I've been using Linux since the mid-90s and Linux almost exclusively for the last couple decades and I have only one question, aren't most Linux distros fully customizable? I currently run Fedora on my desktop but I've run everything from Slackware to Red Hat to Debian to Knoppix to Corel to Suse to Arch, you get the idea, and I've found all of them nearly equal in the customizability department. Is there a distro out there that actively fights customization?
back
7 comments
They are for you because you're a pro at it by now even if you don't realize it. You have to remember there are a ton of people installing Linux now for the first time ever. Some distros give a better out of the box experience. My guess is Cachy is popular with people that have heard Arch is great (because it is) but don't want to deal with a text mode installer, or enjoy the value add it brings to gamers.
I used Arch for about ten years, and really appreciate CachyOS giving me great defaults, with the Arch Linux userland. I used to tweak my desktop a lot: nowadays I take the default KDE I can install to a new laptop in less than an hour with pleasure.
> Arch is great (because it is)
It's good as a cutting edge OS but I don't consider it the most stable.
As someone who started using Ubuntu around 9.x sometime, basically had breakages every time I ran dist-upgrade, gave Debian (both stable, unstable and testing) a chance, hit more snags and finally moved to Arch Linux and been using it since 2017 without a single Arch-induced issue, I do consider Arch Linux the single most stable distribution, probably mainly because of the rolling release schedule if nothing else.
Then Arch is a special exception for sure.
They are all customizable, but you have to remember - not everyone is a Linux expert, and not everyone has the time or the will to tinker.
> not everyone has the time or the will to tinker
And the more RTFM style talk I hear about getting Linux to work, the more I want to buy a bunch of Mac Minis instead. I have actual work to do.
> I have actual work to do.
Me too. That's why I use Linux.
If you decide to delve deeper into Linux then it pretty much becomes a high investment -> high reward thing. There's a learning curve, but you can customize everything to be exactly how you want, and there are no black boxes whatsoever.
What does this mean in practice? You set it up once, exactly the way you like it, and it runs stable forever. It has no misfeatures constantly shoved down your throat (like with e.g. Windows, with AI, ads, telemetry and bloat). Your UI doesn't go through pointless redesigns every few years (like with Windows and macOS) if you don't want to. If you don't like something you can peek under the hood and change it.
The total amount of time I've spent maintaining my Linux system (or in your parlance: "getting it to work") over the last decade is, I don't know, maybe a dozen hours? But yes, if you're a beginner this is indeed unrealistic.
> You set it up once, exactly the way you like it, and it runs stable forever.
No it doesn't. You still have security patches to install and stuff. And one minor patch can still introduce a breaking change that largely destroys your install.
Pretending that this can be mitigated because it's open source goes straight back to my RTFM comment. You're basically saying that someone has to learn a ton of computer science stuff to be able to use Linux. I'm saying that cannot and should not be the case.
Linux based operating systems have to be able to be used to most of their capability by someone with less than a K-12 education. Anything short of that is a non-starter.
You can customize anything, the problem is always how maintainable your customization is. People keep making FrankenDebians (https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_Frank...) using curl|bash install scripts, alternate repositories or just plain brute force symlinking libraries with a hefty dose of chattr +i.
A properly customizable distro allows organizing and tracking patches in layers, etc.
> fully customizable
There are all sorts of customizable. CachyOS' use of that word is rather inspecific. I guess it means the compilation flags are better customized for your CPU, plus it is easier to choose a kernel with a different scheduler enabled. So, "more customizable" in that sense.
Of course you could ask whether you could 'customize' your distribution not force you to use systemd. Most popular distributions fall flat on that one, I'm afraid...
Most distributions also don't allow to 'customize' any of the following:
- compiler used for building the distribution, - libc implementation, - C++ standard library implementation, - coreutils implementation, - system shell, - kernel (e.g., using Hurd), - PAM or equivalent, - util-linux, - package manager,
and so on. systemd is just one more thing in that looong, looong list.
And has a lot more practical benefit than any competing implementation of, say, your libc or coreutils.
The immutable distros (Fedora Silverblue, Bazzite, etc) can be more challenging to customize, but that's kind of the point too.
What you’re thinking of is called Bedrock Linux: https://bedrocklinux.org/
None that I know of, however I'd say certain distro's might attract people who want more/specific customization