this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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The Hardest of All (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 2 years ago by elmiar@lemmygrad.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Which OS has the steep learning curve and is considered hardest?

  • Gentoo ( I have been using it for 3 years now, until I have to switch to Ubuntu for research sake. I love it's philosophy and I kinda feel even my lifestyle changed after Gentoo. Tried it's successors, redstar, cosmic mod didn't liked much.)
  • Arch Linux ( when I got into Linux, everyone was like, I use arch btw. So tried it first with gnome, then kde, then i3, then i3 gaps and tui, then used openrc, then used runit. Helped me lot to install Gentoo. But Gentoo transformed me into something else)
  • Nix OS ( I was hearing about it since 2022. I wanted to try, and now I am gonna install and use it. I'm planning)

My question is, which among these is considered to be hardest and thus by mastering it, one can master linux to atleast some part? (excluding network management, ofsec, netsec, forensics, etc)

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[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Haven't tried Nix OS yet, but yeah I can see the similarities in Gentoo and Arch. I think Gentoo with its compilation times is more of a headache (with better(?) rewards?). I think the last time I had to compile on Arch was for a kernel I wanted to try.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

On recent hardware compiling everything from source doesn't give that much a of a performance boost. On older hardware (i586/i686 era) this was different. But in my opinion the hassle simply doesn't worth it anymore. My machine has plenty of unused resources and compilers nowadays do a really good job in optimizing the result.

Can't say anything about Nix OS. As far as I know it does some things different when it comes to configuration.

[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

On recent hardware compiling everything from source doesn’t give that much a of a performance boost.

Agreed. The only reason I considered Gentoo is because my laptop is a potato.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is it just a potato, or is it an ancient potato? Arch runs on fairly old hardware as long as it's 64 bits hardware. The oldest device I have must be from around 2014 and it runs okay.

[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just a normal potato. i3-3120M and upgraded to 12gb ram. Next will be the SSD as it still has an HDD. Works pretty well for everyday use, although forget about gaming.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i3, 12 GB RAM, SSD ... wouldn't call this a potato ... 😆

[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 1 points 2 years ago

😅

no SSD yet. and I just recently got an axtra 8gb stick of ram lol. so before that swap was used a ton and it was crawling. doesn't help that I use gnome, i guess (i'm not that good with WMs).

i guess gaming-wise it's a potato. lol.

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

IMO NixOS has all the benefits of Gentoo. I can quite easily:

  • build everything in my system with custom compiler flags
  • patch/reconfigure my kernel
  • change how a specific package (say openssl) is built

But at the same time, anything I don't customise is pulled from the shared binary cache instead of being built locally.

[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

But at the same time, anything I don't customise is pulled from the shared binary cache instead of being built locally

This sounds pretty good. Like Gentoo and Arch mixed depending on what you're installing? Gonna read up more on it when I have time. I just scanned their website quickly and they did sound a lot like Gentoo.

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, I mean I switched to it from arch because it felt so messy doing upgrades, testing graphics drivers, kernel patches, etc on a mutable system. I would have to use filesystem snapshots to have any chance of rolling things back sanely.

NixOS makes it very low risk and easy to do system changes like that.

[–] elmiar@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ohh. Ok.

And they say that in nix os we can have different versions and builds of same software, driver or even kernel (kernel, we can do that in Gentoo too). Is that true?

[–] Corngood@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah, it's great for testing kernels because you can build a customised one and then immediately roll back (previous configs can be selected in the bootloader)