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Which distro does Linus Torvalds use? (lemmy.asudox.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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[–] 10 points 1 year ago* (10 children)

I once gave Trisquel a try back in the day. It's one of those FSF approved distros right? My use case was more ahem, standard rather than anything programming related. Either case, one evening, I ran into a dependency hell trying to install a simple Direct Connect client onto it and no matter how much I tried I couldn't succeed.

I then decided to move back to Debian. Either case, most distros have Eiskaltdcpp (as one example of a client) in their repos, except for Trisquel. This was multiple years ago. I am currently on Void.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    This is the experience I imagine I would have trying it. It is probably what anyone with a modern system would experience with proprietary firmware. From what I read, Trisquel's core philosophy is to include only free software and Eiskaltdcpp most likely relies on some non-free dependencies.

    I like Debian. I am currently trying Fedora and it has been good, too. Void is on my list of "distros to someday try" as it sounds super interesting using runit, XBPS, and not relying on systemd.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

    Yes, Trisquel can be a pain to be used as a daily driver. Whilst I admire the philosophy behind it's concept, it definitely leaves a lot of end work to be done by the user.

    I have used Fedora for quite some time in the past . I think Fedora and now discontinued Cent OS were two RPM based distros (I think Fedora now uses Dnf as well) I have used. Cent OS I liked decently, it wasn't as bleeding edge as Fedora and for a long time I dual booted Cent OS and Debian.

    Void is decent independent distro. Ironically I don't have any anti systemd feelings and just gave it a try for heck of it and stuck to it. I think there is a musl version of Void as well but that makes things only complicated.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    (I'm replying to you twice b/c totally different topics)

    Tell me more about your Void experience. I've been meaning to give it a shot, except I don't get as much enjoyment out of fussing with distros as I used to. What are the pain points? Under Artix, I used dinit which I really liked, but I tried s6 first and absolutely hated it. I didn't try runit; how is it?

    What I'm most interested in is xbps, because IMO it's the package manager that makes or breaks a system. I'm quite fond of pacman and have encountered far fewer dependency hell situations than I did with either rpm or deb, and rolling release is a must. xbps looks kind of like a rolling stable release?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Void is rolling release IIRC. The package manager is quite fast and gets the job done. The pain point is that Void has a lower selection of package in its repos compared to say, Arch. Some good stuff is there (for example I was looking for a third party Spotify client ncspot? Back in the day and it was packaged in Void's repos) but if someone uses niche stuff a lot, there can be issues.

    Of course there is Flatpak support. And the system itself is comparatively lean and fast. I don't think my installation of Void came with plenty of pre-installed apps.

    It ships in two builds : glibc or musl. The latter one is less favored because it only makes life tougher honestly. Runit support is a strong point of it though personally I don't have any anti systemd qualms.

    The documentation is basic and okayish. I still often go to Arch Wiki since that's honestly the most detailed. Also, I just found that it's the highest rated distro on Distro Watch. I have distro hopped a long time and Void is decent. I still hold Debian in higher regard since it's slightly easier for a novice to get used to (though it's repos can be hold often old versions of software) and also because it was my main entry point to the Linux world.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Void is rolling release IIRC

    That's what I thought, but the main website says Void focuses on stability over being cutting edge, which would imply some sort of release cycle. Or, maybe they just update packages less frequently.

    I still hold Debian in higher regard since it's slightly easier for a novice to get used to

    It's hard to beat Mint as a novice distro, for sure.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    I mean I guess there are more noob friendly distros than Debian [ there was a time when all I saw was Ubuntu around me and it's ubiquitous Unity DE was instantly recognizable to my eye] but chances are many of them are ultimately based on Debian itself. Mint's main ISO is based on Ubuntu [and indirectly Debian] whilst they also release a LMDE [Linux Mint Debian Edition] as a fallback variant directly based on Debian. I guess Zorin OS or elementary OS are also decent but they also seem more like heavy reskins to me than anything else.[Zorin has a Windows like feel to it].

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Mint eschews all of the Snap crap, though, doesn't it?

    Jesus, please tell me it does. I've been recommending it to beginners. I thought it was sanitized.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I feel the same way about Artix. I had it on my laptop for a while, and it was a regular PITA. I think I may have made it harder on myself, because while getting rid of systemd was fine, I was also trying to do without NetworkManager and on a laptop that wasn't a great idea. I never did find a good, reliable set-up that managed access point hopping as well as nm.

    Really, thinking back, Artix was fine; it really was just the roaming WiFi handling that gave me grief, and I did that to myself.

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