I once spent a day trying to distrohop and nothing but some EXTREMELY creative curse words resulted- none of them would recognize my ethernet. The next morning I noticed that my Windows machine and my Manjaro KDE machine did not have internet. Turns out I had dislodged the power to my router when I moved a couple cables the day before. I laughed, I cried, I went fishing.
Arch, I've heard so many complain, including you, about the instability, if arch packages and updates. I think many distributing can be stable once you understand how.
It is not only technology specific. There is an urge to find the best OS, best partner, best martial art, best laptop, best shoes, best city ... It is a dead end and a mental burden. You waste time, money and are constantly not happy, b/c there is a better option always... The wise person learns how to like what you have.
Me all over. If I'm looking for anything I'll take the first that ticks the boxes. Apartment, car, coffee brand, phone... in fact if I start shopping around I know I'll never buy. Probably didn't want to in the first place, just wanted the rush of having the choice without actually using it.
As Zatiel says ( mexican Linux Utuber ), if you are going to play games and make office work, use Windows; If you are going to make photography or video, use Apple; If you are going to Code; use Linux.
OpenSUSE is always my default for a 'production' machine. I use different things on my other computers, but the workstation I use for actual work is always OpenSUSE.
@@zizzu549 because Debian developers sign with there own or employers email. So you will not see Debian there. And it is reasons for this. Fedora is to compare with Debian Sid or Testing. Just saying...
@@excitableboy7031 ik that, but users don't care what based on what we just want a working os that doesn't spy on us and get things done, i don't like ubuntu because of snaps, it's slow and idk why it keeps popping some error randomly. Pops is better than ubuntu, it uses flatpak and updates are more frequent also. My choice of os is manjaro and PopOS for now.
He will be back at debain. Mark my words. Ive been in search of a perfect os for 2 years. I found debain to be ok. But the plot is i secretly run bedrock os
@@anti_lol5832 been using Linux for private since 20 years now. Ended up with Debian, and used it since. And been using Ubuntu since they sistributed CD:s for free. Still got one in my office. Professionally used Linux since Slackware in the 1990:th second half and followed Linux since 1992, looong before version 1.0 :-) Back then used different Unix and Unix like OS, like OS-9 om 6809 cpus.
I distro hopped to Pop!_OS a few days ago. It feels so complete. I didn't care to install gnome tweaks as everything is perfectly configured out of the box. The tiling feature is incredible and the Pop Shop is incredible. The fact that I have a GUI to install my flatpaks on top of standard packaging is a major plus for me. My only problem was that I had to change my graphics driver so I could use Vulkan as I was using an older graphics card which amdgpu was experimental for. But the vast majority of people won't run into that issue and it was trivial to fix once I knew the issue :)
On my latest machine I really tried to keep windows as a secondary os. But I ... well I had to give up on him. He was dead before I even bought the computer. I just had to accept it...
I remember this. even if everything is working perfectly, there's still that itch in the back of your head that says there's a more perfect distro out there. been on gentoo for little over a year and I haven't had this since
My distro hopping ended with an OS hop. OpenBSD all the way boiii. I started using Linux because I wanna understand how it all works. But since everything is becoming systemd it started to get complicated and I feel like I am learning systemd.
@@excitableboy7031 Linux from scratch as a daily driver is kinda stupid. It's a great source for learning about Linux but after that it just become an inconvenience. Gentoo provides everything one could possibly need in terms of configuration even the kernel can be configured.
I run Gentoo on my own main system, it takes a good few days of casual package compilation before you get a nice system up and it does pay off in the end with a much smoother faster experience, especially with graphical applications, seeing as the system is compiled for my particular hardware. There is a steep learning curve to the package management but once you get it, you can make it very unique. Debian (forget the distros that are based on it) is also a good distribution for getting a system up and running quickly, it just works, you can't fault it.
@@TheZethera I can see why you did that, I prefer archlinux and do like the work flow and the package manager and many thing better then openSUSE. But anyone who wants a slightly different experience then arch /arch based distros then openSUSE tumbleweed is the next best thing in my opinion.
I used to use Arch based distros. I've tried every one you've mentioned. Moved to Funtoo, which is another Gentoo based distro. It's a CLI install and your first boot is into a TTY. Once you get through installing X, WM, DM, and any other software, it's pretty solid. There are some things that break occasionally, but I've never looked back.
@@aleximon I used to love PCLinuxOS, but lately I cannot get it to boot from USB media or to work correctly in a VM. It used to be my go-to "just works" distro, but it's pretty much the opposite for me right now.
I feel your pain brother! I went thru the hopping stage this last year as well and i always come back around to Manjaro KDE. I love KDE and once you experience Arch you just cant deal with anything else. Manjaro has multiple package formats out of the box, its the easiest distro ive found to get all my software without a bunch of hassles.
After an entire day of compiling (Gentoo) and setting up everything, the complications didn't seem worth it, even after having successfully installed gentoo and compiled most basic software needed. Switched to arch again, hope I don't make the same mistake of distro hopping, I know that arch is my distro well.
I have got the distro hopping bug several times. It is a labour of love. The thrill of it not working out of the box, and messing with config files to figure out what is wrong is almost impossible to describe. The only linux I currently have is CentOS, which I am really upset about being discontinued, but I have used Linux Mint (don't judge), Slackware, TinyCore Linux, debian, fedora and a few others lost to memory. I currently run OpenBSD, with twm as a desktop envirnoment. I pull FreeDOS out a few times, and occaisionally 9front. I don't have the Distro Hopping bug anymore, (though occaisionally I feel called to Minix or NetBSD) now I have the OS development bug. That is a MUCH WORSE bug.
That is frustrating indeed. Thank you for sharing. A few months ago I tried to install crux and it was so painful to get it working and at the end I couldn't connect to the internet. Windows 2000 is better for me at this point.
I'll be honest I've been running Fedora and it's been my perfect distro. You can use the network installer to install a minimal setup, or even have it come prepackages with window managers
I'm glad there are choices. I respect Fedora a lot, and when I've run it in VMs, they've worked fine. But it's something about the distro that just doesn't sync with me.
I love this video, 2 minutes in and I LOVE it. Best intro to a video ever. Thank you for the realness you have brought to this stuff. Please keep it up forever. And stop hopping.
You are my spirit animal bro. I went through a very similar experience before going back to Arch. I don't regret it though, it scratched that itch we all get sometimes to just blow it all away and start over.
Honestly an interesting idea and a fun video but I so desperately want live recordings of the installs. Screen and reaction. Not for shadenfruede but for the visceral experience of seeing someone who knows what they're doing with linux going through the hassles of these "other" distros. They troubleshooting and the fail state decisions would be valuable, imho.
Eight installs in 24 hours? What a nightmare! I realized during my transition from Ubuntu to Arch that dry runs in a VM are not always a very realistic testing scenario. If it weren't for the significant platform differences, I would like to replace VMs with actual hardware, such as my Raspberry Pi for testing purposes. I'm recently considering either cleaning Arch from systemd, or using a dedicated systemd-free distribution such as Artix. I still think I will test-run this in a VM before wiping my production machines though (a custom Intel i3 PC with an Asus H81 board, not the most recent hardware, and a Dell XPS 13 laptop, both currently running vanilla Arch). I'm actually considering switching to Gentoo on the long run, though I don't dare put my hands on that yet. That said, mainline Arch is still a superior, pretty much worry-free distribution. I recommend everyone to try it. Thanks Derek, for sharing even your most demanding experiences with Linux. It gives you a lot of credibility. Keep it up! PS: I still agree with your position on GNOME. My first experience with it was my transition from Windows to Ubuntu. Not going to use either one ever again.
