Basically as the title says I'm looking for something new to throw on my laptop. I've been with Ubuntu on and off since 12.04, I've also had Xubuntu, Lunbuntu, and Elementary OS installed at some point. Right now I'm using Linux Mint 17 which I like but I'm bored at work and looking for something to do.
I'm thinking of going CrunchBang or Arch Linux but I'm not sure so I'm hoping one of you will be able to sell me on a new project.
I would go with arch linux if you are bored. You will learn a ton while installing it, and the install guide is very easy to follow. Because there is no guided installer, you will have to learn how to mount, partition, and format filesystems from the command line, which is an invaluable skill. You will also have to install a bootloader, etc, and the entire process takes place on the command line. Back when I started, completing an Arch install felt like a great accomplishment. TBH I fell like a default arch install is pretty stable, although you will likely run into issues. That being said, debugging problems is how you learn. I used ubuntu for about 2 years, then got bored, then used arch for about 2 years, and now I am using gentoo. Eventually, I may use slackware or openbsd.
I can only speak about minimalist distros, but Debian is my go-to desktop Linux. If you want a minimalist and stable (even on unstable/testing branches) desktop, it's the best option IMHO. Arch Linux and Gentoo are rolling release distros. For Arch Linux, if you don't keep up to date with the updates, you could fall behind and cause package problems since they do not store archives of old packages. There are third party sites that do, but installing them correctly on a few packages is a pain in the ass. Arch Linux is where I have the most experience with rolling release distros, and I have hosed 4 computers entirely by skipping a version of the "filesystem" package, not even at the same time. I have also had endless regressions in the kernel (monitor stopped working on my laptop for ~1 year, had to use the laptop as a desktop during that time (I couldn't format without doing extensive backups)). The touchpad drivers regressed multiple times and would not work, and ACPI also regressed leaving me knowledge-less about battery usage, no brightness controls, and no suspend features. Posts on their forums get ignored for the most part as well, since it's populated by users who have no knowledge of the internals of the OS. I have little experience with Gentoo, but as a rolling release distro I tend to avoid them all now. Debian provides a large package repository with very little issues in regressions in my experience. That being said, Arch has it's benefits. AUR is amazing if you use aur-git, which basically turns AUR into FreeBSD ports on crack. I have heard there are Arch Linux derivatives that create some stability (Antergos, for instance) for releases. I still choose Debian every day of the week for desktop use, though.
Another example for why Arch Linux is awful. I ran "pacman -Syu" as usual four days ago (Monday) since you have to do it all the time, and the kernel stopped recognizing my USB keyboard and mouse when I plugged it in just now. They weren't plugged in at the time of upgrade, so the modules were not loaded. I generally put my laptop into suspend and leave it that way for weeks at a time, maybe reboot once or twice a month. "lsusb" detects the Logitech Unifying Receiver, so it's connecting just fine. I plugged the dongle into another computer, and the keyboard and mouse work just fine. I did some investigation, the most recent upgrade also upgraded the kernel. Okay, fine, not usually an issue. I just noticed that "/lib/modules/<oldkernelversion>" is completely missing, and only the new one remains. That means I have to reboot to get my keyboard and mouse working again just because pacman decided to wipe out my old modules. NO other distro I have ever used has ever done this. Linux is supposed to remain stable, even after upgrading. Things are organized in most distros so that it can remain booted and running just fine even during upgrade (and you can have 6+ months uptime if necessary), while the next boot will boot into the newer kernel. There weren't any warnings, either. I wasn't paying attention to what packages were being upgraded because I normally don't care unless there are serious security vulnerabilities in the kernel (or running programs). Keyboard and mouse aren't the problem, what if I urgently needed some other peripheral device? What if other modules need to be loaded for stability? The modules for my current running kernel are literally GONE. Deleted intentionally by the package manager. That's not even a regression, that's a sign of bad design. Unacceptable. I just don't have time to reformat. EDIT: Confirmed. Reboot fixed keyboard and mouse. Also caused a regression in X11 that required some tweaking of X settings. Stability is atrocious. That's why I didn't run "pacman -Syu" very often in the past, but doing so meant that I eventually crashed my machine. I can no longer support this distro. I'm going to do extensive backups tonight and migrate back to Debian.
Yeah, that's something I learned the hard way. With Arch, you pretty much have to update everything before installing anything. Otherwise, you get caught behind and all your mirrors fail to find the outdated dependency you need.For Arch Linux, if you don't keep up to date with the updates, you could fall behind and cause package problems
I was going to suggest PC-BSD since he/she is looking for a desktop.
