I am thinking of moving away from Canonical based distros. (Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu/Lubuntu) and would like to try one of the "harder" distros Slackware/Arch/Gentoo.
So of these three, which would you go for?
Arch
Gentoo
Slackware
I am thinking of moving away from Canonical based distros. (Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu/Lubuntu) and would like to try one of the "harder" distros Slackware/Arch/Gentoo.
So of these three, which would you go for?
I've heard Arch is good fun.
Altho, I prefer Fedora, myself.
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You left off Linux From Scratch. If you are going for the learning experience, you may want to consider that as well.
It would be a great time to install Slackware as version 14.0 has just been released and it is a truly rock solid version of this great distro. I would not call it better than the others that you have mentioned, simply well worth a look at .
You think that's air you're breathing now?
I'm a massive fan of Gentoo.
The reason for that is that, unlike Arch, it doesn't self-destruct every time you update it. USE flags also give you a lot of control, and you can really see a difference in a well-optimised Gentoo setup and an Arch on something slow like a netbook. Gentoo also offers much more flexibility with init systems, toolchains, kernels, and such.
With Gentoo, you also feel more... integrated with the system. Having compiled everything and edited all the files yourself, your system feels more like yours. I've also found that the community is much more open in Gentoo(But Arch do have the best Wiki by far).
Arch is definitely easier to install, but the few times I've tried Arch, the system goes belly up every time I do a -Syu, and I've never had any actual problems from doing a -uND world(Aside from when I accidentally went to stable from unstable... Glibc didn't like that).
As far as Slackware goes, I've never personally used it yet, but one of the post-docs in my university was chatting to me about Linux. Slackware is why he uses a Mac.
Better? That would depend on the individual criteria and personal taste of each user.
It's like asking, which car is better, they will all get you there with various degrees of speed and comfort. Is anyone qualified to say definitively which is better?
We are all qualified to say which we prefer better though, again a personal choice.
It's linux they are all good. Try them all.
Out of all the ones listed probably Gentoo for me, I hav3e tried arch varients and never really cared for them, Slackware is okay but if you want more up to date software something Gentoo based might do some good.
Try out Sabayon, the latest version seems to be well liked.
Arch user here. I have to say: I haven't experienced any of the instabilities that LiamOS mentioned, although I keep trying to convince myself that I should be expecting them. The rolling-release nature of Arch was the biggest reason that I decided to try it.. (And the biggest reason I like it, too.)
Never having used them, I can't say much about Gentoo or Slackware, although Gentoo is somewhere on my to do list.
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If all else fails, read the instructions.
If security is your concern, Slackware and Gentoo but in terms of package manager and packaging ease, Pacman in Arch rules.
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