My first Linux install waa 25 years ago from a friend’s CD. Last ~20 years Debian or Debian based when possible for work and nearly always on personal machines. Otherwise Redhat or RHEL based at work... CentOS, Rocks, Scientific Linux. Only regret with Debian was when Xfree86 packages were way out of date compared to others and I needed to compile own X. RHEL based is probably where you want to be for production stuff that may be around for longer than you planned and need security updates... if it’s super urgent you can usually get the srpms an build your own.
I hear you. I'm waiting on MX or maybe LMDE to get a little more polished and capable. I can pluck around with them fine, but I'm not really convinced yet. For now I'm sticking with Debian Stable XFCE and Majaro XFCE. Drivers in Manjaro work great for me, super easy and comprehensive to setup, and the AUR... is the AUR. Something like Guix seems fun to me, but not exactly what I'd call practical for general use.
I am a 25+ years of winblows user, and just resently changed to this wonderful world of linux. Only Arco fits my needs! I have testet like 20+ linux distro also, but allways keep coming back to Arco, and now for good. no more distro hop for me either.
why would I go from manjaro to gentoo ? (honest question, please convince me). Installing package is longer and feel complicated. I’ve read that compiling would optimise the performance but when I tried I only could set the generic processor architecture as would do any binary-based distro. So what?
@@droop972 honestly I like it because I get full control over my system (yeah, ik you have full control over your system even in Ubuntu but gentoo makes it very easy, for example you can't swap systemd with openrc very easy in ubuntu). Full control over your system also means you can build your very own system, making it very minimal and low on resources. The compilation time imo isn't a problem anymore in 2020, Mental Outlaw has a video about speeding up the compilation times.
You don't have to compile for generic, just set -march=native and you're good to go. An exception is when an architecture is too new for gcc to support -march=native correctly (happened with znver1) but you must likely won't have any problems
Been trying out a lot of distros but as of late I've been going back to Gentoo because for me it provides me with all the software and customization I need. I can definitely see what you mean. If you've got a working setup with tools you're familiar with it can sometimes be frustrating to try to learn other systems.
I downloaded so many oddball “light” distros to put on a really old 32-bit laptop. They were all trash. Dog slow and hardware incompatibilities. Installers that would leave me at a useless grub prompt. What ended up working best? Mainline Linux Mint, with a bit of tuning for a low memory system. Go figure.
Douglas Ward - antiX was very lightweight but wouldn’t detect or activate any of my PCMCIA wireless cards out of the box. Too barebones. MX was nearly as light but with much better hardware support. Mint was even better with a driver that worked automatically and tripled the speed of the Wi-Fi card. I’ve tried things as obscure as Manjaro JWM, Puppy, Bodhi, Elive and Vector. They were all clunky trash not worth the trouble of overcoming their limitations. Even when I only had 1GB of RAM. After upgrading to 2GB it all became a moot point. With tuning Mint is a better experience than any lightweight distro you care to name. It’s the experience that matters in the end.
What if all the issues he was facing with black screens and stuff was because he was using minimal installations, he didn’t have necessary drivers that his system needs to boot correctly.
I am willing to bet he is using a Nvidia gfx card, the black screen issue is common with these cards and iso's that don't have the drivers pre-installed
I completely understand your point of view. I recently came across your channel with the NixOS video. This video is before that. Would you have checked that distro for your production machine? Seems to be a pretty good distro for your use case, you keep an up to date config file for the installation and whenever you want to try distro hopping again (we all have those weak moments) you can easily go back to your NixOS setup.
I love your video Derek!! I still use lxde even though it's not developed anymore. It's fast, simple, and it does what I need it to do. I use openbox ( of course), with opensuse leap as my distro. Solid, fast and flexible. I'm waiting for mabox 2008 to be released so I can try arch again. Other than this, Debian is my distro of choice. Fedora and opensuse are excellent distros as far as I'm concerned. Let's not forget bionicpup which I don't recall you ever reviewing. If I'm stuck, bionicpup to the rescue!!!😀
In the IT world my rule 1 is "if it ain't broke, Don't fix it" 5 years ago I replaced windows on my main production system with Mint, I've reinstall Mint two or three times, this after listening to 10 or more content creators suggest Mint for a newbie. Since then I've installed Arch, Debian, Ubuntu as well as others on test systems and VM's but Mint works well, and I'm comfortable in Mint. "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it".
@@rasmusrasmussen9415 lag. don't have that lag in other distros. and it freeze because of btrfs expecially on weak pc and the installer didn't give the option to use the full space? never happened in other distros also the installer is not clear and is like a mess if you don't do the auto install or even if you do
Recently I hopped from: Mint to Haiku (technically not Linux) to Q4OS to Debian Stable to Fedora 34 to OpenMandriva Lx 4.2. OpenMandriva is my favourite distro at the moment: Comes preinstalled with a Plasma configuration that is much closer to classic KDE (TDE wouldn’t install), driver support is truly solid which is common with RPM distros (unlike Debian and Mint), it uses the Falkon web browser which I have been using for years on RISC OS as Qupzilla; and of course, it brings back memories of classic Mandrake Linux.
I felt that until I landed on arch. I don't think I'm gonna distro hopping again. I used for a long time just two distros before arch, ubuntu and opensuse, but tried many more, sabayon, nixos, fedora, debian, Manjaro, antergos, etc. I remember how difficult was to encourage myself to use arch because I had that idea that it's not an stable os, but I never had the need to reinstall it
People make it seem that arch is unstable but I have used the same arch install for over a year with no major breakages. If anything breaks it will either be a manual intervention when updating and that is easy to fix and they post how on the arch wiki or just a package breakage or misconfigured dependency.
I went through same thing.... I settled on Fedora32 after trying Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Budgie, Solus Plasma, Mint, PopOS and openSUSE. I had issues from driver problem, partitioning, random errors /crashes and slow computer issues. I'm very happy with Fedora32 and with Boxes, I created a VM with Windows10 and that works great too.
same! had a lot of installer problems while installing arch on my laptop, so I remembered freebsd and installed it, and I enjoyed it so I installed it on an hdd on my desktop pc
@@f-104starfighter7 one example can be found in this mailing list post: lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2018-March/007181.html - more things have happened since then, including renaming of anything related to blacklist/whitelist and master or slave. one developer even tried to rename "master boot record" all throughout their source tree with no discussion. see these two: lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-head/2020-June/137327.html and lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-head/2020-June/137342.html
The black screens look like graphic driver issues. I had about the same on my old laptop, where any 64-bit os just wouldn't activate the backlight. That's a very hard problem to solve as your doing it blind.
I think the main issue here is that DT tried distros with minimal or no support at all. Prior to running Arch as my daily desktop, I was a distro hopper. I was using all well-known distros (mainly Debian based but also Fedora and OpenSUSE) and never had problems with them. However, when I tried FreeBSD, I could have given it a chance if the wifi was working correctly. So, IMO, if someone wants to try Linux, one must install well-known distros with great documentation and support.
Had a similar situation the other day. I tried putting Solus on my main machine. I had an issue with auto partition. So I did a manual partition. That seemed to work. It booted, I ran the updated and it just sat there after about 29 of 340 updates. So I reset. Tried to install some other packages. It froze up. Oh, and I'm doing this with one of 3 monitors. I was hoping an update would fix the multi monitor issues. I ran xrandr. It didn't like my configuration at all. So I'm back using Arch Linux. I feel your pain.
@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic Problem is, it worked fine in a VM. I wasn't expecting the installation issues because it installed perfectly the first time in a VM. I updated it in the VM fine... No problems. So it's something with my machine (It's 11 years old VS the 7 year old Server I ran the VM on).
