Arch vs Ubuntu

[ajgreeny]

I installed the xfce version which is always my DE of choice.

[Dennis N]

I have had Manjaro XFCE on this computer since Oct. 2015 and use it as the default startup OS. I multiboot my other OSes through its grub menu. Manjaro has a good (and active) forum where it seems many of the distro maintainers are actively participating. So for an Arch based system I can recommend it.

[1clue]

IMO arch would be difficult for a business or a must-always-work desktop. However all expert distros have a certain rhythm to maintenance. Once you become familiar you can keep the system up more easily.

I would recommend that you run both. Set up virtualbox or kvm and build an arch box. Use it for something real, get to know what you're doing.

I maintain a bunch of Linux boxes. Most of them are Ubuntu Server, but I choose the distro most appropriate for whatever task is at hand. I don't currently use Arch on a regular basis but I have it installed on a vm. I also use Gentoo, which is a source-based distro, and several others like RHEL, CentOS, Suse and a couple others.

Brand loyalty is always huge. Ubuntu people tend to recommend Ubuntu variants to everyone, and many truly believe it to be superior. Same with Gentoo, RedHat, whatever. People best understand what they have, and familiarity tends to breed comfortable enthusiasm.

That said, Canonical gets no extra cash for each image installed, and the same can be said for every other distro. There's no prize for a user to only use one distro. There's no top score to keep. It benefits users to be familiar with several distros and to frequently dip a toe into many others, because it teaches us what's different about each distro, and the benefits and faults of each approach. There's a lot of common ground between all distros, and a little bit that's significantly different. The biggest visible difference for an end user is, in my opinion, the package management system.

Good luck and have fun.

[ClickXT]

Fantastic post and great insight. Thank you.

IMO arch would be difficult for a business or a must-always-work desktop. However all expert distros have a certain rhythm to maintenance. Once you become familiar you can keep the system up more easily.

I would recommend that you run both. Set up virtualbox or kvm and build an arch box. Use it for something real, get to know what you're doing.

I maintain a bunch of Linux boxes. Most of them are Ubuntu Server, but I choose the distro most appropriate for whatever task is at hand. I don't currently use Arch on a regular basis but I have it installed on a vm. I also use Gentoo, which is a source-based distro, and several others like RHEL, CentOS, Suse and a couple others.

Brand loyalty is always huge. Ubuntu people tend to recommend Ubuntu variants to everyone, and many truly believe it to be superior. Same with Gentoo, RedHat, whatever. People best understand what they have, and familiarity tends to breed comfortable enthusiasm.

That said, Canonical gets no extra cash for each image installed, and the same can be said for every other distro. There's no prize for a user to only use one distro. There's no top score to keep. It benefits users to be familiar with several distros and to frequently dip a toe into many others, because it teaches us what's different about each distro, and the benefits and faults of each approach. There's a lot of common ground between all distros, and a little bit that's significantly different. The biggest visible difference for an end user is, in my opinion, the package management system.

Good luck and have fun.

[1clue]

You're welcome.

Some distros are just plain better at one or two things. Back in the early days, Debian had better driver support than anything else, so they became the go-to distro for people with weird hardware. Ubuntu is a commercially supported distro based on Debian, and has both customer support and a dedicated, paid testing staff. They also don't put any roadblocks in using commercial software on their platform. All that is important to me.

Some commercial software runs best (or only) on one particular distro. If you want Oracle database, you'll use Oracle Linux. You used to use CentOS or RHEL for Oracle, but they've rebranded their own now based on RHEL.

If you want something very specific that isn't easily achieved by some other distro, then I use Gentoo. Gentoo lets you control fine details, like whether or not a feature is present all across your system. If you do or do not want "foo" feature support, you can compile every package on your box that has some sort of "foo" support to either have or not have that support. You can/must choose which init system to use, what logger, and so on. While not the most frequently used distro in my flock, it's my second most common and also my first favorite, but it does take more work than *buntu and it sometimes is less stable due to its rolling releases. It also tends to be a pain in the rear to get commercial software working because it's running newer versions of everything.

[ClickXT]

I have had Manjaro XFCE on this computer since Oct. 2015 and use it as the default startup OS. I multiboot my other OSes through its grub menu. Manjaro has a good (and active) forum where it seems many of the distro maintainers are actively participating. So for an Arch based system I can recommend it.

Thanks for the advice. I have actually fully switched to Manjaro XFCE.
--I believe it does Xfce better than Xubuntu. But that's just my opinion. From the AUR to the Theme/Appearance Options.

Thanks for the advice all.

[yoshii]

It benefits users to be familiar with several distros and to frequently dip a toe into many others, because it teaches us what's different about each distro, and the benefits and faults of each approach. There's a lot of common ground between all distros, and a little bit that's significantly different.

I agree with this very much.
I enjoy trying out different distros just for fun and to stay educated.
Some might call it distro-hopping, but I'm learning a lot along the way.
It's really just a matter of computer literacy experience of different flavors of Linux.
I do the same with Windows and MacOS versions every couple of years too. Nobody calls that "Windows-hopping".
The whole "distro-hopping" label is kind of derogatory. I'm glad to be able to learn.

