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Discussion on: Is Ubuntu Or Fedora A Better Distro For Programmers?

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aiguofer profile image
Diego Fernández Giraldo

Don't get me wrong, I love Arch.... But really!? Definitely not what Arch is known for.

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Ben Lovy

Lots of these distros get a bad rap because of reputations built years ago when they were less complete.

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Diego Fernández Giraldo

Hmm, I wouldn't call it "bad rap"... it always just seemed to me like Arch was more being more hands on to configure your system exactly how you wanted it. Maybe that's changed since I switched to Fedora years ago. I used Arch for years before I switched to Fedora when I joined RH and I absolutely loved it. I learned A LOT, but I don't have as much time as I used to to make sure rolling release updates are compatible and won't break my system.

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Ben Lovy

I dont think working automated hardware detection and driver selection takes away from the DIYness of it. It's still a minimal distro, you get a shell on install and build it up yourself, you just don't need to debug as many driver problems these days.

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Stuart Slaugh

Arch is great as a way of gaing a deeper understanding of the OS, but as a realiable dolistro distro for your workflow, that's another matter. I do a lot of Java for Mobile and desktop because of javafx and Scenebuilder. Scenebuilder combined with a growing ecosystem of controls is a great tool. I recently did the install from scratch with Arch which was nice challenge. But I cannot get Scenebuilder to install! None of the AUR releases will compile, and I simply don't have the time to or patience to slog through build files trying to find the problems. Gluon only offers .deb and .rpm for Linux, so I tried debtap which also failed. Arch is for OS enthusiasts, but too unpredictable to rely on. Manjaro has a lot of good features but the rolling updates are always potentially a another slog through build files.
I'm going back to Ubuntu, which as the author stated just works' and apt package management is the best in the Linux world.