@@Phydoux2112 the software manager is written in python and there was / still is a bug they can not fix due to known python function bug. It works some times and other times it doesn't work, the software manager froze for me when there was a large amount of updates, it hasn't happend in a long time now, but I found updating via terminal first for the large amount of updates normally causes no issues
@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic I think I tried updating with the terminal but something happened. Oh, I know what happened. Nothing opened. I tried opening Firefox while the terminal was running the update. Not only did the terminal eventually freeze but Firefox wouldn't open. I couldn't even open another terminal. Nothing was working. And the terminal that was running the update froze too. I shut the VM down and haven't touched it since. It's a shame because it looks so nice too. If they ever fix their packager issues, Solus has some great potential.
for the void issue, i’ve had something similar before and it turns out the kernel module for the mobo ethernet wasn’t loaded... trying something like ‘modprobe tg3’ (for example with broadcom devices) if you have this problem again might be worth trying...
Been running void for over 6 years now on all kinds of hardware. Never had Ethernet not being detected on a base system. Guess it happens from time to time.
I just finished distro hopping and installed Arch for the first time ever. I love it. feels so smooth and I love just installing and setting everything up from the terminal, so simple.
There is a very good reason that I kept an old desktop as a test bed system. My main systems remain untouched (and working!), and If I wear out an SSD on the test bed, it's cheap insurance. And the very first test of any new distribution is "will it boot on the test bed?" A few don't and get marked "unusable" in my test book. There can be other problems, like the one you found. The bottom line from over a year of this is my main systems still run Mint.
I love your rant videos. Ive gone down the distro hopping rabbit whole myself. I feel your pain. After a day or two i just end up installing one of the main 4 distros till i gain my confidence to jump back into the whole.
On Gentoo based distributions, you shouldn't waste time trying to make startx run before you install display manager and desktop environment/window manager of your choice. After that, everything should work fine. At least, that was my experience.
I had the same problem with installing guix. I had to do it via the tty instead of the curses installer and then it worked. However, I ended up leaving it because I couldn't figure out all the stuff i needed to do work in time.
Distro Hop Countdown: (dada dunt dunt da...") [It's the final countdown...[music]] Hop #1 2:17 Gnugeeks Hop #2 4:06 Parabola Hop #3 5:09 Void Hop #4 7:40 Arco Linux Hop #5 9:07 CloverOS Hop #6 10:20 Sabayon Hop #7 12:15 Calculate Linux Scratch Hop #8 14:42 LXQt Edition Hop #9 15:53 Back to Arco Linux "What I Learned Is..." 16:09 [kicks self in butt for knowing better] "I'm Done...!" If it ain't broke don't break it... 17:01 "WTH!!" Ending Rant... 18:54 [Nike Oppo (Opposite)] "Just Don't Do It........" SPOILER ALERT...! If it ain't Debian or Arch don't use it lol... ;)
I know this video is old at this point, but what I can say after using Linux for years is that switching to any distro that you're not used to will initially be difficult in some way. It just depends on if you like it enough to keep working with it. For example in my experience manjaro was a horrible disaster. I had it on a laptop for about 6 months and eventually I just couldn't update it anymore. The package manager had all kinds of signature issues with packages and after spending several hours trying to Google my way out of the mess I just gave up. I know several people that swear by arch-based systems but my experience with them has been wholly negative. Jumping between several distros in a 24-hour period is just a recipe for frustration because they all do things slightly differently.
Just watched your new video "You Don't Own Your Movies, Music, Books, Games..." and saw this one in the playback suggestions again. Had to watch it and I think, because of this, my most recent distro hop from Arco to Arch was because of this video. For real! I love Debian but it's too far behind the times with it's stable branch. I thought about Gentoo briefly but my system is pretty old and I didn't want to put too much stress on the CPU. So I went with Arch and I'm happy with my decision. But once again, I remembered this video from 6 months ago and when you originally posted it DT. I'm a HUGE proponent for Linux Mint for new users but I think it would take too much for me to get it to where I would enjoy using it like I do Arch. You just can't beat Arch Linux. LONG LIVE ARCH!!!
Hey DT - funny story about that: FSF-approved Trisquel (Mini) was the ONLY distro I managed to install and run properly on some old Fujitsu-Siemens-Laptops in the way that they worked as expected and booted within 1 min (Bodhi Linux took 5 min to boot...). Sometimes the way OS and hardware talk to each other, stays a mystery. ;)
My distros of choice are Fedora and LMDE. Granted that I only run them in VMware Fusion on my Mac but they both have been rock solid with anything that I want to try out. I actually prefer the RHEL family over the Debian family.
I've barely used Linux. Haven't felt ready to leave Windows, but I kept an eye on how things are with Linux. Most recently I tried Linux Mint with Cinnamon, then I heard about Manjaro, so I tried it. I've been wondering what else was available. Since I've been thinking about leaving Windows more seriously, I looked at System 76, so that had me wondering about PopOS, and from what I've seen about it, it sounds like a good choice for my needs. I will say I did like Mint and Manjaro. The only problem I've had is network connection. When initially started, I'd have no network connection, but If I restart, then I'm connected. That's why I tried Manjaro, to find out if it is just an issue with Mint or not. Still same behavior. Worked just fine with Windows 7, so I'm guessing it's a hardware issue of some kind (as in anticompetitive practices, because I've run into that before, 'winmodem').
I totally concur with your experience. Once I found a distro that works flawlessly for me (Debian based), I only distrohop on virtual machines or dual boot. There is just one precision regarding the FSF recommend distros. I don't think it was the distro what failed but the hardware. You need to take into account that if you want a 100% Free Software distro, you need to select software supported 100% by free software. Unfortunately, that is a very narrow selection. That does not mean that the distribution sucks but that the hardware providers suck. In the end, FSF recommended distros only work for people 100% dedicated to the cause. I also have another precision regarding your core statement that only Debian and arch based distributions work. Have you had the same experience with any Fedora based distros?
steveo314 Sid gets you much more recent versions of stuff, and if you add liquorix kernel you are completely up to date. Over almost 20 years only a handful of show-stopping bugs. Usually searching bugs.debian.org get a work-around for the couple of days before a corrected package. I’ve reinstalled maybe twice because of new bugs, which takes about an hour. Use deborphan and debfoster to keep database of installed packages. Bleeding edge.
I am waiting for the new Slackware. Slackware never has let me down for a full blown distro. But actually I use some Puppy all the time, like Slacko :-) , for lightweight speed and ease of use and safety. But you are so right: distro hopping is often just a waist of time and energy. If it works, it works.
You've got an AMD threadripper on your production machine, right? I've had the same "black screen" issue with my main machine which is also a threadripper - so I wonder if it has something to do with that hardware and having so many cores that is just not supported on older less up-to-date distros?
I've also distro hopped, but over about 6 weeks, and only on my second machine. I still went back to Linux Mint 21-2 Cinnamon. Why did I go back, simply because it is easy to install, easy to setup the way I want it, it is easy to update, to find and install software. Some distros didn't install at all, some took forever, some got about 90% of the way and then failed.
Really enjoyed Sabayon. I think it's unfortunate it isn't really there anymore and merging with something else. Might be great who knows, but I liked where it was headed as it was.
same here. if I can't use NixOS itself, then I'm very happy with having just the Nix package manager on *any* Linux distro, or macOS. it practically decouples your work/development environment from the underlying distro.