I've tried a lot of Linux distros over the last 13 years. I even did a stage 1 Gentoo installation, which I don't think they support anymore. Instead of reeling off a list, I would rather ask you what you hope to learn from a different distro. We all have enough spare computers and spare hard drives to install a bunch of stuff and never touch it again. In contrast, what would you want to keep at the end of a couple months? For example, lots of folks have mentioned Gentoo. It's easier than ever to set up a fresh Gentoo box, because multi-core machines are faster than ever at compiling. However it's just as much a pain to update when you have to compile X repeatedly or leave it behind. Nevertheless, Gentoo has one thing most Linux distros cannot offer as readily: out-of-the-box PXE and TFTP server setup. If you've been wanting to learn more about bare metal provisioning (a useful skill), Gentoo is the place to start. There is nothing quite as rewarding as the first time you trick one computer into installing a setup on another computer. If instead you want to learn more about keeping a server running while meeting business compliance, then I recommend CentOS. It's the open-source version of Red Hat Enterprise, which has a completely different daemon configuration system (one that I find a lot easier to use). Anyone can say "eww, it's not Debian-based so it must be evil". It takes only a few hours of exposure to chkconfig and some of their other command-line tools to realize, "wait, it's working and it's tight. I might accidentally get something done this afternoon." Crunchbang has something esthetically pleasing: cleanliness with a desktop. I recently installed it on a Pentium III 866 MHz laptop from 2000 or so and loved that it worked without any special effort and I could customize the desktop using only vim. While I had to download a 32-bit non-PAE version for a first-gen Centrino laptop to run it, I got that ISO directly from two clicks off their front page. Building, running services once you've built them, tweaking your interface to these events... they're all different goals. Heck, you may be more interested in trying Linux on different CPU architectures to learn how they differ and what that means for maintenance.
What would I want to keep at the end of a few months? Good question. I don't use my laptop a whole lot, its mostly used for when I go out on repair jobs. I'll have it with me so I can mount drives to back them up, format them or so I can troubleshoot issues online or download drivers and the like. Also I'll bring it to my buddies place for music, movies, etc... Really what I'm trying to get out of all the distros I try is to learn something new. I have my laptop to experiment with and that's what I'm aiming for.
Experiment, have fun, learn something new. This
Nevertheless, Gentoo has one thing most Linux distros cannot offer as readily: out-of-the-box PXE and TFTP server setup. If you've been wanting to learn more about bare metal provisioning (a useful skill), Gentoo is the place to start. There is nothing quite as rewarding as the first time you trick one computer into installing a setup on another computer.
sounds interesting. Would you care to expand at all?
Gentoo takes care of a good few parts more than Linux From Scratch, which is the ultimate in learning and I should've mentioned it earlier. One piece that it provides is a compiled set of preboot execution environment tools. The short explanation for PXE: it's a server listening for mewling, new bootups on the network. You can only have one PXE server per subnet. The usual configurations involve a PXE server listening for servers that just received their IP addresses from the DHCP server (usually your router in a home network) and running from LAN boot. PXE chills them mofos out and hands them to the TFTP server to download installer files. My day job involves tech support for a server automation product. One thing the product does is provisioning, and it uses a set of PXE files from Gentoo to install on bare servers.
I've been using Arch as my primary desktop for about a year now. I like it. It can be a pain to install, but once you do it's fairly low-maintenance. I like that it only has what I need. It's like Gentoo: the base installation has pretty much just what you need to boot, and you add the rest. The biggest reason I looked into it was the incredible support community. It seems like every time I google a Linux issue, the top results are Arch forums. If you're OS-bored, might I also recommend a tiling window manager? I switched to i3 several years ago, and IMO it's incredible. I can't believe how long I lived with windowing.
I'll second i3. I started my tiling WM experience with ion3 years ago. It was miles better than anything I'd ever experienced. Eventually ion3 became obsolete, and I had to migrate to something else. I tried awesome and wmii, and ended up using wmii for about a year because of the scripting capabilities with its plan9 filesystem. Eventually the performance of wmii (most of it is tied together through Bash.. it's nasty) got to me and I had to switch. I tried awesome and i3, and i3 is everything that ion3 was (name is a coincidence, really) and then some. They keep improving it, too, it's not stagnant like any other of the minimalist WMs. awesome is an option as well, I just personally do not prefer it. dwm isn't bad either, but it serves different purposes.
