One of the few things that differentiates the major distros is the package manager. I’ve been running void on my laptop for the last 3 years and love it. XBPS is super fast and easy to use. It has never left me with a broken system either. That said, I’ve got the itch to switch.

I am looking at rolling / up to date distros. I’m inclined to use CLI when available.

I’ve been considering Opensuse, but last time I used zypper it was painfully slow. Has it gotten any better?

I was thinking of trying Alpine, how is APK?

Not interested in *butu, but apt seemed okay.

What’s your favorite and how does it behave?

  • dino@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been considering Opensuse, but last time I used zypper it was painfully slow. Has it gotten any better?

    No, I am using TW for years and despise its package manager slowness. Apart from that though, TW is great. Have void on my laptop as well, sadly rarely use it currently.

  • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    1 year ago

    If you don’t want Ubuntu, you can still have Debian. All the apt goodness without the Canonical drama.

    Ever consider Gentoo?

    • Charlatan@lemm.eeOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I haven’t honestly. Isn’t that one that takes forever to install because it builds the packages as you install the system?

      • kirk781@lemm.ee
        1·
        1 year ago

        Forever, no! Sure, compiling Firefox with some flags on my slow system can take ahem, time but I can install Gentoo in couple of days.

        Though, in all seriousness, Gentoo takes a notch higher than Arch and unlike Arch, which has many entry level distros based on it, Gentoo has comparatively lesser. It’s fully usable but takes some initial time configuring and setting up the system exactly to the user’s requirements. The package manager is portage, I think.

  • Dotdev@programming.dev
    1·
    1 year ago

    Went with Arch and Fedora simply for the parallel downloading. I tried xbps , the only turn off for me was the fact that feature was missing otherwise void is best to stick with.

  • The Doctor@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    apk isn’t any more or less than using dpkg by itself, or opkg. As for what I use, I use Arch at home and Ubuntu on my virtual machines (because they’re officially supported by my hosting provider). They work for me. I like them.

  • Andy@programming.dev
    1·
    1 year ago

    APK/Alpine is great! And the Edge repos are well stocked.

    Chimera Linux seems to be using even newer apktools than Alpine, not sure what the deal with that is. But that distro is still in early stages with limited repos for now.

    Pacman/makepkg/Arch is great too, and an obvious consideration for your usage, curiously omitted from your post.

  • 0x4E4F@infosec.pubEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Stick to Void. Everything else will look slow. Haven’t moved since I started using it.

    • kirk781@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      Void was a great experience last time I used it. A minimal set of tools/software were installed(for some reason, I dislike ISOs/distros that fill everything from Libre Office to an FTP client in it; I will just download them if I want it), the package manager seemed pacy enough and system was fast. It is definitely one of the better distros I have tried.

  • Doctor xNo@r.nfEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    Not a global opinion here as many hardcore linux users will stand by Arch or Mint, but I always have preferred Debian. It’s what Ubuntu is based on, so it uses apt(itude), yet it’s not prebloated Ubuntu and much more true to adaptation and unedited software than Ubuntu has become… But in the end it’s more personal choice and taste, so usually requires a bunch of failed attempts to get one that fits, as every linux can basically do the same things, yet on some or other slightly different way… 😜

    • Andy@programming.dev
      0·
      1 year ago

      I just want to add that for Debian with a rolling, up-to-date experience, Siduction does that nicely.