I installed arch for the first time a few days ago and had to spend a day trying to configure grub and some drivers and services correctly (luckly I knew how to manually boot using the grub cli thanks to years of Windows screwing with my dualboot systems).. I don't understand what really went wrong yet but after a few cycles of reinstalling and reconfiguring grub it finally worked. My point is I've used Debian based distros for the last 10 years and they always just work perfectly out of the box and while Arch installation was kinda scary for me and alot of stuff was misconfigured (probably to my fault) I'm so glad I took the time to skim through the wiki and get everything working! Maybe Gentoo to you was what Arch was to me and maybe you could've liked using it if you took the time to fix the installation though I doubt anything can be better than Arch (or even Ubuntu for that matter)
it sucks that a lot of shit can still be hit or miss with linux now i know lists exist of compatiable NICs etc but honestly someone should just make a program to run that will tell you if you have a compatiable NIC. and just make that a fucking staple in gnu/linux
I've used Sabayon and Calculate long-term in the distant past with xfce and mate, but have never gotten Sabayon's Fluxbox to install. I don't have the courage to try Calculate Scratch. I've actually had several failures with Debian-based distros, most recently the newest BunsenLabs refuses to install beyond configuring the network. My goto for some time has been ArchLabs Openbox, with occasional fluxbox or jwm. I like Arco B versions as that's the only way i can explore the tilers already configured. I've had no issues with Fedora so I'd say that's my #2 to Arch-based, but they no longer have any minimal WM/DE preconfigured. In short I've finally learned the same lesson as you. I keep my main machine running what i trust, and scratch that itch to hop on secondary machines i could toss out the window if necessary. Great vid!
TBH, the two distros, that I use and recommend are Fedora and NuTyX. Both amazing. Easy to install and get working. Apart from Endeavour OS on my main machine I use these two distros. Never failed me. NuTyX is an amazing LFS distro and Fedora is nice and solid. Great fresh vanilla experience. Solus is also a distro to mention, although for my needs their repos lack software. Also, I have one machine with Alpine, that I installed GUI on and it's lighning fast. The speed at which the packages install is a piece of cake.
The splash sceen, then black is a VERY common issue with non "batteries included" distros. It is a display adapter driver issue (usually nvidia). My box will _ONLY_ run with the nvidia binary blob driver, the open source nvidia drivers give me black screen on boot. Depending on how your boot loader is configured, it will do a partial hand off to the graphics driver to give you higher resolution tty. So you get that "I'm locked up" feeling when really its running, doing exactly what you tell it, but you don't get to see it. To fix it you need to tell the kernel to use basic graphics tty mode. Boot single, edit the grub config to use the basic graphics mode for tty, then boot normally and you can begin to hack your way back to life. Install proper driver for your video card, X --configure, copy your xorg.conf to its correct location, and startx. Not insurmountable just irritating. Interestingly enough you can find all you need to solve these issues on the arch wiki :). I would love to see you fight through this and win, and make a video about it. It's just taking your linux experience to the next level. back in the early 90s that is how running linux on desktops was every day. NEVER update because you will have to fix XFree86 again.
Have you tried installing Guix without guided installer? If I remember correctly, Guix reference manual contains how to install Guix manually. Yeah, Linux still kinda sucks when it comes to hardware support. I had generally good luck with most distros, including Guix, but maybe that is because most of my hardware is very outdated(But at least it is 64-bit with UEFI firmware. So I don’t need to worry about end-of-support for now). I wouldn’t try Guix on my main machine though. Not only I still need some proprietary stuff(including Windows), but also recent Nouveau driver makes my VGA display insanely flickery. The only fix was to install proprietary NVIDIA driver(or using DVI display might fix the issue as well, because the secondary DVI display does not have any issues. The display does have DVI, but I don’t have any DVI - DVI cable at the moment).
You should play around with NixOS on your laptop or vm. Make a config that you can use then try it on your main production machine. NixOS is a distribution that It think would be an interesting topic on this channel.
Some installers. Even debian based. Remove your storage drives - only installation media and one drive to be installed on (should solve the first hop ) Edit: add additional storage drives later after installation process completes Or run a wipefs -a [device] Some installers fail when seeing other partitions/OSes
Try blackarch install. It is a arch installer with only added blackarch repo as add-on. Minimal, easy to use and you don't need to install any hacking tools. If you later remove the blackarch repo, it becomes a minimal arch install. It's awesome, tbh
I once spent a day trying to distrohop and nothing but some EXTREMELY creative curse words resulted- none of them would recognize my ethernet. The next morning I noticed that my Windows machine and my Manjaro KDE machine did not have internet. Turns out I had dislodged the power to my router when I moved a couple cables the day before. I laughed, I cried, I went fishing.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
PEBKAC_DURRR
@@unlokia i know pebkac, whats durrr?
@@unlokia sudo rm -rf
Arch, I've heard so many complain, including you, about the instability, if arch packages and updates. I think many distributing can be stable once you understand how.
Damn drunk distro hopping should be a thing on YT. Loved it. Especially with the ranting
I might make this a thing
@@BEAT.SWEATS how did it go
Best video teaser I've read in a very long time.
Coming up Next P-Hub - a Man do his GF while Distro Hopping.
It is not only technology specific. There is an urge to find the best OS, best partner, best martial art, best laptop, best shoes, best city ...
It is a dead end and a mental burden. You waste time, money and are constantly not happy, b/c there is a better option always...
The wise person learns how to like what you have.
Do agree...
I am happy that there are People that have the urge to search. But that is not for me...
Me all over. If I'm looking for anything I'll take the first that ticks the boxes. Apartment, car, coffee brand, phone... in fact if I start shopping around I know I'll never buy. Probably didn't want to in the first place, just wanted the rush of having the choice without actually using it.
DEEP
As Zatiel says ( mexican Linux Utuber ), if you are going to play games and make office work, use Windows; If you are going to make photography or video, use Apple; If you are going to Code; use Linux.
IMO Never searching is this stupid as always searching It's a classic explore vs exploit
“There’s just Debian and Arch...” Fedora raises hand in the back.
gentoo or funtoo are good if you know what to do
There are opensuse too. Rock solid
OpenSUSE is always my default for a 'production' machine. I use different things on my other computers, but the workstation I use for actual work is always OpenSUSE.
There are other options to arch and Debian. distrotube sometimes reverts to populism. 👍
@@zizzu549 because Debian developers sign with there own or employers email.
So you will not see Debian there. And it is reasons for this.
Fedora is to compare with Debian Sid or Testing. Just saying...
After distro hopping i settled on popos. It works great on my machine.
PopOS is based on Ubuntu which itself is based on Debian.
Its turtles all the way down. Or in case of SUSE, Slackware.
@@excitableboy7031 ik that, but users don't care what based on what we just want a working os that doesn't spy on us and get things done, i don't like ubuntu because of snaps, it's slow and idk why it keeps popping some error randomly.
Pops is better than ubuntu, it uses flatpak and updates are more frequent also.
My choice of os is manjaro and PopOS for now.
He will be back at debain. Mark my words.
Ive been in search of a perfect os for 2 years. I found debain to be ok. But the plot is i secretly run bedrock os
@@anti_lol5832 been using Linux for private since 20 years now. Ended up with Debian, and used it since. And been using Ubuntu since they sistributed CD:s for free. Still got one in my office.
Professionally used Linux since Slackware in the 1990:th second half and followed Linux since 1992, looong before version 1.0 :-)
Back then used different Unix and Unix like OS, like OS-9 om 6809 cpus.
I distro hopped to Pop!_OS a few days ago. It feels so complete. I didn't care to install gnome tweaks as everything is perfectly configured out of the box. The tiling feature is incredible and the Pop Shop is incredible. The fact that I have a GUI to install my flatpaks on top of standard packaging is a major plus for me.
My only problem was that I had to change my graphics driver so I could use Vulkan as I was using an older graphics card which amdgpu was experimental for. But the vast majority of people won't run into that issue and it was trivial to fix once I knew the issue :)
Thanks God you didn’t hop to Windows back 😅🙂
This is final solution.
Lmao
On my latest machine I really tried to keep windows as a secondary os. But I ... well I had to give up on him. He was dead before I even bought the computer. I just had to accept it...
Windows is the complete rock bottom and below
I feel the pain. I'm waiting for the Mint 21 to hop back.
"There's just Arch and Debian."
Fedora, OpenSuse and Solus: ARE WE A JOKE TO YOU?
yes they are.
Obvious answer to obvious question
CentOS cries in the corner.
