp -mfma -mfma4 -mxop -mbmi -mno-sgx -mno-bmi2 -mno-pconfig -mno-wbnoinvd -mtbm -mavx -mno-avx2 -msse4.2 -msse4.1 -mlzcnt -mno-rtm -mno-hle -mno-rdrnd -mf16c -mno-fsgsbase -mno-rdseed -mprfchw -mno-adx -mfxsr -mxsave -mno-xsaveopt -mno-avx512f -mno-avx512er -mno-avx512cd -mno-avx512pf -mno-prefetchwt1 -mno-clflushopt -mno-xsavec -mno-xsaves -mno-avx512dq -mno-avx512bw -mno-avx512vl -mno-avx512ifma -mno-avx512vbmi -mno-avx5124fmaps -mno-avx5124vnniw -mno-clwb -mno-mwaitx -mno-clzero -mno-pku -mno-rdpid -mno-gfni -mno-shstk -mno-avx512vbmi2 -mno-avx512vnni -mno-vaes -mno-vpclmulqdq -mno-avx512bitalg -mno-movdiri -mno-movdir64b --param l1-cache-size=16 --param l1-cache-line-size=64 --param l2-cache-size=2048 -mtune=bdver2 |
all using gcc -march=native -E -v - </dev/null 2>&1 | sed -n 's/.* -v - //p' with march= modified or removed
_________________
PRIME x570-pro, 3700x, 6.1 zen kernel
gcc 13, profile 17.0 (custom bare multilib), openrc, wayland |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
erm67
l33t
Joined: 01 Nov 2005
Posts: 653
Location: EU
|
| Posted: Sat Aug 17, 2019 2:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Zucca wrote: | | I do mostly the same. Although I tend to emerge -e @world with -march=generic and then move to a new system. |
Think about the CO2 ... It's a waste compiling twice the same packages if not necessary... But your method has the advantage that the new system Is imediately usable without problems.
_________________
Ok boomer
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Ab esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia
My fediverse account: @erm67@erm67.dynu.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bghoons
n00b
Joined: 04 May 2015
Posts: 47
Location: USA
|
| Posted: Tue Aug 20, 2019 1:22 pm Post subject: |
|
|
He talks like Agent Smith in "The Matrix".
IMIO (In My Idiot Opinion) the worst Linux Distro is the one that does not accomplish the tasks for which you are using a computer. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
pjp
Administrator
Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 20067
|
| Posted: Mon Aug 26, 2019 9:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| erm67 wrote: | | pjp wrote: | | erm67 wrote: | | I cannot even remember when I downloaded the last stage3 ... it was probaby 10 years ago ..... sometimes I just rm -rf /etc/portage, it's more or less like reinstalling. |
So, no new installs? Do you just migrate an existing install to new hardware, common binaries? I usually start with a fresh install for convenience. |
Most of the times just copy the partition over to a new disk, once I used a fsarchiver backup when a system disk failed. I remove -march=native from the CFLAGS, emerge -e @system before copying the partition and emerge -e @ world on the new hardware, it always worked and mostly unattended (luck maybe?) I clean up /etc/portage sometimes.
I don't see any convenience in a new install, apart the fun of the install itself. |
The convenience for me has been keeping systems separate and not having to worry about compatibility issues by copying partitions to a new sytem (I rarely install unless it is on a new build). I also like not copying over "gunk." It also allows me the opportunity to correct any "wish I did / didn't do that" decisions. I've also found it to be easier to keep track of where I am during an install if I walk away from it for a while.
I'm moving toward generic systems so that each build can be completd with as little interaction as possible. My intent is for an OS install to be "disposable" with system configuration and user data handled completely seprately from the basic install.
_________________
Quis separabit? Quo animo? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
erm67
l33t
Joined: 01 Nov 2005
Posts: 653
Location: EU
|
| Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:17 am Post subject: |
|
|
| pjp wrote: | | I also like not copying over "gunk." It also allows me the opportunity to correct any "wish I did / didn't do that" decisions. |
You must have a very good memory, I usually don't remember what I did the last time and waste lot of time reconfiguring optimally everything.
| pjp wrote: |
I'm moving toward generic systems so that each build can be completd with as little interaction as possible. My intent is for an OS install to be "disposable" with system configuration and user data handled completely seprately from the basic install. |
immutable os is trendy today, it's a nice idea, in fact I think I will test fedora coreos soon So well I will reinstall probably, they developed a daemon (etcd) that handles system configuration on every host independently from the immutable osimage. BTW coreos was based on gentoo once upon a time, a lost occasion to modernize?
Too bad gentoo hates everything modern, there should be no need for a tool like kubler IMHO
_________________
Ok boomer
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
Ab esse ad posse valet, a posse ad esse non valet consequentia
My fediverse account: @erm67@erm67.dynu.net |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
Gentoo Chat
