So I installed Arch a few days ago, I've been having fun with some customisation etc etc, but I keep thinking about trying out Debian.
Should I swap over? The main thing that makes me not want to bother is the AUR, I have heard that Debian has got good repos, but how does it compare to Arch repos including AUR?
Is Debian really more "productive"?
if you ever installed ubuntu before than debian is very similar to ubuntu
stick with arch if you enjoy wrestling with your computer
Debian is for users that actually want to get shit done, if you just want to drive your desktop and watch Chinese cartoons arch is your thing, if you're doing anything of any with with your life Debian will be better.
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OP asked a question and i answered, what's the problem, he doesn't even know about VMs
Arch is like Gentoo for people who don't have the IQ for Gentoo
I could try it in a VM, but I also cba messing around for ages and never making a conclusive decision.
I learnt how to install Arch by doing it on my PC over and over again until i had an install that actually worked
Ubuntu is like both except for people who aren't desperate for validation.
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>I learnt how to install Arch by doing it on my PC over and over again until i had an install that actually worked
I'm running Mint atm. What does Debian bring to the table?
If you enjoy using arch, you will probably hate Debian.
Arch has by far the better repos. Unless you need the extra stability Debian may provide, I'd go with Arch instead. Once it's properly configured, it just werkz. And no, "pacman fuck up you're system" is a meme.
this
Debian stable will get you great... stability.
Debian unstable will get you up-to-date packages since it isn't based on an LTS distro like Mint, and it will still be pretty stable if you have apt-listbugs installed and pay attention during the upgrade process.
Debian testing isn't really worth talking about.
Why are you using Mint though? Linux Mint might be better for you anyway if all you do is browse Sup Forums.
Debian has more packages, and they are more stable, IE not gonna break or have problems as often as arch.(You don't wan't servers breaking on an update! A system not working properly means no work gets done until fixed.) However, they may be a bit outdated. Debian is also not rolling release, which means you have to reinstall it again after a while.
Arch is "Bleeding Edge." With it you get the latest and greatest updates faster. Greatest assuming there are no bugs. Rolling release. Theoretically, you could install from a 4 year old ISO and update to the current date. Wouldn't recommend it though.
My one gripe with Debian is how they handle being a "GNU/Linux" system and make nonfree-software more difficult to obtain to get a system working. Particularly during the install process! Even the GNU team itself seems to distance itself from debian for the very reason it makes the non-free software available at all.
Lately, I've been avoiding distros that make the install process ass, or force me to put together a working desktop environment. For me I'd rather grab a distro with XFCE, then modify it to my needs.
So for an arch system I'd just install Antegros(basically just arch with an additional software repo), or Manjaro (based on arch, arch upsteam, but the package handlers hold packages back longer to try to maintain more stability)
For Debian the equivalent would be a flavor of *Ubuntu. I like Xubuntu.
Working with the AUR is not as easy as "sudo apt-get install anyprogramucanthinkof" sometimes the packages aren't maintained very well, buy yaourt makes it a lot easier.
This is by far the best answer ITT, and exactly why, despite using Debian on servers at work, I prefer Arch for personal use.
We had to use the Debian ISO containing nonfree firmware, otherwise it would autistically complain. I really see no practical reason for NOT providing nonfree firmware in an ISO. If you don't need it, it won't get installed, but if you do need it, you can't install anyway without it, so why waste time?
Anyway, if you want an AUR helper on Arch, I prefer pacaur over yaourt.
>The only reason someone could possibly hate Arch is because they can't install it, not because it's a shittier version of Gentoo, which literally does everything Arch does but actually well.
Well you can give it a try when Arch tears itself apart in 6 months (if you are lucky, or you could just not update).
NOTHING, EVERY LINUX DISTRO IS ESSENTIALLY THE SAME
why do you prefer Pacaur?
I've never heard of it
Mint is just fine for python
read the site news and learn to update keys and read post-transaction logs.
pacaur > yaourt
antergos is dead slow
try debian unstable. arch still have its downsides but I'd prefer doing things the arch way
>octopi
>no dependency problems
>all I need is there
the bright side of debian is you'll have more packages than arch although you can get debtap from AUR to use debian packages (not guaranteed to work most of the time)
gentoo is good if you like to tune your kernel and recompile for hours everytime security patches are rolled.
there's no other good reason aside from having portage and systemd being officially optional.
you can build from source with arch. so does debian and everything else.
If I could compile GCC the way I do it using the AUR without having to recompile the entire freaking system or like 80% of the system's libraries (I like c++17) then I'd switch to Gentoo.
Seriously, how old is the GCC version that comes by default?
I have had altogether a better experience on Arch-based distros than on Debian-based ones.
If you actually learn how to use pacman PROPERLY, you don't fuck up your system like a tard. I've been "yaourt -Syua --noconfirm"ing since 2014 without issue. Just read arch updates
Having said that, Debian's developers actually test the fuck out of everything, so if you are too retarded to use Arch or Gentoo, use Debian stable or unstable. Debian testing is for actual testers/retards.
I would bet money Debian has more packages. If you want rolling release, just use sid
i found debian be much user friendlier and faster to setup than arch, debian has everything i need for web development
Only really hardcore freedom fighters should consider the free ISO. The nonfree ISO is a lot better and it definitely should be promoted on the Debian website. By using the latest nonfree ISO for Debian there's just no problems on install or after that. You could use the same ISO for your laptop and home server and everything. I later upgraded my packages to Sid on the laptop while keeping the home server on stable. Feels comfy.
beautiful pic
6.4.0
>If you actually learn how to use pacman PROPERLY
That pretty much just means that it's harder to make mistakes in Debian-based distros, whereas Pacman allows you to shoot your own foot easily.
I've not had an issue updating Arch in years. The only real problems I had were back 5+ years ago when I tried to use a laptop with an AMD gpu and Arch didn't maintain the buggy-as-fuck proprietary drivers in the official repository so I had to wait for the AUR maintainer of the package to update it every time xorg updated or X11 wouldn't work... Since switching to laptops using Intel graphics I haven't had any issues.
I'm not sure if the AMD GPU driver situation is any better in Arch (or linux in general) these days but it was a shitshow back then.
S A G E.
Don't tell the autists this though, they don't take kindly to logic.
Debían is for servers.
Use Arch to get very recent packages. AUR gives you the package manager experience for almost all software installable on Linux including proprietary things like some jetbrains IDEs that are not free or shit like genymotion.
happened to me though.
>swapping a systemd distro for another systemd distro
install gentoo
>Debían is for servers.
literally what