RIP CentOS
Yes, but not Fedora.
@@cobalt_3283 CentOS and RedHatOS are Fedora Based
Use templeos
You missed the message in the video, did you not? 😁
Use Justin Bieber Linux ! Yes, It exists
Ivan Guerra i'd use hanna montanna linux
use Rick Astley Linux, the distro that never lets you down
@@hamed2800 lmao nice one
I remember this. even if everything is working perfectly, there's still that itch in the back of your head that says there's a more perfect distro out there.
been on gentoo for little over a year and I haven't had this since
My distro hopping ended with an OS hop. OpenBSD all the way boiii. I started using Linux because I wanna understand how it all works. But since everything is becoming systemd it started to get complicated and I feel like I am learning systemd.
@@ezio934 mine ended with a desktop n wm hop
One day that gremlin eill rise up and whisper in your ear... "Linux from Scratch, Linux from Scratch, Linux from Scratch..."
@@excitableboy7031 Linux from scratch as a daily driver is kinda stupid. It's a great source for learning about Linux but after that it just become an inconvenience. Gentoo provides everything one could possibly need in terms of configuration even the kernel can be configured.
@@ezio934 I too am not a fan of systemd taking over everything. switched to OpenRC and haven't looked back since
I run Gentoo on my own main system, it takes a good few days of casual package compilation before you get a nice system up and it does pay off in the end with a much smoother faster experience, especially with graphical applications, seeing as the system is compiled for my particular hardware. There is a steep learning curve to the package management but once you get it, you can make it very unique. Debian (forget the distros that are based on it) is also a good distribution for getting a system up and running quickly, it just works, you can't fault it.
Void was probably kernel issue. If you didnt even see the interface the kernel module was probably not even loaded
Strangely, Chris Titus was a little lit, and he was having a hell of a time reinstalling Debian! It was funny! It was around 10 pm Central.
Linus Torvalds himself, found Debian too hard to install.
If I were u, I would have done an OpenSUSE tumbleweed install. ( If you want a new experience)
tumbleweed* because leap is old mama jamma like Debian Stable
@@namelesske ya I forgot to put the tumbleweed part, will edit it now. Thanks
I ran tumbleweed for a while and liked it but I ultimately went back to Manjaro.
@@TheZethera I can see why you did that, I prefer archlinux and do like the work flow and the package manager and many thing better then openSUSE. But anyone who wants a slightly different experience then arch /arch based distros then openSUSE tumbleweed is the next best thing in my opinion.
@@alphabennyrosy5068 It's probably my second favorite distro.
I used to use Arch based distros. I've tried every one you've mentioned. Moved to Funtoo, which is another Gentoo based distro. It's a CLI install and your first boot is into a TTY. Once you get through installing X, WM, DM, and any other software, it's pretty solid. There are some things that break occasionally, but I've never looked back.
wait, i thought Funtoo was just a joke on the compile times for Gentoo.
DT, I can't possibly imagine that you might not have heard about Fedora and openSUSE. You completely ignored RPM-based distros.
PCLinuxOS and Mageia are excellent RPM-based options too
@@aleximon I used to love PCLinuxOS, but lately I cannot get it to boot from USB media or to work correctly in a VM. It used to be my go-to "just works" distro, but it's pretty much the opposite for me right now.
I liked PCLinuxOS a lot, but I always had problems with the software sources not responding after some time, even changing them did not help.
Really Posh Machines...
I feel your pain brother! I went thru the hopping stage this last year as well and i always come back around to Manjaro KDE. I love KDE and once you experience Arch you just cant deal with anything else. Manjaro has multiple package formats out of the box, its the easiest distro ive found to get all my software without a bunch of hassles.
Remember Manjaro isn’t Arch. The packages are held back and this can cause some AUR scripts to break when they would work fine on Vanilla Arch
After an entire day of compiling (Gentoo) and setting up everything, the complications didn't seem worth it, even after having successfully installed gentoo and compiled most basic software needed. Switched to arch again, hope I don't make the same mistake of distro hopping, I know that arch is my distro well.
I have got the distro hopping bug several times. It is a labour of love. The thrill of it not working out of the box, and messing with config files to figure out what is wrong is almost impossible to describe. The only linux I currently have is CentOS, which I am really upset about being discontinued, but I have used Linux Mint (don't judge), Slackware, TinyCore Linux, debian, fedora and a few others lost to memory. I currently run OpenBSD, with twm as a desktop envirnoment. I pull FreeDOS out a few times, and occaisionally 9front. I don't have the Distro Hopping bug anymore, (though occaisionally I feel called to Minix or NetBSD) now I have the OS development bug. That is a MUCH WORSE bug.
That is frustrating indeed. Thank you for sharing.
A few months ago I tried to install crux and it was so painful to get it working and at the end I couldn't connect to the internet.
Windows 2000 is better for me at this point.
I'll be honest I've been running Fedora and it's been my perfect distro. You can use the network installer to install a minimal setup, or even have it come prepackages with window managers
I'm glad there are choices. I respect Fedora a lot, and when I've run it in VMs, they've worked fine. But it's something about the distro that just doesn't sync with me.
Tab doesnt work in its setup so i literally cant install it
I love this video, 2 minutes in and I LOVE it. Best intro to a video ever. Thank you for the realness you have brought to this stuff. Please keep it up forever. And stop hopping.
You are my spirit animal bro. I went through a very similar experience before going back to Arch. I don't regret it though, it scratched that itch we all get sometimes to just blow it all away and start over.
Using Arch since 2011... and never look back!
This is the most relatable video I've ever seen.
Honestly an interesting idea and a fun video but I so desperately want live recordings of the installs. Screen and reaction. Not for shadenfruede but for the visceral experience of seeing someone who knows what they're doing with linux going through the hassles of these "other" distros. They troubleshooting and the fail state decisions would be valuable, imho.
Eight installs in 24 hours? What a nightmare! I realized during my transition from Ubuntu to Arch that dry runs in a VM are not always a very realistic testing scenario. If it weren't for the significant platform differences, I would like to replace VMs with actual hardware, such as my Raspberry Pi for testing purposes.
I'm recently considering either cleaning Arch from systemd, or using a dedicated systemd-free distribution such as Artix. I still think I will test-run this in a VM before wiping my production machines though (a custom Intel i3 PC with an Asus H81 board, not the most recent hardware, and a Dell XPS 13 laptop, both currently running vanilla Arch).
I'm actually considering switching to Gentoo on the long run, though I don't dare put my hands on that yet.
That said, mainline Arch is still a superior, pretty much worry-free distribution. I recommend everyone to try it.
Thanks Derek, for sharing even your most demanding experiences with Linux. It gives you a lot of credibility. Keep it up!
PS: I still agree with your position on GNOME. My first experience with it was my transition from Windows to Ubuntu. Not going to use either one ever again.
I started with Ubuntu, went to Manjaro and stayed on Arch, best distro there is.
15:46 thats literally me in my first arch install
😂I feel you
My first Linux install waa 25 years ago from a friend’s CD. Last ~20 years Debian or Debian based when possible for work and nearly always on personal machines. Otherwise Redhat or RHEL based at work... CentOS, Rocks, Scientific Linux. Only regret with Debian was when Xfree86 packages were way out of date compared to others and I needed to compile own X. RHEL based is probably where you want to be for production stuff that may be around for longer than you planned and need security updates... if it’s super urgent you can usually get the srpms an build your own.
I hear you. I'm waiting on MX or maybe LMDE to get a little more polished and capable. I can pluck around with them fine, but I'm not really convinced yet. For now I'm sticking with Debian Stable XFCE and Majaro XFCE. Drivers in Manjaro work great for me, super easy and comprehensive to setup, and the AUR... is the AUR. Something like Guix seems fun to me, but not exactly what I'd call practical for general use.
