this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2024
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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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Gentoo. I figured I could learn much more that way. It was true. The Wiki was excellent. Still is as far as I know.
Gentoo as a first distro is scary as fuck as a common person. How did you manage?
Great. The Wiki explained everything I needed to do to get a working system.
Any distro that's well-documented is not a big deal to install and use. Never understood the big deal people used to make (still do sometimes? though I think it's mostly ironic now) about Arch. I did my first install Arch when I was kinda a dumbass but I just read the wiki (very thorough, btw, still use that wiki nearly daily) and followed the instructions. Especially with Arch, the wiki is so informative it explains the things you don't know so you understand what you're doing even though when I first installed Arch I didn't know what an fstab file was, what the initramfs was, etc. I'll disclaim that I've not installed Gentoo myself, but I hear from people who have installed it that it's very well documented, so makes sense that newcomers could install and use it if they're willing to read and learn.
What would you say is a distro that is badly documented? Genuinely curious.
Tbh, as a current Artix user, I think the Artix documentation is lacking. Their full disk encryption installation guide doesn't have any UEFI instructions and while they have a wiki, it definitely doesn't cover a lot of the things that differ from systemd, which is the purpose of the Artix Wiki, ie to cover everything from Arch Wiki which needs to be changed without systemd. I get most of my info from the Artix forums. I even used the Arch wiki installation guide for installing Artix instead of Artix Wiki's installation guide (it's only like 3 commands that are different, they use basestrap instead of pacstrap and you install a different init system with basestrap, they use fstabgen instead of genfstab, and artix-chroot instead of arch-chroot (that last one should be obvious though)). I still like the distro ofc, otherwise I wouldn't use it, but I think it's lacking in good documentation. Maybe that's just my perspective after being spoiled by the Arch Wiki for so long though lol. I can't really speak for many distros though, I've not daily-driven many
Arch wiki has entered the chat
Gentoo is on my to-do list to try out, going to set of a whole weekend to just sit down and enjoy the process of installing it. Have never touched it before, but always heard good things about it, as well as the things you learn along the way. Glad to hear you think so too!
it wasn't my first distro but i did the full bootstrap install so it must have been pre 2005. ran it as my daily driver for years