In the end, I switched back to Arch Linux somewhat ashamedly and awkwardly. Although both are rolling-release distributions, the difficulty gap between Gentoo and Arch is truly too large. It seems I was not ready yet.
Where can one find a desktop Linux distribution that is highly customizable, has the latest software versions, and can be used solidly? These three conditions can never be satisfied at once.
In pursuit of the ultimate customized Linux system, I switched from openSUSE Tumbleweed to Arch Linux in July 2022, and then switched again to Gentoo Linux.
During this period, I gained a preliminary understanding of the low-level system compilation principles provided by Gentoo and LFS (installed with dual boot), learned how to migrate from OpenRC to Systemd, and experienced the pain of having to manually install some software myself. As for the system kernel, because I cheated by using the official precompiled binary (based on Fedora), I never had to worry about that part.
Playing large games such as War Thunder on Gentoo was no problem. Steam (Flatpak) + Proton handled everything.
However, after using Gentoo Linux for two months and tasting its pros and cons, I decided to switch back to Arch Linux. My old habit was to upgrade Gentoo once a week. This time, because more than 50 KDE package slot conflicts appeared at once during Gentoo emerge, I thought I could no longer spend this time on low-level debugging, so I took out the Arch Linux USB and reinstalled the system.
This reason for leaving is not as ridiculous as my previous one for Ubuntu, right? Back then I left because I thought Ubuntu/Debian was too boring. openSUSE/Fedora gave people too many preinstalled things, which I did not like. Although they are not as exaggerated as the Windows 11 advertising machine, that heavyweight collection of proprietary software, that monster can only be locked inside a virtual machine.
Using Tumbleweed, Arch, and Gentoo: is that pushing myself into hell? Or heaven? In any case, after using rolling-release distributions close to upstream, I do not want to use stable-release distributions anymore.
Because of my distro-hopping habits, important data is placed on another hard drive and in the cloud (Software Liberty Association’s Nextcloud + private MEGA), so the preparation process did not take too long. After backing up the Windows and MacOS virtual machines, I reinstalled.
1. The Ultimate in Customization, the Test of Stability#
After thinking about it again and again, to answer the idea at the beginning, Arch is currently the optimal solution, and it must be pure Arch, not Arch-based “enhanced” distributions such as Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Garuda, or Artix.
Gentoo and LFS are the ultimate in customization, and the software is also very new. You install the system almost from zero, and you also have to configure options for compiling packages. I can tolerate waiting for packages to compile, but manually handling package conflicts is infuriating. On a PC, I can slowly deal with it, but if installed on a laptop where mobility matters… I briefly tried Gentoo on the laptop, then later switched back to Arch as well. I had not even encountered upgrade conflict problems yet before I was nearly killed by compilation delays. Gentoo may be stable enough, but friends who like chasing updates will suffer greatly.
Perhaps Gentoo’s USE can refuse to compile certain system features in, but it feels like programming: you have to consider dependencies, and upgrades also require worrying about whether configuration files will be overwritten. Arch is like ordinary Linux distributions; just upgrade directly. Although I have encountered file conflicts during upgrades in the past, they were not as exaggerated as Gentoo. Compared with Gentoo, where you set USE and then wait for compilation, Arch installs quickly with one command when using Taiwan domestic mirrors.
As for how Arch stability is guaranteed, there is no definite answer. Wayland may get ganked by Nvidia’s driver in the next update, GRUB may inexplicably disappear (the probability is very small), or Fcitx may again fail to type Chinese in specific programs. Things like that. But after waiting a few days and running pacman -Syu, spending ten minutes downloading updates may solve the problem. With Gentoo, you first wait two hours for compilation and then see the result.
2. Experiencing the Pleasure of Arch Linux System Customization#
Reinstalling Arch is not very different from the note-taking process when I originally installed Arch. For the PC, see this article; for the laptop, see this article. I have also kept correcting low-level mistakes in those articles to avoid someone actually following them and failing.
Someone once criticized Linux to me as a kit car. Yes, it is a kit car, and attempts at grand unification like Systemd still get cursed at for managing too much. Desktop environments are also a never-ending battlefield. Whatever. At present, aside from the point that I cannot compromise on using free and open source software for work, I should try all cutting-edge new technologies.
This of course concerns how you install your system. Mainly, I still follow the public trend and make small adjustments at the right time.
Gentoo uses USE to define software functionality, while Arch splits packages into finer pieces. When downloading, you can choose which package combinations you want to avoid bloat. For example, QEMU has a minimal version and a version that installs everything. The Fcitx5 input method can also be installed with only Chewing, without installing Pinyin input.