I am a 25+ years of winblows user, and just resently changed to this wonderful world of linux. Only Arco fits my needs! I have testet like 20+ linux distro also, but allways keep coming back to Arco, and now for good. no more distro hop for me either.
After a year of running gentoo linux as my only os, I'm never ever leaving it.
Mostly because its a bitch to recompile and set flags. #JustGentooThings
@@excitableboy7031 and if you ask on irc or else they will get angry with you if you ask too much and will ban
why would I go from manjaro to gentoo ? (honest question, please convince me). Installing package is longer and feel complicated. I’ve read that compiling would optimise the performance but when I tried I only could set the generic processor architecture as would do any binary-based distro. So what?
@@droop972 honestly I like it because I get full control over my system (yeah, ik you have full control over your system even in Ubuntu but gentoo makes it very easy, for example you can't swap systemd with openrc very easy in ubuntu). Full control over your system also means you can build your very own system, making it very minimal and low on resources.
The compilation time imo isn't a problem anymore in 2020, Mental Outlaw has a video about speeding up the compilation times.
You don't have to compile for generic, just set -march=native and you're good to go. An exception is when an architecture is too new for gcc to support -march=native correctly (happened with znver1) but you must likely won't have any problems
Been trying out a lot of distros but as of late I've been going back to Gentoo because for me it provides me with all the software and customization I need. I can definitely see what you mean. If you've got a working setup with tools you're familiar with it can sometimes be frustrating to try to learn other systems.
I downloaded so many oddball “light” distros to put on a really old 32-bit laptop. They were all trash. Dog slow and hardware incompatibilities. Installers that would leave me at a useless grub prompt. What ended up working best? Mainline Linux Mint, with a bit of tuning for a low memory system. Go figure.
Douglas Ward - antiX was very lightweight but wouldn’t detect or activate any of my PCMCIA wireless cards out of the box. Too barebones. MX was nearly as light but with much better hardware support. Mint was even better with a driver that worked automatically and tripled the speed of the Wi-Fi card. I’ve tried things as obscure as Manjaro JWM, Puppy, Bodhi, Elive and Vector. They were all clunky trash not worth the trouble of overcoming their limitations. Even when I only had 1GB of RAM. After upgrading to 2GB it all became a moot point. With tuning Mint is a better experience than any lightweight distro you care to name. It’s the experience that matters in the end.
Why would you run CloverOS. That's the most meme of all meme distros.
I like memes. btw.
Its not bad at all imo. Has live iso. Basically a sabayon for bigboys. Or like the Manjaro of Gentoo.
@@postychan8466 Funtoo is much more like the Mankato equivalent for Gentoo. CloverOS is SUPER unpolished
@@daras3579 cool i like configuring my own shit anyway.
@@postychan8466 Vanilla Gentoo always an option :)
I went through the same thing 2 days ago, and in the end I returned to Arch and mate desktop, always arch !!
What if all the issues he was facing with black screens and stuff was because he was using minimal installations, he didn’t have necessary drivers that his system needs to boot correctly.
I am willing to bet he is using a Nvidia gfx card, the black screen issue is common with these cards and iso's that don't have the drivers pre-installed
TheDrunkenAlcoholic I think he uses AMD. He has said it in the past.
Learned the same lesson a couple years ago, Arch is the only distro that ticks all the boxes ( at least for me ).
soystemd
I completely understand your point of view.
I recently came across your channel with the NixOS video. This video is before that. Would you have checked that distro for your production machine? Seems to be a pretty good distro for your use case, you keep an up to date config file for the installation and whenever you want to try distro hopping again (we all have those weak moments) you can easily go back to your NixOS setup.
I love your video Derek!! I still use lxde even though it's not developed anymore. It's fast, simple, and it does what I need it to do. I use openbox ( of course), with opensuse leap as my distro. Solid, fast and flexible. I'm waiting for mabox 2008 to be released so I can try arch again. Other than this, Debian is my distro of choice. Fedora and opensuse are excellent distros as far as I'm concerned. Let's not forget bionicpup which I don't recall you ever reviewing. If I'm stuck, bionicpup to the rescue!!!😀
Great video DT! Been there myself... and landed in Arch and Debian back!
In the IT world my rule 1 is "if it ain't broke, Don't fix it" 5 years ago I replaced windows on my main production system with Mint, I've reinstall Mint two or three times, this after listening to 10 or more content creators suggest Mint for a newbie. Since then I've installed Arch, Debian, Ubuntu as well as others on test systems and VM's but Mint works well, and I'm comfortable in Mint. "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it".
I feel sad you only mentioned Debian and Arch with no word about Suse or Fedora being solid as well =/
also Slackware. rock solid for about five years since 14.2
fedora lag bad and has problems. never been rock Solid for me in years
@@sixdroid hhhmmmmm weird, it works perfectly fine on my machine
@@rasmusrasmussen9415 that's what they all say
@@rasmusrasmussen9415 lag. don't have that lag in other distros. and it freeze because of btrfs expecially on weak pc and the installer didn't give the option to use the full space? never happened in other distros also the installer is not clear and is like a mess if you don't do the auto install or even if you do
Recently I hopped from: Mint to Haiku (technically not Linux) to Q4OS to Debian Stable to Fedora 34 to OpenMandriva Lx 4.2.
OpenMandriva is my favourite distro at the moment: Comes preinstalled with a Plasma configuration that is much closer to classic KDE (TDE wouldn’t install), driver support is truly solid which is common with RPM distros (unlike Debian and Mint), it uses the Falkon web browser which I have been using for years on RISC OS as Qupzilla; and of course, it brings back memories of classic Mandrake Linux.
I felt that until I landed on arch. I don't think I'm gonna distro hopping again. I used for a long time just two distros before arch, ubuntu and opensuse, but tried many more, sabayon, nixos, fedora, debian, Manjaro, antergos, etc. I remember how difficult was to encourage myself to use arch because I had that idea that it's not an stable os, but I never had the need to reinstall it
People make it seem that arch is unstable but I have used the same arch install for over a year with no major breakages. If anything breaks it will either be a manual intervention when updating and that is easy to fix and they post how on the arch wiki or just a package breakage or misconfigured dependency.
I went through same thing.... I settled on Fedora32 after trying Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu Budgie, Solus Plasma, Mint, PopOS and openSUSE. I had issues from driver problem, partitioning, random errors /crashes and slow computer issues. I'm very happy with Fedora32 and with Boxes, I created a VM with Windows10 and that works great too.
I switched to FreeBSD after a similar experience. It has been my main operating system for about a year now and it runs great.
same! had a lot of installer problems while installing arch on my laptop, so I remembered freebsd and installed it, and I enjoyed it so I installed it on an hdd on my desktop pc
@号暗 how so? would you elaborate?
号暗 Do you have any sources or are you pulling this out of your ass?
@@f-104starfighter7 one example can be found in this mailing list post: lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2018-March/007181.html - more things have happened since then, including renaming of anything related to blacklist/whitelist and master or slave. one developer even tried to rename "master boot record" all throughout their source tree with no discussion. see these two: lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-head/2020-June/137327.html and lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/svn-src-head/2020-June/137342.html
@@blakkheim is there any way the FreeBSD users can change that, I mean how things work inside the developers circle?
Hey DT, I'm running cloverOS on an old notebook. It actually has a binary repo by default. You don't need to compile anything unless you want to.
The black screens look like graphic driver issues. I had about the same on my old laptop, where any 64-bit os just wouldn't activate the backlight. That's a very hard problem to solve as your doing it blind.
I think the main issue here is that DT tried distros with minimal or no support at all. Prior to running Arch as my daily desktop, I was a distro hopper. I was using all well-known distros (mainly Debian based but also Fedora and OpenSUSE) and never had problems with them. However, when I tried FreeBSD, I could have given it a chance if the wifi was working correctly. So, IMO, if someone wants to try Linux, one must install well-known distros with great documentation and support.