I recently installed the low-latency kernel into Xubuntu and built a nice system exteremly similar to Ubuntu Studio.
I could've installed Ubuntu Studio instead and it would've been quicker, but I did it because I wanted to know how and if it could be done.
Now I know from experience the advantages (less bloatware and fonts; can manually install more up to date programs) and disadvantages (time consuming to install extras).

Lately I've been reading about rolling-release distros such as Manjaro and I don't know yet if I prefer that to the LTS release schedule of Ubuntu's, but I'm going to try it out. It seems like a nice venture. I've tried a lot of different Linuxes over the years and I enjoy discovering how sophisticated each one is.

Overall, I'd say try it out on a LiveDVD or flash drive or whatnot and then if it works out ok, carefully do a dual boot install (after reading about the caveats and issues of dual booting Manjaro). Then if you like it better or not, you still have a pathway backwards or forwards.

[1clue]

It's only "hopping" if you switch distros. If you have multiple distros installed and they're persistent, especially if they're running simultaneously, then it's not hopping.

Some of us forum users have only one system, and that's OK. Some of those people use VMs or dual/triple/n boot capabilities, and that's OK.

Others of us own multiple physical systems running mostly one distro, and that's also OK.

I run lots of systems (both mine and for my work), and choose the distro for each based on my assessment of what is needed and which distro best focuses their efforts in the direction I prefer for that application. This is what I think people should do, because one size definitely does not fit all.

Nobody gets a prize for only using one distro. No money changes hands, no awards won, no glamor in being the winner.

The prize comes from familiarity with multiple distributions and their quirks.

[Cavsfan]

I have been using Arch Linux for about 2 years or so and it does not break randomly; it is very, very stable in my experience.

It is what it is meaning there are no pre-installed packages, the only packages that are installed are what you choose to install. It uses the bleeding edge packages but, I've had zero problems on this 9 year old desktop. I have a wallpaper that has the Arch Linux logo and the saying "Arch Linux, it doesn't do a g******ed thing unless I tell it." And that pretty much is true. Nothing is installed automatically, You have to open up a terminal, enter commands to install packages and update your system. There is a way to ignore a package or packages, if you do not want to update them. Also a way to downgrade a package, like a kernel if you absolutely need to. I've done that without problems.

I was told to install the Arch Wiki app on my phone, download the latest ISO and go from there. You have to read from the wiki how to install the system and once that is done, you decide what DE you will use, then you chose a web browser, etc. Nothing is there unless you install it. I chose Xfce which is much like Xubuntu.

It is not for the faint hearted and some people cannot install it. I tried for nearly a week and almost gave up. I let it go for a few days to clear my head, got back to it and it installed properly.
Once installed Arch is very hard to break. There were many times I thought "Oh no I'm going to have to re-install it." But, that was never needed. I was able to sort the problem out. Arch is probably one of the best maintained Linux distributions out there. There is a wiki for everything on Arch and if you open up a thread on their forum without doing your research and reading the wikis, you will be "harassed" let's just say for not doing so before hand.

I've read about Gentoo and would try that but, I'm not interested in compiling every single package on my machine from scratch, I'll take Arch Linux any day.

Everything works like the Fusion Icon and many of the Compiz packages that no other distribution maintains any more, works beautifully on Arch Linux. The Fish Tank, etc. There is the Arch kernel, which is bleeding edge, but thoroughly tested currently at 4.13.12-1 and there is a fallback kernel should you have an issue with the regular kernel. Also, you can install an LTS kernel, which is currently at 4.9.65-1. The LTS kernel also has a fallback kernel. These are constantly updated, after thorough testing. The LTS kernel is very stable and can be used if the regular kernel cannot. But, an update usually comes along and the regular kernel is fixed. I haven't encountered that, just saying there is an LTS kernel to use just in case.

Not, meaning to put anyone using Antergos down but, Antergos Linux is considered the easy way to install Arch Linux. It comes with a GUI and pre-installs a lot of software that you may or may not want/need, while Arch Linux has no GUI. You can see what I mean from this thread on Reddit: Antergos vs Arch : archlinux - Reddit

I do not even have a DM, I just boot into TTY1, enter my userid and password and it starts X and Xfce. I do not need things that take up room for no reason.
Arch never needs to have a clean install of an upgrade or anything as it is a rolling release and just keeps updating itself.

Arch Linux is the best OS I've seen yet. I've been with Ubuntu the longest and have a few installations on this box. But, I've tried Mint, Debian and a few others.
But, Arch is hands down the best I've used to date.

Addition: I'm just saying Arch is a beast and while installing it I learned quite a bit that I would not have using a GUI.

That's my 2 cents

[jpberes]

Or you can, like I currently do, install multiple Linux Distros in Virtual Box and play now and then with them. I have Ubuntu Mate 17.10 now as my main production machine and have Fedora (with Gnome), Antergos, Opensuse, Elementary, Ubuntu Budgie, Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon, Peppermint and Linux Lite on Virtual Machines, so I can test most of the Linux variant, being based on Red Hat, Arch, Debian and Slackware and test most of the Desktop environments being Gnome3, KDE Plasma, Pantheon, Budgie, Cinnamon and XFCE ...