My "gaming" laptop is completely effed on most distributions, and forces me to use Linux Mint to select an older driver (which also causes problems.)
> completely effed on most distributions
> But I just want a Linux distro that works.
But I think Pop is the best distro for this. System76 is highly incentivized to do exactly this and specifically with nvidia drivers and laptops (laptops create extra complications...). I can't promise it'll be a cure-all but it is worth giving a shot. I would try their forums too.
I totally get the frustration. I've been there, unfortunately. I hope you can get someone to help.
I know my ways around Arch, and in the about two years using CachyOS I never needed to intervene, with the exception of things like changed configs/split packages. But those are announced in advance on their webpages, be it Arch itself, or CachyOS, and also appear in good old Pacman in the terminal, or whichever frontend you fancy. It's THE DREAM!
What's lacking is maybe pre-packaged llm/machine learning stuff. Maybe I'm stupid, but they don't even have current llama.cpp, WTF? But at least Ollama is there. LM-Studio also has to be compiled by yourself, either via the AUR, or otherwise. But these are my only complaints.
> Maybe I'm stupid, but they don't even have current llama.cpp, WTF?
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/llama.cpp
> has to be compiled by yourself, either via the AUR
Is running `yay -S llama.cpp` really that big of a deal? You're not intervening in any way different for any other package (that also aren't precompiled binaries)
Yes, exactly :-)
Haven't used yay or other aur helpers so far. Maybe that's why my systems run so stable?
Should maybe look into it.
Have used Yaourt on Arch in the far past, with...errm...varying success ;->
> Haven't used yay or other aur helpers so far.
> Have used Yaourt on Arch in the far past,
> Maybe that's why my systems run so stable?
>>> I know my ways around Arch
I guess I'm asking, have you installed the vanilla distro? Are you familiar with things like systemd-boot, partitioning, arch-chroot, mkinitcpio, and all that?
At that time there existed an AUR-helper called Yaourt, which I made heavy use of. But often in haste, sloppy. Which lead to many unnecessary clean-up actions, but no loss of system. Meanwhile I had to use other stuff, so no Arch for a while. When the need for using other stuff was gone I considered several options, like Gentoo, but naa, I don't wanna compile anymore!1!! (Yes, Yes, I know they serve binpkgs now, but would they have my preferred USE-flags?) Maybe Debian, which can be fucking fast when run in RAM like Antix, but I had that for a while, and while it's usable, Debian as such is bizarre.
Anything Redhat? No thanks. SuSe? Same. So I came across CachyOS, and continued to use that, from the first "test-installation" running to this day, because it works for me, like I wrote before. Like a dream come true.
Remembering my experiences with Yaourt I abstained from using the AUR. And that worked very well for me, so far. Also the Gentoo-like 'ricing' comes for free with their heavily optimized binary packages, without compromising stability.
> I guess I'm asking, have you installed the vanilla distro? Are you familiar with things like systemd-boot, partitioning, arch-chroot, mkinitcpio, and all that?
Yes.
Are we clear now?
Edit: I'm so overconfident I'm even considering disabling the pacman-hooks into BTRFS-snapshots, because I never needed them.
No rollback necessary, ever, so far. Same goes for pacman cache. After every -Syu follows an immediate -Scc.
Because the only way is forwaaaaard ;-)
Yes, we're clear now, but are you surprised by my hesitation? Because having that experience would imply you've had a lot of experience compiling things the long way. Running makepkg -si isn't that complicated. It's as easy as it gets. There's no make, no configure, no cmake, no determining the dependencies yourself and installing those yourself too. I don't get the issue. Take too long? Not happen automatically?
> I'm so overconfident I'm even considering disabling the pacman-hooks into BTRFS-snapshots, because I never needed them.
Yes and Yes. Long before Arch I did LFS and Gentoo. And NetBSD like Gentoo.
I'm having had it! Gimme binaries in the flavors (Hello OpenBSD!) I want/like!1!! ;->
>> Not happen automatically?
> Yes
# /etc/systemd/system/pacman_auto_update.timer
[Unit]
Description=Update automatically because ain't nobody got time for that
Documentation=man:pacman(8)
[Timer]
OnCalendar=weekly
Persistent=true
# Optionally wake system up to upgrade
#WakeSystem=true
[Install]
WantedBy=timers.target
After=network-online.target
# /etc/systemd/system/pacman_auto_update.service
[Unit]
Description=Update automatically because ain't nobody got time for that
Documentation=man:pacman(8)
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pacman -Syu --noconfirm
> Gimme binaries
>>> After every -Syu follows an immediate -Scc
I'm perfectly at ease with initiating them manually, as I see fit.
For me that means automatically tracking dependencies of things like USE-flags in Gentoo's Portage, or Exherbo's Paludis.
And the possibly resulting conflicts. Arch and its makepkg and the stuff in the AUR has simply no provisions(that I'm aware of) for that. It's all manual, IMO. AUR-helper, or not.
> Definitely not going to happen on Arch and this runs completely counter to what you claimed to like about CachyOS. Distributing binaries is not going to result in a very optimal system... Which is what caused those red flags to be raised in the first place
Says you. I counter that with my years long experience(on CachyOS), limited to the stuff they DO deliver as binary. Obviously carefully tested by people who really know what they do, on much faster systems than I have, before delivery to the general public.
> Btw, I don't suggest doing this. If an update breaks your system then you don't have the versions cached to roll back to. I mean you can download again but your cache gives you a good hint at what did in fact work.
Never needed it, neither on plain Arch in the far past, nor the two years of CachyOS now. Should something bad happen I can boot some rescue-image from whereever, and fix it that way. It's just a waste of space.
Edit: Please don't suggest Nix(OS) or Guix. They give a shit about optimization in the name of 'reproducible builds', and go for the lowest common denominator because of that. Which is understandable, given their goals. But they are unaligned with mine.
Closing all other apps, terms, filemanagers. Klicking restart. Hands off. Very quiet and fast boot. Sddm appears. Login. Plasma is there. FF reloads as it should. Everything else works. Still ultra-smooth.
So Yay!?
(Squeekily screaming: *Oh my gawd!1!! Nao my (almost) pristine binary system iz tainted!1!!*)
You were saying?
Edit: Wanna 'see'? https://postimg.cc/5HmJb0g3
Edit: Hrrm. When Hexchat began to crash... So I've told shit about no app ever crashing. But that was a general problem on Distros which updated the underlying substrate faster than others, IIRC.
It was just 'bitrotten'.
Very annoying at the time because I've been used to it since a long time, and had it heavily customized and themed, but (binary!) KVirc came to the rescue, so I've forgotten about that. Sorry.