Running Slackware for 7years. No regrets
Damn that’s nice
Happy for you. Too much work for me.
No desire to leave Slackware at all.
@@AndersJackson you can try more friendly Slackware-based distros like Salix, Zenwalk, Absolute, Slackel...
Alejandro Simón true indeed. I started with zenwalk and then made switch to Slackware 7years ago. Zenwalk package maintenance is a bit tiresome
Had a similar situation the other day. I tried putting Solus on my main machine. I had an issue with auto partition. So I did a manual partition. That seemed to work. It booted, I ran the updated and it just sat there after about 29 of 340 updates. So I reset. Tried to install some other packages. It froze up. Oh, and I'm doing this with one of 3 monitors. I was hoping an update would fix the multi monitor issues. I ran xrandr. It didn't like my configuration at all. So I'm back using Arch Linux. I feel your pain.
do your first update via terminal and eopkg, the software manager has some bugs in it that causes that issue of freezing up.
@@shrobbyy yup happens for me too, void works tho
@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic Problem is, it worked fine in a VM. I wasn't expecting the installation issues because it installed perfectly the first time in a VM. I updated it in the VM fine... No problems. So it's something with my machine (It's 11 years old VS the 7 year old Server I ran the VM on).
@@Phydoux2112 the software manager is written in python and there was / still is a bug they can not fix due to known python function bug. It works some times and other times it doesn't work, the software manager froze for me when there was a large amount of updates, it hasn't happend in a long time now, but I found updating via terminal first for the large amount of updates normally causes no issues
@@TheDrunkenAlcoholic I think I tried updating with the terminal but something happened. Oh, I know what happened. Nothing opened. I tried opening Firefox while the terminal was running the update. Not only did the terminal eventually freeze but Firefox wouldn't open. I couldn't even open another terminal. Nothing was working. And the terminal that was running the update froze too. I shut the VM down and haven't touched it since. It's a shame because it looks so nice too. If they ever fix their packager issues, Solus has some great potential.
for the void issue, i’ve had something similar before and it turns out the kernel module for the mobo ethernet wasn’t loaded... trying something like ‘modprobe tg3’ (for example with broadcom devices) if you have this problem again might be worth trying...
Been running void for over 6 years now on all kinds of hardware. Never had Ethernet not being detected on a base system.
Guess it happens from time to time.
I just finished distro hopping and installed Arch for the first time ever. I love it. feels so smooth and I love just installing and setting everything up from the terminal, so simple.
"There's no internet" I had problem on every distro at some point I tried.
There is a very good reason that I kept an old desktop as a test bed system. My main systems remain untouched (and working!), and If I wear out an SSD on the test bed, it's cheap insurance. And the very first test of any new distribution is "will it boot on the test bed?" A few don't and get marked "unusable" in my test book. There can be other problems, like the one you found. The bottom line from over a year of this is my main systems still run Mint.
I came because of the thumbnail I stayed for the awesome content.
I love your rant videos. Ive gone down the distro hopping rabbit whole myself. I feel your pain. After a day or two i just end up installing one of the main 4 distros till i gain my confidence to jump back into the whole.
"If what's working for you, is working for you, what are you even changing your distribution for?"
Me on Windows: 😳
Is Windows working for you?
On Gentoo based distributions, you shouldn't waste time trying to make startx run before you install display manager and desktop environment/window manager of your choice. After that, everything should work fine. At least, that was my experience.
I had the same problem with installing guix. I had to do it via the tty instead of the curses installer and then it worked. However, I ended up leaving it because I couldn't figure out all the stuff i needed to do work in time.
Distro Hop Countdown: (dada dunt dunt da...") [It's the final countdown...[music]]
Hop #1 2:17 Gnugeeks
Hop #2 4:06 Parabola
Hop #3 5:09 Void
Hop #4 7:40 Arco Linux
Hop #5 9:07 CloverOS
Hop #6 10:20 Sabayon
Hop #7 12:15 Calculate Linux Scratch
Hop #8 14:42 LXQt Edition
Hop #9 15:53 Back to Arco Linux
"What I Learned Is..." 16:09 [kicks self in butt for knowing better] "I'm Done...!"
If it ain't broke don't break it... 17:01 "WTH!!"
Ending Rant... 18:54 [Nike Oppo (Opposite)] "Just Don't Do It........"
SPOILER ALERT...! If it ain't Debian or Arch don't use it lol... ;)
Ohhhh you know you want to give Devuan another go. I know you do. *passes another beer* ;3
I know this video is old at this point, but what I can say after using Linux for years is that switching to any distro that you're not used to will initially be difficult in some way. It just depends on if you like it enough to keep working with it. For example in my experience manjaro was a horrible disaster. I had it on a laptop for about 6 months and eventually I just couldn't update it anymore. The package manager had all kinds of signature issues with packages and after spending several hours trying to Google my way out of the mess I just gave up.
I know several people that swear by arch-based systems but my experience with them has been wholly negative.
Jumping between several distros in a 24-hour period is just a recipe for frustration because they all do things slightly differently.
Friendship broken with Ubuntu
Arch Linux is my best friend
U new here?
Good.
Just watched your new video "You Don't Own Your Movies, Music, Books, Games..." and saw this one in the playback suggestions again. Had to watch it and I think, because of this, my most recent distro hop from Arco to Arch was because of this video. For real! I love Debian but it's too far behind the times with it's stable branch. I thought about Gentoo briefly but my system is pretty old and I didn't want to put too much stress on the CPU. So I went with Arch and I'm happy with my decision. But once again, I remembered this video from 6 months ago and when you originally posted it DT. I'm a HUGE proponent for Linux Mint for new users but I think it would take too much for me to get it to where I would enjoy using it like I do Arch. You just can't beat Arch Linux. LONG LIVE ARCH!!!
Mainline arch is beckoning your return. Will you heed the call???
Hey DT - funny story about that: FSF-approved Trisquel (Mini) was the ONLY distro I managed to install and run properly on some old Fujitsu-Siemens-Laptops in the way that they worked as expected and booted within 1 min (Bodhi Linux took 5 min to boot...). Sometimes the way OS and hardware talk to each other, stays a mystery. ;)
It would be interesting to watch a series of videos on 'Linux from scratch'.
My distros of choice are Fedora and LMDE. Granted that I only run them in VMware Fusion on my Mac but they both have been rock solid with anything that I want to try out. I actually prefer the RHEL family over the Debian family.
Never drink & distro hop
Never drink & install
How else can you wake up to a new install and remember your one piece manga collection wasn't backed up?
what is manga?
@@harshphysik Japanese comics
@@DannyMexen9
Thanks
I didn't get it earlier
I've barely used Linux. Haven't felt ready to leave Windows, but I kept an eye on how things are with Linux. Most recently I tried Linux Mint with Cinnamon, then I heard about Manjaro, so I tried it. I've been wondering what else was available. Since I've been thinking about leaving Windows more seriously, I looked at System 76, so that had me wondering about PopOS, and from what I've seen about it, it sounds like a good choice for my needs. I will say I did like Mint and Manjaro. The only problem I've had is network connection. When initially started, I'd have no network connection, but If I restart, then I'm connected. That's why I tried Manjaro, to find out if it is just an issue with Mint or not. Still same behavior. Worked just fine with Windows 7, so I'm guessing it's a hardware issue of some kind (as in anticompetitive practices, because I've run into that before, 'winmodem').
