Realizing Arch isn't for me after updating broke VLC
I realized my VLC was broke some point in the week after updating Arch. I spend time troubleshooting then find a forum post with replies from an Arch moderator saying they knew it would happen and it's my fault for not wanting to read through pages of changelogs. Another mod post says they won't announce that on the RSS feed either. I thought I was doing good by following the RSS but I guess that's not enough.
I've been happily using Arch for 5 years but after reading those posts I've decided to look for a different distro. Does anyone have recommendations for the closest I can get to Arch but with a different attitude around updating?
like this
pineapple
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •makeitwonderful
in reply to pineapple • • •propter_hog [any, any]
in reply to pineapple • • •SheeEttin
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principl…
Someone should inform whoever made that change. If a package is split in a new release, the initial state should match the final as closely as possible, in this case by installing the new optional dependencies automatically. (Although I'm not sure why they'd want to split everything out like that anyway; no other VLC distribution does that, so splitting is itself a violation.)
Maybe Manjaro might be an alternative? I haven't personally used it. I don't like this kind of surprise, so I stick to boring distros like Debian. I used to use CentOS but it was too boring.
principle in computer system design
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)suburban_hillbilly
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •procapra
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •neon_nova
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •Arch is really for those who like to troubleshoot and actively maintain things when they break.
I’m pretty decent with linux and for the most part, I can fix arch when it breaks, but I don’t have the time for that. For that reason, I use Fedora and recommend mint.
MalReynolds
in reply to neon_nova • • •vanDerVaartBlackenedRanch [none/use name]
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •Fedora if you do not gain joy from troubleshooting
Debian sid if you do.
OhVenus_Baby
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •Cenotaph
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •slaveOne
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •Ada
in reply to slaveOne • • •cyborganism
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •I've been using Ubuntu/Kubuntu since 2004 and I've always been happy and had very little problems.
It's a good, no hassle distro that works and is fairly up to date, especially if you use the non-LTS ones. I prefer staying with LTS though. At least my OS is stable and I don't have to spend my free time troubleshooting anything.
scoobford
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •flatbield
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •paequ2
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •I've been enjoying Guix for the last 8 days. You declare your OS and home config in a file and you can check them into source control. It was originally a fork of NixOS, but has diverged a lot.
The CLIs and APIs are pretty nice. They have a concept of "channels", which are git repos you can download software from. The default official channel only hosts FOSS software, but you can trivially add non-FOSS channels and they work just as well as the first-party channels.
Each channel update and package install, removal, update get put on a log, which you can trivially jump between.
guix package --switch-genereation=28and boom you're at that generation (it's like a git commit). The software and config changes get saved in the generation so the jump is clean and atomic. I actually bisected my OS yesterday to track a bug! That was cool. You can also create and share isolated, reproducible environments.Guix works with Flatpak and distrobox as well, in case some software isn't available in existing channels. I got HiDPI, Zoom, Logseq, Syncthing, and Tailscale working.
The biggest drawback for me so far is that it doesn't use systemd. Not sure if it's a dealbreaker for me yet. Systemd does way more than just manage system services, so GNU Shepherd (which Guix uses) isn't a real replacement.
GNU Guix transactional package manager and distribution — GNU Guix
guix.gnu.orgpaequ2
2025-07-06 20:12:44
obnomus
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •Mordikan
in reply to makeitwonderful • • •