2019.10.26
Nathan Thompson
In life, we often make decisions based on a series of events which just happen to occur. Little details changing, ripple out to bigger decisions. No, this is not a self help guide, just an observation. Promise.
In this particular case, I noticed my migration to a new Linux distro was largely a matter of happenstance. In the macro view, I certainly took a circuitous technical route to where I am today. I like to believe this gave me better insight as I was exposed to many different computing philosophies and experiences.
Whatever the case, I have arrived to this specific existence based on this journey. Similarly, the path to finding a a new computing platform has been similarly circuitous, but ultimately rewarding. No, still not a self help article. I am slowly, slowly, building to the point.
A big change I made from 2015 into 2016 was to switch from operating systems with standard update schedules (examples of such are Mac OS X 10.5, Ubuntu 16.04, Windows 7) to a rolling release (E.g. Arch Linux, Gentoo Linux, and perhaps Windows 10 as a hybrid between the two types). Wanting to try Arch Linux, but requiring a level of hand holding that a standard Arch installation does not offer, I went with Antergos, as it offered to me the same support structure Ubuntu had when wanting to try a Debian based system back in 2004.
Please allow me to clarify this point, the Arch community is fantastic, their documentation is amazing, and even when I was not an Arch user, I would often find a general Linux ecosystem question answered by the Arch Wiki or forums! Yet, a straight installation is very hands on, very manual, and while Arch has documented the procedure with clarity and thoroughness, there is a learning curve involved. The whole process can seem quite daunting and at the very least, more time consuming than booting from a live installer and double clicking the installer app.
A quick background on Antergos, it started life as Cinnarch, marrying Cinnamon, the Gnome Shell fork of the Linux Mint team,with the power and flexibility of an Arch installation. Apparently finding it hard to keep Cinnamon in sync with the rolling release of Arch, they later adopted Gnome as the base installation, rebranding as Antergos. When I finally hopped onboard, there were a whole host of graphical environments offered by the live installer. Funny thing, I went with Cinnamon on most of my Antergos systems as Cinnamon was once again one of the options. Antergos stuck around for another three and half years after I adopted it, before calling it quits on May 21, 2019.
Part of my goal for writing this article was to give a proper eulogy for Antergos, while this short description of the project likely will not suffice to properly document its history, I am very grateful for all the work and effort the team and community put into Antergos. Thank you all again, today and eternally.
Initially finding myself at a loss on how to continue forward, as I had grown quite fond of Antergos and its Arch base, and still finding myself uncomfortable rolling the Arch system from scratch, I tested many possible successors from a variety of Linux bases, BSD, and even Windows:
The then current version of Elementary{1} seemed swell enough, but there was a bug on my desktop system that caused sleep to kick in, even when I told the system not to sleep. This bug may or may not have been fixed{2}. Either way, it definitely existed for over a year, probably through two releases of Elementary OS. While not a deal breaker on my laptop, the bug was troublesome enough to mean my desktop{3} could not use Elementary, and I was hoping to standardize on a single system across devices.
I do not hate the user interface as it is simple and relatively pleasant and I actually do wish the project well in their goal of polishing user experience, but the perhaps pretentious harping on the Mac OSsification of the Linux desktop being the killer usability feature of Elementary OS is conversely not a hug selling point. My mother has made due with Mate, Cinnamon, and XFCE based desktops over the years and if she can manage relatively well with them, as well as when she had her Mac certainly, I am not sure if the "simplification/polish" Elementary is largely hanging their hat on is not true for the ecosystem at large.
Man, this one stung even more than Elementary OS. PopOS! is like Ubuntu or other Gnome based distros, but done right! It just feels a bit more…wishy washy subjective language warning ahead…polished and comfortable. However, and this was a bigger problem on the desktop more than my laptop, the out of the box login manager is GDM. The problem? You have to jump through hoops to get a VNC connection configured on a headless box (my little desktop is most often used as home server). Since it was not going to work for the desktop, I was again hampered in my goal for standardization for computing environments. Yes, I could have just changed to Lightdm, but I decided to press on in my exploration.
The obvious choice if you want the definitive Ubuntu experience must be the upstream project, am I right? Well, Ubuntu proper has not floated my boat for years now, guess that river has gone dry. While Ubuntu was my first real experience with desktop Linux{4}, and I still enjoy Gnome 2 (aka Mate in 2020) quite a bit, I do not particularly enjoy stock Ubuntu, nor am I the biggest fan of Gnome 3 (even if PopOS! almost made me a believer).
Not worth harping on things, just trust me, my subjective opinion is Ubuntu is not right for me. Ubuntu Mate or Xubuntu would likely have fit me better, but after this third stab at an Ubuntu based distro, I simply moved on.