I tried a number of them when I first started looking, and a couple times since, but i3 seemed the easiest and most intuitive. I've heard XMonad is fine once you get it configured, but configuration is a pain. i3 configuration is pretty easy. Binding a key looks like "bindsym $mod+Shift+Left move left" (move a window left) or "bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec xbacklight -inc 10" (make laptop brightness keys work, by executing the xbacklight app). It ships with a good default config too, so you don't have to write everything from scratch. i3 has decent (though not perfect) mouse support, something a lot of tiling WMs are lacking. i3 uses a tree to store windows internally, which affects how they move. Moving windows around feels very natural to me. For the uninitiated: windowing managers are just that, not desktop environments. Which means you can use a tiling WM within a DE like Gnome or Xfce, if you want. I actually used i3 within Xfce for a bit, then with only the Xfce menu bar, but I found I just didn't need them.
Do try arch. I was once a mint user and tried arch and couldnt stop using it afterwards.
People say is hard to install, not really though. Read along on the wiki and you should be fine.
You'll love how you can always find the answers in the wiki and how you never have to compile
something ever again because of aur. I never really get to use all the themes I want. The software is always the latest version and
most of themes look bad, like on gnome 3.12 I cant find themes I like and the ones for the older versions
have bugs.
I've been a (with the exception of brief periods of insanity) full time desktop linux user since around 1998. So the things I look for in a desktop are much different than the things others might be looking for in a desktop. I've been using Arch for a couple of years now and love it. However I would not suggest others use it. It's a great distribution, and I will not be changing, but I don't suggest distributions to people for a few very specific reasons: Tweak:
Find sysctl settings that you'd like to tweak Here are some common ones: vm.swappiness
vm.vfs_cache_pressure Documentation on sysctl variables is available in the linux kernel. Find software to play with: https://github.com/kahun/awesome-sysadmin Automate your setup, use salt to do something cool (my configs are automatically pushed to my machines as soon as they are changed) Use python, use perl, use php, setup a webserver at home. BREAK STUFF AND MAKE TROUBLE. Feel free to ask for help under the #linux tag and I'll see if I can help. Distro hopping gets more boring than actually playing with linux imo. So it's better to just break something and try to fix it. You could also try:
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ 1. Distributions don't matter (sort of)
Distributions, or the collection of software maintained by a group of people,
are not important, a distribution is, for the most part branding. Specifically
branding of a particular feature (such as the package manager). If there is
well written documentation on the package manager for the most part you
will be fine. 2. Your desktop is not my desktop (or every year is the year of the linux
desktop)
One thing linux advocates have missed is the fact that there is no linux desktop
There is no great one size fits all scheme for everyone. What works for me
breaks another user's desktop work flow. That is OKAY.
So you want to play around for a bit? Mess things up? Here are some suggestions for the "everything works" sickness: 3. Software is what you really want.
Software is what you really want. Not Linux, but software.
Try switching to xfs, make a redundant backup system, try out cloudstack, see what kind of automation you can do.Ah yes I guess you could say this is what I'm trying to do more or less, experiment, play around, have fun with things. Thanks for the info.
There's an important question you haven't answered: what will you be using the distro for? Answer me that, and I can tell you what would likely fit you best. Most people don't realize that the majority of Linux distributions are very similar, with small differences you can change anyway. If you want the distro to be heavily customized to your liking, go with Arch. If you're not willing to go that far, install vanilla Debian or Ubuntu and customize it to your liking. If you like minimalism, #! will work wonders for you. If you like bleeding-edge updates, Manjaro is Arch for lazy people. I'm personally about to buy a ThinkPad to dual-boot Ubuntu with LXQT on one partition, and OS X on another. I asked the same question quite a while ago, feel free to take a look.
I did Fedora for a bit and LOVED it, but couldn't stand the total ideological attitude of it. Don't get me wrong, I love and respect them for it, but it made it difficult to use as a daily. Someone here suggested Korora, which is built off Fedora and I've been using that ever since. It's so well made and I absolutely adore Yum, plus going back and forth with KDE and Gnome 3 is really nice. Not to mention, every six months being a new release makes it sure to please. Otherwise, RHEL is always the gold standard. Man I just really love Red Hat...
I know nothing about this, or if it is still alive: http://thehackernews.com/2012/03/anonymous-os-01-anonymous-hackers.html
I've used both CrunchBang and arch, my recommendation is #! for the easy setup
So you could go with the middleman and use Archbang. It is Arch based rather than Debian based like Crunchbang. I know nothing really of Linux other than I play around some with a dual partitioned windows computer. Currently I am waiting for ElementaryOS Isis.
ArchBang is great if you want a stable arch setup that only takes about half an hour.