When reinstalling the desktop environment this time, I still chose KDE. Gentoo uses USE to trim the KDE features to compile, while Arch provides two large packages, plasma-meta and plasma-desktop. After gaining some experience, I do not like installing the whole plasma_meta suite. The applications are too miscellaneous, so I chose plasma-desktop. The consequence is that I have to fill holes myself.
For example: how can KDE not even support WEBP and AVIF?
Because I installed the minimal plasma_desktop package, image support packages (qt5-imageformats, kimageformats) have to be fetched myself. Commonly used ones also include Bluetooth (bluedevil), network manager (plasma-nm), Pipewire audio panel (plasma-pa), power management (power-profiles-daemon), and so on. I assemble the KDE desktop according to my own needs, without having to clean up the full suite afterward.
If this is your first time installing Arch, just obediently eat the full suite. It is hard for people to know what they want the first time. In the past, I did not even know Ubuntu used GNOME.
By the way, for freshness, and also to make touchpad use convenient + experience Wayland, the Arch desktop environment on the laptop is the full GNOME suite, although GNOME’s interface customization is extremely poor.
3. Continuing Full Flatpakization#
Flatpak is the installation method inherited for ignoring differences among all Linux distributions, followed by AppImage + AppImage Launcher. Gentoo made me deeply understand this point. For some uncommon software, Gentoo sometimes does not even have an Overlay, and you have to rely on AppImage and statically linked executables. In the worst case, you have to open docker and virtual machines to run them.
Aside from system programs that need quick response, such as the file manager (Dolphin), text editor (Kate), image viewer (Gwenview), and media player (VLC), I try to use Flatpak for the remaining desktop software, including Firefox, VS Code OSS, Android Studio, Steam, LibreOffice, Kdenlive, and GIMP.
Flatpak’s permission design can improve security and privacy, somewhat like Android APPs. The only drawback is that it is bloated.
In addition, using Snap is often regarded by the Linux community as politically incorrect, but I do not think there is anything bad about it. It is just that the only software I am motivated to install with it is the static site generator Hugo, used to supplement Flatpak’s lack of non-desktop programs.
Finally, I want software updates to be more automatic. Flatpak under GNOME automatically schedules updates, so I also installed Discover as KDE’s update front end, suppressing the urge to type pacman -Syu every day. After configuring update rules in KDE, Arch can quietly update on a schedule like APPs in Google Play.
4. Beautifying Arch Linux a Little#
Practicality and aesthetics are the primary goals. I do not force things for showing off or personalization.
Arch Linux, like Gentoo Linux, outputs GRUB and Systemd messages on boot. Referring to the Arch Wiki, I turned off kernel messages, and then installed a simple Plymouth with an Arch logo as the boot animation.
After reading some opinions, I think that fine-grained desktop beautification like people on r/unixporn only makes obsessive-compulsive tendencies worse. For example, I once removed all KDE components and only used Latte Dock, but the result was very inconvenient.
Whether KDE or GNOME, it is more important that the desktop layout be productive. Therefore, my principles for desktop beautification are:
- “Practical” no wallpaper that I would not want to look at after taking one staged screenshot
- “Low-key” no flashy RGB lighting-effect lines
- “Only use components the desktop itself has” no reliance on third-party packages
- “No icons on the desktop” a habit GNOME infected KDE with
So, for KDE, I only adjusted the position of the status bar and used the built-in autumn wallpaper. While using Gentoo, I established this style: Breeze’s window decorations are too frivolous, so I changed them to Oxygen’s skeuomorphic style.
There is not much to say about GNOME. I keep using the Adwaita theme, and the desktop layout follows GNOME’s operating logic, without turning Dash into a fixed Dock. However, GNOME’s APP categorization is too hard to use, so I enable the APP category launcher in the upper-left corner in GNOME Tweaks. The wallpaper uses OpenSUSE’s cute lizard (NTR? More like inheriting the Tumbleweed spirit).
5. After That#
Let’s see how long this time lasts before distro-hopping starts again.
Although FreeBSD is not Linux, it has always been an option I have considered as a long-term desktop system. I played with it before and found that it really should still just be a server. I only bought a 30-dollar T-shirt + stickers from their official website as support.
Linux is still more popular, making it convenient to share tutorials with people on how to configure certain software, proving that Linux is not only a machine that quietly does work and is only touched by developers, but can also be a daily operating system. And the way to understand and improve all of this is to throw oneself fully into the system, practicing from the low level to the surface.