Arch is love, Arch is life, btw
I use Arch too btw...😁
I totally concur with your experience. Once I found a distro that works flawlessly for me (Debian based), I only distrohop on virtual machines or dual boot. There is just one precision regarding the FSF recommend distros. I don't think it was the distro what failed but the hardware. You need to take into account that if you want a 100% Free Software distro, you need to select software supported 100% by free software. Unfortunately, that is a very narrow selection. That does not mean that the distribution sucks but that the hardware providers suck. In the end, FSF recommended distros only work for people 100% dedicated to the cause. I also have another precision regarding your core statement that only Debian and arch based distributions work. Have you had the same experience with any Fedora based distros?
Honestly it is really weird having so many problems with xorg, sure there was no hardware incompatibility?
The grass is usually not greener on the other side, it is greener where you till the soil...
Debian Sid since 2002 or so. Every couple of years I think I should try something different, but a day or so later I’m back to Sid.
I usually end up in Testing. Using it more or less like a Rolling distro.
steveo314 Sid gets you much more recent versions of stuff, and if you add liquorix kernel you are completely up to date. Over almost 20 years only a handful of show-stopping bugs. Usually searching bugs.debian.org get a work-around for the couple of days before a corrected package. I’ve reinstalled maybe twice because of new bugs, which takes about an hour. Use deborphan and debfoster to keep database of installed packages. Bleeding edge.
@steveo314 Did you have Sid up and running with everything installed? I've never had a problem.
I am waiting for the new Slackware. Slackware never has let me down for a full blown distro.
But actually I use some Puppy all the time, like Slacko :-) , for lightweight speed and ease of use and safety.
But you are so right:
distro hopping is often just a waist of time and energy.
If it works, it works.
You've got an AMD threadripper on your production machine, right? I've had the same "black screen" issue with my main machine which is also a threadripper - so I wonder if it has something to do with that hardware and having so many cores that is just not supported on older less up-to-date distros?
I've also distro hopped, but over about 6 weeks, and only on my second machine. I still went back to Linux Mint 21-2 Cinnamon. Why did I go back, simply because it is easy to install, easy to setup the way I want it, it is easy to update, to find and install software. Some distros didn't install at all, some took forever, some got about 90% of the way and then failed.
Void Linux, been using it for years now, it rocks!
Hey DT, I really feel like you should give NixOS another shot if you like the idea of GUIX
hey DT, STAY IN *ARCH LINUX* OR YOU WILL BE ANGRY!
You are my #1 authority in all things Linux, and I also really like your style. Thank you so much!
Should have just went through all your packages, removed the ones you didn't use or need anymore, clean the orphans and cache and called it a day haha
Really enjoyed Sabayon. I think it's unfortunate it isn't really there anymore and merging with something else. Might be great who knows, but I liked where it was headed as it was.
What about nix? or FreeBSD?
same here.
if I can't use NixOS itself, then I'm very happy with having just the Nix package manager on *any* Linux distro, or macOS.
it practically decouples your work/development environment from the underlying distro.
I installed arch for the first time a few days ago and had to spend a day trying to configure grub and some drivers and services correctly (luckly I knew how to manually boot using the grub cli thanks to years of Windows screwing with my dualboot systems).. I don't understand what really went wrong yet but after a few cycles of reinstalling and reconfiguring grub it finally worked. My point is I've used Debian based distros for the last 10 years and they always just work perfectly out of the box and while Arch installation was kinda scary for me and alot of stuff was misconfigured (probably to my fault) I'm so glad I took the time to skim through the wiki and get everything working! Maybe Gentoo to you was what Arch was to me and maybe you could've liked using it if you took the time to fix the installation though I doubt anything can be better than Arch (or even Ubuntu for that matter)
Honestly, I love void linux, but yeah, the networking hardly works for a good amount of people.
it sucks that a lot of shit can still be hit or miss with linux now
i know lists exist of compatiable NICs etc
but honestly
someone should just make a program to run that will tell you if you have a compatiable NIC.
and just make that a fucking staple in gnu/linux
Really sucks that he didn't get void working. Fantastic distro, but it has the typical small distro problem where it isn't going to work for everyone.
I also run void, have not had networking problems - maybe not install from iso and from net.
@@caubert me too
@@caubert yeah, the isos are so out of date that you should always install from net in my opinion
I've used Sabayon and Calculate long-term in the distant past with xfce and mate, but have never gotten Sabayon's Fluxbox to install. I don't have the courage to try Calculate Scratch. I've actually had several failures with Debian-based distros, most recently the newest BunsenLabs refuses to install beyond configuring the network. My goto for some time has been ArchLabs Openbox, with occasional fluxbox or jwm. I like Arco B versions as that's the only way i can explore the tilers already configured. I've had no issues with Fedora so I'd say that's my #2 to Arch-based, but they no longer have any minimal WM/DE preconfigured.
In short I've finally learned the same lesson as you. I keep my main machine running what i trust, and scratch that itch to hop on secondary machines i could toss out the window if necessary. Great vid!
After distro hopping i settled for elementary os 😍
TBH, the two distros, that I use and recommend are Fedora and NuTyX. Both amazing. Easy to install and get working. Apart from Endeavour OS on my main machine I use these two distros. Never failed me. NuTyX is an amazing LFS distro and Fedora is nice and solid. Great fresh vanilla experience. Solus is also a distro to mention, although for my needs their repos lack software. Also, I have one machine with Alpine, that I installed GUI on and it's lighning fast. The speed at which the packages install is a piece of cake.
Windows users: What is better? Linux powerusers: This might be better.... Apple users:*An Apple a day keeps the search for the better away!*
The splash sceen, then black is a VERY common issue with non "batteries included" distros. It is a display adapter driver issue (usually nvidia). My box will _ONLY_ run with the nvidia binary blob driver, the open source nvidia drivers give me black screen on boot. Depending on how your boot loader is configured, it will do a partial hand off to the graphics driver to give you higher resolution tty. So you get that "I'm locked up" feeling when really its running, doing exactly what you tell it, but you don't get to see it. To fix it you need to tell the kernel to use basic graphics tty mode. Boot single, edit the grub config to use the basic graphics mode for tty, then boot normally and you can begin to hack your way back to life. Install proper driver for your video card, X --configure, copy your xorg.conf to its correct location, and startx. Not insurmountable just irritating. Interestingly enough you can find all you need to solve these issues on the arch wiki :). I would love to see you fight through this and win, and make a video about it. It's just taking your linux experience to the next level. back in the early 90s that is how running linux on desktops was every day. NEVER update because you will have to fix XFree86 again.
17:20 - That's why Java is great, more than 3 billions computers using Java :)
(Irony)
Have you tried installing Guix without guided installer? If I remember correctly, Guix reference manual contains how to install Guix manually.
Yeah, Linux still kinda sucks when it comes to hardware support. I had generally good luck with most distros, including Guix, but maybe that is because most of my hardware is very outdated(But at least it is 64-bit with UEFI firmware. So I don’t need to worry about end-of-support for now).
I wouldn’t try Guix on my main machine though. Not only I still need some proprietary stuff(including Windows), but also recent Nouveau driver makes my VGA display insanely flickery. The only fix was to install proprietary NVIDIA driver(or using DVI display might fix the issue as well, because the secondary DVI display does not have any issues. The display does have DVI, but I don’t have any DVI - DVI cable at the moment).
You should play around with NixOS on your laptop or vm. Make a config that you can use then try it on your main production machine. NixOS is a distribution that It think would be an interesting topic on this channel.
Some installers. Even debian based. Remove your storage drives - only installation media and one drive to be installed on (should solve the first hop )
Edit: add additional storage drives later after installation process completes
Or run a wipefs -a [device]
Some installers fail when seeing other partitions/OSes
Did it this weekend, using arch again 😂
Same here I switched 7 times and went back to void and have freebsd on a pen drive lol
Try blackarch install. It is a arch installer with only added blackarch repo as add-on. Minimal, easy to use and you don't need to install any hacking tools. If you later remove the blackarch repo, it becomes a minimal arch install. It's awesome, tbh