[xubuntu-users] Fwd: Another road

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, 7 Dec 2024 at 13:20, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Liam,
>
> here is my last attempt to convince you that it is not a good idea to
> suggest Alpine Linux as an alternative to major distros like Xubuntu or
> Debian

I'm not. I never did and I am not doing now.

I did not recommend it. I did not say that there is no difference.

I said that it is much smaller; it is.

I said that it boots much faster; it does.

I said that _if_ an ordinary user were put in front of a fully
installed, configured, and updated Alpine machine with an existing
desktop, they probably would not notice much if any difference,
including in a shell window. I stand by that.

*But* they would not be able to install it, and they would never get
that far, so it is moot.

It's really hard to install, asks many confusing and difficult
questions, then needs extensive manual work to install a desktop, get
networking working in a normal way, and so on. I can do it in about 30
minutes now but that's after doing 10 or 20 installations and learning
how it works.

It is absolutely not an end-user distro and it is not ready for anyone
who does not already know their way around Linux in general, meaning
at least 2 or 3 different packaging systems, 2 or 3 init systems, and
so on.

In fact in a lot of ways it is more like a BSD than a Linux and
familiarity with say FreeBSD would help more.

You have misunderstood me very badly.

I am not recommending it and I do not recommend it to anyone -- unless
they are skilled and knowledgeable.

> The Alpine user manual mentions that "doas is not installed by default"
> I would add to that, "not to mention sudo".

No sudo because it does not have all the authentication stuff and
multiple groups and things that sudo needs. You can't just install
sudo, either.

But doas is quick and easy and works.

> If you look at Xfce on its own, there will probably be no noticeable
> differences, but the choice of additional software, and not just for
> niches, is severely limited by Alpine's repositories.

Yes it is. My preferred editor is missing as is a lot of other stuff.
It is a tiny distro and not really aimed at graphical desktop use. It
is impressive it can do it.


-- 
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