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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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The Hardest of All (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Which OS has the steep learning curve and is considered hardest?

Gentoo ( I have been using it for 3 years now, until I have to switch to Ubuntu for research sake. I love it's philosophy and I kinda feel even my lifestyle changed after Gentoo. Tried it's successors, redstar, cosmic mod didn't liked much.)
Arch Linux ( when I got into Linux, everyone was like, I use arch btw. So tried it first with gnome, then kde, then i3, then i3 gaps and tui, then used openrc, then used runit. Helped me lot to install Gentoo. But Gentoo transformed me into something else)
Nix OS ( I was hearing about it since 2022. I wanted to try, and now I am gonna install and use it. I'm planning)

My question is, which among these is considered to be hardest and thus by mastering it, one can master linux to atleast some part? (excluding network management, ofsec, netsec, forensics, etc)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

IMO NixOS has all the benefits of Gentoo. I can quite easily:

build everything in my system with custom compiler flags
patch/reconfigure my kernel
change how a specific package (say openssl) is built

But at the same time, anything I don't customise is pulled from the shared binary cache instead of being built locally.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ohh. Ok.

And they say that in nix os we can have different versions and builds of same software, driver or even kernel (kernel, we can do that in Gentoo too). Is that true?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it's great for testing kernels because you can build a customised one and then immediately roll back (previous configs can be selected in the bootloader)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But at the same time, anything I don't customise is pulled from the shared binary cache instead of being built locally

This sounds pretty good. Like Gentoo and Arch mixed depending on what you're installing? Gonna read up more on it when I have time. I just scanned their website quickly and they did sound a lot like Gentoo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I mean I switched to it from arch because it felt so messy doing upgrades, testing graphics drivers, kernel patches, etc on a mutable system. I would have to use filesystem snapshots to have any chance of rolling things back sanely.

NixOS makes it very low risk and easy to do system changes like that.