{1} OS 5 Juno to be clear on the release.
{2} For some users seems to be unfixed today!!!!
{3} The desktop in question actually used an older version of Elementary OS previous to updating, and while I did not love it, it was at least functioning properly.
{4} Warty Warthog was mind blowing for me in late 2004 into early 2005.
Okay, this one stung a bit too. I have never really taken to Gentoo as a day to day system, but two things I can say about the project, their documentation is excellent and it forms the base of ChromeOS and so must be doing something right with development and packaging. However, like Arch, Gentoo is a much more difficult system to just dive into and as a mere power user, not subject matter expert, I was looking for an Ubuntu for Gentoo{5} type project.
Sabayon was potentially just the right option, a sane installer for people like myself who could use a little hand holding to get up and running. However, and this is rare in my experience, I just could not get the Sabayon installation to boot properly on my test laptop. Installer would boot system. Installer app would install onto internal drive. But boot after install would fail. Given my lack of expertise, I am sure 'tis my own fault, probably something with the EFI installation. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ah, an old favorite. My usual experience with Gentoo came from the excellent SystemRescueCD live distro, which is focused on allowing people to boot and repair non functioning computers normally running Linux or even Windows. I definitely used this tool quite often in my computer repair heyday, but it had dropped off my radar for a few years. Well, super news readers, SystemRescueCD was apparently one of the more common ways to have an easy to use "Gentoo installer"!!!! Alas, not so super news readers, the current SystemRescueCD live distro is now based upon Arch and apparently I had missed the news of the switchover during the time apart from my old friend.{6} Oh well…
{5} SAT prep time! Ubuntu is to Debian as Sabayon is to Gentoo. In other words, an easy to use system built on top of a traditionally more technical base.
{6} Happy ending! While not suitable for my intended use, SystemRescueCD, the current Arch based version, came in handy to rescue data for a client off an older Pentium 4 system that could technically boot but took 30+ minutes to become usable. {Edit: 2020.03.23 - Yes, I wrote a story about it…}
Hey, an easy to use FreeBSD for simple chaps like myself! Everything is slick, easy to boot, easy to install, even offering Refind as a boot manager option. Alas, booting after installation never worked properly. Futzed with it for an hour and no luck. Moving on. Yes, yes, that makes two different system installations which could not boot properly on the same hardware. Probably something on my end, neither could I puzzle through this boot oddity. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Okay, easy to use version failed, why not go upstream, am I right? Early success! Everything installed easily enough with the text based installer and I went through the basics getting networking and the like up and running, but simply lost interest somewhere along the way. Not knocking FreeBSD, everything worked pretty well and the documentation was very good, if not excellent. However, my very concern with installing Arch or Gentoo from scratch occurred doing BSD. While it is not particularly hard, it can become tedious, especially if you have multiple systems to get up and running. Moved on for now, but bookmarked for a second look at some future date.
Let us be honest, at this date, with Windows 7 about to drop support in January 2020, the only reasonable choice is Windows 10{6}. A pseudo rolling release allowing for constant small changes but occasional almost service pack level updates as well. Either way, I mostly enjoy using Windows 10 versus older versions of Windows. Updates are generally easier -- even if Home and Pro cannot really block updates from happening, you can only delay, but for most people, probably the correct trade-off --, installations are a cinch and even today, you can generally install a Windows 10 upgrade without a license key. {Edit: 04.08.2020 - seemingly still true}
The downsides? Settings and Control Panel divisions are sort of a mess and the Windows subsystem for Linux is not quite there as a full time Linux replacement. Also, good freaking lord is Bluetooth device enumeration a pain in my tuchus. <--Add link reference.
{6} Well, Windows 8.1 is still supported, but that is not my preferred choice, still too many faux tablet flourishes, not enough desktop usefulness.
Notice I did not list any Arch options here, yet I ended up exactly with one, settling on EndeavourOS, the spiritual successor to Antergos pretty quickly thereafter. It has the same friendly spin on installing Arch that Antergos had and from reading the chatter in the forums, at least some users of Antergos seem to have moved over.
Everything installed well and choosing XFCE got me an even snappier system compared to Cinnamon, even if going this route required a bit more tweaking. Things are now more or less running smoothly. Cannot recommend EndeavourOS high enough for those wanting an easy to use spin on the Arch ecosystem, it has been that good.
As such, just a series of random decisions led me zigging, then zagging, and back again. Five machines and five EndeavourOS installs later, I remain largely where I began, back within the Arch family. If not for certain systems having certain bugs, I could have ended up anywhere. Good grief I even spent 3 months testing Windows 10 on my newest laptop!
Happy computing!