What's a complete "just works" distro?

What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Logen Kain]

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tl;dr:
  Me rambling and mostly figuring it out on my own, read at your own risk.

I often say VoidLinux has one big con:
  All other distros feel slow once you use Void.

It actually is a con for me at this point, because I'm looking for a "just 
works" distro.  The last time I tried to use Ubuntu, it was at least 100 
times slower than Void (and also rarely "just works").
Apt is slower during a normal update, than it takes fglrx to do it's 
thing.  In addition to all those problems, Ubuntu has a way of frustrating 
me as much as a set of headphones that have that broken wire that almost 
works if you twist it just right.

Are there any distros out there that have at least a fraction the speed 
Void does?  I'd like to have a distro on hand that has tons of packages so 
it's easier to test new programs I find out about that are not available on 
void.

The only distro I can think of that might match this requirement is Sabayon.

The only other distro that comes close, aside from Sabayon, is Arch LInux.


I'm actually looking into audio/video production, so any distros that are 
good for that, as well as being fast, is what I'm looking for.

xbps and runit spoil me.  I expect too much from my operating systems now.


Honestly, I'll probably just spin up Arch in a VM to test packages.  If I 
like the program, then I'll try to package it for Void.  Void is missing a 
lot of packages for the artist community.

Unrelated question:  How the hell does Void seemingly never break?  I've 
seen a couple issues over the time I've been with Void, but it all seems to 
get fixed without my intervention.  On Arch Linux, if I forget to update 
for a week, my system would crash if I tried to update.


Perhaps Gentoo would work out, just build a machine specifically for audio 
production and just never update it.

Anyway, I've pretty much answered myself here, but I'm going to post 
anyway.  Perhaps there is something I'm not seeing.

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Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Juan RP]

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Glad to read your comments.

But xbps is still not perfect, and could be made even better... I'm slowly 
progressing :-)

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Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Christian Neukirchen]

Logen Kain <walach.o...@gmail.com> writes:

> Are there any distros out there that have at least a fraction the speed 
> Void does?

TBH, I never understood this argument.  All Linux distros compile
roughly the same sources... why would one be faster than another?
(Sure, their package manager could be more efficient, etc.
But in terms of actual performance... I don't get it.)

-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneuk...@gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org

Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Stefan Mühlinghaus]

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I agree, void is not any faster or slower than other distributions it you 
look at raw performance. On the other hand, running a streamlined void with 
a lightweight window manager will of course feel much more responsive than 
an Ubuntu with Unity and 100 daemon processes that do who-knows-what in the 
background all the time, especially on older hardware.

If with "just works" you mean a distribution that is easy to install/update 
and provides or at least supports everything you may ever need you will 
have to go with Ubuntu since that is pretty much the only disribution that 
has achieved some mainstream traction. There are several softwares out 
there that are (officially) only supported for Ubuntu. If Ubuntu itself is 
too bloated for your tastes try Xubuntu <http://xubuntu.org/> or Lubuntu 
<http://lubuntu.net/>. You can even do an Ubuntu minimal 
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD> installation and 
customize everything just as you would in void. Thats what I'm using on my 
laptop and the performance is just fine. That of course might impede its 
ability to "just work" though :)

Using apt for package mamagement is not as fast as xbps but also has a lot 
more packages to deal with. void currently has about 7000 (very rough 
count, factoring in meta-packages and 32bit versions probably substantially 
less) while Ubuntu is approaching 40000. By the way, Debian 
<https://www.debian.org/> has even more packages (approaching 50000) but 
somewhat lacks the mainstream traction. It might be an option for you 
nevertheless.

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What's a complete "just works" distro?

[JD Robinson]

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if Ardour can be ported with it's custom dependencies not effecting the integrity of the ones they replace, I would love to test that.

I've been trying to get jack to cooperate on many distributions, and failed miserably.

...also have had similar issues with hardware sensors on asus boards.

Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Logen Kain]

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>>TBH, I never understood this argument.  All Linux distros compile 
>>roughly the same sources... why would one be faster than another?

I think runit has a lot to do with it.  Even compared to Arch which I've 
also streamlined... Had I never saw Void before I would think that the 
computer must have an SSD in it.

It's some times quicker for me to "git clone" and compile packages on void 
than it is to download something from apt.  Seriously, Ubuntu competes with 
windows now for slow updating.

Before using Void, I have never seen firefox open this fast, again I used 
to be a fan of Arch Linux and openbox combo.

On an R61 Laptop I used to use, windows 7 (came with it refurb) ran pretty 
ok. I didn't use it more than a day before I started installing Linux 
distros.
All Ubuntu derived distros were horribly slow to install, boot, and open 
aplications.
Arch was pretty fast, but nothing compared to void.  Sabayon felt a little 
quicker than arch.

I typically used MATE at the time, or KDE.

Thinking of KDE.  When I install and start up KDE for the first time, it 
has always been stupid slow.  Decent boot up times after the first boot.

With Void, it was way faster than I've ever seen it boot.  Even for a first 
boot.

I don't know what kind of black magic Void weilds, but if it wasn't for 
Void, I'd agree with the idea that all distros are pretty much the same.


Perhaps I wouldn't notice much of a difference if I used SSD.

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Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[Logen Kain]

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>> By the way, Debian <https://www.debian.org/> has even more packages 
(approaching 50000) but somewhat lacks the mainstream traction. It might be 
an option for you nevertheless.

Debian might be ok.  My issue is that I have nothing but contempt for apt.  
Sabayon,arch,debian are pretty much my choices.  I hate to say it, but for 
a backup distro, debian would probably be the best bet.

I used to use a debian sid bassed distro... Now I need to remember what 
that was... Suppose I could just use sid.

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Re: What's a complete "just works" distro?

[bougyman]

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I have some benchmarks on this from a few years ago and runit was 
definitely speedier than systemd boots (on archlinux) then. From the DW 
reviewers comments it seems this is still the case, at least
in the case of runit-void's speed. This mostly affects boot time, but the 
low overhead of a static runit vs the many binaries of system plus its own 
heft could make a difference on strained-for-resources machines, I suppose, 
but
likely not on some A/V production rig.

bougyman

On Sunday, March 22, 2015 at 10:30:26 PM UTC-5, Logen Kain wrote:
>
> >>TBH, I never understood this argument.  All Linux distros compile 
> >>roughly the same sources... why would one be faster than another?
>
> I think runit has a lot to do with it.  Even compared to Arch which I've 
> also streamlined... Had I never saw Void before I would think that the 
> computer must have an SSD in it.
>
> It's some times quicker for me to "git clone" and compile packages on void 
> than it is to download something from apt.  Seriously, Ubuntu competes with 
> windows now for slow updating.
>
> Before using Void, I have never seen firefox open this fast, again I used 
> to be a fan of Arch Linux and openbox combo.
>
> On an R61 Laptop I used to use, windows 7 (came with it refurb) ran pretty 
> ok. I didn't use it more than a day before I started installing Linux 
> distros.
> All Ubuntu derived distros were horribly slow to install, boot, and open 
> aplications.
> Arch was pretty fast, but nothing compared to void.  Sabayon felt a little 
> quicker than arch.
>
> I typically used MATE at the time, or KDE.
>
> Thinking of KDE.  When I install and start up KDE for the first time, it 
> has always been stupid slow.  Decent boot up times after the first boot.
>
> With Void, it was way faster than I've ever seen it boot.  Even for a 
> first boot.
>
> I don't know what kind of black magic Void weilds, but if it wasn't for 
> Void, I'd agree with the idea that all distros are pretty much the same.
>
>
> Perhaps I wouldn't notice much of a difference if I used SSD.
>

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