Subj : Arch btw
To   : Accession
From : DaiTengu
Date : Thu Nov 27 2025 10:02:13

  Re: Arch btw
  By: Accession to DaiTengu on Wed Nov 26 2025 08:55 am

 Ac> Why are they (via the handbook) using examples with full written out
 Ac> options? For example, I used to use 'emerge -avuDN @world' (although, when
 Ac> I gave up on Gentoo years ago they were just making the changed to using
 Ac> '@', as 'world' and '@world' were two different meanings at the time. Now
 Ac> they recommend using 'emerge --ask --verbose --update --deep --newuse
 Ac> @world'? That's annoying.

 Well, for a new user, it's easier to understand than "emerge -avuDN"   I use "emerge -uDN @world @module-rebuild" for most of my system updates, because I know what the flags mean. 

I understand why they'd use the full name in documentation.

 Ac> Anyway, by the time I setup the network, partitioned the drive, etc. then
 Ac> chrooted into the environment, I was already an hour in, and started
 Ac> inching my foot out the door. Right before 'configuring the kernel', I was
 Ac> tasked with updating @world, and had only 13 packages to update. This took
 Ac> 20+ minutes. It was 1:30am and I had enough. Deleted the VM, removed the
 Ac> iso from the datastore, and went to sleep. ;)
 
 Honestly, I don't blame you. Gentoo is for masochists. I still need to migrate my BBS off of CentOS 7. I set up a Gentoo VM, put hours into it, and realized I just don't want to deal with that shit so I deleted it.  I'm probably going to wind up tossing it on Alma/Rocky even though I'd prefer to use some kind of distro that has a rolling release.  

The only thing keeping me from tossing it on Arch is my unfamiliarity with the distro. Synchronet already has quite a few quirks and pre-requisites for running on Linux and adding that into the mix sounds exhausting.

When I built my new PC nearly a year ago, I installed Gentoo on my old PC, and planned on using it as a replacement for my existing Gentoo devbox.  Currently I have 2 Gentoo devboxes, and I still use the one that's built on 14 year old hardware more than anything.
 
 >> I've always wanted to toss Gentoo on one of the boxes we have at work, just
 >> to see how fast things will build. They're dual CPU, 64 core AMD EPYCs with
 >> at least 512GB RAM and u.2 nvme drives, so I'd be able to compile with 256
 >> threads at once. :D

 Ac> That's crazy. Also crazy how much a single unit of something like that
 Ac> costs. Here us little homelabbers try to keep the budget tight, but damn.
 Ac> $20k+ for something like that is nuts!

 We moved to single-CPU 64 core EPYCs a few years ago. We were getting them for around $23K each after a very heavy discount.  I have a standing offer from work to send me one of the dual CPU boxes when we decomission them, but I honestly don't want to deal with the power consumption.  The old 8th gen HP DL380 with 2 12 core Intel CPUs that I currently use as my main NAS (it runs all those docker containers) is plenty loud enough.

In the summer, my electic bill is outrageous between the cost of the computers and the Air Conditioning.  The only advantage is that my winter heating bill is MUCH lower than most of my neighbors, simply because so much heat is generated from all the computers in my house.

 Ac> Ask Tiny about Arch's package manager that he has hated and misunderstood
 Ac> all these years, until he finally tried it out. It's similar to yum or
 Ac> apt, once you figure out the options, etc.

 Ac> Other than that, I agree with the other statements here, except I wouldn't
 Ac> so much call it a 'seeting hatred', but maybe just a fond dislike.

 I'm really considering biting the bullet and installing Arch on my main desktop (dual booting with Windows).  That way I'm kind of forced to learn it.

....Interchangable devices won`t.
--- SBBSecho 3.32-Linux
 * Origin: The Sport is War, Total War - warensemble.com (46:1/193)

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